The senseless hubris that is at the heart of the federal government's problems for the last five decades, distilled into a single quote...

"We cannot limit ourselves to one objective at a time. We, like Caesar, have all things to do at once."
-McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor, May 1965

Don't think for a minute that the mentality has changed it all since Bundy put it out on the table.

My mordant musings have given birth to the following proposition: at the core of ideological intensity is an attempted transfer of angst by an unhappy individual to the rest of us. Regardless of whether the in-your-face fanaticism comes at you from The Left or The Right, the insistence that you embrace the same apocalyptic perspective (Obama is Stalin, Dubya is Hitler, global warming is destroying us all, we must ban the Victoria Secrets' Catalog to preserve the virtue of the youts, etc.) is really a function of an individual's personal angst, cloaked in the guise of a public cause and ostensible idealism. More simply expressed, ideological intensity is a form of emotional aggression against the rest of us, an effort to Jedi-mind trick a largely contented majority to become as agitated about an issue as the angst-ridden individual. George Will once tartly observed that, "some people only feel half alive if they aren't consistently indignant about an issue." I would put it less eloquently: you're extremely unhappy about something in your own life, so you latch onto an issue and get in my face to convince me that this issue is a crisis in my life that necessitates me doing exactly what you say...otherwise, I'm a morally deformed person. Political conversation becomes an attempted emotional mugging, replete with tiresome guilt trips and threadbare, but shrill End-of-Days rhetoric. The conservative stance in such a situation is to politely fend off the emotional aggression and recognize the kernel of personal derangement that fuels the onslaught of angst.

Unless you're like me, and you're tired of being humoring the deranged bullying boor. Then you just get curt. An arsenal of possible responses in such a situation...

"Um no, studies DON'T show that."

"I don't believe that."

"Not true."

Or you can just back away slowly...

I don't want to see another president get in front of a microphone to speak to anybody without a necktie. Period. I am as sick of the open necked shirt on presidents as I am of tattoos on NBA players. A politician who attempts to communicate me without a necktie is unworthy of my respect, much less my vote.

On a related note, why did anybody let Janet Napolitano get on TV in a leather jacket and a turtleneck like she strolled in from a guest shot on "Cagney and Lacey." It was totally impossible to take anything she said seriously.

You want the power, wear the power suit.

I've wracked my brain trying to think of the president who started the open shirt casual look...I want to blame it on Carter. Him and his damn sweater, telling us to turn off the thermostat.

The now-infamous Flight #253 demonstrates that as a nation we have come full circle since 9/11. Eight years after absurdly lax airline security and an obscenely porous student visa program cost thousands of Americans their lives, we have achieved absolutely nothing in the way of improved safety for the country. After two invasions, tens of thousands of casualties, the expenditure of a trillion dollars, the erection of massive federal bureaucracies, the enactment of The Patriot Act, and a whole lot of hyper-patriotic chest-thumping, we are in the exact same place that we were on September 10, 2001...relying upon the exertions and efforts of the paying customers aboard the plane...

Having placed myself on a perpetual no-fly list, I can now plainly see that for all the derision that he endured, John Madden's aversion to airline flight was always just good sense.

Back in the early 1990s, Bill Clinton asserted that the nation's overall security was inextricably intertwined with the condition of its economy. His contention had a nice rhetorical ring to it, and seemed relatively plausible in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. One of the towering ironies of the past decade however, would appear to be the operational refutation of that thesis. America has never been so insolvent, and yet its global grandiloquence has never been more immense. Bankrolled by a bitter, but helpless People's Republic of China (another towering irony...the geopolitical ambitions of the world's mightiest democracy being underwritten by the last great Communist country), the U.S. strides forth as the planet's policeman and social worker.

It would seem that Clinton was wrong, that a great imperial power can cast fiscal sense to the winds and pursue a utopian agenda indefinitely, that the laws of economic gravity have been suspended, and that a Pax Americana need not be buttressed by sturdy finances at home...

It will be the single greatest test of the notion of American exceptionalism, far beyond anything that Winthrop or Wilson could have conceived...

There was a lot wrong with Alabama governor George C. Wallace, but he hit upon an infuriating and depressing truth when he famously declared that there wasn't "a dime's worth of difference," between the two major political parties in this country. Any reasonably objective observer of the GOP and the Democrats would be forced to conclude that it is largely rhetoric and symbolism that distinguishes the two parties from one another. When in power, they're operationally identical. Wallace uttered his immortal analysis over four decades ago, and subsequent administrations have merely reinforced the powerful truth of his words.

Take health care, for openers. At the moment, the G.O.P. is uniformly and righteously opposed to the indigestible Democratic mess winding its way through the bowels of Congress. Congressional Republicans decry the various forms of chicanery and vote-renting deployed by the Dems to propel their unworkable and unaffordable health care utopianism to the Oval Office desk where Obamanon's pen awaits. The Grand Old Party is rightfully vehement in its castigation of this legislative abomination.

Yet they are also bloody hypocrites. They choose to forget that they played the EXACT same legislative games in order to inflict a similar fiscal ruin on The Republic back in 2003, with the prescription drug bill. When THEY controlled the White House AND both houses of Congress, they blasted long-term holes in the nation's balance sheet with legislation that they knew was fiscally catastrophic and philosophically anathema, all so they could peel off the votes of the elderly in 2004. Their professions of limited government and budgetary prudence were fully exposed as pure rhetoric. Six years later, they stand bereft of moral credibility or philosophical credibility when they deplore Democratic health care bills done in the name of Obamanon.

Further proof of the overall pointlessness of devout partisan affiliation can be found in the field of foreign affairs. Democrats lambasted Dubya and the GOP tribe for eight years, rightfully assailing his senseless war in Mess-o-potamia and his romantic desire to export democracy to benighted corners of Central Asia. Yet no sooner do they retake the reins of power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, then they double down on a debacle in the Graveyard of Empires, pouring tens of thousands of troops into the historically proven futility of nation-building. Evidently both parties are allergic to the common sense policy of non-interventionism, relentlessly choosing to ignore the mountains of evidence demonstrating the wisdom of non-interventionism (namely, mountains of American bodybags) in favor of utopian nation-building adventurism.

The voter who stoutly prefers fiscal and military restraint is without a plausible partisan alternative. The option put forth by George Wallace some forty-one years ago was manifestly unappealing. However, a third party is sorely needed, a political party based on caution, common sense, and a sense of limits.

If you start them, FINISH THEM!!!

I tore through an excellent book this break, one that was supposedly scrutinized and dissected by the Obama White House before they made their Great Misdecision on Afghanistan...Lessons in Disaster, by Gordon Goldstein.

Goldstein's biography of McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor to JFK and LBJ from 1961 to 1966, largely focuses on the decisions that led to our entanglement in the morass of Vietnam. The primary lesson of the book can be distilled to a couple of highly pertinent lessons...

1. Machismo is the enemy of common sense.

2. Caution and skepticism are highly underrated, as well as scarce, in the highest circles of decision-making.

I can't stomach the vast majority of awards shows, especially the Emmys. The lone exception to my disdain is The Golden Globes, largely due to the fact that everybody in the building appears to get thoroughly plastered as the evening unwinds. This year's edition of the Globes looks to have significantly upped its entertainment value by assigning host duties to none other than Ricky Gervais. His scathing irreverence will be a welcome bonus to the proceedings...

...would suggest that there are still other, far more important issues for the federal government to address than say, the socialization of health care...

And whatever happened to the whole federal "sky marshal" thing? Why did the paying customers have to subdue this character?

Something for the avid civil libertarians and relentlessly indignant lefties to ponder...you roundly pillioried Dubya for allegedly annhiliating the right to privacy with The Patriot Act ( a bit of legislation that nearly every congressional Democrat supported, by the way)...but in the age of Facebook and out-loud-cellphone conversations-in-public, is there any tattered semblance of privacy left?

Furthermore, does the federal government really possess the competence to do ANYTHING with the information that it might collect through said legislation?

Just a point to ponder, as Reader's Digest would say...

Why is it that seemingly EVERY educational "reformer" who comes along with the latest and greatest utopian proposal for remaking a fairly straightforward process is somebody who is either a) safely removed from the classroom and thus insulated from the real-life consequences of their reform, or b) somebody who has never spent Day One in a classroom with live, flesh-and-blood students?

I'll be even more specific with this rhetorical query...what is it in Arne Duncan's background that qualifies him to opine or pontificate on quality academic instruction? I know he's played a lot of hoops with Obamanon, but aside from that, what classroom experience does he possess that equips him with the right to say that teachers should be hired and fired according to student test scores?

It's been far too long since I've engaged in the fugal form of therapy that is blogging, but now that the holiday frenzy has subsided and I can relax from forced affability, let the curmudgeonly eruptions commence in full force...

The only thing more senseless than Obama's decision to persist with the lethal folly of Afghanistan is the Republican Party urging the dispatch of even MORE troops into that quagmire.  Today's news featured the lunkhead likes of former presidential nominee John McCain and His Orange Highness,  future House Speaker John "Man-tan" Boehner demanding that Obama plunge even more troops into Afghanistan right away.

"Universal healthcare: misery and nothing for all."

"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants."
-Albert Camus

You'll pry this diet Coke from my cold, dead, diabetic hands...Now listen to Moses...

Too much hair gel makes you crazy...and commie...

Leaving us alone...they can't do it...they are physiologically conditioned to penalize the productive and enable the indolent in the course of manufacturing their utopias...

"It makes sense for the government to help people make the right choices..."

-Mitch Katz, San Francisco Director of Public Health

After taking the time to read about the latest nanny-state/nagging-state measures that have been either proposed or enacted by Mayors Gavin Newsom and Michael Bloomberg, I am utterly convinced that this country is headed towards totalitarianism of the leftist variety. Aside from spelling, there is truly little to no difference between Democrats and Communists. Their goals are essentially the same...to take away individual freedom in the name of creating a government-controlled utopia. The incremental paternalism of modern government is as unmistakeable as it is ominous.

The stark reality is that we are steadily losing our liberty to an insatiable and omnivorous leviathan. Totalitarianism in the name of health or the environment is still totalitarianism, and it baffles me why the sheeple have not pushed back against it.

"I have long since learned that people only mean half of what they say, and it is best to judge them by their actions and not their words."

-Dorothy Day

I seldom have a good word to say about the president formerly known as Obamanon.  However, his speech to the nation's schoolchildren is totally fine by me.  Having read the text of his remarks, I can emphatically assert that his message is refreshingly conservative.

A powerfully creepy, chilling moment towards the end of the 1974 masterpiece, "Chinatown"...

Nicholson's gumshoe character Jake Gittes confronts the affably evil robber baron Noah Cross...John Huston should have won an Oscar for his depiction of unflappably affable monstrosity incarnate...There's an exchange at 2:07 that could have come out of the New Testament or Dostoevsky, when Gittes and the audience realize that Noah Cross is Lucifer in a Panama hat...

From his press conference of August 20, 1963...President John F. Kennedy on the basic idea at the core of "affirmative action"...racial quotas...

"...I don't think we can undo the past...I don't think quotas are a good idea. I think it is a mistake to assign quotas on the basis of religion, or race, or color, or nationality. I think we'd get into a good deal of trouble...We ought not to begin the quota system...not hard and fast quotas."

JFK had PT-109...Ted had Chappaquiddick...End of story...

The G.O.P. will win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives. John "Man Tan" Boehner will be the Speaker of the House come January 3, 2011.

From his press conference of March 21, 1962...

"There is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It's very hard in the military or personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair..."

President John F. Kennedy

Used by Bobby Kennedy in his 1968 presidential campaign, actually first uttered by devout Stalinist George Bernard Shaw...

"Some men see things as they are and ask why, I dream of things that never were, and ask why not."

A more clear and obnoxious encapsulation of the Utopian liberal mindset, you will not find...

What does more damage to a society...the hypocrisy of conservatives, or the hypocrisy of liberals?

"California has been the slate on which liberalism boldly writes its recipe for decline---high taxes, heavy regulation, subservience to public employees unions, and environmentalism that is simultaneously apocalyptic and chiliastic."

"...California's calamitous present---creative accounting as a rickety bridge to the next budget crisis, coming soon---might prefigure the nation's future..."

"Republicans are a shriveling tribe: Their registration is at a record low 31.1 percent, and they do not have a majority of registered voters in any of California's 53 congressional districts. Democrats have a registration majority in 20 districts, and a statewide registration advantage of more than 2 million and growing."

-George F. Will

One of the more annoying aspects of the week's assorted encomiums to The Lion of Limousine Leftism is the assertion that The Squire of Hyannisport "achieved far more" than either of his elder assassinated brothers.

Well.

If one defines achievement as the expansion and nourishment of the elephantine welfare state, then sure, Ted Kennedy achieved much more than either Jack or Bobby. Ted Kennedy did more than anybody else in his family to try and turn the U.S. into a Scandinavian-style socialist state. There was no appetite for government largesse, no complaint or claim of victimization that he would not endeavor mightily to sate and salve with somebody else's money. Ted Kennedy was the very personification of Thatcher's quip that " a socialist is somebody who's extremely compassionate with other people's money." But in the liberal mind, such redistributive behavior constitutes monumental heroism.

I would merely point out in defense of the elder Kennedy who actually occupied The White House that Ted's "achievements" pale in comparison to the following achievements of JFK...

1. He saved the world from nuclear war...TWICE...first in 1961, then again in 1962...

Ponder that for a moment...you're all walking around breathing because of how JFK handled unprecedented and unrepeated nuclear confrontations in the summer of 1961 and the autumn of 1962...Teddy would never have gotten to set up all of his ineffective and expensive programs for various derelicts if we all got blown up in the early 1960s...

2. JFK prevented the Communists from winning the Cold War in the early 1960s...

Jonah Goldberg has this keen observation on the public policy career of The Lion of Limousine Liberalism...

"...one of the great ironies of Ted Kennedy's career...He was the chief beneficiary of an inheritance from a brother whose views he didn't share."

Obama's bestowal of the Presidential Medal of Freedom upon his political benefactor, Ted Kennedy, brings to mind the wonderfully cynical and astute quote from the 1974 cinematic classic, "Chinatown."

"Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all become respectable if they last long enough."

"If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe."

-Lord Salisbury

Two months ago, The New York Times had a superb article on the origins of the explosion in our national debt and the ocean of red ink engulfing the U.S. economy. New York Times reporter David Leonhardt began his eminently comprehensible and chilling analysis with this paragraph...

"There are two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal government will run in the coming years. The first is that President Obama's agenda ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying. The second is that Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit..."

Leonhardt took the reader back to Clinton's departure from the Oval Office in January 2001, when the U.S. government boasted a $127 billion surplus, and the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the federal government would run $800 billion SURPLUSES a year from 2009 to 2012. Leonhardt dryly observed that now the forecast from the CBO is $1.2 trillion DEFICITS for those years, a swing of about $2 trillion.

Where did this gaping $2 trillion hole in the federal balance sheet come from?

Most of it comes from the business cycle. The recession/dawning of economic reality accounts for 37% or approximately $740 billion in tax revenue lost to the U.S. Treasury.

Leonhardt goes on to lay approximately one-third of the deficit problem at the feet of Dubya. According to Leonhardt, $667 billion of the deficits can be attributed to Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, et.al. So 33% of the current fiscal mess can be directly blamed on Chief Executive #43.

Extending Dubya's policies on Iraq, taxes, and the various corporate bailouts, Obama is responsible for approximately one-fifth of the deficit chasm at $400 billion. Then Leonhardt tacks on Obama's stimulus bill from February for another seven percent of the deficit. He says that Obama's agenda on health care, education, energy, etc. is responsible for about 3 percent of the problem.

So if you're keeping a tally thus far, a mere ten percent of the Fiscal Red Sea is solely of Obama's doing. If you're especially stringent, you could blame him for 30% of a $2 trillion mess, but that seems unfair. Most of that was inherited.

Where Obama comes in for severe criticism from economists is the lack of a plan to address the swelling tide of red ink. Berkeley economist Alan Auerbach is memorably quoted as saying, "Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it. On the other hand, he's not fixing it. Not fixing it is...making it worse."

The libertarian Cato Institute was also quoted in the article with this tart assessment of Obama's loyal opposition in Congress: "The G.O.P. is not serious about cutting down spending."

But when are they ever?

Professor Auerbach has two dire predictions if the debt drift persists for much longer (as in 12-18 months). "Things will get worse gradually, unless they get worse quickly." He and other economists envision foreign lenders abruptly declining to prop up the dollar, which would force a precipitous spike in interest rates and nasty stagflation.

As Leonhardt says at the close of the article, "The solution...is no mystery. It will involve some combination of tax increases and spending cuts...Your taxes will probably go up, and some government programs will become less generous."

His closing sentences have the virtue of stark profundity..."That is the legacy of our trillion-dollar deficits. Erasing them will be one of the great political issues of the coming decade."

I think it's worth remembering that when Bill Clinton shoved a substantial tax increase through Congress sixteen years ago it was followed by the greatest period of prosperity in U.S. history.

"The only difference between being a 'chump' and being a 'champ' is U!!!"

-Alexis Ercoli

Martin Sheen dismantles religious fundamentalism in two minutes...

I don't own an Omega watch and I don't plan on buying one, but it's still a most cool commercial...

A great quote that I first spotted on Andrew Sullivan's blog this morning...

"...The president genuinely views this remote, landlocked, primitive Central Asian country as a vital U.S. national security interest."

"What is it about Afghanistan, possessing nothing that the United States requires, that justifies such lavish attention. In Washington, this question goes not only unanswered, but unasked. Among Democrats and Republicans alike, with few exceptions, Afghanistan's importance is simply assumed---much the same way fifty years ago otherwise intelligent people simply assumed that the United States had a vital interest in ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. as then, so today, the assumption does not stand up to even casual scrutiny."

-Andrew Bacevich, Commonweal

It is deeply depressing to watch conservatives and Republicans try to bring down Obama's health care initiatives. Not because the whole utopian Rube Goldberg contraption shouldn't go up in flames, mind you. No, my dismay with the current assault on Obamacare has to do with the quality of the arguments against it, and what those arguments say about the condition of conservatism in particular, and the American electorate in general.

Conservatives and Republicans are trying to bring down the various Democratic congressional proposals by invoking spurious straw men such as mandatory euthanasia, abortion, and bankrolling illegal immigrants. The Right is laying siege to congressional town hall meetings, where mobs of the Tea Party and pitchfork ilk repeat these lame and shrill morsels of fearmongering.

There's a much, much simpler argument to be made against this mess Obama calls health care reform, or universal health care, or universal health insurance, or whatever...

THERE IS NO MONEY FOR THIS!!!...NONE!!!...WE CANNOT AFFORD THIS!!!...

The federal budget deficit for 2009 will be more than 2 trillion dollars. Let that sink in for a minute. On top of that 2 trillion, Obama wants to create a brand-new entitlement program in the middle of an especially nasty recession that is estimated to cost a trillion dollars over ten years (take that estimate and multiply it by a number between five and ten, and you'll be in the ballpark of actual cost). Every sale of U.S. Treasury securities is already a cliffhanger! Do we really think the bond market won't buckle under the weight of all this additional long-term debt?

But why isn't that argument being made instead of all the other silly nonsense that makes conservatives and the GOP look like X-Files rejects?

Because it wouldn't work. Nobody cares about the cost of things. Nobody really cares about the national debt, or a sudden, steep spike in long-term interest rates that would make the stagflation of the 1970s look like a trip to Six Flags.

Until they do...Until something makes them care...

Over three decades ago, the enlightened, thoughtful, and selfless masses who comprised the California electorate, etched in constitutional stone a requirement that there could be no future tax increases in the state without the approval of two-thirds of the California legislature. Rightfully enraged about legislative inertia in the face of escalating property taxes, the people of the Golden State rose up to pass Proposition 13 with 67% of the vote. Thus, a paroxysm of voter wrath was the mother of profound political and historical irony; a super-majority of Californians transferred the ultimate veto power to a minority, utilizing the uber-democratic mechanism of the ballot initiative to render California politics intrinsically undemocratic for all eternity. When it comes to the all-important question of financing California state government, the minority rules.

Which would be fine by me, or at least, operationally and philosophically consistent, had the California electorate also amputated their appetites for great heaping platters of government services along with the means to pay for them. However, preferring to subscribe to Emerson's nonsensical contention that "consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds," the voters of California have spent the last thirty years demonstrated their powers of disavowal and cognitive dissonance, noisily demanding low-to-no taxes and social services on par with Scandinavia. Approximately every six months we descend into the trenches of budget battle with Democrats flatly rejecting anything resembling a cut in government programs, and Republicans just as intently eschewing anything resembling a tax increase. Having achieved impasse, the two parties then join hands to engage in accounting mythology and call it a budget, perpetuating $15 billion dollar structural deficits and the state's abysmal credit rating on into the future.

What is striking is how content Californians are with this utterly dysfunctional arrangement. Voters largely tune out from budget dramas in Sacramento, and why shouldn't they? From a practical point of view, their day-to-day lives are largely unscathed by any tangible consequences of their credit-card conservatism and low-tax liberal largesse. Infantilism has been the dominant ideology of Californians since the late 70s, which distilled to its essence, is as intellectually reflective and morally conscious as a teenager set loose in a shopping mall with the parental Visa.

Thus, there is a properly conservative argument to be made for eliminating the No Taxation Without Two-Thirds Approval feature from the state constitution. It is this; California voters need to truly SEE AND FEEL the cost of state government. A gleeful Democratic majority in the Legislature, having slipped the surly bonds of Proposition 13, would undoubtedly enact the level of taxation appropriate for financing their elephantine welfare state, at which point the consequences and costs of the welfare state would become starkly clear to California voters. The practical pain of such intellectual honesty would be too much for California voters to bear. The Republicans would subsequently control the Legislature for at least a generation.

Proposition 13 insulated the great inchoate mass of Californians from having to pay forall the government that they wanted...and they want A LOT. That condition is as immoral as it is unsustainable. JFK said that to govern is to choose, and Californians need to pay for their choices. Conservatives should support such a day of reckoning. Nothing would do more to endorse the cause of limited government as the voters being made intimately aware of the costs of big government.

Shrinking into the comfort and general irrelevance of cultism and self-willed permanent minority status, the G.O.P. has embraced an especially pathetic conspiracy theory, now infamous as Birtherism.

Birthers feverishly subscribe to the notion that the president was actually born in Africa, and that his birth certificates from Hawaii are forgeries, thus depriving him of constitutional legitimacy as Chief Executive.

It's difficult to overstate my annoyance with the Birthers. At this crucial hour of policymaking, with powerful arguments needing to be made against virtually all of the Administration's major domestic and foreign policy initiatives, conservatives and Republicans are reducing themselves to contemptible punch lines, bereft of any intellectual credibility.

Wallowing in birtherism may be more fun than contesting the feasibility and desirability of Obama's proposals on health care reform, energy policy, and education overhaul, but ultimately it's just a degrading path to nowhere. More than a path to nowhere, it's a short route to the drainpipe of political obsolescence.

"...citizens of the Golden State have stood up consistently for two principles: the state should provide vastly more services to its citizens, and citizens should pay vastly less to the state."

-Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times

The conservative Law of Unintended Consequences is at work in the new Obama-Duncan education proposal, which demands that states link teachers' evaluations and pay to students' test scores...

He's so plainly a socialist in economic affairs, but when it comes to education, he's trying to inject free market principles into an intrinsically socialist system...

You know who else was really good at alienating the base of his party fairly early on? Jimmy Carter.

Things turned out well for his presidency, don't you think?

Not content with merely alienating every cop and doctor in the country, Obama made the time yesterday to antagonize a constituency utterly critical to his re-election...teachers.

Doctors and cops may trend Republican, but teachers, particularly public school teachers, are vital to the political fortunes of the Democratic Party, which Obama may have noticed, he leads. Nobody gets nominated by the Democrats to run for anything, and nobody gets elected as a Democrat to do anything, without the support of teachers.

Yesterday, Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan (like most Education Secretaries, Arne has never spent Day One in a public school classroom as a teacher...he does however, play a lot of hoops with The One...), announced that they would allocate $4.3 billion in "grants" to those states whose educational systems link students' test scores with teachers' evaluations and pay. The One and his Lord High Stooge Arne explicitly took aim at teachers' unions in California and New York, demanding that those states change laws that preclude such linkage of students' test scores with teachers' evaluations and pay.

Such an imperious, if ill-considered, backhand from The One must be deeply disconcerting to the teachers' unions, populated as they are with devout Obamanauts. However, once they recover from the shock of public betrayal, their political vengeance is sure to be lethal to The One and his prospects in November 2012.

Obama needs California and New York to be re-elected. He does not carry those states if teachers and their unions sit on their hands and stay home in 2012. In what way does this latest assault on a large group of necessary voters reflect the political genius that allegedly is Obama?

I'm puzzled as to why the Governor doesn't just use his line-item veto to balance the budget. The thing that the Legislature sent to him is not remotely balanced. It's at least $3 billion out of whack. He's not running for re-election in 2010. The California GOP will never nominate him for another political office again. Why not go for it? Slash the budget with his gubernatorial pen and stop posing in front of cameras with the Crocodile Dundee can-opener...

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, the always excellent Peggy Noonan eloquently captured the essence of my loathing for Obama's health care reform proposals. Her words articulated a basic libertarian resistance to the philosophical core of what Obama, Pelosi, and their limousine liberal ilk would inflict upon the rest of us if we let them. As Noonan says,

"We are living in a time when educated people who are at the top of American life feel they have the right to make very public criticisms of...the private, pleasurable but health-related choices of others. They shame smokers and the overweight. Drinking will be next. Mr. Obama's own choice for surgeon general has come under criticism as too heavy."

"Only a generation ago, such criticisms would have been considered rude and unacceptable. But they are part of the ugly, chafing price of having the government in something: Suddenly it can make very big and personal demands on you. Those who live in a way that isn't sufficiently healthy 'cost us money' and 'drive up premiums.' Mr. Obama himself said something like it in his press conference, when he spoke of a person who might not buy health insurance. If he gets hit by a bus, 'the rest of us have to pay for it.'"

"Under a national health-care plan we might be hearing that a lot. You don't exercise, you smoke, you drink, you eat too much, and 'the rest of us have to pay for it.'"

"It is a new opportunity for new class professionals (an old phrase that should make a comeback) to shame others, which appears to be one of their hobbies...Every time I hear Kathleen Sebelius talk about 'transitioning' from 'treating disease,' to 'preventing disease,' I start thinking of how they'll use this as an excuse to judge, shame, and intrude."

"So this might be an unarticulated public fear: When everyone pays for the same health-care system, the overseers will feel more and more a right to tell you how to live, which simple joys are allowed and which are not."

"Americans in the most personal, daily ways feel they are less free than they used to be. And they are right, they are less free."

"Who wants more of that?"

As a lifelong political nerd and longtime fan of The West Wing, I was impressed by how spectacularly Obama mismanaged the news cycle over the course of twenty-four hours. At a time when his very presidency is on the line with an increasingly imperiled health care reform initiative, The One has chosen to inject himself into the minutiae of a local law enforcement controversy (that involves a personal friend) and insult cops.

You don't have to be Leo McGarry or C.J. Craig to know that Obama shot himself in both feet with his remarks about the Gates affair at last night's press conference. At a press conference dedicated to, and dominated by, the president's promotion of his dying health care reform proposal, Obama chose to end the presser with extensive remarks on The Gates Arrest, thus making it THE STORY coming out of the evening.

Then today, when he would have been well-advised to go silent on the topic and let the furor over his remarks die down, he repeated and elaborated on his remarks to ABC News!

What a gift to his adversaries!

What might have been a 24-36 hour story is now guaranteed to run through the weekend, at least, knocking health care off the front page. Not only does the Obama/Gates Gate story further drive the nails in the coffin of health care reform, but it's probably good for another 5-7 point drop in his approval numbers by the end of the month.

I'd anticipated that Obama would crater around Labor Day, but he seems hellbent on beating that calendar and self-immolate by August 1st.

The first polls showing Obama dropping below 50% job approval will arrive just before Congress breaks on Friday, August 7th...the day that health care reform, cap-and-trade, and the Obama Administration's political future will all expire.

"I've heard about five different reports on the details of the arrest...If I'm the president of the United States, I don't care how much pressure people want to put on it about race, I'm keeping my mouth shut...I was shocked to hear the president making this kind of statement."

-Bill Cosby

would be Obama's job approval as his mandate crumbles at the six month mark...The latest Fox News poll shows Obama's job approval numbers taking an eight point hit, falling from 62% to 54%. The greatest bleeding is among independents, where approval of Obama has fallen by a DOZEN percentage points...

After his anti-cop remarks at last night's press conference, you can probably expect more of a dip...

From today's San Francisco Chronicle, veteran muckrakers Matier and Ross report the following...

"'Think of it as the don't ask, don't tell budget,because nobody really wants to know what's in it' was how one negotiator summed up the final spending plan that popped out of the governor's office Monday night."

"Republicans don't want to know the details of how the state will slice more than $1 billion from prisons. Democrats are equally eager not to hear the gory details of what slashing and burning health and welfare programs will entail."

"And neither side is expected to say much about the accounting and borrowing tricks included in the plan."

Here's the money quote...

"As for how long the budget fix may last?"

"'Everyone knows there will have to be more adjustments down the line,' the negotiator said. 'The real goal at this point is for the budget to make it to January.'"

The Gallup polling organization has conducted surveys throughout the first six months of the year to ascertain U.S. voters' ideological leanings. Their findings are fascinating, at least to a political junkie...

The Democratic Party appears to be a far broader coalition, much more so than I would have assumed. According to Gallup's surveys, 38% of Democrats identified themselves as liberals, 40% called themselves moderates, and a staggering 22% of Dems called themselves conservatives!

Independent voters broke down about as one would imagine. 34% of indie voters called themselves liberals, 45% called themselves moderate (no big surprise there), and 21% called themselves conservative.

The G.O.P. by contrast comes off like a narrow ideological echo chamber. 73% of Republicans called themselves conservative, a mere 24% called themselves moderate, and a laughable,yet telling 3% of GOPers dared to identify themselves as Republican (memo to the lonely 3%: Teddy Roosevelt and Nelson Rockefeller are both long dead.).

Two questions occur from sifting through this data...

First...how do the Republicans ever expect to win back the Congress, much less the White House? There is clearly a demand for ideological rigidity and lockstep philosophical conformity that precludes the coalition-building necessary for electoral success in, you know, the real world. Insisting on adherence to a set catechism of positions doesn't get you to a majority. I can understand the chilliness towards liberals, but a political party absolutely NEEDS moderates to win elections.

Second...what IS a conservative Democrat? I'm genuinely curious.

Immortal words from my favorite Fascist dictator, Generalissimo Francisco Franco....

"I am responsible only to God and history."

"There will be no communism."

"Communists should be crushed like worms."

...I'm thinking of the first two posted in my classroom in massive calligraphy...The third is a bit repetitive...reflects a clear line of thought though...

Now hear this...all you wingnut whackjobs who are hyperventilating over Obama's alleged bona fides as a U.S. citizen...

1. You are factually incorrect. Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen. Period.

2. You are insane.

3. You give conservatism and the G.O.P. a bad name.

4. You are a factor in the much deserved powerlessness of conservatives and the GOP.

While we're at it...let's clear up a few other matters...

1. We did, in fact, land men on the moon. Not a Quinn Martin production folks...

2. There are no aliens, and any communications you currently receiving from the Mothership
can be medicated out of existence.

3. When Sarah Palin gives speeches to events closed to the media, that's not a political
movement...that's a cult...the m.o. is pure Jim Jones, my friends...

You all need to put down the Kool Aid and back away slowly from the punchbowl...

Late this afternoon, The Sacramento Bee reported that GOP state legislators were threatening to vote down the budget deal reached just last night as part of a Republican backlash over a Democratic legislative proposal to release thousands of state prisoners to home detention and county jails. The Democrats' proposal also included creating a state commission to review criminal sentences.

The Democrats' proposal is intended to slice $1.2 billion from the state budget.

Assembly GOP leader Sam Blakeslee said last night's budget agreement clearly ruled out early prisoner releases. He added that both parties' legislative leadership had agreed in the deal to address the prison issue in August after getting the budget through the Legislature.

According to The Sacramento Bee, Blakeslee emailed his fellow Assembly Republicans with the following statement,

"Budget negotiations depend on the good faith actions of all parties. A corrections bill that includes the early release of 27,000 prisoners and a sentencing commission was never
discussed or agreed to by Republicans. We made it abundantly clear during negotiations that such policies would endanger the public and were unacceptable."

Blakeslee went on to write that he had personally called the Democratic legislative leadership to tell them that "there will be no votes for any portion of the budget if they allow such a bill to be part of the package."

So it's game on...

For the first time in months I have to say...GOOD FOR THE G.O.P.!!!
that such policies would endanger the public and were unacceptable

The Associated Press poll released today shows Obama taking a NINE point hit to his approval ratings, dropping from 64% two months ago to 55% today. Like the USA-Today Gallup poll, Obama's disapproval numbers have climbed above 40% (42% in the AP Poll), with the most serious damage among independents, where Obama's job approval dropped TWENTY points.

A recurring theme among those polled by the Associated Press...Obama is trying to do too much.

While it is sad that Frank McCourt passed away from melanoma at the age of 78, I have to say that I was not a fan of his books, at least the two that I read. It took me three tries before I could get through his breakthrough best-selling memoir, Angela's Ashes, and the first couple of times I picked it up I remember throwing it against a wall after the first thirty pages or so.

Eventually I just kept repeating to myself that it was his story, and he was entitled to tell it, and I plowed through the thing, just to be able to say that I'd read it. My grandfather grew up in Limerick, and I guess I got repeatedly annoyed with how the various characters behaved.

As for Teacher Man, I really hope that few prospective teachers read it and take it to heart as some sort of inspiration or guide on how to teach. Between that book and "Dead Poets' Society," too many idealistic, leftish-leaning college grads will get the wrong idea about what education is all about and how school teaching really works...

But at least the guy ended life rich, happy, and famous...and he seemed genial enough...

He was a permanent fixture in our home during the 70s and early 80s. For me, he will always be the True TV News Anchorman. Everybody else was just a talking hairdo.

1. He saved the world from nuclear war on at least two occasions (Berlin, 1961, Cuba, 1962).

2. He prevented the Soviets from winning the Cold War on the same two occasions.

3. He put the federal government on the side of racial equality for the first time in history
with the televised address of June 11, 1963.

4. He substantially reduced the danger of nuclear war by the end of his presidency.

Just putting it out there...tired of all these naysayers claiming the man was overrated.

For the third year in a row they have shunned Friday Night Lights, which is easily the best show on network TV. They have ignored Kyle Chandler, the finest dramatic actor on television today, and Connie Britton, the best dramatic actress currently on The Tube, for THREE YEARS IN A ROW!!!

The best show on television...and only 1.5 million of you are watching...

It would seem that the bad guys could do this INDEFINITELY...

Kind of like, in Iraq...

"It is relatively rare for four or more soldiers to be killed by a single IED, or improvised explosive device. But insurgents have been using increasingly sophisticated tactics in the manufacture and planting of the roadside bombs, which account for about 70 percent of combat casualties."

-Laura King, Los Angeles Times

Maybe you're thinking that's a 2004 dispatch from Dubya's Nation-Building in Iraq...but no, it's from today's L.A. Times, reporting on Obama's Nation-Building...in Afghanistan...

30 U.S. dead in Afghanistan this month alone...and the month isn't even over yet...

In terms of domestic affairs and domestic policy, the greatest and most significant president of the last sixty years was Lyndon B. Johnson. Period. He is rarely acknowledged or credited as such, especially by the liberals whose agenda he enacted with energy and skill (and let that be a warning to all would-be liberal presidents...the liberals' sense of entitlement is utterly insatiable), but we all live in Lyndon Johnson's America. Ronald Reagan came into the presidency openly declaring war on The Great Society, and left eight years later having failed to make even the slightest dent.

Obama doesn't have a tenth of LBJ's legislative expertise and experience. He doesn't have LBJ's cunning, savvy, and sheer ruthlessness for lawmaking. He doesn't have Johnson's appetite for wheeling and dealing and bargaining and bullying lawmakers.

He'd much rather be a movie star.

And that's why, in the final analysis, conservatives and Republicans have little to fear from Obama. Simply put, he's no L.B.J.

The parallels between 1977 and 2009 are mounting...and that must be haunting to Democrats and liberals with any sort of historical memory.

Just as in '77, a politician bereft of national experience, yet swollen with a sense of his own sanctimony and virtue, ascended to the presidency, announcing an Age of Aquarius for a nation weary of war, corruption, and economic collapse. Like Obama, Carter succeeded a president with a genial disposition and near-total inability to express himself intelligently. Like Obama, Carter had a filibuster-proof Senate majority (60 votes exactly!), and a discredited opposition in total intellectual and organizational disarray. And like Obama, Carter had a sweeping agenda of major legislation that he dumped on Congress to enact, largely without his involvement or intervention.

Fortunately for the Republic, Carter's legislative achievements were ultimately meager, if galling (alas, the Department of Education is with us forever...), and so is likely to be the case with Obama.

Obama has declared, "being president means being able to do more than one thing at a time." Mmm no, not really. At least, not doing it well.

But let him learn the hard way. The rest of us will be spared a mess of expensive and unwieldy programs that live on in our wallets, enduring into eternity...

Congressional Republicans are irrelevant at the moment. Their self-paralyzed condition is a good thing for the Republic and the party on many levels. Knowing that, let them take no credit when Obama's legislative wish list implodes in September and October. No, when Obama's agenda goes down in flames this autumn, it will be because of the opposition of moderate and conservative Democrats in Congress.

Too many Democrats from rural and suburban districts are reeling with sticker shock from the earliest (and probably wildly conservative) cost estimates of universal health care and cap and trade. Too many of them do not want to have to run for re-election in 2010 while laboring under the label of "tax-and-spend" liberals. Their constituents expected them to do something about swelling unemployment and foreclosures, not erect long-term monuments in the form of unsustainable programs to Obama.

Just because Obama has arrogantly elected to ignore the "short-term" problems of average Americans to focus on his "long-term" agenda of transforming human history and the life of the Republic, doesn't mean the ordinary Democratic congressman from Indiana is on board. In fact, he or she probably isn't, if only for the sake of their own political health and survival.

Barring serious and lingering injuries to a half-dozen players (and at their age, that's always an issue), the Celtics will win the NBA title in June 2010.

Renting the services of Rasheed "On-The Court Issues" Wallace for the '09-'10 campaign radically transforms the overall fortunes of Gang Green. Plus, we all know how complacency undoes defending champs, and the Lakers are a slothful bunch to begin with...

Lamar Odom, Dallas desperately needs you...or Golden State...

The latest round of poll numbers lead me to remove "phenomenon status" from our 44th Chief Executive's list of titles. Every major polling organization of any repute has shown a marked decline in his job approval stats as reality dawns on the American electorate.

The ABC News-Washington Post poll shows a six point drop to 59%, the USA Today-Gallup poll shows a six point drop to 55%, Ipsos-McClatchy shows a seven point drop to 57%, and the Hotline poll shows a NINE point plunge to 56%.

The Gallup organization reports that of the 12 postwar presidents, Obama currently ranks 10th out of the 12 in job approval rankings after six months in office...Dubya was 11th and Clinton was 12th.

Fortunately for Obama, the G.O.P. remains committed to its own spectacular ineptitude...for the time being...

The inaptly named "Big Five" emerged from the mists and fog of The Governor's Office last night to announce "peace in our time"...no, that was another travesty of a summit some decades ago, but the fundamental fictional quality of the pronouncement remains the same. Actually, what passes for political leadership in this state declared that they had a budget deal that solves the fiscal follies of California for 2009-2010...

Well...

Details remain intentionally nebulous, but it would appear that the Titans of Sacramento have labored and strained to produce...accounting gimmickry. The jihad remnant that is the California GOP hails said deal for its lack of tax increases, and the senseless socialists that is the California Democratic Caucus laments its draconian spending cuts and "shared sacrifice." Which all sounds like a sham...

The more astute and informed observers note a high quotient of optimism and wishful thinking in the deal's revenue projections. This whole budget deal is still predicated on stubborn overspending and undertaxation in the face of steadily plummeting revenues, which means that even if the Legislature approves it Thursday, and the Governor signs it Friday, it could be obsolete and out of whack before Thanksgiving.

I predicted that Obamanon would have to step in and bail the state out. I'm going to wait on saying that I was wrong, if only because I don't believe this whole mess is truly resolved.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that 31.2% of all U.S. welfare recipients reside in the state of California.

Texas has 3.7% of all U.S. welfare recipients.

New York has 6.7% of all U.S. welfare recipients.

No other state comes remotely close to California in terms of welfare population caseload.

One out of three U.S. welfare recipients lives in California...think about that...

The Gallup polling organization reports a slight increase in independent voters and a slight decrease in Democratic Party voters. According to Gallup's survey of 5,000 registered voters over the last three months, 37% of all registered voters are independents, 34% of registered voters are Democrats, and 28% of registered voters are Republicans.

Three months ago Gallup reported 35% independent, 35% Democratic, 28% Republican.

In today's Wall Street Journal, conservative pundit Peggy Noonan delivers the definitive demolition of Sarah Palin's political reputation...It is an instant classic...

I'm going to try to link to it...

You may have noticed that there have been some spectacular changes in the overall presentation of Cullison's Corner...All of this dramatic change in the look of the blog is entirely due to the great efforts of my brother-in-law Joe Ercoli...

The man is a tech genius! Let us pay homage!!

See his photo blog @ http://www.anvilimage.com

The Gallup tracking poll has Obamanon dipping into mere mortal territory, with 56% approving and 36% disapproving. The Rasmussen tracking poll of likely voters has him slipping even further, with only 52% of likely voters approving.

Seems you can only live on hope and glamour for so long...Fortunately for Obama there's no plausible opposition in the foreseeable future...

Holy cow...I had totally counted Boston out...one and done with The Big Three...well move over Triumphant Trio, it's now The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse...The addition of Wallace just made Boston the odds-on favorite to knock out The Fakers in June...

Between Wallace in Boston and Artest infecting the Lakers' locker room, another titlecould well be headed to the Athens of America in 2010...

...as he plunges us headlong into more nation-building in Afghanistan...

In 1966, the House Ways and Means Committee declared that by the year 1990,  Medicare would cost no more than $12 billion.

1. Ensign

2. Sanford

3. Palin

4. All the people in the G.O.P. and the conservative movement who enable #1, #2, and #3.

5. A political party that bases its entire social policy on the Book of Leviticus.

6. A political party that preaches free market conservatism but spends as much money as libs.

I remain profoundly skeptical of Obama and his policies, but the G.O.P. and conservatism are utterly bereft of intellectual and moral credibility. At best they are embarrassingly erratic and incompetent, at worst they are outright hypocrites who couldn't properly supervise a one-car funeral.

Disagree vehemently with Obama (and on economics and foreign policy I do), but right now he and his crowd are The Stable and Rational Party.

Lincecum's dominance is truly something to behold...he's in a Hersheiser-like zone at the moment...I remain pleasantly astonished by the Giants' prosperity...

The Celts put the fullcourt press on one Rasheed Wallace to join Gang Green for the '09-'10 campaign...I bet it happens...when KG himself participates in the lobbying, you know they're serious...

If we know anything about Boston's Finest Franchise, they always get their man...

How is THAT going to work? I don't see him and Kobe co-existing harmoniously...

Marbury has departed the Celts after his stint as an overpriced, underperforming sub. Good riddance. I predict he winds up a Warrior or a Clipper...

...that there are scarier things out there than an Obama Administration...

"When did the GOP become such a bunch of quitters? Whatever happened to the party of Larry Craig and his you'll-never-take-me-from-this-stall-alive spirit?"

-Bruce Reed, Slate

Sarah Palin's surprise resignation from the Alaska governorship is the latest jolt to the G.O.P. in particular and conservatism in general. Palin will exit the Governor's Office three weeks from Sunday.

The Dodgers slugger appears to be further proof of what a libertarian country this is at heart...The man got a thirty game drug suspension, and he's returning tonight to adulation and reverence...

A whole generation of baseball appears to be exonerated...at least in the court of public opinion...

So when will Rose make into the Hall of Fame? Shoeless Joe?

Today, the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld the death sentence for Richard Wade Farley. I was in high school when Richard Wade Farley murdered several people in my hometown of Sunnyvale, California. I was in high school TWENTY YEARS AGO!!!...

Farley did his deed in 1988. It took the courts four years to convict him and sentence him to death. It has been seventeen years since the man was sentenced to death for crimes he plainly and indisputably committed. Relatives of Farley's victims have passed away in those seventeen years, but Farley is still walking around breathing. Today's ruling by the California Supremes only means that we have 3-5 years of further appeals before he might possibly see the business end of a needle.

Which brings me to my rhetorical question...What is the point of having the death penalty if there's a 20-25 year lag between sentencing and execution? Why spend the money on this system with so little to show for it? It's an expensive exercise in futility. What kind of catharsis can be had by anybody when there's literally a generation between sentencing and execution?

Speaking to a gathering of teachers in San Diego today, Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for the creation of a system of "merit pay" for teachers. Such a system would be based in part on students' test scores.

Just as an opening aside, there's absolutely no need for the Department of Education. It was part of the great legacy of lameness left behind by Jimmy Carter in the late 70s. Reagan came to office swearing to get rid of it, but somehow he never got around to consigning it to the ash heap of history like he promised...but that's another story...

The fundamental issue here is merit pay for teachers. The reason that merit pay for teacher is intrinsically unworkable is that it is an attempt to apply capitalist principles to an inherently socialist system. Think about it.

That's basically why merit pay will never happen. It just won't work. So we should stop talking about it. It's an operational non-starter.

By sending the Marines into battle today in Afghanistan, Obama has shown that he has learned absolutely nothing from the misbegotten nation-building of the Dubya Era. Just as we pull out of one quagmire in Iraq, Obama entangles us in another...this time in The Graveyard of Empires.

Nation-building never works out well for us, counterinsurgency is an oxymoron, and we really don't have the money for any more of this nonsense.

Unless the continental U.S. is under invasion, we need to refrain from anything resembling a war for at least a generation. By then perhaps we'll have paid off the costs of the current fiascoes.

According to the Associated Press, missile experts here in the U.S. think that the North Koreans are using old Soviet missile parts for their rocket program...

I knew there was nothing to worry about...

I used to have this poster in my classroom that showed God's Other Son, Larry Joe Bird, diving for a loose ball. Beneath the picture was the caption, "It just makes me sick when I see guys just watching the ball go out of bounds...you gotta leave it all on the floor..."

That's a maxim that applies far beyond the NBA (although they could sure use a reminder) to life in general...

"San Francisco is 47 square miles surrounded by reality."

-Gavin Newsom

You said it buddy...make that your slogan next year...

I see where Arnold is now lambasting the labor unions as the source of the state's current fiscal jackpot.

There may be more than a little veracity in such an assertion, but what does that buy him? Shouldn't the rhetoric be more conciliatory at this point? Talk like that is only going to antagonize the other side and prolong the standoff...

Unless of course the goal all along has been to have the feds step in and bail us out...wait for things to get so bad that Obama has to jump in just to save his own political future...

There's nobody out there...NOBODY...the leading contender at this point is Romney, and that's largely by default...

It's not just that the bench isn't deep...there's NO BENCH!!!...

Maybe Pawlenty out of Minnesota, but aside from him, there is no talent,no bright potential out there...

From "The Streets of San Francisco" days, Ruthe Stein in The San Francisco Chronicle writes...

"Once, when the series was shooting in Chinatown, a teenage boy was hit by a car. Mr. Malden immediately jumped in to assist, holding up traffic until an ambulance arrived. A gathering crowd thought it was a scene from the show."

Mick La Salle in today's San Francisco Chronicle...

"The fact that Karl Malden broke his nose twice guaranteed that he would never be a leading man,but the look helped define him in ways that helped him as a character actor. Malden was really at his best when playing off the humble-man appearance...there would come a moment when the audience would suddenly see past the Everyman looks. And there, suddenly revealed, would be someone shrewder, more observant, and more formidable than they expected---someone with the dignity of true intelligence."

Nicely said.

Reading this morning's San Francisco Chronicle, it's no wonder most Californians are unperturbed by the issuance of IOUs by the state government. Even most Californians who depend on Sacramento for a regular check are utterly unaffected. Consider the following quote from this morning's article...

"California plans to begin issuing billions of dollars in IOUs today to scores of creditors, including private businesses and county governments."

"The move will not affect many individuals who receive government assistance. Low-income people, the elderly and the disabled will receive their regular checks on schedule. Schools, state workers, Medi-Cal providers, pension funds, and In-Home Supportive Services are all protected by law from receiving an IOU in lieu of a real check."


The bold-face emphasis is mine, not the Chronicle writer's...

I am impressed by how little the California public cares about the fiscal abyss into which we've fallen. Most Californians are impressively indifferent to the bleeding budget and the two parties' obstinate bickering over how to halt the hemorrhaging. I should know. I live with one of the indifferent.

There are three possible reasons for the public's general nonchalance on this issue...

1. They are utterly paralyzed with grief over the passing of the King of Pop.

2. They are totally unaware of the definition of a budget and the existence of state government.

3. Like my wife, they refuse to take the bait and get anxious about an inconsequential charade.

My wife's batting record in assessment of these crises is pretty much 1000, but I still think that there's a significant percentage of Californians for whom Reasons #1 and #2 apply.

The combination of ever-escalating insolvency and intransigence in Sacramento reinforces my conviction that this fiasco we call a budget process will climax with federal intervention. Today's revelation of a federal threat to seize control of the state parks if Sacramento tries to close them is but the first step in what will ultimately be an Obama usurpation of much of state government.

The G.O.P. will not yield on taxes and the Dems will not yield on spending. With the State Capitol degenerating into The Western Front circa 1916, California's economy will sag further, keeping the rest of the nation securely anchored to the ocean floor of recession. This, Obama cannot have. With the rising tide of national joblessness likely to crest at 10% this Friday, Obamanon will be under the gun to produce real recovery, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, in time for The Fall Classic, a mere sixteen months away. In short, a California that is utterly dead in the economic water plays all sorts of hell with his entire agenda, indeed, his very political survival.

I suspect that Obama will allow the trench warfare of California state politics to persist for another two weeks, three at the most. If there is no resolution at that time, he will direct Geithner to open the federal cash spigots in the direction of The Golden State.

But what about all of the other states with budget woes of their own? Won't they have a plausible case for similar federal munificence? Sure, but they won't get any.

How will Obama and Geithner get around that sticky political thicket? Easy. They'll construct a public fiction that all sorts of onerous conditions are attached to California's bailout, and that California will have to pay a steep political and economic price for accepting such federal aid. The effect will be to make California's acceptance of federal aid appear to be a most unappetizing option for other states, without ever really imposing any substantive penalties on The Golden State. A major bit of sleight of hand? Sure, but greater cons have been contrived in far more desperate circumstances.

The Feds are coming...I'm calling it right now...I'm nominating myself for The Nostradamus Award, right here and now.

Looks HILARIOUS!!!...Eager for its release...

I'm going to end my homage to the Late Great Karl with my favorite Malden moment...it's an especially powerful scene in one of the towering cinematic masterpieces of all time...as a crusading blue-collar priest in "On The Waterfront," Malden's Father Corrigan confronts the Mob's violent dominion over the New Jersey docks...in this particular clip, a longshoreman has been brutally murdered by the Mob after he dares to speak out against their reign...Father Corrigan's scorching eulogy rouses the conscience of Marlon Brando's Terry Malloy...

Just superb...

As you'll see, the 70s were scary times for tourists...fortunately, there was Karl Malden, his reassuring fedora, and American Express travelers' checks...

Keeping the streets of SF safe...one of the greatest opening sequences in the history of television...

The reassuring face of American Express for two decades...

Well that was faster than I had anticipated...Helen Thomas, hardly a paragon of conservative journalism or opinion, jumped ALL OVER the Obama Administration for their stage management of the news, contending at one point that Obama was worse than Nixon when it came to trying to control the press...

You know you're in trouble when CBS News AND Helen Thomas double team you with jagged queries about "pre-packaged questions."

No mention whatsoever of the passing of Karl Malden...MJ, Farrah, and Ed McMahon all get inches on the nation's Tabloid of Record, but not this giant of stage and screen?

Shame, Drudge...

The great Karl Malden passed away today at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. He was a stellar film actor for years, winning an Oscar in "Streetcar Named Desire," and probably should have won another two for "On The Waterfront" and "Patton" (his performances were excellent, but more importantly, he held his own against the two all-time cinematic divas, Marlon Brando and George C. Scott). For a man with a distinctly bulbous nose ( he once quipped that his nose alone qualified him for handicapped parking), he got a lot of superb mileage out of Hollywood.

However, for me, Karl Malden will always be the curiously cool old guy from "The Streets of San Francisco," and the American Express commercials ("Don't leave home without it.") in the '70s. Sporting a trenchcoat and a fedora throughout the 70s, he still came off like a badass...the seemingly genial grandpa clenching a pair of brass knuckles...

It is a low day...let us pay homage to the great Karl Malden...

God is punishing Spike Lee for all of those nasty, blasphemous things he's said about Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics...

At long last, we are leaving Iraq. Let our departure from Mess-o-potamia mark a departure from the utopian folly of nation-building.

Today Iraq, tomorrow Afghanistan. No more nation-building, no more utopianism, no more Lawrence of Arabia flights of fancy.

We have no more economic means to throw away in pursuit of impossible ends.

A prelude to taking over the entire state?...Hmmm...

Worst governor of California...ever? Gray Davis held the title, but after the last several months, Arnold has overtaken The Gray Ghost on Herbert Hoover points...

Let the Schwarzenegger Administration be a lesson to us all...recall elections buy us absolutely nothing...

Could Jerry Brown be any worse the second time around as governor of California?

Might he be improved this time around?

He's incredibly smart, experienced, and above all else, sane...and for that reason he has no chance of being nominated by the anemic cult that is the California G.O.P.

In about forty minutes the state of California will be insolvent. In a spectacular manifestation of dysfunctional governance, the richest state in the richest nation in the world is less than an hour away from utter bankruptcy, both literally and figuratively.

After Obama bails us out to save his own political skin, the Governor and the entire Legislature should resign and leave the state in shame.

I understand that Mark Sanford wants to get a lot of things off his chest, that he has things that he really wants to say, but for the love of God man, DON'T babble your inner angst and lovelorn yearnings to AP REPORTERS!!!

Sanford's political and marital suicide would have probably faded from attention by today, had the Palmetto State governor not invited a reporter and his tape recorder to witness and record him pouring a fresh gallon of kerosene on himself and striking a match. Thus, the story gets another couple of days of media attention with memorable quotes like, "Maria is my soulmate, but I'm trying to fall in love with my wife again," or "I've crossed the line with other women."

Good stuff for hour-long sessions with your therapist in a sound-proofed room, but when it's sprayed all over the Internet via the Associated Press, it exacerbates the not inconsiderable damage that you've already done to the political party and philosophy that you've professed to support these many years.

The GOP needs to take up a collection to immediately spirit the Governor out of the country and deposit him in the Andes where he can wander like Heathcliff, loudly lamenting the loss of his soulmate. Somebody apply a tourniquet to this human hemorrhage, please...

Glanced at the standings the other day, and the Giants are serious playoff contenders! When the hell did that happen?

"Entourage" is just good, reliable, decadent fun. I'm amazed that they've been able to sustain the quality of the show and maintain its consistent humor over six years. Most shows run out of gas after five years, but "Entourage" is the warhorse of HBO, producing an amazingly entertaining program that showcases sharp writing and the incomparable talent of Jeremy Piven.

Sure, it's mostly guy humor, but it's stellar nonetheless...

For over three decades, the GOP has enjoyed handsome political profits by harnessing its fortunes and its platform to the passions of religious evangelicals, henceforth described in this post as "The Theocrats." Obsessively preoccupied with what they dub "traditional values," the Theocrats have been the dominant faction in the Party of Lincoln, T.R., and Eisenhower since their ascendancy in late 1970s, elbowing aside the economic libertarians and good government reformers of earlier decades with their insistence that American society be ordered along the lines of The Old Testament (or at least, some particular remembrance of 1950s America). The energy of this faction paid great electoral dividends for Reagan (ironically our only divorced president) and The Bush Dynasty.

In their continuous genuflection to the menu of demands put forth by The Theocrats, the GOP finds itself in a philosophically schizoid condition. On one hand, Republicans tirelessly preach the virtues of economic freedom and minimal government involvement in the marketplace (while admittedly increasing the size, power, and intrusiveness of the federal government to a level of bloat that is as obscene as it is epic). The Republican economic message of the last thirty years can be condensed to seven words: when in doubt, cut taxes and deregulate.

On the other hand, the party that tells government to back away slowly from your wallet is the same party that argues for policing individuals' behavior in the name of Leviticus. They rightfully deride the government's competence to manage the marketplace, but they shrilly urge government regulation of private lives and behavior. To be governed by such a philosophic cognitive dissonance is plainly unsustainable. Ask Newt Gingrich. Or John Ensign. Or Mark Sanford. The party is buckling under the weight of its own moribund and contradictory thought.

Liberty can be defined in an eight word sentence that any preschooler can comprehend; leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone. It is infinitely more flexible in the face of human frailty and desirable in day-to-day living than societies constructed by mullahs, popes, or Puritan elders. In order to restore its status as a credible alternative to Obamanon's Second Great Society, the GOP needs to be a party that stands for liberty, not theocracy.

The sloppy, sordid mess that is the Sanford affair is more than just the implosion of another G.O.P. contender for the throne in 2012. It goes to the core of the Republicans' current problem. They have no plausible public identity. Or rather, their public identity has been exposed as fraudulent. Indeed, Sanford is the penultimate expression of the intellectual and emotional bankruptcy of the Grand Old Party and the conservative cause that it purports to uphold and defend.

From an ideological and policy point of view, Dubya's eight year reign utterly eviscerated the party's claim to the mantle of small, limited government. Pretty much from start to finish, Dubya expanded the role of the federal government to elephantine proportions, launching all manner of utopian enterprises that proved as costly as they were unworkable. From No Child Left Behind to The Patriot Act to Iraq and the mirage of democratizing the Middle East by bayonet, Dubya took the federal government (and the party that followed him fanatically) into bold new frontiers of unnecessary and unsustainable activity. 43 capped off this legacy of utopian slop with bailouts of banks and auto companies that were (by his own admission) totally at odds with Free Markets 101. Then he sauntered out of office, leaving the party's future and the nation's finances a shambles.

There is a symbolic connection between Sanford's meltdown and the rapidly eroding fortunes of his party and ideology. As governor, Sanford railed against accepting Obamanon's stimulus funds to the states, then collapsed and caved in. Sanford wanted to be a poster boy for small, limited government and traditional family values, but like Dubya, the rhetoric was woefully at odds with his operational reality.

The G.O.P. can't pretend that Sanford is an isolated issue, that his individual woes don't reflect deeper, more pervasive problems for the party and its philosophy.

The question for the G.O.P. and conservatism in the days and months ahead is what does it truly stand for? What can it honestly advertise itself as BEING without being exposed as a hypocritical fraud shortly thereafter?

Obama is clearly bent on doubling down on Dubya's Big-Government binge. Do the Republicans want to offer a clear and honest alternative? Do they want to be the party of economic liberty? Do they want to be the party of sober, balanced, adults?

...to 58% approval...Five months in and the bloom is off the rose...Gallup reports that Obamanon is hemorrhaging independents over his fiscal policies and health care proposals...

Kobe is vindicated...he won a ring without Shaq.  A sincere congratulations from this veteran Lakers hater is in order...

1.  There's no money.

 There's a statistic in today's Wall Street Journal poll that should send chills through The Obamanauts...

A plea to A.B.C....do not let yourself be used as an infomercial for Obamanon...don't let the bias show through THAT much...

One more reason to salute and revere the achievements of Roger Maris...

Watching Bill O'Reilly's verbal assault on Salon editor Joan Walsh last night, I fully expected (and hoped) that this century's Joe McCarthy would stroke out in mid-rant. Alas, Fox News' prize bully is alive and ranting as of this writing. Fully living up to Ms. Walsh's earlier description of him as "vile," O'Reilly's unhinged verbal thuggery reflected his apparent belief that the bile duct is the seat of all wisdom, and that, to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, discourtesy in the pursuit of ratings is no vice. It was also a vivid manifestation of why conservatism is currently in such disrepute. Finger-jabbing, foam-mouthed vitriol is as unpersuasive as it is alienating, and O'Reilly's junior high locker room persona will not win converts to the cause. I've never agreed with Ms. Walsh on any issue, and last night she had my complete sympathy and support. I'm just mystified as to why she assented to appear on that poor excuse for a program in the first place.

At this point in his life, Bill O'Reilly probably makes too much money to experience sensations like shame and embarrassment, but nonetheless, Joseph Welch's words of reproach to the senator from Wisconsin are equally appropriate for Joe McCarthy's twenty-first century reincarnation..."Have you no sense of decency sir? At long last, have you no sense of decency?"

Today's polls from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times show a five point decline in Obamanon's job approval. WSJ pegs the president's job approval rating at 56%, down from 61% two months ago. The paper of record shows His Worship falling from a lofty 68% two months ago to a still-impressive 63%.

Both polls show a public increasingly nervous about the president's fiscal incontinence.

According to this afternoon's Sacramento Bee, a U.C.L.A. economist has said that state worker layoffs will add four-tenths of a percentage point to California's double-digit unemployment.

At the moment, California has 11% unemployment, the worst in 70 years. Push that up to 11.4% or 11.5%, and you have the eighth largest economy in the world pulling down the the biggest.

Politically, Obama cannot afford to have that statistic linger in the double digits...

A comic, a very left-wing comic, finally did what is months overdue...he opened up a can on Obamanon...

Bill Maher came at Obama in spectacular fashion on his June 12th HBO program, skewering His Worship for five months of opulent overexposure on the telly...True, Maher was primarily ticked that Obama is not fulfilling his liberal agenda, but the real point is that the acerbic HBO host stepped up to the plate and did what every comic in a post-Kennedy, post-Vietnam,post-Watergate, post-Iran-Contra, post Lewinsky America is supposed to do to a president...tee off on him. Unleash the iconoclastic dogs of war. We elect presidents, not popes.

Go on Youtube for the full five minute clip.

I salute Maher for his great comedy and courage. A liberal Obama fan had the stones to call out His Worship on the orgy of self-worship...Well-done and long overdue...

You can stop worrying about California's budget crisis...

According to today's Washington Post, the Obama Administration is waiting in the wings to bailout the Golden State should the current legislative impasse genuinely imperil California's economic condition. Obamanon & Co. fear that we could drag the rest of the nation down into recessionary oblivion should we actually impose steep budget cuts.

The money quote is below...

"The administration is worried that California will enact massive cuts to close its deficit...aggravating the state's recession and further dragging down the national economy."

"After a sereis of meetings, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, top White House economists, Lawrence Summers and Christina Romer, and other senior officials have decided that California could hold on a little longer and should get its budget in order rather than rely on a federal bailout."

"These policymakers continue to watch the situation closely and do not rule out helping the state if its situation significantly deteriorates, a senior administration official said. But in that case, federal help would carry conditions to protect taxpayers and make similar requests for aid unattractive to other states, the official said. The official did not detail those conditions."

So there you have it...Obamanon is clearly leaving the door open for a federal infusion of cash to forestall significant cuts in California's welfare state. They see California's economy as inextricably intertwined with the health of the overall economy, and their own political fortunes. It is in Obama's most intimate political interest to bailout California, and he just tipped his hand in a big way.

Knowing that, why would California's Democratic state legislators agree to any spending cuts? Why would the state's Republican legislators agree to any tax hikes? Just hunker down and wait for the state's economic situation to get so bad that Obama will rush in with aid.

What will be interesting to see is if Obama tries to use the Golden State's fiscal desperation to leverage major political changes in state government, namely, the evisceration of Proposition 13. Will state Republicans revolt and refuse federal rather than give up their minority control of the state budget process? What if Obama says that in exchange for federal aid, California has to give up its two-thirds majority legislative approval requirement for every state budget?

What we do know is that there is no incentive for the California Legislature to pass a budget. In the final analysis, Obama will do for California what he has done for the car companies...bailout with strings...the federalization of California's budget process looms...