ANN ALTHOUSE WILL BE LIVEBLOGGING the State Of The Union. And Jason Pye emails that the folks at UnitedLiberty will be liveblogging, too.

Stephen Green, of course, will be drunkblogging it, and has links to various State Of The Union drinking games. Jim Treacher will be liveblogging, too, and while it isn’t formally “drunkblogging,” well, informally it just might be . . . .

The country’s in the very best of hands. Our future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades. So sit back, relax, and watch!

Plus, Sandy Levinson on a SOTU catastrophe. “If we really do believe that there is, say, a 1% probability that a successful attack will take place on the Capitol when everyone gathers for the State of the Union address, that’s a good reason either to revert to an earlier tradition, when Presidents delivered written messages, or, at the very least, telling most of the Cabinet and Justices, for starters, that they can, like the rest of us, watch it on TV. (I note that Dick Cheney did not attend the immediate post-Sept. 11 address to Congress, but did seemingly attend all of the States of the Union address thereafter. But why? I ask this as a fully serious, and not cheap-shot, question.)” Well, Hillary isn’t attending tonight, but not as a security holdout. What does that mean?

UPDATE: More liveblogging from a panel of experts at the Cato Institute.

Also the inimitable Dana Loesch.

Plus, Jules Crittenden is doing the drinking games.

From the Cato Liveblog: “The assertions about the Depression we would have had are outrageous. Their forecasts of the stimulus’s impact have been horrible, so how can they have any credibility on this kind of issue? ” I think it’s full speed ahead, here, credibility be damned. Plus this: “Bastiat is spinning in his grave.”

The “stimulus” didn’t produce any jobs, but if we pass a new stimulus and call it a “jobs bill,” it will!

On Facebook, Alex Lightman writes: “I was looking forward to the State of the Union speech. Then I read most of it, and got depressed. It’s as if he’s running for office, not holding office. I didn’t hear anything about what’s going to be cut. Anyone can make promises to spend other people’s money.”

Reader C.J. Burch writes: “‘The worst of the storm has passed.’ Forget Green and Crittenden, what the Hell is Obama drinking?”

More from Cato: “Wonderful, more government-directed investment. That worked really well with Fannie and Freddie.” Plus this prediction: “He’ll pivot from a new $100 billion jobs bill to cutting the deficit.”

Ann Althouse: “Small businesses are good. (Come on, talk to them.) Big business sucks though. We want to help small business grow… so it can become big business and then we can hate it.”

Seems pretty much like a recycled campaign speech to me.

And not just recycled campaign speech — the Cato folks note this:

“Through stricter accounting standards and tougher disclosure requirements, corporate America must be made more accountable to employees and shareholders and held to the highest standards of conduct.”

–George W. Bush, 2002 SOTU

They told me if I voted for John McCain we’d see a third Bush term. And they were right! [LATER: Tad DeHaven keeps running quotes from Bush SOTUs that match what Obama's saying tonight.]

More from Cato: “He has decided to run against lobbyists. The populist turn again. Carter did that too.” Those guys are on fire. Just head over there to catch all the gems. But here’s one more: “This is the most awful anti-trade position of any president in a long time.”

More liveblogging from Jason Van Steenwyk.

Ed Driscoll: The Semiotics Of The Anointed.

Stephen Green: “’Our approach would bring down the deficit by as much as one trillion dollars over two decades.’ Fine. But when those two decades mean another 20 or 30 trillion dollars of debt, you’re talking about scooping pee out of the ocean with sieve.”

Plus this: “’Let me know.’ Dude, the voters of Massachusetts just did.”

And: “The guy who just bragged of his (mysterious) 25 tax cuts just ragged on the Bush tax cuts.”

An Obama speech word cloud.

“But we took office in a crisis — and never let a crisis go to waste!” Okay, I kinda interpolated the second part. . . .

Hey, does this sound familiar?

Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt. I listened, and I agree. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now, and I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years.

It’s from George W. Bush’s 2001 SOTU.

A reader emails: “Oh for heaven’s sake. It’s a freaking stump speech. You’ve been elected all ready Mr. President. Now you have to do things. See the difference?”

The freeze starts next year? And I start my diet tomorrow.

From Dan Mitchell at Cato: “We’ve all done something very naughty if this is the government we deserve.”

Now Obama, after delivering an hour-long stump speech, criticizes the perpetual campaign. Luckily for him, most people will be watching Teen Mom on their Tivo by now.

A reader sends a link to Reagan’s 1982 State Of The Union by way of comparison.

The Insta-Daughter: “He needs to quit referring to Bush. It’s weird.”

Nick Schulz: The Definition of Chutzpah.

John Samples at Cato: “I agree with Chris. It is surprising how unsurprising this speech has been, particularly for a president in deep political trouble.”

More liveblogging at Reason. Radley Balko: “wow. no none is better at trivializing opponents’ arguments than obama.”

A call to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I’m for it, but I’ll bet there’s not much follow-through.

Stephen Green: “’I have embraced the vision of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.’ Okay. Except you embraced the competence of Jimmy Carter & Herbert Hoover.”

Jim Harper at Cato: “Following through on his transparency promises would be a great way to actually deliver change.”

Matt Welch: “8-year-olds sending money to the president don’t make me all tingly inside.”

Reader Rob Lain emails:

Others have probably done this already, but I just ran these numbers:

Obama SOTU 2010 First Person Singular Pronoun Count

I – 96 times

me – 8 times

Bush SOTU 2008 First Person Singular Pronoun Count

I – 39 times

me – 2 times

Think this may wind up correlating to their relative contributions to the national debt, when all is said and done?

I dunno, but what’s funny is that I think Obama was restraining himself here . . . .

Okay, it’s over. My sense is that he was trying a bit too hard. Comparing the mood to last year, the Democratic applause and cheering seemed rather forced, too. Plus, I don’t think his public scolding of the Supreme Court was very Presidential — or, for that matter, very smart.

Krauthammer is noting that Obama treats “Washington” as a pejorative, but that he is Washington now.

Matt Welch: “I think I’ve forgotten it already. Except for the I WON’T QUIT part. Don’t worry, it *is* about you, etc.”

Reader Matt Barger writes: “There has never been a SOTU as patronizing as this. God help us.”

C.J. Burch emails again: “A brittle speech by a brittle administration. He’s done as a political force, I think. If not now, soon.” We’ll see.

And Stephen Green concludes: “We’re into the Big Finish… but there’s no new here. For a guy who got his bottom handed to him in three big elections, he’s strangely reluctant to change course. In fact, he’s not even willing to change tone. Which means, whatever you thought of Bush’s lousy last three years, Obama has already outdone him in being tone-deaf. Let me restate that. This guy hasn’t gotten one single thing done since Porklulus was passed 11 months ago, and he just doubled down. Well, you know what? Who cares how much is in the pot when it’s other people’s money?”

Reader Allen S. Thorpe writes: “It is probably better to think of it as a State of My Presidency speech and it’s probably the best chance he’s had since his Inauguration to speech to this size of an audience. He’d better be in campaign mode, because he’s losing the election right now. From the back of my memory, some familiar words are floating up: ‘Lipstick on a pig.’”

Gerard van der Leun emails with praise: “Excellent digest. All the hot liveblogging lines with none of the screen refreshing tedium.”

Thanks! As Leon Lipson once said, “Anything you can do, I can do meta.” But really, follow the links to the other blogs as this is just the merest skim of cream.

And there’s always the Zomby translation.

Plus, Richard Fernandez weighs in. “Since the current administration is doing all these good things, it will stay the course. It won’t let the aforementioned saboteurs and wreckers stand in the way.”

The McDonnell reponse? The bar for these things is low — and he was certainly infinitely better than Jindal last year. But the big story is the subtext: “I was just elected in a state Obama carried, even though Obama campaigned against me. Whatever he may say under the lights, he can’t save you come election day.” Likewise, the Scott Brown mention.

And from Meryl Yourish: Breaking the Obama Code:

Tonight, he addressed the American people, and he addressed Congress. Go back and look at the speech. He was earnest, and his chin was down, his head relatively level, when speaking to Congress. When he spoke to us, his chin rose, and he talked down to us—literally.

Go ahead. Take a look. Note his posture. You’ll see it, too. You and I, we are not his equals. He is above us.

That’s what sets my teeth on edge every time I listen to him.

That’s almost worth rewinding the DVR for, but . . . no, I’ve suffered enough.

Some extensive thoughts from Dan Riehl, including this: “Obama praised the concept of separation of powers, then immediately turned to question the Supreme Court’s recent decision on campaign finance reform. That tendency caused much of speech to ring hollow throughout.”

Alex Castellanos writes: “There were too many Barack Obamas tonight, making too many promises to too many interests. The same president who said he wasn’t interested in relitigating the past . . . did exactly that for over an hour. The same president who yearned for less partisanship also resorted to it without hesitation, often just a few sentences afterwards, blaming his problems on his predecessor one long year into his own administration.”

Jim Geraghty: On His Last Day in Office, Obama Will Still Be Talking About What He Inherited.

More from The Anchoress:

You know, one could argue that President Bush “inherited” Al Qaeda from Bill Clinton, who did little-to-nothing in response to all of Al Qaeda’s provocations throughout the 1990’s and unto the USS Cole bombing. But never, not once, did Bush ever say, “I inherited this…” It’s time for Obama to become a man.

Much more at the link.

John Podhoretz: “One liberal trope after the speech, voiced by Chrystia Freedland of the Financial Times on Charlie Rose, is that Obama is putting Republican politicians on notice he will go after them as the do-nothing impeders of progress. Republicans should pray this is the case, and it may be the case.” In New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts he’s proven impotent. Why should people fear him more now, when he’s weaker?

And reader Eric Naft writes:

You posted a CATO link that mentioned Bastiat, but do you realize exactly how precisely delicious that observation is? In extolling the virtues of the stimulus, President Obama cited several small businesses, including a “window repair company” in Philadelphia.

Having read Bastiat’s influential “That Which Is Seen & That Which Is Not Seen: The Unintended Consequences of Government Spending,” I don’t think he could have chosen more poorly (or perhaps more aptly?). The opening vignette of Bastiat’s seminal work, which demolishes the notion that government spending stimulates anything, is subtitled, “The Broken Window.” It explains that paying to repair broken windows doesn’t help the economy at large because the money used to pay for the repair is money that can’t be used to buy a shirt or to do whatever else the private citizen may be inclined to do with his money.

Has nobody in the administration’s speech-writing team ever read basic economics? Never mind. I think I know the answer to that.

Yes, I do realize. But heck, forget the speech-writing team. What about the economic team?

Plus, what the voters think about Obama’s speech points.

Chris Matthews on Obama: ‘I Forgot He Was Black For an Hour’.

Good grief. Why is this guy still on the air? Oh, wait, he’s not — he’s on MSNBC . . . .

And reader Scott Blanksteen writes:

Obama’s comments about the Supreme Court’s decision enabling foreign corporations to donate in US campaigns are particularly ironic given that it was his campaign that mis-configured their credit-card acceptance software in a way for which the only purpose would be to enable foreign donations!

More on that here, here, and here.

Jules Crittenden: “But seriously, we have just witnessed an extraordinary exercise in presidential oratorical animation that may be without peer or precedent. Can it be said that any American president has ever tried to blame so much on other people, or has been willing to so rapidly abandon his own principles for the betterment of his standing with the people, to seize up the banner against himself in our nation’s time of need, that this nation should not stand against him? For this, the president deserves our unabashed, gaga-eyed astonishment.”

VARIOUS PEOPLE ARE ASKING ABOUT THE “GHOST” IN THE WINDOW BEHIND OBAMA in this pic from a Financial Times article.

I dunno. It looks like Jimmy Carter to me, but he’s not dead — except politically.

UPDATE: A reader suggests: “I was thinking it is more likely to be Herbert Hoover…”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “Warren G. Harding isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. But I can guarantee you it isn’t Abraham Lincoln.”

MORE: Ghosts In The Machine. Plus an amusing Dick Cheney reminder.

STILL MORE: Chris Fountain writes: “Wesley Mouch.” But of course! It’s the Ghost Of Appointees Yet To Come! Or maybe not . . . .

WHO’S MISSING HERE? “President Barack Obama joined his two predecessors at the White House on Saturday to kick off a relief drive for earthquake-stricken Haiti.”

His two predecessors? Where’s #39? Is somebody at the White House trying to avoid unfortunate comparisons?

But wait, this isn’t an isolated incident:

The Cook County Democratic party sent out a direct mail piece this week touting endorsed candidates centered on the theme that “throughout history, Democrats have led us to prosperity.”

Pictured is the roll of Democratic presidents of the past seven decades in chronological order, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton and favorite son president Barack Obama.

Oops. Where’s Jimmy Carter?

Still “history’s greatest monster,” I guess . . . .

UPDATE: A couple of readers note that Bush 41 wasn’t there, either. I kinda put that down to not wanting to be outnumbered by Bushes, but good point. Actually either he (because of his tsunami work with Bill) or Carter (general third-world do-gooder) would have made more sense than W. An alternative theory, from a couple of other readers, is that the Haiti relief effort is going badly and Obama wanted W. in the picture to protect him from criticism. That seems a stretch to me.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Beldar writes:

I’m sure you realize that Bush-41 — born June 12, 1924 — is 85 years old, even though he’s still pretty spry and active for an 85-year-old. He’s a duty-driven old warhorse whose long service to his country looks more remarkable with every passing year, but can we finally permit him to let some other, younger men (including his son) answer the bugle call?

And I would have thought you would know, and have remembered, that Bush-43 has done more actual good in the Third World than the last several presidents put together while he was actually IN the White House, in part through HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment work in Africa, but even more dramatically (if less sexily) through fighting malaria with simple mosquito nets and pest eradication programs in Africa and elsewhere. I seem to recall reading about that on InstaPundit, but perhaps I’m mistaken, so if you want me to run down some links, lemme know and I’ll fire up the old Google engine.

Yeah, sure, Dubya’s never gotten the public recognition for that work that he and the United States deserve, and indeed half the American public thinks he’s a sharp-fanged Grinch who screened video of starving Iraqi babies at night while he and Laura (often joined by the Cheneys) laughed and dined on caviar and champagne. But that’s horseshit, of course, and I hate to see you perpetuate, even gently or by omission, the false stereotypes that the so-called “reality-based community” cling to so bitterly.

(Of course, it’s only fair that Bush-43 be involved in the relief efforts, since he’s 100% responsible for the man-made global warming that CAUSED the earthquake!)

Good point.

MORE: Reader Drew Kelley writes:

Outside of the fact that Bush-41 is 85 years old, it does sort of follow with the last time this type of relief effort was mounted.

The Christmas Tsunami brought together G.H.W.Bush and W.J.Clinton to raise needed funds.

Now, it is Clinton and G.W.Bush.

Hopefully, when this happens again (and it will), it will be when the next President is in office, and the effort can be led by G.W.Bush & B.H.Obama.

Heh.

DISCONNECT: Peggy Noonan on Obama: “He is not supple, able to hear reservations and see opposition and change tack. He has a grim determination to bull this thing through. He negotiates each day with Congress, not with the people. But the people hate Congress! Has he not noticed?” (Thanks to reader James Rehkopf for the tip).

Plus this: “There’s something tired in all this disconnect, something old-fashioned, something sclerotic and 1970’s about it.” Welcome back, Carter! Where’s my leisure suit . . . ?

INSTAVISION: Is Obama Flexing His Jeffersonian Muscle? I talk with Walter Russell Mead about Jimm Carter, Barack Obama, Jacksonian foreign policy, and the future.

CAN I CALL ‘EM, OR WHAT? Back in September, noting a continuing pattern of White House incompetence, I predicted: “Expect this to play out in thumbsucker columns on whether America is ‘ungovernable.’”

And, right on cue, here’s Matthew Yglesias: “The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it’s the fact that the country has become ungovernable.”

Funny, that dumb cowboy Bush seemed to get a lot done with fewer votes in Congress. . . .

Plus, from the comments: “There have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to ‘become ungovernable.’ There just isn’t enough political support to enact various news laws and policies that you favor. Tough. If you hadn’t become seduced by the delusion that Obama is a ‘progressive’ and that last year’s election represented some kind of historic realignment in favor of ‘progressive’ policies you might have seen this coming.”

Or, as Ed Morrissey noted a while ago: “Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the Senate would not have been prepared for the toughest executive position in the Free World? We did. Repeatedly. So did John McCain, and for that matter, so did Hillary Clinton.”

UPDATE: Moe Lane says Matt and I are both right. “The country is indeed ungovernable. …By Democrats.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “What I appreciate especially is how Matthew notes that the smarter elements are starting to pick up on some observation of his…”

MORE: Ed Morrissey offers some fresh thoughts.

Plus, reader Zachary Terry writes: “That silly, silly Constitution. It always seems to get in the way. In all seriousness, though, wasn’t the United States intended to be relatively ‘ungoverned?’ Why is it not surprising that blatant deviation from the intended structure and function of our national government has led to this quandary?”

Can we get a T-Shirt that says Proudly Ungovernable Since 1776?

Further thoughts over at TalkLeft. “I suppose this is all a set up for a Truman-like ‘Do Nothing Republican Congress’ campaign in 2012 by Obama. Of course that will require the Democrats lose the Congress in 2010. Hey, wait a minute . . .”

FINALLY: Reader John Hendrix writes:

The MSM didn’t start saying things like that until Carter’s fourth year.

So can we now say that the Obama’s main achievement was to get the MSM to go all “The country is too big for one man to govern” in his first year instead of his fourth year?

Yeah, it’s like Carter on fast-forward or something.

KEY OFFICIAL ON GUANTANAMO CLOSING RESIGNS: That would be Phil Carter, one of Obama’s better appointments. Not a good sign, in my opinion, but who knows?

DER SPIEGEL: Obama’s Nice-Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere. If only he were as tough on America’s enemies as he is on Fox News.

John Hinderaker comments: “President Obama took office wanting to distinguish himself from President Bush. . . . Now, as Der Spiegel concludes, he is trying desperately to distinguish himself from Jimmy Carter.” I don’t think he’s trying all that hard . . . .

Plus, Mark Steyn: More mush from the wimp. Sorry, but a Carter-era rerun is the best-case scenario.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Obama “Carteresque.”

JENNIFER RUBIN: If Barack Obama is so smart, why isn’t he a better President? Generally, our smartest presidents — Jimmy Carter, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, for example — have been disappointments in office, haven’t they? As Jurgen learned, cleverness is not on top, and never has been.

TOBY HARNDEN: Bloodless President Barack Obama makes Americans wistful for George W Bush.

Hey, they’re already selling the bumper stickers.

UPDATE: Reader Arnie Schulberg sends this. Heck, some Republicans are missing Bill Clinton. I think before it’s over, even Jimmy Carter will look okay.

RETURN OF THE INFLATION TAX: “All of those twentysomethings who voted for Barack Obama last year are about to experience the change they haven’t been waiting for: the return of income tax bracket creep. Buried in Nancy Pelosi’s health-care bill is a provision that will partially repeal tax indexing for inflation, meaning that as their earnings rise over a lifetime these youngsters can look forward to paying higher rates even if their income gains aren’t real.”

Good grief, these people really are trying to bring back the Carter era. Or worse.

DELUSIONS OF POWERLESSNESS:

Even more risible, though, is the claim that the administration “is going to speak truth to power.” Hello, Valerie? Your boss is the president of the United States! No one is more powerful. As we suggested Friday, it really seems as if Obama and his men do not understand what it means to be president. Because their power is constrained–thank you, Founding Fathers!–they labor under the delusion that they are powerless.

Yet while this is all hilarious, it is also scary when you think it through. Great power entails great responsibility. There is little to suggest that Obama and his aides appreciate their responsibility, and much, including their incessant complaining that the previous president did a lousy job, to suggest an attitude of total irresponsibility.

The job of those in power is not to “speak truth to power,” though it would be nice if they spoke the truth once in a while.

Ouch.

UPDATE: Reader Allen S. Thorpe writes:

The link to Taranto’s taunt of Valerie Jarrett was timed well with Barbara Curtis’ latest post at PJM. These people are so steeped in Saul Alinsky that they fail to realize that they were written for people trying to topple the system and mau-mau the flakcatchers. But now THEY ARE the flack-catchers and they obviously never really understood the problems of governing. There’s a story in Newsweek about how Obama wasn’t going to be like Redford in The Candidate wondering, “What now?” (Maybe I found it on Instapundit.) But he’s finding out that governing by fiat doesn’t work for long in this country. The tags for his presidency so far seem to be Radical, Naive, FDR, Jimmy Carter, Socialism and Screw Up.

Heh. And ouch. Yeah, Alinsky’s a set of rules for annoying The Man. Not much help once you are The Man.

ANOTHER UPDATE: History.

CNN POLITICS: Is it morning in America, or has hope given way to malaise?

RED STATE UPDATE on Obama’s Nobel.

“Carter and Gore and Obama — that’s like the Mt. Rushmore of shut-the-hell-up!”

OBAMA WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE? “For what?”

UPDATE: What do Barack Obama and Yassir Arafat have in common?

Plus, Mickey Kaus: Turn It Down. “Say he’s honored but he hasn’t had the time yet to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Doug Mataconis on Facebook: “Teddy Roosevelt wins Peace Prize for stopping a war. Carter wins Peace Prize for a lifetime of work. Obama wins Peace prize for breathing.”

MORE: Heh.

I say, not bad for a guy who’s been acting like Bambi caught in the headlights of history.

STILL MORE: London Times: Absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize. Oh, it was already a mockery.

Meanwhile, Mataconis is on a roll on Facebook: “How can Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize on the same day that he’s becoming the first POTUS to bomb the Moon?”

It’s Frank J. Fleming’s world. The rest of us just live in it.

MORE STILL: Various reader comments:

“It’s a peace prize, not a peace peace prize.”

“How do you say ‘jumped the shark’ in Norwegian?”

“Today the Nobel Committee announced a posthumous Peace Prize for Neville Chamberlain.”

“Why not the Cy Young Award, too?”

“Let’s be fair . . . he did pull off the Beer Summit.”

Plus, Jacob T. Levy on Facebook: “The US border agent in Toronto– the armed representative of the state who was holding my passport– asked me what I thought of the Nobel, got angry when I was anything less than celebratory, and didn’t want to give my passport back– wanted to keep arguing.”

“Americans want to be loved.”

“The subprime Peace Prize.”

Salena Zito: “Well, this makes his meeting with his war team today awkward.”

HuffPo: Whatever Happened to Awarding For Deeds Actually Done?

Richard Cohen:

In a stunning announcement, Millard Fillmore Senior High School chose Shawn Rabinowitz, an incoming junior, as next year’s valedictorian. The award was made, the valedictorian committee announced from Norway of all places, on the basis of “Mr. Rabinowitz’s intention to ace every course and graduate number one in class.” In a prepared statement, young Shawn called the unprecedented award, “f—ing awesome.”

At the same time, and amazingly enough, the Pulitzer Prize for Literature went to Sarah Palin for her stated intention “to read a book someday.” The former Alaska governor was described as “floored” by the award, announced in Stockholm by nude Swedes beating themselves with birch branches, and insisted that while she was very busy right now, someday she would make good on her vow to read a book. “You’ll see,” she said from her winter home in San Diego.

And again in a stunning coincidence, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the Oscar for best picture will be given this year to the Vince Vaughn vehicle “Guys Weekend to Burp,” which is being story-boarded at the moment but looks very good indeed. Mr. Vaughn, speaking through his publicist, said was “touched and moved” by the award and would do everything in his power to see that the picture lives up to expectation and opens big sometime next March.

Heh.

UH OH: Foreign policy polling badly. “The latest Fox News/Opinion Dymanic poll is chock-full of bad news for the president. But on foreign policy, the results are nothing short of stunning. On who they trust more to decide the next steps in Afghanistan, 66 percent say military commanders, while only 20 percent say the president. Even Democrats have more faith in the military commanders (by a 45 to 37 percent margin). On Iran, 69 percent say Obama has not been tough enough, including 55 percent of Democrats. Sixty-one percent favor a U.S. military action, if needed, to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Fifty-one percent think Obama apologizes for American too much. . . . In short, Obama has already achieved what it took Jimmy Carter an entire term to attain: the conviction of a large majority of the American people that he is not protecting our interests or performing adequately as commander in chief.”

JIMMY CARTER: Not only a liar, but a bad liar who doesn’t understand YouTube.

This illustrates, I think, how much the White House has realized that attacking Obama’s critics as racists is counterproductive.

JOSEF JOFFE: The Age of Nice — Or, Politics as Psychiatry.

It took Jimmy Carter until Christmas 1979, when the Soviets rolled into Afghanistan, to figure out that goodwill is not good enough. Let’s hope Mr. Obama learns faster how to shift from “good” to “will.” A reset, no matter how often, doesn’t change the reality inside a computer. The operating system remains the same.

Indeed.

CARTER WOOD: President Obama’s Message for G-20 Hits the Right Points.

OH, GOODY: Barack Obama surrenders to Russia on Missile Defence. It really is like Jimmy Carter all over again. Well, actually that’s looking like a best-case scenario these days . . . .

WILL COLLIER: More Mush From The Wimp:

For everybody old enough to remember what life was like under Jimmy’s stupefying mixture of sophomoric self-righteousness, boundless naivete and gobsmacking incompetence, shoving Mr. Peanut back under the spotlight in his bitter dotage does nothing to help Obama, who’s been looking like Carter II since a few hours after his inauguration.

And for those too young to remember history’s greatest monster (thanks, Glenn), Jimmah’s empty slander is just another sign of the unbecoming moral vanity at the heart of the modern Left, to say nothing of its overweening intolerance for any hint of dissent. People know good and well that being opposed to socialized medicine or trillion-dollar deficits doesn’t make them racist. Calling them ugly names isn’t going to make them cower away in fear–it’s going to make them more convinced than ever that they’re in the right.

Ouch.

UPDATE: Some background on the title for those who don’t remember it, which would be pretty much anyone a day younger than me.

OBAMA VOTER ANN ALTHOUSE:

Lots of people who voted for Obama believed that his election would reflect the extent to which Americans had moved beyond racism. That was part of why some people voted for him. Little did we realize that it would turn every criticism of the President into an occasion to make an accusation of racism. Racism is revolting, but so is the notion that we aren’t allowed to criticize a President!

Jimmy Carter’s supremely sleazy accusation requires a solid, sound rebuke. It is an effort to place the President of the United States beyond criticism. . . . And since demanding apologies is all the rage, let me say that I would like the wizened old husk of a former President to beg our forgiveness.

Ouch. Read the whole thing. And I’ll note that some of us predicted this before the election.

MICKEY KAUS: “Jimmy Carter cites racism as anti-Obama factor. Instant reaction: Kiss of Death. Gift to the GOPs. Remember the Carter era of smug moralizing? Anyone want to go back to that? “

Plus: “No sophisticated campaign propagandist would say, ‘OK, let’s throw Jimmy Carter at them. They’ll be reeling!’” Well, he is history’s greatest monster.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: New Communique From The Ministry of Truth. “What we are now seeing with Obama’s coterie is a sort of Billy Carterism.”

OVER AT THE SHOP FLOOR, CARTER WOOD WRITES: OIRA Position is No ‘Czar’ and Sunstein Understands Regulation. “The resignation of the White House’s green jobs adviser, Van Jones, for his radicalism and outrageous statements has been accompanied by a serious outbreak of anti-czardom, i.e., criticism of the Obama Administration for creating “czars” with great authority but no accountability. . . . It’s a good, legitimate issue, but too much of the criticism about czars has been indiscriminate and wrong. . . . One can certainly oppose his confirmation on the merits, but the efforts to paint him as a far-out animal rights, anti-gun or organ-harvesting extremist are only tangentially related to reality.” Read the whole thing. As I’ve said before, I think there are far more worthy targets than Sunstein, including Ron Bloom and John Holdren.

HARRY REID’S “EVIL” MOMENT:

Remember when polite society treated a politician’s use of the word “evil” as a sign that the old boy was dangerously lacking upstairs?

We saw it in 1983, when Ronald Reagan famously used the word in a speech to describe the Soviet empire. What a rube! New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis spoke for the smart set when he wondered what Soviet leaders must think: “What confidence can they have in the restraint of an American leader with such an outlook?”

We saw it again in 2002, when George W. Bush characterized North Korea, Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as an “axis of evil.” Tom Daschle, a Democrat and then Senate majority leader, warned that “we’ve got to be very careful with rhetoric of that kind”; former President Jimmy Carter called it “overly simplistic and counterproductive”; and comedian Will Ferrell parodied it on Saturday Night Live. Soon the phrase became acceptable only in the ironic sense—as in the Chris Fair cookbook titled “Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States: A Dinner Party Approach to International Relations.”

With all this history, you would think Harry Reid (D., Nev.) had ample warning. Nevertheless, the Senate majority leader invoked the e-word himself last week at an energy conference in Las Vegas, where he accused those protesting President Barack Obama’s health-care proposals of being “evil mongers.” So proud was he of this contribution to the American political lexicon that he repeated it to a reporter the next day and noted the phrase was “an original.”

And then . . . nothing. No thundering rebuke from the New York Times. No outburst from Mr. Carter. In fact, it’s hard not to notice that the good and gracious people who instinctively recoil at words like “evil” or “un-American” (the preferred term of Mr. Reid’s counterpart in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi) have all been silent.

But the people he was calling “evil” were opponents of the Democratic agenda.

WHITE HOUSE MAKES C.E.O.s PAY FOR LUNCH. “Four of the most powerful business leaders in America arrived at the White House one day last month for lunch with President Barack Obama, sitting down in his private dining room just steps from the Oval Office. But even for powerful CEOs, there’s no such thing as a free lunch: White House staffers collected credit card numbers for each executive and carefully billed them for the cost of the meal with the president. The White House defended the unusual move as a way to avoid conflicts of interest. But the Bush administration didn’t charge presidential guests for meals, one former official said, and at least one etiquette expert found the whole thing unseemly – suggesting it was a serious breach of protocol”

I’d say it shows the kind of humility and concern for others that we’ve seen in other settings. A reader says that Jimmy Carter did the same thing. That fits, too . . . .

UPDATE: Reader Richard Humphries writes: “Glenn, apparenly the Obama White House has been listening to Vaughn Meader’s recording of ‘The First Family’ from 1963. There was a skit where JFK has a lunch for De Gaulle, Kruschev, and several other heads of state and at the end he presents them with the bill.” Heh. Before my time, though, which means it’s also before Obama’s.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yeah, it’s on YouTube.

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND, if you were off, you know, having a life.

Nationwide protests target Obamacare. Much more on that here, here, and here.

Plus, Heath Shuler’s ungracious treatment of the 250 who showed up at his office in Asheville. And some video from Tucson.

The Amazon/Orwell scandal.

An informative video from the Health Administration Bureau: Health Rations And You.

White House foreclosure plan a bust so far.

Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie on Obama as Jimmy Carter. Actually, I now see that as a best-case scenario . . . .

Environmentalists for space exploration.

MATT WELCH AND NICK GILLESPIE, IN THE WASHINGTON POST: Obama’s Domestic Agenda Teeters. “From a lousy cap-and-trade bill awaiting death in the Senate to a health-care reform agenda already weak in the knees to the failure of the stimulus to deliver promised jobs and economic activity, what once looked like a hope-tastic juggernaut is showing all the horsepower of a Chevy Cobalt. . . . So far, he seems to be skipping the chapter on Bill Clinton and his generally free-market economic policies and instead flipping back to the themes and comportment of Jimmy Carter. Like the 39th president, Obama has inherited an awful economy, dizzying budget deficits and a geopolitical situation as promising as Kim Jong Il’s health. Like Carter, Obama is smart, moralistic and enamored of alternative energy schemes that were nonstarters back when America’s best-known peanut farmer was installing solar panels at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Like Carter, Obama faces as much effective opposition from his own party’s left wing as he does from an ardent but diminished GOP. And perhaps most important, as with Carter, his specific policies are genuinely unpopular.”

OBAMA HEALTHCARE INFOMERCIAL A RATINGS BUST. “President Obama’s town hall meeting on health care delivered a sickly rating Wednesday evening. The one-hour ABC News special “Primetime: Questions for the President: Prescription for America” (4.7 million viewers, 1.1 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) had the fewest viewers in the 10 p.m. hour. The special tied some 8 p.m. comedy repeats as the lowest-rated program on a major broadcast network.” (Via Dan Riehl, who thinks the rerun analogy is fair: “Maybe they thought the Oba-Special was just a replay of Hillary-care, or a look back at Jimmy Carter?”)

L.A. TIMES: Why Obama’s sudden news conference today? And what he’ll say. “Here’s the scary thing for the new White House: the terrifying words ‘Jimmy Carter’ have started appearing in print and on the air . . . . Sen. John McCain’s angry Senate Neda speech Monday, also reported and analyzed here with a video, dramatically changed that equation, forcing Obama to talk today more powerfully about the power of talk. . . .Obama needs to re-seize the initiative; hence, Monday’s decision to schedule a Tuesday presidential news conference. Such staged affairs are not only irresistible to the media (CBS will break into normal programming to carry it live), but they suck the oxygen out of any other competing story for the cycle.”

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY: North Korea tests nuclear weapon ‘as powerful as Hiroshima bomb’.

UPDATE: “Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?” Actually, I’m beginning to think that’s a best-case situation. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Will the Left apologize to John Bolton?

Plus, Don Surber rounds up the lefties. And the failure of “we’re-so-smart diplomacy.”

MORE: Don’t be silly. The golfing is just evidence that Obama is keeping his cool.

HEH:

Remember how the Reagan administration became a laughingstock for allegedly trying to classify ketchup as a vegetable?

This week, the Obama administration warned that Cheerios are a drug.

On the bright side for Obama, at least it’s not a Jimmy Carter comparison, this time . . . .

UPDATE: Mark Kleiman says this is bullshit. I say it’s at least as fair as the ketchup/vegetable thing. Your call.

MATT WELCH AND NICK GILLESPIE ON THE 100 DAYS: After 100 days, the new president has revealed himself as an effective salesman of exhausted ideas.

On issue after issue, Obama has made it clear that instead of blasting past “the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long,” (as he promised in his inaugural address), he’s moving full speed ahead toward policy prescriptions that already had less fizz than a case of Billy Beer back when Jimmy Carter was urging us all to wear sweaters and turn down our thermostats. Instead of thinking outside the box, Obama is nailing it shut from the inside. . . . For those Americans who voted for Obama, a question: Is this the change you had in mind?

Well, hey, if they can bring back the jumpsuits . . . .

TEMPERANCE CAMPAIGNER CHOSEN to head NHTSA. Plus, a return to 55 mph speed limits? Is it another Welcome Back, Carter moment? Heck, at least under Carter we hadn’t federalized the drinking age.

MAX BOOT: Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake.

My reaction to the sight of President Obama shaking hands with Hugo Chavez was a little different from that of many on the Right. Newt Gingrich, for one, compared Obama to Jimmy Carter and suggested that he was bolstering “the enemies of America.”

That’s a harsh and — I think — slightly premature judgment. All Obama did was shake the guy’s hand, and offer him a smile. Far from being a disaster, this could actually be a smart strategic move. Chavez, after all, derives much of his demagogic appeal from his claim to be an inveterate enemy of Uncle Sam. He thrives off provoking us and using the resulting reaction to “prove” that we are as bad as he claims.

Obama is a lot harder to demonize than George W. Bush, however, and by shaking hands with Chavez the president may be undercutting his appeal more effectively than anything Bush did. If Obama starts making substantive concessions to Chavez or other dictators, I will start to get worried. But I don’t think anyone should have a meltdown over a handshake.

That seems right to me.

JERRY POURNELLE ON OBAMA AND THE PIRATES: “Reagan famously delegated control of this kind of event to the on the scene commanders. I have no evidence that Obama did not do much the same thing, although this purports that he did not. Colonel Beckwith told me about the failed hostage rescue in Iran; I believed his story, so I have some evidence that Jimmy Carter did not delegate authority to local commanders, but in fact insisted on being involved all the way down the line. I have absolutely no evidence regarding the current situation. The pentagon scuttlebutt I have heard gives Obama good marks on this incident.”

MORE ON PIRACY: Ruth Wedgwood: The Law Adrift. “The West is tangled in a postmodern confusion over the law of armed conflict, human rights law, solipsistic views of national criminal jurisdiction and, above all, a stunning lack of common sense. This should arrest the attention of any legal historian. In the origins of international law, piracy was considered the gravest act against the good order of the state system.”

Further thoughts from Eric Posner. “President Obama has every reason to be concerned. He also has little room to maneuver. Having just returned from a trip promoting internationalism, he has raised expectations that any anti-piracy endeavor will have an internationalist flavor. This will mean costly, time-consuming negotiations for the sake of largely symbolic contributions by other countries, if history is any guide. Having also raised expectations that his administration will act with the utmost respect for legality, Obama will either have to direct American forces to walk on eggshells or risk exposing his words as empty. If the pirates continue to take American hostages, he will have trouble maintaining these commitments while giving satisfaction to the inevitable nationalist backlash driven by the mounting sense of powerless and humiliation that we haven’t seen since the Carter years.”

SHANNON LOVE on piracy and the will to do something about it. “I think that, as with terrorism, the return of piracy indicates the collapse of international law and the liberal order it establishes. It tells us how dysfunctional international law has become.”

Plus this, from Tam: “Our new President is displaying all the resolve, aplomb, and effectiveness of Jimmy Carter during the Tehran embassy crisis.”

UPDATE: The Ghost of Fecklessness Past. “Although, if I remember well, Carter at least looked pained and troubled by the whole Iranian Hostage Crisis. That’s why Obama’s attitude is – in my opinion – sub-Carterian in that regard: he just appears too aloof.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reuters: Pirates Pose Annoying Distraction to Obama.

But at least some people are finding the humor in the situation.

POLITICO: NYT hits Obama. “The leading liberal voices of the New York Times editorial pages all criticized—and, in some cases, clobbered—President Obama on Sunday for his handling of the economy and national security. . . . The sentiment, coming just two months after the president was sworn in, reflects elite opinion in the Washington-New York corridor that Obama is increasingly overwhelmed, and not fully appreciative of the building tsunami of populist outrage.” Well, he could start here. That won’t help the “overwhelmed” part, though.

UPDATE: CBS to Obama: “Are you punch-drunk?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: “At this stage in 1977, even Jimmy Carter wasn’t Jimmy Carter. But, 30 days in, the horror of what they’d wrought began to dawn on Brooks, Buckley and the Obamacons. And, after a mere 60, the A-list libs are starting to figure it out, too.”

MORE: Charlie Foxtrot: I told you so.

Plus, Obama sounding like Dick Cheney?

STILL MORE: “Thoughtful Thinkers Think.”

MICHAEL WOLFF: Barack Obama Is A Terrible Bore:

Sheesh, the guy is Jimmy Carter.

That homespun bowling crap on Jay Leno, followed by the turgid, teachy fiscal policy lecture, together with the hurt defensiveness (and bad script for it) that everybody in Washington “is Simon Cowell… Everybody’s got an opinion,” is pure I’m-in-over-my-head stuff. Even the idea of having to go on Jay Leno to rescue yourself from the AIG mess is lame. Be a man, man.

The guy just doesn’t know what to say. He can’t connect. Emotions are here, he’s over there. He can’t get the words to match the situation.

This began, I’d argue, from the first moment. He punted on the inaugural. Everybody ran around like crazy trying to praise it because if Barack Obama couldn’t give a speech then what?

But now, at week 11, we’re face-to-face with the reality, the man can’t talk worth a damn. . . . It’s instructive and humorous to remember that Carter ran a brilliant campaign that succeeded largely because his voice was new. Simple, direct, basic, human. And then, of course, he turned into a sad-sack twit.

Some of us noticed these issues before the election. For the rest, there’s buyer’s remorse.

UPDATE: Related: “After a week in which President Obama thanked himself for inviting him to the White House, compared AIG executives to suicide bombers, and did the first Presidential retard joke on national TV, I was impressed to find that Slate is bravely keeping up its Bushism Of The Day feature.”

Even in small things, Obama’s promises of “change” aren’t panning out . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Some thoughts on Bushisms. Plus, Ed Morrissey takes the territory that Slate has conceded by introducing the new Obamateurism Of The Day feature!

Plus: Chicago Tribune: Obama’s ‘Tonight Show’ gaffe one of many for president. As I mentioned, some of us had already noticed . . . .

READER FRED SIESEL sends a report from today’s NYC Tea Party protest:

Just got back from the NY Tea Party. You will, I’m sure, be getting more detailed reports, with photos, but this is an “early” report. I arrived at the City Hall park forty minutes before the scheduled time and began to wonder if I made a mistake on the details. I spent a little time and money in J&R Music and went across the street to the park about 20 minutes of two. There were a disheartening 30-40 people there. But, the number quickly began to increase. My guess as to the size of the crowd was circa 300. Many carried placards. The theme most common to most of them was “No to Socialism”. I jotted some of the, to me, “memorable” signs:

No to American Socialism
Socialism Kills
Pork the Other (Red) Meat
Liberty is All the Stimulus We Need
United States of France
Trickle Up Poverty, and
Foreclose the White House

There were also two signs, one quoting Margaret Thatcher and the other amending a Ronald Reagan line during the 1980 campaign.

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.

A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
A depression is when you lose your job.
Recovery begins when Jimmy (Obama) Carter lose his job.

There was also a noteworthy t-shirt with the following:

To: The New York Times
Why are terrorists innocent until proven guilty
But, NYC Cops guilty until proven innocent?

The back of the t-shirt had the same question, except for the substitution of U.S. Marines for NYC Cops. The fellow wearing it said he was a former Marine.

There were reporters there from the two 24-hour local NYC stations: WCBS and WINS.

Many people got up to say their piece. Common theme: Liberty/freedom vs. Socialism/Marxism.

Still going strong when I left after an hour.

Looking forward the the pictures you post and to find out how by how much my crowd estimate differed.

I’ll post some later tonight; they’ve started to come in.

UPDATE: Here’s one, courtesy of reader Robert McManus:

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Abbie Meyer writes:

I drove in from Summit New Jersey for the New York City Tea Party today. There were about 150 people which is pretty good considering we were so deep in enemy territory. The crowd was polite but angry at the usual cast of Democrat characters. Lot’s of good signs. Obama…Commander and Thief ” was my favorite.

There is some real potential for this movement if organized around a central theme. 15 or so speakers of varying quality, invited and impromptu, with various conservative gripes. There was no discernible NYC media there except perhaps Univision. We are supposed to send tea-bags to our elected Representatives.

I think this movement will build as conservatives get more upset and more organized. They will be joined by moderates with pitchforks by the fall. Hopefully it won’t be too late to stop the madness by then. The next one will be better and bigger I’m sure.

Quite likely. Plus, another picture from reader Shelley Hartman, who estimates the crowd at 400.

MORE: Reader John Helferich writes:

Attendance 400, measured by head count.

Press: NY Post, NYU Student Newspaper, WINS Radio (shown below)

Crowd was enthused and full of “normal” people. Only a few cranks. No counter protests, just one kid tried to sing out a few lines of the “Marseillaise” while walking thru.

And here’s a report at the Berman Post.

THE OBAMA YEARS: Carter on Speed?

OUCH: Newt: Obama speech was Carter-like. So I guess the honeymoon is over.

KENYA’S ANSWER to Billy Carter?

LEGISLATING A NEW “RANGEL RULE:”

All U.S. taxpayers would enjoy the same immunity from IRS penalties and interest as House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Obama Administration Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, if a bill introduced today by Congressman John Carter (R-TX) becomes law.

Carter, a former longtime Texas judge, today introduced the Rangel Rule Act of 2009, HR 735, which would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from charging penalties and interest on back taxes against U.S. citizens. Under the proposed law, any taxpayer who wrote “Rangel Rule” on their return when paying back taxes would be immune from penalties and interest.

Heh. Sign me up!

LIFE WITH FLUORESCENT BULBS. Sorry, but this kind of wonky no-sacrifice fixit nostrum reminds me of Al Gore, or Jimmy Carter’s sweaters, and I don’t think it’ll play well, or deliver as promised. And I say that as someone who’s boosted compact fluorescent bulbs to a considerable degree.

“I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?”

STEPHEN GREEN WILL BE drunkblogging the debate. Ann Althouse is liveblogging, and so is Jason Pye. Likewise Jeralyn Merritt at Talkleft. And they’re promising nonstop blogging at Hit & Run and The Corner. Also FishBowlDC. And Jules Crittenden.

UPDATE: More at The Sundries Shack, including a list of more livebloggers. And TigerHawk is livetired-blogging from Madrid

ANOTHER UPDATE: Biden keeps talking about deregulation. But wasn’t it Barney Frank, Charles Schumer, et al., who shielded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from regulation?

MORE: The McCain folks email: “Biden said McCain voted ‘the exact same way’ as Obama to raise taxes on people making $42,000/year. That’s a lie. McCain didn’t vote on either bill.”

Stephen Green: “Biden has an easy command of the facts, even when his facts are BS. Given the pressure on Palin, that’s probably all he needs to do tonight for a draw or better.”

STILL MORE: I think that Biden’s doing fine, but Andrew Sullivan disagrees: “Biden is just dreadful. He speaks in Washingtonese. She just issues the soundbites and wrinkles her eyes and tells stories. And that works. The speed and chirpiness she delivers overwhelms one’s ability to even quite absorb what she’s saying. And it has put Biden off-stride. It’s Biden who seems over-crammed.”

I think Palin’s doing fine, especially once she got on her home-base topic of energy. But Biden seems fine, too – but what will Andrew say about this: “Senator Biden, do you support gay marriage?” “No.” They conclude their discussion of the topic by agreeing that Obama, Biden, and Palin all have the same position.

There’s a poll at Drudge and Sarah Palin’s winning in a runaway. Doesn’t seem that big a gap to me, but what do I know? I thought Carter beat Reagan . . . .

Hey, now the Drudge poll has vanished, but Ann Althouse has a screenshot, and a poll of her own.

Jim Treacher is live-blogging, too: “Ah! Obama is against gay marriage. So Biden’s previous answer was… unclear.”

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is wrong about the Vice President and the Constitution — the Vice President does have a legislative role, and the VP doesn’t just preside over the Senate in case of a tie. The VP only votes in case of a tie, but voting isn’t the same as presiding. Good grief.

Also, Joe, Article I of the Constitution deals with the legislative branch, not the executive. Again, good grief.

MORE STILL: Reader David Rensin emails: “He didn’t just call the citizens of Bosnia ‘Bosniacs’, did he?” Yeah, he did.

FINALLY: Still more on Joe Biden’s constitutional flubs.

Plus, Stephen Green emails: “Jim Dunnigan and Austin Bay use the word ‘Bosniaks’ in reference in Moslem Bosnians.” So give that one to Biden. Though if I thought he actually read Dunnigan and Bay I’d give him two points.

And, yes, the VP’s legislative duties are in Article I. But that cuts precisely against the point that Biden was trying to make. Here’s what Biden said: “Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history. The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. . . . The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.” This is wong on multiple levels at once. Article I — which deals with the legislative, not the Executive branch, says: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” The Vice President presides over the Senate by right, whenever he/she wants to, regardless of whether there’s a tie vote.

What’s more, Vice Presidents, until Spiro Agnew, got their offices and budgets from the Senate, not the Executive Branch. The legislative character of that office is traditional — treating the VP as part of the Executive Branch, and a sort of junior co-President, is a recent and, to my mind, unwise innovation. That’s discussed at more length in this article from the Northwestern University Law Review.

HOW DIFFERENTLY PEOPLE SEE THINGS: I thought McCain’s debate performance was at best only okay, but I just noticed this post from Obama supporter Katie Granju, who wrote: “Mid-debate, I have to say that John McCain is sort of kicking Obama to the curb.” You should never trust my judgment of these things, as I remember thinking that Carter won the Carter-Reagan debates. But Obama clearly won the post-debate spin, anyway.

INSTA-POLL: Inspired by a commenter over at Ann Althouse’s.

MICKEY KAUS says that Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is “whistling past the graveyard” on polling numbers. I don’t know if that’s right — I think that everyone, including me, expected Obama to be polling better at this point. The Bush Administration is unpopular, and the Republican Congress — witness Ted Stevens’ primary win — has been dreadful. Given that, it’s surprising that things are in a statistical tie.

On the other hand, elections are won by those who show up, and I think Plouffe is right that Democratic constituencies have more “fire in the belly” than Republican constituencies. What’ll be interesting is to see if Obama can keep Republicans from getting negative enough about his prospects to motivate them, while keeping Democrats motivated enough to sustain that edge — while McCain tries to do the opposite, of course. I suspect that turnout will be the deciding factor here, and reports seem to suggest that the Democrats have a better ground game. Will that be true? Stay tuned, I guess.

UPDATE: Reader David Ragsdale sends a correction:

Um…it’s actually a Democratic Congress now.

Or maybe you meant to write “The Republicans in Congress” …but given that it’s only been in the past few weeks that at least 50% of Americans know that the Democrats control Congress you should be more clear.

Yeah, I really meant the Republican delegation in Congress. I stand corrected.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jonathan Limebrook emails:

I hate pork nearly as much as you do, but I think you condemn Ted Stevens, and with him the politics of Alaska, without truly understanding the relationship between Alaskans and the federal government. The state is virtually owned by the federal government– I believe Nevada is the only state with more federal ownership– and Alaskans are pretty inured to having the feds run roughshod over them. I lived there from 1974 to 1984. The most salient event in turning me from a liberal into a libertarian was when James Earl Carter, unhappy with the state’s land claims after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, high-handedly turned vast swaths of the state into national monuments to punish Mike Gravel for his recalcitrance in accepting the fiats of an imperial government.

Alaskans are smart enough to know that, ignored as an electorate, they have to keep returning their representatives to Congress so that their seniority will eventually avail Alaskans of some political clout. If Stevens appears to you to be a dinosaur, well, he is, but there is method in his longevity. When the federal government, under the sway of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, routinely and without a second thought restricts the livelihoods of Alaskans in their own home, they willl fight back in the onlly way available to them. Alaskans feel that every dime they can wring out of the federal government is theirs by right.

Which brings us to the infamous “bridge to nowhere” whose $250 million price tag shocks you so. By the way, federal spending in Tennesee is over four times that on food stamps alone (http://www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?rgn=44&ind=25&cat=1. Bridges are expensive to build, and especially so in Alaska when the rust belt is not just up the river. As for it being a bridge to nowhere, did it ever occur to you that after it was built, it would be a bridge to somewhere? That little island would have become a place people where could live and without having to take their kids to school by boat in a snowstorm.

Thanks for letting me have my say.

You’re welcome, but I still think the arrogance and entitlement of Ted Stevens is both disgraceful in itself, and a blot on the honor of the Republicans. Trent Lott, after saying he was “damn tired” of the Porkbusters effort, has finally come around on the pork issue. Stevens hasn’t.

SO THE PHONE RANG JUST A BIT AGO, AND IT WAS SEN. BOB CORKER, calling to talk about the “gang of ten” energy compromise plan. That’s gotten some flak from Republicans, but Corker called to say that it’s unfair. He was fired up — by contrast to his laid-back persona the last time we spoke, during the campaign — and says that in fact, the bill that he’s a co-sponsor of is a better — more pro-drilling and pro-energy — bill than the McConnell bill that garnered 44 Republican votes in the Senate. Here are some of his points:

1. The “gang of 10″ bill unilaterally opens up drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, with no state veto. The GOP bill didn’t do that, because Mel Martinez and Charlie Crist didn’t want it. Non-Gulf states Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas can opt-in if they like; the old GOP bill was opt-in everywhere, allowing Florida to block drilling in the Gulf off of its shores.

2. The bill also allows for seismic exploration along the entire continental shelf.

3. The ban on drilling within 50 miles of the coast was also in the GOP bill.

4. Contrary to many commentators’ claims, the “gang of ten” bill is not a lifeline for Obama: “What a bunch of C-R-A-P. ” (Yes, he spelled it out like that) “If Obama embraced this, he would be the biggest flipflopper ever.” A lot of the opposition to the bill is really a case of trying to keep drilling as an election issue instead of getting more drilling.

5. The bill includes a Zubrin-like flex-fuel provision, requiring that 75% of cars by 2015 and 85% by 2020 be capable of running on something besides gasoline.

6. “Our bill also opens up coal-to-liquids. We couldn’t have gotten 44 Republicans for that.”

7. The bill is “incredibly aggressive” on nuclear power, including accelerated-depreciation provisions like those for solar and wind power, more NRC resources to speed licensing, and an end to the Carter-era ban on nuclear fuel reprocessing. “We couldn’t have gotten 44 Republicans on this.”

8. The bill also promotes cellulosic ethanol.

I confess that I haven’t followed this as closely as I probably should have, but anyway, that’s the pro-bill side. He didn’t say this, but my guess is that if he’s calling bloggers, it probably means that he doesn’t think his side is getting a hearing in the traditional media, or in the talk-radio part of alternative media.

UPDATE: Here’s their statement.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ace comments: “Worth reading, but the Gang of Ten compromise keeps all Pacific drilling off-the-table, and as I understand the matter, not only is that a lot of oil, but it could begin producing oil within the year. . . . Corker may think he’s gotten a lot in exchange for this enormous compromise, but I think he’s given away far too much. It’s bad enough that the huge reserves of ANWR remain off the table; now we’re going to permanently declare most of the Pacific off-limits as well?”

ANN ALTHOUSE: “It’s weird — isn’t it? — that Obama is letting himself appear so downbeat.”

What, him worry?

BARACK OBAMA, JIMMY CARTER, and Bob Dylan. I was at Newport when I was a little kid, but all I remember was the pizza and ice cream.

And speaking of Hunter S. Thompson, here’s your movie. And speaking of Bob Dylan, here’s your blog.

UPDATE: Hey, Obama’s bringing together The Daily Show and Rush Limbaugh. He’s a uniter, not a divider!

But, as usual, Limbaugh and Stewart are playing catch-up to InstaPundit.

ABC: Is The Recession All in Your Head?

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Ed Cone criticizes criticism of over-the-top recession reporting. I’m unpersuaded. A recession is not a synonym for “a time when some people are hurting and there are worries about the economy,” and dismissing efforts to keep the language straight as a reliance on technical mumbo-jumbo seems pretty weak to me. As I’ve noted in the past, there’s plenty to worry about regarding the economy, and it’s likely that — despite all the talk about the “recession” we’ve allegedly been in for the past year or so despite positive economic growth — the press is missing economic news that’s worse than what it’s been reporting. They certainly weren’t ahead of the curve on Fannie Mae. Nonetheless, saying that it’s a recession because you’re worried about the economy is like demanding antibiotics because your child feels bad, without waiting for a diagnosis. People do it, but it’s not smart.

Plus, it’s mostly political. In the 1990s people were hurting — farmers in particular, though only Willie Nelson and Joel Dyer cared much — but all we heard about was how great the economy was, even though it was in a big bubble. Now, with numbers that are actually not that bad, we’re hearing about how dreadful the economy is right now. Not about problems that ought to be addressed, not about potential issues for the future, but about how we’re in a depression of Steinbeckian proportions. As I’ve suggested before, this is partly excusable on the grounds that journalism really is facing such a depression — their numbers are horrible — but I suspect that if President-Designate Barack Obama were already in office we wouldn’t be getting this kind of reporting.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Regarding the ABC story, reader Thomas Prewitt writes:

These lines at the end of the piece struck me:

SNOW: Which is not to say it’s not painful to go to the gas pump and pay those prices. Well, thank you so much — go ahead.

YARROW: I was going to say, and you know, gas prices and food prices in particular are causing people to be very emotional a bout it because every single day, they’re aware of difficulties.

This reminded me of Ronald Reagan saying that the American People should be required to pay their income taxes in one big check at the end of the year as this would remind them how much of their money they were sending to the government.

Yes, and it should be the day before Election Day . . .

MORE: Reader Terrence McMahon emails:

I would say that there are some segments of the overall economy that are in really bad shape. Housing and transportation definitely, and where I live, manufacturers of heavy steel items like automotive lifts and steel shipping containers. Mostly due to the price of fuel. However, unemployment is still low. In the rural area where I live, unemployment is well under the national average and right now, many manufacturers can’t hire enough skilled workers.

But try and remember back to the last real recession, how many people were standing in line to buy a $200 + cellphone with a two-year $100 per month contract attached? How about running out and buying a new TV, PC or laptop? How about a $50 videogame? I’m not going to say it didn’t happen, but…

And you may remember the last time there was a “gas shortage”, gas stations actually ran out of gas. I drive all over the Mid-West and South for my job, I pay anywhere upwards of $4 for gas, but I haven’t seen one “No Gas” sign. Think this is a bubble? I’ll bet you the house I paid too much for.

I don’t know if it’s a bubble, but it’s not the Great Depression. It’s not even the Carter Malaise yet, though if folks in Washington have their way that might change . . . .

MARK STEYN: “In among all the usual presidential ditching of inconvenient associations, I can’t think of anything to compare with Obama’s dumping of Trinity. It’s like Jimmy Carter renouncing his Baptist Church in Plains, Ga – although Carter never went so far as to title his campaign-launch promotional book after one of his preacher’s sermons.”

HE WEARS THE CHAINS HE FORGED IN LIFE: “The ghost of Jimmy Carter is haunting the 2008 campaign.” Plus this: “Of the two likely nominees this year, Obama is closest to Carter in background and policy leanings. The parallels between his campaign so far and the one Carter ran in 1976 are striking.”

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: Is Obama Jimmy Carter?

Ezra Klein: No, he’s Bill Clinton.

JAMES EARL OBAMA?

DANIEL HENNINGER: Obama vs. McCain: Let’s Get It On! At one time, the Wall Street Journal would have eschewed such vulgarisms, but I guess that was pre-Murdoch. Anyway, Henninger writes:

Barack Obama, the first “postracial candidate,” is heading to the Democratic nomination almost entirely because of his near-universal support from black voters in the Democratic primaries. In both states Tuesday, his share of that vote was 90% or more. If one resets the black vote to the norm of earlier elections, Hillary Clinton is the nominee. . . .

Hillary Clinton, who now resembles the robot’s crawling hand in the final scenes of “The Terminator,” can plausibly argue to the superdelegates that much of this is electoral bunk. In Indiana, her share of the white vote to his, men and women combined, was 60-40, a huge lead. In North Carolina, 61-37.

They won’t buy it. Ever. . . . The Democratic superdelegates are products of their party – nice liberals, nice people. To stiff Obama’s black voters at this late hour, most of the superdelegates would have to be as hard and clinical about politics as the Clintons. They aren’t.

Read the whole thing, including this conclusion: “If John McCain can’t talk the American people out of re-Carterizing themselves, what has he been preparing for all these years?”

NOAM SCHEIBER on Clinton vs. Obama and Carter vs. Kennedy. “Hillary’s only path to the nomination, barring a meltdown by Obama, is to destroy his electability. But harsh attacks on Obama will inevitably discourage African Americans from voting in the fall, and Hillary can’t beat McCain without strong black turnout in places like Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Conversely, any attack on Hillary that alienated moderate Republican women could cripple Obama’s chances.” And not just black voters, but all the Obama faithful. Yes, I mentioned this a while back, and now it’s become conventional wisdom.

Meanwhile, Obama can’t seem to shake the Jeremiah Wright problem. He’s got a similar double bind — alienate black supporters, or push away white supporters. The willingness of some of his current supporters to label every criticism racist only intensifies that dilemma, of course, and undercuts his original “transformative” appeal further.

UPDATE: More here: “In rejecting the racist views of his longtime spiritual mentor but not disowning him, Obama has unwittingly enhanced his image as the African American candidate — as opposed to being just a remarkable candidate who happens to be black. That poses a dilemma for unelected superdelegates, who as professional politicians will settle the contest because neither Obama nor Clinton can win enough elected delegates to be nominated.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts from Walter Shapiro at Salon. “Democrats are being barraged with new information about the candidates long after most of them have made a binding decision on a nominee. It is akin to being given a subscription to Consumer Reports the day after you bought a new car.”

MORE: “Obama Won Over His Base…the American Media.”

STEPHEN GREEN IS DRUNKBLOGGING THE SUPER TUESDAY RETURNS. His liver, at least, is hoping things will be settled tonight . . . . Excerpts: “Superdelegate Christine Pelosi (daughter of Speaker Nancy) tells Sean Hannity that she’s ‘torn between my gender and my generation.’ Either she’s a perfect example of the identity politics that plague the Democrats, or there’s not one difference between Clinton and Obama important enough to sway Pelosi with substance. . . . What’s interesting about the Republican race is that it doesn’t seem to feature any actual conservatives. McCain is a first-amendment buster. Romney’s position on abortion has, through the years, proven transparently expedient. Huckabee is Carter redux, but with double the false humility. Paul hangs out with the Blame America First crowd. And pundits wonder why no one has this race tied up yet?”

UPDATE: Jason Pye is liveblogging the GOP results, but he’s apparently staying sober.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Professor Bainbridge is liveblogging, too, and I’ll bet he’ll have a nice glass of cabernet.

MICKEY KAUS: “Obama goes after Edwards: Hillary’s not even Obama’s main rival anymore?”

UPDATE: Brendan Loy isn’t happy: Edwards vs. Huckabee? Shoot me now.

Huckabee was a nice, likeable guy when we talked to him. But honestly, I think I’d vote for Edwards over Huckabee, though I’d feel dirty the next morning. And I’d be even more likely to vote for Hillary or Obama.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: “Huckabee is the Harriet Miers of the presidential candidates. Two words: under… qualified.”

And some related thoughts from Rand Simberg.

MORE: One of Rand Simberg’s commenters wants to know why I’d prefer Edwards over Huckabee. Basically, I believe that both would have similar socialist/populist programs, but that Republicans would combine against Edwards’ programs, producing useful gridlock. On the other hand, Dems would be only too happy to go along with Huckabee’s programs, and too many Republicans might do so too, out of party loyalty. The main thing Huckabee has, policy wise, that Edwards doesn’t is that he favors Second Amendment rights, but I wonder if he wouldn’t jettison them in some sort of “for the children” compromise at a crucial point, knowing that he’d get media adulation for doing so. Plus, the more I watch him operation, the more Clintonian his campaign seems. Edwards’, on the other hand, is just inept, which suggests that he wouldn’t be very scary in office. And both would probably be equally Carteresque in foreign policy.

DESPERATION MODE? “There must be at least something to that purported Sunday New York Times piece on questionable Clinton Library donors. Dismissing the attacks on Clinton, Inc for going negative on Obama, Bill Clinton kept them up while on with Charlie Rose. One has to wonder if, knowing some mud was coming their way from the New York Times, they didn’t opt to drag Obama down into it first. If you doubted the Obama drug smear was a planned attack, you can pretty much get over that thought now.”

UPDATE: More here. And Marc Ambinder has a post, too. And there are some angry Obama fans in the comments.

This underscores a problem for Hillary — if she beats Obama, but in a way that Obama supporters think is dirty, via smears or excessive reliance on “superdelegate” votes — they may not turn out in November. If she doesn’t pull out all the stops, though, she may not win the nomination. And this has to bother Bill, who managed to retire undefeated, by sullying his legacy since her loss will reflect badly on him.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Juan Paxety emails:

An interesting post on potential dissatisfied Obama voters if Hillary wins. But what will the reaction be when the Obama voters realize that Florida and Michigan, two states with substantial minority populations that might be prone to support Obama, will not be allowed to have delegates at the Democratic Convention?

This is not the first time the Democrats have pulled a similar stunt. In 1968, before the street demonstrations, the Democrats packed the convention balconies with “observers” then took a voice vote on whether to seat the legal delegations from several Southern states. The “observers” could clearly be seen shouting votes to remove the delegates. The Georgia delegation was replaced by one led by Julian Bond, of all people. Georgians fled the Democratic Party in droves and didn’t support another Democrat for President until Jimmy Carter ran in 1976.

Will the Obama supporters similarly abandon Hillary in the fall?

Yes, this is an issue. If Hillary beats Obama soundly in the early primaries that’s one thing. If it’s close, and it looks like she’s won by smears, or by clever insider manipulation, then she may lose not only Obama supporters, but black voters who are generally supportive of the Clintons. On the other hand, with Obama looking strong, she may not win the nomination without playing those cards. The best thing for the Democratic Party, of course, would be for her to play it clean, ensuring that whoever wins the nomination is in a better position to win the general election. Evidence to date, however, suggests that she’ll do what most candidates do — whatever it takes to win the nomination, and try to deal with the general election problems when they arise.

BARACK OBAMA GETS THE COVETED ENDORSEMENT OF Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy guru, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Take that, Hillary.

Plus, a line that Republicans will quote against her if she’s in the general election: “‘Being a former first lady doesn’t prepare you to be president,” Brzezinski said.”

WIDENING THE FIELD: “Why doesn’t Carter put his money where his mouth is and seek the Democratic presidential nomination? After all, he’s only a few years older than Mike Gravel, and he may be the only guy who can beat Hillary Clinton. He’s been against the Iraq war since at least 1991, when Barack Obama was in diapers and Al Gore was a neocon war monger.”

Shouldn’t test the waters without a poll, though. So here goes:

And, for more information:

UPDATE: Okay, with around 2,500 votes, there’s a very large majority in favor of Jimmy Carter running, and an absolutely crushing majority in favor of not voting for him if he does. I can only conclude that the vast majority of InstaPundit readers either enjoy watching train wrecks, or feel that Jimmy Carter hasn’t been humiliated enough. Or, possibly, both.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader suggests I should drill down further. Good idea!

MICKEY KAUS: “Obama has apparently just endorsed one of the worst ideas of Carter era liberalism, ‘comparable worth,’ which would have lawyers and judges deciding what every job is ‘worth’ according to some bureaucratic, non-market criteria that would inevitably punish ‘unskilled’ manual work–i.e, the very workers who are screwed the most by globalization. Are truckdrivers really paid too much?”

I think Mickey’s losing enthusiasm for Obama.