Well this should shatter that myth

That talk radio hosts are running/representing the GOP.

But David Brooks seems uncertain and logically inconsistent as he tells us why the GOP is in decline.

They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now recause nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.

So let me get this straight, Mr. Brooks. The party is in decline because they let Fox & the Jocks set the agenda, except that the first part of the article talks about how the Jocks were all behind candidates who didn't win the nomination. Then, of course, the Jocks weren't that enthusiastic about McCain, but clearly preferred him over Obama.

And Obama won.

Mr. Brooks, can you tell me who in the party leadership is acting and speaking inside the "rigid parameters of the radio jocks"? Michael Steele? John McCain? I don't think so, Tim.

I think the problem in your logic is in large part based on this assumption:

The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.

Then why didn't Thompson or Romney win the nomination?

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P.

Things I Know #4 : Correlation does not mean causation. Even when it does, it can be a chicken and egg type of proposition. Was the rise in popularity of Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly and the rest the cause of the decline, or was it caused by the decline? Is it symptomatic as people looked for someone who seemed to represent them as the GOP seemed to represent them less and less?

Judging by the New York Times Best Seller lists, the Tea Party movement, Fox News' ratings, talk radio listenership .... I'm thinkin' it's the latter.

Actually, the GOP is losing because it has moved away from its small-government principles in everything but perhaps rhetoric -- and because the Democrats launched a successful, unrelenting 8-year campaign through the media against Bush and the rest of the Republicans.

Obama-Ayers, 2008

I've heard the rumors. Bookmarking this for future reference.

Thanks for the heads up, Morgan.

Feel the Hate™

Heard about this billboard just east of Kansas City on Eastbound I-70 this morning. I'm quite familiar with that area. Drive by it several times a year.

So I went looking for a photo of it.

Found one. Where? At the DU. The Democratic Underground -- that OTHER cesspool of Peace, Love, and Understanding ... that looks strangely like ... vitriol, and dare I say ... Hate™?

The post, which decries the hate (again, throwdown... what is hateful about that sign, and how is it hateful?) ... is followed by comments titled thus:

personally, I want them to just die. Jeez, what an abuse of a slogan.
God damn them indeed
You know, paint guns would do wonders for that billboard

with content insulting the literacy of my entire state (because somebody disagrees with them), plus "Jesus himself would come smack them across the face ", That billboard boosts the Missouri Film Board's chances of getting a major studio to film a remake of "Deliverance" in the state, God damn the Far Right anyway. God damn them all, These people are sick, nutjobs

And of course, my favorite from liberals:

[mocking sarcasm] Swastikas and Hammer/Sickle mean the SAME THING!!!! [/mocking sarcasm] followed by the know-it-all "correction" Sometimes people can be so dumb in the ways of history. (well apparently some people can be so dumb "in the ways of" English, too, but I digress)

• Hammer and Sickle -- symbol of the U.S.S.R. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
• Swastika -- Symbol of the Nazi party, in German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or the National Socialist German Workers' Party ...

Nope, nothing in common there at all. I'm thinking they've got the wrong people pegged as bing so dumb "in the ways" of history.

On a side note, the White House is making good on promises to "Call out" the Liars™ and are directly calling out Glenn Beck for his lies, lies, filthy lies! You know, like it wasn't Vancouver that lost a billion dollars on the Olympics. Vancouver hasn't had the Olympics yet.

Yes, it makes all the difference in the world, just exploding Glenn's point -- because it was Calgary that lost the money. Yeah. Take that! Mr. Beck! See... 'cause, you know, it was Calgary!!!!! Slaughter's your whole point, Mr Liar™ Fear Monger!

Oh, it's pretty funny.

Looks like the Left is doing a Full Court Press on Glenn. Behar had Maher ranting about him last night, after having Bette Middler on the night before expressing her fears about him, and the White House is now responding directly to him.

This is cool

Muckety Mapper. To map relationships between muckety-mucks.

Muckety: Explorying the paths of power and influence.

Don't know how they do it or how valid it is. But it certainly is a starting point for research, I think.

Hat tip to BC over at the Rott.

"Hate Speech™" Throwdown

I've had it past my eyballs with this "Hate Speech™" stuff.

How do people get away with being taken seriously slinging labels around like this without backing them up with facts? You know, reality?

Here's Joy Behar nodding in agreement with Bette Midler as Bette tells us that Glenn Beck engages in Hate Speech and is going to turn us into Rwanda with us killing each other like Tutsis and Hutus.

First, I want to know why anyone is seriously listening to either of these people for insight on the political scene.

As I left in the comments -- I always want to ask these people, tell me something Glenn Beck has said that is “hate speech” — and it has to be in context. No “Michael Moore-ing” it.

Just once on one of these shows. Just once. What has he said that is hateful, and what is hateful about it? A real journalist would ask that question. Anyone? Bueller?

Seriously, liberals, this is a throwdown. I want to know. Back it up! Tell me something hateful he's said and explain to me what is hateful about it. Or shut your pie holes.

---

Let me expound a little bit ... on her talking about Free Speech is great, but ... then goes on to, and I don't know how else you can interpret this ... goes on to say that it should be reserved for "educated" people.

And they wonder why we call them elitists.

Now I could get my pocket Constitution out again and go look for the "educated" clause of the first amendment, but I'm thinkin' I'm not gonna find it.

The other thing is the "fear mongering". We conservatives get accused all the time of "fear mongering", which is shut-uppery -- it is meant to pre-empt discussion. But Bette isn't fear mongering here about Tutsi-Hutu wars here in the US caused by Glenn Beck, no, huh-uh. She's edumacated.

Hey, let's check on that. Voted "most talkative" in her High School's "HOSS" election in 1961 (a Hawiian thing -- I guess seniors vote on it). After graduating high school in 1963, three semesters majoring in drama at the University of Hawaii before dropping out. What the hell is she doing "free speaking" on national TV? Doesn't she know that right guarantee doesn't apply to her?

Son of Promise, Child of Hope

Ask your child if he or she has been exposed to this book at school.

Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope

'Cause I'm just a tad curious. I've got to wonder what the precedent is for such adulation of a sitting president that started well before he was even elected.

This is the moving story of an exceptional man, as told by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Bryan Collier, both winners of the Coretta Scott King Award. Barack Obama has motivated Americans to believe with him, to believe that every one of us has the power to change ourselves and change our world.

Vagueness is the common thread of everything surrounding this man. It's moving because he's so exceptional that he movitivated people to believe in change. Wow. Cherry cream soda with that cotton candy?

What, really, is exceptional about this man? (I get that he's the first African-American to be elected President. But that was an event a whole heck of a lot of other people had a lot to do with). What has he accomplished? Motivating people to believe with him? To believe that every one of us has the power to change ourselves and change our world? What does that even mean? I mean, Hitler changed the world. Stalin changed the world. Hirohoto changed the world. Ghengis Khan changed the world. No doubt change can be good. But when it's a big box wrapped in shiny paper and you have no idea what's inside ... it's prudent to ask questions about where it came from, who put what in there, and why -- before you go diving in to the wrapper.

This is generally the job of a free and independent press, but it was so busy being motivated to believe in Him that it neglected to do that, and now calls anyone who tries a backward racist hate monger trying to foment violence. This was likely a part of the plan of the people who wrapped up that shiny box and sold it to an America that they told every single day for 8 years (and also quite frequently for many years before that) ... should hate itself. A vote for the shiny box, the huckster preachers said, was a vote for our redemption. And now that we've been redeemed, we should just keep our sorry mouths shut if we know what's good for us.

The press is so vested in this man and this presidency it knows it will lose the credibility it thinks it still has if it starts to seriously ask the questions that have been raised and answer them with something other than, "Oh, that's crazy talk! We don't need to go there!"

Can't Follow Joe Pags

Joe Pags, filling in for Beck this morning, is going on a long rant about McCrystal's "new" strategy for Afghanistan.

First of all, Joe, you can't on the one hand complain that Obama's dragging his feet on sending him the troops the General thinks he needs to carry out his strategy ... you know, trust the generals, trust the people on the ground ... while at the same time trashing the General's strategy. If you don't believe in his strategy, maybe you should be dragging your feet on comitting troops to it as well.

This kind of argument -- shallow, not well-thought-out, looking for any angle to crucify political opponents on regardless of consistency is a big part of what gives war-sympathetic Conservatives a bad name. I have come to expect better of Glenn Beck ... but it apparently doesn't necessarily extend to guest hosts.

Joe argues that the object of war is to kill more of them than they kill of us.

I guess we won in Vietnam, then.

Certainly that's an object of a battle, but it is not really the goal of war. You didn't go to war to kill people ... you decided you had to kill people for some other purpose. Overthrow a dictator, kick an invader out. Stop a threat from developing. You deplete their resources until they cry uncle. And yes, the killing bit is a part of that strategy.

But McCrystal, and Bush -- and Obama -- are right when they say hey, wait a minute. The reason Al Queda had a field-day in Afghanistan was that it was a weakly governed country that was taken over by Islamic Fundamentalist Thugs, like Somalia. They provided a safe place for Al Queda to gather, train, and grow. Like mosquitoes in a swamp.

We can go kill all the mosquitoes in the swamp, but the swamp will still be there, and more mosquitoes will come breed there as soon as we're done. The goal was to drain the swamp. The swamp is not the bad guys... the swamp is why the bad guys are there. The surge in Iraq involved much more than killing the enemy, though there was plenty of that as well. And it worked -- even many progressives are admitting as much. And so it should be in Afghanistan. If there really are decent people there, and I believe there are ... they need to have their minds changed about who we are. Perhaps then they can stop defining themselves as the opposite of the monsters they think we are, and reject the monsters that offer them security in the form of brutal, oppressive, strong-man Sharia law -- and thus reject new mosquitoes that may invade their country for that purpose.

Once they see that we're really on THEIR side dispite what they've been instructed to believe ... things will go the other way.

On the other hand, if we just pull out, it means an Al Queda win, and fund-raising, support, and recruitment will soar.

Longer School Year

Malkin makes an excellent point.

If schools wasted less time on “social justice,” “Everyday Math” crap, eco-zealotry, field trips to gay weddings and illegal alien day labor centers, rappin’, revolution, and radicalism, and searching for children’s “inner Obamas,” they wouldn’t need to make up all the squandered days and weeks during the summer.

Sleight of Mind

So Alinsky tactics basically revolve around diversion from the subject at hand, a sort of "sleight of mind" trick that tends to work on most people for some reason which I'll leave unexplored for now.

The deal is, the Alinsky book is their M.O., and the reasons it's their M.O. is 1) they've got nothing else, and 2) it tends to work.

So the question is, how to combat it?

The answer is not to let it work by taking it away from them and forcing them back to be confronted with the whole lotta nothin' they've got.

First off, we need to be aware of it. Identify its foul stench the moment it whiffs from someone's mouth. Most of it revolves around ad hominem (attack the messenger) and moral equivalency.

"You're racist. This guy said 'X' once, so we can dismiss anything he says." Or ridicule -- the smug, dismissive laugh (you're insane if you believe that!). "You watch Fox NEWS?????!!!"

"Scare tactics." Not attacking the argument, attacking the emotion the argument evokes, intentional or not.

Yes, how to combat it?

Don't let the" sleight of mind" work.

1) Keep them on topic.

You know, I'm perfectly fine with scare tactics when there's something to be afraid of. If you have a problem with it, tell me where is the speaker actually wrong, "scary" or not?

2) Remember "innocent until proven guilty"? They call you a racist and put the burden of proof on you to prove you're not. Immediately throw it back on them to "prove" ... you know, back up with facts -- that you (or whomever they're accusing) is racist. Or with the Fox News Lies thing. Really? They do? Tell me a few. Back it up, or shut up.

3) Moral equivalency. This is probably the toughest one, because it's the one that is not directly designed to shut you up, but also to get you off topic so they don't have to discuss what you were originally talking about. So to some extent, you do have to "go there" with them. But make them come right back. I haven't come up with a good strategy for this, because it involves coming up with a few silver bullet examples I haven't come up with, but need to. I think the key here is to assertively call it "ah, the moral equivalency argument" ... and find a few examples to shatter the idea that anybody actually believes that actions have equal moral value no matter what the circumstances.

I'll have to think about those.... if you have any ideas, go ahead and leave them in the comments. They should be clear and concise ... cutting to the bone so you can get back to the subject at hand, because you don't want to spend too much time on them. You need to force them right back into the coral of the subject at hand; the cattle chute of there's only one way this argument is gonna go, and that's to its logical conclusion.

Code Language

Mark Steyn. RTWT here.

Thus, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of African-American studies at Princeton, was invited on to National Public Radio to expound on the use of “racial code words” in “the current opposition to health care reform.” For example, explained professor Harris-Lacewell, “language of personal responsibility is often a code language used against poor and minority communities.”

“Personal responsibility” is racial code language? Phew, thank goodness America is belatedly joining Canada and Europe in all but abolishing the concept.

“Code language” is code language for “total bollocks.” “Code word” is a code word for “I’m inventing what you really meant to say because the actual quote doesn’t quite do the job for me.” “Small government”? Racist code words! “Non-confiscatory taxes”? Likewise. “Individual liberty”? Don’t even go there! To an incisive NPR racism analyst, the elderly gentleman telling his congressman “I’m very concerned by what I’ve heard about wait times for MRIs in Canada” is really saying “I’m unable to overcome my deep-seated racial anxieties about the sexual prowess of black males, especially now they’re giving prime-time press conferences every night.” With interpreters like professor Harris-Lacewell on the prowl, I’m confident 95 per cent of Webster’s will eventually be ruled “code language.”

They're Drinkin' the Juice!

Heard a guy this morning pushing his book on the Obama Marriage (his third book on presidential marriages) had left with one of the hosts during the break after his speal that Barack had on occasion said, coming off the stage and whipping the crowd up into a frenzy, "they're drinking the juice!"

So I went out looking for some corraboration of that quote. Found one here (and other places)

Dan Shomon, a top aide who traveled Illinois with Barack when he was a state senator and a U.S. Senate candidate, says that Barack called Michelle once after he had made a particularly rousing speech. “They’re drinking the juice,” he told her enthusiastically. “I feel like I’m inspiring people.”

Yeah you are. Like Jim Jones.












Are you fired up? Ready to go? Fired up? Ready to go? Fired up? Ready to go? Fired up? Ready to go? Let's go do this! (sip. glug, glug, glug. thud.)

Crowder at Berkley

Stephen Crowder, the Jeff Corwin of Conservatism, goes to Berkley.

My favorite part was, while Abraham Lincoln seemed to be the hands-down winner for favorite president (frankly, I'm stunned they didn't say "Obama") the young lady they asked what party he was in said ...

Um, back then I believe he was a Republican. ... but ... that was, nominally a Republican.

Because, you know, everybody knows the Republicans are the party of racism. Hey, man, my professors say so. I don't know how they slipped that one by, bra. It's like, she happens to know the fact, but it seems like an abstraction to her. She practically refuses to actually believe it could possibly be true.

Update: While you're there, check out Klavan's "Talking Crap". These are from PJTV, which again, I highly recommend daily visits.

I'm not sure what this means...

Got a ton of hits from what had to be a crawler out of Germany last night. Well, that's gonna happen.

But I also got a couple of hits through a site called "hidemyass.com" ... love the name. I mean, talk about say what you mean, mean what you say.

Somebody's worried that somebody else is going to find out they're reading all this horrible subversive stuff I'm putting out. :-)

A Progressive Idea I Like

This sunday starts Ken Burns' latest project, "America's Best Idea: The History of National Parks". I, for one, will be watching.

I am a big fan of National Parks.

And Teddy Roosevelt was to an extent, a progressive.

Mr. Burns says it really isn't about the parks themselves, but how they came about. Their story. It was a good idea then, and it will remain a good idea.

I can't tell you the times I've stood among majestic mountains or floated down an Ozark River that I didn't think, thank God, thank God ... we thought of this ... and did it.

To set aside some of the most beautiful and intriguing parts of the country for everyone's sakes, present and future generations -- to preserve some of the Wild Country. They are soul-stirring places.

I suppose one could argue that conservation is a conservative idea, and one would be correct. In the end, it is a government program, but more of a stewardship program than a social program, to ever grow in interpretation, size, and scope. It really doesn't re-distribute wealth. It just protects some natural wealth that was already here for all to enjoy.

Yes, I'm aware that land was taken from the native population and there were probably private landowners that were screwed over and that the story isn't perfect. But there it is, and here we are, and I think it's one thing that Conservatives & Progressives can agree on.

Great idea.

Speaking of Rigor - Another DC Tea Party March Crowd Estimate

In my ongoing attempt to find crowd estimates for the Sept 12 DC march that appear to be based on something other than direct rectal derivation -- one found me.

Mainly because he has a beef with the others I've found as compared to his, which comes out to about 17% of the minimal justified estimate I'd seen so far. He puts the number at ~ 135,000. Still 2 to three times bigger than I expected. But troublingly far, far off other estimates that appear to have relied on the traffic cam video.

I have not had the time to wade through the whole thing yet, as it is rather extensive and detailed (as a serious analysis based on the limited data would have to be) ... because he does attempt to take into account varying densities in different parts of the crowd.

He has links to various pictures and even some video that I have not seen before.

It's hard to say, really, which is one of the reasons there is so much controversy. The other, of course, being that leftists have an interest in portraying as few people as possible and right-ists have an interest in portraying as many people as possible.

Nobody expected the number of people that showed up to show up, and most people came of their own volition as this was organized on the local level, for the most part. Most of these people wouldn't have thought of saying, "hey, how much for an overhead shot?" I wouldn't have, and I strongly considered going.

At any rate, I'm including this analysis in my list of analyses, because it meets the test of someone having put some thought into it. Actually, a lot of thought into it. It is a valid approach. A daunting one to tackle accurately, but a valid approach, and impressive in its ambition.

As always, remember my mantra. Models are not reality. Models are representations of belief about reality. Some models are better than others at representing. I know how models are created -- they are all rife with assumptions. All of them, even the Park Service model and the traffic cam model. And even the best model is limited by the quality of its input. Sadly, we really don't have high quality input to put in any of these models for this event. Which is why so many disparate methods have been tried to arrive at some sort of estimate by brokers with any honesty in them at all.

I'd still take 135,000 people as a very respectable number. My comfort zone of 1 million, I admit, was largely based on comparative analysis -- that if there were 1 million people at Obama's inauguration, and that if 4 "Pensylvania Avenue Loads" of people marched on the mall, then there were certainly on the order of a million people there.

Perhaps not. Perhaps hundreds of thousands is a better estimate -- and from everything I've heard is where organizers are putting the number. The only critique I have of deathbymedia's analysis would be that I'd have to believe that the crowd from the 912 march around the speaking area was 83% to 86.5% (depending on which inauguration estimate you believe) less dense than the inauguration crowd. I will allow that it was significantly less dense, but not THAT much less dense, and there's the complete lack of people around the reflection pool at the inauguration to add to that.

We do not have the benefit of satellite photos (I wonder if the FBI or CIA do? Well, what do we pay them for anyway??? ;-) ) so we can't see how many are on the rest of the mall or elsewhere. Another thing to consider is that this wasn't an event for which everyone needed to assemble at a particular time or they'd "miss it" -- at no one time could you ever take a snapshot and say, "yup, that's the sum total of all the people who came". I submit that this was a much more dynamic crowd with a significant amount of flux throughout the day in any given area. There was no single event to see or miss. The point was merely to "show up" that day.

In the end, I won't try to directly dispute his numbers, as mine (and anyone's) analysis ultimately rely on certain assumptions. I think the number was higher than his. Maybe not a million. But certainly a very significant crowd.

Wow. Propaganda.

Apparently showing in many schools. But we don't have to worry about indoctrination. It's just right-wing paranoia. God & Guns!!!!

There's a critique of it here. As in, a running rebuttal. Lessons in critical thinking for children. I'd show them this version! They might learn something about how people are manipulated.

The Spooky, Scary Rhetoric

That made Pelosi cry.... reminding her of violence in the late 70's.

What is it? That Democrat Dan White who killed the Mayor and prominent gay Supervisor in San Fransisco and got off on the infamous Twinkie Defense (which was certainly not enabled by conservative philosophy...)?

Or was that communist dude who had been a very active Democrat who ended up killing 900 of his cult followers in Georgetown, Guyana by making them drink cyanide-laced koolaid?

Why is it that most assasinations and mass murders (on very grand scales) are carried out by leftists?

I've left comments on "The Nation"'s website ... waded into the cesspool of lefty-ism to leave a nugget of sanity ... give the ole Clue Bat a swing or two. And I had to register, ergo, I'm on their mailing list. I'm on several liberal mailing lists for the same reason.

Got one today, looking for me to donate. In it, I saw this:

Just days ago, Glenn Beck led the astro-turf 9-12-09 "Taxpayer March on DC." Compared to the millions who have marched for civil rights, equal rights, and gay rights, and against the war, Beck's 70,000 would be small stuff -- except for the tens of thousands waving Confederate flags, anti-gay hate signs, and shouting "White Power!"

If there were any at all, there were more like tens. And as I've said before, the number of protestors was much closer to 1,000,000.

So I replied to the email saying to their donation request -- not if you're going to lie like that.

And then I ran across this article, "Who Is Barack Obama? And wy do people say such loopy, ugly things about him?"

As the author painted the Tea Party crowd as nuts and crazies and decried the "ugly" things, such as putting Obama's head on a witch doctor body to call his plan "voodoo health care" or signs with his face in a Hitler mustache ... pretending that this is unprecedented, that it has never happened before -- and it's all because he's black ... I submit the following reminder:

Click for larger size.

Zombietime Bookmark

http://www.zombietime.com/

It depends on what you say the meaning of the word "tax" is...

Here's the transcript between Barack Obama and George Sephanopoulos on ABC This Week this weekend. Intersperesed with my comments in green.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Probably the most definitive promise you made in the campaign is that no one in the middle class would get a tax increase on your watch.

OBAMA: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet this week, Senator Rockefeller and several other Democrats say that this bill by Senator Baucus is a big middle class tax increase.

Do you agree and does that mean you can't sign it?

OBAMA: Well, I don't agree. I think that what they were referring to - and I haven't looked at the quotes. But I think that they were concerned about whether or not this was actually affordable. If you're saying to people, you've got to get health insurance but they can't actually afford it and they have to pay a penalty if they don't get it, then that's a pretty big burden on middle class families. That's a concern I share — making sure that this is affordable.

Well I don't know what they said, but I'll tell you what they meant. And they meant that I'm right. They always do. It's the only reasonable position to take.

But the first thing we've got to understand is you've got what is effectively a tax increase taking place on American families right now. The Kaiser Family Foundation report just came out last week. Health care premiums went up 5.5 percent last year, at a time when the rest of the economy, inflation was actually negative. So that is a huge bite out of people's pockets.

So let me get this straight ... being compelled by the government to pay money out to a program used to benefit others is not a tax increase, but rising health care premiums to private insurance companies is a tax increase?

And part of what I've been trying to say throughout this campaign - this effort to get health care done — is that if we don't do anything, guaranteed, Americans' costs are going to go up, more people are going to lose health care coverage, the insurance companies are going to continue to prevent people from getting it for pre-existing conditions. Those are all burdens on people who have health insurance right now. And...

STEPHANOPOULOS: That is true, but...

OBAMA: And so -- and so -- just -- just to close the loop on this, the principles I've put forward very clearly, when I spoke to the joint session of Congress, is that we're going to make sure that, number one, if you don't have health insurance, you're going to be able to get affordable health insurance.

Newsflash, Barack. You don't put forward anything very clearly.

Number two, if you have health insurance, we're going to have insurance reforms that give you more security -- you know what you're going to get. You know that if you're paying your premiums, you're actually going to have coverage when you get sick.

Number three, it's going to be deficit neutral -- it's not going to add a dime to the deficit, now or in the future.

You lie!

Number four, it's going to start driving down our costs over the long-term.

Dreamer.... you're nothing but a dreamer ... oh can you put your head in your hands, oh no!

Now, 80 percent of what I'd like to see is actually already in all the various bills that are in Congress. That last 20 percent is tough because we've got to figure out -- making sure that we're paying for it properly, making sure that it really is relief to families who don't have health insurance, making sure that all the various details that are out there line up. And that's going to take some time.

But I think that the effort by the Senate Finance Committee is a serious, strong effort to move an agenda forward. We've seen some positive signs from people who might have been otherwise a little bit shaky on health care, including Republican Olympia Snowe, I think, had some nice things to.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hasn't signed on yet, though.

OBAMA: Hasn't signed on, but has said that this is a legitimate effort to try to solve the problem. What I want to see is that we just keep on working on it over the next several weeks.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about a matter of first principles, though. You mentioned these premium increases.

OBAMA: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they're not happening as a result of a decision by the government.

OBAMA: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You were against the individual mandate...

OBAMA: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ...during the campaign. Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't. How is that not a tax?

OBAMA: Well, hold on a second, George. Here -- here's what's happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average -- our families -- in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I've said is that if you can't afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn't be punished for that. That's just piling on.

If, on the other hand, we're giving tax credits, we've set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we've driven down the costs, we've done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you've just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that's...

STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it's still a tax increase.

OBAMA: No. That's not true, George. The -- for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase.

People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy...

OBAMA: No, but -- but, George, you -- you can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase. Any...

But Obama can make up language and talk in sweeping, diversional arcs and apparently conclude that the government forcing people to pay money is not a tax.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Here's the...

OBAMA: What -- what -- if I -- if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say well, that's not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don't want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then...

STEPHANOPOULOS: I -- I don't think I'm making it up. Merriam Webster's Dictionary: Tax -- "a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."

OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what...

What? You tell George he's "making up" a definition, he looks it up to show you that he isn't, reads you the definition, and it indicates that he's the one stretching? That statement indicates to me that Obama may be the biggest flim-flam artist ... maybe ever.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but...

OBAMA: ...what you're saying is...

STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.

OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know that.

That's what they're saying. And he's not denying it, either. "I'm not gonna lie to you. My critcs are saying that."

Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we're going to have an individual mandate or not, but...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it's a tax increase?

OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.

See, what we mean to happen is what's going to happen, this we know, because we're the experts. So let's not get hung up on the so called "meaning" of "words". Oh, look I just farted another Unicorn. And the people at Fox can't see Unicorns because they don't believe in them. And they hate children and eat kittens. Hey, I'm on Letterman tonight.

The Thing We're All Tired Of

Now... before somebody plays The Race Card on my Race Card because of the suit I chose, let me just say that the suit I chose I chose because The Ace of Spades is generally considered the trump card of all trump cards. It trumps all in the card game Spades, for sure ... and yes, I could have chosen the game Hearts and used an ace of Hearts, but somehow hearts are a bit to flowery for what someone is doing when they're playing The Race Card. Somehow, Valentines just doesn't get the picture across. Same with diamonds. I suppose I could have used clubs, but now we're really overthinking this and we're pissed off that we have to because of the fear of The Race Card. Besides, there's no song called "The Ace of Clubs", and when you talk "Diamonds" or "Hearts", it's always the Queen, not the Ace. And we wanted the Ace. And the Ace of Spades is also a special looking card, because it's the only one that gets that fancy symbol so big in the middle of it, making it look unmistakable, and The Race Card is indeed unmistakable. Spades are blunt instruments, where as hearts and diamonds really aren't, and though a club is also a blunt instrument, the spade wins here because, well we already talked about the songs and the lack thereof when it comes to clubs and that really cool lookin' thingy they call a "Spade".

I regret that the word has also been used as a derogatory term for people of a particular race, but may I point out that I, for one, have never used it in that context and that is certainly not the first thing that pops into my mind when the word "spade" comes up. Actually, it's the shovel I think of first, and then that symbol, neither of which has anything to do with race. Plus that really cool thingy on the cards has been on the cards, I think, since long before the term was used in a derogatory way toward that race, and I refuse to drop things from my culture just because some people bastardized and abused it for these purposes. On top of that, this card gets used on behalf of races other than that particular race -- it's really got nothing to do with it. Really.

On top of that since I am a conservative and I've been to two tea parties myself and am a 912 project member, and I actually listen to Glenn Beck (unlike the vast majority of his critics, if not all of them) no matter what I do or say I'm already labeled a racist and frankly, it's gotten to the point where that insult makes me yawn. That boy has cried wolf waaaaaaaaaay too many times, and I'm tired of the dance ... even though I just did it again, but this time with a hint of irritation (I hope you picked up on that) in my voice.

So here it is, the Race of Spades.

Ok, see there I was doing something I often do. I like to play with words (this time, ''Ace" and "RAce Card") and once again I wasn't thinking about how blatantly that could be taken in a way that didn't cross my mind until after I hit "publish" ... so I hereby under protest censor myself ... and having to do so I think only further underscores my point.

See you could also go back and say that when I said "boy who cried wolf" that I was using "boy" for the same purpose Maureen Dowd inserted it into Joe Wilson's "You Lie" ... instead of the long understood cultural (my culture, again) meaning of "the boy who cried wolf".

No, it was just a boy. And I believe he was white in the Euro-centric illustrations. Not that it mattered.