Inmates Running The Asylum

When leadership falls apart, you get chaos and anarchy and the inmates running the show.

1: President Obama held a state dinner for the South Korean president last night, in large part to celebrate the passage of the free trade agreement with South Korea. Invited by the White House to join in the festivities? Anti-free trade and anti-captialist maniac Michael Moore. Yes, you paid to feed him last night and give him free reign in the White House. Guess he had to take time out of his busy schedule of protesting free trade to toast it.

2: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has completely thrown in the towel on leadership during his ill-advised third term, but his handling of the Occupy Wall Street lunatics takes the cake. First he slammed them for hurting businesses and tourism in NYC. Then he told them to move. Then he told them they could stay indefinitely. Then he instructed them to move so the park could be cleaned. Then he postponed the cleaning. Then he issued new guidelines for the protestors, such as no sleeping bags in the park. Then he seemingly backed off of that.

Thanks to his indecision and all-over-the-map-ness, the protestors know they've got him, so of course they are pressing ahead with ever-more demands and spreading the chaos. Now they're planning to invade Times Square.

When leadership at the top falters or fails, the crazies get emboldened, chaos ensues, and anarchy develops.

Reagan, Reagan! Rudy, Rudy! Wherefore art thou?

Newt On The March?

Rasmussen Reports released a poll today showing an interesting development in the Republican presidential field. Rasmussen puts Mitt Romney and Herman Cain in a tie for the lead, with both holding 29% of the GOP vote. But coming up in third place is not Rick Perry. Or Michele Bachmann. Or Ron Paul. Or Rick Santorum. Or Jon Huntsman.

No, the new third place candidate is...Newt Gingrich with 10% of the Republican vote.

A couple of things about this:

First: As of this moment, Cain and Romney are walking away with the race. With nearly 30% each, they are head and shoulders above every other candidate in terms of GOP voters' preferences right now. Newt, with his 10%, isn't even close. So let's maintain some perspective.

That said, here's the second point: Cain is rising because he's dynamite. He's got an incredible "only in America" personal story. He's a successful CEO. He's smart, dynamic, personable, warm, and funny. He commands a stage. He advocates for his positions in an unapologetic way. He looks like he's happy to be running, meeting everyday Americans, and engaging the big issues. Most importantly: he looks like he's running not simply to serve his own personal ambitions but for what he can do for the country. That simple point is not to be underestimated. It is one of the most profound reasons people vote for one candidate over another.

There is another reason for Cain's rise: many conservatives and other GOP voters simply don't trust Romney. If this election is going to largely about the economy, Romney has the advantage. If, however, this election is going to be about the economy AS WELL AS the proper size and scope of government, Romney suffers. As Governor of Massachusetts, witness how he viewed the role of government as he instituted government-run health care in that state. It is now bankrupting Massachusetts. And this week, we learned that some of his RomneyCare advisers were advising the ObamaCare team. Horrible. Romney is not exactly a small-government guy. That worries GOP voters. Hence, the Cain surge: Anybody But Romney, please----that's the refrain from many on the GOP side.

The surprise mini-surge by Newt seen in this Rasmussen poll suggests that he may be capitalizing on that sentiment as well. But there's something else here, which brings me to my third point: As we get closer to the general election campaign, voters are trying to visualize how it will go down. In less than 12 months, we will have already had at least one presidential debate. We're trying to picture the GOP candidate at a podium next to Barack Obama, he of the silver-tongue. More and more of us are coming to the conclusion that Newt---and ONLY Newt---could wipe the floor with Obama. He'd kill him politically with facts and conservatism. No other GOP candidate could destroy Obama in a debate so completely as Gingrich.

Does that mean he's going to vault into the top tier and give Romney and Cain a run for their money? I have no idea. Maybe he'll gain even more momentum and pull off a huge upset. Maybe this poll is just a burp, and he'll settle back down to 5-7%. But one thing is clear: GOP voters are worried about Romney's too-slick-by-half super-ambition and Cain's lack of political and national security experience. Newt may not come off as the most likeable guy, but he is the most serious conservative intellectual in this race. And his rhetorical skills are second to none.

The conventional wisdom is that Newt can't win a general election: too much baggage, too much weirdness, etc. That may be true. Then again, who would have thought that this race would be Romney vs. Cain in mid-October? And who would have thought that Obama could have smashed the Clinton machine to be the Democrat nominee in 2008?

This election cycle, anything can happen.

Newt had better be prepared. And so should we.

Rodham Chimes In

Attorney General Eric Holder announced yesterday---perhaps in a bid to deflect attention from his role in the fast and Furious gunrunning scandal---that the U.S. is moving against two men tied to Iran and its terrorist arm, the Revolutionary Guard Corps and internal Qods Force. The charges stem from an alleged plot the two men were orchestrating to allegedly blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington and assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. as he dined in a popular restaurant. If the plot had been carried out, scores of people would have been killed, something one of the plotters was caught on tape as disregarding cavalierly: "F---k 'em," he said.

A critical part of the puzzle was the fact that the alleged plotters turned for help to one of the most dangerous drug cartels in the world, the Mexican Zetas cartel. The plotter thought he was talking to a top drug kingpin. Instead, he was talking to a DEA informant. Whoops! That's when the plot unraveled which led to the bust of one of the men about 2 weeks ago. The other alleged plotter remains at large.

Here was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's reaction to the news yesterday:

"The idea that they would attempt to go to a Mexican drug cartel to solicit murder-for-hire to kill the Saudi ambassador, nobody could make that up, right?"

Is she an idiot? Or is she the worst Secretary of State ever? Maybe both.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has been the world's biggest state sponsor of terror. It took scores of Americans hostage at our embassy. It directed the 1983 bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut, killing hundreds of our servicemen. It orchestrated the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people. And over the years, Iran has directed, carried out, planned, and supplied countless other terror attacks around the world, in addition to supporting formal terror groups like al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

We also know that the Mexican drug lords are tightly associated with Islamic terror groups. The black hats always ride together.

And yet, our Secretary of State is somehow mystified about this tangled web of evil and terror.

Girlfriend, seriously? "You can't make it up?" You don't have to make it up, because it's very real. And Rodham is wandering around, navel-gazing, expressing wonderment that America's enemies work together against us.

She has cleverly flown under the radar in this job, but she really is perhaps the very worst SecState we've ever had. I not only pray we survive the Bama. I pray we survive her too.

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Where Have We Heard This Before?

Obama has sent out his top political adviser, David Axelrod, to try to pressure Congress to pass his latest half trillion dollar "jobs" bill. He said two things that caught my attention:

First, Axelrod said, "So as members of Congress take up the American Jobs Act this week they need to understand that their failure to focus on what matters most to Americans is why disapproval for Congress is at a historic high - 80 percent," Axelrod wrote, citing a CBS/New York Times poll.

As he uses political fear to try to scare members of Congress into voting for yet another stimulus, those same members are seeing the poll numbers showing the vast majority of Americans want them to STOP SPENDING. That includes this bill. This is why it is DEMOCRATS in the Senate who are putting the kibosh on it. They don't want to have to vote for a hugely expensive bill, after the previous hugely expensive stilumus bills for which they've voted for did nothing to stimulate the economy.

Second, Axelrod said, "The more people know about the American Jobs Act; the more they hear the president talking about it; the more they want Congress to pass the plan."

Let's see: the last time they talked about "the more people see it, the more they like---or will---like it" was when they were trying to sell....ObamaCare.

Their sales pitches are getting old. More importantly, what they're peddling is another giant crap sandwich.

Stop them before they spend again!

He's Baaaaccckkk!

Everybody noticed that Barack Obama gave a wink and a nod to the "occupy Wall Street" anarchists when he spoke at his press conference last Thursday.

But did anybody else notice that just hours before, his domestic terrorist pal, Bill Ayers, posted the "collective" demands of the protesters on his blog, giving them aid and comfort (perhaps having been behind them in the first place)?

The timing of the Ayers and Obama statements may have been a coincidence, but their shared anti-capitalist view was most certainly not a coincidence.

See Ayers' blog here:

http://billayers.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/occupy-wall-street-collective-statement-of-the-protesters/

He's back. But of course, he never left. His student is in the White House.

Palin Takes A Powder

Former Alaska Governor announced last night that she will not be running for president in 2012. She made her announcement on the Mark Levin radio show:

"After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order....

"I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.

"Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.

"In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House.

"Thank you again for all your support. Let's unite to restore this country!"

A fantastic statement by a fantastic conservative. I know a lot of folks are disappointed that she's not running, but she is a TRUE conservative who has never played by the rules, and I love that about her. She will flex her considerable political influence throughout this campaign in order to defeat Barack Obama and his crazed band of radicals in the White House and Congress. She will work tirelessly for conservative causes and for the American people.

Sarah Palin put her family first in this decision. Good for her.

But her love of this Constitutional republic knows no bounds. I can't wait to see what her next chapter holds.

Lying Like Dogs

Both the president and his vice president uttered---let's be polite about this---untruths over the past day or so.

First, Obama: Speaking at a college in Texas (by the way, note the increasing number of speeches he's giving on college campuses. He's trying to mobilize the kids again.) Where was I? Oh yes: in a speech on that college campus, he cited Ronald Reagan as saying that the wealthy shouldn't pay less in taxes than the rest of the country.

Reagan wasn't "some crazy socialist," Obama said. "Last time I checked, Republicans all thought Reagan made some sense."

Oh, Mr. President: why don't you do like I recommended last week to Eva Longoria and just sit there and look pretty?

Obama of course took Reagan completely out of context. Reagan was actually discussing his growth plan---which he got through Congress and passed into law---to lower marginal tax rates across the board, including the top rate down to 28%. What followed was two decades of the greatest economic expansion in U.S. history.

And the only "crazy socialist" around, Bama, is you.

Speaking of crazy socialists, Joe Biden pretended this week that he had no clue who Van Jones was. In an interview with WFLA in Tampa, Biden bluffed his way through: "You have on the one end Van Jones' guys, whoever he is, talking about Wall Street..." When one of the hosts informed him that Van Jones was Obama's "green jobs czar" until Obama had to can him because his extreme radicalism (including devotion to communism and 9/11 "truther" insanity) was exposed by Glenn Beck and others, Biden said, ""Oh, is that...? Alright..."

Mr. Vice President, please. Politico reported last year that Biden was the one who promoted Jones for the "green jobs" position. He was ultimately forced out of his White House gig in a hail of very public criticism. And Biden now claims, "Van who?"

The President and Vice President seem to have no problem playing us for fools. But their lies are so transparent that they're the ones who look like fools. Big, lying fools.

Christie Takes A Powder

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has announced---once and for all---that he is definitely not running for president. He has said he wasn't running for months, but that didn't stop widespread speculation and pining for him to enter the GOP race. Part of that was a function of discontent with the existing Republican field. Part of it was a response to Christie's gruff, tell-it-like-it-is style and record of real fiscal achievement in his state.

He was approached by the heaviest of hitters in the Republican party: former President George W. Bush, former First Lady Nancy Reagan, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. All encouraged him to run. Former First Lady Barbara Bush even called Christie's wife, May Pat, and told her that running for the White House with young children was "manageable." All of that A-list pressure must have been a lot for Christie to process. I'm sure he was flattered and perhaps even pulled toward doing it for a short while. It's hard to be in that kind of company and not feel invincible.

Then, however, he came back down to earth and realized mounting a national campaign from a standing stop would be immensely difficult and would have an unknown conclusion. He would certainly not be coronated. He'd have to run the gauntlet of debates and other candidates' campaigns, and he could fall flat on his face.

Of course, he could have won the nomination and gone on to beat Obama in the general election. But now, he won't know which direction his life would have taken, and neither will we.

I do think that with this decision, he's just dramatically reduced his chances of ever being president. Time and news and events move at hyper-speed these days, and in 4 years, he'll be yesterday's newspaper. If the GOP candidate wins next year, he'll be out for 8 years. If the GOP candidate loses next year, there will be a bumper crop of outstanding conservative candidates for 2016: Congressman Allen West, New Mexico Governor Susannah Martinez, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. There are other up-and-coming superstars. By the time Christie may want to run, he will have been replaced by younger, more aggressive candidates who will seem fresher to the voting public.

It's not impossible for Christie going forward, but his decision just made it a lot tougher for him to ever be elected president.

In the meantime, he should enjoy what remains of his media moment in the sun and think carefully about two things: 1. Whom he'd like to endorse, if anyone. And 2. Whether he'd take the vice presidential spot on the GOP ticket. He has said that he wants to stay in NJ and "finish the job there." That would mean staying put.

Chris Christie: we hardly knew ye.

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