The NRSC goes after… the President.

Interesting gambit, that.

Mind you, this is all perfectly accurate (Via Ace):

…but a bit unexpected to have happen quite this early. Admittedly, the President hasn’t been having the best of months, but this is something that normally takes place after, say, disastrous midterms for the party in power.

I think that the answer is in the format: Ed Morrissey notes, this is a web-only ad*. It may be designed primarily to kick an anthill or two on the other side; from the NRSC‘s point of view, it’s not so much why the Online Left screams, as long as it screams. Which would also explain why the AIG shout-out; just a little extra flick of the earlobe. Cheap enough to do, and it’s kind of a slow season for the NRSC right now anyway while they wait for the next spectacular Democratic meltdown.

Moe Lane

*A point lost on a good number of critics of said ad, from what I’ve seen so far.

Crossposted to RedState.

Senate to discreetly shut down House AIG bill of attainder.

House to gratefully let them.

They may call it “delay,” but they mean “eliminate” – and the Washington Post is happy to assist with putting this story on the seventh page.

Senate Will Delay Action on Punitive Tax on Bonuses

Jarred by a cool reception from the White House and fears of unintended consequences across the financial world, Senate leaders are likely to delay until late next month legislation to punitively tax bonuses at banks and investment firms that receive federal aid.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced last week that the Senate would move ahead with the legislation as soon as possible, and he attempted to bring the bill to the floor Thursday night. But he revised that timetable yesterday, saying that the chamber will spend this week debating a national-service bill before turning to a long-scheduled showdown over the budget for fiscal 2010. With just two weeks to go until Congress departs for a spring recess, action on the tax measure would be unlikely before late April.

That will effectively kill the bill, because everyone in Washington is betting that a month should be enough time for the populace to have something else besides the Democrat-inspired and Democrat-encouraged AIG bonus PR fiasco to focus upon; which is not a bad bet, actually. Already people are starting to notice that the Democrats’ House bill has a good deal of faux-populist outrage associated with it; and as Glenn Reynolds over in Forbes is pointing out, the Democrats are going to be soon having to hit up the very people that they’re currently demonizing for campaign contributions. Time to let this story die, and that’s why there’s a Senate in the first place. Continue reading Senate to discreetly shut down House AIG bill of attainder.

Flat World Watch: Australian pub-crawlers monitoring American borders.

[Insert “doing the jobs that Americans won’t do” trope here.]

Via Tim Blair, American border enforcement is apparently now a pub game:

The United States has unveiled an unlikely weapon in its battle against drugs gangs and illegal immigrants at the Texas-Mexico border – pub-goers in Australia.

The drinkers are the most far-flung of a sizeable army of hi-tech foot soldiers recruited to assist the border protection effort.

Anyone with an internet connection can now help to patrol the 1,254-mile frontier through a network of webcams set up to allow the public to monitor suspicious activity. Once logged in, the volunteers spend hours studying the landscape and are encouraged to email authorities when they see anyone on foot, in vehicles or aboard boats heading towards US territory from Mexico.

Continue reading Flat World Watch: Australian pub-crawlers monitoring American borders.

Your pop-political science post for the day.

Remember this book?
carville

I remember seeing this in a bookstore in 2003, which is of course a time when it was clear that the GOP was going to be what would be later called “painting the map red” and be in charge for a generation. A generation turned out to be “three years:” and look here!  Now we’re going to be told that the Democrats are going to be running things for the next generation. For the nature of the world has changed, and we are now in a truly new day of transcendence. Throw away the past: we are in uncharted lands, and the map is empty!

Before we begin living in this new time, though, let me first tell you a story, (freely adapted from Harry Turtledove):


There once was a king in olden times who was so skilled at war that he was able to capture other kings; and being a haughty sort, he forced his captive kings to pull his chariot for him as a symbol of his power. One day, this king noticed that one of his captives was spending his time of rest carefully watching one of the chariot wheels. The king asked his captive, What are you doing? The captive replied, I am looking at this wheel, O Great King, and I am musing on how that which was at the top of that wheel can so easily slip to the bottom, and how that which was at the bottom can so easily rise to the top. Whether that at the top or the bottom wills it, or no.

The king thought of this for a time, and decided to stop using his captives to pull his chariot.

Not that I’m suggesting that this story (I think from herodotus) should be thought as having any relevance in our modern, fundamentally different modern world, of course.

Crossposted to RedState.

Bart Gordon (D, TN-06) called upon to reimburse taxpayers for European ski jaunt.

If you might remember, back in February it was reported that Bart Gordon (D, TN-06) went to Europe on taxpayer money to… essentially, ski.  He wasn’t on any relevant committee that would justify his presence in that particular junket, but he is a twelve-term Democrat whose party overwhelmingly controls Congress right now, which apparently is justification enough.  Now Dave Evans, Gordon’s most likely Republican challenger in the general election, has come out with an estimate that Gordon’s travel costs were approximately $7,250; he’s calling for the Congressman to give that money back, fully disclose how much was spent by Gordon and his family on the trip, explain why he didn’t disclose earlier, and explain why the Congressman was on this junket in the first place.

What makes this potentially damaging is that Bart Gordon is a Blue Dog Democrat; their primary distinguishing feature is supposed to be fiscal conservatism.  While this has been overshadowed by their willingness to vote for things like the miscalled “stimulus” bills – which Gordon voted for – individual members of that caucus still hope to run on individual records of financial probity.  Which is quite probably why Gordon has been notably uncommunicative about his reasons for going to Europe at taxpayer expense.  If there was anything resembling a valid reason for it, he would have said so by now.  Early days yet for the race, but that’s sometimes necessary when a long-time incumbent is being challenged.

Dave Evans’ site is here; his Twitter is @DaveEvans_TN6; and here is an account of his participation in the Nashville Tea Party.  You can check out his priorities here – the man’s a retired Army Reserve general – and then there’s this picture, which should serve as a pretty good shorthand for many readers here.  Check him out, and here’s his donation page.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Zogby to report a 50% approval rating for Obama tomorrow.

Zogby will also always have been hated and despised by half the left-blogosphere by this time tomorrow, but that’s another story.

Although there is a fairly massive caveat there:

The honeymoon is over, a national poll will signal tomorrow as President Obama’s job approval stumbles to about 50 percent over the lack of improvement with the crippled economy.

The sobering numbers come as the president backpedals from two prime-time gaffes – one comparing his bowling score to a Special Olympian and another awkwardly laughing about the economy, which prompted Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” to ask “are you punch-drunk?”

Pollster John Zogby said his poll out in the morning will show Americans split on the president’s performance. He said the score factors out to “about 50-50.”

(H/T: Protein Wisdom & Jules Crittenden)

“About” in this context could mean anything from 48% to 54%, and if it isn’t 50% it’ll be closer to the latter. The RCP average implies that this is the first poll that Zogby’s doing for President Obama’s approval ratings, so we don’t know whether he’s looking at likely voters, or adult ones. Although it should be noted that a 50 approval rating from adult voters wouldn’t be bad news for the President: it’d be the kind of catastrophic news that makes people start exploratory committees. Continue reading Zogby to report a 50% approval rating for Obama tomorrow.

Depressed? DEPRESSED?

Worried? Sure. Who wouldn’t be? Somewhere around 2 PM on January 20, 2009 what had previously been a fairly smooth and responsible conducting of the country’s business abruptly melted down. Since then the economy’s gone into a tailspin, everyone’s stopped pretending that post-partisanship is anything except a null statement, every two-bit dictator and strongman in the world is testing the limits of our forbearance, and we’re seeing the first signs that our chattering classes are nursing one powerful post-Inaugural hangover.

I SAID, WE’RE SEEING THE FIRST SIGNS THAT OUR CHATTERING CLASSES ARE NURSING ONE POWERFUL POST-INAUGURAL HANGOVER.

So worry I can understand. Depression? Not so much – at least, not for me, and not for you, either. Do you know why? Continue reading Depressed? DEPRESSED?