Lileks & Limbaugh Highlight MSM Stupidity

Today seems like stupidity in journalism day. First I read that the Minneapolis Star Tribune has dumped the James Lileks as a regular columnist. Lileks is probably the only thing worth reading in that paper. Listening to him each week on Hugh Hewitt is consistently one of the best segments on his program. Lileks is always laugh-out-loud funny.

Next I turn on Rush Limbaugh, and find out the television station that I watch each evening is all up in arms about the Rush Limbaugh parody “Barack the Magic Negro.” First, this parody is two months old. Second, Barack has been asked about the parody and did not take offense. Third the reporters never bothered to get the context about the song. They act like Limbaugh made the whole song up just so he could say “negro” on the air and bash Obama.

Any regular listener to Limbaugh knows that Rush took a series of articles written by Liberals who were dumping on Obama because of his race and strung them altogether to point out that these allegedly enlightened Liberals are just a bunch of racists who look at skin color and not qualifications. For Liberals it’s all about categories, groups and quotas. Dr. King wanted folks evaluated by “the content of their character” but his alleged successors are exactly the opposite. This is the classic definition of hypocrisy and low hanging fruit for Limbaugh to use to bash them as they so richly deserve.

Walter Martin often stated “a text without a context is a pretext, usually for error.” Local television station KOVR has proved once again the truth of that axiom.

Republican Chair Caught Stealing

Finally this has gone public. Our local Republican Central Committee has been covering this up for several months. It’s unfortunate that the liberal media has to break the story because we can’t police ourselves.

The local Chair of the county party helped herself to over $35,000 and others in the party covered it up. The story can be found at Sacramento Bee Newspaper (registration is required).

The resignation of former Sacramento County Republican Party Chairwoman Donna Schalansky has become the flash point in an internal party battle that centers on whether thousands of dollars of reimbursements she received were in violation of state law.

State law requires information about “third-party payees” be disclosed for reimbursements of $500 or more. But financial disclosure forms filed with the secretary of state’s office show Schalansky received 29 payments of $500 or more—a total of $35,922—between 2003 and 2006 without receipts showing who received the payments for which she was reimbursed.

Thus far no audit has been done and none is schedule. Members are not being allowed to see the books and no complete treasurer reports are being given out at the meeting. I have it on good authority that others are involved and that this may involve the state party as well.

Musings on the Ides of March

I have been wondering lately who has the worst public relations and marketing division. After a few seconds of thought I came up with the following list:

United States Department of Defense (especially the US Army) for its ongoing work in Iraq. Most Americans can name as many military victories by our Army in Iraq as New Yorkers can name political accomplishments by Hillary Clinton; namely, none.

The Republican Party whose specialty is the circular firing squad. Republicans spend so much time stabbing each other in the back that there is nothing left to oppose the Democrats. (Hence the appropriateness of this topic on this particular date.)

Microsoft After five years and at least as many billions of dollars in development markets Windows Vista with “Wow”. What a great slogan. You can even say it backwards.

Speaking of Vista, I will soon be installing my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate on my new super computer. Once I get it running I will post my review.

Barack Obama, the Democrats’ Colin Powell

Barack Obama, the Democrat phenomenon of the 2008 Presidential Campaign, is probably at or near his peak of popularity and as voters get to know him, his popularity will fade significantly.

Obama is for Democrats what Colin Powell was a few years ago for the Republicans; namely, at “tabula rasa.” Both men were initially popular because voters knew nothing about them but attached their own hopes, desires and beliefs to both men. Until they actually took a position on things, voters want to give them the benefit of the doubt and think that each man is “one of us.”

Powell alienated a majority of Republicans by embracing abortion and other liberal social positions. His initial strength of appearing apolitical and above the frey of politics was subsequently revealed to be something much different. Powell had no core values guiding his politics. He was just another squishy, liberal Republican.

Obama is called a different type of Democrat. This is wishful hoping and not reality. He has no new or original ideas. He doesn’t have a new way to fix any problems or right any wrongs. For many disillusioned Democrats, he is an empty vessel that they can invest their hopes and dreams in. This is a fictional construct.

Obama represents a repackaged collection of the same failed policies that are the hallmark of modern socialists and liberals at the core of Democrat party.

Solomon said “there is nothing new under the sun.” Not much has changed in the 3,000 years since. Obama is just the same lies delivered by another messenger.

Schwarzenegger Leads Left

It seems that Arnold Schwarzenegger has morphed into a caricature of Maria’s Uncle Ted Kennedy.

When I voted to reelect Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in November, he had an “R” next to his name. While I knew he was on the fringes of the Republican Left, he was better than the other guy.

This week however, he seems to have completed the metamorphosis that he began after the failed special election just over a year ago. If you recall, he dumped many on his staff from the Pete Wilson camp and replaced them with others further to the left including some Democrat activists. (Any Republican getting to the left of Wilson is a remarkable feat all by itself.)

I wonder if these changes started with his motorcycle accident.

In recent weeks we are seeing just how far the Governor has gone. With universal healthcare and the myth of global warming as his main issues, I’m wondering what happened to the man who promised fiscal responsibility and blowing-up the boxes of government waste.

Arnold has been playing a shell game of reducing the deficit spending that he inherited from Gray Davis and trading it for tens of billions of dollars in bonds. (If Schwarzenegger gets Phase II of his plan, the bond debt will be in the hundreds of billions.) He is mortgaging our future to pay the legislative credit card debt of the past and present. He is not addressing the structural flaws in the current budgetary system.

For and analysis of Arnold’s healthcare idea see RomneyCare vs ArnoldCare at this link.
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/8e266ace-3c9d-4c8e-aaf3-aba37fff76bf

Democrats Splinter

The sundering of the Democrats is underway. The motley group of single-issue hippies and socialists that vanquished their common enemy, the GOP, is now dissolving their coalition and going for each other’s throats. This is the result of them not having a unified view of policy on the Global War on Terror and other issues confronting our nation. Heck, most don’t think there is a War on Terror. To them, 9-11 was just a fluke.

The multitasking granny, Speaker Pelosi, has already broken every promise of ethics, reform and openness that she made during the campaign at least twice and she isn’t even done with her second week. It is unclear whether the new crop of freshman in her party will stick to their conservative campaign promises or back Nanny Pelosi in here quest to deconstruct our national defense and economic prosperity.

The fever swamp wants impeachment and withdrawal from Iraq while Nancy wants her party to get the White House in 2008. Before summer, she will have alienated most in her party and put the legislative branch in gridlock.

Nancy’s claim to be the most powerful woman in the country was an insult to Mrs. Clinton. Without the Senate, Nancy’s utopian dreams are unachievable. With the amount of mistakes she has made thus far, we will see how long Speaker Pelosi can ride her wave of glory.

Presidential Preview

Eddie Moran—someone I knew back in my navy days—used to say, “It doesn’t matter what race you are, at ground zero, you’re still a vapor.”

It is with that idea in mind that I look at the early contenders for the Republican nomination for President. The three top-tier candidates are Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.

McCain is as nuts as Ross Perot. He longs too much for the attention of the media and cares not for the Republic or his party. He is self-serving not a public servant.

Romney seems like a better choice. As a Republican, he won statewide election in the most liberal State in the Union. His biggest strike is his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Romney, if he follows the teaching from Salt Lake City, he would be the best of the three on social issues.

Giuliani would be the best on the War on Terror and seems to have more backbone than either President Bush. His social positions are way too liberal but if terrorists nuke us, the social issues won’t matter anyway. Rudy made his mark with law & order and administration in New York City. It’s a tough, scrappy political arena. By contrast, Congress is a bunch of spoiled pansies.

At this early stage with global terrorism as our biggest issue, I think Giuliani should be viewed as the early favorite.

John Kerry the Beltway Buffoon

John Kerry this week outlined why Republicans need to be returned to power in Washington.

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.

This glimpse into the heart of the man who should be the defacto leader of the Democrat Party—should the Clintons ever fade away—reveals the contempt that the Left has for the military.

I owe an apology to no one.

Kerry still believes that he is right and has parsed his words to stand on that ground even when others wish he would shut-up for another week.

In a subsequent statement clarifying his attack on the military, Kerry stated:

when I came back from southeast Asia, I told the truth, and I am proud that I stood up and told the truth then

And what was the truth that John Kerry claims that he witnessed when he testified before the US Senate in 1971

In addition to the normal ravages of war, soldiers in Vietnam had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Kahn, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.

John Kerry may be a legend in his own mind but he leaves the rest of us wondering why such a pompous buffoon thrives inside the Beltway.

November Wave of Victory?

OK. I’ve had enough of the endless droning of the pundits and Mainstream Media about Evangelical Christians sitting this one out and the Democrats capturing both houses of Congress. Dems are claiming to win 30 to 50 seats and win a decisive majority in the Senate.

I don’t believe any of this nonsense. If you look under the hood of these claims, you will see that the pollsters are cooking the books. They are polling adults or registered voters (which are meaningless surveys) or over inflating the number of Democrats in surveys of likely voters in order to make many races a horserace that will really be blow-outs come November 7th.

Hear are my predictions. In the US Senate the worst case for Republicans will be a one seat loss. Only Senators named Lincoln that are not Republicans should be worried. In the House of Representatives, there may be a few musical chairs but in the end the Democrats will net no new seats.

This election is set to be the biggest non-event since the comet of the century during the 1970’s.

The most interesting chapter of this election cycle may be the fate of Jerry Brown as an Attorney General candidate. He may be disqualified for not being a member of the Bar for five years prior to this election cycle. Will California Democrats follow the New Jersey model of candidate substitution? Or will they buy a vowel (oops I mean judge)?