Top ten lists at year’s end are always subjective, to be sure, but some lists seem rather obviously out of whack at first glance. Politico’s “Top 10 political blunders of 2011” is one of those lists that is glaring for what isn’t present as opposed to what is. And what isn’t seems to bespeak that Politico wanted to avoid focusing on Democrat failures in a year when there are so many Democrat failures.

Politico bills this list as one of the “worst political strategic decisions” of 2011. Strangely enough, this list contains fully seven GOP “blunders” yet only three Democrat goofs. Some of the GOP blunders are also questionable for any top ten list considering what is missing from the thing.

First we need a rundown on what is on this list, and the order in which Politico places them.

• Obama pivots to deficits
• Republicans vote on the Ryan budget
• Tim Pawlenty bets it all on Ames
• Mitt Romney hides
• Rick Perry debates
• Jon Huntsman returns from China
• Mr. Daley goes to Washington
• Mitch and Haley stay home
• Dems pick Charlotte
• John Kasich pushes S.B. 5

Isn’t it fascinating that some of these “top blunders” did not actually result in a major reversal of great import of some type or another? Take the Jon Huntsman point, for instance. Jon Huntsman is not consequential and his decision to enter the GOP primary race instead of staying in China is not going to make much difference to anyone, anywhere. The Mitch Daniels point is also specious for such a list as Daniel’s decision to sit out 2012 did not necessarily end his career. Further the blunder of Democrats picking Charlotte, North Carolina, while certainly a messy proposition fraught with mistakes, is hardly any kind of end of the world goof, is it?

Now let’s talk about what is not on that list. Solyndra is not on that list. How can this be? This is a political blunder of epic proportions. Even the left-wing Washington Post is saying that the decision supposedly based on science and good economics was instead “infused with politics at every level.” Millions of tax dollars were thrown away during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression at a failing company just to suit Obama’s desire to tout his fantasy of “green jobs.”

If you don’t want to pick Solyndra, why you can reach for the debacle of Fast And Furious for inclusion on such a list. Here we have a program that was supposed to track guns used by Mexican narco-terrorists so that these evil cretins could be ferreted out deep in Mexico. Instead, thousands of American guns sold to these criminals right here in America were lost in the Mexican interior and then were turned to kill hundreds of Mexicans and perhaps two U.S. law enforcement officers. Then, making matters worse, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder — an Obama appointee — has lied repeatedly about what he knew about the program and when he knew it. Now over 90 government officials are calling for Holder’s resignation. If this isn’t a major political blunder, what is? This has made Eric Holder an embattled Attorney General at the least, yet, it merits no spot on this top ten blunder list.

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The Left is apoplectic over this year’s PolitiFact Lie of the Year. Given that PolitiFact came under so much fire from the right this year, conservatives should be cautious, even if optimistic. A year-end gift, or a big show of balancing of the scale, will not undo any damage PolitiFact might do during the course of any year. In fact, leftists may be upset precisely because they are more generally accustomed to PolitiFact having their backs.

PolitiFact debunked the Medicare charge in nine separate fact-checks rated False or Pants on Fire, most often in attacks leveled against Republican House members.

Now, PolitiFact has chosen the Democrats’ claim as the 2011 Lie of the Year.

It’s the third year in a row that a health care claim has won the dubious honor. In 2009, the winner was the Republicans’ charge that the Democrats’ health care plan included “death panels.” In 2010, it was that the plan was a “government takeover of health care.”

Criticisms from the right can easily be found via the PolitiFact Wiki. Certainly, now they can claim to have received harsh criticism from both sides in 2011–they must be doing something right, right?

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Cheers.

For some reason the libs weren’t so outraged when Obaama served $399 bottles of wine at his taxpayer-funded state dinner …

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raises her glass for a toast during a State Dinner in honor of China’s President Hu Jintao at the White House in Washington, January 19, 2011. (REUTERS/Jim Young POLITICS IMAGES OF THE DAY)

… but Libs today were “stunned” and “outraged” that popular conservative Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) ordered a $350 bottle of wine for dinner in New York.

TPM reported, via Ann Althouse:

When [Professor Feinberg] saw the label on the bottle of Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru Ryan’s table had ordered, she quickly looked it up on the wine list and saw that it sold for an eye-popping $350, the most expensive wine in the house along with one other with the same pricetag.

Feinberg, an economist by training, was even more appalled when the table ordered a second bottle….

“We were just stunned,” said Feinberg…

She was outraged …. [my emphasis]

Of course, these same hypocrites were silent when it was discovered that Speaker Pelosi’s military travel expenses on Pelosi One cost taxpayers $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol.

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Okay, this will get me in trouble but here goes..

The Huffington Post has finally posted something about this weekend’s evolving #Weinergate Story – but not on the national page, but buried… …in the much less read New York section.

And their judging by comments – readers noticed:

Huffington Post has buried next week’s top story. Amazing

And…

Why is this a LOCAL story and not a headline story on the HP? Thats right, Weiner is the loudmouth liberal with a D next to his name.

And…

It’s kind of shameful that HP is burying this story that broke on Saturday, and I have only heard about it because of comments in other stories. Clearly his account was hacked (Twitter seems notoriousl­y easy to hack) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t news.

HuffPost Could Have Run The Story Two Days Ago & Chose Not To: (more…)

David Gregory asks Congressman Paul Ryan the same Gingrich question.

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From the lips of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, rivaling any lipstick-wearing pitbull, consider yourself warned:

“Don’t let the media define who these candidates [GOP presidential field] are. Let us, as constituents, as voters, as potential candidates, we need to do our homework.”

These were Palin’s words to FOX’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday.

She’s right.

Obviously, the mainstream media is out to turn the GOP faithful against every potential rival to President Obama. This week, it’s Gingrich. Next week, who will it be? Will be Romney, Pawlenty, Bachman, Cain, or Ron Paul until there’s no one left?

This is the media strategy of destruction and implosion as candidates, schooled and unschooled in Alinsky-style media tactics, press their own self-destruct button. The voters are merely the subject of the media manipulation.

In other words, Palin says: Don’t be fooled.

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Well, the earthquake we all waited for finally hit. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiled his budget proposal for the next ten years. Originally expected to include $4 trillion in cuts, it ended up with more than $6 trillion. As expected, the liberal media was apoplectic and the knives have been drawn to cut him down. Within hours of its release, the condescension flowed.

Derek Thompson in the Atlantic started off well, insulting the intelligence of Republicans in general and Paul Ryan specifically.

“Republicans faced mockery in the last few years for inventing their own words. Rep. Paul Ryan did them one better. He invented his own math.”

It doesn’t get any better; it’s mostly filled with ad hominem attacks with one or two attempts at criticizing some small points. Sitting upon his safe perch, not required to deal with the realities of the situation the country finds itself in, Mr. Thompson is unable to even suggest a possible solution beyond the Status Quo.

I’d like to extend Mr. Thompson a helping hand, explaining some things here. Without some serious reduction in future entitlements, the United States will be insolvent sooner than later. Following the profligate spending of the last few years, the current deficit is equal to GDP. That can’t go on.

In any event, Mr. Thompson specifically lays down fire on the Medicare/Medicaid section of proposal. Clearly, the best way to do this is through fear-mongering. Seniors are going to lose all their medical care! Panic! He also takes issue with the fact that, instead of the Federal government overseeing Medicaid, it would reduce the amount put in and let each state work it out to the best of its ability. Never mind the supercilious idea that only the folks in Washington can run this stuff. The fact is, the closer to the final recipient is to the management team/ bureaucracy, the more efficient the system is. So yes, “Less Federal Spending + Less Local Spending = Better Care,” since the providers won’t be worried about dealing with a one size fits no one federal mandate.

Thompson tries to make fun of Ryan’s idea that cutting federal spending will produce jobs. This is counter-intuitive! The source of all good and all work is, of course, the central government. Empirically, that’s just not true. The last two and half years are proof of that. An increase in federal spending of unprecedented proportions has not only failed to create jobs anywhere but in the public sector, but has heralded in an era of staggering unemployment. Even the government sector has seen a loss of about 350,000 jobs.

So, let me tell Mr. Thompson something: reducing the scope of the federal government leaves a vacuum for certain services. Those services will be provided by the private sector at lower cost and greater efficiency leaving more money in the private sector to invest and, guess what? Yeah, create more jobs.

Really, the only one with the fuzzy math here is Thompson. They say gambling is a tax on the mathematically challenged, so what do you call doubling down on ideas that have proven to be a failure?

I’ve had my own questions about the plan; yesterday I interviewed Rep. Todd Rokita of Indiana who helped to draft the Path to Prosperity, and he confirmed my fears: in order for the plan to work, Democrats have to a) accept it and b) economic and congressional variables must stay the same for the next 26 years. Otherwise, I like it. I want to be optimistic but some of that is tempered from Ryan’s past as a congressman who helped bring us TARP and other programs where big spending actually helped to create the tea party. In short: I think Ryan’s plan a nice gamble but I’m more of a cynic.

However, that Congressman Ryan goes so far as to defund health control warrants much credit and I was please to see Slate notice it, too. Slate doesn’t have to agree, but so far it’s one of the first liberal publications that noticed hey, Republicans have some good ideas, too.

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Marc Ambinder poses this question in his April 23 article in The Atlantic : “Have Conservatives Gone Mad? “

Ambinder lays blithe and, according to no less a source than himself, undeniable claim to the liberal journalism’s monopoly on political veritas, identifying “the most trenchant and effective criticism of President Obama” coming “not from the right, but the left.” On the other hand, he asserts, “mainstream conservative voices are embracing theories that are, to use Julian Sanchez’s phrase, ‘untethered’ to the real world.”

Before examining that assertion, let’s list a few more of Ambinder’s pronouncements about the journalistic right.

The base itself seems to have developed a notion that bromides are equivalent to policy-thinking, and that therapy is a substitute for thinking. It is absolutely a condition of the age of the triumph of conservative personality politics, where entertainers shouting slogans are taken seriously as political actors.

Well, thank goodness he laid that to rest. Q.E.D. Still, if therapy really is a substitute for thinking, Ambinder should consider changing his surname to Freud. (more…)

You know you’ve just had a bad day when the apostle of Washington Conventional Wisdom, David “Teddy Kennedy’s seat” Gergen puts on his serious mien (does he have any other?) and pronounces upon the weighty matters of the day.

Yes, when Gergen speaks, people not only listen — they’ve already heard it all before!  In fact, it’s what everybody else is already thinking!  By the time it gets to Gergen’s lips, God long ago changed the channel to re-runs of Happy Days.

So what do you think?  How did POTUS do, sans TOTUS — commanding college professor (okay, “senior lecturer”) or tongue-tied, smirking, classless community organizer?  Mr. Smile and a Shoeshine, or an anxious, cantankerous former wonder boy/palooka who can’t figure out why this particular fight wasn’t properly fixed by David “Jake Lingle” Axelrod, like all his others? A strike, or a gutter ball?

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