Mickey Kaus has a few thoughts on John Boehner and whether or not the House minority leader wants a big Republican win for November.

I have a few thoughts on Kaus’ thoughts. First, el Mickey:

Does Boehner Even Want to Win Big?

Win! But Don’t Win Too Big: Dick Morris, preaching what he practices, counsels Republicans in favor of overconfidence. The argument is that by setting their sights too low, the party’s official cash-dispensers might deny funding to candidates who look like longshots but could in fact win in an anti-Democratic landslide…. But you have to wonder if a GOP leader like potential House Speaker John Boehner even wants to win big in November. It’s not just that Boehner needs to temper public predictions of triumph, lest a small victory be played by the media as a defeat. It’s that a small victory might, for at least two reasons, actually be the best outcome for him.

My first thought: I’d say that Mickey Kaus tripled the value of Newsweek by moving Kausfiles to the site, but that does Kaus a grave injustice by putting Kausfiles in the $3 value range. Much more accurate to say that “there’s no putting a dollar figure” on Kausfiles‘ move.

Secondly, even the consideration of “lest a small victory be played by the media as a defeat” is self-defeating. The media will spin whatever is most beneficial to the Democrats, regardless of its relationship to the facts.

In fact, the media has abandoned spin: it’s now engaged in full-tilt content management. It’s no longer interested in mere bias: news consumers are onto that game. It’s all about not reporting the news inconvenient or unfavorable to the MSM’s favored party and turning whatever the DNC press releases are for the day into “news.”

However, since 2008 that tactic has failed as well as news consumers have turned to sources that guarantee their exposure to what they can’t find in the MSM. During the John Edwards Scandal, Kaus wrote about the ‘undernews’ and the switch from MSM “news” to “undernews” is proceeding posthaste–to the detriment of the MSM’s bottom line. That MSM organizations have continued to put ideology ahead of profits is further proof that they no longer are journalistic enterprises so much as flacks for the cause–and losing money is an acceptable cost of doing ideological business.

To even consider how the MSM presents the November election is to give it more credibility than it has earned. IF the Republicans were to win all 435 seats in the House, the New York Times headline on November 3 would likely read: “Democrats finish second, guarantee more seats in 2012.”

Kaus goes on to list two reasons in particular that John Boehner may not want a big win: 1-raised expectations; and, 2-unruly Tea Party candidates.

Readers can pass judgment on those by reading Does Boehner Even Want to Win Big?. Our issue was with Kaus’ (probably inadvertent) gesture of respect to an Old Media no longer deserving of such.

by Mondo Frazier
image: ask chris

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Whoever wrote the following editorial in the Wall Street Journal came up with a killer line. Can readers spot it?

All About Murkowski, A half-baked Alaskan Senate bid.

Had she accepted defeat gracefully, Ms. Murkowski would probably find she could run for Governor in the future. Yet now she is burning her bridges to nowhere after being stripped of her Senate committee assignments by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Her incumbency and earmark themes failed to sway primary voters, and they betray a failure to grasp the country’s anti-Washington mood. Voters want a check on the Obama agenda, not someone looking to trade votes for pork.

Joe Lieberman ran as an independent after losing the Connecticut primary in 2006, though he had every reason to believe he could win against antiwar Greenwich millionaire Ned Lamont. He also ran on U.S. national security interests and moral principle regarding a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. The only thing at stake in Lisa Murkowski’s revenge bid is her own political career.

Alaskans apparently know just how much Lisa Murkowski lives to serve them. Don Surber adds a bit of a history lesson.

Miller 42%, Murkowski 27%, McAdams 25%

By the way, Rasmussen called the 2006 Alaskan Republican primary when he showed that some woman in Wasilla was ahead of the incumbent governor, Frank Murkowski, by 26 points two weeks before the primary.

Whatever became of her?

Voters are definitely looking for something different this election season; Alaska is no exception.

Lisa Murkowski is not that different representative for which voters are looking.

by Mondo Frazier

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Bill Clinton opened up a new can of worms on Sunday.

Just exactly whose can of worms Clinton opened up can be debated later.

Clinton to Dems: Hey, my bad on that ObamaCare advice [video at the link]

Over a year ago, Bill Clinton offered Democrats at the Netroots Nation a Nancy Pelosi take on their political prospects by advising them to pass ObamaCare and see all the popularity that would be in it. Now, facing a potentially historic meltdown, Bill Clinton has another message for Democrats — my bad.

People don’t like ObamaCare because they know that creating another massive government entitlement program is the wrong prescription for America. The only people who thought of it as a cure rather than a symptom of Beltway Syndrome were those already at Stage Four of the disease on Capitol Hill.

Conspiracy theorists will have a field day unraveling the significant questions which weave their strands into what makes up the magnificent tapestry that is the Clintons.

Does this help or hurt Hillary Clinton for 2012? Will it remind voters of why Ms. Clinton was had one of the highest negatives prior to getting beaten in 2008 by Barack Obama?

Remember HillaryCare from 1993? Bill Clinton reminded many voters that Hillary Clinton’s first foray into politics was pushing ObamaCare 16 years before Obama got to it.

Didn’t Bill remember how he sprinted away from HillaryCare in 1994?

Is this an effort by Bill Clinton to disengage permanently from the ObamaCare debate?

Did Hillary Clinton approve his message?

Does Barack Obama agree with Clinton’s assessment?

That’s enough for now.

by Mondo Frazier
image: exalted beauty

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NOTE TO KARL ROVE: SHUT YOUR PIE-HOLE

Is Karl Rove the next Newt Gingrich?

The latest statement of Karl Rove on Christine O’Donnell reminds one of the Newter; from House Speaker to Nancy Pelosi couchmate to on-again, off-again populist presidential candidate, Gingrich’s trajectory has been a generally-downward arc; Newt may have a higher principle than winning and naked self-interest–but that’s not the way it appears to conservatives.

The inclination to call out Karl Rove on his behavior on primary Tuesday night was short-lived. One post, then the feeling was “let bygones be bygones” [Karl Rove on Christine O’Donnell: How to Become the Go-To Guy for the Left, MSM].

Until this.

TRENDING: Rove: O’Donnell must explain witchcraft comments

Karl Rove – the top GOP strategist who declared last week that Christine O’Donnell’s surprise victory does “little good” for the party – is now calling on the surprise Senate nominee to explain her comments about witchcraft.

“In southern Delaware where there are a lot of churchgoing people, they’re going to want to know what that is all about,” the former aide to President George W. Bush told “Fox News Sunday.”

“My view is she can’t simply ignore it,” he said. “She’s got to deal with it and explain it and put it in its most sympathetic light and move on.”

Of course, the absolute best place for dealing with this is for Rove to keep hammering it on a Sunday talker. No slipped notes to her staff, no emails, no quiet phone calls with advice: that was for Rovian man-crush, Mike Castle and Mike Castle alone.

Frankly, Rove’s statements are becoming a distraction to a campaign that only has seven weeks to organize itself. If Rove really have the best interests–as opposed to soothing his bruised ego–of the Republicans at heart, he would offer his advice in private.

But that’s one game that the former White House chief-of-staff appears not ready to play. At Soros-run Media Matters, Rove has the dubious distinction of being the latest go-to guy for quotes about Christine McDonnell.

When Media Matters is cheering you on, that’s a clue you may want to shut your pie-hole. A cooler head on this subject is Prof. William Jacobson, of Legal Insurrection.

Memo to the Right: “The Lombardi Rule” Is In Effect

Now that the primary is over, so too is the Buckley Rule. Please take notice that the Lombardi Rule is in effect:

“The object is to win fairly, by the rules – but to win.”

So [names of conservative blogs and pundits still dumping on O'Donnell deleted], get over it and get to work defeating Democratic rubber-stamp hack Chris Coons.

Because, as Hillyer says, “[w]e are fighting for our country here.”

And winning that fight in November is all that matters.

Got that? The primary’s over: all for one and one for all.

If not, well…

Rove’s childish behavior on CNN reminds one of an equally childish question that may be appropriate at this point.

“Did Christine O’Donnell piss in your cornflakes this morning?”

Let it go, man.

Please.

by Mondo Frazier
image: Cox & Forkum

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“THE POWER TO TAX INVOLVES THE POWER TO DESTROY”
–Daniel Webster

States are working overtime to figure out a way to make online buyers pony up sales tax for the betterment of state mankind.

States working harder to collect online sales taxes

There’s too much to quote effectively from the above article, but the gist is, states want money and a lot of them have taxed Internet purchases which are not getting collected.

Therefore, the states are agitating to get a national sales tax agreement worked out to make every state its brother’s tax collector. The several sentences from the article above are illuminating.

The law is similarly complex and similarly ignored in Florida, where Amanda Grout of Panama City said she spends hundreds of dollars a year buying books and clothes online but has never paid the use tax.

“I’m not going to go out of my way to go fill out all these forms and mail them in to pay more money,” Grout said.

In a sentiment that must hearten backers of the streamlined national tax agreement, she added:

“The only way I would do it is if they set it up on eBay or the website and forced me to do it.”

The states want online businesses and the customers to collect the states’ taxes for them and save them the cost of doing so.

Nice work if you can get it.

Of course, the states are talking tougher “enforcement measures”–threats. If only these same states worked as hard to streamline their budgets and provide effective services for their residents as Amazon.com does for its customers.

Then it wouldn’t necessary to threaten their citizens to get them to comply with yet another regulation.

More control of the Internet by government: like all increased government control, it’s always for the greater good.

by Mondo Frazier
images: webdevster.comrenaissanceronin

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IN BIGGER GOVERNMENT WE TRUST

Remember when Progressives in Congress at least pretended to be accomplishing something for the greater good when they proposed another bill that restricted freedom or piled on more regulations?

With the Waxman-Weiner gold bill, Progressives have dropped the mask: the only entity helped is the Treasury Department. Oh, it does that the added benefit–for Progressives–of clamping down on companies that advertise on conservative talk radio and websites, but that’s just gravy.

Congressmen Weiner and Waxman Set Gold Hearing

Just as the government is trying to prevent people from investing in anything other than T-Bills by raising taxes on taxable interest and dividends to confiscatory levels, it’s also trying to prevent you from parking your wealth in assets, like gold, that compete with the paper dollars issued by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. A press release from Rep. Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, not yet (as of this instant) posted on Mr. Weiner’s Web site, announces that a September 23 hearing of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection (a subcommittee of Rep. Henry Waxman’s Commerce Committee) will focus on “legislation that would regulate gold-selling companies, an industry who’s [sic] relentless advertising is now staple of cable television.”

From the press release: “Under Rep. Weiner’s bill, companies like Goldline would be required to disclose the reasonable resale value of items being sold.” That’s great. Are Mr. Weiner and Chairman Bernanke also going to agree to print on every dollar the reasonable expectation that its value will be eroded by inflation?

An excellent question–of which we already know the answer.

Waxman and Weiner will never require the government to do anything for which it might be held accountable.

It’s all about holding individuals and companies accountable for anything, everything and all that is considered important by Henry Waxman and Anthony Weiner.

The faceless agencies of the Executive branch? Nahhh.

Congress? Are you kidding?

The judiciary is already pretty much unaccountable–which is not always a bad thing.

Another bill to solve problems that only exist in the fevered Progressive minds of Henry Waxman, Anthony Weiner and the enclaves that continue to return such people to positions of power in Congress.

by Mondo Frazier
image: freedom in our time

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MICHAEL GERSON: THE SCARIEST THING IN THE WORLD IS THE TEA PARTY, SO LET ME OFFER MY USUAL STRONGLY PRO-REPUBLICAN ADVICE–BECAUSE I’M ALL ABOUT HELPING

Michael Gerson is a writer at the Washington Post and he wants to help Republicans by warning them about the scary badness that is the Tea Party.

For the GOP, a bittersweet brew from the Tea Party

But it is also possible that the Tea Party will define the hated “establishment” not just as moderate Republicans such as Mike Castle of Delaware but also as moderate conservatives of every stripe. Many Tea Party activists espouse a “constitutionalism” that amounts to an extreme libertarianism. Their goal is not just deficit reduction but the dismantling of the modern state. And they may prove harder to tame than some imagine.

A Republican Party propelled by Tea Party enthusiasm is headed toward victory. A Republican Party dominated by Tea Party ideology would be pure, disturbing — and small.

Is Michael Gerson really worried about a small Republican Party? Might he be more worried that something else might be downsized, such as the Big Government that is the lifeblood of his employer?

Gerson has reason to be scared.

The Tea Party is nothing if not the enemy of Big Government. The Post is the company paper for Washington DC; Big Government is the only business of Washington DC. If Big Government becomes small Government, Gerson’s employer would not only become less influential, it might even have to downsize.

That’s the downright scariest thing to anyone who works for the Washington Post.

Very similar to Madonna or Britney Spears up nights worried that Lady Gaga isn’t popular enough.

by Mondo Frazier
image: pew

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