CHANGE: NY, NJ Dems Cut And Run On Gay Marriage.

NEW YORK TIMES: In Iowa, Second Thoughts On Obama. It was a bait-and-switch, and the rubes are catching on.

DAN RIEHL: NY-23: The Rubes Are Inside The Beltway, Folks.

Plus this: “Huckabee is easily dispatched. He is not a conservative. Anyone suggesting that remains blinded by those wonderful crosses they saw dancing across their TV screen in last year’s Huckabee campaign ads. Fiscally, he’s a populist, at best. And he actually has quite a liberal streak. Distributing income is just as much a desire with Huckabee as it is with the Left. He simply wants to use those tax dollars in a different way.”

HOUSE VOTES TO DEFUND ACORN. So the Senate and House have both voted. Will Obama sign?

UPDATE: Reader Kevin O’Brien smells a rat:

It’s a typical these-voters-are-such-rubes stunt; the House and Senate voted to defund ACORN on different bills.

The Senate bill is a housing bill, the House bill the federal takeover of student loans. Each bill will wind up in conference committee where the ACORN ban can be quietly stripped out, behind closed doors and secure from prying eyes. Then the org can keep on doing its important work of voter fraud and pandering to presumed pedophiles.

The most useful principle to hold close when considering members of Congress: they’re all crooks.

We’ll have to keep paying attention then.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: The End of Liberaltarianism. “So Obama loves huge government, is prosecuting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq pretty much along Bushian lines, hasn’t closed Gitmo, and hasn’t done anything about “don’t ask, don’t tell.” And now, my foolish ‘liberaltarian’ friends, comes the coup de grace. From the AP: ‘The Obama administration supports extending three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of the year, the Justice Department told Congress in a letter made public Tuesday.’” So now we know who the rubes were. . . .

DAN RIEHL: “Why are there Tea Parties and large numbers of Americans feeling disconnected from media and politics? It’s because a large portion of America feels ignored by the culture. Trust me on this, the last time that happened it led to the Reagan Revolution when the usually quiet rubes decided that they wanted to be heard.”

And related thoughts from Ann Althouse, with an assist from Camille Paglia.

MANY COPS ARE ANGRY AT OBAMA.

UPDATE: Reader Joseph Hrutka writes: “Didn’t their unions endorse Obama?” Just another case of figuring out who the rubes are. Kinda like those marijuana-legalization folks . . . .

RICH OBAMA SUPPORTERS discover that their taxes will go up. Another “who are the rubes?” moment . . . .

Meanwhile, Obama’s approve/disapprove numbers are now almost even.

POLITICO: Independents begin to edge away from President Obama. “In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest.” He ran as different kind of politician than he’s governing as. He hopes to ram through stuff that will cement his position before the rubes catch on. It’ll be close.

YOU MEAN WE STILL HAVE A REPUTATION PROBLEM?

Now, do not confuse me with somebody who cares very much what editorialists in Der Spiegel or other outposts of the European chattering classes think of any American president. I could not care less, in no small part because I believe that the interests of such people generally diverge from mine own. I note, however, that many of the cosmopolitan Americans who voted for Barack Obama did so because they were embarrassed by the Bush administration’s reputation among foreigners, particularly European elites. They hated having to explain themselves over dinner in Paris, Brussels, and Frankfurt, and worried that most Europeans would not understand that we are not all unnuanced rubes. I therefore wonder how such people will react if anti-Obama sentiment in Europe grows to the point where they have to explain themselves all over again. Will they rise in Barack Obama’s defense, agree with the foreign critique but deny that they voted for him, or explode from the cognitive dissonance?

The possibilities for hilarity are not small.

And I intend to enjoy them to the max.

JOHN KASS: Obama’s political play should shock no one.

It’s amusing to watch the Washington political establishment feign shock, now that President Barack Obama’s reform administration has used a clay foot to vigorously kick one inspector general and boot another out the door.

One inspector general foolishly investigated a friend of the president. Another inspector general audited those juicy bonuses given to AIG executives as part of $700 billion federal bailout of the financial industry. . . .

The use of political muscle may be prohibited in the mythic transcendental fairyland where much of the Obama spin originates, sprouting green and lush, like the never-ending fields of primo Hopium.

But our president is from Chicago. Obama’s Media Merlin David Axelrod and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel come right from Chicago Democratic machine boss Mayor Richard Daley. They don’t believe in fairies.

Daley can’t wait to be rid of his own inspector general, David Hoffman, who had the audacity to question why Daley’s nephew received $68 million in city pension funds to invest. The mayor insists he didn’t know anything about it. Nobody with a functioning brain believes the mayor.

It’s the Chicago Way, which doesn’t have much to do with “hope and change,” as the rubes are discovering. . . .

OBAMA ON THE MIDEAST: THEN AND NOW. “Is there any doubt that had he said that in 2008 he would have been greeted with catcalls and boos? In 2008 he sounded serious and committed to stopping the Iranian nuclear threat and was candid about the nature of the regime. . . . It is hard to escape the conclusion that he told a very different story in 2008 to get elected and, once in office, sprung the most antagonistic approach to Israel and the most timid toward Iran of any president in recent memory. Those who bought his story in 2008 were had. And those who vouched for him should be embarrassed.”

As always, it’s a question of who the rubes are.

THE FIERCE MORAL URGENCY OF CHANGE! Obama defends DOMA in federal court. Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children. Who were the rubes on this one? I think we know now. Remember: If you’re not sure who the mark is, you’re the mark.

MICHAEL S. MALONE:

Be careful what you wish for.

No segment of American industry did more than high tech to elect Barack Obama as President of the United States. The 2008 Obama campaign will go down in history as having made better use of digital technology than any before it. From a hugely powerful website to the reproduction of the “Hope” poster on thousands of Facebook pages to the President’s own ‘tweet’ on election night, Silicon Valley played a crucial role in the success of President Obama . . .and Silicon Valley naturally assumed that the new President would do the same in return.

It hasn’t quite turned out that way. . .

The first surprise to many Valleyites is how innately anti-entrepreneurial the new Administration has turned out to be. Candidate Obama looked like a high tech executive – smart, hip, a gadget freak – and he certainly talked pro-entrepreneur. But the reality of the last six months has been very different.

Another bunch figures out who the rubes are.

HEH: Obama taps anti-abortion activist to faith-based health post. “President Barack Obama has tapped an anti-abortion activist to a senior Health and Human Services ‘faith-based’ position just a week after the murder of prominent abortion doctor George Tiller.” And it sounds like another round of Who Are The Rubes? is underway.

ANDREW SULLIVAN FIGURES OUT WHO THE RUBES ARE: “I have a sickeningly familiar feeling in my stomach, and the feeling deepens with every interaction with the Obama team on these issues. They want them to go away. They want us to go away. . . . Yesterday, Robert Gibbs gave non-answer after non-answer on civil unions and Obama’s clear campaign pledge to grant equal federal rights for gay couples; non-answer after non-answer on the military’s remaining ban on honest servicemembers. What was once a categorical pledge is now – well let’s call it the toilet paper that it is.”

In entirely unrelated news, Obama has also flip-flopped on releasing the “torture” photos. Meet the new boss, yada yada. All of this was entirely predictable. And yet, his election was a matter of fierce moral urgency about which there could be no serious disagreement. . . .

UPDATE: More hope and change! Indefinite Detention Weighed. “The Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil — indefinitely and without trial — as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”

Previously: “You were expecting a Chicago machine politician to show an enthusiasm for civil liberties?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: In the comments at Politico, limited sympathy for Andrew’s plight. My favorite: “Gee, it seems like I’ve lived through this before.”

And this rings true: “Shoulda stuck with conservatives sully, we woulda kept ya around. Chicago style politics just uses you until you run out of use. You have run out my friend.” As Jim Geraghty notes: “All statements from Barack Obama come with an expiration date. All of them.”

I talk to the wind. The wind cannot hear. And I don’t look as good as Kirsty Hawkshaw when I do it. . . .

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

“Tea Party” protests in New York and Connecticut.

Wealthy Obama supporters figure out who the rubes were.

Lamar Alexander wants Congress probed on interrogations. What did Nancy Pelosi know, and when did she know it?

Men hit hardest by recession.

Extremism in defense of liberty. Related item here.

How PJTV could have saved taxpayers a bundle.

Jim Moran (D-VA) calls Robert E. Lee a patriot.

The delightfulness of Mary Katharine Ham.

And another questionable PMA earmark, this time involving Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) and Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN).

WHO ARE THE RUBES? (CONT’D): Barack Obama’s rich supporters fear his tax plans show he’s a class warrior. And, apparently, their contributions didn’t buy protection, as they might have hoped.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Brown emails:

See what being historically ignorant will get you. You must learn from the mistakes of others or you’re doomed.

I do not claim great knowledge in socialist, communist or even world history but I am aware that after the Bolshevik revolution, the French revolution, the Cuban revolution, and more I can’t think of right now, that once in power, the powerful leader(s) turned on those who didn’t fit the profile they were selling. Especially, if they ever presented themselves as having an influence on the leadership.

Once they run out of rich bank and industrial CEOs to pillory, they’ll turn on the rich Hollywood and Silicon Valley CEOs, who wanted to salve their guilt at being capitalist with a capital C.

Yeah, you can already see that coming.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts from Dan Riehl. Not sure I agree.

MORE: Tarquin’s poppies?

CHANGE! Obama To Fire His First Gay Arabic Linguist. Good thing we don’t have that homophobic Bush Administration anymore!

Plus, a “rainbow rebellion?” Who are the rubes again?

ANOTHER Chris Dodd Donor Debacle.

The hits keep on coming on Chris Dodd’s flaky first quarter finance report.

We learned he raised $44,000 from usurious payday lenders. So, could he find some donors even more anti-consumer than that bunch?

Answer: Yes.

Dodd raised $18,400 from executives at the Intercontinental Exchange. “one of the nation’s leading exchanges trading credit default swaps and other risky financial instruments.”

Actually, what the Intercontinental Exchange (a/k/a “ICE”) did in 2008 is far more problematic.

It’s like all his anti-Wall Street talk was just to fool the rubes.

WHY IS VENTURE CAPITAL UNDER ASSAULT? Lots of people are discovering who the rubes were . . . .

SO, TELL ME AGAIN, WHO WERE THE RUBES?

Civil liberties advocates blasted the Bush administration for subjecting Guantanamo Bay captives to indefinite detention and for denying them access to federal courts. The outrage over Guantanamo Bay among President Obama’s liberal base and among the populations of certain United States allies (particularly in Europe) probably explains why President Obama’s first set of executive orders included a provision directing the closure of the controversial detention facility.

The Obama administration, however, has taken the position that Supreme Court’s reasoning in Boumediene does not confer habeas rights to Bagram detainees. This is the same argument that the Bush administration made. This logic, however, could support the capture and transfer of individuals to Bagram, where they could face prolonged and indefinite detention and denial of access to United States courts. Bagram could become the functional equivalent of Guantanamo Bay.

Glenn Greenwald comments:

My, what a ringing and inspiring defense of habeas corpus that was from candidate Barack Obama. So moving and eloquent and passionate. And that George W. Bush sure was an awful tyrant for trying to “create a legal black hole at Guantanamo” — apparently, all Good People devoted to a restoration of the rule of law and the Constitution know that the place where the U.S. should “create a legal black hole” for abducted detainees is Bagram, not Guantanamo. What a fundamental difference that is. . . . The Obama DOJ is now squarely to the Right of an extremely conservative, pro-executive-power, Bush 43-appointed judge on issues of executive power and due-process-less detentions.

Yeah, it’s as if all that talk about the evil power-grabs of the Bush Administration was just insincere electioneering. What made those power-grabs evil, in Obama’s eyes, wasn’t that they were power-grabs. It was that they were by the Bush Administration. The rest was just talk. Some of us are less surprised than others at this development.

UPDATE: “A Guantanamo by any other name?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Barry Dauphin emails: “Next thing you know, waterboarding won’t be torture at Bagram. Hope and Change!” They’ll rename it “Aquaplaning.”

MEET THE NEW BOSS, YADA YADA: TPM: “Obama Mimics Bush on State Secrets”. Dan Froomkin calls it “Un-American.” Jake Tapper writes, “Meet Barack W. Bush.” What surprises me is that these people are surprised. It seemed obvious to me that Obama had no real commitment to civil liberties, and that talk to the contrary was just to fool the rubes.

Moe Lane, likewise.

TARGETING FALSE PROPHETS:

But rather than attacking just Cramer—who does seem to be an unreliable source of financial information—why not go after Barney Frank who, also in 2003, argued that “these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” As the Washington Post reported, Frank “said the [Bush] administration’s position [on tighter regulation of Fannie and Freddy] is driven by concerns about the financial safety and soundness of the companies ‘to the exclusion of concern about housing.’” To the exclusion of concern about housing. But here is a potential difference: Frank hasn’t attacked Barack Obama’s stimulus plan as “causing the greatest destruction of wealth I have ever seen by a president,” as Cramer recently did.

But of course, you rubes, cable television is the real malevolent power behind the financial crisis. Mustache-twisting CEOs use financial news programs to manufacture consent!

Pay no attention to the corrupt legislator behind the curtain.

MICKEY KAUS: “And here I almost believed Obama’s health care plans were all about lowering costs and getting the budget under control.” That’s for the rubes . .. .

WHO ARE THE RUBES? Well, one of ‘em was Christopher Buckley.

MERYL YOURISH: Puncturing Peretz’s Balloon: “Martin Peretz who gave his word that Barack Obama’s eloquence about Israel was sincere is now questioning that. He’s stunned. I hope that he will apologize for accusing those of us who were skeptical of President Obama’s commitment to Israel of bad faith or ignorance. . . . I can’t understand why the media hasn’t even reported on the appointment of Freeman. This is an important post and he is close to two nations that don’t necessarily have America’s best interests at heart.”

Peretz was played for a sucker, answering at least one of the “who are the rubes?” questions from last fall. He won’t be the last to make this discovery, I suspect.

FIGURING OUT WHO THE RUBES WERE: Jewish Leaders Blast Clinton Over Israel Criticism. “Zuckerman, Lawmakers, Local Jews Say Secretary Of State Not The Hillary Clinton They Used To Know.” Oh, she seems about the same to me. . . .

UPDATE: Jeffrey Goldberg thinks they’re overreacting.

HE HAS NOT YET BEGUN TO WANK: Atrios makes Barack Obama “Wanker of the Day” over the Rick Warren decision. John Hawkins has a big roundup of reaction from the leftosphere. So, once again the “who are the rubes?” question raises itself. . . . (Via the InstaWife).

And Ann Althouse comments: “Who needs omens when Obama was always clear that he opposed same-sex marriage? He said so every time he was asked.” Yep, but Obamania was such that even those who pride themselves on seeing what is in front of their faces ignored it.

Also, Gay Obamaniacs Just Got Punk’d. More on that here.

SO, WHO ARE THE RUBES THIS TIME? Glenn Greenwald has a clue. “So many progressives were misled about what Obama is and what he believes. But it wasn’t Obama who misled them. It was their own desires, their eagerness to see what they wanted to see rather than what reality offered.” Well, the master bullshitter always lets the rubes hear what they want to hear. And knows that there will be some rubes who will make excuses, even after the truth is revealed.

BARACK OBAMA AND AYN RAND: Reader Edward Clark emails:

Obama seems to have taken note of the John Galt talk. He recently made the comment that McCain was trying to make a virtue out of selfishness.

I seem to recall another Ayn Rand book called The Virtue of Selfishness. Maybe he is hoping for people to Go John Galt for some unknown reason.

Maybe Obama is a closet Randian, and all the lefties are the real rubes. Also, maybe I’ll get a pony. Or a unicorn.

UPDATE: Understanding the virtue of selfishness!

WHO ARE THE RUBES? You get the sense that he believes everyone can be played. It’s worked for him so far.

THEY’RE STILL COVERING FOR HIM, but The New York Times has a story on the Bill Ayers / Barack Obama connection. It ran on Saturday, natch.

Yeah, of course it’s a whitewash, but that’s better than the black hole that the NYT’s coverage has been so far. Now they’ve admitted it’s a story.

More on the Times whitewash from Stephen Green (”I don’t know of anyone with a substantive worry that deep in his heart, Obama wants to blow up the Pentagon or even just stick it to the man, baby. Instead, the worry is that Obama has had some kind of relationship with an unrepentant domestic terrorist, which even Shane must admit Obama has downplayed.”) and Tom Maguire. (”Mr. Shane closes with various acquaintances of Mr. Obama assuring us that he is not likely to be making bombs in the basement of the White House. Glad we cleared that up. Now, how about the question of whether Bill Ayers has a hard-left educational philosophy shared by Barack Obama? My guess is that soccer moms (and dads) would be interested to learn about that.”) Both posts are must-reads.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Fausta Wertz.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Sarah Palin seems to be making this an issue, by accusing Obama of “palling around with terrorists.”

MORE: Reader John Vecchione:

I think you do your readers a disservice by quoting the idea that Obama is hiding the Ayers relationship is the real problem. He’s running for President, I’d down play it too! I’d also apologize. Here is the thing that eats at me. What did Ayers see in him? How did such a young man come into Ayers circle and why was he embraced? Dorhn, Ayers, Wright all saw something in Obama that made them want to be with him and promote him? These are not people who like promoting pro-America candidates.

What do they know about Obama that we don’t?

Maybe he just suckered them. But then, that takes us back to the perennial “who are the rubes?” question. . . .

SPACE ALIENS IN DERBYSHIRE’S DRIVEWAY? Well, there is a government coverup, you know. In fact, the Iraq invasion was really all about recovering a crashed alien spaceship — everything else was just to fool the rubes. It was worth it, though, for all the advanced technology we’re reverse-engineering.

BARACK OBAMA: Europeans are cooler than Americans.

Tom Maguire has some language questions for Obama, too. But isn’t contrasting American rubes with sophisticated Europeans more in the line of Democratic primary fodder than of general election material? And isn’t the whole French thing kind of, well . . . Kerryesque?

UPDATE: Reader Daniel Schensul emails:

Criticizing Obama for suggesting that kids should learn more foreign languages — Good times!!

Seriously, do you really want to mock someone for suggesting that it would be good for kids in schools to have better foreign language programs? Is that where you want your blog to go? You could have criticized him for avoiding the question of immigrants learning English, like they did over at the corner. Instead, you just typed the boilerplate attack line and move on.

That’s kinda sad, I have to say, and not normally your style.

I’m not mocking Obama for suggesting foreign language education. I’m mocking Obama for yuppie condescension. Watch the video.

TIGERHAWK: “The editors of the New York Times are beginning to worry that they are the rubes.”

ANN ALTHOUSE on Obama’s flipflops: “Every single one of those flipflops has been an improvement, in my opinion, so am I supposed to reject Obama for flipflopping? I voted for Obama in the Wisconsin primary in part because I predicted he’d turn out to be flexible and pragmatic. I do agree with Krauthammer that it’s funny the way the people who fell for the Obama of the primaries — who, unlike me, actually liked those positions he was taking — are letting him get away with the flipflop. I suppose, just as I convinced myself that the real Obama was not the one I was seeing back then, they are convincing themselves that the real Obama is not the one they are seeing now.”

As always with Obama, it’s a question of who the rubes really are. It’s the power of glamour.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse responds. I wasn’t calling her a rube, particularly — the “who are the rubes?” line has been a running thing with Obama, going back to this post: “When it comes to things like NAFTA, there seem to be only two possibilities. Either Obama’s anti-NAFTA talk is a ruse to fool the rubes, or his coterie of distinguished economic experts is a ruse to fool a different batch of rubes.”

To expand a bit: Either the people who believed the early-primary left-talk are the rubes, or the people who believe Obama now are the rubes . . . or anyone who thinks Obama has fixed principles at all is a rube. Your call.

ANOTHER UPDATE: From one of Ann’s commenters:

I think the meaning of “rube” is similar to a hustler’s mark — someone who believes things they shouldn’t because of some externally generated desire to believe. There’s an element of conscious deception, too — a rube is lied to, not misled.

I think the rube factor with Obama comes into play on two issues in particular: NAFTA and the war. On both issues, you get the impression that he’s making promises that he not only won’t keep, but that he can’t keep and shouldn’t keep.

Indeed.

Also, I originally read Althouse as calling my statement “gnomic,” and was going to protest that I am not, and never have been, an Aorist. But she actually said “gnomish.” That works, and demonstrates her deep learning, as Gnomish is a fairly loose language. Hence the need for me to post a clarification.

AUSTIN BAY on Obama’s retreat from retreat. Plus, who “the real rubes in this election” will turn out to be . . . .

GUNS AND BITTER: Obama on small-town PA: Clinging to religion, guns, xenophobia. That’s gonna win ‘em over.

UPDATE: Owing Austan Goolsbee an apology? “Behind closed doors — among his fellow educated, upper-class liberals — the real Obama sounds very different from the one who threatened to pull the U.S. out of NAFTA.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Huffington Post has audio. And there’s this reaction: “It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking.” But Armando thinks he’ll get away with it. Plus, Obama’s response.

MORE: “Why not just call them rubes?”

STILL MORE: Jim Geraghty notes that after the Jeremiah Wright debacle, Obama is in a poor position to cast aspersions on angry, bitter xenophobes.

Plus these thoughts on playing both ends against the middle: “Perhaps when Obama returns to Pennsylvania to ask for votes, he will charm the locals with tales of the aging Bay Area hippies who just do not understand how US trade policy is destroying the our manufacturing base and the lives of upstanding Americans in the heartland who bowl better than he does.” Heh.

MORE STILL: Obama had better hope that this reaction isn’t typical:

First of all, Pennsylvanians…especially those of us in the western part of the state, really get irked when we are called “midwestern.” The Midwest doesn’t start until the Ohio border, and unless you’ve lived in both Pennsylvania and Ohio, you wouldn’t get the difference.

Second, the comment about “people who are different” is just so insulting to those of us who live in or around Pittsburgh, an area noted for its ethnicity. I can go 25 miles in any direction from where I live and see churches, temples, neighborhoods, signs, social halls, stores, etc., for many different ethnic groups from every part of the world. I can also pass through many small towns and not notice anyone who is hoping for a remake of “Deliverance.” Honestly, Obama is such a sham. He doesn’t have a clue about anything having to do with real life. What an idiot.

OK…I’ve ranted!

Best,
Jean Spik
Moon Township, PA

Like I said . . . .

JESSE WALKER: “It might sound odd coming from a libertarian, but I wish the Pelosi-Reid Democrats had more in common with Franklin Roosevelt. Not the Franklin Roosevelt who occupied the White House from 1933 to 1945, but the Franklin Roosevelt who aspired to the White House in the election of 1932. The Democratic platform of that year is a remarkable document, considering the way the party’s candidate went on to govern.” Was it just there to fool the rubes? If so, it worked!

BARACK OBAMA: Our leading warrior against anti-Semitism? Jake Tapper is unimpressed. (Via Hot Air, where it’s noted that Palestinians have a different view. So who are the rubes this time?).

SLIDING GOOLSBEE UNDER THE BUS?

Does this answer the which bunch of rubes question?

WHO ARE THE RUBES this time?

OBAMA’S NAFTA DOUBLE-TALK confirmed. “After reporting on Barack Obama’s dance with the Canadians on NAFTA yesterday, Canadian broadcaster CTV got accused of perpetrating a smear against the Democratic front-runner. They insisted that Obama meant every word he said about overturning the free-trade treaty, and that no one had contacted the Canadian diplomatic corps to reassure them that it was mere demagoguery. CTV responded today by naming names — and suddenly the Obama campaign has grown quiet.” More here from ABC News.

At least we’re learning which bunch of rubes is being fooled. Coming next — an Obama adviser tells the Iraqi government not to pay attention to his troop-withdrawal talk?

UPDATE: At U.S. News, James Pethokoukis on Obama vs. Obama on trade.

MAYBE THERE’S NO REAL CONTRADICTION HERE:

The Obama campaign is rife with academic economists, according to the latest issue of The New Republic . . . . Meanwhile, according to a new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll, people think McCain will do a better job handling the economy than Obama.

No, that’s not a knock on Obama’s economists — just on the fact that he doesn’t seem to be listening to them. When it comes to things like NAFTA, there seem to be only two possibilities. Either Obama’s anti-NAFTA talk is a ruse to fool the rubes, or his coterie of distinguished economic experts is a ruse to fool a different batch of rubes.

UPDATE: More on the NAFTA front: “The Canadian television station that reported that Obama’s campaign had assured the Canadian ambassdor that their anti-NAFTA rhetoric wasn’t serious stands by its story in the face of denials from Team Obama and the Canadian Embassy. Obama’s in a tough spot here.”

SAY IT AIN’T SO: “Both Democratic presidential candidates, who promise to curb the influence of corporate lobbyists in Washington, helped enact narrowly tailored tax breaks sought by major campaign contributors.”

It’s as if the whole thing is just a game to fool the rubes.

OOPS:

Why is Rudy doing so well? People in the know used to think the rubes just didn’t realize Rudy has dressed in drag and once lived with 2 gay guys; they just remembered him as the star of that 9/11 show they saw on TV that one time.

But now it’s dawning on the pundits that Americans probably know all that stuff by now, so why isn’t Rudy sunk? They’re shuffling around for explanations.

Shuffling, indeed.

MORE PROBLEMS WITH THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN’S FUNDRAISING, along with this complaint:

The saddest thing about all this is that no one has a very strong incentive to do the legwork on researching it. The campaigns don’t want to know if their donors are shady, as we saw in the willful blindness towards Norman Hsu. Hillary’s rivals have an incentive, of course, but there must be fundraising skeletons in Obama’s and Edwards’s closets too, just as there must be plenty on the GOP side. That makes it a game of mutually assured destruction among the oppo research teams and no one wants to play that game. The media doesn’t have a grand incentive either, the LA Times’s laudable example notwithstanding, because investigations like these are resource-intensive while basically amounting to fishing expeditions, with little guarantee of finding any wrongdoing. Plus, once you investigate one campaign, you open yourself up to charges of bias by not investigating them all. The best hope is the FEC, but does the FEC have the time and personnel — and political will, given the inevitable feeble claims of anti-Asian racism that are bubbling up here — to do spot checks like this? I’m asking honestly; I don’t know the answer. And if the answer is yes, why aren’t they doing it?

Because all this stuff is just a game to fool the rubes?

JONAH GOLDBERG ON 9/11 SIX YEARS LATER:

If I had said in late 2001, with bodies still being pulled from the wreckage, anthrax flying through the mail, pandemonium reigning at the airports, and bombs falling on Kabul, that by ‘07 leading Democrats would be ridiculing the idea of the war on terror as a bumper sticker, I’d have been thought mad. If I’d predicted that a third of Democrats would be telling pollsters that Bush knew in advance about 9/11, and that the eleventh of September would become an innocuous date for parental get-togethers to talk about potty-training strategies and phonics for preschoolers, people would have thought I was crazy. . . .

But it’s important to remember that from the outset, the media took it as their sworn duty to keep Americans from getting too riled up about 9/11. I wrote a column about it back in March of 2002. Back then the news networks especially saw it as imperative that we not let our outrage get out of hand. I can understand the sentiment, but it’s worth noting that such sentiments vanished entirely during hurricane Katrina. After 9/11, the press withheld objectively accurate and factual images from the public, lest the rubes get too riled up. After Katrina, the press endlessly recycled inaccurate and exaggerated information in order to keep everyone upset. The difference speaks volumes.

Indeed it does.

MARC COOPER: “Oh, I can’t tell you how much I love this one. Bill Clinton advising the monarchs of Dubai on how to sell the ports deal. I’d expect no less from Slick Willie. Just happy to see one more confirmation of what absolute, rank opportunists he and the Missus are. It all reminds me of how the Whitewater development project specialized in ripping off working class rubes with bait and switch mortgage deals. Yum-yum!”

He also wonders how Bush is going to get out of trouble on the ports deal. Perhaps it depends on what else happens in the next 45 days.

HOWARD DEAN’S PROFESSION OF RELIGIOUS FAITH is getting a bad review from the formerly Dean-friendly Julian Sanchez.

This strikes me as bizarre. It’d be one thing to have just done it. But it seems potentially counterproductive for someone who’s already on record as saying he doesn’t go to church much and doesn’t let his religion influence his politics to, in essence, announce that he’s made a strategic decision to pull out the God-talk for the rubes below the Mason-Dixon (while, presumably, abstaining up North). If his secularism is offputting to religious voters, isn’t this kind of calculated, condescending pandering likely to be even more so?

Sounds like it to me.

AIRBRUSH AWARD: Brian Carnell says the BBC is rewriting its own stories after the fact to avoid embarrassment. What would they say if Tony Blair revised his speeches after the fact with no explanation? Meanwhile the Los Angeles Times is recycling the discredited BBC story about PFC Lynch’s rescue. That’s absolutely pathetic.

And even Bill Clinton is defending Bush on the WMD front.

It’s a sad world when you can trust politicians (and Bill Clinton!) more than the media. But nowadays, well. . . .

Randy Barnett examines why we’re seeing so much lying.

UPDATE: The Daily Howler has more:

For reasons that are completely unclear, major parts of the Washington press corps have flipped on Bush in the past few weeks. But their dysfunctional culture lives; they continue to spin the basic facts to construct a sweet story which furthers their outlook. Their reports are full of spin and conflation. Can’t you hear what they’re saying? Hey, rubes!

Indeed.

MICKEY KAUS HAS DISCOVERED “blindered Upper West Side rubes” and “creeping Zabarsism” at the Times. Say it ain’t so, Mickey!

I was more of a Balducci’s guy myself.

ROD DREHER IS MAD about the “Beverly Hillbillies” reality show, and Andrew Cline tends to agree with him. But David Kreitman isn’t so sure it’s bad:

I know that what Dreher and Jeff are saying about the attitudes among the Hollywood elite and others toward Southern culture is indisputable. I know how parochial and embarrassingly narrow minded these people can be when discussing American subcultures outside of the bubbles they inhabit in LA or New York. I also know how many Americans use the caricature of the Southern yokel as the mental template for High Ignorance and Stupidity. But that does not overrule certain unavoidable facts about Southern rednecks, hicks, hillbillies, yokels, yahoos, hayseeds, rubes, or whatever you want to call them, that will never fail to make them fascinating, extremely compelling, hilarious and attractive objects for examination by those living in the South as well as on the outside.

You simply do not have, remaining in the land, a more real group of people who don’t really give a damn what others think. The true Southerner knows well how others view him, and yet he never sets about looking for “leaders” and apologists to run onto TV and shame everyone for their mean-spiritedness. It has always been a sign of confidence and pride, or so I’ve taken it, that the Southerner lets the Northerner, or other elite types, pummel him repeatedly without recourse to the tiresome props of the victim. And thank God for that.

Jed Clampett was the true hero of the original Beverly Hillbillies. Will CBS have the guts to follow his example?