It’s very totalitarian in my opinion. I mean, It smacks of forcing somebody to confront something that they have already decided they don’t want to deal with.

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Here’s something that no one is talking about concerning tonight’s primaries: In my homestate of Missouri Prop C, the first legislative challenge to Obamacare exempting Missourians from Obamacare penalities, passed by 3-1 in every single county except Kansas City and St. Louis City. Rick Santorum took every single county in Missouri. Missourians don’t like mandates. Missourians, like folks from MN and CO, don’t like being strong-armed into the falsehood of “electable inevitability.”

That’s what we’ve been sold for the past six months. Tonight inevitability was rejected in three states.

Numerous talking heads discounted the “beauty contests,” especially Missouri’s, which holds a separate caucus for its 52 delegates in March due to state-level silliness. Coincidentally, these are the same folks, Karl Rove and Company, who seem to save their most favorable comments for Romney. Iowa was important until it was realized Santorum won. South Carolina didn’t matter because hey, they were all bigots and hillbillies. Only the states that went Romney seemed to count.

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What Think Progress trumpets as an “exclusive” has turned into a “retraction required.” The Soros-funded blog claims that Republican Ari Fleischer was “secretly” involved with the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision on Planned Parenthood:

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, was secretly involved in the Komen Foundation’s strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” at Komen last December. According to a source with first-hand knowledge, Fleischer drilled prospective candidates during their interviews on how they would handle the controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.

Fleischer’s relationship with Komen and the Planned Parenthood controversy was previously undisclosed.

A slick move, to blame the other team for your side’s transgressions in order to deflect. Sources close to the Komen Foundation tell me Fleischer wasn’t involved in any way with Komen’s Planned Parenthood strategy. The person Komen did bring in to lead the effort is none other than Brendan Daly, Nancy Pelosi’s former press secretary, who is heading a team from Ogilvy PR. While Fleischer was assisting Komen CEO Nancy Brinker in finding a qualified PR person, Fleischer wasn’t directing decisions in the resulting Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle; it was Daly.

So Think Progress is accusing Ari Fleischer for Brendan Daly’s decisions. Don’t they have an editor fact-checking such things over there?

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***UPDATE: Think Progress was named in lieu of Crooks and Liars in the drafting process. That’s been corrected. We wouldn’t want to insult the integrity of one far left propaganda site by inadvertently identifying it as another far left propaganda site.

In an attempt to discredit my Sunday morning remarks on Planned Parenthood and mammograms, a Crooks and Liars blogger promoted a debunked narrative on the Live Action investigation of Planned Parenthood and mammograms. This is what happens when you confuse knowledge with partisan agenda.

To what does Crooks and Liars link? The debunked Media Matters story. Behold:

Yeah, about that lack of mammography machines … turns out, the whole thing was a sham.

Actually, it wasn’t:

Every defense they have put up about their story has been thoroughly discredited:

Media Matters Still Has Trouble With the Word “Provider,” Owes Correction

Media Matters Proves Why Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Need Taxpayer Funding

Media Matters Refuses To Retract Factual Error

CORRECTION REQUEST STANDS: Media Matters Fudged Truth On Planned Parenthood Mammograms

We ask again for Media Matters to live up to the purpose described for the organization and correct their bad information. Stubbornly clinging to information proven unarguably false isn’t journalism, it’s devotion to propaganda over truth. Media Matters must choose: ideology or journalism.

It’s humorous how one Soros associated blog attempts to bail out another Soros blog using the first Soros blog’s bad and discredited information that they refuse to correct.

Komen didn’t retract funds because Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer mammograms. It never has. I’ve had a wellness check-up from Planned Parenthood (I was between jobs and didn’t have insurance for about a year) and it included a manual breast examination as well as instructions on the proper methods of self-examination (an important tool in early detection, which leads to higher survival rates). Had they detected anything or if I had belonged to any of the high risk groups, they would have referred me for a mammogram. That service could save potentially thousands of women’s lives.

And waste-of-intelligence hack pundits like Dana Loesch want to keep that from them.

I would advise that the next time “Nicole Belle” attempts to deconstruct my remarks, she does so while practicing listening comprehension. Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms, as I clearly and explicitly stated, they provide the “most basic of screenings,” which scores of clinics (not to mention Medicaid) provide to low-income women. If  Crooks and Liars’ blogger needed a mammogram, she would have been referred to another clinic entirely by her Planned Parenthood clinic. Why? Because Planned Parenthood does not offer mammograms.

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After President Obama was caught playing tarmac theatrics with Gov. Jan Brewer, everyone accused Brewer of being a racist. (Though, if we’re playing identify politics, I’m not sure how a man storming off a plane with a thunderous expression, stomping over to a woman only to read her the riot act as she stands there with a handwritten note welcoming him to her state isn’t viewed as sexist.) The media would like for you to believe that Obama never thrust his finger in another’s face.

Remember when Obama wagged his finger in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s face? Neither does the media.

Apparently, the Brewer incident wasn’t the first time Obama attempted to create “Tarmac Theater” for the benefit of the watchful press corps. Jindal said the President’s outburst, pictured above, was “staged.”

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As reported by Big Government:

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who was the subject of allegations of congressional insider trading, has indicated that he will not seek to extend his term as chair of the House Financial Services Committee after 2012.

Progressive media has fought hard against the story of insider trading, first broken by Big Peace Editor Peter Schweizer with his book Throw Them All Out. Leftist media attempted to discredit the sources and blow off the story, but after President Obama mentioned it in his State of the Union Address, the tactic was turned on its ear.

Earlier this week Joel Pollak discussed how the Huffington Post issued a mea culpa after working hard to encourage dismissal of the story:

Give Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post credit: it takes courage to change one’s mind, and to admit an earlier mistake.

Grim has written that he was wrong to dismiss a November 2011 report by 60 Minutes (based on Breitbart editor Peter Schweitzer’s book, Throw Them All Out) on insider trading in Congress:

At the time, I wrongly reported that 60 Minutes’ poor choice of targets for its report, and its clumsy attempt to connect specific trading to specific legislative action, set momentum for the bill back. Instead, in fact, the report propelled the legislation forward.

Grim had initially reported that the 60 Minutes report “falls short.”

What changed?

Much of the left and the left media–including the Huffington Post, Politico, and Media Matters for America–dismissed the issue of insider trading and tried to discredit both the allegations and their source. Now that Obama has taken up the legislation–with its sponsor, Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) obtaining Obama’s explicit commitment to make Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid move it through the Senate–the left is scrambling to catch up.

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Yesterday Elliot Abrams was part of a calculated effort against one of the GOP primary candidates whose last name wasn’t “Romney.” It’s typical in any primary, but what wasn’t typical was that in this republican primary, the information was misconstrued and presented a false narrative to readers. Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator takes Abrams to task for his piece and says it is “not worthy” of its author:

Abrams

A piece like the one Abrams wrote depends for its success in garnering headlines — which it did — by assuming no one will bother to get into the weeds and do the homework. Usually a safe assumption when dealing with the mainstream media, particularly a mainstream media that, as one with Establishment Republicans, hates Newt Gingrich.

Not so fast.

Due to the diligence of one Chris Scheve of a group called Aqua Terra Strategies in Washington, Mr. Abrams has been caught red-handed in lending himself to this attempted Romney hit job.

Mr. Scheve, you see, is himself a former foreign policy aide to none other than Speaker Newt Gingrich in his days as Speaker. While now out on his own and not working for Gingrich, Scheve is considerably conversant with the Gingrich foreign policy record.

Uh-oh.

That’s right. Mr. Scheve, incensed at what he felt was a deliberate misrepresentation of his old boss by Abrams and the Romney forces, specifically of Gingrich’s long ago March 21, 1986 “Special Order” speech on the floor of the House, and aware “that most of his [Abrams'] comments had to have been selectively taken from the special order” — Scheve started digging. Since the Congressional Record for 1986 was difficult to obtain electronically, Scheve trekked to the George Mason Library to physically track down the March 21, 1986 edition of the Congressional Record. Locating it, copying and scanning, he was kind enough to send to me …

… I can only say that what Elliott Abrams wrote in NRO about Newt Gingrich based on this long ago speech is not worthy of Elliott Abrams.

Specifically, Abrams implies that Newt Gingrich was spewing mindless vitriol about Reagan on the House floor. Not only not so, it was quite to the contrary.

Read the whole thing. Ben Shapiro has the full text of Gingrich’s remarks.

Such hits on candidates is expected in primaries, but a heated primary is no excuse for conservatives in media to forget their principles and assume the characteristics of progressive media. Lord is right on this. Let the purposeful inaccuracies stop.

Big Government reported earlier this morning on a Media Matters for America email on the Keystone Pipeline that exposes the true, partisan lobbying agenda behind everything the tax-exempt group does.

The email was sent, apparently in error, to key staff from the office of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in an attempt to provide talking points to “allies” (read: left-wing Democrats) in pushing back on the Keystone XL pipeline, which is supported by Republicans, some Democrats and the majority of Americans.

The key line in the email:

We are hoping for a big media splash, but – more importantly – we’re hoping that allies will be able to leverage it to gain favorable coverage.

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When the South Carolina primary results revealed a blowout victory for Gingrich, Romney supporters and the Establishment Apology Brigade responded by borrowing progressives’s talking points against the tea party. That a sizable chunk of tea partiers, independents, and women voted for Newt Gingrich doesn’t make them “racists,” as I have heard suggested, or “bitter clingers,” or any other pejorative favored by progressives and suddenly subtly adopted by establishment types.

I know and respect many of these individuals and I don’t begrudge them their passionate support of the candidate in whom they believe; rather, I disagree with their chosen tactics in attempting to undermine their opposition’s support.

We spent three-and-a-half years protesting for limited government and were called nazis, racists, bigots, etc. by progressives, many of them sitting lawmakers. The above-mentioned apologists were right with us in denouncing such tactics. Now suddenly they’re echoing them simply because the majority of grassroots do not share their choice of primary candidate? Their strategy is to browbeat and verbally abuse grassroots into lining up behind an uncertain and not “inevitable” candidate? Isn’t that what progressives have been doing to grassroots for the past several years? We were called racists and “bitter clingers” for not supporting Obama. Are we now suggested racists and “bitter clingers” because we don’t support Romney? How does that work?

Let me put it another way: it wasn’t OK to call tea partiers “racists and hillbillies” when they opposed Obama’s big government, but it is OK to call tea partiers “racists and hillbillies” when they oppose the establishment’s pick for primary candidate?

What sort of bass-ackwards logic is this?

The South Carolina results have more to do with a repudiation of Romney than a widespread preference for Gingrich as a candidate. This isn’t to say that there aren’t any tea partiers who support Gingrich–to the contrary. There is simply a general, “damn the man” sentiment when it concerns the GOP establishment, and it’s of the establishment’s own doing.

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If you didn’t watch tonight’s debate, let me sum it up for you: Why English as the official language in US? Your Thoughts on Terri Schiavo? When was America last great? Also, the Bush tax cuts didn’t work, explain to us why.’

Gingrich, who is usually good at rejecting false premises in questioning, punted and responded “it would have been worse without them.” Really?

… in May 2003 Congress accelerated the tax cuts to make them effective immediately. In addition to reducing marginal income tax rates, Congress also lowered the tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

It was at this point that economic growth took off. From May 2003 until December 2007 (when the recession caused by the global financial meltdown occurred) the economy created 8.1 million jobs, or 145,000 a month. By comparison, after the beginning of the 2001 recession and before the 2003 tax cuts, the economy was losing 103,000 jobs a month.

Bush tax cuts spurred growth and additionally stifled unemployment at 5.2% in the years following 9/11. Yes they worked. Gingrich should have answered better and the moderator asking the question should have been mocked on stage for presenting a presupposition as a legitimate, beyond reproach question.

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Via Newsbusters, Lawrence O’Donnell decided to rewrite history on the story of progressives, Newt Gingrich, and foodstamps:

There’s a tremendous amount of cynicism in Gingrich’s use of food stamps because of what he actually know that his Republican debate audiences do not know. His Republican audiences do not know that most people on food stamps are white.

Actually, it’s been progressives that didn’t know:
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From Drudge:

Marianne Gingrich has said she could end her ex-husband’s career with a single interview.
Earlier this week, she sat before ABCNEWS cameras, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned… MORE… Developing…

She spoke to ABCNEWS reporter Brian Ross for two hours. Her explosive revelations are set to rock the campaign. But now a “civil war” has erupted inside of the network, an insider claims, on exactly when the confession will air!

ABCNEWS suits determined it would be “unethical” to run the Marianne Gingrich interview so close to the South Carolina Primary …

… A decision was tentatively made to air the interview next Monday, after all votes have been counted.

I don’t even know the content of this interview or what further revelations she could have on Gingrich, but unless it involves cross-dressing, drug trafficking, or other salacious details, I’m going to feel completely let down.

We all know that Newt Gingrich cheated on two of his three wives. He cheated on his wife Jackie, who had cancer, with Marianne Gingrich, the woman who gave an interview to ABC. If the details are simply that he was unkind to her or didn’t treat her right, well, surprise! You were the mistress! You helped break up a marriage and thus forfeited your right to be outraged when the next mistress usurped your spot as the new wife. I have no pity for the “other woman.” I guess that’s why I find Marianne Gingrich’s late-to-the-game interview so odd. Could there be any bigger bombshell than the story of their union?

That being said, ABC’s decision to drop this interview after the votes are counted in South Carolina has just been thwarted as the first shoe has been dropped. Everyone now expects the other one; they know that something is going to come out about Gingrich’s second marriage because of the Drudge headline. How will this affect voting? How will it affect fundraising? And will the details of the interview sufficiently match any loss of support that Gingrich may receive as a result?

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If you were mad about Obamacare, if you were made about the Patriot Act, the DHS watch lists, the administration’s reach into your diets, then you’re already concerned about SOPA.

SOPA = Stop Online Piracy Act sounds benign, as almost all legislation does. The names of most bills are completely antithetical to what the bill would actually do. SOPA is no exception. You read the name. “Piracy is bad,” you think. “Respect for intellectual property is good,” you think. Both of these things are correct. SOPA survives on the assumption that this is all the bill entails. Piracy is a major problem, but SOPA, and its Senate companion PIPA (Protect IP Act), are the worst ways to go about solving it.

What is SOPA?

The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.^[4] After delivering a court order, the U.S. Attorney General could require US-directed Internet service providers, ad networks, and payment processors to suspend doing business with sites found to infringe on federal criminal intellectual property laws. The Attorney General could also bar search engines from displaying links to the sites.^[13]

If the Justice Department or a copyright holder believed a site was directing users to pirated content, they would go to court. Depending on who’s complaining, different remedies would come into play: In some instances a judge could order an Internet service provider like Verizon to cut off access to a site. In others, a search engine like Google could be directed to delete links to an infringing site. The idea is to starve the offending sites of the web traffic that keeps them in business.

Inconclusively, too.

Google and First Amendment scholars like Harvard’s Lawrence Tribe argue that SOPA would squelch free speech by giving private parties power to effectively cripple sites that allegedly — but not conclusively — steal copyrighted content. The simple filing of a complaint, they say, would exert huge pressure on the Internet ecosystem to blacklist an accused site. They also say it would give the feds dangerous new powers to go after sites for political reasons.

Gizmodo:

Perhaps the most galling thing about SOPA in its original construction is that it let IP owners take these actions without a single court appearance or judicial sign-off. All it required was a single letter claiming a “good faith belief” that the target site has infringed on its content. Once Google or PayPal or whoever received the quarantine notice, they would have five days to either abide or to challenge the claim in court. Rights holders still have the power to request that kind of blockade, but in the most recent version of the bill the five day window has softened, and companies now would need the court’s permission.

The language in SOPA implies that it’s aimed squarely at foreign offenders; that’s why it focuses on cutting off sources of funding and traffic (generally US-based) rather than directly attacking a targeted site (which is outside of US legal jurisdiction) directly. But that’s just part of it.

…to the point of potentially creating an “Internet Blacklist”…

Here’s the other thing: Payment processors or content providers like Visa or YouTube don’t even need a letter shut off a site’s resources. The bill’s “vigilante” provision gives broad immunity to any provider who proactively shutters sites it considers to be infringers. Which means the MPAA just needs to publicize one list of infringing sites to get those sites blacklisted from the internet.

Potential for abuse is rampant. As Public Knowledge points out, Google could easily take it upon itself to delist every viral video site on the internet with a “good faith belief” that they’re hosting copyrighted material. Leaving YouTube as the only major video portal. Comcast (an ISP) owns NBC (a content provider). Think they might have an interest in shuttering some rival domains? Under SOPA, they can do it without even asking for permission.

Who is behind it?

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Oh Tingles. ‘Juan’s name is code for … racism.’

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Yesterday on my radio show I discussed the topic of the Marines videotaping themselves urinating on dead Taliban fighters. The usual mob of progressive haters started campaigning on Twitter and complaining to CNN.

Video still

The first source of “outrage” was “Nicole Gennette,” a liberal sockpuppet on Twitter who has adopted the name of one of Anthony Weiner’s alleged love interests–and who is likely a man anyway. Yet Mediaite dutifully quoted him/her.

Politico this morning attempted to elevate the trumped-up controversy over my remarks to a serious journalistic story, and didn’t bother reaching out to me for comment prior to publishing. It’s the kind of hit job Politico does best–and likely payback for all the times their journalistic malpractice has been pointed out here.

There is a difference in advocating for the Marines to break the law, which I didn’t do, and defending them from overly-dramatic hysteria. I was using absurdity to highlight absurdity. It’s absurd to desecrate corpses but it’s not wrong to hate terrorists who are trying to kill our troops–and us. And I’m not in uniform–so I am free to express what a lot of Americans feel about the controversy, even if it makes some pony-tailed academics feel uncomfortable.

The progressive left chose to include CNN in their attack because they don’t like that the network–any network–features conservative voices and have been throwing everything at the wall to get me removed since the very beginning.

My entire point of the past two days was to highlight the absurd reaction from militant troop-bashers to these Marines. In my Twitter timeline yesterday progressives called our military “killers, kids, barbaric trash, murderers …” The only time soldiers are celebrated by the left is when they engage in protests like OWS. The rest of the time they’re demonized. They get the red carpet rolled out for them, too.

And let’s not forget how lefty bloggers like Markos Moulitsas feels about dead American military contractors. His excuse for his “screw them” comment? He was angry about soldiers getting killed. You know what? So am I. But I blame the people who are trying to kill them–not the people they are trying to protect. And I won’t condemn American soldiers on the battlefield. (more…)

I’m from Ozark country and it is against the law for any home south of Rolla to have a Twinkie-less pantry. Alright, so maybe not “against the law,” but I’ve yet to see a pantry without one. All my kin abided by this unspoken rule. Because of my history with the snack cake, I was dismayed, to say the least, when news hit that Hostess was trying to stave off bankruptcy. I was further dismayed that they sort of obfuscated the reason why.

From USA Today:

Hostess Brands is hoping to take a bite out of its high costs as it heads back into bankruptcy protection for the second time in less than a decade.

Hostess has enough cash to keep stores stocked with its Ding Dongs, Ho Hos and other snacks for now. But longer term, the 87-year-old company has a bigger problem: health-conscious Americans favor yogurt and energy bars over the dessert cakes and white bread they devoured 30 years ago.

Last year, 36% of Americans ate white bread in their homes, down from 54% in 2000, according to NPD Group. Meanwhile, about 54% ate wheat bread, up from 43% in 2000.

Consumption of healthy snacks is growing, too. About 32% of Americans ate yogurt at least once in two weeks in 2011, for instance, up from 18% in 2000.

I’m sorry, but I call BS.

You’re Hostess. It’s not difficult to sell creme-filled heaven snacks and America isn’t exactly eating healthier. If anything, America is eating leaner because the price of everything has increased eleventy-fold because the cost of energy is passed to us, the consumers. Now for the truth: this is what Hostess cited as the real reason behind their move against bankruptcy.

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Current continues its swirl at the bottom of the toilet:

Al Gore’s Current TV channel in the UK is facing closure after BSkyB – part owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation – axed it from its pay-TV lineup.

Cue whining:

Joel Hyatt, chief executive of parent company Current Media and co-founder of the channel with Gore, said: “Sky is shutting down an intelligent alternative to mass market programming.”

He added: “By doing so, Sky is once again discriminating in favour of the networks it owns and the points of view News Corporation agrees with.”

Joel Hyatt, Al Gore.

If Hyatt wants to blame someone for discrimination, someone point him in the direction of a mirror. It’s discriminatory to his liberal audience to broadcast Grade Fecal content and expect people to be attracted to it. What, liberals don’t like good programming? (Don’t answer that.) Hyatt’s product is unappealing, as declared by the market, and here he demonstrates why progressive radio and television fails: instead of retooling his product, he decides to blame someone else for why he sucks at his job. Rupert Murdoch didn’t force Hyatt and Mr. Internet Inventor to create a company whose content is based on liberal web shows no one but the people who make them care to watch. Brilliant idea in the wake of Air America! To put it another way: it’s like if the makers of 8-tracks and 8-track players blamed Best Buy for not carrying their products. Conspiracy!

Sky’s response:

BSkyB’s commercial director Rob Webster said: “Content is at the heart of Sky’s business and we’re committed to investing in the cut-through programming that matters most to our customers.

“We already spend more than £350m a year with pay channel partners, but we need to make this investment work hard in delivering high-quality, pay-exclusive content that gives customers more reasons to subscribe.

“On the basis that Current TV hasn’t made the impact with our customers that we’d hoped for, we’ve decided not to renew our retail relationship.

Run that through the BS filter and you get: “Customers don’t want it.” So Current’s response is to blame Sky for the customers rejecting Current’s offerings. Murdoch conspiracy! Murdoch is a capitalist. Hyatt’s claim that this is a conspiracy presupposes that his content was good and made money, two premises which have been soundly rejected by a) Sky’s customers and b) Sky’s revelation that Current wasn’t cutting it.

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This morning on our CNN panel Will Cain and I discussed the “angry Newt narrative.” The question centered around Peggy Noonan’s latest column wherein she calls Gingrich an “angry little attack muffin“:

Right now Mr. Romney’s taking a beating. He’s everyone’s target, and in a way that speaks of something beyond the usual campaign ferocity. There’s something else going on, a taunting: “If you’re so inevitable how come I’m not afraid of you?” Newt Gingrich, angry little attack muffin, called Mr. Romney a liar.

This is why it has taken Republicans until New Hampshire to vet their leading candidate (and they didn’t vet him in 2008, either): criticize Mitt Romney and you’re called a meanie. Most of the people I’ve witnessed using this argument have been in politics longer than I’ve been alive, so unless the landscape has changed recently and I missed the memo, politics is still a bloodsport. No one is calling Romney an “angry little muffin” for doing exactly what Gingrich is doing; the difference is that Romney has a frillion groups and admirers doing it for him so he can keep his mitts clean and appear above the fray. If the tactic seems familiar, it’s because Barack Obama is famous for it. I’m not comparing Obama to Romney, just simply pointing out that they happen to share more in common besides health care.

The base is crying out for someone, anyone in this primary to stop pretending that Romney doesn’t have the gubernatorial record that he has. Those who pretend it doesn’t exist only kneecap themselves. They criticize ads from primary opponents which address Romney’s record. Instead of asking “Is this what the oppo will look like?” they howl over Gingrich quoting a NYT article.

Most media, and even the candidates themselves, coddle Romney at every debate and behave as though less offensive baggage from other candidates is somehow worse than socialized health care at the state level. I may have had my differences with Gingrich on different issues before, but this much I know: he’s not auditioning for a VP job in the event of a still uncertain Romney nomination.

Newt Gingrich is doing what the GOP would do, if they were smart, and testing the mettle of these candidates before the Obama machine does with good ol’ fashioned primary politics.

The Obamas threw an epic Halloween bash in 2009 and we’re only just now discovering how over-the-top the bash was — and how complicit media was in keeping the White House’s secret. After all, White House staff was “concerned” that the extravagant bash would appear tone-deaf to unemployed Americans, hundreds of thousands of whom are leaving the workforce entirely as new jobs are scarce and businesses are stretched thin. But is the story what it seems?

The White House has thrown so many over-the top parties and the First Lady has come under fire from the President’s advisers for her expensive tastes, so the initial reaction to hearing of yet another extravagant White House party is anger. But was the Halloween bash like the other White House parties? Was it like the party with Paul McCartney that the Obamas enjoyed while the Gulf struggled with an oil spill? Or the party the White House threw when America had its credit rating downgraded? If media reports are to be believed, the Halloween bash was “staged“/thrown by Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Security for the event would cost the public, but (I assume) comparatively no more than the cost of the annual Easter egg roll or other observances.

The point of the question isn’t to excuse the Obamas’ past irresponsibility in presentation; they lead one of the most tone-deaf administrations (Camelot style in a Carter economy, after all). The point is that this event, from my understanding, was for, and attended predominately by, military members and their families. This party is easier to justify, and features a better guest list, than the previous devil-may-care variety. I don’t want to discourage Hollywood from doing something nice for our soldiers when 99% of the movies they make about them portray them as monsters. The last time Johnny Depp dabbled in politics he called the country a “big dumb puppy.” A good deed like footing the bill (assumedly sans Secret Service, other security) for a bash thrown in honor of military families deserves some positive reinforcement by way of kudos, if this report is true.

There is still the pesky question of why the White House and media in attendance kept all of this quiet.

The White House press corps was allowed to report on more modest festivities earlier that day for Washington-area school children, but did not release details of the more glamorous festivities that occurred later for what was the Obamas’ first Halloween in office in 2009.

Why? One could beg the question that the White House and media didn’t disclose this because they knew it was wrong. Why would it be wrong? Because of public reaction? This is where it gets sneaky. It’s a set up: The narrative will be that details weren’t released because the White House didn’t want folks freaking out over extravagances for military families provided by a Hollywood director and his actor/muse. The narrative will progress into a notion that conservatives are tight-fisted when it comes to providing military families with a nice Halloween, one that wasn’t even at the conservatives’s expense. It will reinforce the stereotype that conservatives and Hollywood will always be at odds, and can’t a film director throw a party for the military if he wants? GOSH.

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Martin Bashir has situational concern for race. His remarks from his program the other evening:

“It also showed how political leaders could be responsible for either encouraging better race relations or making matters a whole lot worse by using cheap and nasty slurs Now listen to some of the things being said by these republican candidates.”

He mentions only Republican candidates using two instances: the deconstructed false flag of race on Gingrich’s remarks, and the CBS story of Santorum’s remark.

Where, pray tell, was Martin Bashir when Democrats said all this?

Harry Reid:

… Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he said privately.

Bill Clinton on Obama:

“A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”

Joe Biden:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Or this Biden classic:

“You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

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