There’s one person among the wretched, wriggling masses of the political blogosphere whom I clearly do not read often enough, and that’s Matt Taibbi. (Hat tip to Rick at Right Wing Nuthouse.) The linked article is actually a long, scathing set of sharp elbows thrown in the direction of Sarah Palin and done so with lethal accuracy, but that’s not the part which caught my attention. (But if you share my lack of enthusiasm for the Wasilla Wildcat as viable presidential material, you...

Yesterday, Rick Moran graced our humble pages once again asking the question which I have placed once again in the title of this response. (You can find another copy of the essay at his home page, with plenty of interesting comments from readers.)He also recommended the new History Channel series, World War II in HD. (I’m watching additional portions of that today, and it’s truly worth a look for any of you who missed it.) And while it shall always be important to remember the glory,...

We’ve reached a point where my friend Ed Morrissey and I must come to a parting of the ways on the current health care debate, though we’ve seen eye to eye on most portions of it up until now. Tomorrow, the Senate will face a procedural vote to open debate on their version of the bill. Note: This is not a vote on the bill itself, signaling approval or disapproval. It’s simply a vote to allow debate to begin. Ed is urging his readers to melt the phones and get their Senators to vote...

Just when you thought it was safe to step out of the ballot booth, the hotly contested special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District simply will not die. The latest ripple in the story is that a computer virus reportedly infected a handful of machines in Hamilton County. Cathleen Rogers, the Democratic Elections Commissioner in Hamilton County stated that they discovered a problem with their voting machines the week prior to the election and that the “virus” was fixed...

No matter what you may have hoped, some things never change. The intro to this Politico piece really tells the whole story. He may have promised to change Washington, but President Barack Obama is continuing one of its most renowned patronage traditions: bestowing prized ambassadorships on big donors. Of the nearly 80 ambassadorship nominations or confirmations since Obama’s Inauguration, 56 percent were given to political appointees and 44 percent have gone to career diplomats, according to records...

This week the United States Senate briefly turned their attention away from Obama / PelosiCare and considered President Barack Obama’s nomination of U.S. District Judge David Hamilton to an appellate court position, and the results were instructive. During the tenure of George W. Bush, much was made of the judicial nomination and confirmation process, with debates raging over the upper chamber’s proper role in “advise and consent” and whether filibustering nominees was an...

Having taken the time to talk through the entire Khalid Sheikh Mohammed affair with people on both side of the aisle, I’ve finally drawn some conclusions. I don’t think the real problem here is whether President Obama – through the office of Eric Holder – made the right or wrong call on this. The sticking point is that he made both calls by deciding to send one group to civilian trials and another to military tribunals. Our official legislative process for dealing with these...

Michael Cohen, over at Politico, has once more dredged up the same old, tired cloth rending which we always seem to get from the oppressed majority. (Yes, you read that correctly… the oppressed majority.) Tired of the difficulties encountered in doing business with the minority party, Michael bravely calls for an end to the “GOP’s filibuster folly.” How dare a party with less than sixty seats in the Senate employ legislative tactics and trickery to slow down the Obamapalooza...

I was reading Rick Moran’s analysis of the Great Obama Japanese Bow Disaster of Ought Nine today because, well… I’m not really sure what it is about this topic that snagged my attention, but I read Right Wing Nuthouse pretty much every day anyway, so there you are. The fact is, I didn’t get terribly excited when Obama decided to bow to King Abdullah either. Though I do agree with Rick that the White House’s efforts to explain that one away would have been better suited...

I’m a bit conflicted about Eric Holder’s decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 defendants to New York City to stand trial for their parts in planning the attacks. Today, on Mid Stream Radio — 1 pm eastern, Noon central, 10 am left coast — we’ll have some special guests on to discuss this subject, if you’d care to stop by and contribute your thoughts, but I have a few thoughts to share here in advance. I’ll confess that my initial reaction...

One of the few fundamental rights in America which should never have really generated any controversy is the freedom of religion. On the surface, it seems pretty simple. In layman’s terms, this is a country where you can follow any religion or none at all, as you see fit, and the government shall make no law, etc. etc. etc. And yet, I begin to wonder about the wisdom of the founders when I read stories like this one in the Washington Post. It seems that the Catholic Church is at it again....

The latest tale of woe regarding administration claims of jobs “saved or created” by the porkulous bill comes to us from Massachusetts. The lede to this story pretty much says it all. While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started. The Globe’s...

Stepping away from the politics for a moment, here at Chez’ Jazz we had a Mexican dinner tonight, including some sour cream and guacamole as condiments. The small sour cream container was emptied during the course of the meal and my wife decided to allow our tiny schnauzer, Max, a chance at licking it clean before it was thrown away. I suppose what came next was inevitable. He had to be rescued.

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart confessed to being embarrassed some time ago when two young amateur journalists scooped them on the activities of ACORN in several cities. He’s made up for it a good bit this week when he caught Fox News Channel spicing up their coverage of Michele Bachmann’s health care rally / tea party protest in Washington, D.C. this week. Without any mention of doing it, their editors spliced in obvious footage of a much larger rally from a couple of weeks ago to...

I suppose it was somewhat heartening to see that our national parks and forests will be giving free admissions to U.S. veterans today in honor of Armistice Day. But there’s a small, bitter part of me which always finds such gestures to ring rather hollow and to be far from enough. The debt we owe to our returning heroes runs much deeper than a free pass to Disneyland. Don’t get me wrong here… things are much better than they used to be back in my day. (I’ll just pause here...

Apparently rumors of the death of President Obama’s decision making process on the route forward in Afghanistan were somewhat exaggerated. This from White House National Security Adviser Retired Gen. Jim Jones: “Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false,” Jones, who generally keeps a low public profile, said in a prepared statement Monday night. “He has not received final options for his consideration, he has not reviewed those...

A brief thought and hopeful outlook for your Tuesday morning. It comes in the form of a quote from American author Grenville Kleiser. To live at this time is an inestimable privilege, and a sacred obligation devolves upon you to make right use of your opportunities. Though Kleiser died in 1953 and was referring to an entirely different era, the same can be said, I believe, for today. It could apply to your personal or professional life, I’m sure, but in American politics this is definitely...

The Club for Growth has fired the next shot in the expected Republican civil war between hard line conservatives and candidates they find too milquetoast and moderate for their collective tastes. It came in the form of their long expected endorsement of Marco Rubio to be the next Senator from Florida. Analysts are already lining up to draw comparisons between this race and the recently concluded special election loss of Doug Hoffman in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, but parallels between...

Yesterday’s House vote unraveled in strange ways, have no doubt about it. The real shocker was not that one Republican (Joe Cao) voted in favor of the legislation. Let’s face it… the guy is from New Orleans and he’s up for election next fall along with the rest of them. No, the real eye opener was exactly how out of practice the GOP seems to be at fighting from the cheap seats. Their opportunity came and went earlier in the day, as Allahpundit pointed out, during the vote...

On Mid Stream Radio today, coming to you one hour earlier than normal at noon eastern, eleven central and 9 am on the left coast, Cindy and I will welcome Ed Morrissey of Hot Air (who it feels like I’ve been talking to all week, but it’s been fun!) to cover the health care bill push as it happens, as well as future birds closing down CERN, more on the Ft. Hood shooting spree, and just how long might you spend in jail if you refuse to buy health insurance? (Assuming this thing makes it...

The world’s largest particle accelerator / collider (The Large Hadron Collider, for those of you keeping score) has run into yet another setback. After being plagued by coolant leaks, faulty magnets and a host of other technical difficulties, operations have again ground to a halt. The culprit? A bird smuggling a baguette over their air space. The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was...

Nancy Pelosi has assured us that there will be. Of course, the job of House Speaker is much like being a bookie for organized crime… you never take a bet when you don’t know how the game will end. Byron York explains how this is putting a lot of Democrats under the gun. The House is in the final rush toward passage of a national health care bill, and there’s one thing Speaker Nancy Pelosi absolutely, positively does not want her Democratic lawmakers to do: Go home. One Democrat...

For those around the country who somehow thought that they understood the politics of New York’s 23 district (or, “The North Country” as we call it) and feel they had a grasp on how “awful” a choice Dede Scozzafava was, they should read this editorial from the local paper. Here’s one of the key portions, explaining just how she wound up as the nominee from what I fully admit is a flawed selection process. North country Republican leaders could have tapped Scozzafava...

First, I’ll send you over to a longer column of mine which was just published over at PJM with some reflections on what we can take, if anything, from yesterday’s elections. In addition, though, I find myself pondering the alleged civil war in the GOP. The NY 23 special election was, after all is said and done, an aberration and a train wreck in the making pretty much from the beginning, and one which is unlikely to be repeated. The problem arose from New York State election law section...

Right up front, I should let you know that we’ll be bringing you some live, election night coverage this evening over at Rick Moran’s radio show, where I will be co-hosting a two hour extravaganza of this … ummm… exciting event. Be sure to stop by with your own thoughts and comments. But on with the news: On election night, the usual silliness is already breaking out in the blogosphere regarding the few, closely watched races which will be closing in a few hours. There are...