Karl Rove's weekly masterpieces in the Wall Street Journal thread

[웃 910]

12/30/2009

Karl Rove

New Year's Resolutions for Washington

Ambitious Republicans should resolve to run for office next year.

President Obama not only left Washington, D.C., for the holidays, but the lower 48 as well. So I thought I'd offer a few New Year's resolutions for him and others to come back to in the coming year.

First, to Mr. Obama's staff: The Norwegian Nobel Committee didn't want to wake the president to tell him about his prize earlier this year, but there shouldn't be any reluctance to reassure the nation after a terrorist attack. Also, why not resolve to have a few less "historic" moments? How many can one president really have, anyway? A little more grace toward his predecessor would help him, as would less TV time. He is wearing out his welcome and his speechwriters—judging by the quality of their work lately.

In 2010, Mr. Obama should work on his habit of leaving a room of people with deeply divided opinions thinking he agrees with all of them. That leads to disagreements over essential issues, like the meaning of his pledge to begin withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011 and the nature of the new military mission there.

Finally, Mr. Obama should work on meaning what he says. He didn't last year with all those health-care deadlines and tough talk supporting the public option. Now Mr. Obama will pivot to jobs and deficit reduction. As he tries to do that, voters will wonder if it's just a ruse to save Democrats.

Vice President Joe Biden should resolve to speak publicly less. Every time he opens his mouth, the West Wing staff uses him to make the president look good by comparison.

White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers should take a lead from Santa Clause and make her list and check it twice . . . at the White House gates.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano should resolve to take a systems analysis course before she again declares that a system "worked."

The Democratic congressional leadership should resolve to come up with Plan B. After rejecting bipartisanship in 2009, they won't be able to pass bills in 2010 with only Democrats. Too many vulnerable Democrats will flake on big votes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—who has reportedly let it be known that she is comfortable with losing scores of House seats to pass ObamaCare—might resolve to treat her pet Blue Dogs a little better. As for the Blue Dogs, why not resolve to become Republicans?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should resolve to strive for a little less unity in his caucus and in the meantime enjoy this term in office. It's likely to be his last unless Nevada Republicans tear themselves apart next year for the privilege of running against him.

Republican congressional leaders should resolve not to sit on their laurels. They're winning the battle for public opinion on health care, cap and trade, and spending, but by next fall, it won't be enough to surf voter dissatisfaction with Mr. Obama and Democrats. Voters will want to know what Republican candidates would do.

A second Contract with America won't suffice. The GOP really won in 1994 by arming candidates with a basket of issues to pick from. Next year, candidates must be fluent in kitchen-table issues from jobs to health care to deficits to spending.

Ambitious Republicans should resolve to run next year. There will be a wave of voter support for GOP positions, but authenticity, passion and conviction matter. Voters can smell them, so bone up on the issues and say what you believe, not what someone tells you to say.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine should resolve not to blame himself for the coming political tsunami that'll hit his party next November. He should press Mr. Obama to raise lots of money to spend on close races in states where Democrats are in charge of redistricting. If not, he'll face a very ugly 2012 congressional election, too.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele had a great year in generating enthusiasm among small donors, but ends 2009 with less cash on hand than he had when he started the year. He should resolve to stop giving paid speeches and instead use his time repairing frayed relationships with major donors, whose support is critical to winning legislatures that will redraw congressional districts in 2011.

Tea Party members should resolve to resist being turned into another partisan political group. The movement's power stems from its ideas, not from any party it supports, and it has been very successful in educating Americans and arousing the country. It should let its members set their own personal course in primaries and fall elections.

As for me, I resolve to speak well of Mr. Obama more frequently, curry favor with liberals by being more critical of my fellow conservatives, and be guided by the words of Mark Twain, who said that the start of a New Year "is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...1441708216.html

Edited December 31, 2009 by Confucian

[Danno 1,228]

I give it a "B"

[웃 910]

1/6/2010

Karl Rove

Obama's Fiscal Fantasy World

Spending is up nearly 24% since Bush's last full budget year.

After President Obama devoted much of 2009 to health care and global warming—two issues far down Americans' list of concerns—the White House says he will pivot to jobs and deficit reduction in his State of the Union speech in a few weeks. The White House is considering dramatic gestures, perhaps announcing a spending freeze or even a 2% or 3% reduction in nondefense spending.

But Americans shouldn't be misled by the election year ploy: Mr. Obama rigged the game by giving himself plenty of room to look tough on spending. He did that by increasing discretionary domestic spending for the last half of fiscal year 2009 by 8% and then increasing it another 12% for fiscal year 2010.

So discretionary domestic spending now stands at $536 billion, up nearly 24% from President George W. Bush's last full year budget in fiscal 2008 of $433.6 billion. That's a huge spending surge, even for a profligate liberal like Mr. Obama. The $102 billion spending increase doesn't even count the $787 billion stimulus package, of which $534 billion remains unspent.

Mr. Obama can placate congressional Democrats by arguing that all that extra spending he has already crammed through can cover their spending desires at least through the 2010 congressional elections.

Mr. Obama is thinking of tapping another pocket of cash. Now that the banks are repaying—with interest and dividends—the $240 billion the Bush administration lent them, the Obama administration is considering recycling those dollars into new spending on "green" technology and more stimulus, despite provisions Congress wrote into the law creating the Troubled Asset Relief Program that requires that repaid TARP funds be used exclusively for deficit reduction.

Meanwhile, defense spending is being flattened: Between 2009 and 2010, military outlays will rise 3.6% while nondefense discretionary spending climbs 12%.

All this leaves Mr. Obama in the enviable position of appearing tough on spending while growing the federal government's share of GDP from its historic post-World War II average of roughly 20% to the target Mr. Obama laid out in his budget blueprint last February of 24%.

There are also those pesky entitlements. This mandatory spending has grown to 66% of the budget, up from 29% in 1965. Serious budgeters understand spending cannot be brought under control unless these mandatory outlays are part of the mix.

One idea on Capitol Hill is to create a commission that would propose a package of entitlement reforms that Congress would have to vote on as a package, up or down, take it or leave it—much like the base closing commission.

The Obama White House likes this idea in part because the proposal calls for including some congressional Republicans but would reserve a majority of the seats on the commission for Democrats. That would put Democrats in charge while also making the GOP share in the political pain that would come with whatever the commission proposes. Conservatives worry, with justification, that a commission's purpose would be to provide Republican cover for tax increases and a permanent increase in the size of the federal government.

What's more, the White House may only be interested in an election-year gesture. White House staff are apparently considering creating a presidential commission that would look like it's working on deficit reduction but that would be established by executive order. Of course, without congressional authorization, there's no way to force Congress to vote on a commission's recommendations.

Whatever Mr. Obama says in his State of the Union, Republicans need to be tougher on spending and deficits. Later this month, Senate Republicans are planning to force their colleagues to go on the record on how to spend returned TARP funds by demanding that Democrats vote on the issue. Some House Republicans are also considering calling for a return to the level of discretionary domestic spending that existed when Mr. Obama entered office last January.

Few things focus the attention of politicians as much as approaching elections. Democrats are aware that spending and deficits are big reasons Republicans have a nine-point lead on the Rasmussen Poll's generic ballot.

Independents are particularly sensitive about deficits, spending and taxes, whose growth they see aversely affecting jobs and the economy. They give Mr. Obama only a 21% approval on handling the deficit. Only 10% of independents want to spend unused bank bailout money on other government programs.

At the beginning of his term, Americans believed Mr. Obama would follow through on his campaign promises about "cutting wasteful spending" and going "through the federal budget, line-by-line, ending programs that we don't need" and putting "an end to the run-away spending the record deficits."

After a year of living in his fiscal fantasy world, Americans realize they have a record deficit-setting, budget-busting spender on their hands. Voters are now reading the fine print on all that Mr. Obama proposes and as they do, his credibility, already badly damaged, suffers.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...ss_opinion_main

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Opinions? Sick of it. specially from ####### brains!

[웃 910]

1/13/10

Karl Rove

The President's Bait-and-Switch Operation

Which campaign promises has he kept?

Americans learned last year that President Obama discards campaign promises like most people discard used Kleenex. Among the pledges he cast aside were reducing the deficit, reining in federal spending, not allowing lobbyists to work in his administration, increasing taxes only on those who make more than $250,000, and opposing "government-run health care" because it is "extreme."

This year, Mr. Obama is picking up where he left off.

Consider presidential signing statements. Since Andrew Jackson, presidents of both parties have told Congress that while they are signing a bill into law, they intend to ignore specific provisions because they involve unconstitutional restrictions on the executive branch or are otherwise problematic. A president's power to do this springs from his oath of office, through which each new chief executive promises to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution."

Because of Washington's hyperpartisan atmosphere, President George W. Bush drew heated criticism from Democrats for his signing statements. Among his toughest critics was Barack Obama, who in a questionnaire for the Boston Globe in 2007 accused Mr. Bush of "clear abuse" in using signing statements "to avoid enforcing certain provisions . . . the President does not like." He promised not to use signing statements to "nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law."

Yet Mr. Obama started issuing signing statements shortly after taking office. Democratic Reps. Barney Frank and David Obey called him out on it in a letter to the White House complaining that they were "chagrined" that Mr. Obama was issuing signing statements.

Recently, the Obama administration admitted that after receiving the letter from Messrs. Frank and Obey, it stopped the practice. But the president still has aides examine each bill to identify provisions the administration will disregard. It's just that Team Obama isn't telling Congress which provisions it is ignoring. It's right for him to defend the office of the presidency. The problem is that he is doing it in a way that violates his own standards of transparency and accountability.

This hypocrisy has not gotten much attention. But another act of duplicity has. During his campaign, Mr. Obama pledged that any negotiations on health-care legislation would be broadcast on C-SPAN, "so the American people can see what the choices are," and not conducted behind closed doors. "Such public negotiations," he said, were "the antidote" to "overcoming the special interests and the lobbyists who . . . will resist anything that we try to do."

Internet publisher Andrew Breitbart collected videotape of Mr. Obama making the same promise eight different times in 2007 and 2008—evidence that this was not a hasty or ill-considered pledge. It was supposed to epitomize the "change" that was at the core of the Obama campaign.

Now, however, the final negotiations on health-care reform are being conducted behind closed doors and there's no formal legislative conference between the House and Senate, which would guarantee Republicans at least a few seats at the table. This bill is not only being written in secrecy, it is being written by an anonymous group of Democrats. We can therefore throw Mr. Obama's commitment to bipartisanship onto his mountain of broken promises.

Instead, he's practicing hardball politics, aiming for a health-care bill that gets just enough Democrats to jam it through Congress with lighting speed before the American people's justified anger gets even hotter than it already is. This is dangerous, both for the country which gets saddled with a lousy piece of legislation and for Democrats, who will bear sole responsibility for the bill's deep cuts in Medicare, rising insurance premiums, increased taxes, and decline in the quality and availability of health care.

Maybe it was naïve for Mr. Obama to make the C-SPAN promise. But it was his pledge to do business in a different way, and it likely helped him win over swing voters. Mr. Obama even talked this week about "changing the way Washington works." But we can see that Mr. Obama's preferred style is backroom legislative drafting and what that style produces—sweetheart deals like Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson's "Cornhusker Kickback" and dozens of other special-interest provisions that benefit one state or a group at the expense of good policy. Mr. Obama should insist that every last payoff be removed from whatever bill is cobbled together.

This all plays into a broader narrative: Mr. Obama is not the centrist or new-style bipartisan leader he presented himself to be. On many of the most basic issues raised in the campaign, and in describing the kind of leadership he would practice, Mr. Obama misled voters. Americans will overlook a lot of things when it comes to politicians—but being on the receiving end of a giant bait-and-switch game isn't one of them.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...2565645338.html

[웃 910]

1/21/10

Karl Rove

Obama Versus Bush on Spending

Very little is safe for Democrats this fall.

'If Massachusetts puts Brown in, it's a message of 'that's enough.' Let's stop the giveaways and let's get jobs going."

Marlene Connolly is a 73-year-old Massachusetts Democrat who cast her first vote for a Republican in supporting Scott Brown. Her quote and story comes to us via the New York Times, but she stands out for this reason: She shows us that those who actually cast ballots in the Bay State did so because they are frustrated with the administration's unrestrained federal spending and failed economic recovery policies.

And here's what Washington needs to keep in mind as it debates the meaning of Massachusetts. Ramming health care through now won't insulate Democrats from voter ire in November. It will feed a fire over spending that is already blistering them.

But don't take my word for it. Consider that the administration is now busy scrambling to find a way to dodge responsibility for its own reckless fiscal record. That much was on display recently when David Axelrod, a political strategist for the president, penned an opinion piece in the Washington Post that took aim directly at me.

Mr. Axelrod wrote that no one is entitled to his own facts, even as he argued that George W. Bush is responsible for Barack Obama's deficits. He argued that Mr. Bush forced the hand of this administration by leaving office in the midst of a sharp recession.

That argument won't fly for two reasons. First, at some point this administration has to take responsibility for itself. It's also not even close to accurate. Consider that from Jan. 20, 2001, to Jan. 20, 2009, the debt held by the public grew $3 trillion under Mr. Bush—to $6.3 trillion from $3.3 trillion at a time when the national economy grew as well.

By comparison, from the day Mr. Obama took office last year to the end of the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget, the debt held by the public will grow by $3.3 trillion. In 20 months, Mr. Obama will add as much debt as Mr. Bush ran up in eight years.

Mr. Obama's spending plan approved by Congress last February calls for doubling the national debt in five years and nearly tripling it in 10.

Mr. Bush's deficits ran an average of 3.2% of GDP, slightly above the post World War II average of 2.7%. Mr. Obama's plan calls for deficits that will average 4.2% over the next decade.

Team Obama has been on history's biggest spending spree, which has included a $787 billion stimulus, a $30 billion expansion of a child health-care program, and a $410 billion federal spending bill that increased nondefense discretionary spending 10% for the last half of fiscal year 2009. Mr. Obama also hiked nondefense discretionary spending another 12% for fiscal year 2010.

Mr. Bush did move to give voters more control over their tax dollars. Both his Social Security reform ideas and the drug program he created offered templates for driving federal spending curves in the right direction, counter to what Democrats wanted to do.

Democrats, for example, proposed creating a prescription drug program as an alternative to the one Mr. Bush proposed that would have cost a projected $800 billion over 10 years. The Bush drug benefit was originally expected to cost half that amount and today costs a third less than what it was initially expected to cost because it uses market forces to drive prices down.

Mr. Axelrod claims the pork-laden stimulus package has been a success. But Mr. Obama told Americans that if it were passed, unemployment wouldn't rise above 8%. It is now 10%. The president also said it would create 3.7 million jobs, 90% of which would be in the private sector. By Mr. Obama's standards, the stimulus failed miserably.

Mr. Bush did sign the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) into law and loaned $240 billion to banks. But those loans are being returned at a profit to the Treasury. Rather than using those funds to pay down the deficit, Mr. Obama wants to use them for new spending. What's more, he has lavished some $320 billion from TARP on car companies, union allies, and pet causes that will never be fully returned.

Mr. Axelrod boasts Mr. Obama's proposed health reforms will "not add to the federal deficit." But if that turns out to be true, it will only be because Massachusetts voters just elected a senator who promises to vote against those reforms.

In going after Mr. Bush's fiscal record, Mr. Axelrod unwittingly revealed why Democrats are losing. Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats have made a mess of the nation's finances and are desperate to pin the blame on someone else. It's not likely to work.

Even in deep blue Massachusetts, voters aren't standing idly by while the administration puts the nation on a dangerous trajectory. When Democrats lose a state they carried by 26 points a little more than a year ago, very little is safe for Mr. Obama's party this fall.

[Danno 1,228]

1/21/10

Karl Rove

Obama Versus Bush on Spending

Very little is safe for Democrats this fall.

'If Massachusetts puts Brown in, it's a message of 'that's enough.' Let's stop the giveaways and let's get jobs going."

Marlene Connolly is a 73-year-old Massachusetts Democrat who cast her first vote for a Republican in supporting Scott Brown. Her quote and story comes to us via the New York Times, but she stands out for this reason: She shows us that those who actually cast ballots in the Bay State did so because they are frustrated with the administration's unrestrained federal spending and failed economic recovery policies.

And here's what Washington needs to keep in mind as it debates the meaning of Massachusetts. Ramming health care through now won't insulate Democrats from voter ire in November. It will feed a fire over spending that is already blistering them.

But don't take my word for it. Consider that the administration is now busy scrambling to find a way to dodge responsibility for its own reckless fiscal record. That much was on display recently when David Axelrod, a political strategist for the president, penned an opinion piece in the Washington Post that took aim directly at me.

Mr. Axelrod wrote that no one is entitled to his own facts, even as he argued that George W. Bush is responsible for Barack Obama's deficits. He argued that Mr. Bush forced the hand of this administration by leaving office in the midst of a sharp recession.

That argument won't fly for two reasons. First, at some point this administration has to take responsibility for itself. It's also not even close to accurate. Consider that from Jan. 20, 2001, to Jan. 20, 2009, the debt held by the public grew $3 trillion under Mr. Bush—to $6.3 trillion from $3.3 trillion at a time when the national economy grew as well.

By comparison, from the day Mr. Obama took office last year to the end of the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget, the debt held by the public will grow by $3.3 trillion. In 20 months, Mr. Obama will add as much debt as Mr. Bush ran up in eight years.

Mr. Obama's spending plan approved by Congress last February calls for doubling the national debt in five years and nearly tripling it in 10.

Mr. Bush's deficits ran an average of 3.2% of GDP, slightly above the post World War II average of 2.7%. Mr. Obama's plan calls for deficits that will average 4.2% over the next decade.

Team Obama has been on history's biggest spending spree, which has included a $787 billion stimulus, a $30 billion expansion of a child health-care program, and a $410 billion federal spending bill that increased nondefense discretionary spending 10% for the last half of fiscal year 2009. Mr. Obama also hiked nondefense discretionary spending another 12% for fiscal year 2010.

Mr. Bush did move to give voters more control over their tax dollars. Both his Social Security reform ideas and the drug program he created offered templates for driving federal spending curves in the right direction, counter to what Democrats wanted to do.

Democrats, for example, proposed creating a prescription drug program as an alternative to the one Mr. Bush proposed that would have cost a projected $800 billion over 10 years. The Bush drug benefit was originally expected to cost half that amount and today costs a third less than what it was initially expected to cost because it uses market forces to drive prices down.

Mr. Axelrod claims the pork-laden stimulus package has been a success. But Mr. Obama told Americans that if it were passed, unemployment wouldn't rise above 8%. It is now 10%. The president also said it would create 3.7 million jobs, 90% of which would be in the private sector. By Mr. Obama's standards, the stimulus failed miserably.

Mr. Bush did sign the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) into law and loaned $240 billion to banks. But those loans are being returned at a profit to the Treasury. Rather than using those funds to pay down the deficit, Mr. Obama wants to use them for new spending. What's more, he has lavished some $320 billion from TARP on car companies, union allies, and pet causes that will never be fully returned.

Mr. Axelrod boasts Mr. Obama's proposed health reforms will "not add to the federal deficit." But if that turns out to be true, it will only be because Massachusetts voters just elected a senator who promises to vote against those reforms.

In going after Mr. Bush's fiscal record, Mr. Axelrod unwittingly revealed why Democrats are losing. Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats have made a mess of the nation's finances and are desperate to pin the blame on someone else. It's not likely to work.

Even in deep blue Massachusetts, voters aren't standing idly by while the administration puts the nation on a dangerous trajectory. When Democrats lose a state they carried by 26 points a little more than a year ago, very little is safe for Mr. Obama's party this fall.

When Karl Rove can kick you around, you know you are in trouble.

Obama will be saved by his opposition.

THEY will stop his self-destruction and might even cause him to look palatable enough for a REelection come 2012.

[Darnell 8,479]

I'm really surprised mr. Rove is allowed access to a computer. #######?

[I'm Gone 60]

When it's all said and done Obama will be thought of as the black Jimmy Carter.

[웃 910]

When it's all said and done Obama will be thought of as the black Jimmy Carter.

1/27/10

Karl Rove

The State of the Union Is No 'Reset' Button

Presidential ratings usually drop after the speech.

It was a tense moment in the West Wing. Less than a year into a new president's term, a Senate seat was slipping to the opposition and taking with it the balance of power in the upper chamber. The president's agenda was suddenly at risk. If this sounds like Republican Scott Brown's upset victory in Massachusetts last week, it was actually Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords's defection in 2001. Mr. Jeffords's decision to bolt the party cost the GOP not the 60th vote, but a razor-thin majority. Yet following the defection, George W. Bush passed his signature tax-cut package, No Child Left Behind education reform, and a budget that cut in half the growth of discretionary domestic spending from the sizzling 16% rate of President Bill Clinton's last budget.

As congressional Democrats back away—for now—from Mr. Obama's health-care agenda, it is worth asking if this president's agenda is really aligned with what Americans want. This was supposed to be a historic presidency. But if it's undone by the loss of the 60th Senate Democrat, was Mr. Obama actually prepared for the challenges of governing?

The Massachusetts defeat, Mr. Obama said on Sunday on ABC's "This Week," caused him "to try to reset the tone" in his State of the Union address because "we had lost some of that sense of common cause that existed a year ago."

But that "sense of common cause" wasn't lost. It was abandoned when Mr. Obama attempted to do things he hadn't prepared Americans for, such as a government takeover of health care, and when he failed to revive the flagging economy.

Now Mr. Obama wants to hit the reset button with his State of the Union address. But since World War II, presidential job approval ratings have dropped an average of 1.8 points after a president's first State of the Union speech. Over the past 25 years, presidents have experienced virtually no change—an average drop of 0.1 points in Gallup's job approval ratings—after giving a State of the Union address. That indicates that last night's teleprompter special is unlikely to stop Mr. Obama's decline.

Mr. Obama entered 2010 with 49% job approval, according to Gallup. That's down from 67% last January. Those who strongly disapprove of his performance outnumber those who strongly approve by 41% to 26%, according to Rasmussen's latest poll.

Mr. Obama's slide over the past year has been led by independents (whose support is down 17 points since last January), seniors (down 19 points), those making $60,000 to $90,000 a year (down 19 points), Republicans (down 23 points) and conservatives (down 24 points).

On the generic ballot, a measure of party strength, Republicans lead Democrats by five points in National Public Radio's latest poll and by eight points in Rasmussen's latest survey.

These numbers are worse than Democrats faced at this point in 1994. If Democrats fare better this year than they did 16 years ago, it will likely only be because they have fewer open seats to defend and because they are taking their challengers more seriously than they did in 1994.

One of Mr. Obama's first reactions to last week's Massachusetts debacle was to install his 2008 campaign manager as an über-election czar for Democrats. But the White House tried to boost Democrats running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia last year. They lost anyway.

It probably didn't help Democratic morale when the White House complained it was blindsided by Mr. Brown's victory. Politico reports the White House had the Democratic Party spend $2.2 million on surveys and focus groups in just a 10-month span last year. That money was supposed to let Team Obama see these things coming.

Mr. Obama's problems are not political management, but policy. They won't be solved by faux fiscal restraint, mini-ball proposals for the middle class, and angry pretensions to populism.

By his own Office of Management and Budget numbers, Mr. Obama has raised the baseline of discretionary domestic spending by a total of $115 billion since his inauguration, bumping it up midway through the 2009 fiscal year budget and then increasing it again for the 2010 fiscal year.

Mr. Obama is now calling for a spending freeze to save $15 billion for fiscal year 2011. That's nice, but it freezes in place a 24% increase in discretionary, nonsecurity domestic spending. The president would also exempt from a freeze the $512 billion that has yet to be spent from last year's stimulus package. To present such a proposal as a serious attempt at restraining spending is to reveal a low opinion of the intelligence of ordinary Americans.

Mr. Obama has squandered the "sense of common cause" he talked about on Sunday that many felt at his inauguration. In the week leading up to his State of the Union, he did little to rekindle that spirit or reverse his sinking fortunes.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...1345559198.html

Edited January 28, 2010 by NOsamaCare

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Joseph - have you thought about having sex with Karl yet? I think that's the next logical step to take with your infatuation.

[scandal 951]

Joseph - have you thought about having sex with Karl yet? I think that's the next logical step to take with your infatuation.

Rove was reportedly divorced last month after a 24 year marriage.

I guess that means he's available for new romantic liaisons. Whaddya say, Joe?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Rove was reportedly divorced last month after a 24 year marriage.

I guess that means he's available for new romantic liaisons. Whaddya say, Joe?

He does have soft, effeminate qualities...not to mention his teddy bear charm.

[웃 910]

• 

• OPINION
• AUGUST 26, 2010

Honey, I Shrunk My Approval Ratings

The White House is having a disastrous 'summer of recovery.'

In what will rank as one of the all-time presidential PR disasters, we're now well over half way through what the White House called "the summer of recovery." And what a recovery it's been.

Earlier this month, first-time claims for unemployment hit a nine-month high. The unemployment rate remains at 9.5% and 18.4% of workers are out of a job, can only get part-time work, or have given up looking for a job altogether. Sales of existing homes dropped 27% from June to July, hitting the lowest point since data were first collected in 1999. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 50.4 in July, continuing a slide that started in February. And the stock market is down 11% from its peak in April.

All of this has helped shatter public confidence in the president. In early May, Mr. Obama's approval on the economy in the YouGov/Polimetrix poll was 42%. By mid-August, it was 35%—a frightening number for Democrats less than 70 days from a midterm election. According to this week's Reuters poll, 72% are "very" worried about jobs and 67% "very concerned" about government spending.

Mr. Obama's credibility is crumbling, and for good reason: He and his people are saying things people don't believe. At the start of his summer of recovery road show, the president flatly asserted that last year's massive stimulus package had "worked." Vice President Joe Biden, not to be outdone, promised monthly job gains of up to 500,000 and insisted that the recovery's pace "continues to increase, not decrease" as stimulus spending was "moving into its highest gear."

It's slightly surreal. "Who are you going to believe," as Groucho Marx once said, "me or your own eyes?"

The administration's claims have collided with reality in other instances as well. Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer—speaking before the 2009 stimulus was approved—said unemployment would top out at 8% by the third quarter of 2009 and decline to less than 7% by the end of 2010. Even the White House now admits that the unemployment rate will stay at or above 9% through 2011.

The White House also frequently asserts that "between 2.3 million and 2.8 million jobs were either saved or created" by the $620 billion in stimulus money spent by June. Set aside the absurdity of the administration inventing the "saved" category and then pretending it can ascertain, with scientific precision, the number of jobs that have been "saved." Since the stimulus passed, 2.6 million Americans have lost their jobs and 1.2 million people have given up even looking for work.

Mr. Obama and his people also mischaracterize where most stimulus dollars go. Their constant prattle about "shovel ready projects" is an attempt to leave the impression that most goes to bricks and mortar. Not true: Only 3.3% of the $814 billion stimulus went to the Federal Highway Administration for highway and bridge projects.

The administration's misleading statements and obfuscations aren't limited to the economy. On health care, for example, Mr. Obama continues saying that (a) health-care reform will reduce costs and the deficit, (b) no one who wants to keep existing coverage will lose it, and © the law's cuts in Medicare won't threaten any senior's health care. These assertions are laughable.

The president's habit of exaggeration and misstatement has infected other Democrats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, routinely talks about how the recently passed "Stimulus II" spending bill protected the jobs of police and firemen.

But it didn't.

Stimulus II consisted of two parts: $10 billion for education and $16 billion for Medicaid. States can't spend Medicaid money for anything but Medicaid, and they can only spend the education money on education, i.e., they can't shuffle state funds around. Language allowing Stimulus II dollars to pay for police and firemen didn't make it out of the Senate. Yet Democratic leaders persist in saying that their latest stimulus has helped keep police and firefighters on the job. The claim is flatly untrue.

By overselling the stimulus before its passage in 2009 and exaggerating its benefits with layer upon layer of slippery half-truths in 2010, Mr. Obama has made voters angrier. This is not America's summer of recovery; it is a summer of economic discontent that will ensure that Democrats take a pounding in the midterm elections.

Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).

http://online.wsj.co...2211231456.html

Edited August 27, 2010 by Lord Infamous

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Honey, I Shrunk My Approval Ratings

Rove is the expert on that particular issue. I've got a number for him: 22%. What's that you ask? Well, that is the lowest rating of any President overall performance in the past seven decades. And yes, that record belongs to no other than the very President who labeled Mr. Rove "the architect". Remember him?

Mr. Rove should remember when lecturing about approval ratings.

Edited August 27, 2010 by Mr. Big Dog