Yesterday’s later-found-to-be-erroneous reports of JoAnne Kloppenburg’s narrow victory in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race were hailed by HuffPo’s Amanda Terkel as making that election a “nationally watched bellwether on the electorate’s mood” and a “watershed moment for Wisconsin and a Waterloo for Scott Walker” that “should give Republicans… pause.”

But, whoops! it turned out that a computer error by a red-faced County Clerk had misplaced more than 14,000 votes from the city of Brookfield. Once the missing votes were added to the tally, Justice David Prosser zoomed into a lead of 7,582 votes over his challenger.

Mary Katherine Hamm observed via Twitter: Small, state-wide election with vital national implications soon to have no national implications whatsoever.

New York Times:

The Huffington Post, which began in 2005 with a meager $1 million investment and has grown into one of the most heavily visited news Web sites in the country, is being acquired by AOL in a deal that creates an unlikely pairing of two online media giants.

The two companies completed the sale Sunday evening and announced the deal just after midnight on Monday. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. It will be the company’s largest acquisition since it was separated from Time Warner in 2009. …

Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.

By handing so much control over to Ms. Huffington and making her a public face of the company, AOL, which has been seen as apolitical, risks losing its nonpartisan image. Ms. Huffington said her politics would have no bearing on how she ran the new business.

The deal has the potential to create an enterprise that could reach more than 100 million visitors in the United States each month. … The Huffington Post.. began as a liberal blog with a small staff but now draws some 25 million visitors every month.

There must be several people connected with Pajamas Media reflecting ruefully on what might have been this morning.

Arianna Huffington is obviously a opportunist and a turncoat, but one does have to give her credit for organizational ability and initiative. She saw the opportunity for a large-scale aggregating site combining left-wing commentary with news and tabloid-style gossip and made it work. There’s the evil and immoral capitalist system that HuffPo so enthusiastically struggles against in operation.

Frank Luntz debunks the democrats’ supposed financial “reform” at Huffington Post of all places. This editorial would fit just fine on any conservative blog site.

The New York Times’ headline said it all: “Off Wall St., Worries About Financial Bill”. The Democrats in Washington may think it’s a slam dunk, but the rest of America doesn’t agree.

Look, those who are on the side of significant financial reform are fighting on the side of the angels — and with broad public support. We are fed up with Wall Street abuses and arrogance that makes life for the rest of us on Main Street more difficult. Let’s hold people and businesses more accountable and responsible for what they do and how they do it.

But that doesn’t suddenly equate to support for the legislation now being considered by the Senate. In exactly the same way that the public wanted healthcare reform, just not Obama’s healthcare reform, they want something done to punish the perpetrators of the financial meltdown, but not at the expense of their own checking accounts — or American economic freedom.

The dirty secret of the Senate financial reform bill is that some of its biggest supporters work on Wall Street. Recipients of taxpayer bailout money have no concerns about the bill — in fact, the CEOs of Citi and Goldman Sachs have publicly endorsed it, and several of the other big banks have expressed support. It keeps the “too big to fail” guarantees in place for another generation of financial services companies.

But here’s where it gets really interesting. The Democrats supporting the current legislation have assured an anxious electorate that whatever funds are used to create whatever regulatory scheme created will come from the banks, not the taxpayers. Let me emphasize that so that even casual readers will catch it: the Democrats promise that you won’t pay for their legislation, banks will.

Really?

Since when have corporations ever paid taxes, fees or penalties? Employees end up paying in the form of lower salaries and benefits. Customers end up paying in the form of higher costs.

And in this case, every account holder will be forced to pay higher fees on their checking account and savings account. That’s you, my friendly reader. Can you say “checkbook tax”? I can, and I think lots of candidates will be saying it come November. Is that what you really want to do to your constituents, Senator Lincoln? Is that what you really want to explain on the campaign trail, Senator Bennett?

But it goes deeper than just taxation and regulation. Wall Street can pass it all onto consumers. Main Street cannot. And that’s because Wall Street firms have all those pesky well-connected, nicely dressed lobbyists to ensure that whatever is passed strengthens their hand at the expense of the little guy.

Regardless of what side you’re on, the financial reform bill is special interest heaven — a bill written by lobbyists, for lobbyists, and will probably be implemented by lobbyists. The Dodd bill has carve-outs right from the get-go. Real estate agents, title companies, the Farm Credit system, even Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae are exempt from its onerous and costly provisions. And for everyone else, it’s been a special interest feeding frenzy.

More than 130 companies have publicly hired lobbyists seeking their own loophole. Mars Candy wants to continue to use derivatives to hedge against price hikes in sugar and chocolate, so they’ve hired a lobbyist. Harley Davidson wants to protect dealer financing of their bikes, so they’ve hired a lobbyist. And eBay wants to not harm its subsidiary, PayPal, so they’ve hired … well … a team of lobbyists.

But most average Americans — the ones who bailed Wall Street out in the first place — cannot afford lobbyists, and won’t be exempted from the legislation.

There’s a reason why American trust in government is at an all-time low. Voters believe legislation like this is passed not for the public interest, but for special interests. And that is certainly the case with the Dodd bill.

Palin mocks hand notes story

The big news of the day (from the perspective of the left blogosphere) was the HuffPo photo taken during her speech at the Tea Party Convention revealing some talking points jotted on the palm of Sarah Palin’s left hand.

This one did not impress many people outside the left, but it did provoke derision from Ann Althouse and a humorous response (see photo above) from Sarah Palin herself.

Roger Simon and Charles Johnson never got those Ferraris everyone thought they’d soon be driving back when Pajamas Media launched.

PJM, at least, survived, but nobody got rich. Heck, Charles Johnson even lost his good sense, changed sides, and now devotes his blogging activity to defending Warmism, enforcing political correctness, and bashing conservatives. Sad, very sad.

Let’s hope Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, launching today, proves more fortunate.

DC has been described as intended to represent “a conservative answer to Huffington Post.” Arianna Huffington responded to the launch with a gracious post, observing amusingly that her own Huffpo was founded as “the progressive answer to Drudge.”

Walter Shapiro finds that Barack Obama’s customarily deft public performance deteriorates markedly when he encounters negative questioning.

(I)n response to the next question – about the potential consequences if Iran continued to suppress demonstrations – Obama said with a sharp edge in his voice, “We don’t know yet how this thing is going to play out. I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I’m not. Okay?”

Now I am not going to claim that the First Amendment requires presidents always to wear smiley faces when taking questions from reporters. Nor am I going to deny that occasionally – very occasionally – the short-term mindset of the press pack can be irritating for presidents with a more transcendent view of global events.

Instead, I am bringing this up because I want to tentatively advance a larger theory about the president’s public moods. Obama tends to drop his cool veneer and sound exasperated when he knows that he is in the wrong.
When it comes to Iran, Obama has at times spoken in particularly mealy mouthed fashion because he is fearful (as he has repeatedly explained) that his words could be hijacked by the Iranian theocrats. Even during Tuesday’s press conference, Obama ducked condemning the Iranian election as totally fraudulent by carefully saying, “We didn’t have international observers on the ground. We can’t say definitely what happened at polling places throughout the country.” Obama – who more than most leaders understands the power of inspirational rhetoric – has been forced to keep his most potent weapon (his moral outrage) sheathed through most of the Iranian crisis.

But it was on a far smaller matter (and not one that often comes up during his morning national security briefings) that Obama really put his ire on the fire. What set the president off was a question trying to link Obama’s own smoking history with new legislation giving the FDA the power to regulate nicotine. In response, Obama claimed that the reporter just thought that it was “neat to ask me about my smoking, as opposed to it being relevant to my new law. But that’s fine. I understand. It’s a interesting human — it’s a interesting human-interest story.” (Words alone cannot convey Obama’s mocking tone and his obvious disdain for this “human-interest story.”)

Smoking, of course, is the secret vice that humanizes Obama. He cannot be that perfect – that in control of himself – if he cannot kick his yen to inhale carcinogenic smoke. Obama, in fact, likened himself (maybe a bit melodramatically) to “folks who go to AA.” Small wonder Obama becomes annoyed when he is asked for a monthly update on his cigarette consumption.
The truth is that the Obama White House certainly does not resist human-interest stories when they portray the president in a favorable glow. Obama’s grumpiness about the smoking question was not about an intrusive boxers-or-briefs press corps, but about the president’s own frailties.

———————————–

Which probably explains why the President preferred, with respect to the sensitive topic of Iran, to answer a previously-arranged softball question from an editor of the Huffington Post.

In what appeared to be a coordinated exchange, President Obama called on the Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney near the start of his press conference and requested a question directly about Iran.

“Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran,” Obama said, addressing Pitney. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?”

Pitney, as if ignoring what Obama had just said, said: “I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian.”

He then noted that the site had solicited questions from people in the country “who were still courageous enough to be communicating online.”

“Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of the — of what the demonstrators there are working towards?”

Reporters typically don’t coordinate their questions for the president before press conferences, so it seemed odd that Obama might have an idea what the question would be. Also, it was a departure from White House protocol by calling on The Huffington Post second, in between the AP and Reuter. …

The Huffington Post reporter was brought out of lower press by deputy press secretary Josh Earnest and placed just inside the barricade for reporters a few minutes before the start of the press conference.

Isaac Chottinger, in the New Republic, takes the occasion of the publication of her new book attacking conservatives, to describe, at length and with some visible astonishment, the strange political odyssey of Arianna Huffington. The female Maecenas of today’s Blogospheric left was, not long ago, herself a loud and passionate conservative.

(Two decades ago) Huffington began writing a right-wing syndicated column. She fervently supported the Contract with America and the rise of Newt Gingrich, while at the same time preaching compassion for the poor. She became a figure in mid-’90s Washington, using her new megaphone, and her dining table, to speak out more loudly on the same issues that had occupied her for years. Reading Huffington’s columns from this period is disagreeable, because her mixture of spiritualism, libertarianism, New Right dogmatism, and concern for the downtrodden does not amount to anything coherent. …

It is hard to know how seriously to consider Huffington’s work in those years. She was a vocal critic of Great Society efforts to address social problems, but her anti-government instincts prevented her from articulating any sort of tangible blueprint that addressed real-world conditions. … One is struck, again, by the discrepancy between the mediocrity of her work and the skill with which she consolidated her fame.

As the right’s revolution began to cool, Huffington’s revolutionary fervor started to wane, too. The Huffingtons divorced in 1997, and the following year Michael Huffington announced that he was bisexual. In 1998, Huffington published a book called Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom, a lame anti-Clinton satire–Huffington is painfully unfunny–that nicely coincided with a general disgust with Washington. Her columns also became increasingly, and shrewdly, non-partisan. By the time Gingrich resigned as party leader in 1998, it was clear that Huffington was ready for her next move. After the GOP lost seats in the midterm elections in 1998, Huffington concluded that Gingrich and company had failed because they had abandoned their agenda of, in Gingrich’s words, “coming to terms with what’s happening to the poorest Americans,” an electoral analysis that at least had the advantage of being original.

And so she made herself over as an enemy of power, a tribune of the people, an A-list populist. In 2000, Huffington published How to Overthrow the Government, which urged Americans to rise up and take back Washington from two corrupt political parties. Her newest campaign was perfectly timed to tap into the disappointment emanating from the dreariness of the presidential campaign of 2000. In a year in which Ralph Nader received almost 3 percent of the vote, and in which both major party candidates were neither much liked nor admired, Huffington held “shadow” political conventions and managed to play to the general anomie. Her criticism of the Clinton years evolved from concerns about the president’s personal failings to a critique of his policies from the left. And she continued to demonstrate a rare gift for articulating the prevailing mood without ever saying anything especially probing or memorable. In 2003 there appeared Pigs at the Trough, a slightly better written jeremiad against political corruption, which was blurbed by John McCain, then Washington’s reigning “maverick.” That same year Huffington ran as a populist in a gubernatorial recall election in California, and succeeded only in seeming ridiculous. The election was ultimately won by a celebrity much more famous than she was.

By 2004, the Iraq invasion was starting to look like something less than a brilliant success, and liberal disgust with the Bush administration was reaching its zenith. Meanwhile the rise of the so-called “netroots,” coupled with grave concern about the possibility of a second Bush term, had destroyed almost all momentum for insurgent political movements. The only threat to the status quo could come from John Kerry and a Democratic Party whose principal argument was that they were better at Washington than Bush was. This was the year that saw the publication of Fanatics and Fools, Huffington’s “game plan for winning back America,” which signaled that she had made her peace with the Democratic Party. Many of the book’s problems–particularly its over-the-top criticisms of Schwarzenegger–were owed to her old habit of pushing any argument a demagogic step too far, of wanting too much to be noticed. There was something almost comical about the insistence of this sudden liberal that she be regarded as some kind of leader of American liberalism–that her latest incarnation be treated as her whole story.

Right Is Wrong, Huffington’s newest book, is a useful document of her current version, in which progressive politics seem to come so naturally to her that one almost forgets that she has been traveling the whole time. The result is a book that is less genuine and more tiresome.

slideshow of Ariana over the years

One might describe the opportunism of Arianna as John Randolph of Roanoke described that of his cousin Edmund Randolph: “like the chameleon on the aspen, ever trembling, ever changing.”

Andrew Levy, alarmed by the recession, hopes to supplement his income by blogging for Huffington Post. Excerpt from sample editorial:

In the wake of the events of 1-15, in which a wedge of Geese brought down a US Airways aircraft, here’s what you won’t be hearing about from the so-called “Mainstream Media”: We brought this on ourselves.

After an event such as this one, it’s important to look at the root causes: Why did the Geese attack us? Well, the truth is, for years we have been oppressing the Geese, using them for the fuel they provide for our bodies.

Boneless Goose Breast, Brandied Roast Goose, Roast Goose with Cumberland Sauce and Apricot Stuffing. And of course, the Christmas Goose. In the name of religion, we have been engaged in what can only be called a Crusade against the Geese. Is it any wonder that a few brave suicide Geese would seek revenge?

The Huffington Post isn’t all bad.

Not only do they entertain us by publishing the rants of some of the silliest and most self important representatives of the community of fashion, why! here they’ve done the patriotic thing and posted a 0:37 video of Sarah Palin (née Heath)’s swimsuit appearance in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant.

Larisa Alexandrovna, at HuffPO, demonstrates that her political assimilation as a recent immigrant has been less than successful. Remedial work in both Civics and American History is in order.

Alexandrovna obviously never learned to understand the Electoral College system, and she is clearly unaware that the election of 2000 was the fourth in which the candidate with the larger number of popular votes was nonetheless defeated. If George W. Bush, as Alexandrovna alleges is “a man the citizens overwhelmingly rejected” on the basis of a .5% popular vote margin in his opponent’s favor, what would be her position on Bill Clinton who assumed the presidency despite a 4% larger margin of voters rejecting him than supporting him?

Huffington Post accepts opinion pieces from the oddest sources.

Here is a recent Russian Jewish immigrant, with a literary background, who has apparently sought asylum not in the normal America most of us inhabit, but in the deepest depths of the paranoid fever swamps of the left, who is now setting up shop to tell the rest of us Americans that we must make haste to impeach the current president (in the 5 remaining weeks before the next election) or there is no alternative to violent Revolution.

As I see it now, we have but two options and I have long alluded to hoping against hope that one of these options would not be the only one left to a peaceful people. The first and frankly most preferable option is for Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot.

No time needs to be wasted on hearings as we already now have in writing, formally as presented to Congress, the intentions of this administration to nullify Congressional powers permanently, to alter Judicial powers permanently, and to openly steal public funds using as blackmail the total collapse of the US economy if these powers are not handed over. You do see how this is blackmail, do you not? You do see how this is a manufactured crisis precisely designed to be used as blackmail, do you not?

The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won’t act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us – the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger – then what is left for us to do? I don’t want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will. Put your party politics aside right now. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few.

Possibly this young lady may have insights on the work of stylistic geniuses like “Vladamir Nabkov” which are worthy of attention. She obviously is fundamentally incapable of approaching US political issues at any level more sophisticated than the repetition of leftie slogans and irrational raving.

Worse, she hasn’t even got the minimum intellectual integrity required to take political positions.

When she posted her bizarre “summons to the barricades” yesterday in response to the prospective federal bailout, she provoked a little feedback from elements of the right Blogosphere.

Jeff Goldstein identifies the young lady’s political perspective, accurately, as antidemocratic progressivism.

What the progressives want is a type of non-filial aristocracy — an aristocracy of region and school and manner and argot. Once established, this ruling class will act in the interests of all — at least, in the interests of all as those interests are defined by that ruling elite.

Voting, democracy… messy encumberances that keep those fit to lead from leading, all because too many US citizens are too stupid to vote in their own best interests. As decided upon by those who would rather the rubes not vote at all if they aren’t going to vote the “right” way. Hence the outrage when certain “types” wander off the liberal plantation.

This is the face of progressive fascism. Which for all its high-sounding political importance is, at heart, nothing more than temper tantrums being thrown by those who aren’t quite as clever as they’ve always been taught to believe.

Sad, really. But then, such is the burden of being an elite in this country. STOP HATING US BECAUSE WE’RE BETTER THAN YOU!

Further negative commentary was provided by Confederate Yankee, MacRanger, and others.

How did she respond to criticism? With the radical left’s customary defenses of insults, sneers, and foul language, and, ridiculously enough, with disingenuous “Who, me? I didn’t say any such thing!” protestations.

We need advice on politics from her?

Paul Reiser, another HuffPo spokesman for Hollywood, sees McCain supporters as schoolyard bullies picking on him, and stealing his lunch money, read: the democrat party’s presidency.

He’s so self-righteous and annoying, you can see how bullying him would be very gratifying. No presidency for you, you little wimp.

“I wish I didn’t have to take your lunch money, but you should’nt of hadda brung it.”

We’re in the 3rd grade again. The skinny, smart kid who just moved in to the neighborhood is getting roughed-up by the asshole bully. The kid who hits you in the head with your hand and says, “Why’re you hitting yourself? Why’re you hitting yourself?”

“Um, actually I’m not. You’re hitting me.”

“You calling me a liar?”

“No, I’m just pointing out that…” SMACK!

“Why’re you hitting yourself?”

And there seems to be no one to appeal to. There’re no grown-ups around when you need ’em. No one to step in and say, “Alright, that’s enough now. We don’t do that here, fella.” And in the absence of any authority, the asshole gets to keep doing it.

“Why’re you hitting yourself? SMACK! Why’re you hitting yourself?”

From the few minutes of the GOP convention I could stomach watching, all I could think was that Giuliani and Sarah Palin were doing some big-person, lethal version of “I know you are, but what am I?”

America: “Well, respectfully, Governor Palin, it could be argued that you are, in fact, relatively inexperienced.”

Her: “I know you are but what am I?”

“Hm? No, perhaps you misunderstood. We are talking about you.”

“I know you are but what am I.”

“Well, Governor, just listening to your speech, you seem awfully caustic.”

“You are.”

“And, frankly, a little bitter.”

“You’re bitter.”

“I mean, where’s your sense of humility?”

“I’m rubber, you’re glue. It bounces off me and sticks to you.”

“My God – you’re… dangerous.”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

Maybe that’s the problem. Obama treats us like adults, and McCain’s team treats us like children.

Obama seeks to inspire and raise us as a nation. McCain’s people want to reduce us to infants.

Obama asks us to be deep. And courageous.

McCain prays that we’re simple. And cowardly.

Now everyone is calling for Obama to “get angry.” “Get out there and frown this way, curl your lip that way, and clench your fist like so.” And, I don’t know….. That’d be cool. Sure. But I don’t think the fix can come just from him. There’s only so much the guy can do. It’s going to have to be us. I don’t know what exactly we need to do, but I know we’ll do it. I have to believe — I mean I really have to believe we’re big enough, strong enough and smart enough to reclaim what’s ours. I love my children too much to let the assholes take over the school yard.

Compare Clive Crook (below) to Adam McKay, a comedy-writer and novelist, so fond of America that he resides in Morocco (well, now, I guess, we know what his hobby is), publishing (but not getting much editing) at HuffPo.

McKay is starting to panic. He titles his “analysis” as a loud tocsin of alarm: We’re Gonna Frickin’ Lose this Thing.

Something is not right. We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate. We’re coming off the worst eight years in our country’s history. Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R’s have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we’re going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science? That’s not odd as a difference of opinion, that’s logically and mathematically queer.

It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game). You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins.

Democrats are losing. Republicans are winning. How can such a thing be possible? The latter must be cheating. Now there’s some useful insight! One can only advise Mr. McKay to appeal to the referee.

And how do we do it? Well, we win, you see, because we control the MSM (!).

McKay:

What is this house advantage the Republicans have? It’s the press. There is no more fourth estate. Wait, hold on…I’m not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox…I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country. And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that’s the 51% advantage.

Those of us the Right, of course, will certainly be startled to learn that all the television networks (except Fox), all major newspapers and news magazines, National Public Radio, the major news agencies, all the mainstream media, the same voices which have done nothing but attack the Bush Administration and the War, which recently turned upon Sarah Palin like a pack of angry hyenas, are really all a bunch of capitalist puppets operating as a wholly-owned GOP subsidiary.

When you are as confused and self-deluded as Mr. McKay, you should not be surprised that you are losing in any competition.

McKay rapidly degenerates into near incoherence, and one unsupported charge comes tumbling out after another.

They’re losing because Republicans commit electoral fraud. All would-be democrat voters are obviously entitled to vote early and often, and scrutinizing residency and registration and identity must be “voter caging” aimed at subtracting those crucial few votes that make all the difference. Mr. McKay obviously never heard of democrat party electoral fraud, which seems strange to me, as it has been historically a lot more wide-spread, prevalent, and famous.

And we have another particular unfair advantage, according to McKay:

The religious right teaches closed mindedness so it’s almost impossible to gain new voters from their pool because people who disagree with them are agents of the devil.

And how can these terrible disadvantages, Republican control of the MSM, GOP electoral fraud, and Religious Right brainwashing, possibly be overcome? McKay suggests the Josef Goebbels approach, repeating the same simple message loudly, again and again, plus using the Internet, and (!) regulating the media. “You will publish only leftist thoughts!”

His goal?

This race should be about whether the Republican Party is going to be dismantled or not after the borderline treason of the past eight years.

How can we possibly lose, when this is the opposition?