Month: February 2011

He may have Googled Rick Santorum into a frothy mix of lube and fecal matter, which may confuse his theocon base. Dan was at CPAC last week and kept trying to get close enough to the national symbol of anal sex to get a joint photo. But dammit, Rick was always one step ahead.

"I was sober for five years a long time ago and was just bored out of my tree. It's inauthentic — it's not who I am. I didn't drink for 12 years and, man, that first one [drink], Dan. Wow… [There were] rumors that I've had problems with crack, so it just came out of me like poetry. I said stay off the crack, and I still think that's pretty good advice, unless you can manage it socially. If you can manage it socially, then go for it, but not a lot of people can, you know?" – Charlie Sheen.

Well, at least he's honest. But he's no DMX, that's for sure, in what remains a classic example of an interview that's actually, you know, real. (If you haven't read the whole DMX interview. It's seriously hilarious.)

David Frum provides a useful frame:

Conservatism could once be described as a three-cornered stool: social, economic and national security conservatives. Today though it’s more relevant to think of conservatism as an attempt to draw a line connecting four points:

1) No tax increase
2) No defense cuts
3) No Medicare cuts
4) Rapid move to a balanced budget.

Obviously it’s impossible to meet all four of those commitments. It would be difficult enough to combine #4 with even two of the first three. Much of the struggle within the conservative world can be understood as a quiet debate over which of those commitments to jettison.

Put like that, the GOP is having a debate in a parallel universe. But David is dead-on. Where does Frum stand?

"I am prepared to accept tax increases provided they fall on consumption and pollution rather than work, saving and investment. A carbon tax yes, a VAT if need be, but no increases in personal or corporate income taxes or capital gains taxes. On the other hand, the 15% tax rate on corporate dividends seems to me a laughably unjustifiable giveaway, even though I personally benefit from it."

I agree with all of that. Any fiscal conservative who refuses to countenance new sources of tax revenue is not a fiscal conservative. She's a fantasist. But keeping income taxes low and much simpler, removing all those corporate tax loopholes, and focusing on taxing consumption and gas seems very sensible to me on the revenue side.

Mark Frauenfelder lists them.

Weigel flags "this video of a group of young conservatives shaming white supremacist Jamie Kelso, to the point where he bails on CPAC." It goes long, but it's a good example of the generational progress that has been made – even among die-hard partisans:

Drum claims that if Obama wanted entitlement reform he'd "propose it separately, as a major initiative completely divorced from the annual budgeting process":

I have no crystal ball. I don't know if Obama is truly interested in making historical changes to Medicare and/or Social Security later in his term. But if he is, he'd be a fool to propose them now. The annual budget is just an annual budget, and the process for getting it through the congressional committee process is laborious and well trod — and that laborious and well-trod path most definitely doesn't include the kind of big-time dealmaking necessary for some kind of grand bargain over taxes and entitlements. If you want entitlement reform to disappear without a trace, yesterday would have been a great time to propose it. If you want it for real, you'll wait.

To coin a phrase, how long, O Lord, how long? We have a divided government, we just had an election in which one side campaigned on too much spending, we have a very pragmatic president able to explain the dangers we face, and a debt that grows every day. But nooo. Let's get the GOP to lead.

And let's not fool ourselves. The president has just asked the opposition to do his work for him. He should be careful what he asks for. If the GOP actually proposes cuts in Medicare, real tax reform, and some of the proposals in the Bowles-Simpson report, there will be many independents and fiscal conservatives who will take a second look.

When actually asked what they'd be prepared to cut from government largesse, we get the usual answer – foreign aid – but, er, that's about it, according to the new Harris poll. There's even a national majority for farm subsidies! On where the real money is, Americans are the most adamant about retaining what they've got. On healthcare, 67 percent oppose any cuts; on social security, a whopping 81 percent want no change. Now for the really scary part: compare that to 1980, when 37 percent wanted cuts in government healthcare spending. That figure is now 12 percent. So as the explosion in healthcare costs have occurred, Americans have actually grown more resistant to doing anything about them. In fact, on almost ever measure

There's a reason for Obama's reluctance to speak specifically about what needs to be done. But it seems to me that this is why a major emphasis on saving us from fiscal collapse is necessary. If most Americans really believe cutting foreign aid and pork will balance the budget, they're delusional. Meanwhile, the GOP seems to be focusing entirely on discretionary spending that will damage some of the actually good things that government does, while ignoring the massive borrowing that healthcare entitlements, a neo-imperial defense structure and, to a lesser extent, social security require.

Bruce Bartlett thinks the GOP's current emphasis on big discretionary cuts – and always talking about having an adult conversation soon as if we were all children – could actually be counter-productive:

their strategy of front-loading spending cuts in the fiscal year 2011 is very ill-conceived. They are using up all the political capital they have for cutting spending in a way that is highly unlikely to be successful and that will not yield long-term savings. By the time they get around to doing something about entitlements, they may find that budget cutting exhaustion and frustration has set in and there is no support left for big budget cuts. It may be that they have one bite at the budget-cutting apple and they are squandering it.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 3 pm

Did Obama just threaten to veto any budget with defense cuts? Allahpundit fumes:

Obama’s chief goal in dealing with federal spending is to make himself look good at the expense of the GOP before next year’s election. That’s why Republicans are being forced to take the lead on entitlements, and that’s why we’re now witnessing the surreal spectacle of a liberal Democrat scolding conservatives for being insufficiently pro-Pentagon. Defending the defense budget not only earns him C-in-C points, it’s a clever way to signal to the public that the GOP’s relatively modest $100 billion in cuts is outrageously outrageous, so out comes the veto pen.

It's worse than that. Obama just said that even the Republicans' small cuts in defense would "undermine … national security." Just to let all of you Obama voters in 2008: yes, he's arguing for a bigger military budget than the Republicans. He has moved the withdrawal date from Afghanistan to 2014 and if Petraeus asks for longer, how can we trust he won't get it?

If this is the president's attitude toward the debt crisis, made so much worse by the recession, it means this country's pressing problems have been deferred until he gets re-elected. Change? This is not just more of the same; it's far worse – and with every year, more dangerous.

Some of those writing about what happened to Lara Logan in Egypt are, in Jeffrey's words, "way past disgusting."