There’s some discomfort on the part of the more secular DC inhabitants both left and right with any pro-traditional values anything. Perhaps that’s why President Obama feels free to do this, as reported by Elizabeth Scalia:

There are questions as to whether HHS has authority to issue exemptions to Obamacare, although quite a few have been issued for reasons other than conscience. There appear to be no questions in the president’s mind, or in Secretary Sebelius’, that they have the authority to intrude on freedom of religion. With this ruling they insist that church-affiliated institutions either act against their own belief or so narrow the scope of their community service as to be removed from the public square; either way, the government is deliberately affecting the free exercise of religion. Considering some Catholic schools, hospitals and charities were serving their communities before the secular governments even thought to follow suit, that is a damnable, and damning, legacy for a president who once taught constitutional law.

If the culture war has seemed oblique to you or somehow irrelevant or perhaps a thing of the past, read Elizabeth’s post.

If you have wondered what Rick Perry was talking about and now, what Newt Gingrich has been decrying in Florida, read Elizabeth’s post.

If you give a crap at all about the idea of Freedom of Religion and the exercise of, even if you believe nothing, read Elizabeth’s post.

Ultimately, you serve a god–either the One who bestows inalienable rights or the state as run by the latest human flavor.

Unless you’re in the mood to serve Barack Obama and his grand vision, defend your rights to self-determination and worshiping in the way you see fit.

UPDATED:

Marco Rubio rebels against Obama’s regulations.

Bookworm calls the cultural divide a “gaping chasm”.

So the race is down to a one-term moderate governor who framed the architecture of Obamacare and a Senator from Pennsylvania who couldn’t get re-elected. The latter is conservative; which is something.

The problem with Santorum is money and ground game. He has neither. His plucky Iowa victory is invigorating for his few national supporters and I might be surprised and see that he’ll be able to whip up grassroots support and get funding.

Santorum gave a beautiful and touching speech; deeply personal and affecting. Romney hurriedly, frenetically rattled off his stump speech from the morning. Ann Coulter loved it.

Anyone who pays attention to conservative politics is profoundly disappointed. Santorum is an uphill battle many ways: name recognition for one. He’ll get it now, but will it be enough? Can he energize anyone? He’s not the energize type, is he?

The other candidates fell away. My gut tells me that for Gingrich, it was his personal issues. For Perry, it was illegal immigration. For Bachmann, it was Bachman. She was like the crazy ninja who cut herself every time she slashed.

Ron Paul and his ardent young supporters will have influence again soon–disrupting CPAC and acting like college students loosed on a bender. Sarah Palin is right that the GOP needs to listen to the foundational concerns of many of Paul’s supporters: Fear of an over-reaching government, fear of too many wars in far-flung places for reasons not exactly clear about America’s interest, fear of fiscal insanity (completely rational).

On a personal note, I am profoundly disappointed at the result for Rick Perry. He gave a gracious speech. He has cancelled his South Carolina appearances. It seems over. It makes me sad. He’s a good man. He’s leads Texas in significant and beneficial ways. I can’t help but think we’ll be wishing for a guy like him when results are actually measured down the road.

Thankfully, I believe more is at work here than pure human folly–even though this primary season and President Obama’s fiscal policy have been shot through with nonsense.

And so ends a miserable Iowa caucus. If I were a guessing woman, I’d guess that Mitt Romney will be the eventual nominee.

His moderate, liberal even, stances will be portrayed as crazy-eyed conservative by the media–which is a patent lie.

Mitt’s Romneycare debacle in Massachusetts will neutralize the horror that is Obamacare. Mitt’s legendary flip-flops will trump, in the media’s eyes, Obama’s flop after flop after flop.

DC talking heads will be stunned to see a listless and apathetic base disgusted that the GOP cannot put forth a Republican with any principles.

The race will be close and some sort of defining moment will push people toward Romney or Obama, but the election won’t be the nuclear blowout it should be.

And if my record holds true, I’ll be wrong about this all and you all can take comfort in my horrible predictions. Let’s hope this is a George Costanza post and everything I write is exactly opposite to what will actually happen.

On a more negative note, I was right about McCain and no one listened to me then, either.

So, here’s to being wrong! 2012 is going to be a very long year.

Women want to believe that they’re impervious to things like age and ovaries. So, during peak creative years, women push their energy into relatively time unlimited endeavor–career–instead of a very time limited endeavor–having babies.

Young mothers are scorned for being stupid, giving up their potential, subjugating themselves to a man’s world.

Ironically, by subscribing to a dirty man’s definition of success — rutting like animals and climbing the corporate ladder by any means necessary — women deprive themselves of doing the one thing that is essentially female–giving birth.

Newsflash: Only women can do it. There are requirements. A woman must have a functional uterus, fresh eggs, good health and it’s really helpful to have economic and emotional support. In old-fashioned terms, that was called a husband.

Imagine the shock, then, when women find out that they’ve been lied to about their reproductive ability:

A decade ago, a fertility ad campaign on public buses in several big cities sparked a vicious backlash. It featured a baby bottle shaped like an hourglass, to warn women their time was running out. But women’s rights groups called it a scare tactic that left women feeling pressured and guilty.

Another ad campaign? Sure, says Mingo.

“And it needs to come on when men are paying attention,” she says. “Heck, put it on in the middle of a football game or something!”

Women are afraid of losing career opportunities. It’s not like there is one choice or the other. I’ve always worked while having kids.

Still, it helped that because of medical training waiting to have kids was no option because it limited options.

When you know you want kids, and maybe a big family, two things should be a priority:

1. Getting married.

2. Getting pregnant.

So, women in their 20s need to strike while their hot body and biology work to their advantage. This, of course, is very politically incorrect advice.

Telling a woman to carve out time to date, join social institutions (like, horrors!, churches) that encourage marriage, etc. just seems so old-fashioned.

Well getting married and having kids young has many biological and sociological and cultural advantages.

Women need to be told the truth about their limitations so they can change their life choices accordingly. Many who want and should have children won’t be able to because of the lies they believe and they’ll find out the truth too late.

America faces an unprecedented debt crisis, true. What is not conventional wisdom is that America could face renewed, even unprecedented, greatness if a decent leader comes forward.

Given that the Republican party seems incapable of getting its collective crap together, that scenario seems unlikely, though.

Businesses are, at this point, forcing themselves to not grow. They are unwilling to take on more risk. They’re keeping cash on hand. They’re paying down debt. They’re waiting.

Individuals are doing the same. Part of it is that they don’t qualify for credit even if they wanted it. Part of it is that they don’t want it.

Still, this unrealized creation and growth waits for the right catalyst.

Obama, is not a catalyst. Quite the contrary, he’s an inhibitor. Hell, he antagonizes any growth potential.

Obama’s actions are so frustrating to expansion that even apathetic business people are paying attention. Usually business folks lobby hard for their interests–they win some, they lose some and they work around the bureaucracy and incorporate the rules and regulations and taxes and fees into the cost of doing business. Not so now. Everyone can thank Obama for being so persecutorial rhetorically and prosecutorial policy-wise, businesses are being put out of business. That’s attention-getting.

The business world is now in open rebellion. Screw you, Obama, we’ll just not spend any money, period. Zilch. The cozy win-win we had going on is over. Sure, we’ll throw some money at you on the outside chance you get re-elected–we don’t want to be the subject of your direct ire. Instead, we’ll do just enough to get by everywhere.

A couple things about this:

America should never be so beholden to the executive branch that one person can do so much damage to the economy. And yet, here we are, and business is mostly to blame. By lobbying tirelessly for the government’s favor and selling their souls (Walmart and the AARP’s obsequious deference on Obamacare comes to mind) to obtain that favor, business leaders find out [surprise!] that’s what’s given can be taken away. Obama has been busily taking away or threatening to do so.

Businesses can afford to lobby the government, but the individual has been marginalized. Businesses were totally fine with that so long as individuals could still afford to buy their wares. Nothing like a long, deep recession to drive home the point that poor people don’t buy stuff.

So, while the cozy relationship benefits businesses for a while, eventually, people have to be forced to buy stuff and people resist being forced to buy stuff (see also really expensive light bulbs). So they just stop buying stuff they don’t want (see also solar panels and the Chevy volt.) And those businesses, warmed by the loving embrace of government tax breaks, bailouts and inducements find themselves screwed. No one wants expensive, useless crap. It’s bad enough when it’s cheap. But the stuff the government touches gets very expensive.

So the individual revolts, too. He stops buying. And if the government creates perverse economic incentives long enough, he loses his job and can’t buy stuff.

And that’s where were at in America.

America is profoundly in debt. America is jobless. America is sitting on the capital it does have.

Obama is making everything worse.

And yet, America is primed for some success–if the GOP can muster something. A steady hand, reduced government interference, positive rhetoric, assurances that businesses aren’t going to be raked over the coals (or given an unfair advantage either), etc.

In a word: growth.

That requires political change and a person willing to articulate a sunny, hopeful message to encourage growth but willing to make some tough decisions–i.e. cut government spending.

More on why this is not likely to happen in the next post.

Governor Perry freaked out the political class this week by suggesting bold government reforms like these [it's only 19 seconds long]:

Oh wait! That’s not Governor Perry! That’s Ronald Reagan and he was suggesting the same thing. He even talked specifically about getting rid of 75,000 government employees.

Doug Mataconis, resident cynic and Outside The Beltway (misnamed–should be Conventional Wisdom) blogger, says this:

In reality, though, much like Perry’s own chances to win the Republican nomination, there’s very little chance any of these ideas would ever see the light of day. To the extent Perry intended to propose a real plan, he failed here. Instead, all we’ve got are gimmicks.

Gimmicks, eh?

Rhetoric is not a gimmick. And a Ron Paulian purist like Doug Mataconis should feel slightly ashamed for attacking a candidate that has little chance of success. I would wager that Rick Perry’s chances are far greater than Ron Paul’s.

But back to the point.

America has been pushed leftward both rhetorically and policy-wise for years. Bush senior, Clinton, and then George W. Bush all believed in a sort of government care-taker state. Most damaging to the body rhetoric was “Compassionate Conservatism”–a phrase that ceded rhetorical ground to the mean ways of big government and socialism.

It’s frankly rather astonishing that a libertarian would complain about a plan to get rid of government departments, but then, that’s what libertarians do. They complain.

For too long, self-reliance, ingenuity, creativity, personal responsibility, American exceptionalism, optimism, and all those other plucky American values have given way to Obama’s maudlin mealy-mouthed malaise.

Words matter. Rhetoric matters.

No one wants empty words. Words and ideas push in the opposite direction, lead the mind and heart different ways and open the policy world to ideas that have been long maligned are NOT empty. They’re purposeful.

Just like Ronald Reagan knew what he was doing when facing Debbie Downer Jimmy Carter, Rick Perry knows what he’s doing facing Bob the Blamer Obama.

Politics is about deeds AND words. Rick Perry has the deeds covered. One only has to look at his Texas record of reform and conservative (and yes, libertarian) change to see that.

A leader, though, must also use words and push ideas. For those having trouble with Perry’s government reform plan, pretend you’re a teenager again. Perry’s plan is like a kid asking for a 2 am curfew when he really wants 1 am or even midnight. He’s still getting to stay out later than he wanted.

Rick Perry is pushing the envelope and he knows it. So did Reagan, though, and Reagan’s words and ideas pushed America into a couple decades of growth and prosperity.

Words and ideas matter. They are the precursor of policy. The libs know this, which is why they’re howling. What’s confusing is why a libertarian would be bothered by small government rhetoric and a plan to match it.

Very interesting (but rather wrong) piece about the younger generations blaming the Boomers by Walter Russell Read by way of Monty at Ace. The comments are far more insightful.

Says Alex Scipio:

Sorry, Prof. Mead, but you have widely missed the mark.

When the 18-yr olds, the lead Boomers, were given the vote in 1972 and shortly began their careers in office, the Debt was $400B. For this America had purchased and/or conquered a continent, invented air and space travel, modern manufacturing, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals, invented and commercialized computers and telecommunications, and won every war we had tried to win.

The Boomers? Have invented nothing. Have discovered nothing.Have generated wealth only in bubbles based on intenet (also invented by their parents as ARPANet) fantasy.

Sure – Boomers are in everywhere pretending that they have anything good to say or any worthwhile thoughts. But take a look around. The world of the past 50 years is a steady decline of cultural and societal courtesy, manner, education, volunteering, education, exploration, education (did I say education?).

Even better, John Lynch concludes:

I’m Gen X, and I’ve been stuck listening to Boomer [folderol] my whole life.

Now the Boomers are all doom and gloom. That’s not because the world is really all that much worse off than it’s ever been. It’s just the impending death of the Boomer generation. They’ve mistaken their own decline for that of the nation and the world.

The Boomer generation has always thought that nothing happened until they arrived (see that beautiful piece of propaganda, Mad Men) and are equally convinced that nothing will happen once they are gone. All the environmental millennialism has its origin in the Boomers. From The Population Bomb to Global Warming they’ve persistently believed that not only are they a social force but a cosmic one as well.

The world will survive their passing. I’m already enjoying the lack of 60s music on the radio and the blessed silence about Woodstock and the Vietnam War. My generation has accomplished far more, with less noise, and we won our war.

History will not be kind.

A couple thoughts:

1. I blame the parents of these indulged brats. The WWII/Great Depression parents, in an attempt to shelter their children from all difficulty, brought up a bratty, superficial, spoiled generation.

2. Learn the lesson. Children today have even more wealth and good fortune (for a while) than the Boomers started out with. The OWS-ers are astonished and dismayed because their Boomer parents sold them the same tripe they believe about themselves. So these little snowflakes are upset that the world is not interested in their brand of special.

Discipline, hard work, responsibility, right and wrong, common sense, diligence, fidelity, and humility don’t go over big but they’re characteristics that win over the long-term.

Overindulgence makes for rotten grown-ups.

1. I like Herman Cain.

1.(a) Well, I liked the Herman Cain who was giving inspiring speeches and firing up a movement. The blaming, obfuscating Cain? Not so much.

2. I do not want Herman Cain to be our President because of things like this. [I have openly endorsed Governor Rick Perry in the Republican primary.]

3. I can still like Herman Cain even if I think he mishandled the crisis.

1. The press is grossly biased. See also Bill Clinton and John Edwards.

2. The press was right to post the Cain case. It was news. Yes, the press is unashamedly hypocritical: Edwards was BIGGER news.

3. The press should be as bull-doggedly after the Democrats as they are the Republicans.

1. Sexual harassment laws are vague and can harm people.

2. Sexual harassment happens and is wrong when it does.

3. It strains credulity that four women are making up charges (just like it did with Clinton).

3 (a). Women coming forward in this day and age know that they will be destroyed by the media (left, and now, it seems, the right) when they bring forth charges against popular men. Why on earth would a woman come forward in this climate? Some say money or fame. Really? These women would likely be middle-aged now or mid-career and with kids. They have NO good reason to come forward in the face of this.

1. The left is far more racist and sexist than the right.

2. The left would bring these charges against ANY conservative, no matter the race or gender. They hate conservative ideology and especially their special-interest groups (blacks, women, other minorities) who embrace conservatism.

3. The race card should not be played. Period. Unless there is actual racism.

What bugs me about this whole thing is that conservatives are using liberal defenses they’ve long reviled:

1. Talk radio wants to destroy the traditional media so badly that the Big Three ignore how their posture negatively influences the conservative movement, ultimately. They end up sounding like they excuse sexual harassment. They end up sounding like they’re blaming the (possible) victims which is exactly the disgusting thing the press did with the women who came forth about Bill Clinton. It is wrong. Period. In addition, their fury at the media sounds like ardent support of Herman Cain as candidate for President at any cost. This is ridiculous and ultimately undermining of them.

2. People who support other candidates who take glee in this story should beware. Candidates who pile on with the media destruction of another Republican should also beware. The media loves destroying conservatives. Remember the media lovefest over John McCain? Slobber, slobber — until he became the nominee. The same thing is happening in the conservative political field now. The media, one by one, is systematically making it seem like all conservatives are awful. They’ll take a magnifying glass to little problems and blow them up into huge issues. It is distressing that people participate in this game because their favored candidate is spared. It is NOT okay.

3. Defending the indefensible is indefensible. It damn well DOES matter if Herman Cain or any other nominee sexually harassed or assaulted a woman or women.

I understand the fury at the press. After watching Jay Rosen in his journalism class at NYU where he discussed manipulating the front page of the New York Times to create a guy like Barack Obama and destroy conservatives like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, I wouldn’t be sad if the whole media system got nuked. Either that, or they should just out their biases instead of being deceitful, hypocritical moralistic destroyers of truth.

I get it. But hot damn, I haven’t been part of the conservative blogosphere six years to become the very thing I hate.

Conservatives should:

1. Be open about biases.

2. Print the truth.

3. Do not defend wrong.

“By any means necessary” works for leftists and it is destroying the fabric of our society. See the Occupy Wall Street folks? They believe that anything is fair game — children as shields, crapping on police cars, raping, stealing, breaking things.

No.

We win nothing if we win this way.

Herman Cain is well-liked, an amazing speaker, he energized the Tea Party movement. He is loved. It seems he is also a flawed person.

The women who have stories, if they’ve watched this media storm, would be terrified to come forward. Remember what the feminists did to Monica Lewinsky? It made me sick.

Some people I very much respect are treading awfully close to this evil territory. A woman who has a true story to tell, shouldn’t fear being assassinated by conservatives. CONSERVATIVES. That is the provenance of the left. It should stay theirs. This is sickening.

More thoughts here and here and here.

Conservative bloggers outside of the Beltway have been hopping mad at Jennifer Rubin, ostensible conservative journalist (née blogger), for what they perceive as shameless bias against conservatives and conservatism.

Politico wrote a story about her obsessive anti-Rick Perry writing (60 columns!) and apparent coziness with the Romney team.

When Redstate blogger and CNN commentator Erick Erickson noted that he didn’t think Rubin was conservative and likened her political bent to being a member of Likud, the Israeli political party, Rubinfired back:

“You want a Washington Post journalist to comment on an anti-Semitic screed by some blogger?” Rubin asked. “My arms are not long enough to punch down that far.”

This response was giggle-worthy —for a couple of reasons. The smug self-importance while throwing the victim card while, um, punching down, reinforced criticisms rather than countering them.

Erickson went on to apologize for insensitivity, saying he intended the Likud comparison as political shorthand for Rubin’s positions (meaning that she’s good on national security and terror but not much else), not as loyalty to Israel over America.

Jeff Duntz, conservative Jewish blogger at Yid With A Lid would have none of it, “Erick is not the most subtle person around. If he were to make a charge of dual loyalty, the reader would be hit over the head with it.”

He goes further, “..maybe to the readers of the very liberal Washington Post she is a conservative, but to the rest of us conservatives she is nothing more than an arrogant ‘not conservative blogger’ who is not a big fan of either conservatives or bloggers.”

And yet, many of her beltway conservative media friends closed ranks. The defense? They know her. She’s nice.

And while it’s probably true that she’s a nice person, it doesn’t quite address the central criticism: that she’s biased against the conservative cause.

But more on that in a minute.

Last night, a fuming friend presented me a hastily torn out Letter from the Editor from G.Q. Magazine. The editor, Jim Nelson, a former CNN news producer and failed screenwriter vented his overworked spleen against…you guessed it, Rick Perry.

His paragraphs were long and convoluted–the kind of writing you’d expect from someone who has trouble finding the keyboard keys because the anger-induced adrenalin surge would be better suited to outrunning a bear. In this case, Jim Nelson was afraid he couldn’t outrun alpha-male Rick Perry. He’s the bogeyman and he’s coming to get meeee! Here’s a sample:

But I imagine that, come primary time, a lot of GOP voters, hoping to extend a middle finger to Washington, will find that fat little finger in Perry’s hand. Is he crazy? Who isn’t these days? Those throw-the-bums-outers will love Perry’s brand of craziness. He’s like Ron Paul without the diapers.

There’s more where that came from. Michele Bachmann isn’t spared, nor is nearly every mainstream American, forget conservative, idea: Boy Scouting is good, repealing Obamacare is wanted, the Commerce Clause is abused, etc.

Nelson edits a male fashion and lifestyle magazine, and has decided to go down the Graydon Carter road of mistaking his audience for people who care about his leftist opinion about the Republican primary contenders. Here’s the demographics:

TOTAL AUDIENCE: 6,612,000
Median Age: 34.3
Age 18-49: 82%
Median HHI: $72,738
HHI $100,000+: 31%
Gender: Male 73%/Female 27%
Education: Attended/Graduated College+ 70%
Employment Status: Professional 50%
Marital Status: Single 63%/Married 37%

Source: MRI Spring 2011

PROFILE OF AFFLUENT AUDIENCE:
Median Age: 39.9
Median HHI: $157,606
Gender: Male 82%/Female 18%
Education: Attended/Graduated College+ 83%
Employment Status: Professional 70%
Marital Status: Single 38%/Married 62%

Source: MMR 2011

Any guess how this demographic votes? Yeah. It’s no wonder print media of all sorts is losing readership. If the fury I witnessed is any indication, the magazine has lost another subscriber.

Jennifer Rubin writes for the Washington Post. She replaced Dave Weigel, the self-admitted non-conservative who voted for Nader, Kerry, and Obama, in that order. Before going to the WaPo, Jennifer wrote many places but found one of her homes at Pajamas Media, where I also wrote, and sometimes write. Her writing there was fair, and more importantly, balanced.

Conservatives who read her work now wonder why a conservative writer at the WaPo is needed at all—at least a conservative like this one. Far from being a haven of conservative thought, Rubin’s columns are informed by the same fundamental worldview as her liberal compatriots at the newspaper, like Greg Sargent and Ezra Klein—the same worldview which permeates the pages of the Post every day. Call it the “big city mayor” approach to government—or even the Big Brother approach.

To summarize: Government is a benevolent force, lead by intelligent people who will find solutions for the folks who don’t know better.

Unabashedly conservative politicians—particularly those who come from rural, southern, or western backgrounds—provoke panic for people with this worldview.

Whenever pundits like Jim Nelson or Jennifer Rubin start to lose it over the rugged individualistic, common sense, rather straight-forward, red-white-and-blue American ethic espoused by someone like Rick Perry, the movie Talladega Nights comes to my mind. Nearly every stereotype of the middle American bumpkin was thrown into that movie. And yet, the movie was a smash hit. Middle Americans, as it turns out, have a sense of humor about themselves.

What Hollywood meant as scorn, the viewers embraced. The jokes on them, smirk those in the know. If numbers mean anything, and in electoral politics and movie theaters, they do, the exact opposite is true.

Unlike the media consumers, members of the Smartypants Set™ most certainly do not have a sense of humor–unless you consider unironic allusions to being the 1% like New York University professor Jay Rosen made while being taped during his journalism class humor. Well. He thought he was funny.

Sensibility saviors and cultural vanguards take their role as gatekeepers for the ignorant masses deadly seriously. And a guy like Rick Perry and all the state-college-educated, gun-toting, Air Force-flying, Bible-loving, NASCAR watching, baseness sticks in the craw of the Smartypants Set™.

They are, as candidate Obama noted, “bitter clingers.” They just won’t let go of their cherished American traditions.

The common people, “provincial” as Jennifer Rubin described Perry, embarrass them. In the end, it’s all about how they feel. And being lead by a commoner, even a highly successful one, does not suit.

So, Jim Nelson has Barack Obama—suave, urbane and best of all, he knows how to wear a suit. And Jennifer Rubin has Mitt Romney—suave, urbane, and best of all, he knows how to wear a suit.

It doesn’t matter if the suit is empty or the suit isn’t conservative. The point is, these people don’t make the cultural elites uncomfortable. They are their people. They speak a language that resonates with news editors and commentators and even Washington Post bloggers journalists.

Increasingly, and regretfully, it’s a language not spoken anywhere but in the cloisters of Higher Ed and newsrooms and Hollywood and worst of all, Congress. It’s uniform, uninformed and anything but inclusive. There’s little diversity of thought, if any, and the unifying theme is “We know better than you.”

The tenor of the language is getting increasingly shrill and hysterical.

Jim Nelson’s screed was ill-thought out and tinged with paranoia.

Jennifer Rubin’s repeated bashing has become strangely personal. In her case, the willingness to print every spurious rumor as fact as long as it maligns Rick Perry (while ignoring nearly every other Republican candidate) is neither very objective nor very journalistic–well, not in the romantic journalist-as-objective-reporter nonsense she ascribes to.

Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky New York University journalism professors, and in Shirky’s case, a consultant to the New York Times spoke of how the New York Times created Barack Obama. Together they gloated and spoke of Chardonnay and shaping the news to diminish conservatives and elevate liberals.

Here’s the real takeaway: The media is neither objective nor in touch with the culture they seek to shape. They, like Obama, believe America, and especially conservative America, is fundamentally flawed. They don’t see a distinction between your average evangelical churchgoer and a snake-handler. They seek to poison the well for any politician or person espousing conservative ideology even in the face of the abject failure of their own.

This worldview is detached, egotistic and condescending. And as long as people who ascribe to it are allowed to dictate who is an acceptable leader and who isn’t, we’ll always end up with empty suits.

Updated already:

Here’s Jennifer Rubin’s latest.

Mitt Romney’s connections to the Obama administration extend beyond setting the framework for Obamacare. Turns out that one of the directors of the EPA choking the life out of business right now, was Mitt Romney’s “Green Quarterback.” National Journal has more:

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has taken most of the fire from Republicans as her agency rolls out a slew of controversial new climate and clean air rules. But McCarthy, the EPA assistant administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation, has taken on much of the heavy lifting of writing, structuring, and implementing the rules.

“Lisa’s the coach and Gina’s the quarterback” in the work of rolling out new clean air regulations, said Daniel Weiss, an energy and climate policy expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the Obama administration. “She’s running the plays, improvising on the line.”

McCarthy is meeting behind the scenes with coal CEOs, lawmakers, and state and federal officials to lay the groundwork for the new rules and make sure they’re put in place. She’s making sure the clean air legal language is written in a way that’s robust and airtight, in order to have the biggest impact on cutting pollution, with no loopholes. She’s testifying to Congress, making the case as to why the rules should be implemented, despite a fusillade of political attacks.

The environmentalists love her job-killing policies. Former Democrat Massachusetts liberal Governor Mitt Romney loved her, too. And yet, here’s what she’s doing right now, according to AmericasPower.org :

As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to vote on the TRAIN Act, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, today, released a comprehensive analysis conducted by National Economic Research Associates (NERA) showing that several of EPA’s new and proposed regulations would lead to 183,000 lost jobs per year and significant increases in the price of electricity and natural gas.

“America’s coal-fueled electric industry has invested nearly $100 billion, so far, to achieve impressive reductions in air pollution. Now is the wrong time for EPA to blindly push ahead without even pausing long enough to understand how all of these rules could hurt American jobs and consumers,” said Steve Miller, president and CEO of ACCCE.

The analysis, done on behalf of ACCCE by NERA, relies on state-of-the-art modeling tools, as well as government data for almost all of its assumptions. NERA’s analysis projects that EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and proposed Maximum Achievable Control Technology, coal combustion residuals, and cooling water intake requirements for power plants would, over the 2012-2020 period:

• Cost the power industry $21 billion per year;
• Cause an average loss of 183,000 jobs per year;
• Increase electricity costs by double digits in many regions of the U.S.;
• Cost consumers over $50 billion more for natural gas; and
• Reduce the disposable income of the average American family by $270 a year.

Does Lisa McCarthy care about jobs? Does the Obama administration? Does Mitt Romney? Evidently not:

Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said the Obama administration has faced “a backlog of rulemakings” that weren’t implemented on time or were overturned by the courts.

The agency recently finalized its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule to replace a George W. Bush-era rule that a federal court struck down in 2008. And the Utility MACT rule for reducing toxic emissions from power plants has been in the works for 20 years, she said.

Ever the bureaucrat, she’s going to press on with job-killing regulations.

Here’s the thing: We expect this kind of destructive behavior from Democrats. There isn’t a regulation that they’ve met that they don’t like (oh wait, I take that back, they don’t like regulations making abortion clinics comply with minimal doctor’s office standards).

It’s disgraceful, though, how seamlessly bureaucrats from Mitt Romney’s administration mesh into Barack Obama’s administration. Barack Obama. Think about that. The most liberal, big government Democrat since Jimmy Carter and Mitt Romney’s advisors work for him.

Is it wrong that I have hope for Iraq and I don’t want to see it become Iran’s pet?

Here’s what Governor Perry said about Iraq:

“I’m deeply concerned that President Obama is putting political expediency ahead of sound military and security judgment by announcing an end to troop level negotiations and a withdrawal from Iraq by year’s end. The President was slow to engage the Iraqis and there’s little evidence today’s decision is based on advice from military commanders.

“America’s commitment to the future of Iraq is important to U.S. national security interests and should not be influenced by politics. Despite the great achievements of the U.S. military and the Iraqi people, there remain real threats to our shared interests, especially from Iran.

“The United States must remain a firm and steadfast ally for Iraq, maintaining an ongoing diplomatic, economic, and military to military partnership with this emerging democratic ally in the Middle East.

“As a veteran and commander-in-chief of national guard forces, I cannot express enough appreciation for our military service members who have protected and defended American interests in Iraq. Our Iraq war veterans made enormous sacrifices to make our nation and world safer, and I know all Americans will welcome them home with great pride and appreciation.”

Mitt Romney’s opinion here. Herman Cain’s statement here.

Newt Gingrich had an interesting statement:

The former U.S. Speaker of the House said he was critical of Bush’s decision to stay in Iraq after the initial 2003 campaign toppled Iraq President Saddam Hussein. Since then, he said, he has tried to support a solution, but none came.

“We won the first Iraq war in 1991 and very effectively, in four days driving them out of Kuwait. We won the second Iraq War in 2003 in defeating Sadam in 22 days,” he continued. “And then for reasons I don’t understand we tried to occupy and try to change Iraq and that eight-year campaign is now ending in failure. The fact is the Iranians are now stronger in Iraq than we are.

“This is not about Obama,” he continued. “This is about the general effort that far trensends Iraq. That we have to really reassess our strategies in the region and what we think we’re accomplish. The president is right. You can’t just leave 3,000 or 5,000 troops there. They would simply become targets. If you’re not going to occupy the country, you have to withdraw.”

Gingrich said he feels the same way about America’s effort to occupy and attempt to bring stability to Afghanistan, and said the same lessons “apply to the whole region.”

“We need to think very carefully about what we are doing there,” he said of Afghanistan.

His comments also came after new reports about Gadhaffi’s death suggested he may have been summarily executed by rebel troops.

“Vicoius dictators who torture and kill people are not in very good position to ask for mercy,” Gingrich said.

I don’t feel like Iraq is a failure, do you? It just seems like it could be more successful. It seems like the little sapling needs time to grow.

I’m curious about what Iraq vets feel about the draw-down. Do they feel like it’s the right thing to do? Informal survey for everyone. If you are a veteren, please share your opinion.