1-08-09

Glenn Reynolds: (this) anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death has passed, and news reports have stressed his continuing influence on music, culture, and race relations. But those reports have missed Elvis’s greatest achievement: as a cultural immune response to totalitarianism.

Ed Morrissey: Is this transition any worse than previous transitions?  It’s hard to tell, since the press can’t count above one.  However, I don’t recall any previous president nominating a person for a Cabinet position that had already been publicly named as part of a federal corruption probe…It’s certainly not better than those that preceded it, despite the relentlessly sunny coverage it gets from the national media.

Jane Hamsher: I want to play poker with Harry Reid. Really I do. A seventy-one year old dude who hasn’t held office for 14 years, appointed by a crook, takes the Senate Majority Leader to the cleaners.

Bruce McQuain: (Jimmy) Carter is correct that this war could have been avoided, but not for the reasons he’d have you believe. All Hamas has to do is disavow aggression, violence and its stated mission of the destruction of Israel. All it has to do is spend its money on food and medicine instead of rockets and mortars.

Don Surber: When you take a side in an armed conflict, you are not a peace maker; you are a participant. Jimmy Carter, advocate of terrorism.

Center For Terrorism Research: Intelligence Briefing #003: Israel Attacked from the North.

James Pethokoukis: …how can Obama avoid taking responsibility when he will be so actively meddling in the economy? It will be his decision to forego deep and permanent new tax cuts, his decision to not extend the Bush tax cuts, his decision on how to spend the remaining $350 billion in TARP money, his decision to quasi-nationalize healthcare, his decision to push a cap-and-trade carbon emission program and his decision to spend hundreds of billions on a “green” industrial policy. It might even be his decision to try and reunionize the American laborforce. Obama will “own” the battered economy, perhaps almost literally, given Uncle Sam’s bailout binge.

John Ziegler: I was there to interview Governor Palin for my forthcoming documentary about the media coverage of election 2008. My understanding is that the only reason Governor Palin did this interview (while rejecting hundreds of other requests) is because of her sincere devotion to setting the record straight on what really happened during the campaign and to determine why the news coverage was as dangerously slanted as it so clearly was.

Filed under: Chip by Chip