Guess Who?

RealClearPolitics - Guess Who?

Cute little column by Sowell ... ground that has been covered in my blog before, but considering how many times many have heard the MISinformation about FDR "getting us out of the depression", it is likely impossible to repeat the facts too often!

MSM Setup in AK on Miller

Power Line - Plot still thickening in Alaska, cont'd

We've had "Jurnolist", we've had Rathergate, we've had a bunch more of them, but how long does it take for folks to figure out that the MSM is ACTIVELY seeking ways to get Tea Party and or conservative Republican people?

Do we really need to look any farther than the difference in the MSM coverage of BO vs Palin? Now we have this!

The CBS affiliate calls the candidate, gets the answering machine, fails to hang up, and we get treated to a scheme to "identify a child molester" at a Miller rally -- no doubt in some sort of a smear.

MSM coverage? Zilch, nada. Imagine if Fox or Limbaugh could be caught in something similar? Oh wait, we don't have to wonder! Limbaugh as "caught" with Viagra in an airport screen and even that was worth days of national news. When you are a conservative, NOTHING is off limits, but of course BJs at work if you are a Democrat ala Slick Willie are "private".

Strange Man In the WH

A Crossroads Election - Thomas Sowell - Townhall Conservative

Great article! I love the Democrat and MSM flip flop on "full disclosure" of bills going through congress and funding for ads. When BO ran, even when Democrats had controlled congress for 2 years already, braying about "putting bills on the internet so EVERYONE could comment and discuss them before they were signed" was somehow worthy of repeating over and over without the MSM laughing. The Democrats ALREADY controlled congress! Now? Disclosure? Not so much ... need to "pass it to find out what is in it"!

Blanketing the air waves with MoveOn.org ads funded by George Soros and other shadowy folks? No problem, and no need to "name names" in '06 and '08. When the Democrats were rolling in the dough, A-OK!

Read it all ... but here is the punch line:

We have a strange man in the White House. This election is a crossroads, because either his power will be curbed by depriving him of his huge Congressional majorities or he will continue on a road that jeopardizes both our freedom and our survival.

The SEIU, Harry Reid, And Voting Problems�|�NetRight Daily

The SEIU, Harry Reid, And Voting Problems�|�NetRight Daily

Interesting that there is zero MSM coverage of this that I can find. Remember Diebold?? I think EVERYONE knew that Diebold built voting machines and at least somebody in the company made contributions to some Republican sometime, therefore their voting machines could not be trusted. In '00, '02, and '04, ANY hint of any electronic voting problems was all over CNN and NPR.

Now we have voting machines under the control of a union that has actually been involved in vote fraud in more than one place -- Houston being a big one, and the local papers/media in Nevada reporting machines actually changing votes, but the MSM seems to think it is a "non-story".

Of course, we know they are unbiased -- and ONLY Fox has any bias!!

Electronic Voting Irregularities

Voter reports problem with ballot machine | machine, screen, voter - Local - Sun Journal

I've been concerned the last couple of elections because the MSM quit complaining about electronic voting. It was a HUGE problem in 2000,2002 and 2004 -- in fact, a number of Democrats were pushing to hold up the results because of the "potential of electronic vote fraud in Ohio" as late as 2004.

We know that ACORN and other groups manufactured millions of votes in '06 and '08, which I thought they had calculated was "enough" for their purposes, and indeed it was -- for those elections. Now we are in the midst of a new election and I remain concerned about the left's lack of concern for electronic voting. So what happened? What was the technical, procedural or other change in electronic voting that very suddenly made it completely disappear as an issue?

My explanation is the following, based somewhat on an excellent book by John Fund, "Stealing Elections".

1. Most of government is staffed by Democrats because of the number of lawyers and Government Union workers involved.
2. So most of the poll workers, people doing the contracts for the voting machines, handling of ballots, watchers, creators of procedures, etc are Democrats. 
3. It is well known that wide scale voter fraud has been going on for a very long time in many locales -- Chicago is only one of the most commonly pointed out with the Daly Machine. 
4. The "big problem" with electronic voting was the fact that the Democrats well known techniques for stealing elections needed to be "updated", and they were actually concerned that they could not figure out how to subvert the vote.
5. Now, I suspect that they have -- thus the MSM silence on the issue. 

If the numbers in the linked article are correct -- only 1 out of 5 Republican votes being counted, it seems that they have gone over the top. One of the problems with voter fraud has always been "too much success". One finds out that there were more Democrat votes from an area than there were voters -- this is amazingly common, it was one of the things that showed up in a solid Democrat precinct near the UofM during the last MN Senate race. Turned out there were a couple hundred more Franken votes than there were voters -- so of course, this being MN, and the votes being for Franken, the answer MUST have been that "the machine had the wrong voter count". Minnesota media of course had no problem with that at all -- "obvious". And of course a machine that can't count the number of votes is TOTALLY reliable in registering the direction of the vote!!! (as long as they were for Franken).

National Liberal Radio, Juan Williams

Power Line - The Williams Syndrome

Juan feels less secure about Arabs in full garb coming on a plane, so he gets fired. Here is a nice comment by an NPR Reporter that DID NOT get them fired:

"The man is on the Court. You know, I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease. Well, that’s how I feel. He is an absolutely reprehensible person."
-- USA Today columnist and Pacifica Radio talk show host Julianne Malveaux on Justice Clarence Thomas, November 4, 1994 PBS To the Contrary.

Ah yes, the ever civil left. If only we nasty righties could learn from their kindness.Isn't it cool how the left is always about "feelings", but of course they don't mean REAL feelings, they mean "approved feelings". I suspect that something like 90% of Americans have at least a bit of concern when they see a full dress Muslim come on a plane. I mean, don't Democrats have some bad feelings as soon as they find out someone is a "Republican" -- oh wait, that's right. Feeling animosity to Republicans is "approved".

Are people with psych problems now less protected than Muslims? What is up with that? I thought psych problems was an excuse for everything up to and including mass murder for Democrats.

The only potential "meanings" I can get from Schiller's comment about "Williams and his psychiatrist" are:
1). Thinking that people that blew up planes in the past might blow up planes in the future is "insane" -- in a liberal world view sort of way.

2). People that disagree with the approved State Radio view of the world are "insane"

3). She happens to have looked at Juan's personnel record, knows he sees a psychiatrist and wanted to "get in a dig"

In any case, isn't lumping Juan in with "those people that see psychiatrists" kind of making the statement that those "people that see psychiatrists" are somehow "sub standard"? The next thing you know, one might start WORRYING about "people that see psychiatrists". But I guess that a sterotype about Muslims is a firing offense -- statements about folks that see psychiatrists is not.

Oh, and BTW -- NPR is "unbiased" -- because their standards are too high for Juan WIlliams, but just fine for Julianne Malveaux or Vivian Schiller for that matter. Fox on the other hand is "biased" -- Juan Williams said that "The Tea Party uses Timothy McVeigh imagery" on a Fox show when talking about the revolutionary war "Don't Tread on Me" snake flag. Fox is so biased that they hired him for $3million to continue to provide liberal comentary.

Path Between the Seas

The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914, By David McCullough

Interesting book for a couple unique reasons beyond the fact that it is a very well written book, first, I read the book just preceding and during our 14 day cruise that included passage through the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and secondly, because it was the first book that I read on the newest Amazon Kindle. There will be other blogs on those two elements for any that are interested.

The book covers the sweep of the history of the dream to span both the Suez and Panama barriers to global trade that went back to the time of Columbus. Also covered in sometimes maybe too much detail is Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Frenchman who was seen as the force behind the successful completion of the Suez Canal, and who became the primary driver of the ill fated French attempt at Panama. As in all great human stories, personalities play an often greater role than the technical and physical “facts”, and the canal is certainly not an exception.

What de Lesseps had was a vision, and a charm and force of personality to infect others with that vision, which he did for thousands of Frenchmen, costing many many thousands their fortunes, and some 22 thousand their lives in the jungles of Panama. His vision was for a sea level canal as was created at Suez, and he completely ignored the opinion of a well known (but not much liked) French engineer, Godin deLepinay, that the “obvious solution was” an “artificial Nicaragua”.

Nicaragua was the other competing route where the much longer 181 miles (vs 50 at Panama) would be shortened by large lakes and the use of rivers that were at least partially navigable, and could be dredged and damed to be of even more assistance. For de Lessups, the fact that the length and lake structure would be prohibitive of a sea level canal, made Panama the “only choice”.

The dreams of a sea level canal at Panama largely ignored two physical facts of the route – one being the Chagres river, and the other being the amount of earth that needed to be removed to get to sea level at the Culebra Cut. Putting a large dam at Gatun and creating one of the larges artificial lakes in the world 85' above sea level allowed the unruly Chagres to become an asset by providing the water required to operate the canal (in it's current form, 50 million gallons per ship) , and to reducing the depth of the cut at Culebra by that 85'.

The French ran out of money and ran out of lives – given the times, if more money could have been found, the lives would no doubt have been sacrificed, but as it was they lost something around 22 thousand to Yellow Fever, Malaria, Plague, Pneumonia and a host of other tropical ailments. There was also massive graft and corruption involved in their efforts, as well as innumerable technical difficulties. In any case, they fought long, hard, and expensively during most of the 20 years from 1870-1890, ending in a failure that was monumentally costly to their nation and of course many individual investors and participants in the venture.

We Americans tend to think that Teddy Roosevelt pretty much dug the canal single handedly, but while his role was key, the story is naturally much more complicated. The US had favored the Nicaragua route from the beginning, and when we started to get serious about actually doing the canal, that route was all but assumed, and but for a number of special circumstances would likely have been selected. One of the leading “circumstances” was Philippe Buanu-Varilla, the main lobbyist for the US purchase of the abandoned French assets. To make a very long and very complex story short – he helped get the price dropped by 60%, worked with the Colombians, played a major role in the revolution that created the Nation of Panama, and many other elements of politics, finance and intrigue that caused the current route to come about.

TR had a lot to do with the drive that made both the selection of the route and the selection of the men that would make the canal a reality. Two of the keys were Dr William Gorgas and John Stevens. Gorgas understood the detailed relationship between both Yellow Fever and Malaria and mosquitoes, and even better, he was able to push the techniques of the day to nearly eradicate those diseases in the canal zone, a feat without which it is fairly likely the US population would have turned against the loss of life that would have been required to complete the canal.

Stevens was considered the greatest railroad man of the day, and he was able to see that the canal was primarily a railroad problem – constructing a railroad with the equipment, placement and flexibility to move the massive amounts of dirt from the Culebra to where it was required. He also created the infrastructure to support the work effort, instituted planning and procedures and eventually forced the decision on the lock vs the sea level canal – a dream that bedevilled the Americans as it had the French.

Stevens left his post under slightly mysterious circumstances, although I find it quite likely he simply decided that there were other things he would rather do. His replacement was George Goethals, who was an organizational genius and tireless worker that saw the project through to completion.

Having now seen the canal I can say that like all well executed constructions, it “looks easy”. Being familiar with the Soo Locks as well as having gone through a number of different large locks on the Mississippi, it is hard to go back to the early 20^th century and put the canal in the perspective. The locks are roughly the same size as the Soo locks , although I believe the Soo locks are narrower – the Panama locks are 1000 x 100'. Somehow, riding in a cruise ship over the route seems to very much belie the difficulties of the creation. Sitting on our balcony as a downpour arrived, but completely dry because I was tucked under the massive overhang of deck 10 above me made it hard to appreciate men toiling in heat, bugs, mud, and the constant threat of painful death by disease as the French had experienced.

One might be traveling on the lower Mississippi in the US with the jungles visible on the shore being no doubt more dense and with less example of human impact in Panama than back home. When we passed by the bridge over the Chagras, it was hard to imagine that sleepy looking little inlet being any sort of a threat to the project, but 50'+ of dam will really change the complexion of a river.

All in all it was a fine book, if possibly a bit TOO long and detailed in some aspects – as with the Gettysburg trip, there is something special about reading a book on the subject of a current travel destination.

At Sea Georgetown - Cartgena

Grand Cayman

Greetings from the Celebrity Infinity at sea between Georgetown, Grand Cayman and Cartagena Columbia, cabin 9149. Seas look to be 5'-7', which the ship rides very well in. Uploads are slow, as I get some pictures up, they will be added to my picasa album for the trip.

We left Ft Lauderdale at 5:30PM Sunday, were at sea Monday and arrived in Georgetown Grand Cayman at 8AM Tuesday. Weather was warm and generally sunny for that trip, sometime during the early AM hours of Tuesday, we dodged around the little hurricane that was supposed to hit the coast around Cozumel Tuesday.

We got up on Tuesday, had a light breakfast and tendered in to Georgetown. We were scheduled for the sub adventure at 11:15, but they had seats an hour earlier, so we went out on that. It was a lot of fun for me just because of the idea of being on an actual sub, and we did see a lot of sea life and coral -- or just "solid sea life" I guess and descended to the advertised 100' depth next to "the wall", where the ocean goes from 100' to thousands of feet deep. The nice thing about the sub ride is that if they can't get back to the surface, they refund half your money! We made it back though, so no discount.

My personal view is that glass bottomed boats are actually better viewing platforms because once you get below like 30', the light compression takes out most of the colors except for the blues and yellows. In the clear waters of the Carribean, the reefs are very nice to view from the glass bottomed boats -- and also a little cheaper. Of course you don't get to see 100' on the depth gauge on a GB boat, but I suppose one could view that as being a rather nerdy concern.

Spent the next couple of hours buying a few items arout Georegtown, including a T and hat from Jimmy Buffet's Margueritaville. Nice lunch at "Breezes" overlooking the 5 cruise ships tendered in the bay.

The trip back was a little more exciting than we would have thought. Turns out the hurrcan was generating 5-7' swells, which was on the edge of the limits for re-boarding. They had this brawny greek sailor that is the chief security officer on the ship manning the gangway and directing folks one at a time as the tender and the ship rose and fell at different rates. We got some film that comes close to showing how much, but it was clear that it was a spot that injury was very possible and someone might have even been killed (fall between a 40' steel tender and a 900' cruise ship, and if they come together, they will be able to roll you up and send you home in a tube).

It was really interesting to watch the big greek guy operate -- he seemed to very much know what he was doing -- but it was also clear that the forces of the waves and weight of the ships were something that had to be "worked with" ... the swells got too large at one point and it started to crush the railings on the ramp, so we had to detach. We got on board with no problem, but with more of an adrenaline injection than we would have expected.

Food has been excellent as would be expected. We have talked to a lot of people -- mostly 60+ aged folks on this cruise, and predominately folks that have been on many cruises and many on long cruises. I'd say that so far we like Celebrity just fine, but still kind of talk about Carnival. Might be just because those were the first cruises with the kids, but we liked the idea of the midnight buffet -- which maybe even they don't do anymore.

One couple that we had dinner with was a greek guy and his wife who had been from NY and were now from Ft Lauderdale. He came to the US as a young man to "make his fortune" as painter -- as in contractor, not artist. It sounds like they have been going on 2-3 cruises a year, usually 14 days or longer, so, since he was just about to turn 62, he must have done OK to be semi-retired and cruising.

The internet speeds, especially uplink, are slow ( 20K up, 500K down) and expensive ( .35 a min in bulk). That is an area of cruising that I'm surprised they have not upgraded over the 3 years since we have been out. Could be frustrating to have only something like a netbook or iPad out here.

Infinity and Beyond

Cruise

Sitting in the cabin on the Celebrity Infinity still on the dock at Port Everglades, Ft Lauderdale. We should sail at 6PM on our 14day cruise through Panama. Got on board, got settled in, had lunch, toured the ship and plan to do dinner and show this evening as we head out. Day at sea tomorrow.

Shocking: Bigoted White Tea Party Woman Beats Petite Black Female Reporter - Doug Giles - Townhall Conservative

Shocking: Bigoted White Tea Party Woman Beats Petite Black Female Reporter - Doug Giles - Townhall Conservative

Violence against Tea Partiers is not news ... in fact, in this administration, it isn't even a crime!

As he points out, even though the signs say "socialism now", it is somehow wrong to report much of the left as socialists. "Some are more equal than others"!!

Regressivism

American Thinker: Progressive Feudalism

Great little thought provoking article. The bottom line is that once one moves away from individual liberty AND responsibility, some ruling class must be charged with operating the processes to "make it so". BO, Nancy and Harry are currently installed in that role and quite happy -- removing them quickly may be the only hope to avoid the rest of the decline to a long term feudal America.

The Sweep: What went wrong for Democrats - CNN.com

The Sweep: What went wrong for Democrats - CNN.com:

Why is it that liberals sometimes get a lot more reflective and almost "journalistic" as they face the prospects of "death" (political or otherwise)?

Generally good column, I think one of the things that Gloria misses is that while the common person is MUCH more intelligent than she imagines, they are also MUCH less interested in politics in general, and all but a couple political issues than she imagines.

"And they never stopped talking. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell gave 107 floor speeches on health care, and 25 speeches on why we shouldn't close the prison camp at Guantanamo. It was the first executive order -- a promise that was not kept, because it became messier than anyone thought. It was supposed to be a hugely popular idea, but within a couple of months, it just flipped: going from an 80 percent approval rating to an 80 percent disapproval rating."

Than ANYONE thought? Well, certainly no messier than rational people that paid any attention thought all along -- but I guess Gloria isn't in that camp. 

So how does such a thing as Gitmo shift like that? Democrats and Gloria assume that such fickle positions must equate to stupidity, while I assert it relates to priorities and attention bandwidth.

Democrats and their friends in the MSM identify something that 95% of Americans don't have any interest in and carpet bomb the front pages, first few minutes of news programs, glossy magazines and even entertainment shows with the "simple message" -- Gitmo bad, Bush stupid, no reason for Gitmo, Gitmo could be closed at any moment without issue. Since people don't care and only one side of the story is being presented, they figure "close Gitmo", why not?

Rhetoric changes to reality as the ruse pays off and a Democrat is elected -- there are very nasty folks at Gitmo, nobody wants them in their back yard, media and Democrats just give up on the issue. They never really cared about Gitmo for anything but a political ploy anyway, why not just drop it?  The people realize that they were snookered -- it happens all the time, this is nothing new. They are marketed to with overblown and false promises more than any set of humans in world history.

They know when they have been "played", and unsurprisingly, they don't like it. They like it even less when the elites that blasted "Gitmo, Gitmo, Gitmo" at the top of their lungs now don't care about it and call the general public "fickle" for "changing their mind". Apparently, folks like Gloria really DO think it is somehow "a mystery" ... or more likely their game is so old and so standard that they forget they are even playing it.

So at the time the president was proposing government solutions to problems, the nation's view of government was bottoming out. Only 20 percent trusted government to do the right thing all or most of the time. Even after Watergate, that number was at 36 percent.

When Dwight Eisenhower was president, trust in government was at 73 percent. Nowadays voters wouldn't trust the government to walk the dog.

How does such a thing happen? For 8 years, we had "the worst president in history" according to the MSM. His "destruction of personal liberty" was UNPRECEDENTED in American history. The world laughed at the US ... at least from the POV of our own MSM. He was running two wars -- one completely wrong and unjust which was "lost already" ... one that was "just" but he was losing because "he had taken his eye off the ball". The world was clear -- replace Bush and the sun was sure to shine. 

We elected the favorite son of the MSM. We win in Iraq using the "surge" he opposed. He sends more troops into Afghanistan, then more again, then he fires his own handpicked general and we are still losing. Dying troops were a major source of hand wringing, protests and charges of "Bush incompetence" before -- now they get barely notice with no analysis whatsoever. 

The economy tanks. Bush is blamed and blamed some more. We are told that if we spend a trillion dollars, unemployment will stay below 8%. It goes to 10%. It holds stubbornly over 9.5%. Bush is blamed some more -- but now the Democrats face a CONGRESSIONAL election and they have held congress for FOUR years. Since they claim no credit for the current economy, but rather blame Bush, can one draw any other conclusion but that they feel that having the opposition party in congress absolves them from responsibility? But wait, how can that be? When the Republicans took over in '94, they were the root of all evil. 

The MSM is convinced that "the problem" is "Tea Partiers and Fox News". Does anyone really have to wonder if the situation was reversed and John McCain was in office, what the MSM would be saying? We don't really need to ... in '92, the economy was far better than it is now, yet the MSM was as hard on the "it's the economy, stupid" as the Clinton campaign was -- which is to say RELENTLESS. 

You bash even the best Republican presidents endlessly (remember Reagan?), then you set the bar for your candidates ... Clinton, BO, impossibly high, and surprise surprise, they fall far short. And the people lose confidence in government. And the MSM wonders.

How BO Lost The Left

Dems turn on Obama over Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo | Washington Examiner

Superb Barone column. I think we all know that the BOasims on the left have ceased, but why? Pretty simple -- the left wanted America hurt and Bush completely repudiated. BO may not like America all that much, but he didn't go so far as to immediately pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and release all the Gitmo folks to do the liberal "news" shows to regale us with tales of torture -- probably 90% imagined, but some of them probably did miss their pet goats.

They might have been OK with Bush and Cheney not actually being locked up, but they at least wanted to keep heaping abuse on their chosen demons. BO's foreign policy, while still poor, was far more reality based than his domestic policy, so it mostly validated the Bush/Cheney foreign policy. While he has made vast progress in destroying the US at home, he has really not been nearly as visible a disaster abroad as may have been expected. I remain amazed we have not suffered a large domestic attack as yet, but suspect that my amazement will not last much longer.

The uncomfortable truth is that many -- not most, but many -- Democratic politicians and Democratic voters saw political benefit in an American defeat in Iraq. Many, including Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, then boss of Obama's new chief of staff Pete Rouse, thronged to the Washington premiere of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." They tried to give every appearance of agreeing with the "Bush-lied-people-died" crowd and with those who charged that high-ranking officials colluded in systematic torture.

It was a lot of fun while it lasted, up to election night 2008 and Inauguration Day 2009. But then Obama had to govern. Knowing little of military affairs, he retained Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has loyally served presidents of both parties. Understanding even if not admitting the great headway Americans had made in Iraq, Obama declined to throw it all away.

Appreciating that Afghanistan was critical to protecting Americans, he made a commitment to increase troop levels there in May 2009, reconsidered it from August to November, then restated it Dec. 1, with a commitment to begin withdrawals in July 2011.

In so doing, Obama implicitly confessed that the view of the world held with quasi-religious fervor by the Democratic left was delusional all along. Bush didn't lie, we didn't go into Afghanistan and Iraq without allies and against their wishes, we didn't carry out policies of torture, etc. The effort to cast Iraq as another Vietnam and America under Bush as an oppressive rogue power were perhaps emotionally satisfying but unconnected to reality.

Without saying so, Obama has found himself having to teach this lesson to the Adam Serwers of the world. They don't like hearing it. They're keeping their ears plugged up and their eyes defiantly shut. Their MyObama Web pages are inactive and their checkbooks are closed. They've tuned out of the campaign and many of them won't even vote. The president they helped elect -- and the world -- have turned out not to be what they thought.

This is also a great opportunity to observe the difference between left and "right". Bush was never a conservative favorite and he lost their support with spending in general and entitlements in particular (prescription drug benefit). While I certainly didn't like what Bush did in those areas, I found the alternatives (Pelosi and Reid) to be so horrible that it was very easy to hold my nose.

Gallup Market?

RealClearPolitics - Stocks Gallup Higher

Good column guessing that Monday night's Gallup poll release ignited the markets because the prospects of a Republican take-over in at least the House look all but certain.

Released Monday night, the Gallup numbers demolished the new narrative of the elite mainstream media in Washington, and their prediction that somehow the Democrats are mounting a serious comeback based on frantic Obama campaigning and a slew of multimillion-dollar negative campaign ads.

Kudlow agrees with me that a lot of money in both private and business hands is just waiting for the stupid season to be over here before they jump back in to create new wealth. Why go take risks when you are being demonized by the party in power and being told with every other breath that they are going to tax and regulate you as hard as they can!

What I do think, however, is that highly profitable companies would love to get Washington out of their hair. Anything that even slows down the federal tax-and-regulatory pawing of American firms could conceivably prompt businesses to unleash their massive cash hoard into something that more closely resembles a normal capital-goods-investment and job-hiring campaign -- one that would increase economic growth and reduce unemployment.

Growth! Right ON!!!!

Daniel Henninger: The Only Policy Left Is Growth - WSJ.com

Great article. The bottom line is that maybe the American People have realized after a mere 4 years of mostly Democrat rule that without growth, the people perish. What Democrats realize is that without unions, they have no chance -- they need to get their kickbacks to their union masters and fool everyone else. It was a lot easier when the whole media was in the sack for them -- let us pray the predicted landslide comes to pass!

 The United States doesn't have Eurosclerosis yet, but the Democratic Party does. That's because the party has welded itself forever to the public-sector unions, as the social-democratic parties have in Europe (see the current wave of national strikes in Spain and France). Strong growth has no meaning to the public sector, so its political foot soldiers don't waste time pushing it. Exhibit A is the Obama administration's abandonment of trade deals with Colombia, South Korea and Panama.