You Can Hear The Whistle Blow

Combative
In response to the growing tension between the politicians who debate and the journalists who moderate — a dynamic that will be tested again Tuesday night as CNN hosts the latest of more than a dozen nationally televised Republican debates planned through the end of the year — the news media outlets that sponsor the face-offs have been steeling themselves for combat. (NYT, 11/21/2011)


As well they should. Good job by Newt Gingrich (and others) for standing up to and exposing the Liberal bias inherent in the questions of these "moderators."


Sample question for Republicans: Why is your side unwilling to compromise?
Sample question for Democrats: How difficult is it when the other side won't compromise?


Squeezed
After years of watching the state’s budget for higher education erode, they (University of California students) are demanding that the state and university administrators find a way to lower tuition that they say is squeezing out the middle class. 


“These are institutions that we call the people’s university, but all of us who are in it have just watched this thing collapse on itself being starved for resources year after year,” said Lillian Taiz, the president of the California Faculty Association, the union that represents professors in the California State University system.
(NYT, 11/21/2011)


First, these are the same students, no doubt, who demand a "living wage" for university workers. Then they cannot understand why tuition goes up.


Second, why not ask the union representing these professors for givebacks in salary and benefits...so that the state can afford the "resources" so badly needed?


Disconnected
And Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster who is not connected to the Obama campaign, said, “There is a clear sense that the president has reached out and tried to work with Republicans, and there is an equally clear sense that they have not tried to reach out and work with him. (NYT, 11/22/2011)


New York Times objectivity: they quote a pollster not connected to the Obama campaign...who is a Democrat!


Embattled
The result is that at a time when the nation is looking for ways to battle unemployment, big companies are creating fewer jobs, and critics say they are neglecting to lay the foundation for future growth by expanding into new businesses or building new plants. (NYT, 11/22/2011)


Let's see, businesses have the twin specters of more regulation and Obamacare hanging over them and Liberals cannot figure out why they are not hiring or spending their cash. RedStateVT prediction: the day Mitt Romney is elected president the market goes up 500 points and businesses begin investing again.


Preferred
Of course it would have been preferable if the two sides had come together now to cut spending, reform the tax code and remake Medicare. Preferable, but implausible. That would have required President Obama to have shown more respect for the will of the voters when they revoked his credit card by giving Republicans control of the House in 2010. Or for the President to have honored the findings of his own Bowles-Simpson deficit commission by using it as a basis for negotiation. Instead, he ignored them. (WSJ, 11/22/2011)


This is one of the enduring mysteries of Obama.  He is blind to seminal events like the election of Scott Brown and the 2010 mid-term elections. It is why his presidency has failed.