The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Presidential Paternity

Posted on | February 6, 2012 | 9 Comments

If you want your son to grow up to be president, either:

A. Establish a powerful political dynasty; or
B. Abandon your kid’s teenage mother and die drunk.

That’s what Michael Medved explains in the Wall Street Journal today. The odds are against any of my kids making it to the White House, obviously. My idiot cousin’s 2008 defeat spoiled the “dynasty” motif and I’m probably too old to seduce and abandon any teenagers now. But maybe I can still try for the “die drunk” part, huh?

Category: History

Geriatric Halftime Show

Posted on | February 6, 2012 | 38 Comments

‘Gaze upon my cosmic crotch in awe, earthlings!’

Let me be clear: I never cared much for Madonna’s épater le bourgeois act when she was still considered the hottest thing in show business, dating Sean Penn and making headlines with her various “what-will-she-do-next” stunts. Judged strictly as a musical act, I thought she peaked with her first album — “Lucky Star” had a nice dance beat and a catchy chorus — and after that, she became obsessed with the idea that she was a daring avant-garde figure, a historic personality pushing the envelope with each new MTV video.

There was a vast publicity machine dedicated to promoting Madonna’s delusions of artistic grandeur, but I never bought into the hype.

Music should be about music. Madonna became all about image, and her image-mongering finally jumped the shark in 1992 when she published Sex, a book featuring “artsy” nude photos of her, timed to coincide with the release of her Erotica album.

The album sucked, and the book . . . meh.

She just wasn’t that hot. So if most American were already bored with Madonna 20 years ago, why would we want to watch her prancing around and lip-synching her old songs at age 53? Were the producers of the Super Bowl just trying to prove that the NFL — which has previously featured other geezer acts like the Rolling Stones in their halftime shows — isn’t guilty of sexist age discrimination?

What next for the Super Bowl? Irene Cara singing “Flashdance”? A halftime reunion show for Kajagoogoo or Culture Club, with maybe a guest appearance by Adam Ant singing a duet with Boy George?

The ridiculous pageantry of Madonna’s show Sunday, with a cast of thousands and a budget bigger than any Cecil B. DeMille spectacular from the Golden Age of Hollywood, inspired me to scoff on Twitter, “Madonna needs to be careful. At her age, if she falls down, she could break a hip.” What I didn’t realize when I made that wisecrack was that she nearly did exactly that:

It’s one thing to bring back Golden Oldies acts for a nostalgia trip. But Madonna the Menopausal Sex Goddess, writhing around as if she were still the same 24-year-old whose bellybutton-baring midriff tops inspired a teenage fashion fad? The precedent is disturbing.

Fifteen or 20 years from now, my grandkids might be watching the Super Bowl halftime show and asking, “Grandpa, who’s that fat blonde lady in the funny-looking costume?”

Her name is Britney Spears.

“Grandpa, why is she wearing a plaid schoolgirl skirt and knee socks?”

Uh, well, you see, back in the day . . .

“Oh, gross! Did you see that, Grandpa? She flashed her panties!”

Yup. Same old Britney . . .

P.S.: Just in case you were tempted to feel sorry for Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who lost a 21-17 heartbreaker to the Giants, remember that he went home with supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Loser? I don’t think so.

Category: Celebrities, Football, Music

The World’s Youngest Blogger Can’t Figure Out Why This TV Is Such A Bore

Posted on | February 6, 2012 | 11 Comments

Category: humor, World's Youngest Blogger

Economist Dean Baker Defends Central Banking, If Not The Federal Reserve

Posted on | February 6, 2012 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

Thie is Dean Baker on 03 February at Empire Unplugged. From Wikipedia:

Dean Baker (b. July 13, 1958) is an American macroeconomist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, with Mark Weisbrot. He previously was a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor of economics at Bucknell University. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.

Baker comes out as a proponent of central banking in general, though not necessarily a cheerleader for the Federal Reserve in its present state.
As this is purely audio in nature, I’ll save the vertical space and offer the segments as a block of four:

While I think Baker has done an admirable job defending the idea of central banking, the bigger question is, whether, $15.3 trillion later, that dog hunted, that hog punted, and that wog bunted. Baker’s argument that growth was swell when Happy Days was the “reality” of the U.S. situation may not hold water. What the prosperity then comes at the expense of our dot com bubble, housing bubble, and higher ed bubble?
Baker at least agrees that greater transparency is needed. I’m not sure I concur that Bernanke should be so thoroughly scapegoated. The Federal Reserve is not the fire department, only coming out on an acute basis for specific problems. It is more like air traffic controllers, managing continuous traffic flow. Inflating the currency is like putting more and more planes in the air, and hoping that they don’t try to land several at once, killing not only those onboard the flights, but everyone else in the pattern that can’t get elsewhere.
Whatever our political policy becomes, if we are not balancing the budget and making continual reductions on the debt, we are doomed.
I regret that I may not have time to get Jeffrey Tucker’s response processed and posted.

Category: End The Fed

Gingrich’s Glass Jaw

Posted on | February 6, 2012 | 57 Comments

“Mitt Romney won Saturday’s Nevada caucuses with his highest portion of a state’s vote yet, just over 50%, according to certified results released Monday by the Nevada Republican Party.”
— CNN

Remember this headline from Dec. 15?

Billionaire Prepared to Spend $20 Million
on My Blog Newt Gingrich’s Campaign

That was the report that Vegas mogul Sheldon Adelson had pledged his wealth in support of Newt’s “Winning Our Future” super-PAC. However, the New York Times had another headline Saturday:

Gingrich Patron Could Have a Plan B: Romney

Adelson would be perfectly willing to support Romney as the GOP nominee, and that story also explained that some of Romney’s supporters have reached out to Adelson, urging him to pull the plug on Gingrich’s campaign. This exposes Newt’s glaring weakness: With his campaign’s viability so dependent on the super-PAC largesse of a single donor, if Adelson sneezes, Gingrich gets the flu.

Now, let me remind you of what I wrote Friday:

Newt’s current “frontrunner” status is far more fragile than it looks.
Newt’s campaign can only survive a few more humiliating defeats before it implodes from the enormous weight of its utter implausibility. Whereas by contrast, Santorum has always been a long shot. Santorum’s expectations are lower, and he is therefore able to “succeed” with results that would be a bitter disappointment to the supporters of a big-budget frontrunner like Newt.
Gingrich will get stomped Saturday in Nevada. A few weeks from now, when Gingrich’s supporters have seen their man defeated over and over, without a significant win since South Carolina, Newt will quit and endorse Romney.

CBS has a report on the billionaires who have given to super-PACs, and Adelson is the only one backing Newt. Given the hints from Adelson, isn’t is now obvious why Gingrich will ultimately endorse Romney? Newt wouldn’t dare double-cross the patron whose multimillion-dollar donation was the only reason Gingrich wasn’t forced to quit after his fourth-place finish in Iowa and his fifth-place finish in New Hampshire.

So, how long until Newt quits? During his bizarre Saturday night Vegas tantrum, Gingrich predicted “he would emerge as the GOP front-runner again by the Texas primary,” currently scheduled for April 3.

This was evidently an attempt by Newt to push his make-or-break point past Super Tuesday, March 6. And of course, he vowed to take the fight all the way to the August convention in Tampa.

But has Sheldon Adelson signed off on that plan? Or, as I strongly suspect, is Adelson’s multimillion-dollar commitment to the Gingrich campaign likely to end — and his financial support shift to Romney — on or before the morning of March 7? The possibility that Newt might not even make it to Super Tuesday is reflected in this headline:

Tea party leader implores Newt
to get his act together

Will Gingrich and his supporters denounce Judson Philips of Tea Party Nation as part of the “GOP Establishment” and the “elite media”?

No one can say that about Professor Glenn Reynolds, who seems to be supporting someone named “Zeeba.”

Category: Election 2012, Newt Gingrich

Ed Morrissey, Phyllis Schlafly, Michelle Malkin, David Limbaugh, Tom Tancredo: Gosh, Everybody’s for Santorum Now!

Posted on | February 6, 2012 | 19 Comments

Show of hands: Who remembers the “Earthquake in Vanuatu” on Dec. 1? Who remembers “Santorum Express Sunday” on Dec. 4? Who remembers when I had to scrape around to find articles from Iowa newspapers to put together Santorum campaign updates, back when a CNN/Time poll showed Santorum in sixth place in Iowa, at 5%?

OK, so having endured those lean, lonely and seemingly hopeless weeks of early December, I am not even slightly daunted now, and am in fact greatly encouraged to see that more and more conservatives are climbing aboard the Santorum Express. The latest is Ed Morrissey of Hot Air:

Why Santorum?  In my estimation, Santorum is the last consistent conservative standing, and the only one both promoting the conservative agenda and campaigning as a conservative in the race.  . . .
Santorum has demonstrated a level of personal integrity in this race that outshines the rest of the field.  Santorum has campaigned with blue-collar Reagan Democrats in mind, pushing for an economic plan that would revitalize manufacturing and small business.  He could easily have tipped over into class-warfare populism while Gingrich and Romney bashed each other over their work at Bain and Freddie Mac in order to ingratiate himself with that sector by playing on latent envy.  Instead, he defended capitalism and both of his competitors on the campaign trail more effectively than either could defend themselves.  In contrast, Romney keeps demonstrating a lack of fluency in conservative politics and philosophy, while Gingrich has conducted a personal, angry campaign that threatens to reinforce every negative stereotype about conservatives, both at times putting themselves and their ambitions above the party they seek to lead.

Every time a blogger endorses Rick Santorum, an angel gets his wings, and Ed has now added his name to a growing list of worthies in support of the Consistent Conservative. While I was in Florida last week, I missed David Limbaugh’s endorsement:

I don’t believe that the science of electability is as certain as those promoting it would have us believe. . . .
I reject the conventional wisdom that Rick Santorum could not win the general election, because I believe he represents the best contrast to Obama and is the least vulnerable to attack, among other reasons.
I will support whoever emerges as the Republican nominee, but I do not apologize for supporting Rick Santorum.

Michelle Malkin endorsed Santorum a week ago, Phyllis Schlafly says she’ll vote for Santorum in Tuesday’s Missouri primary, and Santorum also got the endorsement of former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo. During his years in Congress, Tancredo was the “gold standard” for immigration enforcement, and his endorsement of Santorum makes perfect sense when you look at the Numbers USA immigration report card on current presidential hopefuls. (Newt Gingrich? D.)

On “Fox News Sunday,” Santorum said: “I think we’re  going to do very well here in Minnesota. I think we’re going to do very well in  Colorado, and we’ve got a one-on-one match up against Mitt Romney in Missouri, while there’s no delegates, it is a key state, it is a primary. And we think we can do exceptionally well in the state of Missouri.”

Despite placing third in Florida and fourth in Nevada, Santorum actually had a very good week and his campaign is now more hopeful than ever. In a press release summarizing the week’s developments, Santorum campaign communications director Hogan Gidley said, “Time brings clarity, and this week proved that former speaker Gingrich was simply not up to the task of being the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum has a long, tried-and-true track record of unapologetically standing up for the conservative principles that make America great. He’s the full spectrum conservative who’s never wavered on our core principles. It is Rick Santorum who conservatives can rally around as their standard bearer, and poll-after-poll is now showing that the two-man race is now between Santorum and Romney.”

Gidley cited polls showing Santorum leading in Minnesota and ahead of Gingrich in Colorado:

Minnesota:
Santorum: 29%
Romney: 27%
Gingrich: 22%

Colorado:
Romney: 40%
Santorum: 26%
Gingrich: 18%

Meanwhile, a national poll by Rasmussen Reports showed Santorum the only GOP contender leading Barack Obama.

Santorum will speak Friday morning at CPAC, and his supporters are hoping to get a big boost as the campaign moves forward, with the next debate (Feb. 22 in Arizona) still two weeks away. Finally, while this isn’t quite an angel-wings endorsement, Dan Blatt of Gay Patriot offers some words of respect for Santorum:

Maybe Santorum is doing well because he comes across as a nice guy. He enjoyed that reputation when he served on Capitol Hill.  Although, to be sure, the Senator has said some strange things about gays, he has treated the one member of his staff who has been publicly “outed” as gay with dignity. Indeed, his one-time spokesman Robert Traynham said “was open with Santorum about his sexual orientation” and that he had “never heard Santorum voice an anti-gay or bigoted comment” in the ten years he had worked for him.

Many people disagree with Santorum on issues, but still respect his sincerity and consistency and, like a lot of other Republicans, Dan was disgusted by Newt’s Nevada meltdown.

So we await further developments and who knows? By this time next week, the headlines may be all about the latest Santorum Surge. There was another earthquake in Vanuatu last week. I’m just sayin’ . . .

PREVIOUSLY:


Category: Election 2012, Rick Santorum

LIVE AT FIVE – 02.06.12

Posted on | February 6, 2012 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Eli Manning Rallies Giants To Super Bowl Victory

NY Giants QB Eli Manning

Chucking bulls-eye passes early and late, he leads his team to a 21-17 win over the Patriots

Obama Says Israel, U.S. Will Find Diplomatic Solution To Iran Nuke Issue
More mush from the wimp



Former Panamanian Dictator Noriega Hospitalized With Hypertension, Possible Stroke
May be released to serve remaining sentences at home



POLITICS
Big Nevada Win For Romney Adds To Challenge For Opponents

Mitt Romney greets a child while campaigning in Colorado Springs

Can Mitt be stopped?

Police Clear DC Occupods From Park

Arizona English-Fluency Case May Have Wide Repercussions

Obama Thinks He Deserves Second Term


Governors Spar Over Who Deserves Credit For Recovery

Hoekstra Super Bowl Ad Called RAAAAACIST

Giuliani Discusses Republican Race

Special Saturday Night Caucus For Orthodox Jews, Seventh-Day Adventists Draws Complaints
This is why we can’t have nice things



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Euro, Shares Lower Ahead Of Greek High Noon
PRC Risks Growth-Rate Cut If Europe Worsens
Foreclosure Deal Gets Closer
PRC Bars Its Airlines From Paying EU Carbon Tax
Asian Oil Falls To $97 On Europe Concerns; Brent Crude Also Down
Gold, Silver Futures Fall In Asian Trading
Facebook, Dead Or Alive
Nicira Wants To Mess Up Cisco And Juniper’s Business
Windows 8 Unification: Grand, But Risky
EU Regulators Want Google To Halt New Privacy Policy
Smartphone Shipments Overtake PCs In 2011



SPORTS
Giants Beat Patriots For Second Time In Four Years

Giants coach Tom Coughlin hands the Lombardi Trophy to Eli Manning

Brady’s last-minute Hail Mary pass fails

Rangers Still Own Flyers, Dominate In 5-2 Win

Kevin Garnett Insists He’s No 3 Stooge

Bruins Put Slump On Ice, Beat Caps 4-1

Dropping Pro Bowl Possible, Goodell Says

James & Wade Lead Heat Past Raptors, 95-89

Irish Women Trounce DePaul

Nationals Sign Rick Ankiel To Minor League Deal

“Take Back The Park” Effort Aims To Block Phillies Fans From Nationals Park



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Demi Moore Checks Into Utah Rehab

Demi Moore

Seeking help for drug & eating problems at Cirque Lodge

Cops Called To Bust Up Cory Monteith House Party

Rapper Shoots The Bird During Super Bowl Halftime

Love Plans Counterattack

New Singer For Queen: Adam Lambert

L.A. Reid Signs Deal To Return As “X Factor” Judge

Ben Gazzara Dies, 81

Bobby Cannavale Joins “Boardwalk Empire” As Season 3 Regular

Radcliffe Admits Being Drunk During Some “Harry Potter” Scenes



FOREIGNERS
PRC Says It Was Forced To Veto Syria Resolution
Egypt To Try 19 Americans On Criminal Charges
6.8 Quake In Philippines Kills 13, Smashes Homes
Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, And All That
Floods Threaten Queensland Town’s Levees
Europe’s Deep Freeze Reaches North Africa As Death Toll Hits 300



BLOGS & STUFF
Legal Insurrection: Nevada Caucuses Results
Conservative Hideout: The Super Bowl Ad That Wasn’t
Victor Davis Hanson: Gingrich’s Speech – How To Make A Bad Night Worse
Ed Morrissey: PPP Shows Romney Up By 14 In Colorado, Santorum Up 2 In Minnesota
Megan McArdle: Greeks Inch Closer To Default
Jihad Watch: Three Pakistani Women Killed For “Loose Morals”
Jammie Wearing Fools: Mostly Peaceful Occupy Oakland Burns American Flag
The Lonely Conservative: A Nation Of Moochers


SOTD: Piano Man

Category: Live at Five

Newt’s Narcissism Problem (and Ours)

Posted on | February 5, 2012 | 91 Comments

“Gingrich should carefully play a tape of his post-Nevada caucus performance, and then he would quickly grasp that it was little more than a litany of excuses, whining, and accusations — characterized by stream-of-conscious confessionals and rambling repetitions. And, I think, will hurt him more than anything yet in the campaign.”
— Victor Davis Hanson, National Review

Some commenters have been dogging me out over my negativity toward Newt’s campaign, but I insist that this is Newt’s fault, not mine — and I also say in my defense that Newt’s stunning meltdown in the past two weeks has vindicated my repeated warnings against climbing aboard the Gingrich bandwagon.

Let’s pause, my friends, to recognize that what I write on this blog, and what you reply in the comments, will never change anything about the Republican presidential primary campaign. And we would be guilty of exaggerating our own influence if we thought otherwise.

Narcissism is a phenomenon I’ve written about at length, in regard to the madness of Pentagon shooter J. Patrick Bedell: “Paranoia is rooted in the narcissist’s need to rationalize failure, to find scapegoats for his own shortcomings.”

The characteristic trait of the narcissist is his inability to accept responsibility for his own failures. Everybody likes to believe that they deserve credit for their successes, but no one wants to believe that they are at fault when they screw up. This is normal. Yet the damaged ego of the narcissist makes it impossible for him to acknowledge his own contribution to his failures. He cannot even admit to himself that he is at fault, which is why he attempts to focus blame on scapegoats.

And so when Newt starts pointing the finger, blaming others for his failures, portraying himself as the victim — of Goldman Sachs, “money power,” George Soros, “the elite media,” Mormons (!) and a “blatantly dishonest” opponent — even his supporters ought to recognize these unseemly eruptions as symptomatic of Gingrich’s narcissistic tendencies.

Why do you think I warned you against jumping onto his bandwagon?

For all his excellent qualities — abilities that no one can deny — Newt also has this personality defect, a tendency to think of himself as a person so transcendently important that the rules which govern the behavior of normal people don’t apply to him. And when those insignificant Lilliputians (as he regards them) insist that the Great Man must account for his transgressions, Newt angrily lashes out at the scapegoats he blames for his failures, because he is incapable of accepting the blame himself.

One might have thought that his experience as Speaker of the House, of being tossed aside by his own Republican caucus and forced into more than a decade of political exile, would have taught Gingrich a lesson about the need to rein in his ego. But his resort to scapegoating (see my Tuesday column, “Fear and Loathing in the Sunshine State“) would seem to indicate that he has learned nothing, and Ed Morrissey comments on Newt’s Nevada tantrum:

If people thought that the lack of graciousness after Gingrich’s loss in Florida was a careless mistake, this press conference dispelled that notion and made Gingrich’s speech in Florida look courtly by comparison.

Indeed. And there is a danger that those who believe so fervently in Gingrich’s conservative message that they are willing to overlook the flaws of the messenger will be sucked into the vortex of Newt’s narcissistic meltdown. Read more

Category: Newt Gingrich
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