Sunday Quick Links

It's one of those days when I can't pick just one thing to write about, but don't have time to write about everything: 


If you were wondering how Michelle Obama's "secret" trip to Target (did she ever go to Target pre-2008? Does Chicago even have a Target within the city limits?) was memorialized on film, well it's because the White House tipped off the AP. Pretty pathetic. 


Chris Christie is the man of the hour. Some say that he is the only (GOP) man for the times: a tough talker who can appeal to Reagan Democrats, and face down the public employee unions. Could be, but unions are only a sliver of the left coalition, and Christie has a lot of political sympathy for virtually every other element of the Democrat base. Among other things, he is as dumb on the environment as Joe Biden (or any other green). We can do better. 


Paul Ryan reviews Jeffrey Sachs's new book, describing it as having "veneer of economic analysis cannot conceal what is essentially a crusade against the free enterprise ethic of our republic." Nice to see at least one GOP politician try to take on the intellectual heavies on the left. 


This guy wants to believe that the present Wall Street protests are "like Egypt." The protesters are more than just the usual hippies, communists, and nose-ringed college students, says he. There are unions and "grannies" there! Very middle class! (pictures at the link). Right, well any union presence is going to be bused-in astro-turf. As for the "grannies," I think we're all hip to the truth, which is that old leftists like to grasp the mantle of respectable seniors, knowing the media will treat them as cuddly old folks, rather than as socialists who hate their country. Anyway, these protests not "like" Egypt; they are like Greece. 


On the other hand, the apparently unprovoked pepper spraying of a couple protesters by a normally desk-bound "cop" is just the sort of thing the blame-America-first crowd loves. You'd think every police officer in NYC would be hip the way leftists use this sort of thing for their own propaganda. San Francisco cops sure do. But, as JFK used to say, there's always one dumb son of a bitch who never gets the word. 


The al-Awlaki drone strike was a just result. He may have been "American-born," in the words of media style-books, but he left the US as a small child and was not acting in America's best interests. Obama's been getting this 100% right, but his ambivalence has been undermining his strategy. 


An inside view of the intimidation of the health insurance industry during the passage of Obamacare. For all the talk of the "right wing noise machine," if a GOP president and his allies had tried something this heavy-handed, there would have been all sorts of "brave" dissidents rushing to the microphones. But, let Democrats do it, and everyone's all STFU. Has to be because they were worried about unflattering stories published by the White House's media allies - meaning the media - right?


Herman Cain's rise is due entirely to his being the only optimistic candidate. People clearly want to hear his message, yet Cain is held to be "unelectable." OK, assuming he's unelectable, that doesn't mean the "electable" candidates can't learn something from him and his methods.


Btw, I thought Cain (or Santorum) would "shock the world" by running strong in Iowa, but it seems Cain's moment is now, and not four months from now. That means the media will be "vetting" him. In other words, they'll be seeking damning quotes from every disgruntled employee, disappointed corporate rival, and bitter stripper ex-girlfriend (I kid, I kid) that they can find. These are never our republic's finest hours. In fact, they are some of our worst as the elites among us broadcast rumors and innuendos as if they were dispatches from the Somme. Hope Cain is ready for it. I also hope he is ready to fight back in the manner of Clarence Thomas, rather than flinch away in the manner of virtually every other GOP politico unfortunate to have gone through this process. 


Michael Wilbon asks a damn good question about a new Walter Payton biography:  "what is the exact purpose of writing a book, 12 years after Payton's depressing death at 45, that goes to agonizing lengths to tell us essentially that Payton was flawed?" Supposedly, it's because Payton's public persona was that of a solid citizen when in private he cheated on his wife and used, get this, pain killers. It's that darn hypocrisy, again! Really, a professional athlete who sleeps with women not his wife? That's news? What about a look at Mrs. Payton. Maybe she was a pain in the a**? And since when was pain killer use a scandal? What's really galling is knowing that journalists who love to flog this sort of information probably couldn't stand up to a similar level of scrutiny.