Your Random...Something

David Limbaugh on Obama's delusions:

He told Oprah Winfrey he deserves "a good solid B-plus" for his first year in office. The only things standing in his way for that coveted A are -- for the most part -- other people, such as evil Republicans who oppose socialized medicine...

"The biggest burden on me right now is that economic growth has happened, but job growth has not happened." Note the "burden on me." Similarly, he said his painfully belabored decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan hit him "in the gut."...

When the George W. Bush economy was humming for almost eight years, Obama and his media friends gave Bush no credit because, they said, we were experiencing "jobless growth." These partisan charlatans characterized 4.5 percent unemployment as "joblessness." What does that make 10 percent -- especially in light of Obama's promise to keep it less than 8 percent?

Shouldn't Obama be held to the same standard that he and his liberal friends set for President Bush? A June 10, 2007, editorial by George F. Will had it just right: "In 2002, when (Bush's) tax cuts kicked in and the economy began 65 months -- so far -- of uninterrupted growth, critics said: But it is a 'jobless recovery,' (even though) the unemployment rate steadily declined (to) 4.5 percent."

Lawrence Kudlow wrote in 2006 that Democrats who proclaimed a "jobless recovery" in 2003 and 2004 "had to eat crow." "Right now," Kudlow wrote, "total employment in the U.S. stands at a record high of 144 million. This is a big number, just as 4.6 percent unemployment is a low number."

But despite the objectively positive data, liberals wouldn't permit any positive perspective on the Bush economy, to the point that they had convinced 64 percent of Americans (according to a Gallup Poll) that the economy was doing poorly...

Yet Obama pats himself on the back because "we are on our way out of Iraq," and he thinks "we've got the best possible plan for Afghanistan."

How he can give himself credit for Iraq is beyond comprehension. He vigorously opposed the surge, which everyone acknowledges turned the war around, and he steadfastly refused to admit he was wrong. Our withdrawal from Iraq is only possible because wiser heads prevailed. As for Afghanistan, he ultimately made the right decision to listen to the generals -- partially. He refused to send the number of troops they requested, demoralized our forces and emboldened the enemy in needlessly delaying his decision, and telegraphed our lukewarm commitment to the war by setting a short-term withdrawal date just as he was increasing troop deployments.

How about Obama's restoration of America's image? Well, he's gone around the world telling people how terrible we are -- not exactly the smartest PR move. He's consistently insulted our greatest ally, Britain; a Wall Street Journal article this week notes that he snubbed Britain by failing to mention its support in Afghanistan while touting nations offering less support. He disses our ally Israel, treating it as a terrorist nation and demanding that it unilaterally cease settlements in a portion of its own land...

B-plus?

"Delusional" is an understatement.

Nice bias example from Mr. Bozell:

Liberal newspaper people are so predictable when it comes to internal party fights. If it's inside the Republican Party, it's the conservative Republicans who are wrong. If inside the Democratic Party, it's the conservative Democrats who are wrong.

The Washington Post recently gave us a case study in this slanted worldview. On Dec. 14, they splashed across the front page an article by reporter Michael Leahy on an obscure California Republican assemblyman named Anthony Adams. The charge: He betrayed his no-new-taxes vow and supported a $12 billion tax increase. The Post analysis: Adams was savaged by the "toxic infighting" of nasty conservatives, who moved (unsuccessfully) to recall him from office...

The Post never considered the troublesome reality that it was Adams who first opened fire by breaking his word to his constituents and betraying his party...

Now dig back to the Post on Dec. 8, and see how a man who dares to be different inside the Democratic caucus is treated. Suddenly, the gloves come off and the reporters start swinging. Note the personal disgust in the very first paragraph of a Joe Lieberman story by Lois Romano and Alec MacGillis:

"Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) has once again inserted himself into the middle of an inflamed partisan debate, raising questions about his motives, his ego and his fickle allegiance to the Democratic Party, which forgave him after he supported Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president."

Back in California, the tax-hiking Republican was not the aggressor "inserting himself" into the debate and "inflaming" partisan debate. The Post didn't question "his motives, his ego, and his fickle allegiance" to the party.

Ann Coulter pummels the left...as usual:

The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a column about John Brodniak of Oregon, who developed a cavernous hemangioma, causing him great pain as blood leaks into his brain.

According to Kristof, Brodniak can't get medical help because we don't have universal health care...

In another article in the Times, William Yardley wrote about Melvin Tsosies -- also of Oregon -- who ended up with $200,000 in medical bills after having a heart attack...

How can this be happening? Oregon already has "universal health care"!...

Once again forgetting about the existence of the Internet, the Times neglects to mention its own erstwhile enthusiasm for Oregon's universal health care plan, introduced back in 1990.

Back then, the Times published an editorial titled "Oregon's Brave Medical Experiment," hailing this technocratic monstrosity as an example of "hardheaded compassion" designed to make "health coverage available to many more families."

Ron Wyden -- then a congressman from Oregon, now a U.S. senator at the forefront of pushing "universal health care" onto the nation -- said: "This is a strong dramatic step toward universal access of health care." He predicted, "[T]his is going to be copied everywhere."...

Liberals cite medical horror stories from the very states they once cheered for enacting universal health care in order to argue for a national health care plan that will wreck the entire nation's medical care the same way liberal states already wrecked their own medical care.

Thomas Sowell on the 'mold breaking' status of global warming "science":

An intercepted e-mail from a professor at the Climate Research Unit in England to a professor at the University of Pennsylvania warned the latter: "Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act" and urged the American professor to delete any e-mails he may have sent a colleague regarding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

When a business accused of fraud begins shredding its memos and deleting its e-mails, the media are quick to proclaim these actions as signs of guilt. But, after the global warming advocates began a systematic destruction of evidence, the big television networks went for days without even reporting these facts, much less commenting on them.

As for politicians, Senator Barbara Boxer has urged prosecution of the hackers who uncovered and revealed the e-mails! People who have in the past applauded whistleblowers in business, in the military, or in Republican administrations, and who lionized the New York Times for publishing the classified Pentagon papers, are now shocked and outraged that someone dared to expose massive evidence of manipulations, concealment and destruction of data-- and deliberate cover-ups of all this-- in the global warming establishment...

People who talk about the corrupting influence of money seem to automatically assume that it is only private money that is corrupting. But, when governments have billions of dollars invested in the global warming crusade, massive programs underway and whole political careers at risk if that crusade gets undermined, do not expect the disinterested search for truth.

Larry Kudlow thinks we're in for a decent 2010, possibly at the expense of 2011:

What’s a yield curve and why is it so important?

Well, the curve itself measures Treasury interest rates, by maturity, from 91-day T-bills all the way out to 30-year bonds. It’s the difference between the long rates and the short rates that tells a key story about the future of the economy.

When the curve is wide and upward sloping, as it is today, it tells us that the economic future is good. When the curve is upside down, or inverted, with short rates above long rates, it tells us that something is amiss -- such as a credit crunch and a recession.

The inverted curve is abnormal, the positive curve is normal. We have returned to normalcy, and then some. Right now, the difference between long and short Treasury rates is as wide as any time in history...

The yield curve may be the best single forecasting predictor there is. When it was inverted or flat for most of 2006, 2007, and the early part of 2008, it correctly predicted big trouble ahead. Right now it is forecasting a much stronger economy in 2010 than most people think possible.

So there could be a mini boom next year, with real GDP growing at 4 to 5 percent, perhaps with a 6 percent quarter in there someplace. And the unemployment rate is likely to come down, perhaps moving into the 8 percent zone from today’s 10 percent...

My hunch is that inflation will range 2 to 3 percent next year...

But really, pessimists have missed the big rise in corporate profits, the resiliency of our mostly free-market capitalist economy, and the monetarist experiment from the easy-money Fed. The optimal policy mix on the supply-side is low tax rates and King Dollar. We don’t have that. So as good as 2010 may be, with investors moving to beat the tax man, it could be a false prosperity at the expense of 2011.