From The Weekly Standard:

A new poll of Arkansas Democrats shows Barack Obama receiving support from only 45 percent of Democratic primary voters in Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District, while 38 percent support his underfunded and relatively unknown primary challenger, Tennessee lawyer John Wolfe, Jr. Seventeen percent are undecided in the district poll.

Oh my. That image is via @hradzka, by the way. My husband says that Arkansas has an open primary. So if GOP voters wanted to crossover and vote for Wolfe, he's only down 7.

Last week it was Richard Mourdock in Indiana. Today, it's Deb Fischer in Nebraska.

In both cases these candidates took the ObamaCare Repeal Pledge. And in both cases, we at Independent Women's Voice communicated their signatures via paid advertising to make sure that voters in their respective states knew that they had signed the Pledge.  And because of that, the voters in those states knew that they would, if elected, do everything in their power to see that this government take-over of our private health care decisions is fully repealed.

In both states, the voters rewarded the candidates who signed the Pledge.

Voters recognize that we must hold our political leaders accountable for their actions. This point is particularly poignant for the voters in Nebraska, home of the Sen. Ben Nelson and the Cornhusker Kickback.

It was the power of the issue of ObamaCare that compelled Sen. Nelson into retirement. And it was the power of ObamaCare, and the commitment shown by signing the Repeal Pledge, that helped carry Deb Fischer to victory last night.

Other candidates around the country should take notice. Voters see the Repeal Pledge not only as a sign of a candidate's sincerity about walking the talk, but as a larger philosophical marker that they appreciate that this isn't just about cost, but about liberty.

I hope that candidates and incumbents alike will read the tea leaves, see what has happened in Indiana and last night in Nebraska, and be encouraged by their constituents to sign the ObamaCare Repeal Pledge (http://www.therepealpledge.com/) immediately.

If you've followed the news about Newark mayor Cory Booker rescuing citizens from a house fire or shoveling out snow when city services got overwhelmed, you may enjoy this video pitting him against Gov. Chris Christie. Done for a state-level correspondents' dinner, it makes you wonder if New Jersey elected officials could teach other states' politicos about humor:

Thanks to the Ricochet podcast of a couple of weeks ago, I've become a fan -- ok, maybe an addict -- of Russ Roberts and his podcast EconTalk. Actually, there's a podcast on addiction, as there are on nearly all subjects of interest to intelligent and curious listeners. I'm acquiring an economics education by listening every day. Additionally, the older podcasts are available and downloadable on iTunes. 

Thanks so much to Peter, Rob, and James for alerting us to this resource. I've got a long car ride today and am loading up my iPod! 

Here's a fascinating point about how Republicans talk about immigration from a Newsweek interview with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, who's been mentioned on one occasion or another as a potential Vice Presidential nominee:

As we sit down at a local Starbucks, I ask about immigration. It’s a topic she has been reluctant to discuss since winning the Republican primary in 2010, so what comes next is surprising: a battle plan that contradicts nearly everything the GOP has been doing and saying since 2007, Romney’s “self-deportation” strategy included. “‘Self-deport?’ What the heck does that mean?” Martinez snaps. “I have no doubt Hispanics have been alienated during this campaign. But now there’s an opportunity for Gov. Romney to have a sincere conversation about what we can do and why.”

Naturally, Martinez has some suggestions. First, Republicans should remind Latinos that Obama pledged to pass comprehensive immigration reform by the end of his initial year in office, but “didn’t even have the courage to try.” Next, the GOP should outflank the president--on the left--by proposing its own comprehensive plan. “I absolutely advocate for comprehensive immigration reform,” Martinez says, , sipping a caramel macchiato. “Republicans want to be tough and say, ‘Illegals, you’re gone.’ But the answer is a lot more complex than that.” Martinez envisions an approach “with multiple levels”: increased border security; deportation for criminals; a guest-worker program for people who want “to go freely back and forth across the border to work”; a DREAM Act-style pathway to citizenship, through the military or college, for children brought here illegally by their parents; and a visa (coupled with a “penalty” or a “tagback”) that allows rest of the illegal population to remain in the U.S. while they follow standard naturalization procedures.

Martinez’s point is not that Republicans should peddle so-called “amnesty.” In New Mexico, she’s taken a lot of heat from Latinos for repeatedly pushing to repeal a state law that allows illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses; she also opposes a standalone DREAM Act, arguing that politicians can’t “fix [immigration] by saying, ‘Here’s the DREAM Act and we’re done. It has to be part of a larger plan.” She simply believes that a more pragmatic approach will help Republicans in the long run, particularly if it’s paired with the sort of issues-based appeal that inspired her to switch parties and a more aggressive campaign to recruit Hispanic candidates for local office. Maybe then the GOP can finally do what she did in her first statewide contest: approach the magic 40-percent mark among Latino voters. That alone would be enough to swing a presidential election.

“We’ve got to stop with the rhetoric,” Martinez says on her way out of Starbucks. “I’m so tired of the rhetoric. ‘Lower taxes,’ you know. ‘More opportunity.’ Da da da. It’s this five-liner of nothingness. There have to be some distinctions for people to latch onto.”

This last point is particularly key, and I wonder if it's been lost on too many of those on the right. Hispanics are often painted as communities of outreach met with a broad brush of aspiration and pablum. But in reality, the overlaps on specific policy issues should allow for much more targeted appeals. Martinez's dismissal of the "five liner of nothingness" is refreshing to hear from a Republican, and others would be wise to heed it.

Over at Newsbusters, Noel Sheppard documents Chris Matthews' incessant mockery of Sarah Palin's intelligence and his obsession with the notion that Palin would do poorly as a contestant on Jeopardy!

October 2, 2008, shortly before that evening's Vice Presidential debate, [Chris Matthews] said of Palin:

"Is this [vice presidential debate] about her brain power?... Do you think cute will beat brains?...Do you think she’d do better on the questions on Jeopardy! or the interview they do during a half-time?...My suspicion is that she has the same lack of intellectual curiosity that the President of the United States has right now and that is scary!"

Then on January 12, 2010:

They find these empty vessels who know nothing about the world! Nothing about foreign policy! Who immediately begin to spout the neo-con line. I read her book — it’s full of that crap....It’s unbelievable how little this woman knows!...Don’t put her on Jeopardy!”

And again on November 2, 2010:

“Senator, do you think Sarah Palin is qualified to be President of the United States?...If she were on Jeopardy! right now and the topic was national government, American government generally defined, would she look like an imbecile, or would she look okay? Does she know anything?"

And finally on January 19, 2011:

“I’d like to see her on just a couple of episodes of Celebrity Jeopardy! or It’s Academic Mac McGarry to just see if she knows anything.”

But when it came time to show off his own brilliance as a contestant on Jeopardy!, Matthews, well...see for yourself:

If he learned anything from his experience on Jeopardy! let's hope it was that a greater measure of humility is in order. 

What's more audacious than hope? Cynicism. That's the lesson that President Barack Obama shared with Barnard College graduates yesterday in a commencement address.

The poor women in the graduating class had to stand in as props for the so-called "war on women." On a day celebrating their individual achievements, the graduates surely expected something more than focus-grouped, poll-driven drivel, but that's all they got.

Obama's speech was so cynical that he couldn't help but acknowledge its cynicism. "Nothing worse than commencement speakers droning on about bygone days," he said after already droning on about the bygone days before iPods. When he talked about how America would be better off with more women in power, he added, "Now, I recognize that’s a cheap applause line when you're giving a commencement at Barnard."

In The Washington Post, columnist Dana Milbank summed up the speech up by writing that Obama's pandering to women had earned him a new distinction as the first female president.

Obama was still early in his address when he acknowledged that his praise for the young generation of women is “a cheap applause line when you’re giving a commencement at Barnard.”

But Obama was being modest. He didn’t deliver a cheap applause line. He delivered an entire speech full of them. His reelection campaign has been working for months to exploit the considerable gender gap, which puts him far ahead of likely GOP rival Mitt Romney among women. But Monday’s activities veered into pandering, as Obama brazenly flaunted his feminine mystique.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to have lunch with a major figure in conservative talk radio. Over our meal, he lamented (and here I paraphrase) that the GOP is on its way to nominating one of the most scrupulously moral men to stand for the presidency in the modern era, but that his virtues have gone largely unsung because of his aversion to boastfulness. It may be the case, he worried, that his opposition will demonize him long before the public ever gets a chance to know the real Mitt Romney (a process which the Obama campaign seems to have begun with the video I posted yesterday).

Thankfully, a new piece in The Daily has unearthed some of the background material that Romney himself is too humble to tout. Even those who were among Romney's fiercest critics during the primary (as I was at times) will find it hard to come away from the story without a newfound respect for the man. Here's a sample from the lede:

One cold December day in the early 1980s, Mitt Romney loaded up his Gran Torino with firewood and brought it to the home of a single mother whose heat had been shut off just days before Christmas.

Years after a business partner died unexpectedly, Romney helped the man’s surviving daughter go to medical school with loans for tuition — loans he forgave when she graduated.

And in 1997, when a fellow church member’s teenage son fell seriously ill, Romney sprinted to the hospital in the dead of night, where he kept vigil with his terrified parents.

And this of course omits the one story that has received limited traction so far: the tale of how Romney led an all-hands-on-deck effort to recover the missing daughter of one of his partners at Bain.

I don't mean to pick on Barack Obama, who seems -- from what I know, anyway -- to be a thoroughly decent --and, yes, dare I say it, likable -- man in his private life. But it seems to me that there is a profound difference between the incumbent president -- who would have viewed each of the scenarios above as a policy crisis -- and the former Governor of Massachusetts, who reacted to them with displays of basic human compassion.

Does this add at all to the rationale for why we should be comfortable with Mitt Romney being president? Perhaps not. But it's a pretty convincing argument as to why you'd want him as a next door neighbor. And as traits that you'd like to see in a president go, that's not a bad one.

Once people start laughing at you, it's awfully hard to come back.

In an act of hubris that's stunning even for our most ego-maniacal president, it seems that he's inserted himself into the short biographies of other presidents in the White House website.  From Commentary:

The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper tweeted that Obama had casually dropped his own name into Ronald Reagan’s official biography onwww.whitehouse.gov, claiming credit for taking up the mantle of Reagan’s tax reform advocacy with his “Buffett Rule” gimmick. My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn’t—it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford). Here are a few examples:

• On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

• In a 1946 letter to the National Urban League, President Truman wrote that the government has “an obligation to see that the civil rights of every citizen are fully and equally protected.” He ended racial segregation in civil service and the armed forces in 1948. Today the Obama administration continues to strive toward upholding the civil rights of its citizens, repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, allowing people of all sexual orientations to serve openly in our armed forces.

• President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare signed (sic) into law in 1965—providing millions of elderly healthcare stability. President Obama’s historic health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, strengthens Medicare, offers eligible seniors a range of preventive services with no cost-sharing, and provides discounts on drugs when in the coverage gap known as the “donut hole.”

• On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.

• In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.

Hilarious.  And now the subject of a fast-growing Twitter hashtag -- #obamainhistory -- that's worth following.

President Obama is now, officially, a joke.

It must be, according to Rich Cohen at the Wall Street Journal:

Having not won a World Series since 1908, and having last appeared on that stage in 1945—a war year in which the professional leagues were still populated by has-beens and freaks—the Chicago Cubs must contemplate the only solution that might restore the team to glory: Tear down Wrigley Field.

Destroy it. Annihilate it. Collapse it with the sort of charges that put the Sands Hotel out of its misery in Vegas. Implosion or explosion, get rid of it. That pile of quaintness has to go. Not merely the structure, but the ground on which it stands.

As a Cardinals fan, I can't get on board with any plan to improve the lot of the Cubbies. Still, he makes a persuasive case. The park maintains no home field advantage on account of how different weather systems change the ideal play so drastically, he says. Also, the stadium is so nice that winning games becomes less important to fans than just having a nice outing at the park. He even blames the way fans handled Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series on the park.

It sounds crazy, but I think he may be onto something.

Last week could not have gone better for the Obama campaign. The press coverage to which the administration and campaign have grown accustomed somehow became even more fawning when the President announced he was finally copping to being a supporter of redefining marriage to include same-sex unions. And that was just the first day. Then the Washington Post reported its bombshell story painting a teenage Mitt Romney as an anti-gay bully. Romney supporters remained somewhat calm about the President's announcement and the media onslought, prompting many to think that support for traditional marriage laws was a liability.

Take it from there CBS/New York Times poll:

Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a slight edge over President Obama in the race for the White House in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.

According to the survey, conducted May 11-13, 46 percent of registered voters say they would vote for Romney, while 43 percent say they would opt for Mr. Obama. Romney's slight advantage remains within the poll's margin of error, which is plus or minus four percentage points.

Last month, a CBS News/New York Times poll showed Mr. Obama and Romney locked in a dead heat, with both earning 46 percent support among registered voters. Polls conducted in February and March showed Mr. Obama with an advantage over Romney, while a January poll showed Romney edging out Mr. Obama 47 percent to 45 percent. Another January poll showed the two tied.

At least the Obama campaign has done a good job with campaigning for women's votes, right?

The survey also shows Romney leading Obama among women, with whom the president has consistently been ahead, prompting some complaints from Team Obama about how it was taken and whether it's accurate.

I would mock them for this complaint except that previous polls really did see dramatic support among women for Obama.

No matter what, this poll showing the cost of President Obama's same-sex marriage support and limits to his favorability has got to be pleasing to Team Romney.

Oh, one more thing. The New York Times reports:

Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed by The New York Times and CBS News since the announcement said they thought that Mr. Obama had made it “mostly for political reasons,” while 24 percent said it was “mostly because he thinks it is right.” Independents were more likely to attribute it to politics, with nearly half of Democrats agreeing.

Hmmm.

As Ricochet's resident San Franciscan, I bring tidings of important news: America's sole unionized strip club, finding itself unable to turn a profit, is on course to shut its doors.

Touted as "the most pro-feminist strip club in the city–and maybe in history," the Lusty Lady joined the SEIU fifteen years ago.  Shortly thereafter, the business began to falter (no doubt on account of the effect unionization had on profits) and the club's exotic dancers banded together to purchase it for $400,000, transforming it into a co-op.

From there, the Lusty Lady's business tactics became progressively more San Franciscan.  For example, the board of directors prioritized political correctness over profits which led them to employ "diverse body types and ethnically diverse dancers."

And so the business has driven itself to the brink of extinction.  But lest you start worrying about the strippers who may find themselves without a dancing gig, take heart — a number of them have useful credentials that should help them line up other prospects:

"Since 2008 my paychecks have been going down, down, down," said Bijou. "I'm making half of what I was making when I started in 2005."

She says she's out of the Pleasure Booth and out in the job market, where she hopes to use the doctorate she says she earned in sociology. [emphasis added]

Would love to discuss the California budget.

~~~~~

Editor's Note: Welcome back to Ricochet, Mr. Murdoch.

As residents of California know, the state had a projected $9.2 billion deficit as recently as January.  But May's updated projection shows that California is on track to run a deficit of nearly $16 billion for the year.  Below is Gov. Jerry Brown's weekend address to the people of California.  Brown hopes to pass a November ballot initiative which would raise sales and income taxes.

What do Ricochet Members think of the Governor's proposal?  What should the state do to return to fiscal sanity?

Check out this French interview of Will Smith. He's explaining why he's happy to pay income taxes at a higher rate than less wealthy individuals. At 1:20 into the video, he's told that President-elect Francois Hollande wants to raise the top marginal tax rate to 75 percent.

Gayle Trotter has an excellent take on the Time mom and one part of her piece from today particularly stood out to me:

With the Grumet breastfeeding shot, the Time editors gain another entry in the pantheon of controversial magazine covers. They managed that feat this time without the downside of allegations like those surrounding their “photo illustration” of the O.J. Simpson mug shot in 1994, showing Simpson’s face darkened and giving him “a more sinister appearance,” according to critics.

Vanity Fair inaugurated a whole new genre of cover photo with Annie Leibovitz’s arresting shot of a very pregnant and equally nude Demi Moore.

Since then, a gaggle of pregnant stars have followed suit (birthday suit, that is), including Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Cindy Crawford, Miranda Kerr, Paula Patton, Claudia Schiffer, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears and—well, if the trend continues, it will be easier to list the celebrity moms who have not yet appeared on a magazine cover great with child and in the buff.

Pop culture is the mirror that reflects our deepest insecurities, aspirations, and inquiry. The various forms of media, art, novels, nonfiction, and movies are an unending hall of mirrors of competing viewpoints.

Last week, I wrote about how the pop culture moment precipitated by the Time cover reflects our “mom anxieties.” The ideal of female beauty associated with pregnancy and fertility (that big = beautiful) has left our culture. Fertility is no longer something that we value, but something that we repress with latex and pills. That point struck me again as I read the above excerpt of Gayle’s post.

Compare the Time mom to the pregnant celebrities that have appeared on the covers of various major magazines. These celebs are an exception to the rule that I wrote about several days ago. They are big, sensual, and womanly. They are all flesh and curves and soft features. Their pictures call to mind other Great Mothers in art history (the Mariah Carey one specifically reminds me of Boticelli's Birth of Venus). But the Time mom doesn't. She looks boyish in her tank, skinny jeans, flats, and pulled-back hair. I'm shocked that her breasts, as small as they are, are holding any milk at all. Her slight and tone frame suggests athleticism. The look on her face is triumphant. Everything about her, except her nearly-exposed nipple, suggests masculinity. Yet she now represents attached motherhood. It's ironic.

President Barack Obama chose Osawatomie, Kansas for the site of his populist manifesto speech last December because of the town's associations with Theodore Roosevelt. In the same place a century earlier, the Rough Rider had unveiled his New Nationalism campaign against corporate interests.

Just as Obama sought to ground his rhetoric in a more popular president's words, it turns out that Roosevelt tried the same tactic. In his speech in Osawatomie, Roosevelt invoked President Abraham Lincoln's words as the inspiration for his own progressive plans. A new book about Lincoln's son, however, casts doubt on Roosevelt's claims.

In The Wall Street Journal, Ryan Cole recently reviewed "Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln" by Jason Emerson. According to the review, the book describes Robert Lincoln's outrage at hearing Roosevelt use his father' name in defense of New Nationalism. Here is an excerpt from Cole's piece:

In the midst of this flourishing career, Lincoln worked diligently, though always away from the public view, to guarantee that the memory of his father remained pristine. His collusions with friendly biographers, battles with unfriendly historians, the donation of his father's papers to the Library of Congress and participation in the creation of the Lincoln Memorial, all documented here, played a central role in the transformation of Abraham Lincoln from man to myth. In 1912, for example, Robert Lincoln uncharacteristically leapt into the arena of national debate to challenge Theodore Roosevelt's appropriation of his father's name for TR's "New Nationalism" agenda. Robert, writing in the Boston Herald, labeled Roosevelt's progressivism a doctrine that the elder Lincoln "would abhor if living."

If Lincoln would have "abhorred" Roosevelt's progressivism, what would he think about Obama's? It is impossible to know, of course, and it is a reminder of the humility with which today's occupant of the White House should invoke past occupants.

President Obama seems to be getting a good deal of political mileage out of his declaration last week that he supports the right of gay couples to marry, but that he also believes that this is a matter to be decided state by state.

Unlike many of President Obama's pronouncements, however, his newfound faith in federalism can be put to the test in two immediate and direct ways.

1. Obama's Justice Department has refused to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.  The very purpose of the Act is to advance Obama's stated goal: to allow each state to decide for itself whether to legalize gay marriage, by allowing states to refuse to recognize gay marriages from out of state. President Obama can order -- tomorrow -- Attorney General Eric Holder to reverse the Justice Department's extraordinary decision to refuse to defend this federal law in court.

2. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this spring struck down California's Proposition 8, which prohibits gay marriage. The grounds of the decision are directly opposite to President Obama's stated belief: the court found that the right to gay marriage is nationwide and not subject to state choice. President Obama can direct his Attorney General to support the efforts of Proposition 8's defenders to overturn the decision. In fact, he could have his Solicitor General file a friend-of-the-court brief when Proposition 8's defenders appeal to the Supreme Court (known as "petitioning for cert") recommending that the Court accept the case and reverse the Ninth Circuit.  He could even issue the order now, to take effect when the Prop 8 case hits the Supreme Court.

I agree with President Obama's view that gays should be able to marry, and I agree that it should be up to each state.  My problem is that I don't believe him about federalism. His recent conversion on states rights is heartwarming, but not believable coming from someone who has pushed the nationalization of healthcare.  In this case, he doesn't need to await the courts or get legislation passed by Congress to show that his position is more than just talk.

That it is high time to quit is the claim of an advertisement that appeared on p. A5 in last Tuesday’s Washington Post. An earlier missive along the same lines appeared in The New York Times on 9 March, and I will have to say that I heartily welcome the attacks mounted by the Freedom from Religion Foundation of Madison, Wisconsin—for they are designed to force the lukewarm to ponder what they really think, get off the fence, and take a stand. In this regard, they are doing for the Catholic Church in the United States what the hierarchy has shied away from doing for almost a half century.

“It’s your moment of truth,” the advertisement begins. “It’s time to quit the Roman Catholic Church. Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages? Do you choose women and their rights, or Bishops and their wrongs: Whose side are you on? In light of the U. S. Catholic Conference of Bishops’ war against women’s right to contraception. . ."

• Why are you aiding and abetting a church that has repeatedly engaged in a crusade to ban contraception, abortion and sterilization, to deny the right of all women everywhere, Catholic or not, to decide whether and when to become mothers?
• Think of the acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, overpopulation, social evils and deaths that can be laid directly at the door of your church’s pernicious doctrine that birth control is a sin and must be outlawed.
• If you think you can change the church from within – get it to lighten up on birth control, gay rights, marriage equality, embryonic stem-cell research – you’re deluding yourself. By remaining a “good Catholic,” you are doing “bad” to women’s rights. You are an enabler. And it’s got to stop.
• It’s a disgrace that U. S. health care reform is being held hostage to your church’s irrational opposition to medically prescribed contraception. No political candidate should have to genuflect before the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. President Obama has compromised, but the Church never budges. Instead it is launching a ruthless political Inquisition in your name.
• Your church hysterically claims that secular medical policy is “an assault against religious liberty.” The louder the Church cries "offense against religious liberty” the hard it works to take away women’s liberty. Now your church has introduced into Congress a double-speak bill, the “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act,” to allow dogma to trump the civil rights and private consciences of employees.
• The Church that hasn’t persuaded you to shun contraception now wants to use the forces of secular law to deny birth control to non-Catholics.
• You’re no better than your church, so why stay? Why put up with an institution that discriminates against half of humanity? Why send your children to parochial schools to be indoctrinated into the next generation of obedient donors and voters? Can’t you see how misplaced your loyalty is after two decades of sex scandals involving preying priests, church complicity, collusion and coverup going all the way to the top? Apparently, you’re like the battered woman who, after being beaten down every Sunday, feels she has no place else to go. There is a more welcoming home for you.

I realize that this reads like a parody of left-liberal feminist thought. I realize that it is full of misinformation, hysteria, and hyperbole. I promise you, however, that it is the real thing, and I am delighted to be able to report that the archdiocese of Washington in My Catholic Standard published on Friday a fierce response, which was circulated to everyone in the pews yesterday.

Thanks to Barack Obama, who is for conservatives a gift that keeps on giving, the liberals are doffing the genial mask they donned in the days of Bill Clinton and revealing themselves as what they are. And, instead of seeking to subvert Roman Catholicism from within in the manner of Mario Cuomo and Ted Kennedy, as they have been doing with great success for half a century, they are attacking it head on, forcing the American church to return to its fundamental principles, and inducing non-members sympathetic to its understanding of human sexuality to think about joining.

Those who call themselves Catholics must, indeed, make a choice. They must choose between the worldview that underpins this advertisement and the Catholic faith. It is a choice that the hierarchy should have pressed on them long ago. What a strange and awful world we live in! One in which the professed enemies of Roman Catholicism are unwittingly its firmest and most reliable friends. But, then again, you could say precisely the same thing about the Republican Party. Adversity can be a tonic.

We've all known this was inevitable for months. But today it starts:

The real question here is whether Romney learned anything from the beta version of this attack that he faced during the primary race. Will he attempt to dismiss these charges with a wave of his hand? Will he offer a narrow, specific defense of his time at Bain? Or will he turn this into a broad, thematic defense of capitalism and call out the economic illiteracy of those attacking him? The response he chooses will go a long way towards determining how this issue plays out over the next several months.

Do any of you have a secret nuclear reactor loaded with weapons-grade uranium hidden in your basement?

I never would have thought to ask, but just want to make sure. Anything else you want to get off your chest?

Here's what the GOP wants you thinking about for the 2012 election:

Here's what Obama and his allies want you focused on:

The other day, I came across a piece entitled The Two Europes posted on The American Interest website by Francis Fukuyama. For a brief time, in the mid-1970s, Frank and I were graduate students together at Yale – I in history and he in comparative literature (wherein a man who writes as clearly as he does would have been bound to fail), and I have always found him worth reading.

So that is what I did. I read Frank’s piece, which made a simple, sensible point: to wit, that there is no way that Greece can remain in a European Union dominated by the likes of Germany. As he explains, there are two Europes. One is clientalistic; the other is not. Greece epitomizes the former; Germany, the latter.

Clientelism occurs when political parties use public resources, and particularly government offices, as a means of rewarding political supporters. Politicians provide not programmatic public policies, but individual benefits like a job in the post office, an intervention on behalf of a relative in trouble with the government, or sometimes an outright payment of money or goods.

Politics in Germany is about principles and policies; politics in Greece is about pay-offs – and no political party in a country like Greece can actually introduce a policy of austerity without committing suicide. Greece’s troubles arise from a swollen public sector. Absolutely nothing has been done in the last four years to fix the problem, and nothing is going to be done. The election a week ago simply confirms what everyone knew. This means that, unless the Germans are going to sign up to pay the bills of the Greeks in perpetuity, Greece will have to give up the euro.

In the absence of fiscal discipline – and no clientalistic state has any fiscal discipline – the only way to cope with the swelling of the public sector is to devalue the currency. In this fashion, you can effect a genuine cut in public-sector salaries across the board, and the private sector can adjust by raising nominal prices. This is what Greece and, for that matter, Italy, Spain, and France used to do at frequent, if irregular, intervals.

Frank’s argument, which makes perfect sense to me, set me to thinking about the United States. After all, we have the same problem as the European Union. Some of the states constituting our Union have spent money on public-sector salaries and benefits and on welfare programs as if there was no tomorrow. California has a budget deficit of $16 billion for this year, and that is just the beginning. As time passes and pensions promised in the past come due, public expenses will skyrocket. Something similar is true in Illinois and New York. In effect, these are clientalistic states on the Greek model, and they are approaching the end of their tether.

There would appear to be two ways in which this problem could be dealt with. The federal government could assume the debts and pension obligations of the more profligate states, and it could underwrite future profligacy. Or California, Illinois, and New York could leave the American currency union, introduce their new currency or currencies, and let them float against the dollar. This would inflate away public-sector obligations, open the door to tax cuts, and reinvigorate the private sector. It is true that it would also destroy the savings of anyone in these states foolish enough to have any. But, hey, you pay for the place in which you choose to live, right? Alternatively, of course, we could devalue the dollar (which, if you judge it with an eye to the Australian dollar, the Canadian loonie, or gold, is what we are doing). In this fashion, we could and stick it to innocent folks in Texas and Indiana.

My first thought, when at a manic moment I proposed this to my wife, was that California, Illinois, and New York should adopt the Mexican peso as their currency. But then I realized that this would be unfair to the Mexicans whose currency is in considerably better shape now than it would be if superintending it was shared by a civilized placed like Mexico with the governments of states like California, Illinois, and New York.

On reflection, I decided that each of these states needs its own currency. But what should we name them? I suggest that the Stoner Republic out on the West coast call its new currency the joint, that the people of Illinois name theirs after their favorite son and call it the obama. New York’s could then be called the spitzer.

But perhaps you, gentle readers, you could come up with names that are more appropriate.

As we were driving over the Atchafalaya Basin in south Louisiana a few days ago, I tried my best to convey to my passenger some of the local flavor of bayou country.  Some chicken and sausage gumbo in a bowl large enough to bathe a baby helped, as did some Cajun music from a local radio station.  But nothing does the job quite like a few stories told in the right accent.  That's where my old radio alter ego, Alphonse Fontenot, comes in handy.  Besides which, we haven't heard from him in a spell, so I asked if he'd like to pass along his latest news to the erudite gathering here at Ricochet:

To My Frandly Ricoshoots, 

Me I'm so sorry I ain't wrote to you since befo Chrissmas, but I been a priddy busy little guy since my mama, she got hurt.  She was driving dat ugly car down in Laffayette, trying to get to Don's Seafood for some crawfish étouffée when she don't pay no tension and break two teeth when she run up on da mutual ground.  Well, she got all nerval and nearly had a harp attack on da side of da road dere.  But I've been staying wit her and she's feelin' mo betta.  

Da weather been 'bout normal here.  It only rained two times last week.  One time for tree day and one time for four day.  Da wind blow so hard dat one of da hens lay da same egg four times.  It brought to da back of ma mind da time dat Uncle Poot Poot came in from a frog strangler of a storm to work at da distillery and loss his footing an slip in a vat of whiskey.  He didn't seem too worried about it at da time ya know, and he was splashin' aroun singin' Jolie Blon.   Some people jump in da vat to try an save him, but he fight dem off real brave.  Dey finally trew him how you call a lifeline dere, but it was too late.  He expire.  Da family decided to have his body cremated.   It took two or tree day to put dat fire out.  

Meanwhile, I been trying to figure out da new washing machine I got for Chrissmas.  It got two lid and one lever.  I don't tink I like it much because I raise both lids and put in ma new shirt.  Then I push da lever and das da last I see of dem shirt!  

But da good news is we have a bran new married couple in da family.  Das right, Tosclair and Marie finally quit shackin' up and decide to make marriage.  Dey got married in da pries's rectum dere, and dey all fix up in dere new house.  It's got dat nice new brick manure on da outside, and sheet rock da inside.  

Well, it's time to bring a close to dis line.  I got da shore troat, an I'm gonna go have some milk of gymnasium to see if dat make it all betta.  I pray dat you all stay happy and healthy, and may God bless da hell outta you some mo.  

California's famously perfect weather and spectacular scenery have not been enough to save the state from an 11 percent unemployment rate, as officially measured, or gargantuan annual state budget deficits.  Liberal Democrats control the levers of power in the state and pretty much all the cultural assumptions, but reality stubbornly refuses to give way to the promised utopia.  Consider the lead article in this morning's San Jose Mercury News.

SACRAMENTO -- California's projected budget deficit has ballooned to $16 billion, much larger than predicted just four months ago, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday as he warned of draconian cuts to schools and public safety if voters don't approve his November tax-hike measure.

The governor said the shortfall grew from $9.2 billion in January in part because tax collections are sluggish and the economy hasn't recovered as quickly as expected. The deficit also has soared because lawsuits and federal requirements have blocked billions of dollars in state cuts to social programs, Brown said.

Could government tax and regulatory policy be contributing to our unexpectedly--notice how all statist failures are "unexpected"-- sluggish recovery?  Heresy.  Our state's economic underperformance must be the work of a wrathful and unjust god, or something George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did to us.  Somehow.

Meanwhile, consider the chart below comparing California's unemployment rate over time to that of Texas, another large industrial state.  The two states parallel one another until 2006, when California unemployment surges ahead.  Coincidentally, no doubt, 2006 was the year California passed AB32, the "Global Warming Solutions Act," which outsources escalating energy taxes and other job-killing regulations to the California Air Resources Board, now gearing up to reduce California greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Texas here we come.