Smell the bipartisanship

He wined them. He dined them. They still spit in his face. Obama courted House Republicans for their votes on his stimulus plan and didn't get any. Not one. It still passed, thanks to the voters who elected enough Democrats. Now the bill goes to the Senate where it is automatically assumed to be filibustered unless the Democrats can peel two skittish Republicans off or Obama guts the bill completely. I hope he learns from this.

Republicans don't care about anything but returning to power. They want Obama to fail. Their leader said as much. Karl Rove is still thumbing his nose at Congress. Republicans cannot be reasoned with. Obama will have to go around them or through them if he wants to get anything done.

DNC Day 4: "It's time for them to own their failure."

There's a new sheriff in town. Even Pat Buchanan knows it. This was what I was hoping for. If Rove thinks he can undercut this guy, he's dreaming.

McCain has found his Veep

John McCain put out a new ad comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The truth is, when you look at Britney's political views, she agrees with him; you should support the President. Since none of the other Republicans would be a good fit for him, he should pick Britney! She's young, photogenic and needs a job.

On a more serious note, this ad is part of an increasingly vicious update of Nixon's Southern Strategy. Presumptuous is the new uppity. Karl Rove is hard at work.

It's starting

Karl Rove on Obama:

Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.

Of course, the country clubs Rove hangs out at wouldn't let a guy with Obama's complexion in without a court order. Karl Rove is trying to paint Obama as a sarcastic elitist, yet he uses a country club metaphor. Sounds to me like Rove has had a fair amount of snide comments directed his way by kids who were cooler than he was, and he hasn't quite gotten over it.

Wingnut turf war?

Special Counsel Scott Bloch's office was raided today by the FBI. Bloch, like seemingly everyone in the Bush Administration, generated controversy by politicising his office. His position, created after Watergate, was to protect whistleblowing federal employees. When his own employees leaked that he refused to do his job by not protecting them from sexual discrimination, he retaliated against them. This seems to be what brought the raid on.

Josh Marshall has a question about that. Bloch was also investigating Karl Rove in the firings of U.S. attorneys and had complained about being blocked by the justice department.

So was Bloch raided for not doing his job or doing it?

More Republican Math

So Bush magnanimously declared that the troops only have to stay in Iraq for 12 months instead of the 15 that they're currently sweating under. At the same time, Petraeus says that they can't bring anymore troops home from the "surge" because the Iraqi army is still not ready. Let me get this straight. We can shorten the tours but we can't decrease the amount of troops over there? How will this work? We can't get troops from anywhere else because the army is already stretched to the limit.

Oh, wait. This is The Math. You know The Math Karl Rove cited when he guaranteed a Republican win in 2006.