Having raised the spectre of liberal fascism, the guy who coined the phrase a few years ago, Jonah Goldberg, has a new book coming out tomorrow called Tyranny of Cliches, which sounds like it will be adding much needed flesh to the brittle bones of my timorous arguments - depth to my meagre perceptions - I haven't even read 'Liberal Fascism' but apparently it takes a rough bat to the hollow pretentions of liberal ideology - the catechisms of the progressives - the empty jargon they pass off as argumentation, like when they talk about the 'fairness' of taxing the rich, a vacuous conception meant only to rouse suspicion and envy and ignorant sympathy in service of the idealism of charlatans, the anointed ones [I'm looking at you, Clooney] who fancy themselves important because they believe certain things but, seeing as how the belief is an illusion swaddling needy egos, the only way to keep it whole is by tricking everyone else into believing it too. Now, granted, this self serving delusion does come in handy if ones trade is peddling whited sepulchres of fantasy - actors and academics - but you wouldn't want to try and build a real society on such shifting sands. Well, you would if you were a socialist...

Now, I'm guessing Romney's VP pick is going to be Portman mainly because it'll be hard to beat Obama without taking Ohio and, even though the record on VPs delivering states is weak, Portman is popular enough in Ohio to possibly be a difference maker. Certainly Portman satisfies the 'contra Palin' imperative people seem to think is vital.

But I think people are misunderstanding the 'Palin factor'. In an age where virtually everything is influenced by the sensuality, the emotive appeal, the impressionistic nature of mass media, a 'wow' factor that feeds the media's hunger for seductive narratives and gloss should not be underestimated. People seem to be forgetting that Palin's 'wow factor' dramatically changed the dynamics of the election in 2008 in favor of McCain - it fell apart of course because Palin was all hat and no cattle and lacked the substance to deliver on the promise - but what if that hadn't been the case?

No doubt it's gonna be Portman - but my outside money is on Kelly Ayotte - if I was on Romney's VP search team I would seriously be vetting Senator Ayotte - she doesn't have Palin's 'wow factor' when it comes to cult of personality politics, but just being a woman is narrative enough for the media to feast on - she's smart and unlike Palin can answer complex policy questions as if she actually understood the question, looks pleasing enough on TV [sounds bit sexist but, sorry, matters], has a Lt-Col in the airforce for a husband and has about as much gov't experience as Obama had when he became president so can't be attacked as 'not ready to serve'.

Sure, Christie can also bring media centric 'wow' to a ticket - and, quite frankly, just for pure entertainment sake, I hope he's the choice - but there's two big problems with Christie [aside from fact he may have no interest in a second fiddle job]: one, hard to predict how his confrontational nature will play over time on the national stage - I personally think people are hungry for that kind of straight shooter bravado, but who knows; and then, would his big personality overshadow Romney? So I tend not to see Christie as a likely option if one chooses to view the 'Palin factor' in the somewhat positive counterfactual way I've framed it.

[hey, what about Paul Ryan? Well, sure, he's a favorite of mine but I'm only talking about choices with media appeal here - and sure, one could argue only Christie and Rubio really bring media-centric heft with them, that just the idea of a woman being a heart beat away is no longer a big enough deal to drive media coverage - all true - but my point is merely that I think it'd be a mistake to ignore the albiet superficial reality of 'excitement' just because you're haunted by the Palin fiasco - and it is a reality and will increasingly be so - that may say something disquieting about our culture and politics but ignoring that reality will mean abdicating governance of the most important country in the world to people who think like Obama, and look what that type has done to Europe - hell, just look at California - Obama needs to be beaten - I can't take four more years of George Clooney sauntering smugly into the White House every god damn week]

[and let's not forget that thanks to idiots like Santorum and Limbaugh the GOP now has a serious problem with women - Romney's trailing Obama with women by something like 20% - sure, given that, putting a woman on the ticket could look like a gimmick, but that's the great thing about Ayotte, there's nothing about her that smacks of gimmick - and I just love the fact her husband was an officer in the airforce, although don't know if he saw combat - be really nice if he flew F-15s in the Gulf War - regardless, lot of voter appeal in being a military wife. I'm wondering if Romney mentioned her as a possibility way back in the fall of 2011 so that she wouldn't look like a mere gimmick]

Apropos of my wondering a post ago, in light of the media's grotesque over-reaction and jumping to conclusions viz the Trayvon Martin shooting in order to feed a 'racism' narrative in obsequious service to Obama's reelection, apropos me wondering if the media was about to dive headlong into blatant and unseemly propagandizing for Dear Leader - comes this story.

When I saw the headline in the Times this morning about an Israeli general declaring Iran had no intention to build a bomb I thought it didn't sound right - but having run out of my free Times articles I didn't read the story. And turns out it wasn't right - just the NY Times carrying water for Obama. We're still six months removed from the election and already the lefty media is making it clear that it seems there is no low they will not consider sinking to for the sake of the Obama. This is disturbing shit.

I mean, if he was even a remotely half decent president I might be inclined to shrug this nonsense off. But Obama has been an awful president, and there's absolutely no reason to think if he gets reelected it won't be four more awful years - so the media behaving this way says to me that it doesn't matter to them if Obama is a good president or not - it's almost as if they're saying that if America has to be destroyed in order for a liberal agenda to succeed, well then that's ok - because you see Obama is a manifestation of the left's dreams, their idealism, a vessel carrying their cherished illusions - that's what they're desperate to preserve - his performance as president is meaningless compared to his role as ark of the liberal covenant as it were.

A society that frets about the poor is a society that cannot prosper. Caring for the poor is a very different thing from fretting about the poor - I have no problem with caring for the poor - but fretting suggests an ideological engagement, suggests that a focus on the conditions of the poor feeds an idea one desperately wants to believe in and promote - it suggests an emotional attachment and emotional attachments are always personal and therefore threatened by the governing impersonal reality. Fretting over the least productive constituent of a society shows an inability to understand what really matters if general prosperity and freedom are ones goals. It leads to populist appeals to weakness cloaked in gibberish about highly nebulous conceptions like fairness - it leads to a sort of fascism - it leads to Obama's reelection strategy.

Wait - am I endorsing the notion of liberal fascism? Have I become Rush Limbaugh? No. But after four years of Obama we have spiralling deficits, real unemployment of somewhere between twelve and fifteen percent, anemic GDP growth, no progress made on education reform, tax reform, immigration reform, entitlements reform - no budget plan at all except a prop one released to shamelessly try and make Ryan's budget look evil - oh, and a military getting weaker as a measure of its obligations, not stronger - and yet polls indicate that about 45% of the electorate plan to vote for Obama no matter what - which suggets to me nearly half the electorate is mired, trapped in an irrational if not indeed delusional view of reality. If that sounds like democracy functioning as intended, then we should probably stop calling it democracy and start calling it something else. A little unfair I guess to go with liberal fascism since the GOP primary, now mercifully over it seems, demonstrated that a great many conservatives are just as nuts as the Michael Moores et al - still, since liberal sympathies control the media and you can't have true fascism without the ability to manipulate and co-opt peoples perceptions, indeed their very emotions, and that's the very thing media does so well - seen from that angle liberal fascism does kind of work.

Certainly, Obama is lying as one would tend to imagine a liberal fascist might. He's got that part of it down. All he needs is some kind of silly salute his followers can employ to signify their unwavering allegiance to him. Maybe the Daily Show's writers can come up with something.

Quinnipac poll comes out and makes two things fairly clear - one, Obama seems to be leading Romney but that lead is tentative, vulnerable - and two, the average voter is a moron:

Looking at personal characteristics, 81 percent of American voters think the president is likable, compared to 63 percent for Romney. Obama cares about their needs and problems, 57 percent say, compared to 44 percent for Romney. The Republican has strong leadership qualities, 61 percent say, compared to 60 percent for the president, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll of 2,577 American voters finds.

Romney is seen as better on the economy 47 – 43 percent, better on creating jobs 45 – 42 percent, better on gas prices 44 – 31 percent and better on immigration 43 – 39 percent. The president is viewed 52 – 32 percent as better on women’s issues and 46 – 40 percent on foreign policy. The two men are seen equally on taxes and health care.

How these numbers characterize or define the way an electorate 'thinks' leaves one wondering if maybe the value democracy imparts to a society is by and large accidental - after all, who in their right mind, having examined the average voter's thought process, could ever imagine that democracy was a sensible approach to the governance of a super power?

NBC manipulating the Zimmerman police call in the Trayvon Martin case is interesting - not that I wanna wade into the swamp of that altercation - although is amusing that the post-racial sort of black president, whose election the naive if not fatuous legions of the left remarkably assumed would lead to some vague, miraculous affirmation of a new tolerance, some kind of pan-national virtual group hug, has rather probably done more harm than good in that regard, I'm guessing because having a 'black' president implies the need to address a racist past that America [white, hispanic, Asian etc etc America] has by and large moved on from but which many African Americans themselves remain trapped in, bound to as a self-defeating fixed point of reference [certainly the self appointed activist voices of black America haven't moved on nor do they have any desire to - this perpetual state of grievance and victimhood pays the Sharptons et al way too well][and of course the white liberal elite of academia doesn't want the racist narrative going away either, it's too handy a tool for focusing their rage and contempt of 'Imperial' America and cognate evils - this why the black guy Obama was a much more appealing presidential choice for them than the mere woman Hillary - Hillary could never hope to compete against the persistent and irrepressible allure of slavery to white uber liberals] - but I have no hankering to wade into what did or didn't happen between the hispanic and the hoodie that night and I'm certainly not interested in debating racial issues - way too toxic and rife with irrational sympathies and absurd agendas - although I now see that Zimmerman has been arrested - and of course the liberal press goes nuts with coverage as if some great and weighty 'race in America' conundrum is about to be solved, some profound question answered, some vile and grotesque racist underbelly exposed - over a 'murder' of which all we know for sure is that some it would seem unfortunate, wrong place wrong time black kid confronted or was confronted by some hispanic [or white hispanic if you're a member of the MSM] 'security guard' possibly operating under the skewed influence of a law and order police fetish and then, apparently during a struggle initiated by no one knows, the hispanic fired a gun resulting in the unfortunate black kid's demise - and that's all that's known with any certainty - and yet the press [and the Sharptons] will drone on and on and on.

But if the incident itself doesn't especially interest me, the media reaction to it does, particularly NBC's manipulation of the Zimmerman call to make it sound like he definitely targeted Martin because he was black where in fact the audio seems to suggest race wasn't a factor at all in Zimmerman's behavior - the call seems to clearly indicate that Zimmerman became suspicious of Martin before identifying his race. But regardless of that - such a brazen distortion of reality in order to promote a political agenda by a supposed mainstream news organization raises an interesting question: that the MSM has a liberal bias is not even disputed anymore it seems, not even by the left - they just rationalize the bias by contending it's merely a result of the left being so right and the right being so wrong on all the issues that should matter to an enlightened etc etc - but given that the times are so rancourously partisan and the coming election looks to crank that partisan vitriol up a few notches - and given that the liberal media has a vested interest in seeing Obama win, not just a preference, but a vested interest - and given that NBC has just clearly demonstrated to what desperate lengths the liberal media will go to promote its agenda and protect that interest - given all that and how important this election is like to prove, how likely is it that even the pretense to objectivity falls by the wayside, that American media devolves into shameless propaganda more reminiscent of an autocracy or a banana republic than a great democracy? What NBC did was not only egregiously wrong - what's worse to me is how obvious it was - what that suggests is that the bias has been completely internalized - not even the pretense of objectivity is there anymore - the truth and what they want the truth to be are now seemingly indistinguishable, one and the same - hard not to be disturbed by that.

So Santorum drops out and after much wasted time and effort the obvious is now obvious to all [well, most - since Santorum refused to mention Romney in his concession speech one assumes he still sees Satan at work here] - so was my angst misplaced? Yes and no - given that there was only ever one credible candidate in the race yet more votes were cast overall for the non-credible candidates [and some incredibly non-credible candidates at that - I still feel not enough people are sufficiently disturbed by the thought that for awhile Herman Cain, even though he never even made it to Iowa, actually looked like he had a valid shot at this nomination] - so that should give people pause I think [just 'cause you fell down the mountain and somehow survived doesn't mean you shouldn't be looking back up that mountain and wondering what the hell just happened] - and let's remember that Obama is going to run a populist campaign based on creating a caricature of Romney as deceitful, soulless rich boy, a caricature that Santorum and Gingrich have in many ways endorsed through their idiot rhetoric - so, since much of this election may come down to how well Romney counters this effort to define his character in a negative way by pinning it to a phony class warfare narrative, that the primary was drawn out longer than necessary by populist appeals to the base by Santorum and Gingrich that both seemed to question Romney's character and overall bona fides in a way not dissimilar to how Obama will attack him and at same time managed to pull Romney too far to the right, which also helps Obama - well, that can't be good - though, not fatal either [and I suppose one could argue that the right wing base having a problem with Romney could actually help him when it comes to independents - this is similar to the argument that says Romneycare may be a problem for blowhards like Limbaugh et al, but independents may actually view it as a good thing, an indication that the man is reasonable, open to intelligent compromises, not driven by reflexive ideological imperatives].

"... it is my guess, if not prediction, that neo-liberal sympathies... and by neo-liberal let it be clearly understood I distinguish this effete glimmering from the classical liberalism found in esteemed luminaries like Locke and Hume... but neo-liberal sympathies plague Western democracies as the natural consequence of the ebb and flow of freedom... and that this plague must run its course and bring these democracies to the very edge of doom before a correction will make itself available... when we get to the point where a Hollywood personality recommends their fervent belief in the rightness of some particular course of action and the public generally realizes without remedial instruction that this recommendation is wholly idiotic, disastrously naive and transparently self serving... at that point we can take comfort, for the correction will be at hand..."

Funny story in Politico about the RNC supposedly having 'been in the tank', as they put it, for Romney all along. Ahhh... this is news? I mean, I understand why Sweater Vest and Gingrich would want it to be a story - but is anyone not disoriented by an ideological fever or steeped in a dark and brooding self denial surprised by this? Of course they've been in the tank for Romney - what choice did they have? It has been quite obvious since Pawlenty dropped out [and frankly probably before that] that the only viable, credible candidate in the race was Romney - this is why I predicted a possible civil war brewing up in conservative ranks between 'the establishment' and the base [and its enablers] if Romney couldn't quickly put the not-Romney clowns away. What I didn't see coming was the civil war being deliberately stoked by Santorum, which seems maybe to be happening [well, I actually did sort of predict that Sweater Vest would seek to enlist the base as ideological foot soldiers in his noble resistance against evil Washington insiders etc etc]. Along these lines we see that apparently Santorum operatives are trying to get the Texas primary changed to a winner take all contest - since even if Santorum were to take all those delegates it really wouldn't change the math that much one suspects this is really about trying to stoke the flames of an uprising by the base.

This a bauble, a mere curiosity - but Kissenger has a new article in Foreign Affairs along lines he's drawn before, namely, the US and China can choose to avoid confrontation, that reasonable decision making can lead to reasonable outcomes as aspirations and intentions of each jostle the other through this realignment of global power. As always when it comes to China, Kissenger's significant interests there, both historical and current, cause one to maybe just a bit question his objectivity - but let's give him the benefit of a doubt and simply ask a simple question: how true is his central premise? Not to preach a deterministic view of human behavior, but when these dynamics are in play, how much control do we really have over them? Of course we want rational action to beget the pleasantness of mutual benefit - but seems to me history is instead full of examples where conflicts happened regardless of an assumed logic, possibly imagined after the fact, that seemed to suggest these conflicts didn't have to happen. Often it appears to me that history is nothing more than a harsh and cruel lesson in humility - after all, Kissenger and Nixon were at the forefront of a fond hope that certain reasonable efforts would eventually lead to a democratic China - but who reasonably expects to see a democratic China in the foreseeable future? Or rather, put it this way: if we do ever see a democratic China [and of course I'm talking about a real democracy, not an 'Arab Spring' farce democracy] it will I suspect not come at the warm and gentle end of a peaceful rise - much more likely I reckon it will be preceded by upheaval, violence, discontent, intrigue and wars of various types and sizes, both exogenous and endogenous. I find it very hard to believe that some, most or all of these entanglements will not, more or less, threaten or otherwise negatively impact our national interests - and once you're there, what one would like to see happen is often not among the choices given.

South Korea, Japan and of course the US have perched multiple Aegis armed war ships in the Sea of Japan waiting to pounce should North Korea's soon to be tested ballistic missile wander into protected airspace. One senses that the US and its regional allies are hoping such a wandering occurs - may even be willing to fudge the numbers so as to say too close is close enough. I've noticed that some seem to be agreeing with me that there's more to gain than to lose by shooting the thing down regardless of any wayward roaming it might do - but I understand there's no clear right or wrong decision here - at same time, if past behaviour by the hermit kingdom is clarifying the decision in any way, it's towards action rather than more concessions. That being said, I imagine there's no way we knock the thing down unless South Korea signs off on it since they'd suffer most should Little Pudgy and his generals go full wacky in retaliation - although, what if it comes out that Japan and South Korea wanted to terminate it and Obama refused to go there?

With Paul Ryan now being front and center in the presidential race, given the GOP's embrace of his budget, his endorsement of Romney, Romney's stout asservation of Ryan's thinking and Obama's stout renunciation if not indeed demonization of same - so front and center now that some are already making claim that Romney's running mate can be no one other than Ryan - if this dynamic is now pretty much a settled feature of the presidential race, how is it possible anyone other than Romney can be seriously considered a viable alternative? Especially if, as in Gingrich's case, you once denounced Ryan's budget in terms similar to Obama's, and in Santorum's case, you displayed petulant animosity towards him when he declared for Romney? Not that I think there actually is or ever was a seriously viable alternative to Romney - but that was just my opinion - this Ryan factor now pretty much makes that mere opinion a virtually undeniable fact, no?

I only bring this up because of word that Santorum is apparently huddled down with a bunch of arch conservative strategisits trying to scheme up a way to stop the rise of Romney and save America from the evil of pragmatic reasonableness. These people truly are delusional - but then Santorum did once [and no doubt much more often behind closed doors] state that Satan's handiwork is evident in the decline of America - so I suppose if you are convinced that God has called you to this great mission then delusion must needs be a required attribute of one's thinking.

Liberal assumptions proving wrong and the left's seeming surprise thereof - interesting to see Obama administration through that filter. You had the stimulus - that was full, ripe with assumptions - just throw something big and Keynesian at your economy and troubles will fall away - remember the almost haphazard way Pelosi administered the gov't largesse as if it would all work out as a matter of course. And then a doubling down on that gov't largesse with a huge new healthcare entitlement and the implementation of reams of new financial restrictions meant as much as anything to take Wall Street to a virtual woodshed for a beating as if the economy was a second tier consideration when measured against a lofty, dream addled lefty agenda - you're in a significant economic downturn and the gov't is piling up huge amounts of debt and you push through legislation that seems to assume or want to assume that none of that really matters relative to your agenda? And then you get liberal shock that the ACA may indeed prove unconstitutional, disdain for even the notion that someone would dare argue against the constitutionality of something as obviously enlightened as universal healthcare - this sort of angry incredulity only happens when you've assumed your ideological opponents are uncivilized cretins floundering in the mire of the unevolved - you're only shocked by such a thing if you haven't bothered to engage your opponents arguments seriously - the arrogance of liberal assumptions.

Where this arrogant presumption really starts to worry me is when it comes to foreign policy - particularly at moment as concerns Obama's sotto voce apparent promise to Medvedev that he'll be free to make concessions on BMD after his re-election - I don't know how else one would read this exchange other than that Obama is willing to trade away our strategic advantage on missile defense in order to win a reduction in respective nuclear stockpiles from Russia - to say that would be a trade of extremely dubious merit doesn't even come close to capturing my scorn for the notion.

Put aside the damage it does to ones negotiating position to let your opponent know how badly you want the thing you want - I'm sure Putin is still smiling over that flub - but if we posit that the Obama administration's strategic assumptions are like to be as tainted and compromised and subject to corruption by liberal arrogance as their other assumptions have shown themselves to be, well... a clear mind unblinkered by bias and ideological vanity would probably find itself a wee bit disquieted by such a thought.

So, Romney wins three more - the race is over - except it isn't, because you still have a fairly large chunk of the republican electorate that seems intent on casting votes without any regard for pragmatism or a reasonable political point of view. Fifty percent of voters who made up their mind on the last day voted for Santorum which seems to be the reason the margin of victory in Wisconsin was a bit slimmer than expected. The only demographic Santorum won was poor, rural evangelicals - yet he plans to stay in the race, which only makes sense [term used with great looseness] if he plans to be even more negative against Romney - if he wants to be seen as a martyr dying on the cross of uber right purity, which I assume is his motive here, he can only do so by continuing to paint Romney as 'phoney', leaving himself then as the 'true' prophet as it were, possibly with a self centered eye turned towards 2016 - but with Obama already in full campaign mode this delusional arrogance serves the interests of no one who hopes to see his presidency come to an end in November. Romney has no choice but to turn his attentions fully to Obama and act as if Santorum et al don't even exist. This may be interpreted as a haughty establishment dismissing of the base resulting in an uber right backlash that hands Santorum Pennsylvania and fans the fetid flames of that tiresome man's ego, but Romney must confront full on Obama's attempt to define him as... well, fill in the blank with whatever cliched left wing Richie Rich adjective one wants to employ.

Obama claims he's confident healthcare act will be upheld by SCOTUS - sure sign that they're expecting it to be struck down and this is them setting up the 'right wing extremists on the highest court commit insurrection against common decency' routine. Pretty tiresome - all the more so because this is so obviously why he'd make a prediction like that and yet it will still work. I can already see the tears streaming down EJ Dionne's cheeks.

Muslim Brotherhood decides to run candidate in Egyptian presidential contest after having claimed they had no such ambition. Wow. I'm shocked. When was the last time a consensus of the American intelligentsia, press or political classes got something right when it comes to the Mideast? Well... Obama does seem to have resisted the vacuous allure of his inner naive liberal idiot, ah, humanitarian by staying out of Syria - so I guess he sort of got that right.

NightWatch, in my experience one of the few open source intelligence voices to get the putative 'Arab spring' right, sums up nicely:

The irony of the fall of Mubarak is that it has untethered political activism far beyond anything imagined by the initial secular opposition and the US policy makers and others who backed them. The Westerners seem to have given no thought to the likelihood that powerful Islamic forces could not only emerge but appeal to a large portion of Egyptian voters.

Taking sides against a longtime US ally carried unforeseen risks. To paraphrase the concluding statement in Kissinger's essay on the Arab spring, what emerges from the Arab spring will determine the wisdom of the US policy approach.

What is emerging in Egypt is so viscerally hostile to US interests that the US now seems to prefer the Muslim Brotherhood to the alternative. Shatir, it turns out, is a millionaire who is well known to American diplomats. This is a study in democracy.