A Clearer Morning

Celluloid Dreams
It would seem like a Republican fantasy: a famous actress, who has been described by her own grandmother as a Hollywood liberal, is floated as a Senate candidate in one of the country’s most conservative states, where she does not even live.

That is how Republican operatives gleefully seized on reports that the movie star Ashley Judd, who campaigned for President Obama, might challenge Mitch McConnell, the most powerful Republican in the United States Senate, when he is up for re-election next year. (NYT, 2/15/2013)

After Ben Affleck opted out of a political run, we hope that Hollywood's Liberals aren't teasing us again. Run Ashley, run!

Bogey
Economic growth is in the negative, unemployment is on the rise, Walmart's forecasting a disastrous February for retail sales, poverty's up, gas prices are up, the cost of health care premiums are up, middle class incomes are falling, consumer confidence is at a two year low, our deficit is unsustainable, and Barack Obama has just signed up for private golf lessons with two of the top teachers in the country.  
...
Safely re-elected and with no concerns whatsoever that the media will take issue with his elitist behavior (hell, the media won't even make an issue of the economy), what would certainly be the kind of optics the media would bludgeon a Republican with will likely go unnoticed, because the narrative's been set that Obama can do no wrong. (John Nolte, Breitbart.com, 2/15/2013)

Imagine the outrage if George Bush did this. The Legitimate Media would describe him as "tone-deaf to the pain of struggling Americans." Liberal politicians would call for him to be impeached. 

Instead, we get the following from the Legitimate Media:

Befitting a commander-in-chief, Obama will get top-of-the-line golf lessons from former Tiger Woods instructor Butch Harmon and his son, Claude Harmon III. (Huffington Post, 2/15/2013)


Insufficient
It’s ridiculous for critics to charge that Tuesday night’s speech was not sufficiently bipartisan. Repairing the nation’s infrastructure is not a partisan issue; bridges rust at the same rate in Republican-held congressional districts as in Democratic ones. The benefits of universal preschool will accrue in red states as well as blue. Climate change is not deterred by the fact that a majority of the Republican caucus in the House doesn’t believe in it. (Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 2/14/2013)

A classic case of Liberal Logic from one of the prime offenders. Notice how Robinson assumes that his positions are facts: the bridges need repairing, pre-school works, and climate change is occurring. Then he declares the other side wrong because they don't accept the facts.  His "facts."


Armed
Once you take up arms against the United States, you become an enemy combatant, thereby forfeiting the privileges of citizenship and the protections of the Constitution, including due process. You retain only the protection of the laws of war — no more and no less than those of your foreign comrades-in-arms.
...
It’s the jihadists who decided to make the world a battlefield and to wage war in perpetuity. Until they abandon the field, what choice do we have but to carry the fight to them? (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 2/14/2013)

Two if our favorite lines from Krauthammer's defense of Obama's drone strategy.

Loose Cannon

Remaining
In his opening statement, Mr. Brennan acknowledged “widespread debate” about the administration’s counterterrorism operations but strongly defended them, saying the United States remained “at war with Al Qaeda.”

He said later that when C.I.A. drone strikes accidentally kill civilians, those mistakes should be admitted. “We need to acknowledge it publicly,” he said. “In the interests of transparency, I believe the United States government should acknowledge it.” (NYT, 2/7/2013)

RedStateVT readers know that we support the use of drones to kill the bad guys, even as we regret the death of civilians. Unlike say, Al Qaeda, which does not regret the death of civilians. Knowing they could never defeat the U.S. on a conventional battlefield, Islamic terrorists adapted, resorting to asymmetrical warfare. And the U.S. has adapted as well, utilizing its technological superiority. 

As to the transparency issue, this is a shackle that the Left has been trying to place on the military and government in general dating back at least to the Viet Nam War. Mistakes are made in the fog of war and bad things happen. Criminal behavior in the military should be exposed and punished, but more often than not the Left wants to second-guess the decisions made by military commanders trying to prevent U.S. soldiers from being killed. We support more transparency around national defense just as soon as we see more of it from Al Qaeda, Hamas, North Korea, China, and Russia.


Ideal
Otherwise, Mr. President, there is nothing to discuss. Your sequester — Republicans need to reiterate that the sequester was the president’s idea in the first place — will go ahead. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 2/7/2013)

Good reminder from Charles.


Fraudulent
The Virginia Legislature has just passed new voter ID laws severely restricting the number of documents voters can use to prove their identity. Because “voter fraud” is not actually a real problem, Virginia’s Republican legislative majority was free to make the rules as hilariously arbitrary as they wanted. And they honestly couldn't have made their actual intentions — the suppression of undesirable poor/minority votes — more plain. (Alex Pareene, Salon.com, 2/5/2013) (Our emphasis)

Critics of voter ID and other laws cracking down on voter fraud claim they’re unnecessary because fraud is nonexistent. For instance, Brennan Center attorneys Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt claimed last year: “A person casting two votes risks jail time and a fine for minimal gain. Proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike.”

Well, lightning is suddenly all over Cincinnati, Ohio. The Hamilton County Board of Elections is investigating 19 possible cases of alleged voter fraud that occurred when Ohio was a focal point of the 2012 presidential election. A total of 19 voters and nine witnesses are part of the probe. (John Fund, Nationalreview.com, 2/7/2013) (Thanks to our Massachusetts stringer who braved blizzard conditions to source this story for us.)

How embarrassing for Pareene and Liberals! Why we hear that Rachel Maddow is going to devote an entire show to voter fraud. Just as soon as she finishes her 100 night series on "Disarray in the Republican Party."