It’s Friday, December 23rd, 2011….and here’s The Gouge!
Given the latest misfire from The Gang That Still Can’t Shoot Straight, whoever is running the GOP would do well to read our two lead items, courtesy of the WSJ. First, thanks to a display of ineptitude rarely seen even on Capitol Hill, Republicans are picking up the pieces of….
A Payroll Tax Deal
Will Obama now kill the Keystone pipeline?
The latest exercise in Washington burlesque ended yesterday, when House Republicans agreed to pass the Senate’s two-month payroll tax holiday extension and the Democrats who run the Senate agreed to appoint negotiators to work out a year-long extension. The best you can say about this political melodrama is that it’s over.
President Obama will take a victory lap, and he played his hand well if cynically. The two-percentage-point payroll tax holiday has done nothing to lift the economy this year, and it won’t matter in 2012. As Milton Friedman taught us, temporary tax changes don’t lead to permanent changes in consumer, taxpayer or business behavior.
The only potential job creator in the Senate bill is the plank requiring Mr. Obama to make a decision in 60 days on the Keystone XL pipeline. And he might ruin that by killing the pipeline to please his rich green supporters who think you can power a modern economy with windmills, solar cells and switchgrass. But at least now he’ll have to decide before the election, and if Mr. Obama kills the pipeline he might doom a Democratic Senator or two.
The only purpose of this tax holiday was political, and the House Republican mistake was falling into the President’s trap. They let him pose as a tax-cutter while they put on their pointy accountant hats and talked about “the Social Security trust fund,” as if such a thing contains real money. The better strategy was to extend the payroll holiday, get something in return, and then talk about how Mr. Obama wants to push the economy off his multiple tax-increase cliff in 2013.
Republicans do need to fight for their priorities, but it helps to pick the right fights. They should return in 2012 ready to make their differences clear on taxes, health care, regulation, and how to grow an economy.
Which brings us to the latest from Kimberly Strassel:
The GOP’s Message Problem
While independents are disappointed in the president, they are skeptical that Republicans offer anything better.
Whether the GOP recognizes it or not, Barack Obama recently handed the party a Christmas present. He spent December giving Republicans fair warning as to just how potent a candidate he will prove in 2012, and how they’d better start upping their game.
All eyes are on the Republican caucuses in Iowa, yet the president has been providing a show of his own. Recent polls have Mr. Obama’s approval rating creeping back toward 50%, after all-time lows this fall. He’s also performing well in matchups against potential GOP nominees.
Political watchers are full of speculation as to why. It might be the small economic glimmers, those not-as-horrible-as-expected numbers on unemployment. Or maybe it is because the GOP presidential candidates are attacking each other and congressional Republicans are botching the payroll tax fight. Or perhaps Mr. Obama has found a winner in his “I’m-for-the-middle-class” argument.
It could be all those things. Then again, it could be that Republicans, to the extent they are even being heard, are consistently failing to provide the sort of message that will resonate with those voters who will matter most in 2012.
One mistake the party is making is fighting this race like the 2010 midterms. A certain laziness has settled in, based on the notion that the GOP can make 2012 another referendum on the president’s mismanagement. But while Obama-bashing may again fire up the conservative base, it delivers nothing to those crucial independent and middle-of-the-road voters who are anxious, confused and looking for someone to convince them they have a better plan.
All this is clear from the new results of a project by the conservative 527 group American Crossroads. The press loves to obsess over the amount of money Crossroads and other third-party organizations pour into races. This misses the amount of time these groups put into researching how to spend their dollars most effectively.
Toward that end, Crossroads devoted a month to conducting 18 in-depth focus groups in battleground states. The sessions, some of which included dozens of participants, focused solely on independents and “soft” Republicans and Democrats who had voted for Barack Obama in 2008. These are the voters Mr. Obama is fighting to re-enlist in 2012, and whom Republicans need to win.
To sum up: While this constituency is deeply disappointed in the president, it is deeply skeptical that Republicans offer anything better. Take the case of the debt, which these voters list as their second largest concern (after the economy). What quickly became clear in the focus groups is that voters see the size of the debt as a proxy for Washington incompetence.
As a result, the constant GOP refrain that Mr. Obama has overspent—the “fiscal” argument—washes over these voters; they are convinced anyone in Washington would do the same. What resonates instead is the “moral” argument about the size of government. Complain to voters that Mr. Obama has “overspent,” and they tune out. Explain to voters that Mr. Obama—in keeping with his vision of all-powerful federal government—wasted millions on Solyndra with a loan that impeded private markets and created no jobs, and they are enraged.
“To lock down voters in the middle, Republicans are going to have to convince them that Obama isn’t just a flawed and ineffective leader, but that he has an agenda and motivations that they don’t share,” says Steven Law, president and CEO of Crossroads, which in mid-December began running a Solyndra ad called “Typical” that takes aim at Mr. Obama’s “Washington deals.” It also means, says Mr. Law, that Republicans must “remind voters that big-government excesses like Solyndra, stimulus and ObamaCare are prologue for where the Democrats still want to take us.”
Consider that ObamaCare was a concern of the focus group, though it had notably receded. This is in part because, while the GOP often complains about the law and its individual mandate, it has largely stopped explaining to voters what else is in it, or how other upcoming provisions will hurt consumers, or exactly how they grow government.
Presidential aspirants and congressional Republicans, take note: To make a moral argument against the president, you also have to make one for yourselves. To the extent the GOP is lobbing the usual Obama complaints or going to the mat over who cares more about a piddling payroll tax holiday, it is wasting time.
If Republicans want to take the White House or the Senate, the next 11 months have to be an exercise in crisp compare-and-contrast. They have to explain Mr. Obama’s tax and regulatory and energy and health-care policy and make the “moral” argument against it. But to do that effectively they must simultaneously embrace and sell their own sweeping alternative vision of the universe. If Mitt Romney thinks he can win by out-pandering Mr. Obama with the middle class, he’s never seen Democrats pander. All he does is muddy a debate that demands clarity.
If 2012 is a referendum on a president that Americans know and personally like, who might be presiding over a marginally better economy, and who might be no worse than the other guy, they may well stick with what they know. If they’ve got a real choice, that’s another thing.
And the inexcusably amateurish handling of what should have been a slam-dunk on the extension of the payroll tax holiday is the perfect example. Leadership had no clue what the rank-and-file were thinking, Boehner and McConnell weren’t on the same page and the Tea Party freshman chose to make a stand on a principle the American people neither understood nor cared about, particularly at Christmas.
As we’ve said many a time, if 32-1/2 years with TLJ has taught us one thing (other than the fact we married WAY over our head!), it’s that you can be right….and still be wrong!
It’s a lesson Conservatives in the House need to take to heart.
Meanwhile, even some of the most hardcore in Hollywood are finally realizing what the rest of us have known all along:
Damon: Obama’s No Leader
Which is particularly rich coming from someone who makes his living pretending to be something he’s not.
In a related item….
U.S. Admits Mistakes Led to Attack on Pakistani Soldiers
Once again, success has but one father….
….while any failure is always the fault of someone else….most likely George W. Bush, some other Republican or the U.S. Military!
And in the George Santayana Memorial “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” segment, courtesy today of Carl Polizzi and the Washington Times….
Nuke Scientist Exchange Planned
Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel B. Poneman is working on a major Obama administration initiative that would renew scientist exchanges between U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and Chinese nuclear facilities. The idea is aimed at promoting openness and transparency by China’s military about its secret, large-scale buildup of nuclear weapons, according to U.S. officials.
Critics say the plan is similar to an exchange program in the 1990s that sent U.S. nuclear scientists to China and produced one of the worst cases of nuclear espionage. Secrets about every deployed warhead in the U.S. arsenal were compromised, including the W-88 small nuclear warhead deployed on submarine-launched missiles.
“We’ve seen this movie before, and it has a bad ending,” one official said.
Officials familiar with the plan told Inside the Ring that the initiative was discussed during a recent policy committee meeting of senior national security officials at the White House. The initiative is part of the administration’s arms-control-centered security policies. According to the officials, the administration hopes to coax the reluctant Chinese communist leadership and its military into engaging the United States in strategic nuclear talks, something China so far has refused.
“This is a way to reach out to [the Chinese] with multilateral arms-control programs,” said a second U.S. official familiar with the plan.
The initiative likely will face opposition from Congress. House Republicans added language to the 2012 Defense Authorization Act that restricts the Pentagon and Energy department from cooperating with Beijing in setting up a nuclear security center in China. The provision, when signed into law, will block funding for the center until the secretary of defense certifies that China has halted nuclear proliferation and that the center will be in line with U.S. interests.
U.S. intelligence has linked China to nuclear arms proliferation in Pakistan and other emerging nuclear states.
Hey, why not?!? After all, this brand of “Thank you, sir, may I have another!” diplomacy has worked so well with the Mullahs and the NoKos!
Then there’s this rather disturbing article from BBC News, courtesy again of Carl:
Finland ‘finds Patriot missiles’ on China-bound ship
Police are questioning the crew of the MS Thor Liberty after what were described as 69 Patriot anti-missile missiles were found aboard. Interior Minister Paivi Rasanen said the missiles were marked “fireworks”. The MS Thor Liberty had docked in the Finnish port of Kotka after leaving Germany last week.
Dock workers became suspicious after finding explosives poorly stored on open pallets, and the missiles were then found in containers marked “fireworks”.
The managing director of the ship’s owner, Thorco Shipping, expressed surprise. Thomas Mikkelsen told AFP news agency from Denmark that he was unaware of the matter. Another company official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the ship had been detained in Finland and said the missiles could have been loaded on to the vessel by mistake, AFP adds.
….The MS Thor Liberty left port in Emden, northern Germany, on 13 December and docked two days later in Kotka, southern Finland, to pick up a cargo of anchor chains, said Finnish Customs spokesman Petri Lounatmaa. It was bound for the Chinese port of Shanghai but there was no indication for whom the military cargo was destined.
Please tell us if we can trace an outbreak of Mad Cow disease back to one heifer in Canada, tracking down the origin of 69 Patriot missiles won’t present a problem.
Then there’s this from the “Why Not Just Admit You’re An Idiot?!?” segment, courtesy today of Bret Baier and Special Report:
Photographer Christopher Morris compared snapping pictures in North Korea to photography inside the White House. Last December, Morris spoke to time-life about his experience in North Korea in 2005, saying he was chosen because he’d worked in the very controlled environment of the Bush White House.
Quote — “America at that time was, you’ll recall, filled with a kind of blind nationalism. But Time appreciated the way I was able to work and get good photos even with that intensely restrictive environment — and that’s why they sent me to North Korea.”
He admitted in North Korea one doesn’t have freedom of movement, but added — quote — “In some ways, I’ve found photographing in America these days a lot more restrictive than it was in North Korea. Try picking up your camera and just start shooting at JFK airport, or in a subway.”
Yeah….try shooting some unauthorized subject in North Korea, you ignorant douche bag! Seriously, it takes a certain lack of common sense as well as gray matter to make such a statement.
Speaking of ignorant douche bags, in a related item courtesy of Newsbusters.org….
Daily Kos Says North Korea No Worse Than South Korea, USA
How nutty is the Daily Kos blog? Nutty enough to make an outraged defense of North Korea? Yes. On Wednesday afternoon, Niccolo Caldararo – an adjunct professor of anthropologyat San Francisco State University – complained “The Western media wallows in the exotic and North Korea has been the clown of the 20th century, brought forward for comic relief now and then or pasted up as a ‘paper tiger,’ to scare voters before elections or as a distraction for other important news.”
To hear the professor tell it, the capitalist imperialists are licking their chops after the death of Kim Jong Il: “Let’s face it, North Korea is ripe for capitalism, there are millions of potential workers who will work for near nothing. The hope is that the regime will crumble like the Soviet Union and give way to massive investment opportunities.” He actually argues North Korea is “no less responsible toward its own citizens” than South Korea or America:
While North Korea may behave in a strange fashion at times, its political history is no less responsible toward its own citizens than the history of the South [Koreans], especially the recent history that was dominated in the 1960s to 1980s by dictatorial regimes that practiced torture and mass arrest. While we hear of starvation and torture in North Korea, these are far less well documented than the recent history of the South.
As for the nuclear weapons issue, we should also recall that the USA has been the only country to use nuclear weapons, and we used them on civilians. If the world is to be afraid of the use of these weapons by a renegade nation, one should look at the definition of the word in the context of the Bush Administration waging war in violation of international law and by the use of evidence it knew was tainted. We cannot expect a world of law and respect after such behavior.
As Cicero stated, “There can be no peace without justice.” I do not question that North Korea has problems, but that we should view the actions of the present government in the context of history, not ignorance and fear.
Caldararo even argued that the brutal, famine-causing communist regime was really America’s fault:
The specific kind of leadership and government North Korea has today is the result of its history, and especially its most recent history with America. We must consider that from the end of W.W.II until 1987 South Korea was a brutal dictatorship. Its prison camps and torture chambers were filled with not only political prisoners but also ethnic minorities and religious objectors, in fact, anyone who dared to challenge the injustice and corruption of the regime. All this time South Korea’s government had the full support of the USA. North Koreans remember this horror and base part of their posture to the USA on this history…
In a country with a history of being invaded by its neighbors, either China or Japan, North Koreans have certainly good reason to want to be isolated. But is this desire to be isolated a quality of the people of North Korea or is it just a feature of the North Korean Communist Party or its Central Committee? While everyone fears that North Korea is sort of a big Jim Jones cult gone mad, we have to recall that the people of North Korea saw the madness of the Japanese occupation and the atom bombs of the West on Japan.
When several commenters disagreed with Caldararo about North Korea, he suggested they were under-educated: “I love how people think they know what is happening in countries they have never even visited.”
Why are we willing to bet Caldararo’s never set foot in North Korea either?
Next up, the latest from a President that’s opposed to gay marriage:
Gay Couple Receives Obama Congratulations on Wedding
Which begs the question how many congratulatory notes The Dear Leader’s sent to heterosexual spouses.
On the Lighter Side….
Then there’s this from Mike McKee:
Manana!
Magoo
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