And much of it is pork

Politics are not the high class, marvelous thing that lots of you picture. Our whole government workings are crammed with 'baloney. -- Will Rogers

The Frugal Machiavellian

Never waste a good crisis ... Don't waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security. -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Obama, Rush, and bipartisanship

Evidently Obama the Whiner can’t work his socialistic voodoo if Rush Limbaugh keeps free thinking and running his mouth off. D***it, Rush, you’re ruining Obama’s ability to cast his spell! . . .

Socialists like Obama . . . cannot work in an environment in which leaders and citizens do not do-si-do when he says so. Geez, the press corps can’t even toss him a question during a meet and greet without Barack getting testy. Therefore, Limbaugh, and all dissenters like him, must bow and kiss the ring or suffer vilification and marginalization for not being “bipartisan and tolerant.”

I would rather bikini wax a sensitive and livid grizzly sow than be a “tolerant bipartisan” toward the bloated government, pro-death, anti-free market, crap on traditional values, socialism squared, nanny state policies Obama has floated in the last few days. -- Doug Giles, Townhall.com, 2/3/09

Facts vs Politics

Obama is being hailed as the newest and freshest face on the American political scene. But he is advocating some of the oldest fallacies, just as if it was the 1960s again, or as if he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing since then... But politics is not about facts. It is about what politicians can get people to believe. -- Thomas Sowell

Obama, the Politician

One of the most naive notions is that politicians are trying to solve the country’s problems, just because they say so—or say so loudly or inspiringly. Politicians’ top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get elected and then re-elected. Barack Obama is a politician through and through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get elected. —Thomas Sowell

[ This is precisely the conclusion I came to as I finished Obama's book yesterday. He is a superb rhetorician and consummate politician. If that is want you want, he is a great choice to have on your side, but he is clearly far, far away on the other end of the ideological spectrum from my position. His strengths, if elected, will only compound the weakness of his credentials to America's great detriment. Scary. -- Kirt ]

Part of the problem

This may be cruel, but do you want to really confuse a Republican politician and leave them speechless? Ask them to identify ONE program or governmental effort that is outdated, detrimental to society or useless and that can be eliminated. I've done this and believe me.....they don't know what to say. But it speaks volumes. -- Liberty Tom, Rochester, NY, 5/22/08

Selling Eden

A politician with good rhetorical skills can create a new Garden of Eden in people's minds, though only in their minds. However, that is sufficient, if that vision or illusion can be kept alive until election day, and its failure to materialize afterwards can be explained away by the obstruction of villains. . . . So long as the voters buy it, the politicians will keep selling it. -- Thomas Sowell, townhall.com, 5/14/08

Old Professions

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. -- Ronald Reagan

Vice President McCain

[There are] five iron-clad and important Running Mate Rules.

1. FAMILIAR AND REASSURING. Most successful running mates of recent years were well-known, highly respected senior statesmen -- not newcomers or rookies.
2. OLDER. . . . there's something vastly reassuring about an older Vice Presidential nominee whose only interest is service and support, rather than plotting his own future races for the top job.
3. INSIDER. . . . We all want a Vice President who knows Washington well enough to step into the job at a moment's notice.
4. FORMER CANDIDATE. . . . The big advantage in choosing a Vice Presidential nominee who's run before for President is that the candidate has already been vetted -- whatever skeletons he (or she) may have kept stashed in the closet has already been discussed and digested by the press.
5. With mainstream media fixated on various "firsts" in the Presidential race(first woman, black, Hispanic, Mormon, and Italian American double-divorcee as serious candidates) there's a natural tendency to look at other "breakthrough"possibilities in a running mate. Any smart nominee will resist this temptation: whenever it's been tried in the past, it's always failed.

With these commons sense, unassailable rules in mind, one potential choice for the Vice Presidential nomination should emerge as an apparent Veep frontrunner-- and his name is John McCain.

-- Michael Medved, townhall.com, 12/12/07

The Gauling Guile of Liberal Politics

"You're outmanned, you're outgunned, you're out equipped. What else have you got?" Worf lamented. Commander Riker's reply: "Guile." ( Star Trek - TNG: "Peak Performance")

The same would be the response of many if not most of our honored politicians. But some (and not a few) take the guileful art to new heights. Enter the Smart People. Orson Scott Card, in his essay, Phony Soldiers and Patriotism, shares an incisive and clear view of those who consider themselves the ultimate benefactors of the Stupid People, justifying all manner of deception that they may save the nation and the world (and their power). Card is my favorite Democrat. Please read this one! -- Kirt

Liberal Reactions 101

Liberal hysteria about conservative speech always follows the same pattern; I call it "The Five Stages of Conservative Enlightenment." There are public denunciations, demands for apologies, letter-writing campaigns, attacks on the sources of your income, and calls for censorship. There will be lots of wailing, but no facts refuting the point behind your hysteria-inducing statement. Liberals prefer denouncing people with idioms -- over the top, gone too far, crossed the line,beyond the pale -- not substance. Whose line? Whose pale? It almost makes you think they don't want to talk about the substance. -- Ann Coulter, townhall.com, 9/30/07

Rules of Presidential Politics, Iran, and Bush

1. No Democrat from outside the old Confederacy has won the White House since John F. Kennedy. . . .
2. No Republican has won the White House since Eisenhower who wasn't from Texas or California. . . .
3. No sitting senator has won the presidency since Kennedy. . . .

This election is shaping up as one that will break all the rules. . . .

Here is what the Iranians are seeing: . . . Bush become increasingly weak. . . . Congress making sweeping declarations, but backing off from voting on them . . . . a Republican Party splitting in Congress. . . . a presidential election shaping up in unprecedented ways with inherently unexpected outcomes. . . .

This gives Bush his strange strength. . . . Given the strange dynamics, he is not your normal lame duck. Everyone else is tied in knots in terms of policy and in terms of the election. Bush alone has room to maneuver, and the Iranians are likely calculating that it would probably be safer to deal with this president now rather than expect the unexpected in 2008.

-- George Friedman, Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 7/24/07

To Be A Useful Politician

A man to be a sound politician and in any degree useful to the country must be governed by higher and steadier considerations than those of personal sympathy and private regard. -- Martin Van Buren

Adversaries on the Run

The war is not lost in Iraq. In fact, now American and Iraqi security forces are winning. The enemy is on the run in Iraq. But here in Congress, in Washington, we seem to be or some members seem to be on the run, chased, I fear, by public opinion polls. -- Sen. Joe Lieberman

Historical license

Everyone has the right to renounce past views. But not to make up that past. It is beyond brazen to think that one can get away with inventing not ancient history but what everyone saw and read with their own eyes just a few years ago. And yet sometimes brazenness works. -- Charles Krauthammer

Mormon canary

[Hugh] Hewitt's message [in "A Mormon in the Whitehouse?"] is that Mitt Romney has become a political canary in the coalmine. If a man of Romney's intellectual and professional stature is taken down simply because of his religious beliefs, others will follow. Permission will have been granted to destroy political opponents across the religious spectrum for believing "weird" things -- or perhaps for being excessively moral in the eyes of a skeptical, secular press. -- Richard Kirk, spectator.org, 5/11/07

Politics by other means

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup. -- Thomas Sowell, townhall.com, 5/1/07

Reid's Political Greed

It's hard to tell anymore whether the Democrats' deplorable actions are motivated more by their psychological predisposition against recognizing evil in the world (except among American political conservatives), or their raw quest for power. But perhaps Sen. Reid's recent statement to reporters sheds some light on the question.

"We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war," said Reid. "Sen. Schumer has shown me numbers that are compelling and astounding."

Enough said.

-- David Limbaugh, townhall.com, 4/24/07

HOW 'BOUT AN OUTSIDER WITH A SOLID TRACK RECORD? I do not believe Washington can be transformed from within by a lifelong politician. There have been too many deals, too many favors, too many entanglements -- and too little real world experience managing, guiding, leading. -- Mitt Romney, meridianmagazine.com, 2/14/07

CONSENSUAL MUSH: Whatever the political benefits of making decisions by committees, the need for consensus virtually guarantees the lowest common denominator. -- Thomas Sowell, townhall.com, 1/9/07