White House takes four days to respond to terror attack, but responds to Cheney criticism in matter of hours?

By: Mark Hemingway
12/30/09

David's post below on the White House's decision to accuse of all people, Dick Cheney, of being insufficiently critical of al Qaeda beggars belief. As Jim Geraghty quipped, "He's beyond condemning [bomber Abdulmutallab]; he wants to waterboard him until his lungs qualify for a federal wetlands status." We all agree al Qaeda's attempts to blow up airplanes are bad -- the question is what is the current occupant of the White House going to do about it?

But what I can't wrap my head around is that it took the President four days to acknowledge what he termed a "catastrophic" national security failure, but Cheney criticizes the administration's handling of the war on terror and they have a rapid response on the White House blog in a matter of hours? Priorities!

Then again, it took six days to respond to the riots in the streets of Tehran during their election, so four days seems about right for a barely averted domestic catastrophe.
Also, is the White House aware of how small they look when they are so obviously spooked by Cheney's every utterance? Remember when the President rescheduled a press conference earlier this year to deliberately conflict with a pre-planned Cheney speech?

We could really use a steady hand on the tiller while dealing with national security matters, but the White House is still in campaign mode, worried about what a private citizen -- who left office remarkably unpopular! -- thinks of them.

Suffice to say, this is not reassuring.

Ten New Reasons Why Obamacare Can Still Be Killed

FANTASTIC ARTICLE BY:
Phyllis Schlafly
12/30/2009

New reasons emerge almost daily as to why Obamacare can and must be defeated.

1. The American people oppose Obamacare by almost 2 to 1 in the latest CNN poll. Other polls show lopsided opposition to passing either the Senate or House health-care bill.

Public opinion is against the bill because of its obscene costs in higher taxes, burdensome debt, anti-freedom mandates, rationing, and reduced care for seniors. The American people have awakened to the fact that Obamacare is transformational legislation that will drag us against popular will into European-style Socialism.

Read nine more reasons here.

Electoral College Will Be Redder in 2012

Every ten years the U.S. Census reallocates the 435 U.S. House seats and thus determines how many Electoral College votes each state will control. While no one can be sure that next April's final population count will bear out today's projections, the best estimate right now is that Ohio will lose two House seats and seven other states will lose one each -- Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Three other states are also in danger of losing a seat apiece -- Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri.
And the big winner? It will be Texas, whose 25 million people are expected to bring an additional four House members and give it a stunning 38 votes in the Electoral College. In addition, five other states -- Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Utah -- will likely gain at least one House seat each (Arizona is on the tipping point of gaining two). Two states, South Carolina and Washington State, will be close to gaining a single seat apiece.

The political implications are considerable. Not only is the Census likely to confirm a continued population shift to the South and West, but most of the states losing in the Electoral College will be Democratic-leaning states, while most of the gainers lean Republican for president. Polidata, a Vermont firm run by statistician Clark Bensen, has made its own projections about exactly how the two parties will fare in the Census, based on how states voted in the elections of 2000, 2004 and 2008. By his reckoning, Republicans are likely gain an overall advantage of eight electoral votes in the 2012 election thanks to the new Census. If that same allocation had applied in the 2004 election, George W. Bush would have prevailed in the Electoral College over John Kerry by 294 to 243 instead of by 286 to 251.

In a closely balanced country, such a small shift might have significant consequences. As an incumbent, President Obama has to be counted as the favorite in the 2012 race, but his climb to reach the needed 270 will be a bit steeper after the next Census.

-- John Fund

Democrats' Narrative Isn't Selling

Scott Rasmussen finds that for the first time, a plurality of voters say the Democrats' stimulus bill has hurt the economy:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 30% of voters nationwide believe the $787-billion economic stimulus plan has helped the economy. However, 38% believe that the stimulus plan has hurt the economy. This is the first time since the legislation passed that a plurality has held a negative view of its impact.

The number who believe that the stimulus plan has hurt the economy rose from 28% in September, to 31% in October, and 34% in November before jumping to 38% this month.
What explains the increasing number who consider the stimulus plan harmful? My guess is that voters are concluding, based on their own observation, that the stimulus bill has had little positive impact. That being the case, the nearly trillion-dollar debt it incurred is logically seen as a negative factor that outweighs any minor benefit.

In any event, voters plainly are rejecting the Democrats' narrative, which holds that the Obama administration has heroically rescued our economy from the brink of depression. I personally don't think that any actions the government has taken over the last year-plus have helped the economy much (as opposed to the many actions by government over the preceding fifteen years that gave rise to the financial crisis). But if there was any federal action that staved off a worse economic crisis, it could only have been the TARP program--which was, as President Obama always fails to remind us, a Bush administration initiative.

Reality Check

"In his speech on the economy, President Obama said that we have to 'continue to spend our way out' of the recession. Now, I don't know much about economics, but aren't we like a trillion dollars in debt? Spending our way out of the recession? Isn't that like trying to drink your way out of alcoholism?" - Jay Leno

Americans Strongly Favor Religious Displays on Public Lands, Celebrating Religious Holidays in Schools

Americans remain overwhelmingly in favor of allowing religious symbols to be displayed on public land and feel even more strongly that public schools should celebrate at least some religious holidays.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 76% of adults believe religious symbols like Christmas Nativity scenes, Hanukkah menorahs and Muslim crescents should be allowed on public land. Just 13% disagree, and another 10% are undecided.

Eighty-three percent (83%) believe public schools should celebrate religious holidays. This figure includes 47% who think the schools should celebrate all religious holidays and another 36% who believe they should only celebrate some. The question did not single out which holidays should be celebrated and which should be excluded.

Only 14% think the public schools should not celebrate any religious holidays.

Additionally: While out shopping, 72% of all Americans prefer signs that say "Merry Christmas" to ones with "Happy Holidays". Hello retailers, are you listening?