Karl Rove On Wonderboy's MidTerm Campaigning Ineptitude

Karl Rove wrote a nice piece in his weekly Wall Street Journal column the other day regarding Wonderboy's recent campaigning mistakes.


Why should we be surprised with Rove's assertions that Wonderboy is now making horrific mistakes in his midterm electioneering? Think about how the First Rookie got to the White House.


Prior to running for President, he'd only run once for federal office. That was when he bushwacked his mentor to get the Democratic Senate nomination, then happily stood by and allowed his Republican opponent's sealed divorce records to be used in the campaign. His comment when they appeared in the Chicago dailies was something like,


'When I heard/read about the divorce records, I went to get fitted for my swearing-in suit.'


Almost immediately upon arriving in the Senate, he began running for President.


This guy hasn't had a seriously issues-based, non -race-based campaign yet. Why should he know anything about presidential campaigning for other Congressional members?

Isn't his entire appeal and character based on- himself? His anointed minority ascension to the nation's and free world's most powerful job?

Can this guy even identify with anyone else deemed so far beneath his magnificent self?

Rove's editorial included some pretty terrific passages, including these,

"Last Saturday at a West Newton, Mass., fund-raiser, the president said, "facts and science and argument [do] not seem to be winning . . . because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared."


In a penetrating piece in the New York Times Magazine on Oct. 12, Peter Baker profiles a president who "believes he is the smartest person in any room," according to one prominent Democratic lawmaker. He and his aides think that the core of their difficulties is "a communications problem" and the result of a "miscalculation" that the president could "forge genuine bipartisan coalitions."


Then there is this priceless quote involving a Democratic Representative,


Earlier this year Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas warned moderate Democrats of a midterm bloodbath comparable to 1994. "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me," he reported the president as having said. "We're going to see how much difference that makes now," Mr. Berry added. Yes, we will."



See what I mean?

It would seem that Wonderboy is so arrogant as to miss the reality of his own shockingly fast rise to power, and the uniquely temporal reasons for it. Thus, he can't really understand any politics that isn't about his personality or race or presumed unrivaled intellectual brilliance.

Rove is correct in assessing the president's Congressional campaigning shortcomings, but it shouldn't really come as any big surprise.

The Speedy- and Premature- Rehabilitation of Eliot Spitzer

Can it really be 2 1/2 years since former New York governor Eliot Spitzer resigned his office after being publicly revealed to have spent tens of thousands of dollars on prostitutes?

While he didn't use public money, as South Carolina's governor, Mark Sanford did, when he fraudulently listed his visit to his Argentinian lover as a state business trip, Spitzer did manage to humiliate himself and his wife. And give the lie to his promises of running a highly ethical admininstration.

Still, Spitzer's exit from public life was pretty humbling and abrupt.

Now, after so little time, he's baaaaack!

Spitzer has been paired with Kathleen Parker on a new CNN evening program. The headlines one sees when Googling "Spitzer Parker program review" are hysterical. Here's a sampling-

Parker/Spitzer: Countdown to Divorce
Freak show unbearable to watch
CNN's Parker Spitzer debuts to scathing reviews
CNN's "Parker Spitzer" gets bad reviews, low ratings (this one from CNN Gossip)

Here's a smattering of reactions in the press to the program's debut.

Parker Spitzer , the new CNN Talk Show starring columnist Kathleen Parker and former Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer, attracted only 454,000 viewers during its debut Monday night, according to the Los Angeles Times . By comparison, Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor tallied 3.1 million viewers and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann registered 1.1 million viewers during the same 8 p.m. time frame. Parker Spitzer replaced Campbell Brown , which premiered to 1.3 million...



Eliot Spitzer may have a ways to go in his bid for TV stardom. On Monday, the disgraced former Governor of New York bombed in his new Prime Time CNN Talk Show with his co-host, the columnist Kathleen Parker. "Parker Spitzer" drew a paltry 454,000 total viewers, according to the Nielsen Co. That ranked dead last in the Cable News race at 8 p.m., far behind Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" (3.1 million) and MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" (1.1 million)
 
The success of CNN's big gamble in mounting a new politically-oriented Talk Show in Primetime featuring the conservative columnist Kathleen Parker and the liberal former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer won't be known until the Ratings start coming in -- but the verdict of TV columnists has been uniformly disapproving. New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley said that Parker/Spitzer was "hard to watch"
 
Disgraced former President Richard Nixon took the better part of a decade to regain any semblance of respect, and that was after several noteworthy books on foreign affairs.
 
What's Spitzer done in the last 30 months to merit a high-profile talk show on CNN?
 
Well, based on Parker/Spitzer's viewership and reviews, we may not have long to endure Spitzer's latest star turn.

NY's Gubernatorial' Candidates Debate

Since I live near, but not in, New York, I see a fair amount of news coverage of the state and city. But the recent antics at a joint appearance/debate among seven candidates to govern the state drew national coverage.

I don't claim to know the names of all seven. Only Paladino and Cuomo.

But to me, the funniest line by far was by another white male candidate who said, to paraphrase,

'My qualifications are that I haven't been arrested for prostitution, I'm not a felon and my dad wasn't governor of the state.'

Hilarious. Now I just want to know which candidate is the felon. I would think that would disqualify one for governor of New York. Perhaps it was only being charged with a felony.

Stealth Liberal Bias on CNBC

This morning on CNBC, retiring New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg guest-hosted. I watch/listen to the channel  most mornings for business purposes, but often race to hit the 'mute' button when the more egregiously liberal pundits- John Harwood, Ed Rendell, Howard Dean, Tim Cane, Don Peebles- begin to speak.

As the conversation meandered through various aspects of fiscal and social policy, and the upcoming Congressional elections, one of the co-anchors asked Gregg a question phrased something like this,

'With you and a Democratic moderate, Evan Bayh, retiring, how will Congress get work done, govern, compromise, if both parties send increasingly-ideological extremists to Congress?'

The questioner went on to assert that compromise was so important, yet those pesky Republicans and their Tea Party friends don't seem to show any intent on compromising with the president!

See the bias inherent in the question and comment?

Now that the Democrats have taken giant steps forward socializing medicine and health care, owning big chunks of American business, doubling the debt in just two years that it took our Republic from 1789-2008 to amass, and causing massive regulatory uncertainty, it's time for compromise!

So why can't/won't/don't Republicans come to the table and bargain?

After all, the Democrats rammed through massively-unpopular social and spending legislation over the objections of Republicans. Now that Republicans might be in control of the House, perhaps even the Senate, well, it's time for compromise.

Amazing, isn't it? And nobody in the media seems to think this is an abnormal attitude.

Steve Rattner- Most Transparent Administrative Official Ever?

Thursday's Wall Street Journal revealed that former Wonderboy autu czar has been ensnared in the New York State pension fund 'pay to play' scandal.

The article reported,

"Under a deal being negotiated, Mr. Rattner would pay a $6 million and agree to a two-year ban from the securities industry, a person familiar with the matter said."

The Journal piece also noted that Rattner had been involved in earlier discussions with the SEC regarding a possible three year ban for the same activities.

How is that ultra-clean Wonderboy administration working out so far? The guy he taps to untangle the government's role in the auto sector seems to have been involved in bribing state officials in order to manage pension fund money. If not, why the agreement to the fine and ban?

You can't make this stuff up.