Army Chief of Staff Odierno says budget cuts have reduced readiness to a mere two brigades, which doesn't even amount to a whole division - okay, I know it's absurd and no doubt not gonna happen and so forth and so on, but this sad state of affairs hobbling America's military combined with fact now clearly evidenced that Obama's view of that military is ah, how should one put it, decidedly not inclined to see it as an indispensable force serving American interests in a dangerous world but rather tending towards a 'hey, imagine all the cool stuff I could fund if not for those bloody aircraft carriers' take on things - given that, the PLA really must be wondering on some level that this mess is presenting as an opportunity it'd be foolish not to exploit. I mean, last time America looked this weak and vulnerable was with Carter and he was followed by Reagan and ten years later the Soviet Union was no more - so, I mean, someone in China must be thinking about that and wondering 'Obama has opened a door, ten years from now are we gonna regret not walking through it?' - yes, let's not get hysterical here, sure - but there are moves China could make that do not necessarily risk or threaten 'hostilities' yet would still amount to being strategically significant if Obama chose not to respond. Just saying.

With Cruz having this whole 'Huey Long of the right' thing going on [I guess the entire ranting right wing radio world would stand in as his Father Coughlin] - given this and Cruz's very clear intention to go to war on conservative common sense [just as FDR wasn't left wing enough for Long even though he had a communist in his cabinet whom he'd eventually set a heartbeat away from the presidency, so too with Cruz merely being opposed to Obamacare just isn't good enough - you have to hate it and be willing to sacrifice the ideologically impure on the altar of your righteous rage] - given all that, when can we expect a lion of the reviled right wing establishment to step up and seriously take the man on before he destroys the GOP and for all intents and purposes inaugurates Hillary as the de facto next president? Jeb Bush made a tentative effort yesterday at push back - but it's gonna take more than that. I'd be very surprised if Christie is not sharpening some verbal knives. I know these guys are worried about making themselves the target of the enraged uber right come primary season, but that carnage is coming regardless, Cruz has made it clear he's out for blood and there's nothing and no one he won't throw under the bus if it serves to glorify he and his cause - so way I see it you might as well go out and meet the challenge head on and thereby clearly establish yourself as the electable choice and Cruz as the utterly unelectable charlatan.

[of course this is the battle that goes on between base and so called establishment during every primary season - but I think there could be differences this time - I think there's a possibility Cruz becomes so popular with the base - think intelligent version of Palin - that he could push all the other base favorites off to the side, which means the base vote is not split which makes it much more difficult for a moderate to slip in - so there's that. But I also think Cruz is really going to go to town with the 'ideological purity' nonsense and will hammer home idea that anyone who doesn't think and talk and act like him is a 'coward' etc etc - we already saw a preview of that rhetoric in the shutdown farce so I think it's gonna prove important to confront the boldness of that charge with equal boldness - make argument that what Cruz is promoting is nothing more than the same partisan absolutism that Obama peddles - make argument country cannot be effectively governed that way, indeed was specifically designed so as not to be governed that way - make argument that you're all about governing the country as a whole, that that is the only way America's true potential can be unburdened from the dysfunction hobbling it now - I think Christie is well positioned to make that argument and has the personality and media savvy to make it forcefully]

It does appear that the followers of Cruz et al are drunk on their delusions, stumbling incoherently in right wing echo chambers where the comforting sounds of their cries of anger are repeated back to them carrying assurances that they are indeed absolutely right in their thinking and therefore need not fear the losing of their faith. These people read the same WSJ article by Henninger I did and came to the conclusion he got it all wrong - Cruz et al are savvy 'social mediates' leveraging that forum to great effect etc etc so go their claims.

Okay, yes, a more savvy approach to modern messaging forums and outlets was indeed part of Henninger's point - but the larger point was that the problem goes much deeper than that and begins with the central irreducible reality: the media is biased to the left, that is never going to change, and Obama has shown how to with ruthless thoroughness exploit that advantage to withering effect. That's the point. I have no doubt Cruz et al expanded greatly their 'social media' following through their asinine antics - but to what useful end? And within what meaningful demographic? People who wouldn't vote liberal to save their lives and who throw around moronic insults like 'surrender caucus' when pragmatic people like Ayotte insist on playing the smart game, the game that may win conservatives back the White House? How on earth does that amount to a significant challenge to the Obama way? It wins you nothing other than slaps on the back from people already strongly inclined to like you.

The people mouthing these inanities are not idiots I'm assuming - so I have to believe they're either charlatans, peddlers of ideological snake oil - or they are indeed trapped in the echo chamber, hearing only what they want to hear - because the point surely isn't how many Twitter followers Cruz has but rather given the daunting advantage of media bias that is never going away and in fact will be buoyed by changing demographics, and given that Obama has put in place the means and agents and network needed to thoroughly exploit that advantage,  how if you're a conservative do you win national elections, how do you win elections where broad appeal matters and is indeed the deciding factor? If you think the answer is cheering on demagogues like Cruz who are so easily, easily portrayed as extremists by biased media and Obama's narrative twisting machine, then, sorry, you're mired in a delusion that sacrifices common sense on the altar of ideological vanity - in essence, you're no better than the besotted fools who gave us Obama in the first place.

Someone please explain it to me 'cause I don't get it: what the hell is Cruz up to here? The man makes no sense, none at all, if his goal as a Senator is to contribute to the governance of the country and try and maintain a conservative effect on that governance as much as is possible given the unfavorable circumstances, which I assume is what by and large his Texas constituents want. But by what the man does and says that goal doesn't seem to be his intention - so what the hell exactly is the man up to? Is he just trying to make a name for himself so that he can turn that name into money later? Rather dishonorable and deceitful behavior that, but he'd hardly be the first to have come to Washington for such a purpose. Is he planning a run for governor of Texas and thinks talking tough to all and sundry on the hill no matter how foolish, misguided or untruthful that tough talk is is a damn good way to get there? Okay, fine, whatever - but seems to me damaging your party as a whole on a national level in order to serve a much more narrow and self serving end is more of a career killer than a career booster - but then I know nothing of how things work in Texas, so who knows, maybe he's on to something there. Still, in the general scheme, hardly amounts to laudable behavior I'd say.

Can it really be he thinks he's making sense or that what he's doing is credible? I know he talks like it is, but everybody says he's a really bright guy so he can't actually believe that's the case - well, unless of course he's nuts. Is he nuts? Is he bat shit crazy? He kind of looks crazy, that's true - but I have a hard time seeing how a person can get to the US Senate if they're wacko bird crazy without someone along the way standing up and saying 'hey, in case you haven't noticed, this guy is frickin' nuts!'

Or is it he's a true believer and like all such souls drunk on the seductive grandeur of his delusions? In that case I guess he could indeed believe he has acquired some viable power with his antics - he hasn't of course, the man has zero chance of becoming president and given that the majority of his colleagues must thoroughly despise and distrust him at this point his Senate career is like to be a one off affair - still, if indeed delusional, he may have convinced himself otherwise. Hey, maybe he's gifted with second sight and has seen a future where America is saved from the evils of liberalism by a right wing coup and he's setting himself up to be the natural leader of that revolutionary redux - that at least would be a level of crazy that might help explain what the hell this man think's he's doing here.

Henninger over at the WSJ gets what so many Republicans apparently do not: Obama has changed politics in America and if the GOP doesn't figure out the how and why of it and accordingly adjust their thinking, behaviour and tactics they may never win another presidential election. Unfortunately for us all [for it is the country as a whole that will suffer, not just Republicans] the recent shutdown farce and the redoubtable 'defund Obamacare' idiocy of Cruz et al that made it possible would seem to indicate that such an adjustment could prove a long shot.

I've always maintained that the whole key to Obama is his shameless willingness to exploit the populist allure of identity politics, both to beguile low info voters and of course flatter the naive sympathies of the enraptured liberal elite, and then manipulatively leverage a pliant and submissive media to wield that quite hollow but wholly effective demagoguery with a ruthless Machiavellian glee across the electoral landscape. But as Henninger rightly points out: expressing outrage over this state of affairs [which, let's face it, is a form of proto fascism and certainly worthy of outrage] does not amount to a strategy and worse merely plays right into Obama's hands. I still hear, amazingly enough, conservatives speaking with disdain of Christie's infamous hug of Dear Leader as if that disdain, that outrage in and of themselves were proof of something legitimate - these fools seem incapable of understanding or accepting the reality that that hug was a demonstration of Christie knowing how the game must be played if you hope to win - that hug was Christie winning over moderates, winning over independents and most importantly of all, winning over the media.

I have no idea what kind of president Christie would be - I tend to believe good, but who knows - regardless, as of now he seems to be the only potential candidate who has a grasp of what will be required to defeat the challenge Obama has thrown up and if the 'outrage caucus' led by fools like Cruz can't figure that out and continue to sabotage conservative fortunes through idiotic stunts like the 'defund' then, I dunno... expect calamity... 'cause every Democratic presidential candidate from now till whenever is gonna follow the Obama playbook and if all the GOP can manage to do in response is stamp their feet in anger, well... a generational hold on the White House by liberals of Obama's ilk will essentially at best turn the country into a sadder version of Europe, at worst break it apart.

I find myself almost hoping for a deal between Iran and America et al in much the same way I came to sort of welcome Obama winning the presidency - in 2008 I became quite tired of being labeled a knuckle dragging racist for having the temerity to question the implied brilliance of Obama and concluded that the best way to solve the debate would be by the guy becoming president and being awful at it and thereby shutting the idiots up [he was awful but unfortunately the idiots didn't quite shut up, although their rationalizations have become increasingly threadbare]. And so it is tending with Iran - as negotiations begin one already senses that Iran is indeed gonna wheedle a deal out of this, which I'm convinced will prove a complete sham - but, unfortunately, for my irksome cynicism to be validated I need the bad thing to happen. Ah, what a sad world it is - cue Hamlet and his quintessence of dust - or should we go with Macbeth and his besotted hour on the dire stage?

This from Will Galston in the WSJ I found interesting for a couple of reasons. One, how much, surprisingly I think, I share in general with the 'Jacksonian' crew as he calls them [actually a term originally coined by W. Mead] about the nature of the current threat to the republic even though I would never consider myself a 'tea party' type - which reinforces idea that the divide in the GOP right now is more about tactics and temperament [aka wisdom or the lack thereof] than core beliefs - and also I would suggest the notion that true conservatism should distrust not embrace extremism, and that in the end is really what separates a 'moderate' Republican from a Ted Cruz type. The other interesting thing Galston suggests is something I've said repeatedly: that so enraging the Jacksonian wing of the right, whether it's deliberate or merely a byproduct of a push left [I strongly lean towards both deliberate and logical consequence], will not lead to a liberal wonderland where the right has been rendered irrelevant by internecine upheaval but rather to a bitterly divided country that is ungovernable.

I've always maintained that a country like America, at least as far as the executive goes, can only be governed successfully from the right with intermittent forays into pragmatic, moderate liberalism as with Kennedy or Clinton - and accordingly one of the main reasons I thought Obama would be a disastrous president was because I considered him a far left ideologue hiding cleverly behind a moderate mask who was not at all a good fit for the country but who would nevertheless with grave consequences be 'empowered' by the naive delusions of identity politics and a fervently biased media.

[a little sidebar here - I've noticed increasingly Kelly Ayotte taking lead as voice of moderate, reasonable conservatism when it comes to media parade - this interesting: I of course thought she could be a VP candidate in 2012 but moved away from her when I judged her presence in front of the cameras lacking - now, it's not like she's lighting it up here but she's definitely improving and this is important because I believe if it's Hillary in 2016 the GOP is going to have to put a woman on the ticket, either at the head or as VP - and right now the three most likely candidates are Martinez, Halley and Ayotte - so, Ayotte being out front this way I think is interesting]

"... we have to be able to admit to the obvious here... with an ignorant electorate and politicians ever willing to manipulate truth to serve purposes less than truthful the necessary intermediary between these two is an objective press willing to ask difficult and objectively purposeful questions of power... if the press is absent in this regard because of a mitigating preference for a specific outcome that favors the ruling power, then you have a problem... the people for various reasons are incapable of coming to just conclusions without help... if the help is tainted by prejudices that have nothing to do with what is just and are only meant to serve an agenda that the people do not fully understand, then of what use is your democracy?..."

Wondering who or what's to blame here, imagine it this way: invert all the dynamics roiling the political landscape in America right now and then ask yourself, what would be the result of such a shift? What I mean is, imagine that the media and press are overtly biased towards the right and on top of that imagine that changing demographics tended to increasingly favor a conservative point of view. Then put in the White House a staunch conservative ideologue that the right wing adores as some sort of savior from the evil doings of the left but who also possess a quality that makes him or her an especially sympathetic figure to a broad spectrum of voters, even those who don't particularly see themselves as leaning right - maybe he or she is a war hero - hell, make them an amputee while you're at it. Then give this imaginary president an extreme agenda that he or she pushes forward under the protective guises and auspices of biased media, gullible voters and the beguiling effects of identity politics shamelessly exploited. Now, ask yourself, given the above, what would happen to the Democrats? Would they not fracture in the exact same way the GOP is fracturing now, as outraged leftist radicals decrying the end of abortion and the demise of the promotion of social welfarism and wealth redistribution leveraged on the back of a perpetual racial demagoguery etc etc battle with pragmatic moderates over the best way to combat and turn back this existential threat from the right? Would we not see, verging on the horizon, the rising menace of one party rule and the gutting of the very essence of democracy? And, just as importantly, would we not also see in our imagined other world this growing right wing oligarchy faced with the very same vexing question any liberal still possessing some vestige of perspective and objectivity should be asking themselves right now, that being: how the hell, short of the instituting of autocratic measures, do we expect to govern this bitterly divided mess we're busily with blind enthusiasm creating?

I don't know the ins and outs of making policy work, nor how robust and innovative 'tax reform' can actually be - but as a conservative who doesn't like the idea of raising taxes because of the government's clearly demonstrated excellence at wasting those revenues, building up debt, using it to essentially buy votes through pork barrel politics and all in all just in general hurting the country - despite that, I don't know why it is some enterprising Republican doesn't put forward an offer that stipulates that in return for cutting spending and reining in entitlements, the GOP will agree to a tax increase with the understanding that that tax will be a specific surcharge  and that the revenues from it will be used for no other purpose than to reduce the debt; and then once the debt is brought down to an acceptable level the tax will be voided - in effect, almost like a specially targeted 'war tax'. To me that's reasonable and counters the liberal charge that refusal to consider tax increases is example GOP extremism - don't know if it's at all feasible, but personally, as a fiscal conservative, I'd have no problem paying a tax like that, especially if smaller government were part of the deal.