It’s Tuesday, January 24th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

Leading off the top of the today’s order, two pieces of prose, the first by Bret Stephens, the second from Ed Morrissey detailing why Newt’s supporters might as well be rats following the Pied Piper….and Romney’s acolytes aren’t advocating for anything different:

The GOP Deserves to Lose

That’s what happens when you run with losers.

Let’s just say right now what voters will be saying in November, once Barack Obama has been re-elected: Republicans deserve to lose.

It doesn’t matter that Mr. Obama can’t get the economy out of second gear. It doesn’t matter that he cynically betrayed his core promise as a candidate to be a unifying president. It doesn’t matter that he keeps blaming Bush. It doesn’t matter that he thinks ATMs are weapons of employment destruction. It doesn’t matter that Tim Geithner remains secretary of Treasury. It doesn’t matter that the result of his “reset” with Russia is Moscow selling fighter jets to Damascus. It doesn’t matter that the Obama name is synonymous with the most unpopular law in memory. It doesn’t matter that his wife thinks America doesn’t deserve him. It doesn’t matter that the Evel Knievel theory of fiscal stimulus isn’t going to make it over the Snake River Canyon of debt.

Above all, it doesn’t matter that Americans are generally eager to send Mr. Obama packing. All they need is to be reasonably sure that the alternative won’t be another fiasco. But they can’t be reasonably sure, so it’s going to be four more years of the disappointment you already know.

As for the current GOP field, it’s like confronting a terminal diagnosis. There may be an apparent range of treatments: conventional (Romney), experimental (Gingrich), homeopathic (Paul) or prayerful (Santorum). But none will avail you in the end. Just try to exit laughing.

That’s my theory for why South Carolina gave Newt Gingrich his big primary win on Saturday: Voters instinctively prefer the idea of an entertaining Newt-Obama contest—the aspiring Caesar versus the failed Redeemer—over a dreary Mitt-Obama one. The problem is that voters also know that Gaius Gingrich is liable to deliver his prime-time speeches in purple toga while holding tight to darling Messalina’s—sorry, Callista’s—bejeweled fingers. A primary ballot for Mr. Gingrich is a vote for an entertaining election, not a Republican in the White House.

Then there is Mitt Romney, even now the presumptive nominee. If Mr. Gingrich demonstrated his unfitness to be a serious Republican nominee with his destructive attacks on private equity (a prime legacy of the Reagan years), Mr. Romney has demonstrated his unfitness by—where to start?

Oh, yes, the moment in last week’s debate when Mr. Romney equivocated about releasing his tax returns. The former Massachusetts governor is nothing if not a scripted politician, and the least one can ask of such people is that they should know their lines by heart. Did nobody in Mr. Romney’s expensive campaign shop tell him that this question was sure to come, and that a decision had to be made, in advance, as to what the answer would be? Great CEOs don’t just surround themselves with consultants and advance men. They also hire contrarians, alter egos and at least someone who isn’t afraid to poke a finger in their chest. On the evidence of his campaign, Mr. Romney is a lousy CEO.

But it’s worse than that. The usual rap on Mr. Romney is that he’s robotic, but the real reason he can’t gain traction with voters is that they suspect he’s concealing some unnameable private doubt. Al Gore and George Bush Sr. were like that, too, and not just because they were all to the proverbial manor born. It’s that they were basically hollow men.

Thus the core difference between Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama: For the governor, the convictions are the veneer. For the president, the pragmatism is. Voters always see through this. They usually prefer the man who stands for something.

What about Rick Santorum and Ron Paul? They are owed some respect, especially for the contrast between their willingness to take a stand for principle against the front-runners’ willingness to say anything. But Messrs. Santorum and Paul are two tedious men, deep in conversation with some country that’s not quite America, appealing to a devoted base but not beyond it. Sorry, gentlemen: You’re not going anywhere.

Finally, there are the men not in the field: Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Haley Barbour. This was the GOP A-Team, the guys who should have showed up to the first debate but didn’t because running for president is hard and the spouses were reluctant. Nothing commends them for it. If this election is as important as they all say it is, they had a duty to step up. Abraham Lincoln did not shy from the contest of 1860 because of Mary Todd. If Mr. Obama wins in November—or, rather, when he does—the failure will lie as heavily on their shoulders as it will with the nominee.

What should readers who despair of a second Obama term make of all this? Hope ObamaCare is repealed by the High Court, the Iranian bomb is repealed by the Israeli Air Force, and the Senate switches hands, giving America a healthy spell of Hippocratic government.

All perfectly plausible. And the U.S. will surely survive four more years. Who knows? By then maybe Republicans will have figured out that if they don’t want to lose, they shouldn’t run with losers.

Gingrich ad: Only I can win debates with media, Obama, and beat Obama in general election

This isn’t a terribly new ad for Newt Gingrich; in fact, its title is “Decision Time in South Carolina,” but it’s only four days old and contains the Gingrich argument in a nutshell for Florida and the rest of the primary.  The Corner calls it a good ad even if one doesn’t agree with the argument, but perhaps that’s, er, debatable too:

There is only one candidate who can debate Barack Obama and win, stand up to the news media and win, and run against Barack Obama and win. His name is Newt.

Let’s take these premises one at a time. First, despite Gingrich’s optimism on this point, Obama will not agree to seven 3-hour “Lincoln-Douglas style” debates with Gingrich, or anyone else, either.  It’s fascinating to contemplate, but Obama will probably only accept two 2-hour debates, three at the most, in the general election, and only in the traditional media-moderated format. (And frankly, we’ll be shocked if he even agrees to those.  Think about it; he has NOTHING to gain and EVERYTHING to lose!) Why would he agree to do anything different than George Bush did in 2004 and 2000, or Bill Clinton in 1996 and 1992?  And while Gingrich would still out-debate Obama in those formats, so too would Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney.  Obama’s not really that good at debates; John McCain was just worse at them.

On “winning” debates with the media, that’s even more of a fantasy.  Gingrich certainly would win with conservatives, but the media will take those kinds of attacks and turn them into either (a) pandering or (b) paranoia.  It will be fun to watch for conservatives, and it might produce a few surprises, but it’s more likely to add to Gingrich’s negatives among the general electorate than improve them.  And his negatives are pronounced even among Republicans, as today’s Rasmussen poll in Florida shows even while he leads.

I agree with his final argument, though.  With the economy in as bad a shape as it is — and with perceptions of it still driving the election— Gingrich has a good chance of beating Obama.  However, so does Mitt Romney, and current polling (taken well before South Carolina, though) shows Romney more likely to do so than Gingrich, and even Rick Santorum could probably beat Obama.  That actually argues against the debates having much of an impact on the election in this cycle.  This election will be a referendum on Obama much more than a love affair with a Republican alternative, so a couple of debates probably won’t have much impact at all.  If the economy stays poor this year, voters will want to give Obama the heave-ho.  The best chance for victory would probably come with a candidate who can keep their negatives from overwhelming the Obama-referendum focus, and Gingrich might be the least likely of the three to accomplish that.

As Guy Benson notes in Townhall.com:

Gingrich says he’ll entice President Obama into seven multi-hour Lincoln-Douglas style exchanges in the fall.  This is pure fantasy.  Obama will, at most, agree to three 90-minute debates, as he did in 2008.  John McCain attempted to pressure his adversary into participating in ten joint town hall meetings (the setting in which the Arizona Senator was most comfortable), to no avail.   Leading in the polls, Obama abandoned his own previous bravado that he’d debate McCain, “any time, anywhere,”  and there is no reason to believe he’d behave any differently in 2012 — especially as a vulnerable incumbent whose re-election strategy relies on distracting voters from his failed record of governance.

There’s also no guarantee that Obama will even respect recent precedent by acceding to all three head-to-head matches, which are currently slated for October.  This president believes himself to be above precedents that may imperil his political goals; his recent, shameless “recess” appointment fiasco is a case in point.  Should he choose to demur on one or more debates, Obama’s election team would point to the 1964, 1968, and 1972 general elections, all of which featured zero debates, to try to justify the calculated dodges.  The media would make a perfunctory fuss – as they did when Obama broke his public financing pledge in 2008 – but that outrage would subside, inevitably succumbing to Obama Protection Syndrome.

It’s only natural Conservatives are anxious for someone to humble The Great Prevaricator, detailing his every lie and putting him in his place in front of a national audience just itching to support the candidate possessed of the requisite brilliance, bravado and eloquence.  But being a Socialist (Any yes, to all those pundits out there who continue to deny the obvious, he is indeed a Socialist!) doesn’t make Obama stupid.  Short of the MSM (and by that we mean every broadcast and cable network, newspaper and periodical other than FOX News and the WSJ) quite literally forcing him to debate, there’s no way The Obamao enters into a war of words with an opponent he cannot possibly defeat.

And yes, once he declines Newt’s invitation, every ounce of the MSM’s energy will be devoted to rewriting history so as to create the impression presidential debates went out with hula hoops and bobby socks.  Think of it this way: if a tree falls in a forest, and there’s no medium to transmit the sound, does it make a noise?  That’s the weight we give Gingrich’s promise to follow Tick-Tock around the country putting truth to his lies; great….but what if no one, again, outside of FOX News and the Wall Street Journal report it?

Remember, Liberals aren’t voting Republican no matter who tops the GOP ticket.  And Conservatives wouldn’t vote for Obama if the Devil himself….or Newt….gives the victory speech in Tampa.  The problem is the folks in the “Middle”, the “Moderates”, the “Undecideds”, which, in light of what’s at stake come November, makes them either disinterested, dimwitted or uninformed.  In any event, they’re not likely to be getting their news from Bret Baier, Brit Hume or Kimberly Strassel.

Here’s the juice; we’re in no way offering Mitt as an adequate alternative.  After all, if we’re to believe Romney’s own words, the man who deems himself singularly qualified to save the country appears strangely unable to save himself.  We’re only pointing out nominating Newt would be like daring an Italian cruise line captain to steer his ship closer to shore.

As we’ve stated before, if Newt’s the answer, we don’t understand the question.

And since we’ve broached the subject of the worst President to ever haunt the Oval Office, in this next item, courtesy of George Lawlor and the Washington Times, Joseph Curl details….

The truly dismal state of the union

There is one person — one American among the 300 million of us — who is not to blame for the state of the union. Everyone else, each of you, in some small or large way, bears some share of the blame, but not this guy. Not one little bit.

This guy is Barack Obama. He is not the least bit to blame for the dismal state of the U.S. economy. George W. Bush is, for sure, and that evil Dick Cheney, oh, no doubt. House Speaker John A. Boehner— evil, too — is, of course, to blame. But guess what? So is SenateMajority Leader Harry Reid, HouseDemocratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and every Democrat in the House and Senate. (Well, even a broken clock is right twice per day!)

Now, President Truman made it very clear: The buck stops with him. No passing the buck for that guy. But Mr. Obama blames everyone but himself. Mr. Bush, he says, left the nation in a ditch, a deep ditch, and he’s been digging out since he took office. And Congress? Those guys are just plain awful, he says. So mean. Wah, they won’t do anything I want done! Mr. Obama feels so sure about it that he’s basing his re-election campaign on bashing Capitol Hill.

But with the president delivering his State of the Union speech to Congress Tuesday night, let’s pause here to take as hard look at the real state of America, by the numbers, using only cold, hard facts.

The unemployment rate when Mr. Obamawas elected was 6.8 percent; today it is 8.5 percent — at least that’s the official number. In reality, the Financial Timeswrites, “if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.” (No SH*T!!!)

In addition, there are now fewer payroll jobs in America than there were in 2000 — 12 years ago — and now, 40 percent of those jobs are considered “low paying,” up 10 percent from when President Reagan took office. The number of self-employed has dropped 2 million to 14.5 million in just six years.

Regular gasoline per gallon cost $1.68 in January 2009. Today, it’s $3.39 — that’s a 102 percent increase in just three years. (By the way, if you’re keeping score at home, gas was $1.40 a gallon when George W. Bush took office in 2001, $1.68 when he left office — a 20 percent increase.) (Oh….and remember the stink the MSM made over THAT?!?  Can anyone recall ONE NEGATIVE REPORT about the price of gas since?!?)

Electricity bills have also skyrocketed, with households now paying a record $1,420 annually on average, up some $300.

Some 48 percent of all Americans — 146.4 million — are considered by the Census Bureau either as “low-income” or living in poverty, up 4 million from when Mr. Obamatook office; 57 percent of all children in America now live in such homes. (But believe him; he and Michelle FEEL….

….their pain!)

Since December 2008, a month before Mr. Obama took office, food-stamp use has increased 46 percent. Total spending has more than doubled in just four years to a record high of $75 billion. In 2011, more than 46 million people — about one in seven Americans — got food stamps. That’s 14 million more than when Mr. Obama took office.

Median household income has dropped nearly 7 percent in the last six years, taking inflation into account. What’s more, nearly 20 percent of males age 25 to 34 now live with their parents.

Low- and middle-income Americans 65 and older now hold more than $10,000 in credit card debt, up 26 percent since 2005. The average age of the American car is 10 years; in 1990, it was 6.5 years old (by the way, in 1985, Americans bought 11 million cars; in 2009, less than half that, 5.4 million).

On the macro side, America’s annual budget has jumped to $3.8 trillion — and yet the United States brings in only about $2.1 trillion in revenue. The U.S. trade deficit for 2011 was $558 billion. America’s total public debt stands at $15.23 trillion; in January 2009, the debt was $10.62 trillion. Mr. Obama is on pace to borrow $6.2 trillion in just one term — more debt than was amassed by all presidents from Washington through Bill Clinton combined. The debt is rising by $4.2 billion every day — $175 million per hour, nearly $3 million per minute.

So, America, that is the State of Your Union. But remember, Mr. Obama had not one thing to do with it. So don’t blame him when you go to the polls. Blame everyone else, especially yourself.

In a related little factoid….

White House delay of budget proposal infuriates Republicans

The White House is delaying for one week the release of President Obama’s budget for the 2013 fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, a decision that administration officials say was based on “the need to finalize decisions and technical details” but which Republicans say is a direct violation of law.

“This will mark the third time in four years the president has missed his statutory requirement to present a budget on time, while trillion-dollar budget deficits continue to mount. As the president announces another missed deadline, tomorrow marks the 1,000th day Senate Democrats have gone without any budget at all,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, called it “an inauspicious way to launch his State of the Union address.”

The 1974 Budget Act requires the president to submit a budget request to Congress on the first Monday in February — which this year is Feb. 6 — but the administration has scheduled the release for Feb. 13. In 2009 and 2011, the president also did not make the deadline.

The Budget Act also requires Congress to pass a budget resolution by April 15 every year, which the House did last year. The Senate, however, never provided a blueprint, and Congress was forced to pass a “megabus” to go along with individual bills negotiated after the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

So tell us again where the dysfunction in Washington resides?!?

Meanwhile, in our next item, courtesy of Bill Meisen, CNSNews.com reports on Team Tick-Tock celebrates its commitment to the most vulnerable in society:

Obama Defends Roe v. Wade

President Barack Obama says the 39^thanniversary of Roe v. Wade is the chance to recognize the “fundamental constitutional right” to abortion and to “continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

Obama, while serving in the Illinois State Legislature and as president of the United States, has taken a hard line on abortion rights. As a state lawmaker in Illinois, he voted four times against legislation to protect the life of a baby that survived a botched abortion. He voted against such legislation at the state level in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

In his statement on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, Obama said it reflects the broader principles of America.

“As we mark the 39^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters,” Obama said. “I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right.

“While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue — no matter what our views, we must stay united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant woman and mothers, reduce the need for abortion, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption,” Obama said.

“And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

In his own words: it’s not a child….

….it’s a dream-killer!

On the Lighter Side….

Finally, we’ll call it a day with The Wide, Wild World of Sports, and yet another reason to love the Bruins!

Bruins goalie Thomas declines White House visit for political reasons

Boston Bruins’ star goaltender Tim Thomas skipped Monday’s White Housevisit by the Stanley Cupchampions due to political differences with President Barack Obama. Thomas, a Flint, Mich., native and one of only two American players on the Bruins’ Stanley Cup roster last season, was the only Boston player to decline the invitation.

“I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People,” Thomas said in a statement. “This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government,” he wrote.

“Because I believe this, today (Monday) I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.”

Thomas, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in last year’s playoffs, is known to be a political conservative and has publicly stated he is a fan of right-wing commentator Glenn Beck(GASP!!!), according to Boston sports radio website WEEI.com.

We won’t tell you how The Obamao tried to spin Thomas’ absence, because, frankly my dear….

….we don’t give a damn!

Magoo