Ghod but Sarah Palin

looks like a jackass on the back of a motorcycle.
Her "Hubris Tour" is off to an interesting start, one of her stops (before the inevitable finale in New Hampshire) is in Gettysburg PA.
To think she is gonna be grinning and snarking and camping it up before her tea partei apologists on the very ground where Abraham Lincoln summarized and celebrated the whole democratic experiment in two short paragraphs.
Makes ya think don't it?

I don't think Mitt Romney can withstand

much more praise from the front Page of the Boston Globe with respect to his health care reform legislation in Massachusetts.
I suspect, the Globe is trying it's old game of building Romney up as an unlikely Moderate GOP Man on Horseback, but all articles like this do is damage Mitt's wingnut credibility at a time when he is desperate to get in good with the Tea Partei.
If I didn't know better I'd say all this incessant praise for Romney's 2005 HCR is a machiavellian bid to undercut his candidacy in the New Hampshire primary.
You can see his dilemma, if he embraces fully his own health care reform in Massachusetts then he made a defacto endorsement of the President's Health Care Reform (a carbon copy of the Massachusetts plan )at the national level. Since no one can gain the current GOP nomination if they are aligned with the Obama White House in a policy sense, Romney has to expend precious time and resources endorsing something for the Commonwealth that he regards as bad for the Republic.
To do this he falls back on a pretty tattered version of "States Rights" that makes no sense from an insurance risk point of view. Frankly if he thought it would go over with his target audience Romney would fall back on Phrenology or divination by way of bird intestines.
Honestly, if he had access to H.G. Wells' time machine Mitt would go back to 2005 and talk himself out of signing the bill, that is how desperate he is to escape this thing.

If Sarah Palin is running for President

then this cockamammie bus tour is not the way to do it.

It is, to quote our Amish Brethren, "Showy and immodest".

New Hampshire Primary voters are a proud, vain xenophobic bunch, pulling into town like a busted Rock Star on some "tour" reeks of hubris.
Former Governor Palin would be well advised to cut the ribbon on a nice roomy headquarters on Elm Street in Manchester NH and hustle off to kiss babies at the Carroll County Fried Dough Festival and forget this bus tour rubbish.
No doubt she'll get a crowd up there, people luv her low-content snarkage, but the locals also like their Presidential Candidates to rent space, spend money and work the room.
***
But of course, like Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump I'm not sure she is truly serious about running for President. Palin has been on lucrative conservative welfare for two years now, it's easy money for no work who wants to exchange a sure sugar teat for some tedious & insecure presidential candidate gig?

Profiles in Discourage...

Newt Gingrich, initially opposed to the Medicare privatizing "Ryan Budget" has gone crawling on his knees before the outraged forces of wingnuttery.
I was once of the opinion that Palin, Santorum and Bachmann would likely be the first and best harlequins out of the the GOP Presidential Klown Kar...But honestly after one week of Gingrich on the hustings, I'm saying top honors belong to Newt.
This was a particularly cowardly performance given the vehemence of his initial opposition, but we've seen this before with Newt, he howls and threatens like a spoiled brat and collapses at the first pushback.
And like Mitt Romney he can't take a "right hook".

In contrast to Former State Senator Scott Brown who floated a pro-Ryan trial balloon in Newburyport before running for cover at the first sign of rain. Wisely Brown avoided any brutal Gingrichian rhetoric when he toyed with the idea of vouchering Grandma to death. So his subsequent performance is merely the usual backdown we've come to expect from Scott. It lacks Gingrich's forays into low comedy.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, "Yes on Monday means No by Friday" with Scott.
I give him credit though, he is fixated on re-election with a forensic intensity that puts Mitt Romney to shame.

On vacation...

Stand down all seven of you, posting will be arbitrary & capricious til next weekend.

Rapture of the Freep

Why do I have a feeling that Willard Mitt Romney's Presidential campaign apparat have two press releases proofed QC's and ready to go IF the rapture really does go down today and the book worshippers are beamed up to glory?

Press Release #1) Denounces President O'Bama for insulting millions of bible believing Americans by declining to dematerialize.

Press Release #2) Lambasts President O'Bama for "unconscionably dematerializing" and thus leaving the American People in the lurch amidst a world wide recession.

Newsflash...

Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently has the taste of a sailor.

Okay that was low and crude, but given the fact that Arnold seized power in California in what amounted to an Enron financed legally sanctioned coup, my seven or so readers will forgive if I wallow in Schaefenfreude.

And besides thanks to the complete collapse of Arnold Schwarzenegger's private life we will never have to see him giving a speech extolling rugged individualism in front of a Republican National Convention.
Ghod this jerk was a pill to watch, smug unctuous and eager to rub the democrats noses in it.
Oh well, chickens will come home to roost won't they?

On the other hand, Maria Shriver will likely enjoy a lifetime sinecure discussing "women's issues" from the podium and in prime time at all future Democratic National Conventions.

Schaedenfreude indeed.

If the rapture really does go down tomorrow...

and all the resolute cover-to-cover protestant fundamentalists are dematerialized and whisked off to Dwight Moody's idea of heaven...that pretty much means that Barack O'Bama is a shoe-in for re-election in 2012. Hell the GOP convention will be in a sorely depopulated hall presided over by Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush.

D'ye know what the difference is between

Former State Senator Scott Brown and Willard Mitt Romney is?

Scott can flip flop like Olympic Champion Cathy Rigby.

Not one week ago Scott told some businesspeople in Newburyport that he favored the privatization of medicare.
So of course faced with outrage from all quarters, Brown goes on the radio and smoothly contradicts himself without breaking a sweat.
He even has the gall to claim that he has made himself "clear" in his opposition to Medicare Privatization.
Contrast this with Willard Mitt Romney who can't seem to fake being a moderate republican or a hard core conservative without making a god damned fool of himself.
A full week of discussion of his views on Health Care Reform and Romney looks indecisive, evasive and foolish.
He ought to drop the topic, but of course it's gold for his many many rivals for the GOP Presidential nomination. Look for it to come up often in debate,flip-floppery being something that Mitt does alot and yet does not do well.
Unlike Brown(I'd still love to see any hypothetical polling results for him in New Hampshire).

Honest to Ghod...

at the rate Newt Gingrich is disintegrating, he won't last til the 2011 Preakness let alone the 2012 New Hampshire Primary.
I mean two separate and contradictory positions on abolishing Medicare, in one week!??
The man is positively Romneyesque.
Anyhow my theory is, Newt is screwing his candidacy up deliberately. He has no stomach for the big race, Gingrich just wants to make some headlines and flame out in a spectacular fashion so he can go back on conservative welfare and start the search for wife # 4 or #5.

So let me get this straight,

A study initiated by John Jay College has concluded that society is to blame the RCC's clerical sex abuse scandal.
Mother of Ghod, the skinchiest miscreant from the projects with a yen for robbing & beating little old ladies can't get away with a howler like that in a court of law.
Shit that alibi wouldn't fly in 1968, don't kid yourselves.
If the RCC paid for that study, then they got robbed and humiliated in the process thass all I say.

Oh this is just pathetic...

Brian McGrory is still trying to blow on the fading embers of the "Mitt Romney is a nice safe Moderate Republican" bonfire.
This time by insisting that the Former Viceroy's health care speech last week constitutes both manly political decisiveness and a ringing defense of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
His title "A Romney we can Respect".
I mean good lord talk about drinking the Romney Kool-Aid...
Shee-it, I'd settle for a Romney we can in fact understand.
Listening to Mitt discuss Health Care Reform is akin to reading Stephen Douglas' tortured speeches defending his own pro slavery doctrine of popular sovereignty.
They don't make a lick of sense but they admirably serve Douglas' political needs of the moment.
And so it is with Mitt, Obama's healthcare reform is Romneycare down to the last punctuation mark, Obama is anathema to the GOP base so by embracing his own healthcare plan in Massachusetts he alienates the very wingnut voters he is so desperate to win over.
And of course, Romney being Romney with little respect for ideas or idealogies he thinks he can just talk his way out of this like a busted police snitch.
Quite literally, Romney's thesis is "What is good for Massachusetts cannot be good for the nation unless the fifty states choose that plan individually then of course it's great".
It is nonsense of course but it serves The Former Viceroy's needs of the moment admirably.
That is the core of Mitt's problem, he really isn't a conservative, he has a healthy fear of conservative voters but that is all, the only idealogy he espouses is as old and familiar as Senator Stephen Douglas "what is right for ME is right for the nation".
As for Brian McGrory I can recall with the simplest nostalgia back in '04 when the entire Boston Globe punditariat dismissed John Kerry's position on the Iraq war as pandering and indecision.
But when Mitt Romney evades and nuances and toadies up on the issue of Health Care, that is the very core of political toughness sez Brian McGrory.
Hmmmm seems to be a disconnect there...

Trumped...

Donald Trump hemmed hawed cooed and bellowed and then he bailed on running for President in 2012.


Honestly though, did any of you really think he was gonna run?

A month ago Trump was bidding on becoming a Huey Long for the 21st century,blusterly and crazy sounding the Donald had the Tea Partei dancing to his tune.
Then the President released his long form birth certificate, Trump got mocked about the face & neck at the White House Press Association Dinner (to which he reacted with characteristic gracelessness) and then to crown all, Osama bin Laden's skull got ventilated by the Navy SEALS.
Only then did NBC feel it opportune to yank The Donald's chain and remind him who was the Big Dog in this situation.

Predictably, Trump's numbers were plunging when he bailed, he has never been much for fighting it out no matter the odds.
Alas though, this does create a vacuum on the hard right such that the Tea Partei will have to spin the wheel again in search of competent leadership.
Considering the talent pool is down to the irritating and shrill Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum (a sort of real-life Fred Van Ackerman)I wish them luck...

John Kerry is off to Pakistan

to try to keep the lid on that situation...

Meanwhile back at home his senatorial colleague, Scott Brown is feuding with the League of Women Voters and whining about one party dominance of the state legislature when he isn't angling to spend his National Guard Duty shuffling papers in Kabul.
In all, the man is a parvenue with little growth potential...Especially in comparison to John Kerry who seems to be animated by some desire to prevent the world from being blown up.
Imagine Former State Senator Scott Brown trying to negotiate with Pakistan, he'd never get on the schedule, he'd be seated in the waiting room hat in hand for the rest of his life.
And yet Brown is annointed by all polling as The Most Popular Politician In the State which is an object lesson as to how little you must do to accrue so much approval.

Huck Amuck...

Surprisingly, Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has declined to run for President on the GOP ticket in 2012.

This is the net setback for the race, for though Huckabee was a Baptist Shaman and a wingnut of impeccable pedigree he is also a master of a the soft sell.
Almost no one else in the race to date knows how to underplay anything successfully, it is becoming a lost art among Republican Presidential Aspirants, they either come off as ranters or else fumble it and bore the aud to tears.

Conceptually speaking, the GOP race for the White House breaks down into thirds, the ditherers (Romney, Pawlenty and Huntsman), the Falangists (Bachmann and Santorum) and the terminally weird (Gingrich).
In short the game is now afoot and I look forward to doing some comparatively rare field work up in New Hampshire.

Oh and I made a mistake

Romney's big healthcare speech was yesterday, not Wednesday, apologies.
That speech by the way was nigh incredible, a ringing defense of a healthcare measure he has otherwise fled at flank speed followed by a new proposal for a national health care system that is one part primitive states rights loaded up with outright bribes for honest and corrupt governor's alike.
In short what Romney is offering is something that he thinks will cost nothing and will likely give nothing in terms of health care for the uninsured. Its a passive aggressive measure (no surprise there) largely designed to appease the tea partei and the overclass simultaneously.
Now two days later it become evident that the proposal pleases neither cohort...again no surprise there.
Romney is amazing as a politician, he ought to own the issue of healthcare at this point, he is the only GOP aspirant to the presidency with any experience at all with it and yet thanks to his endless opportunism and flip floppery it ends up being a millstone around his scrawny neck.
The man could screw up a two car funeral I'm telling you.

Scot Lehigh is tryin' to gin up

Elizabeth Warren as a democratic nominee to challenge Former State Senator Scott Brown.
She is a bit more credible than the currently announced roster of candidates, but being a woman she'd be running for the US Senate and bucking one of the thickest glass ceiling's in US Politics.
And if she gets in, she'd best have a plan to evade, confront or better yet shatter said glass ceiling otherwise her candidacy is doomed from the git-go.
If you don't believe me, just ask Governors Swift, O'Brien and Healey and while you are at it, give Senator Coakley a jingle as well.
This is a race that will turn on money, message and sheer talent...money and talent I can't do anything about, but where message is concerned all I do is reiterate that the democrats need a platform that offers more than "Not Being Scott Brown".

Mitt Romney is gonna give a

speech today outlining yet another healthcare proposal.
Why is he proposing anything? Isn't his core thesis that the states ought to have complete sovereignty over healthcare and if they dream up systems that cost nothing and dispense nothing to the uninsured, so be it...
The former viceroy's policy is entirely passive aggressive in nature, big surprise there.
Honestly, whenever Mitt starts flapping his yap about Healthcare he looks and sounds all the world like a busted police snitch who has been caught in a lie by the rollers.
I give him credit though, Mitt Romney is always willing to negotiate, with himself first and foremost.
Here is one simple question, if States Rights is the primary determinant of health care policy then ROmney ought to explain to us why all fifty states adopting the Massachusetts' plan is a bad thing.
And if it is not a bad thing, then why not cut to the chase and Federalize it thus expanding the risk pool and cutting costs?
There is a notion abroad out there, and it is slowly gaining credence in the punditariat that Mitt Romney is the "grown up" in the GOP presidential lists.
But if this vain, indecisive, easily intimidated twit is the GOP's idea of a grown up then something has gone very very wrong with American politics.

Waaa-al Shut mah mouth...

Newt Gingrich is really gonna run for President in 2012.

I thought for sure he'd chicken out again like he did in 1996, 2000 & 2008, but I guess his owners at Fox News got sick of his phony Hamlet act and since they have the glossy photos....

Still, Newt will make a hash of this count on it. He is likely only going thru the motions because Foreign Business Despot Rupert Murdoch has forced him into a race that was increasingly looking like the clown car at Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Gingrich has almost as much noxious baggage as the Late Edward Maximus (God Rest his Soul)...He won't do much business in the north and social conservatives are spoiled for choices this year.
In all poor prospects for the ex-house speaker.
Gingrich does have a small natural constituency in the punditariat which has always overlooked Newt's inborn cowardice while being inexplicably impressed with his sophomoric intellectual credentials. But the deference of the David Broders of this world doesn't constitute a electoral majority.
Despite all that, the GOP debates are about to become even shriller and more hilariously pretentious, I for one cannot wait.

Andy Card...

A Bush family lackey whose sheer sycophancy is nigh legendary inside the beltway, has accused President Obama of pridefully of "pounding his chest" over the death of Osama bin Laden.
"Pounding his chest"...like an ape Andy?

***
Okay that was low...honestly I'm ashamed.

You can rest assured of one thing, Andy Card is the preferred henchman of the Bush family, the above quote likely summarizes their private thoughts on bin Laden's death quite succinctly.
But in a larger sense, who the hell is Andy Card to accuse anyone of hubris?
Andy Card stood back and said nothing as his chief Bush the Second went strutting around the USS Abraham Lincoln in a borrowed flight suit with a Big "Mission Accomplished" banner behind him. He obviously wouldn't know over-reaching ambition if it hit him over the head, hard.

Amidst all the sturm und drang this week

This is a small bit of welcome news:

The Commonwealth is buying a biii-ig pristine undeveloped parcel of land in Tolland Mass (complete with it's own Lake!)down near Connecticut as an addition to a standing state forest.
In a state that is pretty much suburbanized and thus prone to sprawl, acquisitions like this are important.
I'm no expert but at 3M large it seems like a very reasonable price, kudos all around from Humble Elias.

Newsweek asks...

"Is Sarah Palin Over?"


Given the fact that Newsweek is a completely superfluous and anachronistic publication with a torpidity upgrade to it's journalistic acumen, we can deduce that Palin has been flat on her back for at least sixty days.
This wasn't always the case, a mere six months ago she bestrode the process like an angry soccer mom gawdess, vengeful and well...snarky.
Then of course she started running her mouth about Gabby Giffords and a host of other issues, with each tweet, press release and TV presser she appeared dumber and more self satisfied by the hour.
The public likes snark, but in controlled dosages, if its 100% of your act they get tired of it quickly and fade out the first time some exciting crosses the front pages.
Six months ago she was a front runner for the GOP Presidential nomination, perhaps even the candidate to beat now she is punchline a fading comet in short a loser.
Once the Prophet now Palin is angling to be Michele Bachmann's "Joan the Baptist" pretty big comedown if you asked me.
There is only yea so much any spin doctor can do with a candidate who delights in talking down to persons that are demonstrably smarter than she.

Idle Thought...

If Benito Mussolini had somehow faked his own death in 1945 and secretly to Beverly Hills to live comfortably & quietly until discovery, don't you think someone would reasonably think that the USA was "harboring" Il Duce, the notorious war criminal?

Just sayin'...

So Former State Senator Scott Brown wants

to do his Army National Guard training in Afghanistan this year?
Bluntly put he should not go.
Right now, the diplomatic winds are at our back in that part of the world, the situation is evolving hour to hour and we should not introduce into that theater of war a "high value target" who wants merely to "study the situation".
He sits on the Senate Armed Service Committee thats a nice peaceful billet from which to "study the situation" sez Humble Elias.
Moreover he has already gone tear-assing all over the nation for his damn book tour howzabout he stay at home for once and ohhh I dunno maybe call a press conference and explain his stance on the Ryan Budget in clear and concise language?
Enough of this grandstanding already, just do your damn job Scott.

Amidst all the hoopla

about Osama Bin Laden's death, comes the word that Mitt Romney is skipping the first GOP Presidential debate in South Carolina.
The reasons for this are simple and stark, at the moment and until a humanoid richer, more charismatic and less craven than Romney gets into the race, Willard is the de-facto front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.
His main declared rivals for said nomination are a matched pack of hacks, porch-climbers, teachables, sky grifters and dangerous utopian mystics..."why waste air time on them?" thinks Mitt.
So Romney's first serious decision of campaign 2012 is typically passive aggressive, "let the other guys fuss and whine while I float along looking Presidential and uttering baritonal nullities" is his thesis.
Disdaining the cheap acts has it's advantages, but ceding the first debate to them smacks of hubris. These are low angry people they could easily spend the entire debate jumping ugly on Mitt Romney forcing him to spend the rest of the weekend defending his positions on natural selection and polygamy.
And we all know how well Mitt Romney plays defense especially when he comes under pressure from the right.
Likely Romney will use the down time this week to poll and focus group trying to figure out what his thoughts should be about Osama Bin Laden's demise.
THAT will be a whole other process to watch and enjoy...

This is certainly a

"Raisuli Moment" for President Obama.
For a man given to soaring rhetoric he was remarkably plain spoken and direct in last's night's announcement of Osama Bin Laden's death in Pakistan.
Ya still think he is a ditherer?
And to crown all, Bin Laden was buried at sea, his dead ass fit only for shark chow.
Gruesome yet fitting.
***
Perhaps now we can start to wind up our mission in Afghanistan, I think those troops are all due a good old fashioned victory parade.
And if any of those soldiers find their way to Arlington Mass, don't let that "Moonbat" smear fool you, we do up our parades with flair and care.
No one cheers louder, on that you can depend.
***
And yet, my thoughts stray to all the younger veterans I see up at the Department of Veteran Affair's hospital in Bedford...some in wheelchairs, some missing limbs, some hurt in their very souls by their experiences.
If Bin Laden's sorry end brings those soldiers any solace at all, I count the action well worth it by far.

I think...

for a myriad of reasons, that today would be a very good day to display the National Ensign, if you have one.

I beg to differ...

Some people think President Obama's release of his full birth certificate last week represents unconscionable dithering in the face of a smear campaign.

To me, sitting back and doing nothing for a prolonged period did nothing but good for the President. It drew out the crazies onto what is a loser issue for them, and even furnished the tea partei right with a perfectly useless leader one Donald Trump.
This would be the same Donald Trump whose negatives are only slightly below that of infectious anthrax. Shit if I was President Obama I'd a held off releasing his birth certificate until the eve of the New Hampshire Primary.
By then the whole sick crazy GOP presidential stew would be boiling over, imagine the sort of hilarious inarticulate blather Mitt Romney would have emitted when cornered and asked if he thought the document was genuine?
Santorum, Gingrich, Trump, Romney, Bachmann and Pawlenty would have all been forced to express and defend an opinion about a topic about which the tea partei base of the GOP is not rational...advantage Obama sez Humble Elias.
True to form, Trump immediately and arrogantly claimed victory and went off shrieking obscenities at the Chinese...Class all the way Donald, Class all the way.
As it is President Obama has shown up the birther right's reckless obsession with trivial nonsense and made Donald Trump (a man with a shorter fuse than Bob Dole and shorter attention span than Sarah Palin if that is possible) his main interlocutor.
The birther smear is not sustainable, it only highlights the craziness & craveness of the President's key GOP opponents.