Congressman from Southern Illinois, which is coal country, waxes biblical at climate change hearing

Add comment March 31st, 2009

It used to be considered treasonous to criticize the commander-in-chief in a time of war

15 comments March 31st, 2009

 

 Back during the Vietnam conflict, we dirty hippies frequently were told that our antiwar sentiments were ipso facto unpatriotic and that we should all be run out of the country.

 And then, just a few years ago, during the worst times of the war in Iraq, even the slightest complaints about the Republican administration brought accusations from the chickenhawks at Fox News that we were ”putting U.S. forces in jeopardy” and that our “attempts to undermine the commander in chief during time of war amounts to treason.”

 Ah, but that was then and this is now.  President Obama is now sending more troops to Afghanistan, but the superpatriots at Fox News suddenly feel no reluctance to vilify the current commander-in-chief during this time of war.

 Bob Cesca puts the contrast in perspective HERE.

 POSTSCRIPT: All of this reminds me of the bogus quotation from Abraham Lincoln that was widely circulated among conservatives a few years ago in their efforts to silence congressional critics of the war in Iraq.

 I posted THIS about the matter five months ago.

I’m not a violent person, but I think I could make an exception if this Fox News guy ambushed me

4 comments March 31st, 2009

Ambush interviews by TV reporters are repugnant, which is why some news organizations don’t allow them. Fox News is not one of those organizations:

Do conservatives understand what bankruptcy is?

6 comments March 31st, 2009

 

 It’s as if this guy was reading my mind (or perhaps my blog):

Of course if you ask any of these people [critics of President Obama’s approach] what should be done about GM and Chrysler, their answer is, inevitably, that they think the companies should be allowed to go bankrupt. But that just raises a more basic question: Do conservatives understand what bankruptcy is?

 Read the whole thing HERE.

 UPDATE: What’s this? Mitt Romney AGREES with Obama’s approach to the auto industry and admires the president’s “backbone”?

Adultery, religion and politics, oh my!

Add comment March 31st, 2009

 

 The juicy tidbits in THIS COLUMN aren’t likely to be set to music from “The Wizard of Oz,” but they’re still fun to read.

 It’s all about Newt Gingrich, his extra-marital dalliances, his religious conversion and his political future.

 Enjoy.

Is the Electoral College on its way out?

Add comment March 31st, 2009

 

 I usually pay at least passing attention to Illinois politics, but I somehow missed this little tidbit: This state now has a law that would require presidential electors to vote for the winner of the national popular vote, if enough other states adopt the same requirement.

 Is this the beginning of the end of the Electoral College? Let’s hope so (although Nate Silver says HERE that it might not be).

The tragic disintegration of Michael Barone’s mind

3 comments March 31st, 2009

 

 Conservative pundit Michael Barone (above) is of the opinion that Republicans are “normal Americans…married white Protestants,” while Democrats, mostly “blacks and white seculars,” are “not normal.”

 Michael Benen laments Barone’s idiocies in THIS PIECE (which is worth your while despite a few typos).

WaPo/ABC poll: Americans more optimistic, don’t blame Obama for economic problems

4 comments March 31st, 2009

 

 There’s GOOD NEWS for President Obama in a new Washington Post/ABC News poll.

  The percentage of Americans who think the country is heading in the right direction has tripled since Obama took office. Two-thirds of respondents approve of his overall job performance, and six in 10 give him passing grades on his handling of the economy.

 UPDATE: More encouraging news for Obama in a new CNN poll SHOWING that more than 80 percent of Americans think he’ll do a good job representing the United States in his first trip abroad.

 Seventy percent of respondents said they believe leaders of other countries respect Obama. At the same juncture in George W. Bush’s presidency eight years ago, only 49 percent of Americans believed that foreign leaders respected him.

POSTSCRIPT: I can only imagine (with great delight, mind you) how frustrating polls like these must be to that peculiar minority of Americans known as Obamaphobes.

 All their blather about socialism, teleprompters, birth certificates and what-not has so far come to naught.

 And to think that it was just last week that some of these poor saps were so excited (for about 10 minutes) at prospects of a poll purporting to show that Obama’s popularity had declined precipitously. But, alas, that poll turned out to have been based on bogus methodology and made barely a ripple when it was released. (See HERE.)

 Yes, there’s a great sense of schadenfreude at Applesauce World Headquarters this morning. I might even treat myself to lunch at the finest restaurant in town.

Is this what we’re fighting for in Afghanistan?

Add comment March 31st, 2009

I’m just asking about THIS.