Free Republic

When it comes to Progressive, liberal, political hacks masquerading as journalists, it goes without saying that Katie Couric, Keith Olbermann, Matt Lauer, David Gregory, and Chris Matthews are the worst of the species. Their zombie-like devotion to President Obama is simply disgusting. Equally appalling is their always-predictable and generally-shallow rants against conservatives in politics.

Can Democrats possibly screw up the 2010 election any more? Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who replaced Chris Dodd as the Democrat candidate for Senator from Connecticut, today was outed as a potential liar, on of all things, his military record in Vietnam. From the New York Times, no less:

<p>The snows that obliterated Washington last week interfered with many scheduled meetings, but they did not prevent the delivery of one important political message: Take Sarah Palin seriously.</p> <p>Her lengthy Saturday night keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville and her debut on the Sunday morning talk show circuit with Fox News' Chris Wallace showed off a public figure at the top of her game -- a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself.</p>

"I want to speak up for the American people and say: No, we really do have some good common-sense solutions. I can be a messenger for that. Don't have to have a title to do it." This is a pitch-perfect recital of the populist message that has worked in campaigns past. There are times when the American people are looking for something more: for an Eisenhower, who liberated Europe; an FDR or a Kennedy or a Bush, all unashamed aristocrats; or an Obama, with eloquence and brains. But in the present mood of the country, Palin is by all odds...

It read: "President Obama has pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our federal budget deficit over the next decade. Do you think that President Obama will be able to keep his promise or do you think that any health care plan that Congress passes and President Obama signs will add to the federal budget deficit?" The answer: Less than one-fifth of the voters -- 19 percent of the sample -- think he will keep his word. Nine of 10 Republicans and eight of 10 independents said that whatever passes will add to the torrent of red ink....

"Wobbly." "Indecisive." "Dithering." The old guard of the D.C. liberal press establishment is telling Barack Obama in no uncertain terms that he has taken too long to decide a course of action in Afghanistan.Writing in their respective home newspapers, the Washington Post's David Broder, Jackson Diehl and the Los Angeles Times' Doyle McManus each penned columns published today that serve notice to Obama that his latest postponement of a resolution to the debate on Afghanistan has damaged his image as commander-in-chief such that they can no longer provide him cover.In the op-eds, Obama is compared unfavorably to his predecessor, President...

With a bit of bookkeeping legerdemain borrowed from the Bush administration, the Democratic Congress is about to perform a cover-up on the most serious threat to America's economic future. That threat is not the severe recession, tough as that is for the families and businesses struggling to make ends meet. In time, the recession will end, and last week's stock market performance hinted that we may not have to wait years for the recovery to begin. The real threat is the monstrous debt resulting from the slump in revenue and the staggering sums being committed by Washington to rescuing embattled...

I thought the most newsworthy comment of the week by an inside-the-Beltway kibbitzer was this by Howard Fineman: “Everybody’s trying to take their measure of Barack Obama, all the power players in Washington. And frankly, they think they can roll him.” Now David Broder, “dean of the Washington Press Corps” [legally-required description] has said something very similar . . . Writing in his “End of the Honeymoon” column of today, Broder observes [emphasis added]:

Broder got himself a pretty new dress and some open-toed shoes. He did a fresh comb-over and breathlessly went to work on today's column, "Obama's Tour De Force." Warning: It ain't pretty.

It made no sense when Barack Obama left the country on his nine-day overseas tour for some of my fellow columnists to describe it as a high-risk venture. Foreign leaders, who can read the polls as well as anyone, would go out of their way not to embarrass a man who may, six months from now, be president of the United States. Obama prepares thoroughly for the big occasions. He is almost always well-briefed, and he was traveling in sharp company — with Sens. Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel — so you knew he would be thoroughly ready for these...

Wha-h-h-h? This has to go down as one of the stranger non sequiturs from a pundit of national standing. Responding to a study that concludes that burgeoning multiculturalism threatens national unity, David Broder takes solace in the fact that 34 years ago, the American body politic booted Richard Nixon from office. In his column of today, One Nation No More?, Broder comments on the study, E Pluribus Unum, recently released by the The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

On Tuesday night former Representative Harold Ford, now chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, said that Democrats would win in 2008 “because the country needs a change”. That got me wondering just what changes the Democrats would have in mind for us if they won. Since the Bush policies led us out of the Clinton recession of 2000 and also the post 9/11 crash, and resulted in seven years of growth, prosperity and record-breaking, continuous low unemployment, would the Democrat changes reverse this record? Or how about the trillion dollar tax increase that the Chairman of the Democrat-controlled Ways and...

"A camel is a horse designed by committee." -- ascribed to Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis. Perhaps the only thing more likely to yield ungainly results than design by committee is letting a Democrat design a Republican presidential ticket. In "Principles Among the GOP Pack," David Broder tries his hand at it in today's WaPo. The result is a double-humped dromedary known as McCain-Huckabee.

If the Republican Party really wanted to hold on to the White House in 2009, it's pretty clear what it would do. It would grit its teeth, swallow its doubts and nominate a ticket of John McCain for president and Mike Huckabee for vice president — and president-in-waiting. Those two are far from front-runners. They trail Mitt Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire and lag behind Rudy Giuliani in national surveys of Republican voters. But, in a series of debates, including last week's CNN/YouTube extravaganza. McCain and Huckabee have been notable for their clarity, character and, yes, simple humanity. From...

Weekend Talk Show *Preview* for 6/24 and 6/25/06 (not the live thread)The main message is the Sunday Shows.  Message 1 will be the Saturday Shows and message 2 will be the show guest links post.  Then I'll post the ping list.Sunday Shows for 6-25-06 ABC This Week (George Stephanopoulos) Meme: What is wrong with these Democrats?  We hand them the election on a silver platter and they just screw it up!Bush has had two good weeks - it's time to bring out the big guns and knock that fool down a peg Topics: Iraq Withdrawal?: In a pair of exclusive...

Weekend Talk Show *Preview* for 5/27 - 5/28/06 (not the live thread)The main message is the Sunday Shows.  Message 1 will be the Saturday Shows and message 2 will be the show guest links post.  Then I'll post the ping list.ABC This Week (George Stephanopoulos) Meme: The power of the MSM is unassailable!watch as they destroy the evil right wingers and crown the good progressives while blaming everything on the United States (It's what they do best) Topics: Reports of a massacre in Haditha, IraqThe immigration debate Guests Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. Duncan Hunter doesn't realize it yet, but he's...

Sunday Shows for 3/23/06This main post is the Sunday Shows.  Message 1 will be the Saturday Shows and message 2 will be the show guest links post.  Then I'll post the ping list.Fox News Sunday (Chris Wallace) Meme: Hoekstra & Harman both don't like Negroponte, hurrah, hurrah!Panetta and Duberstein both don't like Bush's men, hurrah, hurrah!And Gilbert Arenas plays online poker at halftime....???? (that's the best I can figure as to why he's on) Topics: Reps. Peter Hoekstra and Jane Harman on Iran's nuclear ambitionFormer Chiefs of Staff Leon Panetta and Ken Duberstein on White House shake-upWashington Wizards' star Gilbert...

Journal Editorial Report (Paul Gigot) - FNC show page Meme: The Bush administration policies are a failure and Bush has bad poll numbersBush's bad poll numbers are sinking the RepublicansBush must clean house and replace those the MSM hates (because they're not listening to us!)The paleocons and country club Republicans have turned their back on Bush (the Nixon wing of the party tries to rise again) Topics: 'Civil War'? - Tune in this weekend for a discussion of Iraq and Harvard professors' campaign against Israel. (Opinion Journal web site promo)Is Iraq really headed toward civil war? An interview with Reuel...

There are substantial revisions to our lineup and schedule of syndicated national columnists: Six columnists from our current lineup - Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, Maureen Dowd, Leonard Pitts, David Broder and Ellen Goodman - are continuing, but their work will appear on different days of the week. We're adding five new columnists to the page - three conservative, two liberal - with an eye toward freshening up the mix and upgrading the quality of the writing and advocacy. Conservative Michael Barone, a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and principal co-writer of the "Almanac of American Politics," has...

The veteran Washington Post columnist penned an almost note-perfect epitaph for the age of monolithic media by somehow confusing thread-bare bloggers with celebrity-chasing corporate chieftains. Evidently all that matters to Broder is that there exist people outside of the priestly caste of High Journalism who make news decisions. And that is wrong, heresy perhaps. Broder fails to even mention the transformative effect technology has had in the dissemination of information. Perhaps that is because High Journalism never understood what was going on, as it clung to a top-down model of info dispersal. Perhaps if the big news outlets had understood...