Palin's Lemonade Stand

It seems our lefty friends didn't like Gov. Palin's speech in Nashville, TN, last Saturday. But it wasn't the content, or even her hair, that caught most of the interest. It was her hand.

Maddened into a frenzy by the TOTUS meme, our lefty friends made a lot of unprintable comments related to the notes that Gov. Palin had scribbled on her hand.

As usual, Palin has turned lemon into lemonade by making a point of waving her notecard hand at her personal appearances. That's what a skilled politician does, by instinct. In fact that's how you can tell a skilled politician.

Meanwhile, Jonathan V. Last at the Weekly Standard looks at the Obama numbers and tells us what is happening to the president's support. The weaker parts of his winning coalition are leaving the sinking ship.

Back in 2008 Obama's core support was upscale professionals, blacks, and young voters. The "Jacksonian" voters (i.e., Scotch-Irish backwoodsmen that first turned out for Andrew Jackson 190 years ago!) and white ethnics were slow to rally to Obama's standard. It is the Jacksonians and the white ethnics who are falling away now. They are falling away from the president and maybe falling away from the Democratic Party.

Hmm. Now who do you think would really appeal to those folks? Who do you think could make them feel that he really understands them?

Exactly, Senator. That "he" is a "she."

The McGovern wing of the Democratic Party has always had a problem with the white ethnics that once were the core of the party. On defense, on race, on the regulatory state, on sex, the McGovern Democrats are poles apart from the white ethnics. Up until Obama the post Vietnam Democratic presidents have been moderate Southerners. So the antipathy between urban liberals and the white ethnics was blurred.

But President Obama is a full-on McGovern Democrat. And the old-line white ethnic voter is finding out that the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party just doesn't understand and doesn't appreciate them.

The truth is that the rise of the Republican Party since the nadir of 1964 has never been about the brilliance of Republican Party politicians and ideas. The story has always been that, about once each decade, the elite liberals toss out another member of the old New Deal coalition. And the only place for the homeless faction is the Republican Party.

But now something is different. Now the Republican Party has a headline politician who could be picked by Central Casting to appeal to the disaffected Jacksonian and white ethnic Democrats.

Her name is Sarah Palin.

Oh No! US "Ungovernable." Again

It's deja vu, all over again. Liberals are running around complaining that America is ungovernable. Again.

You young-uns may not remember the last time that happened. So I will help you out. It was in the latter stages of the Carter administration, when the hostages were in Iran, when inflation was 10 percent, people had to line up to get gasoline, and President Carter made his "malaise" speech,

Well, you can understand why liberals felt that way. They were the best and the brightest; they believed in rational government. So how come things were going so badly wrong? It couldn't be them and their stupid ideas. Oh no. Liberals couldn't be to blame. It must the the American people. They were ungovernable.

So now, after the "year the locusts ate," with President Obama having failed to pass his signature reforms to heal the sick and stop the oceans rising, liberals are blaming the system, the politicians, the public. Anyone but themselves. Jay Cost has the goods.

Ezra Klein argued that it was time to reform the filibuster because the government cannot function with it intact anymore. Tom Friedman suggested that America's "political instability" was making people abroad nervous. And Michael Cohen of Newsweek blamed "obstructionist Republicans," "spineless Democrats," and an "incoherent public" for the problem.

Nonsense, says Jay Cost. The problem is that the "President has simply not been up to the job." He has governed too far to the left, encouraging the left-wing House to produce bills too far to the left to get through the Senate and the result is that he hasn't been able to get enough support to push his program through.

That's not a bug, it's a feature. The founding fathers meant to set things up that way. They created three branches of government to police each other. They created a bi-cameral legislature that balanced popular representation with regional representation. They created a Bill of Rights to limit government power.

The end result was a government that is powerful, but not infinitely so. Additionally, it is schizophrenic. It can do great things when it is of a single mind - but quite often it is not of one mind. So, to govern, our leaders need to build a broad consensus. When there is no such consensus, the most likely outcome is that the government will do nothing.

So be quiet, liberals. The system is functioning exactly as designed. And if you don't figure that out real quick your chaps are going to be tossed out of Congress in November in an election that will make 1994 look like a Sunday school outing.

The last time that liberals declared the United States "ungovernable" the voters elected Ronald Reagan in two landslide elections. And, if you remember, during the Reagan Era nobody complained about the American people being "ungovernable."

Employment Improves

There's light at the end of the tunnel. The unemployment rate is down to 9.7 percent. But that really isn't the interesting number. The interesting number is that, in the Household Survey, there is an increase in the number of employed. It is up 542,000. That is big news.

Of course, the Establishment Survey shows a decline in employment of 20,000. But the Household Survey shows a definite uptick, and it usually shows improvement first.

Let's look at the charts. First the employment trend.

There's no doubt about it You can see a definite uptick. Now for the labor force trend.

It's still throttle bottom, with no return of discouraged workers to the labor force. But again, it is showing signs of bottoming out.

If we get another couple of months of this, then we can say that the economy is really on the mend.

But then it will be time to begin the hard work. It will be time to take a meat ax to government. Because that's where the waste, fraud, and abuse is.

Howard Zinn's Philosophy

Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier and GI Bill graduate who returned his thanks to the government by damning the US in a long career of left-wing ranting, died of a heart attack at 87.

In The New York Times obituary Zinn is represented as a bit of a rogue. In National Review Online Roger Kimball finds him a monster.

Of course, in his Peoples' History of the United States Howard Zinn was basically right. Looking at the world from the perspective of a working stiff, which he was before he went to university, life is unfair. Of course the northern Europeans conquered North America, and of course it was rough for the folks in their way. When you have power, political power, you use it to reward your supporters and take it out of the people in your way. Ask a liberal about that.

The European conquerors of North America were no different than any other conqueror. They had an enormous advantage in their superior political and military technology and they used it. And it also helped that the native North Americans were susceptible to European diseases and not the other way around.

In India and Africa it was a different story, and Europeans went down like flies to malaria. And the Brits had Edmund Burke to complain about the horrid acts of their pro-consul in India, Warren Hastings.

Given how beastly governments are, it is shocking that Howard Zinn was always in favor of power for governments (fighting for the little people, of course). Surely, given the squalid tale of oppression he has to tell, the only thing to do is to limit government power. Somehow, this never occurred to him.

But now that the United States is governed by a president who is Howard-Zinn-lite, we will see the shoe on the other foot. Liberals are not longer the champions of the little guy. They are the power elite.

Our liberal friends have been using and abusing their political and cultural power for over fifty years. There is arising in the United States a rejectionist movement that hates liberal power and hates liberal oppression of ordinary Americans.

So, now that Howard Zinn has gone to his reward it may be time for a "Tea Party History of the United States." Instead of writing endlessly about the heroic radical suits that stood up for the poor and the oppressed, this new history might celebrate the folk who stood up against the liberal power machine--its corruption, its self dealing, and its sinecures--and championed truth, justice, and the American Way.

Man (ok, Woman) Bites Dog

I live by a rigid, inflexible rule. Whenever liberals attack a conservative politician as a dunce--amiable or stupid--I pay attention. I mark that conservative politician as a rising star, perhaps even called to greatness.

So I am naturally drawn, as many others have been, to Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK). Given how vigorously liberals have demonized and stigmatized her, I suspect that she is truly marked out for great deeds.

Here's the latest Palin moment. The former governor has urged the president to fire Rahm Emanuel for his recent comment about liberals being "eff-ing retarded." Writes Palin: "Are You Capable of Decency, Rahm Emanuel?"

Now, let's see, that sounds familiar. Rewind back to the Fifties and the Army-McCarthy hearings. Counsel Joseph Welch to Senator Joseph McCarthy:

Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Golly. Who thought that Palin was a student of history? Does she even know how to read?

Notice the real brilliance here. Palin is not going after Emanuel for dissing a Republican. That's the usual political shtick. But Palin is doing something different. She is complaining because Emanuel is acting disrespectfully towards people in his own party.

How smart is that? Do you think that President Obama could think of such a brilliant move, intelligent as he is?

Sarah Palin is moving deftly into the electorate's sweet spot. She is not just talking about lowering the squabbling in Washington, she is doing something about it. She is establishing a record as a true "post-partisan," the darling of the moderates and independents who, we are told, just hate the bickering and back-biting of day-to-day politics.

Now. If you were an advisor to an up-and-coming politician, would you be smart enough to think of that? To criticize a Rahm Emanuel for trashing people in his own party?

There's no doubt that Sarah Palin was unprepared for the national stage back in the fall of 2008. But let us understand what being "unprepared" really means. It means not yet having a carousel in your head full of focus-group and poll-tested sound bites on national issues. Not yet having a quick retort to put Katie Couric in her place.

Sarah Palin may not be prepared as a national politician. Not yet. But she is a skilled politician who has worked her way up in electoral politics from city councilwoman to governor. That means something, even if her experience is in Alaska. Politics is still politics. An old hand like Pat Buchanan has written: "Of Sarah Palin it can be said. The lady knows how to frame an issue."

Think of this. Is there any skill more important for a poltician in electoral politics than framing an issue?

Liberal Ignorance (about Conservatives)

As trite as it is to bring this up. Liberals don't really know much about conservatives. And that starts with the president.

A journeyman blogger like John Hawkins posts an article like "Seven Huge Flaws in the Way Liberal Think" on a regular basis. Whether he's right or he's wrong, he's still thinking about the foundations of liberal thought.

President Obama seems to be as bad as anyone. JSF at Valley of the Shadow puts it succinctly.

President Obama has a Huffington Post understanding of the Right, or the Right as seen from the Left. Not once has he ever spoken to a Conservative to understand his or her views.

This of course is a consequence of the liberal hegemony in media and the academy. Liberals in the political class can live lives completely cut off from conservative ideas and culture. And, as you might say, they like it that way.

The problem is that politics is civil war by other means. You need to know as much as you can about the enemy. You need to know where his troops are; you need to know what he is thinking. You need to have an idea about how he is likely to react to your actions. You have to constantly work at this, because it is easy to avoid hard choices and unpleasant news.

The biggest problem with ideas is the things you know that aren't so. That is what "Seven Huge Flaws" is all about:

1. Liberals believe they can change human nature
2. Liberals believe we can talk everything out with our enemies
3. Liberals don't have enough respect for our culture and traditions
4. Liberalism is a fundamentally immoral political philosophy
5. Liberals believe merely being liberal makes them good people
6. Liberals have too much faith in government
7. Liberals have minimal interest in whether the programs they support work or not

Read the whole thing to get into the details. Hawkins is detailing the beliefs not just of liberals but of President Obama, and he is explaining the reasons why liberals know so little about conservatives.

Still, liberals are interested in power and you would think that they would do what it takes to learn about the opposition so that they can beat them and keep their power. And yet powerful dynasties decline and fall all the time.

There is still time for liberals and for President Obama to switch onto another track and avoid the train wreck that is coming in November. But the time is very short.

Fox News Most Trusted

You can understand that Fox News star Bill O'Reilly couldn't resist the opportunity to gloat a little. Public Policy Polling, a liberal polling outfit, had just released a poll on TV news pitched as:

Fox News is the only major tv news operation that more Americans trust than distrust.

Here are the results in a convenient table:

News Org.	Trust	Don't Trust	Not Sure
Fox News	49%	37%	15%
ABC News	31%	46%	22%
NBC News	35%	44%	20%
CBS News	32%	46%	22%
CNN	39%	41%	20%

If you are a liberal, I dare say, these results tell you what you have known all along, that the American people are uneducated and ignorant. How could the American people believe that Fox is a serious news organization?

If you are a conservative listening to you liberal friend railing against the stupidity of the American people, you chuckle to yourself and mutter: Go ahead, punk. Make my day.

Because for our liberal friends not to take a poll like this seriously is an act of plain foolishness. It's the news equivalent of always branding Republican presidents as dunces.

But we conservatives wish our liberal friends well. They are, after all, Americans too, although grievously corrupted by the political and cultural power they have amassed over the last century. So here is a little primer to tell our liberal friends, in a fair and balanced way, why it makes complete sense that Fox News is Americans' most trusted news network.

1. Americans tilt conservative. The poll reminds us of this: 14% liberal, 47% moderate, 39% conservative. Of course conservatives are going to prefer to get their news from a conservative source, just as liberals like to get their news from the liberal New York Times.
   
   
2. The mainstream media really overdid things in 2008. Listen: everyone falls in love, but the MSM love affair with Candidate Obama really was over the top. People notice when other people are in love. It's written all over them.
   
   
3. President Obama is governing left-liberal. His ObamaCare is classic union liberalism. It reduces life to a monthly payment and outsources risk to others. The great middle in America wants to live life, not receive a monthly benefit. His cap-and-trade is classic educated-class liberalism. It hands over the US economy to the tender mercies and the suffocating rules of the government experts.
   
   
4. Many independents reacted immediately and negatively to Obama's fiscal policy a year ago. Naturally they will look to a news organization that reflects and confirms their views.
   
   
5. Many Americans feel that President Obama is not working on the one issue that they care about. Fixing the economy.
   

And so on. There are all kinds of ways in which you can argue against this. Go ahead, it's a free country.

But liberals and Democrats should understand that there is a perfect storm brewing. This poll is a severe storm warning. It will take political ability, hard work, and sheer luck for Democrats to avoid a devastating wipeout this year. The time to start shuttering the windows and doubling up the tie-downs is now.

Don't say you weren't warned!