Last Call

Stanley Kurtz at NRO demands that Robot/Zombie '12 play even dirtier, dammit or the Kenyan usurper commie ni-CLANG will WIN or something!

I can’t say for certain that Romney’s strategy is wrong. But I do think it’s far riskier than we realize. Treating Obama as a nice guy in over his head, rather than a smart leftist who knows exactly what he’s doing, leaves the Democrats’ bogus narrative about government unanswered. America is changing, and Republicans are naive to rely on the public to simply recognize the problems in the Democrats’ claims without significant help from our nominee.

Republicans won big in 2010 by defining Obama as an overweening ideologue. Yet that was the Tea Party’s doing, not the Republican establishment. In those days, Romney even jumped on the tea-party bandwagon with some surprisingly cutting observations about Obama’s leftism. Obama may not have pivoted after the 2010 election, but Republicans did. They toned down their attacks on the president’s ideology, and to some extent helped to build up the very wall of “likeability” they now fear to scale, even as the president rejected the Clintonian way and stayed to the left. Were Republicans smart to hold their fire? Romney did try out the argument that Obama is moving us toward European-style social democracy during the primaries, but he’s dropped that now in favor of the kinder and gentler “break up” approach.

Translation:  GET IN THE MUD LIKE A PIG, SON.  And I hope Romney takes Kurtz's advice.  It'll be a disaster for him, because nobody likes the guy.

On the other hand, BooMan points out that if Obama really was more like Clinton, he would have cracked by now and he would have caved on everything instead of setting the GOP up for a huge failure this fall.

Remember that the Republicans won big in 1994 by defining Clinton as an overweening ideologue. And Clinton responded by bringing in Dick Morris, signing a horrible welfare reform bill, the Balanced Budget Act, the Iraq Liberation Act, and disastrously deregulating the banks. The Republicans attempted to bully Barack Obama in a similar manner, but so far they have got nothing. Had they been willing to make some concessions on revenue, they probably would have found some willingness on Obama's part to emulate Clinton, at least to a point. But they weren't, and he didn't. So, as a result, conservatives like Mr. Kurtz see Obama as having "rejected the Clintonian way." He didn't pivot after suffering catastrophic losses in the midterm election.

I find this less interesting for its literal truth that for the way it shines a light on the Republicans' strategic thinking. There is a bit of a meld. On the one hand, regardless of the Democratic president in the White House, the playbook says to refuse cooperation and to paint them as a far-left ideologue. On the other hand, the Republicans in charge of executing this play have a strong tendency to come around to believing it's true and real. They didn't stop thinking Bill Clinton was a far-left ideologue when he started signing their legislation. They only acknowledge a "Clintonian way" in retrospect.

So yes, I think we're going to get to the ni-CLANG moment really soon now, especially now that it appears Obama is going to win.

Food For The Heart And Soul

Republicans, complain all you want to about the President moving his acceptance speech Friday indoors due to storms, what the Democrats did afterwards for Charlotte is outstanding.

All the fancy catered food intended for the VIP suites and club rooms at the stadium – and perhaps even for the president himself – was redistributed Friday to local soup kitchens and shelters, via Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.

On the menu: thousands of pounds of pecan-fried chicken, baked orzo, fresh crudités, three-bean bake, fresh-cut fruit and something called short rib cobbler.

And that’s only a partial list.

It had all been prepared in advance by chef Jon Morey and the kitchen staff of Delaware North Inc., the official food provider for the stadium. A dollar value for the food was not immediately available.

“It’s really a wonderful order,” said Kay Carter of Second Harvest, which got 7,500 pounds of the food.

“None of this food will go to waste. We contacted every shelter and soup kitchen in town and asked them how much refrigeration capacity they have and how many are they feeding. It will all be gone at the end of the day.”

Second Harvest has a history of redistributing fresh food at a moment’s notice, she said, including leftovers from major golf tournaments.

However, the Democratic National Convention’s gift is different, if only for the inclusion of enough popcorn for 70,000 people, popped and stuffed into bags. It will go to the community’s various children’s programs, including low-income day cares. “At least it doesn’t weigh a lot,” Carter said.

This is outstanding, and more people need to know about it.   Spread the word.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/07/167529/dnc-gives-7500-pounds-of-leftovers.html#storylink=cpy

Well, Somebody's Definitely Smoking Something

Paul Ryan came out this weekend in favor of states being able to decide if they want to legalize medical marijuana or not.

In a pre-taped interview based on questions submitted by viewers of KRDO in Colorado Springs, Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) endorsed the view that states — like Colorado — should be able to decide their own laws on medical marijuana.

Anchor Eric Singer asked Ryan, “In Colorado we have medical marijuana. Under a Romney Ryan ticket, what happens?” Ryan replied, “It’s up to Coloradans to decide.”

In response to a follow-up question from Singer, Ryan elaborated: “My personal positions on this issue have been let the states decide what to do with these things. This is something that is not a high priority of ours as to whether or not we go down this issue. But I’ve always believed is the states should make the right to decide.”

To recap, the federal government must decide who who can and can't marry because it might offend people and the federal government must override state's rights to decide, they must control every aspect of a woman's reproductive system because it might offend people and they federal government must override a woman's right to decide about her own body, but bogarting a joint is a "state's rights" issue.  

In other words, Ryan's playing for the GOLD WEED END THE FED vote.  Surprise!

Dear America:

"I can't believe the incestuous relationship between MSNBC and the Democrats.  It was on full display at the Democratic National Convention.  The MSNBC hosts totally failed in their duties to savage the President's failed everything of failure!  Also, I've never heard of FOX News.  What does that have to do with anything?"

--The usually better than this Jazz Shaw, Hot Air

Bonus Verbatim Stupid:

But perhaps one of the most obvious and potentially embarrassing examples comes from the broadcast news coverage itself. The video below is from Joe Scarborough’s show on MSNBC from Friday morning when the new jobs numbers came out. Disclosure: I watch Morning Joe pretty much every day and enjoy Joe’s exchanges with people from both sides of the aisle. But knowing what we know now about exactly how the unemployment rate managed to drop, this is pretty sad.

To be fair, I've been saying Joe Scarborough is an idiot for years now.   But I've also been saying with millions of Baby Boomers reaching retirement age or taking early retirement (forced or unforced) as the oldest of them are hitting 67 this year,  labor force participation dropping is now going to be structural for a very long time.  The same thing would be happening if McCain was President, and I'd be making the same exact argument.

And let's not forget in January 2009, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month, nor should we leave out the fact that that we continue to have positive job growth despite the Republicans blocking any and every stimulative measure proposed in the last two years.  There's a reason why Congress has an approval rating of about 12%, Jazz.  They're not exactly doing anything about jobs either.

And really, man...FOX News.  All I'm going to say.

There's A Dimensional Cross-Rip Around Here, Be Careful

The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan has a bit of a problem with reality.  Her seemingly endless mendacity is only matched by her complete denial of the actual political landscape in favor of her own bizarre dimension she resides in, a universe where Democrats are the extremists and Republicans are the logical, reasonable centrist types.

Barack Obama is deeply overexposed and often boring. He never seems to be saying what he's thinking. His speech Thursday was weirdly anticlimactic. There's too much buildup, the crowd was tired, it all felt flat. He was somber, and his message was essentially banal: We've done better than you think. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

There were many straw men. There were phrases like "the shadow of a shuttered steel mill," which he considers writerly. But they sound empty and practiced now, like something you've heard in a commercial or an advertising campaign.

It was stale and empty. He's out of juice. 

You ever notice that when Barack Obama is effective in a speech, he's considered Angry Black Man by the assholes on the right.  But when he really hits one out of the park, he's a bloodless, boring intellectual.  But Obama wasn't alone in receiving scorn and derision from Noonan's schizoid episode here.  Being a Republican wingnut woman, she reserves special rancor for the symbol of all things wrong with Those Awful Liberal Hussies, Sandra Fluke.

The sheer strangeness of all the talk about abortion, abortion, contraception, contraception. I am old enough to know a wedge issue when I see one, but I've never seen a great party build its entire public persona around one. Big speeches from the heads of Planned Parenthood and NARAL, HHS Secretary and abortion enthusiast Kathleen Sebelius and, of course, Sandra Fluke.

"Republicans shut me out of a hearing on contraception," Ms. Fluke said. But why would anyone have included a Georgetown law student who never worked her way onto the national stage until she was plucked, by the left, as a personable victim?

What a fabulously confident and ingenuous-seeming political narcissist Ms. Fluke is. She really does think—and her party apparently thinks—that in a spending crisis with trillions in debt and many in need, in a nation in existential doubt as to its standing and purpose, in a time when parents struggle to buy the good sneakers for the kids so they're not embarrassed at school . . . that in that nation the great issue of the day, and the appropriate focus of our concern, is making other people pay for her birth-control pills. That's not a stand, it's a non sequitur. She is not, as Rush Limbaugh oafishly, bullyingly said, a slut. She is a ninny, a narcissist and a fool.

And she was one of the great faces of the party in Charlotte. That is extreme. Childish, too. 

Peggy Noonan really is one of the great projectors of our time.   She not only completely repeats the right wing lies about the President health care plan that she's paid to parrot out of her empty head, she uses them as the basis of her attacks on anyone who dares to tell the truth around her.  The truth about regulating birth control for insurance companies simply means that being a woman can no longer be considered a pre-existing condition, and that insurance plans need to offer coverage.

This does not mean that government is paying for birth control.  Noonan doesn't care about the truth, but she sure loves to go personally after a Georgetown Law student who made the mistake of speaking up for women from my generation.  (Mark Steyn too is greatly offended that Sandra Fluke is allowed to speak, apparently she should know her place and shut it because the menfolk like Mark are talking about the national debt which will kill all of us any second now.)

That's the awful dimension Nooners lives in.  Careful, don't fall in.

Called Out On The Carpet, Part 2

The saga of Ohio GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted continues, as his quixotic quest to deny early voting rights to Democrats in particular ran into a buzzsaw this week of a federal judge named Peter Economus.  The Judge ordered Husted to show up to explain this whole "I don't have to comply with your court order" thing to restore early voting to all Ohioans, and Friday, Husted's office replied with "We're really sorry about that, I had a cold.  Yeah, that's it."

Ohio Secretary of State John Husted said in court documents filed Friday that he’s really, really sorry for refusing to allow early voting preparations in Ohio, and promises not to do it again unless another court gives him permission.

That was the result of Judge Peter C. Economus’s ruling Friday, which concluded a hearing that saw Sec. Husted rebuked by attorneys for the Obama campaign in a stinging victory over Republican voter suppression efforts.

“Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable injury if in-person early voting is not restored the last three days before Election Day, and there is no definitive evidence before the Court that elections boards will be tremendously burdened,” Judge Economus wrote. “Certainly, the public interest is served by restoring in person early voting to all Ohio voters.” He added that letting all Ohioans have access to early voting meets the standard of keeping voting “uniform, accessible for all, fair, and secure.”

Yeah, that's the sound of a Republican getting smacked the hell down for trying to so obviously stack the voting deck in favor of the GOP.   Husted's office ran away like a bunch of kids trying to toilet paper the school gym.

“The Secretary’s intention was not to create a stay of this Court’s Order,” Husted’s attorneys explain in a court filing obtained by the Election Law Blog. “The Secretary intends to pursue his differences with this Court’s judgment only through the expedited appeal process put in place by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. To the extent that Directive 2012-40 could be read to imply any different compliance disposition, the Secretary apologizes to the federal district court for creating that misimpression”.

Yes.  Because outright voter suppression is "a misimpression".   We're sorry you thought we were trying to rig the Ohio vote.  We're sorry you decided to actually stand up to our efforts to take the vote away from thousands of urban minorities.  We're sorry you misunderstood us. 

Jackass.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• A series of earthquakes in southwestern China has killed at least 80 and injured hundreds, destroying thousands of homes, according to state TV.
• The World Health Organization classifies suicide as an epidemic that takes a million lives a year, according to new figures.
• The US State Department has agreed with Congress on a determination that Pakistan's Haqqani Network is a terrorist group, the classification of which could raise US-Pakistan tensions.
• Slower than expected job growth and downward revisions to earlier month's numbers is prompting talk of Ben Bernanke taking action at next week's Fed meeting.
• A federal judge in Illinois has sided with Google, saying that using unencrypted open WiFi networks and intercepting data on them doesn't count as wiretapping.

Last Call

Charles Pierce weighs in on arguably the most important speech last night in the grand scheme of things:  that of civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis of Georgia on the GOP war on minority voting.

John Lewis gave a speech on Thursday night, in the first hour of the convention, that almost nobody saw, which is too bad, because it summed up the great unmentioned subtext of this year's election — namely, that, between the new torrents of money that are overwhelming the system, and the rise again of voter-suppression legalisms in the various states, which are in many cases products of those same new torrents of money, the election is coming perilously close to becoming a puppet show. The Republicans didn't mention that, because they have taken in so much of the new money, and because Republican governors and legislators in the various states are behind the new voter-suppression laws, and everybody knows that. The Democrats are caught in a bind, because they have to play in the new universe of campaign finance, too, and because they're trying to keep up with a symphony of well-financed propaganda that seeks to make voter-suppression into a good-government initiative. John Lewis is not fooled. John Lewis has seen this before. And John Lewis told the convention what he's seeing rising in the country out of his own past.

Black, white, brown...the new color of privilege is green, certainly.  When a man who has paid his dues in blood and sweat and pain like he has, when he tells you he sees the nightmares of his past in the plastic smiles and saccharine logic of the Republican party, when tell you he sees the old, bloody ghosts leading the carnival of horrors, summoned by the pious mewling of "voter integrity"...yeah, you sit next to the man and learn.

Brothers and sisters, do you want to go back? Or do you want to keep America moving forward? My dear friends, your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar-all to keep them from casting their ballots.  Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting. They are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote. The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state's new voter ID law is "gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state." That's not right. That's not fair. That's not just. And similar efforts have been made in Texas, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina. I've seen this before. I've lived this before. Too many people struggled, suffered and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote.

You want to know why I voted for Obama  and plan to vote for him again in a state like Kentucky where he'll most likely lose by 20 points?  Because.  I can vote.  Because it is sacred, and people have died and bled and were driven to their knees by the grief and sorrow of witnessing the struggle, and you do it anyway.  Because those who came before me paid my way to be able to vote and in some cases paid a terrible, brutal price, and I will not dishonor them by throwing that sacred right away.  You want to know why I vote?

Because I can.

And I will do whatever it takes to maintain that.  It is a gift secured for you by men and women like John Lewis and all the people who came before, and when I see people say "I don't know if I should vote" and take that privilege for granted and whinge about how it doesn't matter because there's no difference between the parties, you look at the issue of voter suppression and tell me there's no difference.  One party believes voting is a right for all Americans and they have put their lives on the line in some cases to secure that right.  The other side believes it's a perk for only those who are found worthy because they are right-thinking, a party that wants to go back to the Good Ol' Days for them, when they still controlled the country uncontested.  That is changing precisely because of the changing vote and the power it represents, and it terrifies them to their rotten, diseased hearts.  If voting is so utterly useless and pointless, why do they fear it so much?

That alone should determine not only which party you should vote for, but that you should be gorram proud and honored to vote so that you too can pay that right forward to your children and nephews and nieces and grandkids.  I don't come at you guys with the grim visage all that much, but this is one of those times.  I implore you to vote.  That is the cost, one much lighter than John Lewis has paid and has seen paid.  You owe it to the past, you owe it to the future, and you owe it to yourself.

Because you can.  Because you fight like unrelenting hell for those who still cannot.  And yes, that should be a good enough reason.  End of line.  The tag is dead serious.

Vote like your country depends on it.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Top stories at Bloomberg News yesterday:

S&P 500 Reaches 4-Year High, Treasuries Fall on Bond Plan

U.S. benchmark stock indexes jumped to the highest levels in more than four years and Treasuries fell as the European Central Bank announced a bond-buying plan and reports fueled optimism in the U.S. economy. Spanish and Italian debt surged. 

and

Bloomberg Poll: Second Obama Term Bad For U.S. Markets

By a margin of 46 percent to 39 percent, investors say Obama’s re-election would be bad for U.S. financial markets, according to a quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll conducted on Sept. 4. That represents a sharp reversal of opinion from May, when investors backed Obama 48 percent to 36 percent. 

That's pretty much all I've got.  Markets up 65% in the last four years, but Obama's re-election will tank the markets. Sure, why not.  Lots of empirical evidence there supporting DOOOOOOOM.

Idiots.

Crocodile Tears Of Regret

A Missouri bishop who became the nation's highest-ranking Catholic official charged with shielding an abusive priest was found guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse, a conviction that extends the Church's struggles to shake its reputation for protecting pedophile priests.

Bishop Robert Finn was acquitted on a second count. He received two years of probation, but that sentence was suspended. He is required to have mandatory abuse reporter training.

Finn and the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph were each charged with two misdemeanor counts of failing to report suspected child abuse to the state. Prosecutors said Thursday they are seeking to dismiss the charges against the diocese, but the judge hasn't decided on the request and is set to rule Friday.

"I truly regret and am sorry for the hurt these events have caused," Finn said to the judge before being sentenced.

It sounds tough, until you realize he just has to go to a class that tells him what he already knew... he is a mandated reporter.

He isn't sorry for the hurt this caused, anyone capable of that would have reported crotch shots of little kids. Anyone who really gives a damn about people knows common decency demands we try to shield the innocent.  Instead, he sat on it and let a pedophile continue.  Unforgivable.

But tell me again how I should live, tell me again how I need to be, and how I need to treat my fellow man.  Tell me how the Catholic church knows the way and is above reproach.

Keep in mind, Catholic readers, I don't have issues with anything besides the Church and its actions.  But enough is enough, nobody should support an organization that says "Yeah we did it, what are you gonna do about it?"

From The Mouths Of Babes

I've been really disappointed in the world lately, and I am afraid it's starting to show.  I so enjoy it when people do good things, and it grows into an even better thing.  And that's just what we have for you today.

Forget toys and video games. When Wyatt Erber won $1,000, the Illinois third-grader knew exactly what he wanted to do with the money.

The 8-year-old gave his winnings to the family of his young neighbor, 2-year-old Cara Kielty, who is battling leukemia.

"He was really aware of what cancer is," said Wyatt's mom, Noelle Erber. "When he found out Cara had cancer, his heart sank."

One week after the Cara Kielty was diagnosed, Noelle Erber asked her son if he'd like to enter a scavenger hunt sponsored by a local bank. The grand prize was $1,000.

"Wyatt immediately said, 'Let's do it, and if I win the $1,000, I want to give it to Cara,'" Erber said. "The idea of being able to give a thousand dollars wowed him."

When they found out they had been the first team to turn in all the clues, Wyatt called Cara's mother, Trisha Kielty.

"I knew he was wanting to do it for Cara, which is the sweetest thing ever," she said. "But an 8-year-old giving adults money? I tried to protest to his mom. Then she told me he asked how much chemo this would buy Cara. He gets it."

The Kieltys, who have been close friends of the Erbers since they moved to their street five years ago, decided to accept the money and "focus on the fact Wyatt is such a gracious kid," Trisha Kielty said.

The third-grader's act of generosity did not go unnoticed. A local charity matched his gift to the Kieltys. A man in Canada heard about the story and sent a letter praising Wyatt, along with $100 to give to the Kielty's for Cara's treatment.

Yeah.  That felt good.  Here's hoping Cara comes through this and enjoys a lifelong friendship with the boy who did his best to help her during the worst time of her short life.

College Loan Kristallnacht

It must be very exhausting to compare everything the Democrats do to the Nazi atrocities before and during WWII.  I mean the knee-jerk stupidity of Republicans screaming that the Dems getting out of bed and brushing their teeth is the Reichstag fire, that Dems shopping for groceries is just like the annexation of the Sudetenland, and that Dems making college loans easier to get is just like the Holocaust is just getting tiresome, you know?

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) says he supports student loans, so America’s youth can get a good education. But the government getting involved in education, he believes, puts the country on a slippery slope that could lead to, say, something like the Holocaust.

At a town hall event at a college in Maryland on Wednesday, Bartlett said he could not find “a shred of evidence” in the Constitution that the government should be involved in education. It’s “certainly a good idea” to give students loans, Bartlett said in a video posted by the Washington Post. “But if you can ignore the Constitution to do something good today, tomorrow you will be ignoring the Constitution to do something bad,” he explained. “You could. There are more people in our, in America today of German ancestry than any other … The Holocaust that occurred in Germany — how in the heck could that happen? And when you start down the wrong road, it can be a very slippery slope.”

Barlett’s spokesperson told the Post that the student-loan remarks fit with the congressman’s belief in limited government.

Sure they do.  Needless to say, Roscoe P. Douchetrain here apologized.

 “While explaining my position on an important Constitutional issue I regrettably used an extreme example as a comparison that was ill-advised and inappropriate. I should never use something as horrific as the Holocaust to make a political point, and I deeply apologize to anyone I may have offended.”

Sure you do.  And you'll do it again anyway, but that won't really matter because you'll apologize again then, too.

And so it goes.

The Case To Keep His Job

The Democratic National Convention is over, and Bon and I will be covering the highlights on the podcast today (hopefully).  The third and final day was filled with some pretty good speeches, but they all got underway when former Rep. Gabby Giffords brought the house down with something as simple as the Pledge of Allegiance.



Later on, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, now host of her own show on Current TV, delivered a passionate attack on fellow Michigander Mitt Romney.



(More speeches below the jump...)

StupidiNews!

• Some 400,000 Chicago school students would be affected by a teacher strike starting on Monday if Illinois' largest teachers union is unable to come to a deal with the city.
• At a private ceremony next week, astronaut legend Neil Armstrong will be buried at sea according to family spokesman.
• President Obama made the case for a second term as he accepted his party's nomination for President in a night of sharp contrasts to the GOP over policy and ideology.
• European Central Bank chairman Mario Draghi announced plans for purchasing "unlimited" numbers of short-term bonds to prop up the euro.
• NASA's next space vehicle may be the Dream Chaser space plane, descended from the days of the Cold War with Soviet Russia.

Last Call

What?  You didn’t think you were going to get through the DNC without unsolicited advice for President Obama from The Centrist Concern Troll Twins in the Wall Street Journal, did you?  Oh, you silly dears.  Roll the tape, Claude!

What voters are looking for—and particularly what swing voters, independents, and disillusioned Obama voters are looking for—is a new direction for America based on fiscal discipline, a balanced budget, and economic growth and leadership. 

More than anyone else in this race, Paul Ryan has spoken of the need for fiscal discipline and economic growth—two themes that have been largely absent from the Obama-Biden campaign—which explains a large part of the Ryan-inspired Romney bump.

That bump is like 0.75 points, but who cares.  Dorka Schoen and Give ‘Em Caddell need not your facts.  Centrist Daleks will Tri-ang-u-laaaaate!  And hey, Paul Ryan is a Centrist too!  You should listen to his Very Serious Centrist Positions on tesseract marathon running and the joys of children conceived through coercion and force.

For his part, President Obama needs to change direction—immediately and decisively. His campaign strategy has been to divide the country on the basis of class, demonize the wealthy, call for higher taxes and unceasingly attack Mr. Romney. Yet poll after poll has shown that while voters embrace the idea of higher taxes on the rich, it does not translate into votes. 

In 2008, Mr. Obama promised to help unite America in a “post-partisan” Washington. But the 2012 campaign has been one of the most negative in memory. What he needs to do is acknowledge that he’s made mistakes and that he wants to pursue a substantive approach to governance. Put another way, he needs to bring back “hope and change” and abandon his divide-and-conquer strategy.

Should he do this before or after he announces he’s not running in November because it’s really tragically unfair of him to have broken such a historic streak of white men running the place, you know.  It’s the right thing to do.

It has been said before, but only because it’s so true: Mr. Obama should follow the lead of President Bill Clinton, who emphasized in both his terms in office the need for unity and consensus to achieve fiscal restraint. Inviting Mr. Clinton to speak at the convention Wednesday night is a sure sign that the Obama campaign understands the need to move to the center, if not in substance then in style. 

Yet nothing would appeal to independents and swing voters more than if the president were to embrace the findings of the 2010 Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction commission and make it clear that he too has a plan to revitalize the U.S. economy, reduce the deficit, reform entitlements and spur economic growth through a fairer and leaner tax system.

So President Obama has the unique opportunity to be the adult in the room by handing control of the country over to the nice folks who aren’t all that sure about evolution because the open-minded scientist must question the theory, but they believe tax cuts magically create additional tax revenues because rich people will spring forth from the nothingness like Orks from Warhammer 40K (and reach a collective critical mass of entrepreneurs, a WAAAAGH! of small business owners who will run around franchising at everything, paint their businesses red because they’ll create jobs faster, and leave nothing but career opportunities in their wake of mass construction.  Sure).

Yeah, I’ll buy that.  President Obama should totally listen to these guys.  (Also, Centrist Daleks versus Small Business Orks.  Somebody make that happen.)