Since America’s credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history under President Obama, Democrats and their media structure have been working overtime to spin this as the tea party’s fault. They’re spinning so hard they’re absolutely dizzy.

John Kerry: “Blame the tea party!”

David Axelrod: “Blame the tea party!”

Then there are those who blame everything and everyone other than the party in charge.

Cokie Roberts blames the Constitution:

Barney Frank blames the military:

The White House said that S&P made a “mathematical error” (they downgraded the downgrade) even though S&P says it is irrelevant, the downgrade stands.

Except that military spending is only 4% of GDP. Mark Steyn notes in his latest book (which is a must-get) After America, in ten years we “will be spending more of our federal budget on interest payments than on the military”  – and “according to the CBO’s 2010 long-term budget outlook, by 2020 the government will be paying between 15 and 20 percent of its revenues in debt interest.” Steyn notes that “America will be spending more on debt interest than China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Spain Turkey, and Israel spend on their militaries combined.“ Frank is careful not to mention Libya when talking about war funding; he mentions only Iraq (which is ending) and Afghanistan (which his party extended and pledged more troops) because by reminding viewers that we lumbered into conflict with a country that posed no immediate threat to our interests, he’d be showcasing Democratic irony.

Blaming the tea party (or the military, or anything else) is asinine and an outright lie and I said exactly this on CNN this morning. Let’s review.

(more…)

When I caught the President talking about President Lincoln’s “intercontinental railroad” in an interview he gave in February, I thought it was just an off-the-cuff gaffe. But it turns out his former chief political adviser made the same mistake just this weekend at the Aspen Ideas Festival:

It’s not surprising that both men would occasionally misspeak. It is surprising that both would use the same example, i.e. Lincoln’s “intercontinental railroad” as an example of big government stimulus spending, and make the same verbal gaffe while doing so.

You have to wonder if both the President and Axelrod got the same talking points memo from someone at the Center for American Progress or another friendly progressive think tank. And assuming they did get the handy political illustration from a common source, you have to wonder why neither of them caught the error (replacing transcontinental with intercontinental).

What’s certain is that this is just the kind of gaffe that the left would have had a field day with if Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin, or really anyone on the right, had made it. We have several recent examples of just this kind of gaffe becoming big news.

Politifact fact-checked Palin’s account of Paul Revere’s ride. So are they going to set the record straight on the transcontinental railroad? George Stephanopoulos went after Michele Bachmann’s account of the founding fathers and slavery. Is he going to question someone at the White House about this gaffe now that it has popped up twice? Will Chris Matthews suggest on air that the President is really a “balloon head?”

(more…)

KATIE COURIC:  We’ve never been used this way before.  The White House called the other day and gave me a list of 2012 election night analysts acceptable to them.  I don’t like it.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:  Remember when it was collaborative?   Now, they don’t even trust us to spin anything correctly.   Zucker took away my Managing Editor title and assigned it to Chris Matthews.  And he reports to Gibbs.

DIANE SAWYER:  Wasn’t so long ago they rolled over in the morning and kissed us and said they still respected us.  Now, well.  I hate to say it, but the right is right: Obama’s an egocentric narcissist who doesn’t know he’s in over his head.

(more…)

Amazingly, Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe seemed to figure out the hypocrisy of the DNC and the White House complaining about undisclosed donors and “special interest” money being supposedly funneled into Republican campaigns. The White House has been going after the Chamber of Commerce and more than once has been unable to come up with any defense or any support to their totally unsubstantiated claims. Alexrod can’t answer, Gibbs can’t answer, and Mika Brzezinski, co-host of Morning Joe certainly can’t answer. Joe brought up something that the rest of the media has blatantly ignored in this debate, President Obama’s ability to raise more money than any other candidate. President Obama has received more anonymous donations, more big oil donations, more big business donations, and more special interest donations than any other politician ever!

The obvious lunacy of the White House pointing fingers at the RNC is something that only one MSNBC host can apparently seem to grasp. Perhaps Joe can talk to the other MSNBC hosts that have shown “rank hypocrisy” when it comes to asking about finances between Republican and Democratic candidates.

(more…)

Folks who watched CBS “Face the Nation” yesterday were greeted by a once-in-a-lifetime miracle occurrence: host Bob Schieffer taking a contrary position to one of the Administration’s talking points. Talking to White House political director David Axelrod about the President’s charge that the Chamber of Commerce is using foreign donations to support GOP candidates, he asked:

SCHIEFFER: Now, I want to ask you about that because the New York Times looked into the Chamber specifically and said the Chamber really isn’t putting foreign money into the campaign. That it does charge its foreign affiliates dues that bring in less than $100,000 a year. A lot of organizations, including labor unions, do that. But the Chamber has an annual budget of $200 million. Along with that it keeps these foreign dues separate. They do spend heavily in politics — $25 million so far. They expect to spend $50 million. But this part about foreign money, that appears to be peanuts, Mr. Axelrod. Do you have any evidence that it’s anything other than peanuts?

AXELROD: Well, do you have any evidence that it’s not, Bob? The fact is that the Chamber has asserted that but they won’t release any information about where their campaign money is coming from. That’s at the core of the problem here. What we’ve seen in part because of a loophole that the Supreme Court allowed earlier this year, we now see tens of millions of dollars being spent by the chamber and a number of organizations some of which just cropped up. Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove run one of them. Tens of millions of dollars from undisclosed donors under benign names like the American cross roads fund. They’re spending heavily in all of these elections. One race in Colorado, there are six different organizations running negative ads against the Democratic senator there, Michael Bennet. No one knows where the money is coming from. My question back to you and for your next guest is, why not simply disclose where this money is coming from? And then all of these questions will be answered.

In other words Axelrod and the Democratic Party pulled this charge out of nowhere, threw it against the wall and are praying it sticks, or as Schieffer said: (more…)

Rahm “the Ballerina” Emanuel may announce that he’s abandoning the foundering hulk of the S.S. Obama Administration to go back to the criminal racket known as Chicago Democratic politics.  According to the Wall Street Journal:

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff who has one eye on the exit, has made scores of calls to Chicago politicians, businessmen and labor leaders to clear a place at the starting line in the race to succeed Mayor Richard M. Daley.

People close to Mr. Emanuel say he might resign from his current job as soon as Friday, though according to Rep. Danny Davis, family concerns are giving him pause. Said the Illinois Democrat, who met with Mr. Emanuel last week—and who may run himself: “I got the impression he’s very close to announcing. Much of our conversation centered around the likelihood that he would run.”

By sheer coincidence, Emanuel’s partner in the Obama brain trust, David Axelrod, recently announced that he, too, is returning to Chicago.

Considering Obama’s poll numbers — as well as those of Axelrod’s warmup act, Mass. Gov. “Cadillac” Deval Patrick… (more…)

Back in 2008, Barack Obama and his media staff–David Axelrod, Anita Dunn and David Plouffe–had the press eating out of their hands. It was, to repeat a phrase, a slobbering love affair. Things have changed in 24 short months.

Yesterday, Axelrod made time for a conference call with progressive bloggers. He’s trying to rally the troops for the midterms by talking to his capos in the field. But, according to Greg Sargent at the Plum Line (who gets kudos for admissions against interest), Axe didn’t get the reaction he expected.

“You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching,” Madrak [Blogger at Crooks and Liars] added. “We’re the girl you’ll take under the bleachers but you won’t be seen with in the light of day.”

Axe tried to be conciliatory but Madrak wasn’t in the mood, saying “Don’t make our jobs harder” to which Axe replied “Right back at ‘cha.”

What was once a love affair is now an ugly break up with accusations of domestic violence. (more…)

Tammany Hall, the greatest criminal organization of its age, spanning the era from Aaron Burr to Boss Tweed to Boss Croker and Charlie Murphy, was the perfect marriage of Democrat Party politics and organized crime. Though thought dead and buried with Carmine DeSapio, it never really went away. In the 1930s, it molted and set up shop in the small city of Hot Springs, Ark., where gangster Owney Madden established a Tammany South, an open city that welcomed gangsters like Frank Costello and politicians like Sen. John McClellan alike, and sent a young William Jefferson Clinton back as its gift to America.

Thinly veiled — and sometimes not so thinly veiled — shakedowns were a way of life for Tammany politicians. At first they were backed up by the power of muscle, of Tammany’s fleet of thugs and gangsters who made sure their voters got to the polls and made equally sure the other guy’s stayed well away. In New York, informal precinct bosses — called “sheriffs” — were recruited from the city’s notorious street gangs, including the Eastmans, the Five Points Gang (whence sprang Al Capone) and Madden’s own Gophers, the terrors of the west wide in what is now Chelsea. The New Black Panthers, standing outside that Philly polling place with billy clubs, are nothing new in American politics. If you knew what was good for you, you voted for the Tiger early and often and you gave and gave and gave.

Illegal? So what? Effective? You bet. (more…)

Over to you.

(more…)

GIBBS:  Good evening.  On our broadcast tonight:

• Miracle in Detroit–First Sharia law zone in nation records falling crime rates as word of amputations spreads.
• Voters heard–Congress unanimously passes tern limits bill, setting seasonal daily bag at ten.
• Gimme shelter–Hovel-ready projects to provide corrugated cardboard dwellings for urban homeless.
• And finally, Gray Lady Gray – New York Times to boost circulation with Sunday photo feature: “Op-Ed Beauties–Babes of the Times.”

Those stories and more later.  But first, Obama senior advisor David Axelrod joins us from Chicago shortly after being questioned by the FBI about former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s disappearance.  Welcome, sir.

AXELROD:  Thanks for having me on, Bob.

GIBBS:  Any word on Blagojevich, David?

AXELROD:  Who?

GIBBS:  Never mind.  Rumor is the Obamas will extend their stay on Martha’s Vineyard by two weeks.  True?

AXELROD:  Yes, Bob.  With state-of-the-art communications, the president can avoid his responsibilities wherever he is. Doesn’t matter to him at all.

GIBBS:  But so many Americans are suffering while he parties on.  Doesn’t it look bad? (more…)

DAVID AXELROD:  The labor picture threatens our control of Congress, sir.  That means key initiatives like gutting Defense, forcing the richest 50% to pay their fair share, and passing an immigration bill with an amnesia rider are on the block in November.

OBAMA:  Man, those jobs reports are killin’ us.  And everybody knows the 9.5%, 15 million unemployed figures are probably way off.  Unfortunately, my new Bureau of Labor Statistics czar won’t be in place to fudge the truth until January.

ROBERT GIBBS:  Our media friends can do just so much to downplay conditions, sir.

OBAMA:  So, we only have until the October report to drastically reduce unemployment and convince people the economy’s turned the corner.  Suggestions?  George?

SOROS:  Tomorrow I hire vun million community organizees zu spy on neighbors and alert local media to Tea Party aviliation, zir.  Und anudder ten tousand tugs vill be contracted to vear Palin 2012 tee shirts ven attacking our candidates and dere fam’lies as dey worship. (more…)

One of the most unfortunate results of the race card being played is the fact that the players seldom have to live with the messes they make. For purely political reasons, blacks and whites have been intentionally polarized, starting way back when David Axelrod led Deval Patrick to the governorship of Massachusetts, and now with the troubled presidency of Barack Obama. The administration has long since deployed the now well-known liberal tactic: opposition is racism.

Behind closed doors, this White House must be laughing their asses off at how easily the liberal media and activists can be manipulated to save their agenda. (more…)

Even for the MSM lackeys and lickspittles who embraced the “narrative” of hope and change, the public recovery from their hangover is a brutal thing to watch.

“Hello, my name is Anderson Cooper and I’m an Obamaholic.”

David Axelrod’s media buddies and their parent companies are paying a terrible price for their slavish, disgraceful. unprofessional and in-the-tank “coverage” of the 2008 presidential election. And so are the rest of us — with the loss of our First Amendment freedoms as represented by the press’s unfettered ability to tell the story.

Not the “narrative” — the story.

Who’ll be the next major media figure to get up in front of the American public group and accept the 12-step program? (more…)

So says Janet Daley of the Telegraph:

The BBC reports of Barack Obama’s speech last night are about as derisive as it would be possible to be about someone you were describing only a few months ago as the incarnation of Hope and Optimism. Yes indeed, the romance is over. The British media have decided that it was all a cruel deception: Obama is just one more ranting populist president who will do anything to divert attention from his own failure to get a grip. And this is not just about BP and the fate of all those pension funds.

“All a cruel deception.” Welcome to reality, British cousins!

Of course it was a cruel deception. The Being There president never had any resume to speak of — other than his own fairy tale, which he spun in Dreams From My Father — had no record of accomplishment in either the private or the public section and, beyond his little party trick of being able to read a teleprompter, had only the most rudimentary political skills. In fact, he had only two things going for him: the ability to serve as an empty vessel into which others could pour their hopes, dreams and aspirations (as Obama himself has admitted) and the services of an adept political operator in David Axelrod, a former Chicago Tribune city hall reporter/Daley machine hack turned campaign consultant whose media contacts were crucial in establishing the legend of Chauncey Gardiner — er, Barack Obama. (more…)

JOE BIDEN: [on phone] Sure, sure, I’ll tell him.  No problem.  [hangs up]  Charlie Rangel, Boss.  Said he appreciated the offer but would rather you didn’t come to Harlem to campaign with him.

OBAMA:  Good grief.  Harlem?  I’m that toxic?  We are gonna get smoked in November.  Lame duckdom, here I come.

JOE BIDEN:  Loser talk, Chief.  Stay away from the press with that attitude.  MoDo nailed it in her column about me —I’m your go-to PR guy. Now, either hole up at Camp David and watch your world crumble, or trust me to turn things around.

OBAMA: Rescue me, Joe.

BIDEN: All right. But we’re gonna hafta take a page outta Dolly Parton’s book and think outside the buxom.

OBAMA:  Outside the . . . ? (more…)

MEMORANDUM

To:                   Eric Boehlert, Media Matters
From:               David Axelrod

Personal and Confidential

SUBJECT:       BREITBART

“O’Keefe’s humiliating guilty plea”—is that the best you could do?  Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear yesterday.  We don’t want to embarrass Breitbart; we want to destroy him.  O’Keefe is the instrument–if we act decisively.

Forget BP and Sestak.  Put Stossel, Beck, and O’Reilly on the back burner for now.  Call in your people who are sitting in toilet stalls around Washington hoping to snag a Republican congressman on the next john over.  Devote all your resources to mounting a sustained effort to morph O’Keefe’s “entry under false pretenses” charge (hey — they could get everyone in Congress on that beef! Little joke there) into a McVeigh-level atrocity sponsored by Breitbart.

The whole crew at MSNBC will be pounding on Breitbart’s mania to foster civil chaos in America as long as it takes to make the charge resonate.  He will be Olbermann’s first “Worst Person of the Millenium.”  The Times and Post have assured me they’ll give the matter their full Abu Ghraib treatment, starting with above-the-fold articles this weekend.  Williams, Couric, and Sawyer will jump on the story after a decent interval, citing a “raging controversy.”  Time Magazine’s cover next week, I have on good authority right from Rick Stengel, will feature a caricature of Breitbart setting fire to an SEIU T-shirt in front of the White House, with the headline: “What Are the Limits of Dissent in Obama’s America?”

When public indignation reaches white heat (or even if it doesn’t), the entire House Democratic caucus (and a few Republican simpletons) will demand that Attorney General Holder appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the Breitbart affair.  He will immediately agree.  I understand Ramsey Clark will make himself available to Justice, and believe me there are plenty of empty cells down at Gitmo. (more…)

The cover-up continues.  This past Sunday, Congressman Joe Sestak appeared on Meet the Press and continued to tap dance around the charge he made that he was offered a government job to drop out of the campaign. Here’s the exchange between Sestak and NBC’s David Gregory:

MR. GREGORY: Yes or no, straightforward question. Were you, were you offered a job, and what was the job?

REP. SESTAK: I was offered a job, and I answered that.

MR. GREGORY: You said no, you wouldn’t take the job. Was it the secretary of the Navy?

REP. SESTAK: Right. And I also said, “Look, I’m getting into this…

MR. GREGORY: Was it the secretary of the Navy job?

REP. SESTAK: Anything that go — goes beyond that is others — for others to talk about.

Well it’s not exactly “for others to talk about” Congressman Sestak. (more…)

People on the left are constantly asking Andrew Breitbart who funds his “operation.” It’s grown to become rather amusing, actually. For those of us who are bloggers on The Bigs, we know the truth, we see how things operate. We know there’s no giant conservative-leaning lump of cash greasing this machine. If that were the case, I for one think Andrew would probably be home with his family even more, rather than traveling around, worrying about advertising or other ways of self-funding this little “hobby” of his, as the left often like to refer to it.

But let’s just look for one moment at where some of that line of thinking comes from on the other side. I’ve written previously about the birth of Media Matters as a spawn of Rob Stein’s Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix road show, from which the Democracy Alliance was born. It’s through this organization from which much of the organization’s funding had come; in recent years, more has been spread out across other progressive organizations, but the funders often remain the same names in most cases. For instance, The Tides Foundation gave Media Matters and their Action Network over $175,000 just last year. In earlier years, groups like Montclair, New Jersey-based (hometown of Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert) Schumann Center for Media & Democracy gave the organization $500,000.

The donors’ list is vast and diverse, and we plan to cover that in detail in the future. So I’ll focus in on one set of donors to Media Matters, which is the Labor Unions. More specifically, in light of some recent posts regarding the Kenneth Gladney incident, I thought it appropriate to revisit donations made to Media Matters specifically by the Service Employees International Union.

When you look at the timeline of events and the media calendar in general leading up to the Gladney incident last August, it’s difficult not to conclude that there was collaboration amongst White House staff, components of Big Labor, and certain liberal media outlets. However, we know that all will continue to deny it. (more…)

Historians will someday document the pressure that Democrat Party leaders put on their members in Congress to vote for the “health care” bill. Until then, we mainly rely on leaked stories and accounts offered by House members willing to talk. But there is this one other source we can look to for hints of what’s happening to Democrat House members behind the scenes.

President Obama and Chicago’s Mayor Daley share a political advisor: David Axelrod.  Plus, Axelrod and Rahm “Rahmbo” Emanuel worked together on Democrat Paul Simon’s 1984 election to the U.S. Senate. It’s all in the family, so to speak.

Daley attacked the reporter when he was asked a question pertaining to the suicide death of Chicago School Board President Michael Scott. Watch His Honor’s response here.

It reminds you of this: (more…)