Okay, I was about to let this White House Blog thing go. But now I realize that the White House is probably violating federal law. The blog is part of the White House's ".gov" site. The dot-gov domain is adminstered by the GSA, an independent federal agency which publishes strict guidelines for all government sites. The guidelines include:

No Political or Campaign Information: The Gov domain is for the operation of the government, not the political, political party, or campaign environment. No campaigning can be done using Gov Internet domains. The Gov Internet domain websites may not be directly linked to or refer to websites created or operated by a campaign or any campaign entity or committee. No political sites or party names or acronyms can be used. Separate webites and e-mail on other top-level domains (TLDs), such as .org, will have to be used for political activity. [emphasis mine]

So is the White House carefully avoiding political messages or mentioning party names? On today's blog, we see that "Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki exposes the stunning hypocrisy of the Congressional Republicans in harping on small business in their agenda," and "Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer explains the key implications of the new agenda leaked from the Congressional Republicans." And that's just two recent posts. Keep scrolling down and it's basically an SEIU rally.

Here's a President allegedly concerned about corporations having an undue influence on campaigns, and he's using a government-funded blog to bash congressional Republicans 6 weeks before the general election! The GSA has the power to suspend .gov sites that violate the guidelines. Anyone want to join me in calling on the GSA to do its job here?

Apparently, these things don't usually go together. Billionaires, according to Forbes, are mostly the shy, retiring types:

There he goes again, that mythical billionaire squiring his vastly younger new wife around town. You know who they are: Donald and Melania Trump. Sumner Redstone and Paula Fortunato. Larry Ellison and Melanie Craft. She's so young. He's so vigorous!

It is time to call that man out. You can count on two hands the number of Forbes 400 members who fit that stereotype. Billionaires are fairly monogamous. Fewer than 100 people on the rich list have been married more than once. Fewer than 20 are on a third wife. The elite four-wife club, which offers the best chance to marry someone 30 years younger, has 6 members.

Okay, two questions: 1) Is Donald Trump really a billionaire? And 2) What does it say about our popular culture, which celebrates money and wealth and power and freedom, when the divorce rate among billionaires is only 25%, much lower than the national average.

I guess the secret to getting rich is to avoid a lot of distractions.

The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, who’s up in Canada overseeing the roll-out of their streaming service. An excerpt:

THR: Are you concerned that American Netflix subscribers will look north and ask for the same discount Canadians get at $7.99?

Hastings: How much has it been your experience that Americans follow what happens in the world? It's something we'll monitor, but Americans are somewhat self-absorbed.

It’s a good thing there isn’t some sort of global communications network people can access on their “home terminal units” or “pocket voice devices,” or this sort of comment might get wider distribution. I’m just wondering why they have cheaper Netflix in Canada. It’s possible their government cares more than ours, and has passed laws to rein in the profits of Big Streaming. Who’s up for similar laws down here? Because if I don’t have the right to cheaper rates on streaming Angie Dickinson’s 1974 classic “Big Bad Mama” then Davy Crockett and everyone else at the Alamo died for nothing.

NY Dems looking to cancel out that shocker-close poll from yesterday could do worse than today's Siena poll showing Cuomo up 57% to Paladino's 24% with registered voters.

"The good news for Paladino is that since last month, he has picked up 10 points against Cuomo," [...] spokesman Steven Greenberg said. "The bad news is that he remains far behind." With 40 days left until the Nov. 2 election, Paladino has time to turn things around but has "a very big hill to climb," Greenberg said.

I suspect the truth about the spread lies between yesterday's and today's numbers. But what could possibly give Paladino the boost he needs to power up that hill?

Cuomo did have a little problem with telling the truth about his election box support for Mayor Bloomberg. “Have I voted for the mayor? Yes,” Cuomo said. Actually, he didn’t. The Cuomo campaign had to issue a clarification, saying he was only registered to vote in New York City in 2005 when he endorsed Democrat Fernando Ferrer. [...] The Paladino team used the faux pas to taunt Cuomo about not yet agreeing to debates. Paladino spokesman Caputo said “Perhaps that’s why Andrew is afraid to debate. He misspeaks so much he fears facing the voters.”

I may need to earn your support, Paladino is well-positioned to claim, but Andrew Cuomo has the credibility of a Nigerian bank transfer and the conscience of a vampire bat. Gird yourselves, New Yorkers, for another volatile race, characteristic of these volatile times. For the Andrew Cuomos of the world, of course, the full battery of horrors associated with that volatility -- serious competition, true press scrutiny, real accountability, and, yes, handsomely deserved ridicule -- itself amounts to a stinging defeat.

The US was not operating out of Laos in 1968. At least not officially. Laos was a neutral country during the war. Among the people and things that were not officially there at the time was the Air Force's 1043d Radar Evaluation Squadron, Detachment 1. Since there were officially no troops in Laos, the troops assigned to the 1043d wore civilian attire and were listed as employees of Lockheed.

Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Richard L. Etchberger was the ground radar superintendent at Lima Site 85, which sat on Pupil Pha Thi, a 5,800 mountain in Laos. The mission? Guide B-52 bombers on their missions into North Vietnam. The site also served as a staging area for Hmong tribesmen who were helping our CIA and Special Forces personnel.

In early spring of 1968, the North Vietnamese launched a massive attack on the site. Using heavy artillery, they cut the 1043d off from infantry support, eventually breaking through the defensive perimeter entirely.

On 11 March, 1968, with precious little combat training, and only recently having been issued an M-16 rifle, Chief Etchberger's post came under intense attack from small arms fire and grenades. With everyone else at his post either killed or injured, the Chief alone held off enemy forces with his newly issued rifle, while simultaneously calling in air strikes and coordinating rescue operations from his emergency radio.

His efforts paid off as the enemy was kept at bay long enough for rescue helicopters to ingress into the fire zone. Repeatedly exposing himself to enemy fire, Chief Etchberger lifted his wounded brothers in arms into rescue slings as they were hoisted into the chopper. Finally, it was his turn to be rescued. But as he was being lifted to safety, Chief Etchberger was shot and killed.

Yesterday, at the White House, the President of the United States presented the Congressional Medal of Honor, posthumously, to Chief Master Sergeant Etchberger. His sons, Steve, Richard, and Corey, received the medal on his behalf. The President read from a letter that Chief Etchberger had written shortly before his death.

"I hate to be away from home, but I believe in the job. It's the most challenging job I'll ever have in my life. I love it."

Chief Etchberger's family was not told of the details of his death for many years due to the classified nature of the mission. The details having been declassified, the American people now benefit from another story of heroism under fire. A story of a citizen who gave everything for his comrades, his family, and his country. Thank you, Chief Etchberger. God bless, and rest in peace, sir.

O. Faruk Loğoğlu, Turkey’s former ambassador to the United States, published an absolutely scathing indictment of the West's policy toward the AKP in the Turkish press today:

The subject here is the nearly uniform support and praise the AKP is getting from Europe and the United States after the referendum. Political quarters in the West are buying almost wholesale the AKP sales job that the reform package makes Turkey more democratic. Even President Barack Obama, who is unhappy with Turkey over Iran and Israel, joined EU circles in applauding the AKP. Western capitals actually failing to see the transformation of Turkey under the AKP into a society increasingly governed by the rules and precepts of religion is a proposition difficult to accept. Washington knows that Turkish democracy is slipping and that Turkey’s foreign policy is shifting its focus away from the Euro-Atlantic community. On the other hand, Europe believes that what matters is not what happens in Turkey so long as the government there acts in consonance with European interests. Europeans follow Turkish developments more closely than Americans do, so they know what the score is. The West, therefore, understands where Turkey is headed. What the West does not understand are the consequences and implications of a Turkey driven by a religionist outlook.

The current Western attitude toward Turkey is one of opportunistic and calibrated indifference. The present priority of Western leaders is to maintain sufficiently good relations with the AKP to reap the benefits of Turkey’s cooperation and capabilities. They care for Turkey not for Turkey’s sake, but for their own immediate satisfaction. However, beyond the short run, this shortsighted selfishness is likely to turn out to be a costly blunder on the part of Western powers.

Although I'm not sure, I think it's possible the US may not be slumbering. I reckon the Obama Administration probably knows the score, too. They've got to realize these developments are ominous. They may be thinking that they need to give the AKP a face-saving out. Nothing that bad has happened yet, after all. Perhaps they're thinking, "If we out-and-out declare that they've gone off the deep end, what good will it do? It will only push them into a corner. Then they'll really go off the deep end, and what do we do then?"

And honestly, I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know whether it would make any real difference if the West refused to go along with the pretense that all of these developments are just terrific for Turkish democracy. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't.

Turks tend to believe that foreign powers have a great deal of covert influence over their country. Many fantasize that the American president could make one phone call and change their government (for good or ill), pump up their stock market or collapse it, bring peace to the Middle East or destroy it. But of course that is a fantasy, a juvenile and dangerous one. Like the fantasy that the military will always step in to solve the mess if it gets out of hand, the half-conscious idea that the Americans will step in sooner or later, or could step in, keeps people from taking ultimate responsibility for their own political future.

Turkey's future is, in fact, in the hands of the Turks--whether they realize it or not and whether they like it or not.

If you think of the pounding the Democrats took 16 years ago in 1994, one thing that comes to mind quickly is the GOP Contract with America.

If nothing changed between now and November and the Republicans romp the Democrats the way they are predicted to do, what will come to mind 16 years from now is ‘Tea Party.”

Today the GOP will release their Pledge To America. A review of a draft of the document shows it is modeled somewhat after the Declaration of Independence, which started with a statement of beliefs and followed with a list of grievances against King George. The pledge does the same but then adds a plan for repair of the US government.

The document doesn’t break new ground; it states what Republicans have always said. So why do it now? Here are some ideas (what are yours?):

The GOP wants to steal the Tea Party thunder (cynical); or

The GOP is finally moving toward the Tea Party (less cynical); or

The GOP honestly thinks the Pledge will help them win (deferential).

Bonus question: When I’m winning in court, I stop speaking. Might the pledge be misquoted/misinterpreted to give the Dems talking points?

More on this topic:

SMITH > The GOP's "Pledge to America"

RAHE > Boehner Throws Down the Gauntlet

Ann Coulter has a rip-roaring column up, arguing that the social issues are winners for conservatives even though the media and the establishment insist they're not. It's worth reading, and I suspect she's about 80 percent right. But I can't help thinking that the black/white, yes/no nature of media debate militates against wisdom in these matters. Should gays be allowed to marry or not? Should abortion be legal or not? Should there be prayer in school or not? The left always plays these issues as matters of freedom and equality, the right as questions of morality and strong communities. Am I alone in feeling caught in the middle?

What I want, in all of these issues, is liberty. I want our representatives to decide these things, not our judges; I want them decided locally not federally; and I want them subject to change by referendum - by voting the bums out and bringing in new bums to make new laws. This system works. Its failure to defeat Jim Crow is anomalous - a hard case that makes bad law. Racial rights should not serve as the model for every argument that follows. The Constitution should.

The question, as Thomas Sowell is always reminding us, is not right or wrong - it's who decides? It ought to be the people's representatives in their communities. Is anyone running on that platform, I wonder?

Over at the Weekly Standard, Jay Cost notes that according to a new poll by SurveyUSA, Kristin Gillibrand and her Republican opponent Joe DioGuardi are neck to neck in the battle for Hillary Clinton's old Senate seat. According to SurveyUSA:

In the Special Election to fill the final 2 years of Hillary Rodham Clinton's term, incumbent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand and former Congressman Republican Joe DioGuardi today finish effectively even, with Gillibrand's nominal 1-point lead being within the survey's theoretical margin of sampling error.

Cost notes that "SurveyUSA has had some atrocious numbers for Democrats this year, and they must really be hoping that the polling outfit is wide of the mark. It has a good track record, though."

John McCormack, also at TWS, thinks that with Gillibrand's seat in play, it's a "real possibility" for Republicans to take the Senate in 2010.

Gail Sheehy over at The Daily Beast reports that President Obama couldn't fill seats at a New York City fundraiser for Democrats last night. Held in the Roosevelt Hotel's ballroom, which can seat 650, the fundraiser only attracted 450 guests, despite the fire sale on tickets ($50!). And even at that, the president was heckled by his guests!

Watch Obama being heckled here:

Sheehy writes,

Who would have thought that six weeks before a cliffhanger election, President Obama would have to reach down to the D list to fill a room to listen to him? Most of us low rollers arrived early to see President Obama up close and personal. Our tickets for the general reception at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York were only $100. Some thought the email invitation was a joke. Some bought tickets for $50 from their desperate Democratic committeeman. Some bought the same day.

...

Only after I received four email invitations and two personal calls imploring me to come did I call Speaker Pelosi’s office to check the admission price. “You mean, to be in the room with the President of the United States is now on fire sale for $100?”

”Yup.”

“How long do we get?”

“Half hour.”

“How many $100 givers have rsvp’d?”

“Mmmm 250.”

“Do we need to line up early to get in?”

“That’s not necessary. Everybody will get in.”

This does not bode well for Democrats.

Last night, a friend sent me a draft of the Pledge to America that the House Republicans will be releasing today. It rewards study.

Back in early August, I wrote a lengthy post entitled John Boehner’s Testing Time, arguing in some detail that we live in a critical time in which the ordinary rules of politics do not apply. In ordinary circumstances, we are condemned to a politics focused largely on patronage – in which political struggle revolves around finding the means to satisfy party constituents. In such circumstances, the dynamic I described in Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift pertains. Federal subsidies grow and grow, and with them come mandates binding the recipients – local and state governments, corporations, universities, and NGOs – in ways that gradually, steadily eliminate their freedom to maneuver and subvert political liberty.

In critical times – such as the moment in which we now live – it is possible to transcend the politics of patronage and ascend to a politics of principle. This is the imperative that the Tea Party is enforcing. What is needed, I added, is statesmanship – an effort by politicians equipped with a modicum of genius to unite a party around a set of principles. I then suggested that John Boehner and the Republican leadership in the House draft a new Contract with America like the one presented in 1994 by Newt Gingrich but improved in the following way. Newt’s Contract was a laundry list. I suggested that Boehner and his merry men ground their call in America’s first principles.

And that, I am very pleased to say, is what they have done with their Pledge to America. This document has three virtues. It gives the Republicans a platform on which to run in November; it reminds the American people of the manner in which we have departed from the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Constitution, and it binds those elected to act on their pledge.

In politics, as Abraham Lincoln argued, public sentiment is everything. Our task is to reconfigure public sentiment in an enduring fashion by effecting a return to first principles – and that, thank God, is what John Boehner and the Republican leaderships are attempting to do.

More on this topic:

SMITH > The GOP's "Pledge to America"

DE SENO > Is the GOP Pledge Designed to Steal Tea Party Thunder?

At a hardware store in Sterling, Virginia today, House Republicans are unveiling their 21-page “Pledge to America,” the 2.0 version of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract With America.” In 1994, Gingrich’s Contract helped Republicans gain control of the House for the first time in 40 years. Will the “Pledge” deliver its own dazzling results for 2010?

Like Newt’s Contract, the Pledge is a plan of action for the next congressional term. CBS reports:

The agenda will focus on five areas: jobs, spending, health care, national security and reforming Congress itself. Within these five general areas there is a breakdown of about four points per topic, making it roughly a 20-point plan.

Check out the full text of the Pledge here.

Rep. Paul Ryan has said of the plan:

Putting spending, putting the policy of economic growth in place and cleaning up the way Congress works is not only a stark contrast to this president and this Congress...It's a contrast to the way we conducted ourselves a decade ago. We spent to much money. We lost our way

There has been some debate among conservatives about the pledge. Note that the Pledge is light on social issues.

National Review gives it a thumbs up:

The inevitable question will be: Is the pledge as bold as the Contract?

The answer is: The pledge is bolder. The Contract with America merely promised to hold votes on popular bills that had been bottled up during decades of Democratic control of the House. The pledge commits Republicans to working toward a broad conservative agenda that, if implemented, would make the federal government significantly smaller, Congress more accountable, and America more prosperous.

While Erick Erickson over at RedState gives it a thumbs down:

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing to come out of Washington since George McClellan....These 21 pages tell you lots of things, some contradictory things, but mostly this: it is a serious of compromises and milquetoast rhetorical flourishes in search of unanimity among House Republicans because the House GOP does not have the fortitude to lead boldly in opposition to Barack Obama.

What's your verdict?

Here are some bullet points from the Pledge, via CBS:

Jobs:

- Stop job-killing tax hikes

- Allow small businesses to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their income

- Require congressional approval for any new federal regulation that would add to the deficit

- Repeal small business mandates in the new health care law.

Cutting Spending:

- Repeal and Replace health care

- Roll back non-discretionary spending to 2008 levels before TARP and stimulus (will save $100 billion in first year alone)

- Establish strict budget caps to limit federal spending going forward

- Cancel all future TARP payments and reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Reforming Congress:

- Will require that every bill have a citation of constitutional authority

- Give members at least 3 days to read bills before a vote

Defense:

- Provide resources to troops

- Fund missile defense

- Enforce sanctions in Iran

More on this topic:

DE SENO > Is the GOP Pledge Designed to Steal Tea Party Thunder?

RAHE > Boehner Throws Down the Gauntlet

Mike Pence (R-Indiana) gave a talk at Hillsdale on Monday night, which I attended. His topic was “The Presidency and the Constitution”; and, as I report in a piece just posted on Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, it was genuinely impressive. Pence is a thoughtful, principled man – and I suspect that he may be planning a Presidential bid. He has one drawback: he has never held executive office -- and, as I argued in a series of posts archived here, this nearly always matters a great deal. He nonetheless bears close watching.

UPDATE: Pence's speech has been posted online.

Speaking before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee, senior national security officials said that homegrown terrorism in this country is on the rise, as evidenced by a "recent spike" in terrorist cases.

As ABC News points out, in the last 18 months, around 63 Americans have been arrested or convicted of terrorist charges--an extraordinary number. In this news segment Diane Sawyer noted that "The danger is as grave as it has been since September 11th."

At the committee hearing, National Counterterrorism Chief Michael Leiter focused on the intensity of the threat:

During the past year our nation has dealt with the most significant developments in the terrorist threat to the Homeland since 9/11...The attack threats are now more complex, and the diverse array of threats tests our ability to respond, and makes it difficult to predict where the next attack may come.

Meanwhile, Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, spoke about the rise of homegrown terrorism.

Homegrown terrorists represent a new and changing facet of the terrorist threat...To be clear, by homegrown, I mean terrorist operatives who are U.S. persons, and who were radicalized in the United States.

And FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III also picked up the theme of homegrown terrorism, saying:

Groups affiliated with al Qaeda are now actively targeting the United States and looking to use Americans or Westerners who are able to remain undetected by heightened security measures...It appears domestic extremism and radicalization appears to have become more pronounced based on the number of disruptions and incidents.

Apparently, al Qaeda will continue to attempt smaller scale attacks in the United States--a la the Times Square and Christmas Day bombers. But, Napolitano warned, "Unlike large-scale, coordinated, catastrophic attacks, executing smaller-scale attacks requires less planning and fewer pre-operational steps...Accordingly, there are fewer opportunities to detect such an attack before it occurs."

Slate is running a partly thoughtful and partly confused article by Dahlia Lithwick about the planned execution of Teresa Lewis. She observes that there's no particularly serious reason to believe that Lewis has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice:

She bought the guns and ammunition used in the murders. She allegedly left the back door open for the killers and waited more than an hour to call 911 while her husband bled to death. She ransacked her dying husband's pockets for money she then split with the triggermen. ... There was no evidence of systemic misconduct or bias in the case against her. She's white. She doesn't claim to be innocent. But I still can't find a lot of people calling for her execution to take place as scheduled on Thursday.

And she suggests--correctly, I'm sure--that the lack of enthusiasm for killing her reflects a general social revulsion toward the idea of applying the death penalty to women, however grim their crimes. The confused part is the conclusion she draws from this:

But who's really going to argue for gender parity in state-sanctioned execution? Is anyone out there celebrating Lewis' shattering of another glass ceiling this week? Hard to imagine even the staunchest feminist insisting that if women commit 10 percent of the murders, they should compose 10 percent of those executed for it. The better feminist response to the infrequency of capital punishment for women should probably be to fight to see that it's equally rare for men.

The first and last sentences of this paragraph are clearly in contradiction; it seems Lithwick herself is calling for gender parity in executions. She's just calling for the parity to be achieved by reducing the number of men executed.

The death penalty disturbs me very greatly. I'm entirely persuaded that unbearable miscarriages of justice happen frequently. Recent advances in forensics have made this particularly clear. But I have no idea how any other punishment could be considered justice in a case like this one, for example. And I'm also persuaded by the evidence that the death penalty is indeed a very serious deterrent, one that as such saves lives.

I don't really have a position I can fully defend on the death penalty, for or against. But of all the arguments that might sway me, ones deriving from the ideal of "gender parity" would be pretty low on the list. Ancient social taboos against doing violence to women aren't something I'm keen to eradicate. If we feel no special enthusiasm for killing women, and if that leads to disparities in the rate at which we execute them, that's fine with me.

Over at Commentary, John Podhoretz has some interesting thoughts on Delaware Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell.

He talks how anyone who'd written an op-ed in the 1990s was asked to show up on one of the many cable news shows that proliferated then. Christine O'Donnell did her share of television at the time -- and she's having to defend herself against some of her youthful utterances. Podhoretz says that Bill Maher used her on his show Politically Incorrect so often because "She could hold down the conservative chair and, to be blunt, say embarrassing, stupid, and excessive things that would discredit the very cause she was supposed to be there to represent."

Unfortunately, as O'Donnell's behavior 15 years ago and now attest, there is little evidence of seriousness of purpose (like her workplace lawsuit in particular against the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, in which she demanded damages because she had trouble sleeping) and a great deal of evidence of her fundamental silliness. Booking and canceling television interviews and bouncing around confusedly in the wake of her victory have not inspired confidence in the voters of Delaware. After the election, assuming the tsunami doesn't manage miraculously to carry her over, she will have a second career on the conservative circuit blaming the mainstream media for harming her candidacy.

But there would be no Christine O'Donnell without the mainstream media, and it will be to their precincts she will in all likelihood decamp in the wake of her sudden fame, turning the ideas she claims to embody into a dismissible caricature, just as she did in her youth. The same, by the way, will be true if she wins; she will be the first new senator liberal reporters turn to for a quote on something controversial, in hopes that she will step in it. The problem is not the ideas, or the Tea Party. The problem is O'Donnell and her path to the spotlight.

He then notes how Sean Duffy's path had similar beginnings -- first coming to public attention because he was a cast member of MTV's The Real World, of all things. But from there he went on to get married, have six children, become the district attorney of Ashland County and spent years building up enough trust to run a serious campaign in a tough district.

O'Donnell is down 14 points right now and has high unfavorables among Delaware voters. The one thing I find interesting about O'Donnell's candidacy is that she has raised so much money when there are Tea Party types in other races that are much tighter.

I must say that as a Californian, this news was music to my ears:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman says the budget-cutting and union-fighting tactics employed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie provide a perfect “roadmap” for her plans in California.

Could California end up with its very own version of Chris Christie? One can only hope.

The Boston Herald reports that the Cambridge government is issuing parking tickets illustrated with yoga poses. I am in no way joking. Motorists aren't taking to it as the city had hoped. Being normal human beings, they think it's silly and a waste of money. Government officials are surprised:

But officials say it’s about getting in touch with a deeper municipal truth: “It’s trying to debunk the idea that all parking tickets are a hostile action, because I don’t think they are,” said Susan E. Clippinger, the city’s transportation chief. “We’re not writing tickets to get somebody. We’re writing tickets to help make the city function.”

Right. The 40,000 parking tickets are part of a public art project, apparently. Government artist Daniel Peltz also created a mural of "excuses" given by drivers. Oh, and plush Denver boots. Because when the government siezes your car with the application of a boot, it feels better when it's a soft boot:

Peltz envisions “a reflection on a social situation, the human experience of giving and receiving parking tickets.” He e-mailed from Sweden: “I started this process by wondering what would happen in a world where I received them with a set of graceful postures: a clean bend at the waist, a gentle lift of the windshield wiper . . . I’m going to get the ticket either way, my only choice really is how I’m going to receive it.”

I'll say it again. This is apparently not satire. Actually, there's no way this is real, is there?

James Poulos already noted this below, but I figured it deserved a post of its own. From RealClearPolitics:

Quinnipiac...finds Paladino surging into contention. He trails by a narrow 49 percent to 43 percent margin. This is the first likely voter poll that Quinnipiac has conducted, so it is hard to determine what kind of trend there is (if any)....Conservative Rick Lazio isn’t tested [although Lazio lost to Paladino in the GOP primary, Lazio remains the nominee of the New York Conservative Party], which may result in the poll overstating how close Paladino really is. Regardless, this race isn’t looking like the blowout we’ve been seeing for most of the cycle.

There's a hearty band of New Yorkers and (like me) former New Yorkers here on Ricochet, and a lot of us have been watching the Paladino campaign for the sheer fun of it. Now it looks as though our man Carl--tough, shrewd, colorful and outrageous; in a word, just what Albany needs--might actually win.

Glory.

Is Barney Frank in danger of losing his congressional seat? Stranger things have happened. Considered a safely Democratic district, the last Republican to represent Massachusetts' 4th CD was Pehr Holmes, who left office in 1947. So it's certainly been a while. But new polling information gives Republican challenger Sean Bielat a glimmer of hope. HotAir has the scoop:

The poll, conducted for the campaign by OnMessage, shows Frank falling below the 50% mark despite the D+14 composition of his constituency. Bielat comes within nine points, even though the poll shows that he still badly trails in name recognition.

The memo from the pollster explains that Bielat could shock the world on November 2nd: "The ballot is very encouraging and shows Bielat at 38%, Frank at 48% and 13% undecided."

I had lots of contact with Seymour Martin Lipset back in the mid-1990s when I was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in D.C., and I share his liking for the two-party system. I am also an adherent -- as was he, if I remember correctly -- of the theory of critical elections.

As one approaches a critical moment, everything in the party system is in flux, as it is now, and this offers one of the two parties an opportunity to reconfigure the political universe. Most of the time, one party is dominant, and the other party plays defense. Since 1932 -- except, for a time, in the aftermath of 1980 -- the Democrats were dominant, and the Republicans played defense.

The breakdown of the system of party loyalty is a sign that we can, if we have the moxie, alter that hoary dynamic. In a sense, the Tea-Party phenomenon marks the return of Ross Perot. The Savings-and-Loan Scandal left Americans with a sense that their interests were being ignored, that the two parties had colluded against them. George W. Bush's abandonment of fiscal rectitude, followed by Barack Obama's irresponsible binge, has resurrected that species of discontent; and, in response, the Republicans appear to be turning themselves into a party of principle capable of effecting a realignment and reinvigorating the two-party system.

Marty, who was an old socialist, might not entirely like the outcome. But he would certainly enjoy watching the battle.

Sarah Palin has a new web video out in praise of the Tea Party.

Our friend Andrew Malcolm over at Top of the Ticket asks, "Is this new Sarah Palin video a campaign step?"

Watch it. See if you think it's from someone who is not running for, oh, say, the nomination for an important office from a major political party. Or laying the foundation to play a major role in that decision by assembling a following of numerous like-minded, loyal folks.

I'm convinced. I think she'll run.

I reserve my right to get angry at any and all politicians at any time for any reason, but I can't quite get worked up about President Obama thinking that he could get 4 apples for a dollar. Story here. My own mother has trouble adjusting to the changing cost of goods and we like to tease her about this. Not a fatal flaw.

Anyway, over at U.S. News & World Report, contributing editor Peter Roff notes that media coverage of this incident is very different than it would have been (or has been) for Republican presidents. This will surprise no one. To make his point, however, he repeats a common misconception:

Lest anyone accuse me of picking nits, recall back in the days when George Herbert Walker Bush was president and was shown a new type of grocery scanner that appeared to amaze and impress him. The fact that it was a new technology was no excuse; his amazement was proof that Bush, who at the time was presiding over a flagging U.S. economy, was just completely out of touch with what average Americans experience on a daily basis.

Two problems with that story, according to Snopes. One, the reporter who blew it up -- The New York Times reporter Andrew Rosenthal -- hadn't actually witnessed the event in question. Had he, he might have realized that it wasn't a normal grocery scanner but a fraud-detection one that could also read mangled bar codes and weigh groceries. This was 20 years ago, if you need reminding. Second, other reporters say that "bored" or "friendly" would be a better description of President Bush that day, rather than shocked and amazed.

Yeah, I'm a nitpicker. But it's important to get these stories right.

A colleague of mine at the Hoover Institution during his final years, the great sociologist and political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset was always a fierce champion of our political parties. Because the United States possessed only two principal parties, and because most voters remained loyal to one or the other most of the time, Marty argued, the country proved especially stable, avoiding the disruptive swings from left to right that marked many other democracies, including those, for example, of Italy, France, and even, particularly during the nineteen-seventies, Britain.

What would, I wonder, would Marty make of the situation today?

Partisan identification has been dropping for decades, but seems to have accelerated over the last decade or so, with Independents now outnumbering both Republicans and Democrats. Lurches from left to right? First Independents moved en masse to Obama. Now they’re swinging en masse to the GOP.

The ballast, in a word, has broken loose. The ship of state lists now to port, now to starboard, heeling in every wave. This is a lousy way to sail.

Which brings me, once again, to Dr. Rahe.

The present political moment delights you, Paul--of course I know that. But taking the long view—the view, let us say, not of the six weeks until election day but of the nine decades until the turn of the next century--don’t you find the erosion of the two great parties just a trifle queasy-making?

I'm not anti-elite. There's nothing in The Big Book of Elitehood that says "Congratulations! You're ready to rule by fiat" or "Welcome to a lifetime of lucrative cronyhood!" There's nothing that says "Spending a hundred million dollars to stay mayor is a sign you've arrived," or "Parlaying your scandalous run at HUD into a governorship means never having to say you're sorry."

But I can think of nothing that begs for ad hominem attacks on the ruling class quite like Mike Bloomberg endorsing Andrew Cuomo because the great Lazio-slayer Carl Paladino is -- impertinence! -- running six points behind Cuomo in the polls.

The political class represented by Cuomo and Bloomberg imagines itself fit to rule the world, not least the ruling class itself. No wonder Paladino's numbers have put the fear of God in them. The very endorsement reveals how high a risk these men are willing to run to retain their cosmic mastery. Put in close enough proximity, Cuomo and Bloomberg will implode into a black hole of self-entitlement, tragically destroying their gold-plated careers before Paladino and Co. can so much as laugh them off stage.

I know we pick on Jimmy Carter a lot here on Ricochet, but that’s just because for conservatives, he’s the gift that keeps on giving. Last night, for instance, on the Nightly News, he said that our country is more polarized now than at the time of the Civil War.

Here's the text of his remark below. The comment appears about two and a half minutes into the clip.

This country has become so polarized that it’s almost astonishing…. Not only with the red and blue states… President Obama suffers from the most polarized situation in Washington that we have ever seen – even maybe than the time of Abraham Lincoln and the initiation of the war between the states.

Here's another issue where we could see a strong Freak Power/Rube Power consensus:

"You take the family to the food court. Your wife and Pete head for tacos. You and Danny want Chinese. You look up at the menu. You look down to see what Danny wants. But you don't see Danny. Every parent knows that feeling. Imagine if he were actually abducted ..."

So goes one of the ads for the tsunami of new mobile devices, chips, apps and alerts that promise to keep track of our children's every move. [...] At last, here's an easy way to keep an electronic eye on our kids and make sure they're safe! But what really happens is this:

• Now that we can track our children's every move, we start to think maybe we should. (Sort of like once we could buy our babies those black and white, brain-stimulating mobiles, it started to feel like it's just something a good parent does.)
• Once we think we should track our kids, it means we also start think that this makes sense -- that our kids are quite possibly in danger any time we're not with them.
• Once we start thinking that, we feel our job is to keep them under constant surveillance.
• And once we buy into that, we begin living in a constant state of fear, only assuaged by a glance at the GPS tracker. Phew! He's still there!

The device is like a drug: Once addicted, we only feel good when we're mainlining it.

Today Citizens for the Republic have unveiled a new ad called "Mourning in America," a play on Reagan's famous "Morning in America" ads of 1984.

I wonder if the more apt comparison is to the ads Reagan used in the 1980 campaign. Some can be found here. Though Reagan is called an optimist -- and he was -- he was no Panglossian. More accurate to say he was confident there was no challenge the American people could not handle. And though he had a gentle manner, he did hammer away with things like the misery index, the famous bear in the woods ad (bear representing the Soviet Union), the "Can you afford 4 more years," another talking about how Carter had "slammed the door" on the dream of owning a home.

..."she should be prosecuted," according to Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), a Washington-based liberal watchdog group.

According to Talking Points Memo,

Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell allegedly used more than $20,000 in campaign funds to pay her rent and other personal expenses, according to a complaint filed Monday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics [CREW] in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

With guns blazin', Sloan says that,

Christine O'Donnell is clearly a criminal, and like any crook she should be prosecute...Ms. O'Donnell has spent years embezzling money from her campaign to cover her personal expenses. Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much these days, but both sides should agree on one point: thieves belong in jail not the United States Senate.

Meanwhile, as TPM points out, O'Donnell's lawyer struck back, calling CREW a "left-wing front group" funded by, who else, George Soros. Speaking to the Christian Science Monitor, Cleta Mitchell, O'Donnell's attorney, says, "If Melanie Sloan wants to deny that, you tell Melanie Sloan to reveal her donors...She is not a neutral arbiter of ethics."

The CSM reports:

In a March interview with The News Journal of Wilmington, O'Donnell acknowledged using campaign funds to pay half the rent at her current town home and said it was legal because of the home's dual purpose as a campaign headquarters.

O'Donnell essentially used her campaign's bank card as her personal ATM, CREW executive director Melanie Sloan said, and the improper spending likely would have gone unnoticed if not for her surprise victory in last week's primary.

CREW, which describes itself as nonpartisan but is undoubtedly liberal, has filed a complaint against O'Donnell with the Federal Elections Committee and has "sent a letter to Delaware U.S. Attorney David C. Weiss asking for a criminal investigation of O'Donnell."

Re. Lileks on Sweden, our member Jason comments:

So did I, actually. But it's always Steyn, Steyn, Steyn, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, never Claire.

The Berlinski junta has had quite enough of America Alone. I predicted it too! I predicted it first! This is not fair.

Therefore, as of now, in the interests of state security and enhanced democracy, all references to the unerring accuracy of any Ricochet contributor's predictions of Europe's demise are subject to the new Ricochet Fairness and Accountability in Broadcasting Act, which means you must mention me every time you mention Mark Steyn. In fact, his fame and popularity are excessively unfair, and therefore, to ensure balance and democracy, my name must be mentioned twice whenever his comes up.

Airbrushers, please remove Steyn's photo and replace it with a second one of me. One in which I look characteristically wise. Thanks.