Rick Perry Touts Downhome Résumé

Barely 48-hours into the race and virtually the entire Democrat-Media-Complex has the hit in for Governor Rick Perry. For example, from Paul Krugman, "The Texas Unmiracle." And more at NYT, "In Texas Jobs Boom, Crediting a Leader, or Luck." Los Angeles Times piles on, "Rick Perry's big donors have fared well in Texas." Then there's all kinds of gotcha reports at Memeorandum. Perry questioned Obama's patriotism? OOH!! Wouldn't want to do that now, would we?



In any case, for a less antagonistic piece, see Wall Street Journal, "Touting a Downhome Résumé."

DES MOINES, Iowa—Rick Perry became an Eagle Scout and Air Force pilot after growing up as the son of a cotton farmer "from a little place called Paint Creek, Texas," whose house had no indoor plumbing. As Texas's longest-serving governor, he says he cut taxes and red tape and helped boost job growth.



Mr. Perry is betting heavily on that biography and his charm as he introduces himself to voters in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.



With the GOP race suddenly shaping up as a contest pitting him and fellow conservative Michele Bachmann against the front-runner, Mitt Romney, Mr. Perry hopes to distinguish himself as the humble farmer who now runs the state with the country's briskest job-creation results ...

Sounds pretty good. More at the link.

Instapundit 10-Year Anniversary

The video clip via Theo Spark:

I read Insty's post on August 8th, which links to some of the blog's first-week commentary. Glenn's style has gotten way more economical over the years. Interesting.

Butter Cow

Robert Stacy McCain's really enjoying himself! "The Butter Cow Is SEXY!

More from ABC News:

Blah, Blah ... More Progressive Hysteria About 'Broken' Politics

From Charles Krauthammer, at National Review, "The System Works."

Of all the endlessly repeated conventional wisdom in today’s Washington, the most lazy, stupid, and ubiquitous is that our politics is broken. On the contrary. Our political system is working well (I make no such claims for our economy), indeed, precisely as designed — profound changes in popular will translated into law that alters the nation’s political direction.



The process has been messy, loud, disputatious, and often rancorous. So what? In the end, the system works. Exhibit A is Wisconsin. Exhibit B is Washington itself...

Keep reading.



The terrorists broke it.

Rioters to Be Stripped of State Benefits in Britain's Online Petition

At Telegraph UK, "UK riots: we will make criminals suffer, say MPs." Also, at Montreal Gazette, "Britons call for looters to lose benefits":

And at London's Daily Mail, "Rioter's family is first to be kicked out of their council house because of teenage son's 'looting'."

Sarah Palin at Iowa State Fair

I wish I was there!



See Daily Caller, "Palin at Iowa State Fair: I’m still undecided on 2012" (at Memeorandum).

RELATED: At The Other McCain, "Herman Cain Speaks at Iowa State Fair."

UK Riots: Young Yobs Back on Streets Despite David Cameron's Pledge

At Telegraph UK (via Theo Spark).

'Both Gingrich and Paul have a nasty demeanor of a sort that, I think, will never make it to the White House...'

That's Althouse on the performance last night of New Gingrich and Ron Paul. And that's funny, because it's those two who I chose to blog on as well. (I've met Gingrich personally, and I've mentioned before, he's a terrible people-person. Ron Paul? I've never met him. But, well, he's just crackpot all around.)



See, "The Iowa Debate."



Previously, "Ron Paul at GOP Debate: 'There Was No Al Qaeda in Iraq'," and "Newt Gingrich at GOP Debate: 'Put Aside the Gotcha Questions'."

Ron Paul at GOP Debate: 'There Was No Al Qaeda in Iraq'

I almost fell on the floor listening to this guy. There used to be some kind of rule for excluding marginal candidates from these debates, and the organizing committees should have invoked it for Ron Paul years ago. What a disgrace:

See Sacremento Bee, "Paul and Santorum clash over US-Iran relationship."



Anyway, a big write up at NYT, "8 From G.O.P. Trade Attacks at Iowa Debate."

Robert Stacy McCain Covers Mitt Romney in Iowa

See: "Mitt Romney Comes to Des Moines, Attracts Massive Media Coverage."



And a Romney campaign ad, "Civility":

RELATED: At New York Times, "With Return to Iowa, Romney Heeds Call of G.O.P. Strategists."

London Riots Make Front Page at Los Angeles Times

Yesterday's cover at the Los Angeles Times was a register of global social breakdown. At the left-hand side, "London Looks Inward, Lashes Out":

Facing a storm of criticism for remaining on vacation while his city burned, London Mayor Boris Johnson returned Tuesday to tour Clapham, a well-off south London neighborhood that was one of many stunned by three nights of hopscotching riots that left one man dead and littered the urban landscape with hundreds of damaged businesses and residences.



The shaggy-haired conservative was greeted by crowds of furious store owners asking where police were as their livelihoods were destroyed.



"I felt ashamed," he said after viewing the damage, "that people could feel such disdain for their neighborhoods."



Community leaders, sociologists, police and lawmakers were left groping for a meaning for the worst social unrest to hit London in a generation. The riots laid bare a phenomenon that has stirred deep unease in Britain in recent years: "yobbery," the anti-social behavior of a generation believed to be so alienated from the norms of civilized society that pockets of some cities live in fear.

Also at the paper, upper right, "Divided Fed Has Surprise for Markets." And then below that, "Angst on Main Street Threatens Recovery."



And at bottom is a story about long-shot GOP presidential candidate Fred Karger, "No Illusions, Just a Message for Gays":

Karger finally came out to his parents in 1991, after nursing a friend who died of AIDS. They accepted him, Karger says, but never seemed entirely comfortable. So he kept closeted, which was also better for business. Although he told his business partners — "it wasn't a surprise, and didn't change who or what he was," says one, Lee Stitzenberger — maintaining his secret kept Karger's sexuality from becoming a campaign issue.



When his parents died and he retired, Karger finally came out publicly. It was 2006 and he was 56 years old.



There was no grand announcement. He simply took a lead role in the unsuccessful campaign to save a Laguna Beach gay bar, the Boom Boom Room. Three years later, he founded Californians Against Hate to oppose Proposition 8, the measure banning same-sex marriage, and used his expertise to expose secret funding of the measure by the Mormon Church.



To some extent, his presidential campaign is an extension of that effort. By nudging Mitt Romney, the GOP front-runner and a prominent Mormon — preferably on stage, in front of a national TV audience — Karger would like to stop the church crusade against same-sex marriage. In his view, Romney could make that happen with a phone call.



Romney's feelings are unknown. His campaign declined to comment.

Karger might be a nice guy personally, but he's aligning himself with the progressive hate industry. And the Times is wrong on Mitt Romney. Romney recently "came out" and signed onto the pledge from the National Organization for Marriage to oppose gay marriage.



And last but not least, the one piece of front-page news that reflects the flip side of social decay, "Outlines of Downtown Stadium Deal Approved." There's a cool little graphic as well. We were just down there for X-Games and I was really impressed with the upbeat climate around Staples Center. That graphic looks like the stadium would be kinda crammed in there tight, although I'd have to spend more time downtown and get familiar with the area. The main thing though is that it would likely bring NFL football back to L.A., and needed jobs and civic vitality to go with it. That's the reverse of the social breakdown that seems to be breaking out everywhere these days.

'Always Proud' — Sarah Palin Bus Tour Rolls Into Iowa

Here's the new video from SarahPAC, "The SarahPAC One Nation bus tour Rolls On!":

And at CNN, "BREAKING: Palin bus tour to roll into Iowa" (via Memeorandum).

Palin's re-emergence in Iowa just hours before the debate is a reminder that the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee intends to remain part of the presidential discussion as long as possible, despite being largely dismissed by party insiders.

No doubt. In fact, it's getting pretty crowed in the Hawkeye State.



RELATED: Robert Stacy McCain continues his reporting, "Iowa Notebook: Romney Coming to Town; Pawlenty and the ‘Plausible Chance’ Trick."

Republicans Holds Four of Six Contested Seats in Wisconsin Recall Elections

William Jacobson warns not to celebrate just yet: "The Wisconsin Recalls Are Not Over." And he's right. Next week's recalls in Wisconsin will be crucial for control over the Senate. But I think a little celebration is in order. Don't you just love this screencap from the Los Angeles Times below. And I swear that Democrat on the right looks like she's wearing a shirt that reads, "Union Thug." Ha, ain't in the truth! And at the Times' article, "Parties seek clues for 2012 in Wisconsin recall election results."

William has more at Legal Insurrection, "“I can see 2012 from my house”," and "The Battle of Wisconsin was not Democrats’ finest hour."



RELATED: Don't miss Chicago Boyz, "This is What Democracy Looks Like." (Via Memeorandum.)

RSM Covers Herman Cain in Iowa

I commended Robert Stacy McCain the other day on Twitter, thanking him for his excellent coverage of the run-up to the Ames straw poll.



And now he's got some more great blogging, on the Herman Cain presidential campaign. See "Sioux City: Herman Cain Begins Iowa Bus Tour With Noon Speech to Jewish Group," and "Denison: Overflow Crowd Hears Herman Cain Slam Obama: ‘That’s Not Leadership!’"

Check for updates at The Other McCain.

Newsweek Publishes 'Queen of Rage' Hit-Piece Cover Shot of Michele Bachmann

Go check Michelle Malkin's report, "The Conservative Crazy Eyes Cliche & Other Stupid MSM Photo Tricks."

She's got a larger image of this wild --- and wildly inappropriate --- cover photograph of Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. The key passage:

Rep. Bachmann is unabashedly conservative, willing to take both parties’ leaders to task, passionate about her work, popular with grass-roots activists on the Right, committed to reining in the size, scope, and power of government, and yes, expressive. For all this, she must be destroyed.

Also:

Disseminating unflattering photos of conservatives isn’t journalism. It’s Alinskyite narrative-shaping.

This comes of course as Michele Bachmann has rocketed to frontrunner status in Iowa. See Rasmussen Reports, "Iowa Caucus: Bachmann, Romney and Paul on Top." The poll samples likely causcus participants and has a 4-point margin of error. It's looking good for Bachmann.



RELATED: At the Other McCain, "Liberal Head-Explosion Warning VIDEO: Michele Bachmann Testifies for Jesus."

Ross Douthat, Political Scientist

Douthat draws on political science research at New York Times, "Waiting For a Landslide." And for a second I thought he'd blow it, because "realignment theory," which he discusses, hasn't accurately explained, much less predicted, partisan trends for decades. But Douthat adds this, which is just right:

In reality, the next election may be no more transformative than 2008 turned out to be. The next Republican president may find himself as hemmed in and frustrated as President Obama has become. Meanwhile, America will still have a credit rating to fix, and a deficit to close.

More at that link at top, and Douthat had a great piece a few days ago on the debt deal, "The Liberals’ Dilemma." Note especially:

... American liberalism risks becoming a victim of its own longstanding strategy’s success. Because yesterday’s liberals insisted on making universal programs the costly core of the modern welfare state, on the famous theory that “programs for the poor become poor programs,” today’s liberals find themselves defending those universal (and therefore universally-popular) programs at the expense of every other kind of government spending — including, yes, programs for the poor. It’s a classic example of putting liberal political interests ahead of liberal policy priorities. In the short term, the insistence on ring-fencing Medicare and Social Security has left Democrats defending a system that often just ends up redistributing money from the younger middle class to the older middle class while accepting caps on programs that might do more (both directly and indirectly) to help downscale Americans get ahead. In the long term, by postponing any reckoning with the cost of entitlements, it’s making it more likely that the inevitable crunch will hit the poorest recipients of Medicare and Social Security harder than it should.

Read that whole thing. Basically, progressives will never cut entitlements because gargantuan socialist welfare states form the core of socialist existentialism.



Douthat's coming of his own as a New York Times columnist, by the way. He had cold feet or something after leaving The Atlantic, but he's been more consistent in posting some excellent commentary of late.

The Debt Downgrade Blame Game

I was up in time for the Sunday news shows. I flipped back and forth for a minute between ABC and NBC and finally settled on "Meet the Press." John Kerry and John McCain were interviewed, forgettably, with the exception of McCain's comments on Afghanistan. But the roundtable discussion was a keeper. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Allan Greenspan stole the show (a bit of which can be seen here). But frankly the reason I didn't channel surf further was Rachel Maddow. Maddow is maddening. The S&P downgrade dominated the discussion, and Maddow's entire shtick was political. David Gregory asked her about economic implications and she segued into an attack on "Republican intransigence." Check it out:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Maddow was sticking like glue to S&P's press release, which claimed that the downgrade was a comment on political gridlock in Washington. But Maddow's fascinating because she perfectly encapsulates all that's wrong with the Beltway media mindset: She blames Bush for the crisis, citing the revised GDP numbers to argue that "the hole we've been getting out of is even deeper than we thought." Well, I guess if you're in a hole you stop digging, but the Obama-Dems 2012 budget was pegged to add $7.2 trillion in new debt over the next decade, and that's after racking up $1.7 trillion after the administration's first year in office. Congressional Republicans stood up to this, and that fortitude so enraged the progressive political class that "tea party terrorists" were claimed to be the greatest threat to national security since Nazi Germany. But Maddow goes on. And bless his heart, but Alex Castellanos fails to get a smackdown rebuttal until much later in the broadcast. I reported on Janet Daley's essential piece earlier, "A Capitalist Economy Can't Support a Socialist Welfare State." The GOP talking point has to focus on the unsustainability of big-government entitlements. Republicans won the day by standing firm, and the S&P downgrade ultimately will damage Democrat reelection prospects next fall, hence Maddow's desperate efforts to spin this as not an economic issue at all, but one of tea party "intransigence."

In any case, see Karl at Patterico's Pontifications, "For Whom the Downgrade Tolls":

In sum, the S&P downgrade marks a post on the road where progressive demagogy loses its power. The downgrade marks a post on the road to extinction for 19th-20th century progressivism. That’s why the Obama administration — and true progressive ideologues — made S&P their first target, however futile the gesture.

RTWT.

I wouldn't separate the partisan left from the ideological left so much (Maddow is both, for example), but it's a really perceptive essay otherwise.

UPDATE: Linked at Atlas Shrugs and Yid With Lid. Thanks! Also linked at Blazing Cat Fur!

Joseph Nocera Apologizes

It takes a while to get around to it, but he's sincere, which is unusual for progressives. See, "The Tea Party, Take Two." (Via Astute Bloggers.)

Rick Santorum's Family Off Limits to the Media

Robert Stacy McCain continues his coverage of the Iowa campaign: "Rick Santorum’s Iowa Barn Party." And here's Robert on some of the Santorum campaign's press rules:

Karen Santorum with her two oldest daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth. Right after I took this photo, Santorum’s press aide told me that the family are “off limits” to the media. But, of course, I’m just a friend of Lisa Graas, right? It’s not fair to treat me as “media.”

A beautiful family.

Related: At the Des Moines Register, "Santorum: Credit downgrade another example of Obama’s ‘epic failure’ in leadership." And from the Ames Tribune, "Santorum: Iowans 'can have a profound impact'."

And see New York Times, "Republicans Jockey as a Big Week Begins in Iowa."

Robert Stacy McCain Reports from Des Moines

See: "Fear and Loathing at the Quality Inn."

Pawlenty is pulling his ad buys from Iowa three days before the straw poll, but these spots are flooding the cable channels right now:

Stacy has more on what's shakin' in Iowa.