According to Gabe Malor's recap, the fifteen-rounder between the California Madame and Carly Fiorina was not so much a draw as a feeling-out encounter.  Boxer basically didn't have anything to say, and was left with a choice of taking shots at Fiorina's Hewlett-Packard CEO tenure or offering a defiantly autistic defense of the self-same Obama agenda the even large pluralities of Golden staters loathe.  True to her leadership skills, she did both, and badly.

Fiorina confirmed her spottiness on pretty much every non-economic issue other than abortion, where she took a surprising federalist stance.  But we've been over this one before - no "true conservative" can win statewide in California, as even Sarah Palin recognized when she backed Fiornia.  She's the best we're going to do there, and that best would be a stupendous improvement over the status quo.

Evidently Carly's problem was the same one President Reagan suffered from in the first 1984 debate with Walter Mondale: overpreparation.  Dutch had all sorts of facts and figures and stats at his command, but in the process of regurgitating them the big picture forest got lost in the arborial shuffle, and he emerged the consensus loser.  He was even shivved as having looked and sounded "old".  What was the needed remedy?  To "let Reagan be Reagan".  To get back to the big picture that had gotten him to the crushing lead he already enjoyed, and for which Mondale had no answer.

For Fiorina, the big picture message was, "You want jobs to come back to California? Cut taxes, cut regulation".  But after mentioning it as a preface, she never really got back to it, getting bogged down in all that preparation.  Unlike the Gipper, though, Carly is the challenger, and thus it was more important for her to hammer away on that central message whenever possible.

It's the difference between a "formal" (i.e. high school team) debate scored and graded technically on points and a combined press conference.  Modern political campaign debates are the latter, not the former, and mistaking the two gets you these missed opportunities.  Again, for the challenger these are invaluable opportunities to not just contrast yourself with the incumbent but speak directly to the voters with your core message.  Over and over and over.  Be repetitive.  Pound it, and your opponent, into the ground, and into the voter's individual and collective consciousness.  And if Babsy makes a boo-boo, so much the better.

Tonight, Carly Fiorina didn't get the job done.  But at least Senator M'am threw her a mulligan:

 It appears that her recollection of that conversation with Condi Rice has diverged dramatically over the past three years from the one that actually transpired:

Now I am the last person on the planet to cut Barbara F'ing Boxer any slack at all, but I do have some direct experience with trying to remember the details of conversations from years in the past, and I can "testify" to the way that memories can get "seasoned" as they settle into your engram neurons in the marinade of subsequent and related events.  You're certain you said this and they said that, and then you see the transcript and you said that and they said this.  And when you're under oath, certitude is at a premium, and equally as hard to come by.

Two differences in the Madame's case, though:

(1) Her memory divergence is a lot wider than just the particular choices of words; it's about as different an exchange as she and the SecState could have had and still have been discussing the same topic.   I don't have any trouble seeing what happened in that windy, cobwebby belfry that suffices for her mind: the actual encounter with Secretary Rice was an embarrassment, so she just made up a different one in which Condi pissed herself instead.  Psychological problem solved, mammoth ego assuaged.

(2) She's a United frakking States frakking Senator with more staffers than I've got fat cells.  If she wants a transcript of that 2007 Foreign Relations Committee hearing to be updated and prepared for this S.F. Chronicle editorial board meeting, it oughtn't have been to difficult for her to order up and skim through.F

Or perhaps, to Ensign Ed's point, she did, and decided she liked her "reimagined" version better and is stubbornly sticking with it.

So I guess Boxer can spend the next few weeks re-fighting Roe v. Wade yet again, while Fiorina can poll California voters on whether they think their senior senator is (1) a pathetic liar or (2) a demented, emotionally "wobbly" [heh] crone.

Should make the next debate...fascinating.  

LABOR DAY 2010:

Excessive influence of BIG LABOR on Obama administration and Congress has been disastrous for American workers and the Nation's economy

RE: The tremendous amount of power & influence that officials of organized labor have over this administration & congress is adding to the growth of government and makes no sense given that only 7% of the private sector workforce and 12% of the overall workforce are members of a labor union. Last year, for the first time in history, the majority of union members in the country were working for the government-not the private sector. The Obama administration & Congress' decision making disregards the 93% of the private sector workforce in order to payback Big Labor bosses for previous campaign support-much coming from the dues money collected from workers who are subject to compulsory unionism.

"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama--$60.7 million to be exact and we're proud of it."

Andrew Stern, former President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

ISSUE-IN-BRIEF: As Americans prepare to observe Labor Day, the nation's unemployment rate continues to remain at record high levels and the federal deficit continues to grow and place a long term burden on every American taxpayer. The Obama administration and Congress have handed out one favor after another in special interest favors to union officials without regard to the public policy ramifications. For example:

· Ten days after being sworn in President Obama issued 3 Executive Orders that curtail federal contractor's free speech during union organizing drives, provide job security for employees of federal service contractors, and require federal contractors to notify employees of their right to join a union.

· One week later President Obama signed another Executive Order announcing a government preference for Project Labor Agreements (PLA's) on all federally funded large-scale construction projects. As a result of this, many projects financed by the so-called "economic stimulus bill" are subject to PLA's and performed by unionized workers.

· The Obama Department of Labor rolled back several rules issued during the Bush administration to increase union transparency on forms required to be filed with the government as required under the Labor Management Reporting Disclosure Act.

· The Obama Treasury Department forced financially troubled General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy and swinging a deal granting the United Auto Workers respectively 17.5% and 55% stakes in GM and Chrysler.

Gallup found for the first time since it began asking the question in 1997 that a majority of Americans now think "unions mostly hurt the economy."

· According to official records, the person who most often visited the White House in 2009 was Andy Stern, then President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)-a union that had given more than $4 million since 2006 to scandal ridden ACORN and its affiliates

· An overwhelming majority of congressional democrats co-sponsored "card-check" legislation designed to deny workers a secret ballot election to determine if a union would represent them.

· The Obama administration and Congress reduced funding to the Department of Labor's Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS)-which is the only agency in the entire federal government assigned the responsibility for oversight of organized labor.

· President Obama circumvented the Senate-that had objections to NLRB nominee Craig Becker-and recess appointed him as chairman. Becker had previously worked for both the AFL-CIO and the SEIU.

· Some in Congress are now proposing a $165 billion union pension bailout. As FOX Business Network reported, these pensions are in bad shape; as of 2006, well before the stock market dropped and recession began, only 6% of these union pension funds were doing well.

Gallup recently found for the first time in more than eighty years of asking the question that only a minority of Americans now "approve of labor unions."

Conservative Action Project

William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government

Virginia Thomas, President, Liberty Central

Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council

Tom Schatz, President, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste

Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform

Duane Parde, President, National Taxpayers Union

Wendy Wright, President, Concerned Women for America

Edwin Meese, former Attorney General

David N. Bossie, President, Citizens United

Ken Boehm, Chairman, National Legal & Policy Center

Tom Winter, Editor-in-Chief, Human Events

Karen Kerrigan, President, Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council

Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

Ron Robinson, President, Young America's Foundation

Andrea Lafferty, Executive Director, Traditional Values Coalition

Mario H. Lopez, President, Hispanic Leadership Fund

Dr. Herbert London, President, Hudson Institute

David McIntosh, former Member of Congress, Indiana

Donna Hearne, Executive Director, Constitutional Coalition

Gary Bauer, President, American Values

Herman Cain, President, The NEW Voice, Inc.

Susan Carleson, Chairman & CEO, American Civil Rights Union

J. Kenneth Blackwell, former Treasurer, State of Ohio

Becky Norton Dunlop, President, Council for National Policy

James Martin, Chairman, 60 Plus Association

Myron Ebell, President, Freedom Action

Mathew D. Staver, Founder & Chairman, Liberty Counsel

Michelle Easton, President, Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute

Phil Burress, President, Citizens for Community Values

Alfred Regnery, Publisher, American Spectator

David Y. Denholm, President, Public Service Research Foundation

Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com

Jordan Marks, Executive Director, Young Americans for Freedom

Bob McEwen, former Member of Congress, Ohio

Rev. Lou Sheldon, Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition

Marion Edwyn Harrison, Past President, Free Congress Foundation

(All organizations listed are for identification purposes only)

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION & CONGRESS PLEASE VISIT THESE WEBSITES:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/122744/Labor-Unions-Sharp-Slide-Public-Support.aspx

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6290/obamaafl-cio_lovefest_once_again_labor_hopes_president_will_prove_loya/

http://union-yes.blogspot.com/2008/05/barack-obama-in-organized-labors-pocket.html

http://www.unionfacts.com/

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB124227027965718333.html

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/congress-pushing-165-billion-union-pension-bailout-94828874.html

http://www.faegre.com/showarticle.aspx?Show=8938

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/1/30/143556/925

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090130_obama_gives_labor_unions_a_boost/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/31/obama-supports-union-organizing/

http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2010/01/13/top-ten-union-corruption-stories-year

http://biggovernment.com/rmanning/2010/01/20/transforming-the-u-s-department-of-labor-to-the-department-of-organized-labor/

http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2009/04/30/labor-department-rescinds-revised-lm-2-and-lm-30-rules-invites-potential-corrupti

http://www.dwt.com/LearningCenter/Advisories?find=65354

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052702303491304575188263180553530.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/244369/cops-and-robbers-daniel-foster

1) Captain Planet decides to save Earth by taking Discovery Channel HQ hostage and blowing the shark's brains out if his own species doesn't immediately agree to extinctify itself.

2) His demand is met, but starts at the wrong end.

3) His awesome, planet-saving, leftwingnut self is immediately eulogized by the Obamedia as one of Joe Arpaio's deputies.

But let's do James Lee the courtesy of posting his personal greenstremist manifesto in toto:

The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:

1. The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's My Ishmael pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!

2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.

3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!

4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??

5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)

6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!

7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people's brains until they get it!!

8. Saving the Planet means saving what's left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You're the media, you can reach enough people. It's your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!

9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they take the world to another nuclear war.

10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC. Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!

11. You're also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.

Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.

For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of sixty to a hundred YEARS of that new human's lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!

It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use thirty to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It's like a couple are having thirty babies even though it's just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!

His mentor/hero/gurus?  Daniel Quinn and....Al Gore.  Which makes him all yours, Obamunists.  He is one of you.  He is what YOU made him.  The blood he shed today is on YOUR hands, even if it ended up being his own, as is the figurative blood he wanted to shed.  Everything he was demanding - forced abortion/infanticide/sterilization (Red China's one-child policy, endorsed by Planned Parenthood), a "green economy," animal rights, anti-free trade/protectionist, anti-property rights ("protecting" "endangered" species), global genocide (Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism) - makes James Lee a mainstream Democrat.  And, almost certainly, an Obama voter.

So guess what?  We're gonna make him stick to you like Bill Clinton's pecker tracks on Monica's blue dress.  James Lee will be the poster boy for the American Left after Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and dozens of their fellow-travelers have been sent back to the nut hatch, with every bit the gusto and every iota of quarter you give to us.

Get used to it, because James Lee is your new "Bernie".  Only it's gonna be for a helluva lot longer than a weekend.  

The Wall Street Journal today highlights (subscription required) a letter written by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf in 1977 after Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Israel. WSJ quotes:

“For my fellow Arabs I have the following special message: Learn from the example of the Prophet Mohammed, your greatest historical personality. After a state of war with the Meccan unbelievers that lasted for many years, he acceded, in the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, to demands that his closest companions considered utterly humiliating. Yet peace turned out to be a most effective weapon against the unbelievers.”

Says the author:

He’s referring to a treaty in the year 628 that established a ten-year truce between the Prophet Muhammad and Meccan leaders and was viewed by Muslims at the time as a defeat. But Muhammad used that period to consolidate his ranks and re-arm, eventually leading to his conquest of Mecca. Imam Rauf seems to be saying that Muslims should understand Sadat’s olive branch in the same way, as a short-term respite leading to ultimate conquest.

Also interesting is Rauf’s view of Israel:

“In a true peace it is impossible that a purely Jewish state of Palestine can endure. . . . In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority.”

On the Iranian revolution, in a letter written in 1979:

“The revolution in Iran was inspired by the very principles of individual rights and freedom that Americans ardently believe in.”

The piece juxtaposes this with the Rauf’s widely reported advice to Obama in 2009 (after the Green Revolution protests) to:

“…say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution—to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faquih, that establishes the rule of law.”

WSJ points out that Vilayet-i-faquih “means Guardianship of the Jurist, which in practice means that all power resides with the mullahs.”

And here's the punchline:

Queried for comment, Rauf responded as follows:

“It is amusing that journalists are combing through letters-to-the-editor that I wrote more than thirty years ago, when I was a young man, for clues to my evolution. As I re-read those letters now, I see that they express the same concerns—a desire for peaceful solutions in Israel, and for a humane understanding of Iran—that I have maintained, and worked hard on, in the years since those letters were published.”

The swerve?  In that last quote, he's absolutely right.  From 1977 to now Rauf has been the same anti-Semitic, jihadi-symp Islamist.  He hasn't changed one jot or tittle.  The lone dent in his candor is that he purports to be willing to settle for conquering Israel and reducing the Jews (back) to a slave race, as opposed to the mullahgarchy's "humane" nuclear Final Solution.  And because he isn't strapping on bomb jackets beneath his robes, he's got the American Left eating the dhimmi food out of his hand (think about it....) - in the name of "religious freedom" - and paying him our money for the privilege.  Heck, why would HE seek seventy-two virgindom?  He's far more value to The Cause right propagandizing right where he is.  They're getting their Islamic Victory Monument at Ground Zero, aren't they?

Mayhap they will, mayhap they won't:

The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.

Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show.

El-Gamal’s company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.

The delinquency is a possible violation of El-Gamal’s lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

This comes after a rap sheet slimier than camel drool.

Pregnant point to ponder: How's Mohammed's Middle Finger going to get built with problems borne of scumbags like this stoutly standing in the way?  That one's rhetorical, and leads to the true exit query: Who's gonna pony up for GZM - Rauf's shady sources, U.S. taxpayers (as "reparations" for the "Islamophobic bigotry" of the American people), or all of the above?  We're already paying Rauf to panhandle around the Middle East, and we're already subsidizing the construction of numerous mosques all over the world (in the name of "religious liberty"); would it really be much of a stretch?

And he's got plenty of company:

Private sector employment decreased by 10,000 from July to August on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report® released today. The estimated change of employment from June to July was revised down slightly, from the previously reported increase of 42,000 to an increase of 37,000.

The decline in private employment in August confirms a pause in the recovery already evident in other economic data. The deceleration in employment was evident in the major sectors and by size of business. This month’s decline in employment followed six monthly increases from February through July. Over those six months the average monthly gain in employment was 37,000 with no evidence of acceleration.

Unlike the estimate of total establishment employment to be released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), today’s figure does not include the effects of federal hiring — and now firing — for the 2010 Census. Hiring for the census peaked in May. For this reason, Friday’s figure for the change in nonfarm total employment reported by the BLS might be weaker than today’s estimate for nonfarm private employment in the ADP National Employment Report.

Augusts’ ADP Report estimates nonfarm private employment in the service-providing sector rose by 30,000, the seventh consecutive monthly gain. This increase was not enough to offset an employment decline in the goods-producing sector of 40,000. Employment in the manufacturing sector decreased 6,000, the second consecutive monthly decline.

Remember how if there was so much as a net gain of a single private sector job (and at least a hundred thousand new ones a month are needed to keep REAL unemployment from increasing) False Messiah would cite it as "proof" that the economy is "heading in the right direction"?  So much for that spaghetti crutch.

It's hardly "unexpected".  An economy that never really emerged from the Obamapression and has suffered a "Recovery Summer" cascade failure of crashing sales, driven by crashing consumer demand, and reaching the expiration dates of all the Dems' statist cosmetic gimmickry was never going to conjure up the half-million jobs a month Barry instructed Slow Joe to stumble around the country idiotically promising, without which the economy will never recover no matter what the season is.

And just in time for the party of Jackassery to receive their reward from the voters, too.

Think of the following as a preview of their side of the fall campaign.

A whole lotta them will be finding Waldo too, methinks.

The question of the day appears to be, "Is Chris Matthews a racist for lowering the bar of social responsibility-assumption so low to make Red Barry look even more perfectly perfect than Heathcliff Huxtable that all he'd have had to have done is not eat Malia and Sasha moments after they were born?"  And cite this as pluproof that he's the greatest president never born in a manger (in Hawaii!):

His entire speech here is racist. Yes, racist. Most politicians "do everything right" in terms of getting an education, securing gainful employment, getting married and raising a family.

Most people do this, in fact.

Why is it that in the case of Obama it is required that we "like this guy" for doing what 85% of the public does? In fact - for doing what 85% of black people do?

He's doling out the superlatives for perfectly ordinary good behavior, of course, because Obama's black, and Chris Matthews finds it just plum remarkable that there's a successful, bourgeois upper-class black man out there, and we should all gawk at it and and "oooh" and "ahhh" at it like it's a, well, like it's a unicorn.

As Chris Rock said, "You're supposed to" do these things, and you're not supposed to get a big stack of credit for doing them.

But Chris Matthews, closet racist, thinks this is just about the most amazing thing he's ever seen, like a horse that can do addition. 

Yeah, I think it's racist, for the unspoken implication of Matthews' pathetic "Hey, and he remembers to zip up his fly most of the time after visiting the loo!" damnation praise.  The trademark, condescending, hardleft pathology about minorities that oozes out of every weathered, baggy-eyed pore: "They're helpless, hapless, hopeless, subhuman mongoloids who are incapable of functioning as sentient, responsible, adult human beings, and we have to serve as their permanent guardians."  Kinda like Cornelius and Zera felt about humans.  Because Barack knows what would happen to them if those racist Republicans got back in charge.

Reminds me of when General Zod told the people of that town in Idaho that they would enjoy his "generous protection."  Plantation owners in the old South used to say the same thing.

But because WE don't patronize and belittle The One's ethnicity but, ironically, accord him the full-fledged respect given any pol by his foes in blasting the bebarry out of him out of honest, substantive loathing of his national suicide agenda, that gets US accused of personal animus - which patronizes and belittles US - and since nobody could not like such a clean-cut, articulate Negro, it HAS to be because he's half BLACK.

Maybe it's Tingle who's from Pluto.  If he went home, he'd probably boost his audience size.

The speech was on Iraq, BTW, and how U.S. combat forces are leaving right on schedule, rather than after Iraq has a government in place and has military forces that can not just "maintain security," but also defend the country from Iranian/Syrian invasion.  He even gave it from the Oval Office, for some reason.  I guess they figured it was expected of him.

Let's see: He never mentioned victory, he never admitted he was wrong about the Surge, and while he did mention speaking to President Bush yesterday afternoon, he said zip, zero, nada about the phone conversation (which should give you a pretty good idea of how it went).  That's not to suggest that it was necessarily a shouting match; I kind of picture Barry dialing up the ranch in Crawford and when Dubya picked up, the L'il President did one of those pranks that Bart Simpson used to do to Moe the bartender.  Just so he could say without technically lying that he did, in fact, "speak to FORMER President Bush."  Which makes it a net loss for him to mention it if the only thing he could, or was going to, say is, "His patriotism and support of the troops is ALMOST AS STRONG AS MINE".

Oh, and he got bored half way through and lapsed into his "Recovery Summer" horseshit before TOTUS frantically waved him back on-message, sterile and phony though it was.

To me this feels like a rehash of the preview I already posted last weekend, which couldn't help but be spot-on in lieu of B.O.'s wearisome predictability.  Not even half way through his term and he's already "soldiering" on not out of fun or satisfaction or even a sense of duty, but out of stubbornness and spite - and the perqs.

I don't know 'bout y'all, but I don't have time for any more of an analysis, and if I did, it just wouldn't interest me enough to bother.  If you're interested, there are in-depth parsings all over the rightosphere.  My favorite was Jonah Goldberg's.  Any loose end he didn't tie off, Ramirez took care of in his daily 'toon installment.

If you'll excuse me, I have serious work to do.

“I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES OR DICK ARMEY AND NEWT GINGRICH- and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS,” Cusack tweeted.

You know what I'm gonna say. Imagine if, say, Jon Voight called for the deaths of NBC News and Pelosi? Why, the hate police would be ALL OVER IT. But this? I daresay it will get no mention on the major networks.

JASmius adds: Sorry, Jen, but imperiled House Blue Dogs have already beat you to it.

To My Patients,

Section 1311 of the new health care legislation gives the US Secretary of Health and Human Services and her appointees the power to establish care guidelines that your doctor must abide by or face penalties and fines. In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy, this bill effectively makes them government employees and means that you and your doctor are no longer in charge of your health care decisions.

This new law politicizes medicine and in my opinion destroys the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship that makes the American health care system the best in the world.

In addition to also badly exacerbating the current doctor short age,the law will bring major cost increases, rising insurance premiums, higher taxes, a decline in new medical techniques, a fall-off in the development of miracle drugs as well as rationing by government panels and bureaucrats like passionate rationing advocate Donald Berwick forcing delays of months or sometimes years for hospitalization or surgery. Finally, studies show the legislation will adversely affect the elderly, the poor and rural residents.

Despite countless protests by doctors and overwhelming public opposition — up to 60% of Americans opposed this bill — the current party incontrol of Congress pushed this bill through with legal bribes and Chicago style threats and is determined now to resist any “repeal and replace” efforts.

This doctor’s office is non-partisan — always has been, always will be. But the fact is that every Republican voted against this bad bill while the Democratic Party leadership and the White House completely dismissed the will of the people in ruthlessly pushing through this legislation.

In the face of voter anger, some Democratic candidates are now trying to make a cosmetic retreat, calling for minor modifications or pretending they are opposed to government-run medicine. Once the election is over, however, they will vote with their party bosses against repealing this bill. Please remember when you vote this November that unless the Democratic party receives a strong negative message about this power grab our health care system will never be fixed and the doctor-patient relationship will be ruined forever.

I will be glad to discuss this with you at the end of our consultation.

Your Doctor

Sure would be more eye-opening in the waiting room than a dog-earred, three-month-old People with the pic of Lindsey Lohan going into lockup.  And while it would save eye/ear/nose-throat guys a lot of sinus work, it'd throw all physicians' blood pressure measurements all to heck.

Is this letter partisan?  Not at all.  It's about survival.  Theirs professionally, ours literally.

It's ObamaCare versus the Hippocratic Oath.  And the former will do incalculable harm.