If Your Faith Is Feeling Deflated

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by Smitty

A lot of the budget news from places like CA, WI, IL, &c has been really bad of late. Texas offers a good palate cleanser, via the Tatler:

Tonight’s final vote on House Bill 1 tells us House leaders got the message taxpayers have been sending: live within our means! But taxpayers must remain vigilant; the session is far from over, and opportunities for taxing-and-spending mischief abound.

Certainly the budget passed out of the House isn’t perfect, and there are certainly opportunities for cost-savings still to be acted on.

With that said, the House kept spending under control by making tough choices using available dollars, and eschewing calls to tap the rainy day fund.

See, when elected officials retain some amount of respect for the voters, options other than non-sensical spending become possible. Truly amazing, respect: it’s like an abstract form of bacon.

Conor Friedersdorf: Now Turning the Atlantic into Media Matters Lite?

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When Andrew Sullivan jumped ship to The Daily Beast, Conor Friedersdorf stayed behind at the Atlantic, where today he devotes some 1,800 words to Why Rush Limbaugh Is Wrong About Libya. A few sample Conorisms:

His commentary has misled his audience, his prejudices have helped to distract the conservative movement from the stance it ought to be taking, and even his defenders will have a difficult time explaining away his latest buffoonery. . . .
Limbaugh is a man confident that his mistakes will drift off into the ether unnoticed. . . .
[T]he talk radio host isn’t guided in his commentary by any consistent principle, nor does he acknowledge obvious errors in analysis. Instead he blithely misinforms his audience about reality daily.

Well, Conor: Change the station, OK? Nobody is forcing you to listen to Limbaugh. Without attempting a detailed analysis of Rush Limbaugh’s various comments, I’ll say this: The greatest difficulty in criticizing Obama’s policy on Libya is in figuring out exactly what the policy is.

On the one hand, Obama tells us Qaddafi must go. On the other hand, Obama seems unwilling to commit sufficient military resources to drive Qaddafi out. So we are non-fighting a non-war under a U.N. “humanitarian” mandate, with the French leading a NATO coalition of air support for the half-assed Libyan rebels.

There’s something for everybody to hate: The neocon hawks think the policy is too weak. The constitutionalists are angry that Obama committed the U.S. to military action without even bothering to ask Congress. The peaceniks are angry that we’ve taken any military action at all. My main beef — borrowing an insight from Ace of Spades — is that America could “lose” a war we’re not even fighting.

In short, Obama’s policy is a huge joke, and trying to comment on it with a straight face is an enormous challenge. (Sully’s Libya headline today: “Stalemate Watch.”) If Limbaugh’s daily commentary on Libya has been somewhat contradictory — or perhaps just plain wrong at times — so what?

Like I said: If you don’t like it, change the station.

UPDATE: Via Twitter, Conor says: “‘Change the station’  could be a response to any criticism of any commentator.” Indeed, it could. But Rush Limbaugh built the world’s largest radio audience (think about that) as an independent syndicated host. He isn’t employed by a behemoth like NBC or the New York Times. There is no management who can fire him. His continued success depends solely upon his continued “Excellence in Broadcasting.”

An important point: I do not assume that the Limbaugh listener gets all his information from Limbaugh. If Limbaugh is wrong, therefore, his listeners are likely to figure that out for themselves. But Conor obviously thinks that Dittoheads are a bunch of morons who can’t think for themselves — “mind-numbed robots,” t0 borrow Rush’s phrase — and so frets about Limbaugh’s influence.

Linked by That Mr. G. Guy — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers!


T-Paw: It’s Going To Take A New Pres.

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by Smitty (h/t Tatler)

If the early returns on Althouse’s poll hold steady, people are ready to vote against The WhiOne. The contrast couldn’t be much more stark between BHO and T-Paw. Are we ready for somebody with competence, experience and human warmth, without so much egomania? I’m willing to say yes.

Tim Pawlenty 2012

(This time, I’m cereal)

Update: linked at The Camp of the Saints, with more T-Paw goodness.

Obama’s NCAA Bracket, Revisited

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Tonight, UConn meets the Cinderella boys of Butler in the NCAA basketball championship and, with the finalists set, I decided to take a look back at Obama’s brackets.

The first thing to note is how “safe” Obama played it: He picked all four No. 1 regional seeds to make it all the way to the Final Four. In fact, none of the top seeds made it to the Final Four, and Obama’s unwillingness to pick any of the No. 1’s to lose before the semi-finals cost him badly — beginning with No. 8 Butler’s defeat of top-ranked Pitt in their second-round Southeast regional game March 19. He lost a second of his Final Four picks on March 24, when No. 5 Arizona upset top-seeded Duke in a third-round West regional. The next day, March 25, No. 4 Kentucky knocked off No. 1 Ohio State in the third round of the East regionals, leaving Obama with just one remaining hope for the Final Four, Kansas, seeded No. 1 in the Southwest. Alas, the Jayhawks lost to Virginia Commonwealth in the quarterfinals.

Obama’s best region was the West, where he correctly picked the winner in every game in the first two rounds. But again, his success there was not because of any uncanny insight: He merely picked the higher-seeded team in every game, in a region where there were no upsets in the early rounds.

In other regions, Obama did accurately pick a few minor first-round upsets (e.g., No. 12 Richmond over No. 5 Vanderbilt, No. 11 Marquette over No. 6 Xavier), but he missed a bigger upset: No. 13 Morehead State over No. 4 Louisville.

Given the reliability of the Obama Jinx — which inevitably doomed whatever team the president supported in the NFL playoffs — I’m thinking this means that Butler (which Obama picked to lose in the second round) will triumph over Connecticut (which the prez picked to lose in the fourth round). Your mileage may vary.

Exit Question: Does the Obama Jinx apply to the Libyan rebels?

UPDATE: After the ugliest first half in living memory, Butler leads UConn 22-19. So the Obama Jinx appears to be working.

UPDATE II: Strong second half for UConn, which beats Butler and the Obama Jinx, 53-41.

Charlie Sheen Fails To Retain Stacy McCain As A Creative Consultant, With Predictable Results

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by Smitty

Lots of other blogs are reporting the disaster, but the title hit me when I saw Another Black Conservative. Emphasis mine:

One of the big underpinnings behind Sheen being entertaining is the fact that the man was having a meltdown. For whatever reason, we all love to watch those who reached the top have a spectacular crash to the bottom. Putting on a show and taking it on the road, isn’t exactly crashing to the bottom. To make matters worse, it appears Sheen just did not have enough material for a show.

Hopefully this bomb will speed the end of the Sheen fad.

Or will it? Will the failure to retain Stacy McCain, coupled with abject disaster onstage, compel the GOP to start running Sheen for the 2012 nomination? Let’s face it, kids: the incumbent is setting the bar somewhere around “dive” for November 2012. About the only strategy the GOP can pursue with any hope of scoring a suitable anti-victory is to tunnel under the bar and score a direct hit on the septic tank in the basement.
Sheen is a man who can do that.

Charlie Sheen 2012!

(says the GOP)

Cleanup Crew To Lindsay Graham’s Office. Or: With Senators Like That, Who Needs The Constitution?

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by Smitty (via IowaHawk on Twitter)

Blogprof has the clip:
Mark Steyn is truly the human chainsaw of sarcasm, but his wrecking of Lindsay Graham is a wonder:

I have no expectations of Harry Reid or the New York Times, but I have nothing but total contempt for the wretched buffoon Graham.

A mob of deranged ululating blood-lusting head-hackers slaughter Norwegian female aid-workers and Nepalese guards — and we’re the ones with the problem?

I agree with the Instaprof: Lindsey Graham is unfit for office. The good news is there’s no need for the excitable lads of Mazar e-Sharif to chop his head off because he’s already walking around with nothing up there. And, as for his halfwitted analogy with World War II, he’s too ignorant to realize it but he’s singing the dhimmi remake of an ancient Noel Coward satire.

Yeah, Lindsey earned it.
I mean, really, Lindsey. You served in the Air Force, defending the First Amendment against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Possibly you could refresh your recollection, sir.
This blog is on record as being against Qur’an burning on grounds that it’s tasteless and not something Jesus of Nazareth is likely to have done, temporal issues notwithstanding. However, when it comes to idiocy like flag burning, or even Stolen Valor, giving more power to the beltway goober squad ain’t the answer.

Your Daily Libyan Rebels Update

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Let me just start by noting that “Libyan Rebels” would be a great name for a punk-rock band. When last we checked in on the half-assed insurgency, the ill-armed and undisciplined rebels had made a 200-mile retreat to the vicinity of Brega. Now the BCC reports:

Rebels pushed towards Brega on Monday in an attempt to win back territory lost to forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
A BBC correspondent near Brega says they appear to be more buoyant and organised than recently. . . .
The BBC’s Wyre Davies, who is on the road close to Brega, says the sounds of gunfire and weaponry can be heard from the front line a few kilometres away.
Rebel fighters are charging towards the front line, our correspondent says, clearly bolstered by the presence in their ranks of more and more soldiers who have defected from Col Gaddafi’s army.
But the rebels remain poorly trained and equipped, he adds, and even if they manage to take Brega there still seems no realistic prospect of an advance on Tripoli, the Libyan capital.

OK, so the likelihood of rebels overthrowing Qaddafi appears as remote as ever. But there’s good news:

Italy on Monday formally recognized the rebel government of eastern Libya, dealing yet another blow to the embattled regime of Col. Moammar Kadafi.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Rome would open an office in rebel-held territory and formally recognize the Benghazi-based Libyan National Council as the only representative of the country. . . . Italy joins France as the second Western country to formally recognize the rebel government.

Diplomatic recognition by Italy and France — hey, that’s got to be worth something, right? Right? In other Libya news, Geraldo Rivera nearly got shot yesterday:

Geraldo isn’t really confident in the rebels. He said he was “as worried about getting shot in the back by the good guys as I was getting shot in the front by the Gaddafi forces,” and warned: “I swear to god, if you give these people weapons more powerful than they have right now, they will be a grave danger to themselves and others.”

In addition to scaring the crap out of Geraldo, the blundering insurgency is also ruining Obama’s message:

President Barack Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya has presented him with a whole new set of political problems with members of both parties. But its most worrisome effect for the White House is the way it’s undermining his efforts to address what has been his administration’s longest-running issue — the economy. . . .
Libya is drowning out his attempts to portray himself as an economic commander-in-chief fighting a series of new threats to the fragile U.S. recovery, especially the devastating and politically poisonous rise in gas prices.

Is it too early to say, “Quagmire”?

UPDATE: The New York Times reports that today “rebel fighters were engaging the main body of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces in an intense battle for the oil town of Brega, trading fire at close quarters and sending volleys of rockets into the town.”

It’s worth pointing out that we have very little knowledge of the size or disposition of Qaddafi’s forces — and neither do the rebels. So for all we know, the Qaddafi troops could be trying to draw the rebels into Brega while preparing a surprise encirclement. Given some estimates that the rebels number barely a thousand fighters, and that they have very little in the way of training or leadership, one suspects their tactical dispositions are not entirely sound (pardon the modest understatement). Allied air power is the only thing that’s keeping Qaddafi’s forces from mopping up the rebels.