The Bully Pulpit?

May 4, 2009

ABC’s Jake Tapper is reporting that White House officials are in full denial mode after a bankruptcy attorney claimed that the man in charge of the administration’s Auto Industry Task Force, Steve Rattner, told her that a firm represented by the attorney would see its reputation destroyed by the White House press corps if the firm continued to oppose the Chrysler bankruptcy plan.

At this point there doesn’t seem to be any evidence in either direction. However, I can’t say that I’m surprised by this if it turns out to be true. It was an absolutely fair criticism of the Bush administration to say that it lacked humility, but the preening arrogance of the Obama administration is mind-blowing. It would not surprise me in the least to see that dissent is threatened and bullied. It was a criticism that was lobbed, unfairly, at the Bush administration, but it is the stock in trade of the current majority party.

The key element that adds to the story is the accusation that the smear would be carried out by the media, specifically the White House press corps. While it might be difficult to have the actual White House press corps doing their dirty work, there are plenty of other sycophantic toadies in the media and their inbred cousins on the Nutroots who are so enchanted by St. Barry that they would be more than happy to smear and destroy anyone who presents an opposing voice.

UPDATE: A White House spokesman denies. Zero Hedge is on the case.

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Posted by Blaknsam

Jack Kemp, RIP

May 4, 2009

Jack Kemp was one of the first names that I became familiar with when I first started to get interested in politics. I was too young to remember him as a football player, but I was very familiar with the name because it was attached to a piece of legislation that helped save this country from ruin: the Kemp-Roth tax plan slashed income taxes dramatically, and lifted the nation from the stagnant cesspool of the 1970s into the economic bonanza of the 1980s.


As one of the first American politicians to make the strong case for tax cuts as an engine of economic growth, and as one of the first to embrace supply-side economics, Kemp was an enormous influence on the former governor of California, Ronald Reagan. Reagan had run for President in 1976 as a standard conservative Republican, interested in fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets. It was Jack Kemp, among others including Arthur Laffer, who convinced Reagan that massive tax cuts would spur enormous economic growth. The taxes were cut in the grip of a massive recession, and the economic boom times followed shortly afterwards. It is too bad that not everyone has learned that lesson. Jack Kemp, RIP.

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Posted by Blaknsam

It means “One whose bosoms defy gravity”

November 4, 2008

Hillary Clinton statue

Feel free to make your own Steve Buscemi or Jimmy Carter jokes.

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Posted by Blaknsam

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, RIP

August 4, 2008

One of the true giants of 20th century literature and history passed away this weekend at his home in Moscow. It is fitting that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died in Moscow, in a country from which he had been exiled. It meant that he had outlived the poisonous system he had done so much to expose, and had been welcomed back in a post-Soviet era.

Solzhenitsyn was the preeminent Russian dissident who, through his powerful writings, dragged the evils of the Soviet system into the light, and contributed to its ultimate demise. An eloquent and tireless advocate of freedom and the crushing of tyranny, the world is a dimmer place without him.

My hope is that someday teenagers in the local mall will wear shirts with his face on them, and permanently retire their Che chic, consigning that murderous monster to the dustbin of history. If that day ever arrives, it will speak much better about the fate of our nation.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a witness to history. Read him.

RIP

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Posted by Blaknsam

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