Tom McMahon

Risk-free Clintonian State Capitalism

An excerpt:

In the wake of the Massachusetts Miracle last week ("The other Boston Massacre"), President Obama adopted a populist mantle, claiming he was going to "fight" Wall Street. It was either that or win another Nobel Peace Prize.

Now the only question is which Goldman Sachs crony he'll put in charge of this task.

If Obama plans to hold Wall Street accountable for its own bad decisions, it will be a first for the Democrats.

For the past two decades, Democrats have specialized in insulating financial giants from the consequences of their own high-risk bets. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs alone have been rescued from their risky bets by unwitting taxpayers four times in the last 15 years.

Bankers get all the profits, glory and bonuses when their flimflam bets pay off, but the taxpayers foot the bill when Wall Street firms' bets go bad on -- to name just three examples -- Mexican bonds (1995), Thai, Indonesian and South Korean bonds (1997), and Russian bonds (1998).

As Peter Schweizer writes in his magnificent book Architects of Ruin: "Wall Street is a very far cry from the arena of freewheeling capitalism most people recall from their history books." With their reverse-Midas touch, the execrable baby boom generation turned Wall Street into what Schweizer dubs "risk-free Clintonian state capitalism."

They Are SO Over Her

From Ann Coulter:

Sarah Palin has deeply disappointed her enemies. People who hate her guts feel she's really let them down by resigning.

She's like the ex-girlfriend they're SO over, never want to see again, have already forgotten about -- really, it's O-ver -- but they just can't stop talking about her.

Liberal: Ha, ha ... Sarah who? She's over, she's toast, a future Trivial Pursuit answer, nothing more.

Normal person: Whatever. How about the North Korean missiles?

Liberal: Can you believe she just resigned the governorship like that? What a quitter!

Normal person: Speaking of quitting, how's work?

Liberal: Did you hear she might get a TV show? There's no way Sarah Palin's getting a TV show! No way! I can't believe stupid Sarah Palin could get her own stupid TV show now. Well, I'm sure not gonna watch it -- that's for sure!

Normal person: Have you seen all the Michael Jackson coverage on TV?

Liberal: How does she think she can run for president in 2012 if she can't finish her term as governor of a Podunk state? She's finished.

Normal person: OK, then! You won't have to vote for her.

Liberal: I was never going to vote for her! But now I'm not going to vote for her twice. And I will never watch her TV show. I am so over her.

The "Ethics" of Bill Moyers

Via RWN, an excerpt from Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America :

"The sort of skullduggery for which Nixon was crucified was standard practice in modern politics. Presidents Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Johnson had used the FBI and Justice Department to harass their enemies and tap their phones -- often with the gleeful connivance of the media. NBC bugged Democratic headquarters in 1968. President Lyndon B. Johnson openly committed voter fraud to win elections in Texas, and he bugged Barry Goldwater in 1964. JFK's arm's-length attorney general Bobby Kennedy asked the FBI for files on steel company executives and sent agents to their homes to harass them. LBJ assistant Bill Moyers, now of PBS News, monitored the FBI's bugs on Martin Luther King's hotel room, distributing the tapes to select members of the Johnson administration as well as the press. Moyers also ordered the FBI to gather information about the sexual proclivities of Goldwater's staff. A decade later, President Jimmy Carter wanted to make Moyers director of the CIA. I guess it was just the press's 'judgement' to flip from toadies to a howling lynch mob when Nixon became President."

Now The Truth Can Be Told

Via RWN, an excerpt from Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America :

"Fewer than 10 percent of all Swift Boat Veterans contacted refused to sign a letter saying Kerry was not fit to be President. At the beginning of the campaign, O'Neill had signed up 190 Swiftees to say Kerry was unfit for command. By Election Day, he had 294 in all. Only 14 Swift Boat Veterans sided with Kerry, while 294 sided with O'Neill. Let's see, would it be more difficult to get 14 people to tell the same lie or to get 294 people to tell the same lie?"

How The Obamas Got Rich

Via RWN, an excerpt from Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America:

"In fact, Michelle Obama's 'public service' career advanced in lockstep with the political advancement of her husband. Michelle was only hired by the University of Chicago hospital once her husband had become a state senator. Most intriguingly, after Obama was elected to the US Senate, her salary was nearly tripled from $121,910 to $316,962 -- whereupon Senator Obama would use the 'new politics' earmark process to try to send taxpayer dollars to Michelle's newly generous employer."

Why It Took 30 Years To Begin Learning The Truth About JFK

Via RWN, an excerpt from Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America :

"The reason it took thirty years to begin learning the truth about President John F. Kennedy is that a slavish press corps covered up his failings, rewriting history even as it happened. Prominent White House journalists of the day, such as Newsweek Washington Bureau chief Ben Bradlee and Chattonooga Times Washington Bureau chief Charles Bartlett sent their articles to Kennedy for his approval before publication. Bartlett and Stewart Alsop, a columnist with the Saturday Evening Post, allowed Kennedy to edit their story on one of the biggest disasters of Kennedy's presidency, the Cuban missile crisis. Try to imagine, say, New York Times correspondent Elisabeth Bumiller extending such a privilege to President Bush."

Liberalism As Reverse Christianity

Via RWN, an excerpt from Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America:

"Liberals seem to have hit upon a reverse Christ story as their belief system. He suffered and died for our sins; liberals make the rest of us suffer for sins we didn't commit. Their claims of how awful 'we' are never seems to encompass themselves in the 'we.' Saying America is a racist nation is never meant to suggest that the speaker is a racist -- it's his neighbors who are the racists."

High Noon

An excerpt:

George Bush is Gary Cooper in the classic western "High Noon." The sheriff is about to leave office when a marauding gang is coming to town. He could leave, but he waits to face the killers as all his friends and all the townspeople, who supported him during his years of keeping them safe, slowly abandon him. In the end, he walks alone to meet the killers, because someone has to.

That's Bush. Name one other person in Washington who would be willing to stand alone if he had to, because someone had to.

OK, there is one, but she's not in Washington yet. Appropriately, at the end of "High Noon," Cooper is surrounded by the last two highwaymen when, suddenly, his wife (Grace Kelly) appears out of nowhere and blows away one of the killers! The aging sheriff is saved by a beautiful, gun-toting woman.

The Double-Secret Probation, Delta-Force Level Total News Blackout On John Edwards

From Ann Coulter:

A Washington Post reporter defended the total blackout on the National Enquirer's John Edwards' love child story, telling the Times of London: "Edwards is no longer an elected official and he is not running for office now. Don't expect wall-to-wall coverage." This was the perfect guy to talk to because if there's one thing they're careful about in London, it's tabloid excess.

Isn't there some level of coverage between "wall-to-wall" and "double-secret probation, delta-force level total news blackout" when it comes to a sex scandal involving a current Democratic vice presidential and Cabinet prospect?

Hey, what sort of "elected official" was Ted Haggard again? He was the Christian minister no one outside of his own parish had ever heard of until he was caught in a gay sex scandal last year. Then he suddenly became the Pope of the Protestants. And yet, despite the fact that Haggard was not an "elected official," the Post gave that story wall-to-wall coverage. And what sort of "elected officials" were Mel Gibson, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Bennett?

Advice For Democrats

From Ann Coulter:

Democrats should run Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for president. He's more coherent than Dennis Kucinich, he dresses like their base, he's more macho than John Edwards, and he's willing to show up at a forum where he might get one hostile question -- unlike the current Democratic candidates for president who won't debate on Fox News Channel. He's not married to an impeached president, and the name "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" is surely no more frightening than "B. Hussein Obama."