The Hollywood Liberal

Christie for VP? It’s Not Out of the Question
Robert Costa, National Review
A few steps away from the Delaware River, in the marble halls of New Jersey’s capitol, there’s a consensus among Trenton insiders: Governor Chris Christie would gladly accept the vice-presidential nomination, should Mitt Romney offer it. “Christie is open to it, his family’s comfortable with it, and he’s been vetted before,” one top state lawmaker says. “He isn’t going to campaign for it, but it’s no secret that he would relish the opportunity to play at that level.”

Where Are Mitt Romney’s New Ideas?
Paul Waldman, American Prospect
Karl Rove's signature contribution to campaign politics was the insight that the most effective way to defeat an opponent was not to attack his greatest weakness, but to attack his greatest strength. (There's some vivid detail from Joshua Green's classic 2004 article on Rove's history as a campaigner. Sample: Your client's opponent volunteers to help abused children? Spread rumors that he's a pedophile!) There's no doubt that at the moment, Mitt Romney's greatest strength is the idea that as a successful businessman, he will do a good job stewarding the…

Bill Keller & the Real Poison in Journalism
Jonathan Tobin, Commentary
The New York Times’ former reputation as the nation’s objective newspaper of record was always a façade that covered up a persistent liberal bias that skewed its coverage of both politics and the world. But during the eight years that Bill Keller served as executive editor, the Times accelerated its descent into the partisan and hyper-liberal biased reporting and unbalanced opinion pages that we now take for granted as the paper’s calling card. Keller’s liberal prejudices were never a secret while he was the paper’s editor and in…

Sarkozy Gets the Boot
Christopher Dickey, The Daily Beast
France"”and, along with it, Europe and possibly the global economy"”are about to enter a new and uncertain era. The first exit polls in French media have put socialist François Hollande ahead of the center-right incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, with more than 52 percent of the vote.The new guard may not be not quite as scary as Hollande's left-wing rhetoric during the campaign has led some people to believe. Even before the numbers came in, he was moving to reassure financial markets by reaching out to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The vote, though…

Obama’s Liberal Experiment Has Failed
Victor Davis Hanson, PJ Media
By Victor Davis HansonBioThe temple of postmodern liberalism was rocked these last few weeks, as a number of supporting columns and buttresses simply crashed, leaving the entire edifice wobbling. Fake, but Accurate Identities?The trivial Elizabeth "high cheek-bones" fraud nonetheless offered a draw-back-the-curtain look into the gears and levers of our national race industry. The real story is not that the multimillionaire blond liberal, one-percenter Warren fabricated a Cherokee identity for over a decade (to the delight of her quota-thirsty universities), but rather the…

A Revealing Look at Obama-Era Liberalism
Ross Douthat, New York Times
A WEEK ago the Obama re-election campaign unveiled a slogan for the fall campaign — its answer to Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America,” Bill Clinton’s “bridge to the 21st century,” and other successful re-election pitches. There were reports that the slogan-writing process had been a struggle for the White House, and the final product bore those rumors out. “Forward,” the Obama campaign will be declaiming to Americans, which feels like a none-too-subtle admission that a look backward at the Obama…

Obama’s Memoir a Tissue of Lies

Reviving the Obama Race Canard
Jonathan Tobin, Commentary
Race is the original sin of American history. To deny its influence on our society is as futile as it is illogical. Nevertheless, the attempt to cast President Obama’s re-election campaign as the focus of a racial backlash seems to be more about obfuscating the issues that are animating the vast majority of voters than providing any insight into public opinion.

Joy of French Socialists Will Be Short-Lived
Ben Brogan, Daily Telegraph
Fear of the mob drives French politics, and has done since 1789. Tomorrow night the French Left will gather in their thousands at the Bastille to celebrate what they are certain will be another revolution. They will wave banners and red roses, sing the Internationale, and tear around the streets, horns blaring, to celebrate a socialist capturing the presidency for the first time in nearly 25 years.

The Health-Care Mandate Is About Liberty
Cohn & Strauss, Bloomberg
As they await the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, legal critics of the law say their case is about liberty. If the government can instruct people to obtain health insurance, they keep asking, what's to stop it from requiring them to buy broccoli?

Obama Targets a Party as Romney Aims at a President
Erin McPike, RCP
President Obama and Mitt Romney are talking around each other these days, and it's easy to see why: The former's message is rooted in party ideology while the latter's is based on his opponent's leadership style.The difference demonstrates how crystallized opinions have become as the election season begins in earnest. What's more, it shows how badly the Romney campaign wants the election to be a referendum on the president, thus making the incumbent's management style a focal point of the race. Team Obama, however, wants the sharpest contrast before voters to be…

Plutocracy, Paralysis, and Perplexity
Paul Krugman, New York Times
Before the Great Recession, I would sometimes give public lectures in which I would talk about rising inequality, making the point that the concentration of income at the top had reached levels not seen since 1929. Often, someone in the audience would ask whether this meant that another depression was imminent.

Things That Really Matter
Charles Blow, New York Times
Another week of presidential politics, another outbreak of faux outrage and media manipulation.President Obama’s campaign released an ad trumpeting Obama’s decision to conduct the military raid that ended in the killing of Osama bin Laden. Republicans — and some liberals with too much time and too-short memories — hit the roof. How dare he? How tacky. Below the office and out of bounds.

Bailing Out Bad Choices Isn’t Academic
Charles Hurt, Washington Times
Once again, this town has ground to a halt in another one of its interminable squabbles about how to spend even more of our money that we do not have.The only thing everyone can agree upon is that they do want to spend $6 billion on yet another indefensible bailout.That’s right, years after this town turned the word “bailout” into a dirty word by bailing out banks, car companies, Wall Street, credit card companies — all while we were struggling to pay the light bill and buy groceries — they’re right back at it. 

Obama Reveals New Details of Bin Laden Raid
George Condon, Natl Jnrl
President Obama returns a salute as he steps off the Marine One helicopter upon his arrival on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday. Obama was returning from an unannounced trip to Afghanistan.

Environmental Illusions
John Stossel, FOX Business
The human brain is torn between simple intuition and the more complex hard work of figuring out the unintended consequences of any policy. Who doesn't like thinking about trees and greenery and happy animals? Who doesn't want to see steps taken to protect those things, all else being equal? But all else is not equal. Civilization doesn't work when central planners treat each tree as if its value is infinite.Politicians specialize in convincing you that, with their help, you can have your cake and eat it, too. The idea of a new “green economy” that is both clean and…

Can Richard Mourdock Topple Lugar?
Michael Warren, Weekly Standard
The May 8 election could also turn out to be the final fight of 80-year-old incumbent Dick Lugar's long career. A six-term senator and former Indianapolis mayor, Lugar is an institution, but conservative forces within the Republican party have long grumbled that he is too moderate and too ensconced in the Washington bubble, where he's been since entering the Senate nearly 36 years ago. Now, Lugar is in danger of losing the GOP nomination to Mourdock, who is giving Lugar the toughest electoral battle he's ever faced.

What America Needs Is a Return to Normalcy
John Feehery, The Hill
In the aftermath of World “War I, the Palmer Raids, a failed effort to ratify the League of Nations, economic stagnation and the failing Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding ran for president on a promise to return the nation to a better sense of normalcy.