The Malcontent

The Dean of the Clueless Corps

DNC Chairman Howard Dean sauntered into the friendly confines of "The Daily Show" last night.  The audience dutifully applauded references to President Bush's low standing in the polls, as well as Dean's predictions of Democratic takeover of the House and/or Senate.

But then host Jon Stewart had the temerity to ask just exactly how the Democrats were going to manage not to blow the opportunity before them.

Dean's plan: Let's put, say, four people in every state who will knock on as many as 5 to 6 million doors over the next few years.

"So the Dems are now as powerful as the Jehovah's Witnesses," Stewart said.

No, no, no!  See, this is where the plan gets brilliant.  If they're not home, then you hang this nifty little door-hanger on the doorknob!

But Stewart was having none of it.  When he pressed Dean for an actual message, it was essentially, "We'll be less grafty than the other guy."

Then Dean actually angled the Democrats to the left of President Bush's centrist immigration policy.

Stewart neatly summed things up for Dean: "You are so not taking back the House and the Senate."

(Incidentally, no reference whatsoever was made to Dean's recent, humongous gaffes regarding gays.)

[Watch video – 7:38, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 7:38, WMV format, low bandwidth]

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In other "Daily Show" news, Stewart took a cold, hard look at the reports of NSA-related phone shenanigans.

Hot on the heels of Administration denials of surveillance of domestic phone calls came a USA Today story last week stating that the National Security Agency has indeed kept a massive database regarding billions of domestic phone calls.

The government explanation has been that the database analyzes only call patterns, and not the content of all the calls themselves, to spot potential terrorists.

As Stewart points out, it's probably cold comfort to those of us whose call patterns are suspicious for any number of other reasons.

[Watch video – 6:22, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 6:22, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Flip. Flop. Flip.

Sen. John McCain (R-Pluto) announces he was against the Marriage Protection Amendment before he was for it before he was against it again.

With friends like that ... wait, is he our friend this week?

Liberal McCain Sells Out Conservative Values!

Sen. John McCain is working against Republicans and with lefty Sen. Ted Kennedy to push through the Democrats' preferred position on immigration.  What a liberal sell-out!

What's that, you say?  The blogs in the know today have ditched the McCain-as-maverick storyline and are labeling him as "Bush redux"?  [See here, here, here, here, and here, for starters.]  The senator's most recent "offense" was his decision to speak at Liberty University, leading one to surmise that a liberal's favorite debate is one without an opponent.

So I guess I'm swimming up-meme today.  The blogging lefties are painting John McCain as a fire-breathing wingnut in a coordinated effort that is as laughable as it is hyperbolic.

Look, I carry no brief for John McCain.  I don't like the guy, and I can't foresee any circumstance under which I'd vote for him.  But if we're to believe that they're just now realizing that "every liberal's favorite Republican" is a Republican, then I have some ocean-front property to sell you in Arizona.

Captain's Quarters this morning already wrote the post that I wish I had written first:

The trouble with McCain the Maverick is that he never existed. McCain has spent his entire political career as McCain the Center of the Universe, mostly adopting positions that get him as much air time as possible. It comes as no surprise that he now wants to suck up to the Bush contingent in the GOP [...]

I don't know what the lefties are so worried about.  The John McCain who wants to nationalize health care, restrict gun rights, raise taxes, and curtail political speech will undoubtedly return soon enough.  All he needs is a light breeze.

UPDATE: I should have added this guy to my list of people who are shocked – shocked, I say! – that McCain is a Republican.  And as a rhetorical aside: Exactly how many "conservatives" take their cues from DailyKos, anyway?

UPDATE 2: Add 365gay.com to the Coalition of the Obtuse.

The Perpetual Candidate

Sen. John McCain (R-The Media) dropped by the Letterman show last night.  He looked only slightly rumpled from having had to fend off the manicured claws of Heidi Klum, who was relegated to the second-guest slot.

The first topic was yesterday's evacuation of a Senate office building after a sensor falsely detected nerve gas:

"I'm happy to tell you that with a good part of the staff incarcerated in the Russell (Senate Building) parking garage, the efficiency of the Senate has gone up dramatically," McCain said.

The audience had a good laugh, but based on the John McCain I saw during my time working in the Senate, it was no joke and quite typical of him.  The John McCain I saw was a consummate foul-tempered bully who never hesitated to rudely and publicly dress down staff, and even his colleagues, for the tiniest perceived slight.

It is little wonder that few of his fellow senators can even feign affection for him.  It is also why he is usually a caucus of one, and his constituency is the nearest camera or microphone.

[Watch video – 8:33, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 8:33, WMV format, low bandwidth]

But What Does He Think of Sam "Alito"?

Writing on DailyKos.com, or what James Taranto brilliantly describes as "the Mos Eisley of the Angry Left," John Kerry said:

"Do I support a filibuster? The answer is yes.  Yesterday Senator Kennedy and I spoke with our colleagues about it. I don't have a shred of doubt in my opposition to Sam Alto's nomination."

Who is this "Sam Alto," and is he somehow related to Tony Soprano?

Biden's Boner

Maybe Senator Biden should start plagiarizing his own speeches more often.

Rudy Alert

Hizzoner's flirtations with a presidential run have now been elevated to grope status.

You think this might have something to do with it?:

In a new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) would lose to both Rudy Giuliani (50-39%) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (49-38%) (release).  [HT: Hotline's Last Call!]

You Are (Rudy) Getting Very (Rudy) Sleepy (Rudy)

Enjoy this cool, tag-enabled, presidential straw poll.  And my guy is walking away with it!  [Hat tip: AGR]

As an added bonus, it comes with more trackbacks than the Swiss Alps.

"Dr. Cavil" and the DLC

The clocks seem to run a little slow in Loonyland: The DailyKos and his merry band of pitchfork-wielders have apparently pushed back their deadline for mounting jihad against the DLC.

LGF thinks they all might just go away for the tidy sum of one millllllllion dollars:

Mind you, he first said "two weeks" more than three weeks ago.  (Oh, and nice haircut, Markos.)

Kos's Cause: Dismantle the DLC

The Daily Kos, the liberal blogger with an out-sized view of his own power, has aimed his howitzer directly at Democratic centrists.  Believing that the moderate Democratic Leadership Council "is in desperate need of relevance," this patron saint of the loony left is threatening to turn his activist hounds on the one organization that arguably was responsible for the election of the only Democratic president of the last quarter-century:

So what's left? Let the DLC fizzle out on its own? We could do that. It has a limited shelf life.

Or we can help the process along, working collectively to hasten the process. And I've got a plan to do just that.

Consider this a teaser. ETA is four weeks.

If we didn't know any better, we would think this were a brier patch constructed not by Kos, but by Republicans, and we'd be tempted to wish that the ever-leftward-veering Democrats find themselves tossed right into it.  But the country needs a vital two-party system.  It also needs centrist Democratic national candidates who will force moderation upon the opposition, and keep Republican hubris in check.

[HT: Daily Dish]

What Liberal Media Bias? Part I

Politically motivated suicides seem to be all the rage these days.  Just days after a disgraced Miami politician walked into the offices of the Miami Herald and shot himself to death, America's crazy aunt in the attic (thanks, Taranto) has threatened to kill herself if Dick Cheney runs for President.  [HT: Limeshubert]

“The day I say Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I’ll kill myself,” she told The Hill. “All we need is one more liar.”

Thomas added, “I think he’d like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does.”

The Malcontent once had the opportunity to push Helen down and break her porotic hip, right in front of the National Press Club, but resisted.  Sounds like Helen might be amenable to doing our dirty work for us.

Frist Breaks With Bush on Stem Cells

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has rolled the dice on Middle America, breaking with President Bush's hard-line stance on stem-cell research.

The gambit could be seen as a move to moderate his rightward plunge since becoming the Senate's Republican leader and boost his presidential aspirations by earning cred with centrist voters.

But will the decision do anything to raise his profile among the oddsmakers, who currently rate him as No. 4 for the GOP nomination, barely ahead of Mitt Romney?  The three horses currently leading the GOP pack are all arguably to the left of Frist on most issues.

Frist's Tradesports OddsLIFETIME:TODAY:

Best News We've Heard All Day

Rick Santorum's recent book tour turns out to be just that: a book tour, making this very good news indeed and provoking sighs of relief all across the nation (especially for those of us to whom he has compared with pederasts and zoophiliacs).  [Thanks, BfT]

GOP Voters Tiring of Hard Right?

While still far too early to handicap the 2008 presidential race, GOP Vixen discusses a promising poll for GOP moderates.  Turns out that GOP voters in mega-purple Florida are for Rudy, in a walkaway:

This country takes Bush for granted now. And it won't be until faced with losing him and his steadfast refusal to cave to terrorists or their liberal appeasers that he will be truly appreciated. I cite as evidence for this new poll out of Florida. A poll of Republicans that asks who they will support for President in 2008.

They overwhelmingly chose a pro-gay rights pro-abortion candidate. But a candidate they most believe will be The New Rock. Republicans get the stakes. As much as we want Roe overturned and to protect marriage, we get that none of that matters if we weaken in this war.

While some of us support Rudy because of and not despite his moderation, that a bedrock conservative site such as GOP Vixen has its priorities right in terms of presidential timber is at least a mildly encouraging sign.

It is also good to see that Tradesports.com still has George Allen and John McCain neck-and-neck for the nomination, with Rudy a solid third.  The smart money right now is literally on candidates who are not fire-breathing bomb-tossers.