Nice to See Obama Relaxing

Hopefully it calms people down a little to see that he is relaxed...notice the great reaction he gets too.

Michael Steele, Minstrel Act

This is becoming so pathetic that it is nearly beyond the power of words. First, Steele calls for a "hip hop makeover" of the Republican Party, which he promises will be "off the hook". I look forward to seeing this.

Then he threatens primary challenges to the three Republican Senators who voted for the stimulus bill (at least, in his haste to establish street cred, he didn't threaten to bus' a cap in their asses).

Olympia Snowe (R-ME), one of the dreaded three, had a nice, tart reply: "When we were in the majority, there were more of us [moderates]. Now that we're in the minority, there are less of us," Snowe explained, also adding: "If that's what they want to be, well that's their choice."

Now, after Bobby Jindal's truly painful speech responding to Obama's sort-of SOTU, Steele bucks up Jindal by saying, "...some slum love out to my buddy, gov. Bobby Jindal is doing a friggin' awesome job in his state. He's really turned around on some core principles -- like hey, government ought not be corrupt. The good stuff...the easy stuff."

Maybe Steele will deliver the next Republican response to Obama by saying, "Yo, I be down wit yo boy an' all dat, but dis' muh'fuckin' budget is FUCKED UP, y'all. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeyt..." (Steele then grabs his testicles, to complete the 80's retro feel).

What a joke. Who on earth is going to be drawn to the Republican party because of this? It is such insultingly obvious gimmickry, not exactly what's needed for a party that is reeling from electoral defeat, ideological drift, and struggling to be taken seriously again.

Interesting Insider on How the R's Will Come at Obama

From a conservative radio host...a group which tends to be pretty well plugged in on the right side of the street.

When you first read it, it's easy to get indignant about just how badly these guys want Obama to fail. But really, what other choice do they have? Politicians aren't good samaritans.

Having said that, I do agree with their initial assessment that Geithner needs to grow a set. Among Obama's econ team, Summers is clearly the one with presence, political savvy, and real debating skills. Geithner seems like a sheltered technocrat, not exactly made for the contact sport aspect of Washington.

Their underestimations of the rest of Obama's team, and Obama himself, are obvious and self-deluding, but again, what choice do they have? They have to convince themselves that they can win, that there is a strategy, that they are smarter than the moment they are in.

I don't get all purist about their obvious lust to return to power. I expect them to feel that way, just as I expect Democrats to feel that way when they are in the minority.

Here's what I don't get: What do Republicans want to do with government power? Why do they want to be in the majority? Why do they want the presidency? What do they propose we do? What are their answers? Please, respond without saying incredibly stupid things like "Drill Baby Drill" and cutting taxes on billionaires.

Republicans have yet to construct an actual worldview that is responsive to the challenges the country faces. Sitting in the shadows, lying in wait for Obama to stumble isn't much of a plan. Is that all y'all got?

The Leader of the Republican Party

JTP versus BHO...

Some Sanity From Lugar on Cuba

And valuable political cover for Obama as well, making it easier for him to pursue significant policy changes in Cuba.

Lugar is known to be not only an internationalist, but also an ally and friend of Obama's, so this is not to be taken lightly.

Taibbi Whiffs on Hardball

Great (and as always, funny) in the beginning on J. Edgar Hoover, but he bites down hard and stays silent when Barnicle turns into a reactionary white rage guy.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

John McCain, R.I.P.

What is fascinating about John McCain is how much people who have followed his career continue to credulously insist that he truly is the noble figure they embraced in the late 90s and the 2000 Republican primaries. We like the McCain we imagined him to be then.

John McCain made his bus famous in 2000 during his first run for president, calling it the “Straight Talk Express.” In 2008, he moved up to a fancy, configured jet, painting its sides with the same slogan. The trouble is, when you examine McCain’s polices and public utterances you will find very little resembling straight talk. A substantive reading of his record leads to one clear conclusion: The John McCain of 2000 would have been a political adversary to the John McCain of 2008. In fact, John McCain in 2000 would likely have held the McCain of 2008 in disdain and contempt.

The John McCain of 2000 stood up to the George W. Bush faction of the GOP, expressing and fighting for his different beliefs. Sadly, the John McCain of 2008 shamelessly pandered to that Bush base, attempting to gain the support of the establishment that he previously railed against. Radical figures that McCain wouldn’t have touched in 2000 were sought after for their endorsements. Let’s be real: Would the John McCain of 2000 ever solicit the support of someone like the Revs. John Hagee or Rod Parsley? Members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group McCain vehemently decried in 2004, actually served as top surrogates to bash fellow veterans who supported Obama. Lobbyists and Bush fundraisers he denounced eight years ago suddenly became valued donors.

But perhaps no example better illustrates how McCain's burning ambition overwhelmed his principles than in the hiring of one Tucker Eskew. Eskew coordinated one of the ugliest smear campaigns in modern American politics during the South Carolina Republican primary in 2000, including robocalls and campaign literature that suggested McCain was gay, that his wife was a drug addict, that his adopted Bangladeshi child was actually McCain's illegitimate biological child that he had fathered with a black prostitute, that his time as a POW had left him mentally unstable, and that he had abandoned veterans issues during his tenure in Congress. Words fail. How desperately does a man have to lust for the presidency to hire, of all people, the very man who had directly and personally harmed him, smeared his wife, and dishonored his child?

McCain’s shifting of his stances wasn’t just the process of evolution or changing with the times; it was a wholesale pandering, making substantive changes in a transparent effort to garner votes. McCain’s statements on any given issue were shaped by who happened to be sitting in the audience. In front of conservatives, McCain pledged to appoint right wing judges like Justice Samuel Alito to the courts. But according to Ben Smith, while wooing former Clinton supporters, McCain suggested he would appoint more moderate judges, emphasizing his votes to confirm Clinton nominees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. At town halls, McCain emphasized enforcement to deal with illegal immigration, while in closed-door meetings with Hispanic leaders he promised if elected president to overhaul federal immigration laws. This kind of blatant pandering led conservative Hispanic leader Rosanna Pulido to complain, “He’s one John McCain in front of white Republicans. And he’s a different John McCain in front of Hispanics.”

On gun control, where ironically McCain has criticized Obama for shifting his position, McCain radically altered his own to get in line with the NRA. In 1999, McCain supported banning certain assault weapons and “Saturday night specials,” as well as requiring safety locks and background checks at gun shows. He co-sponsored the McCain-Lieberman Gun Show Bill of 2003, which would have closed the gun-show loophole. Through 2004, he had a C+ rating from the NRA, who described McCain as their “Judas goat — leading the sheep to slaughter,” and as “one of the premier flag carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment.” Yet by 2007, his position had changed again. After the Virginia Tech massacre, McCain said he believed in “no gun control.” McCain’s new position as a gun rights advocate reaped great financial benefits: The NRA eventually endorsed him and spent $40 million on the 2008 campaign, including at least $15 million to smear Obama.

McCain’s radically changed position on taxes was and is probably the most outrageous example of not adhering to straight talk. In the runup to 2008, he was seeking to curry the favor of people such as Grover Norquist (formerly one of his oldest foes in Washington), who is lucky he’s not in jail for helping launder money for Jack Abramoff. In 2001, McCain was one of only two Republicans to vote against President Bush’s tax cuts, saying he could not “in good conscience” vote for them. He argued in a speech on the Senate floor that the bill gave “generous tax relief to the wealthiest individuals of our country at the expense of lower- and middle-income American taxpayers.” McCain would go on to oppose two more rounds of Bush tax cuts. As late as November 2005, McCain was resolute in his sensibility, arguing in an interview with supply sider Stephen Moore:

"I just thought it was too tilted to the wealthy and I still do. I want to cut the taxes on the middle class." Even when I confront him with emphatic evidence that those tax cuts have been an economic triumph and have increased revenues, he is unrepentant and defends his "no" vote by falling back on class-warfare type thinking: "We have a wealth gap in this country, and that worries me."

However, in 2006 McCain’s concerns with the Bush tax cuts had seemingly vanished, as he voted to extend tax cuts that would have expired before 2010. During the campaign, he pledged to permanently extend the rest of the cuts, leading Norquist to note that McCain had “moved to a position where we are very comfortable." He also added, "It's a big flip-flop, but I'm happy he's flopped." Many newspapers dutifully noted the switch in stark terms, but it never became a significant campaign issue, thanks largely to McCain's surprisingly enduring image as a straight-talking reform oriented guy. It seems that the glow of being a former POW buys a great deal of cover.

It’s hard to imagine someone changing positions on so many fundamental issues as McCain. The list goes on and on. McCain’s flip-flops on Social Security, oil drilling, campaign financing, the use of torture, the GI Bill, immigration (the link here is to a YouTube...must see stuff), abortion, and appeasing the religious right, are serious examples of a man pandering, not progressing.

But the largest difference between the McCain of 2000 and the McCain of 2008 is the philosophical approach to the election. John McCain in 2000 ran not just to win, but to make a broader point that the system in Washington was broken and needed to be changed. Characteristically, McCain cast himself as uniquely suited to be the change agent the country needed. His POW-forged character was just the antidote the country needed to eight years of Clintonian hedging, parsing, and character failures.

Consider this quote, from a daring speech in 2000 that McCain gave in Pat Robertson's backyard, Virginia Beach: “Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.” My, how times change. The McCain of 2008 ran for one reason: to get himself elected. If that meant promising to perpetuate the broken system in Washington and continue the failed policies of George W. Bush, so be it, as long as it could lead to McCain winning on Election Day. This ultimate difference between the two McCains is best illustrated by early American statesman Henry Clay’s famous declaration, “I’d rather be right than be president.”

This is roughly the narrative agreed upon by former McCainiacs, or at least observers who have soured on McCain.

Critics of McCain say he lost in 2000 because he tried to run a principled, high-minded campaign during a time when the country's politics were small-minded, trivial, and corrosive. In the age of Newt and Bubba, blowjobs, subpoenas and Larry Flynt, and in a time of seemingly effortless economic harmony and relative peace in the world, politics seemed more like reality TV than a critical national enterprise. McCain was simply too good, too honest, too decent a man to thrive in the sleaze-infused, special interest dominated muck of American politics. The problem wasn't McCain, nor the American public, but instead was "the system", which McCain had in fact made the centerpiece of his 2000 campaign.

The problem with this narrative is that it simply cannot withstand the scrutiny of McCain's own record since 2006, when he began to ready himself for his 2008 run, and then the risible, self-diminishing campaign he wound up running.

To advance this point, it is illustrative to look at how McCain comported himself after each of his defeats--first 2000, then 2008.

After his 2000 primary loss, McCain did not endorse Bush for two full months, and throughout the campaign, press leaks continued to emerge about McCain (and his staff's) bitterness at the lowball tactics of the Bush people. They truly believed that the better man had not won, and that Bush's victory was a triumph of big money and machine politics, nothing more (some of McCain's more liberal friends in California, once a group he assiduously cultivated, have reported on him bragging not to have even voted for Bush in 2000).

After Bush took office in 2001, McCain's legislative record was as stridently anti-Bush as could possibly be amassed:

* Voted against Bush's signature tax cuts, as described above
* Worked with John Edwards and Ted Kennedy on a Patients Rights bill, over Bush's stated opposition
* Passed Campaign Finance Reform, again over Bush's opposition
* Proposed climate change and gun control laws with Joe Lieberman, both opposed by Bush
* Floated trial balloons about running for president as an independent in 2004, and about switching to the Democratic Party
* Worked on a prescription drug reimportation law with Byron Dorgan and Ted Kennedy (and slammed Bush's preferred watered down substitute, offered by Judd Gregg, of all people)

Predictably, his repeated, near-constant opposition to Bush's agenda drew considerable anger from his own party, an anger which was compounded by the media's continued fawning over McCain the Maverick.

What's wrong with any of that, you say. This is what is wrong. If McCain actually was embracing these policies, and the pragmatic/center worldview that they represent, then virtually every position he adopted in 2008 would become intellectually impossible (and in some cases where McCain's previous position was based on moral grounds, such as taxes and the Eskew hire, emotionally and morally impossible as well). How on earth could McCain complete so many abrupt about faces without any recognition, even off the record, of the gigantic inconsistencies he was asking everyone to accept about himself? A possible answer, besides the "McCain fell from grace" narrative, is that McCain's politics are simply intensely personal, rooted in his conception of character, namely his own character, and the recognition that he believes is due him. Public policy making is not a detail-oriented, data driven process, nor is it a matter of political philosophy. Rather, it is McCain placing himself at the center of a great morality drama for which only a man of his unique patriotism and character will do.
Hence, the ridiculous suspension of his campaign, the postponement of the first day of the Republican National Convention due to a hurricane, and the highly personal character attacks on Obama. McCain turned there when his narrative, McCain as desperately needed hero, wasn't selling well with a public that wanted actual policy changes. Of course, McCain's legislative record from 2001-2005 was definitely at odds with Bush and would have been a pretty easy sell in a change election. The problem is he couldn't get nominated that way. No problem, says St. John. Character matters, policy less so. So the policies get form-fitted to squeak through the Republican primary process, and McCain relies upon all the MSM goodwill and hero status he has banked through the years to be the "shiny object" that distracts attention from the untenable faux policy transformations he has undergone to make himself viable in the primaries.

What matters is not what McCain will do as president. What matters is that McCain becomes president. McCain's personal attacks on Obama are justified quite simply: I am a better man than he is, just like I was a better man than Bush. Therefore, whatever I have to do to secure my just reward is entirely appropriate.

To further prove the point, what has McCain done since Obama won? Opposed him on each and every substantive step he has taken, with the same intensity and caustic criticism as he did with Bush, despite Obama's repeated graciousness. Only this time, McCain is on the opposite policy side. The positions he takes now to support his attacks on Obama are actually opposite the positions he took in combating Bush in 2001-2005. For example, McCain actually attacks Obama now for not embracing the very supply side tax policies that McCain sharply criticized as "offending his conscience" in 2001. Particularly in light of the incredible malfeasance that has come to light on Wall Street and among other industry leaders (auto, banks, mortgage companies, etc.), one would think that cutting their taxes would be of far greater offense to McCain's conscience now than in 2001, but somehow the diffident media never seem to ask him about that. Of course that doesn't really matter much. For McCain, it's all deeply personal anyway. He lost. Again. And that damned Obama is gonna feel it. Even now, as he petulantly slams the recent stimulus bill as "not bipartisan enough" despite his complete disinterest in working on it, he is essentially pounding his shoe on the table, longing for the old days when process mattered more than policy, where his bona fides as the principled, bipartisan dealmaker were celebrated on editorial pages and cable chat shows. Being relegated to the sidelines is not for McCain, and the abyss of irrelevance is simply more than he can stand.

It's quite sad for me, really. The 2000 election was the first time I was seriously engaged in American politics, and I was quite taken with McCain, who really did seem like a national antidote after the twin sleaze shows that were Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress. I never wanted to see McCain be so small. But he is.

Just call him Obama the Plumber

In his previous post, somehow Jormungandr missed Ax really laying some much-needed wood to "good guy" Andy Card:

"I mentioned Andy Card saying that we were somehow denigrating the Presidency because people were wearing short sleeves in the Oval Office. We’re wearing short sleeves because we have to roll up our sleeves and clean up the mess that we inherited."

Axelrod Disses Rove

This is surprising since Axelrod typically avoids calling attention to himself. Still, it's a good kissoff.

But, Axelrod saved his strongest condemnation for the man who held his job in the Bush White House: Karl Rove. Of Rove's criticism of Obama's economic stimulus plan, Axelrod said: "The last thing that I think we are looking for at this juncture is advice on fiscal integrity or ethics from Karl Rove -- anyone who's read the newspapers for the last eight years would laugh at that."

What is truly embarrassing here is that it takes Axelrod to actually respond to Rove and put him in his place. The media still somehow have some strange, grudging admiration for Rove (perhaps because he managed to get a retarded ex-drunkard elected president?), and never seem to call him out despite his obvious, brazen lies and distortions.

Leahy tells Cheney to "go f-ck yourself"

Long overdue, if you ask me. And if you're one of the few who reads this blog, you are asking me, basically.

Here's Leahy responding to Cheney's recent warning that Obama is making it easier for terrorists to strike the US:

"I just want to say here Bush and Cheney were in charge when the last attack happened," Leahy said. "They were warned about the last attack before it happened. On September 10th their proposal was to cut our counter-terrorism budget substantially. I don't need any lectures from him. They screwed up badly.

"They are also the same people who said the war in Iraq would be over in a couple weeks, shock and awe and we would find the weapons of mass destruction. Their policy was to let Osama bin Laden get away when we had him cornered and send the troops into a useless war in Iraq. No, no, I don't think he has a great deal of credibility."

The Republican world view

has devolved into this:

Bill Ayers and Sarah Palin

(CNN) – Sarah Palin once accused Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists,” a catchphrase intended to highlight Obama’s connection to former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers.
Now that the campaign rhetoric has subsided, Ayers has an idea for a new show starring his Alaskan nemesis.
“I did send her a note after the election,” he says of Palin in the upcoming issue of the New York Times magazine. “I suggested that we have a talk show together called ‘Pallin’ Around With Sarah and Bill.’ I haven’t heard back.”
Ayers assiduously avoided interviews and press attention during the presidential race, but he insists the Obama campaign never told him to keep quiet.

Obama's Master Plan Continues...

Wearing down the righties, bit by bit...check out this ridiculous frustration on the part of Laura Ingraham, directed at one of our favorite faux-centrists, Arlen Specter:

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter got into an on-air quarrel with radio host Laura Ingraham Monday, who suggested the Republican supported a stimulus package because he was "wined and dined" by President Obama.

Ingraham's listeners were treated to a snide and ultimately gutless scolding of Specter for participating in a White House party, to which members of Congress from both parties were invited. Specter responded by calling the 44-year old Ingraham a "young lady" and her line of questioning "baloney."

INGRAHAM: Is it nice to be wined and dined at the White House? And, you're treated pretty well when you're a Republican bucking other Republicans, right Senator?

SPECTER: Now let's get off it Laura. I'm not drinking any wine at the White House and I don't dine at the White House. If the president wants to talk to me -- I talk to him and I make my own independent judgment. Don't give me the wine and dine baloney, young lady.

Get off my lawn!!!

In between documenting the mini-holocaust that is the Nevada GOP's rule over that unfortunate state, the Las Vegas Gleaner offered this spot-on take on Stain Brain John McCain:

Speaking of yesterday's news ... anybody get a load of laughably unsuccessful former presidential candidate John McCain blabbering on, eloquence at full stutter, in opposition to, you know, doing something positive to help the economy?

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that he knows nothing about economics and never has, John Sidney McCain III is and always will be the cynical prick who, while standing under a sign that said "Country First" no less, personally decided that it was acceptable -- nay, safe -- for subarctic freak show Sarah Palin to be a sick old man's vice president.

Now he's waddling to and fro demanding that people pay attention to him on matters of vital national interest? He's kidding, right? Does anybody think he's credible?
Does he think he's credible?

Surely even those souls who once admired McCain recognize that the shameful old loser has to earn his way back into a position where he deserves to be taken seriously. And whether he can ever do that or not, now is certainly way too soon for him to be swaggering around like he's somebody. What a chump.

The Real James Harrison Highlight

Nevermind his amazing 100-yard TD in the Super Bowl...

How I Wish Obama Would Talk to the Republicans

Warning: Not safe for work.

I Guess Andy Card Called in Sick That Day

This is Bush on Jan 22, 2001 in the Oval Office--No Jacket Required?

Obama Delivers...This Needs to be the Drumbeat

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/watch.aspx?ProgramId=HP-A-40550

"Bipartisanship"

Republicans are not interested in bipartisanship.

Democrats are not interested in bipartisanship.

Obama wants bipartisanship.

I see the political smarts in his outreach to Republicans, but has he overdone it, and empowered them as legitimate critics of his plans?

Has he outsmarted himself?

Donovan McNabb, RIP

I've pulled for this guy a long time, since I think Philly is probably the single hardest place to play. But now he's calling out the Eagles defense for losing the NFC Championship game.

Catastrophic.

How on earth he ever comes back from that is beyond me. I watched the game as an Eagles fan, even a McNabb fan, hoping that the often overcriticized McNabb would get his day in the sun and have an opportunity to win the Super Bowl. And yes, I thought the comeback he led was great to watch, and yes, it was rough watching Arizona march all too easily downfield for the winning score.

But I have to believe that McNabb's comments here are the culmination of career-long frustration combined with the realization that this was likely his last, best chance of getting the ring. He's lost whatever sense of proportionality he ever had. The Eagles defense did not have a strong game against Arizona. However, the Cards put up 400 yards of offense against the #1 defense in the league in the Super Bowl, which ought to put a different perspective on the Eagles' own struggles to contain them.

The Eagles defense won several games for Philly this year, and also had to carry Donovan at times when he was inconsistent and underperforming. I don't remember reading about a Philly defender calling out McNabb, even when he was benched in the Baltimore game.

I just don't see how this gets taken back, and I don't see how his teammates could stomach playing with him after this.

Daschle, awash in DC filth

Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for secretary of Health & Human Services, is in trouble because he failed to pay taxes on a car and driver provided for him by a company he was lobbying for. The whole affair highlights exactly why Daschle is a poor choice: he is possibly the classic example of the "After-Dinner Democrat" that Jormungandr and I described on this blog some time ago:

During the Clinton years, there was a certain brand of "moderate" Democrat who liked to describe self as a "fiscal conservative who was liberal on social issues." This was the type of Dem who was happy to listen to constituents pressing issues like wage stagnation, the war on drugs, or health care reform, only after their latest black-tie dinner with corporate lobbyists. "After dinner."

On his blog, Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi responded to the Daschle nomination by exposing his and his wife's extensive ties to several key industries through their lobbying firms. "There are whores and there are whores, and then there's Tom Daschle," Taibbi wrote.

Now Glenn Greenwald peels back the formica of Daschle's story even more, revealing a rotted landscape infested with soulless influence-peddling and moral hypocrisy. Go read it. I'm more convinced than ever that he is just a terrible choice for any meaningful position in the Obama administration. He represents everything about "business-as-usual" in DC that Obama promised to end.

Okay Now THIS Pisses Me Off

Listen to Dubya's former shitbag Chief of Staff Andy Card:

MEDVED: There is a new order in the White House. There is a couple of columns today. One column by Karl Rove, your former associate in the most recent Bush White House. And the other column, it’s a piece in the New York Times by Sheryl Stolberg. She talks about the new era of informality that Barack Obama has introduced into the White House. He’s working there late at night. He comes in relatively late, two hours later than President Bush used to come in at his desk. And he’s dropped this rule that everybody has to wear jacket and tie in the Oval Office. Now, you worked in the Oval Office for years and years.
CARD: I started working at the White House with President Reagan and then I was deputy chief of staff to former President Bush and then chief of staff to former President George W. Bush.
MEDVED: And all those three presidents had…
CARD: And yes, I found that Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes treated the Oval Office with tremendous respect. They treated the Office of the Presidency with tremendous respect. And some of that respect was reflected in how they expected people to behave, how they expected them to dress when they walked into the symbol of freedom for the world, the Oval Office. And yes, I’m disappointed to see the casual, laissez faire, short sleeves, no shirt and tie, no jacket, kind of locker room experience that seems to be taking place in this White House and the Oval Office.

HEY ANDY! YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE DISRESPECTS THE OFFICE? LYING YOUR ASSES OFF TO GET THE COUNTRY INTO A BULLSHIT WAR THAT LED TO THE DEATHS OF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE, CRIPPLED THE FEDERAL BUDGET, AND LED TO THE HORRENDOUS ABUSES OF ABU GHRAIB THAT HAVE DEVASTATED THE MORAL STANDING OF UNITED STATES!

HEY ANDY! YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE DISRESPECTS THE OFFICE? SITTING ON YOUR FUCKING ASSES NOT DOING ANYTHING WHEN A MAJOR AMERICAN CITY DROWNED BEFORE OUR EYES!

I AM SURE THE RESIDENTS OF NEW ORLEANS, SOLDIERS' FAMILIES, AND THE MILLIONS OF ECONOMICALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY ARE DAMNED GLAD THAT, NO MATTER HOW BAD THEY HAVE IT, AT LEAST THE GUYS WHO BROUGHT ALL THIS DOWN UPON THEM WERE GOOD ENOUGH TO WEAR A FUCKING COAT AND TIE!

HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT "DISRESPECTING THE OFFICE"???

Lefty Blog Gets it Right

MyDD is dead on about McConnell's stimulus intentions here, and the institutional weakness that Reid has created in the Senate. I hope the Obama people are aware of what they are up against.

Opposite Super Bowl Pick

Well, Eric has just identified what I've been saying is the only scenario by which the Cards win. They have to jump out to a sizable early lead, at least 2 TDs, to have a shot. But I don't think that's going to happen. Great defense almost always kills great offense in the big game.

1. Pittsburgh comes out very aggressive on offense, throwing a lot, and puts up a TD on its opening drive. Hines Ward makes big drive-sustaining catches to make it happen.

2. The Pittsburgh defense scores a TD in the first half, probably a sack and fumble of Warner, but just as easily could be a Troy Polamalu pick-six. The D is going to have a big game, doing for the whole game what Philly's D did only in the third quarter: stuffing the run and hitting Warner consistently. Warner will make mistakes if put under constant pressure.

3. Fitzgerald doesn't have a catch until the third quarter. Anquan Boldin makes more plays in this game. The Cards' newly discovered running game gets stuffed early and they abandon it by halftime.

4. The Cards come back in the second half to make it close. Boldin takes a short pass for a long TD. Pittsburgh puts it out of reach with a long TD by Santonio Holmes in the fourth quarter, possibly on a punt return.

5. Big Ben is going to have a monster game. The Cards may hit him but they are undersized and will have a hard time bringing him down. Look for Ben to make some big throws after being hit and/or breaking the pocket. Pittsburgh will march up and down the field on the Cards, scoring TDs while the Cards kick FGs, esp in the first half (a flip of what happened to the Eagles in the NFC title game).

6. Meweldi Moore will be a bigger factor in the running game than Willie Parker.

MVP: Big Ben

Stimulus Follies

As we all know, the House version of the stimulus plan passed without a single Republican vote, and yet, Republican governors are rather anxious to see it pass so they can balance their budgets without having to strip vital services like cops, teachers, social safety nets, and infrastructure.

My personal favorite is Louisiana's Bobby "Exorcism" Jindal, who, according to the AP, "said he would accept the stimulus money but would have voted against the bill if he were still in Congress". Nothing like conservative dogma meeting the harsh reality of actual governance.

Democrats should simply write the bill they want and dare the R's to vote against it.

Super Bowl Pick

Here goes.

1. Warner will start fast. Cards will put up 21 points in the first half.
2. 2 turnovers for Roethlisberger in the first half.
3. Fitz will have some catches, but Breaston will surprise by scoring on a big play (60+ yards).
4. Willie Parker will not run the ball well for Pittsburgh. They'll try to stick with it for a while, but it will soon be apparent that it's all on Big Ben.
5. Pittsburgh makes a comeback in the second half, but it doesn't ever get within a one possession game.
6. Big Ben gets sacked at least five times.
7. Warner throws no picks, and makes the key completions when it counts in the second half to extend drives and make it harder for Pittsburgh to come back.

Final: Cards 31, Pittsburgh 17

MVP: Warner