“I WON:” David Bernstein comments:

Obama won by, among other things, promising a net decrease in federal spending. Here he is during the third debate: “what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut…. What I want to emphasize … is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as-you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.”

Obama would have a much better case for Republican deference to his spending plans if he had actually campaigned in favor of the most massive increase in federal spending, ever, instead of as a budget-cutter.

Indeed.

WEB-SITE TURNOFFS. I particularly hate the ads that default to audio on.

PJM POLITICAL: The Historic First 100 Hours!

SO NOW AMAZON IS RECOMMENDING silver coins. Next they’ll be selling shotgun shells and MREs. Oh, wait . . . .. These silver coins seem a bit pricey, though. I suspect you could do better if you shopped around.

RUSH LIMBAUGH RESPONDS TO OBAMA: “One prong of the Great Unifier’s plan is to isolate elected Republicans from their voters and supporters by making the argument about me and not about his plan. . . . Meanwhile, the effort to foist all blame for this mess on the private sector continues unabated when most of the blame for this current debacle can be laid at the feet of the Congress and a couple of former presidents. And there is a strategic reason for this.”

Plus this: “600 private jets flown by rich Democrats flew into the Inauguration. That’s fine but the auto execs using theirs is a crime? In both instances, the people on those jets arrived in Washington wanting something from Washington, not just good will.”

And a Saul Alinsky quote.

UPDATE: Don Surber:

President Obama is willing to talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. But Rush Limbaugh? “You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.” America, we have met the enemy and he is some fat guy in Florida.

Plus, from Tom Maguire:

Why shouldn’t Republicans listen to Rush? Consider the latest WaP/ABC poll with this buried gem:

19. Generally speaking, would you say you favor (smaller government with fewer services), or (larger government with more services)?

The answer, it turns out, is that even in the current environment, post-Katrina and in the midst of the worst economy since the last bad economy (OK, 1982), 53% of the respondents plumped for “smaller government with fewer services”, in contrast with 43% backing expanded government.

Read the whole thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh. “Of course you know one of Rush’s comments will be: ‘If the Republicans had listened to me, you’d be sitting in Roland Burris’s seat, Obama.'”

INDEED:

This recession is not a failure of market economics. It is a reassertion of market economics after a decade in which we paid ourselves more than we were producing, and funded it precariously and temporarily by complicated credit instruments that it took a while for the market to rumble. Now a prosperity that always baffled ordinary citizens has collapsed. The collapse of confidence is not irrational; it’s the correction to a long run of irrational confidence. All that stuff about the emerging Asian giants wasn’t just phrasemaking for party conference speeches. It was true. We’re falling behind. We face a mountain of debt: the difference between the life we are able to sustain and the life we were enjoying.

The “stimulus” isn’t about fixing things — it’s an embodiment of Rhett Butler’s theory of wealth accumulation in bad times. My take remains this one: “This is not so much a stimulus, as a massive transfer of wealth from the politically unconnected to the politically connected.”

MICHAEL SILENCE THINKS POLITIFACT is playing games with Obama’s promises. See the updates.

I can see both sides of this, but it certainly adds to the perception that Big Media folks are bending over backwards to cut him slack. Or, you know, just bending over . . . .

STEVEN LANDSBURG SAYS THAT EVEN WITH THE RECESSION, THINGS AREN’T SO BAD: “Start with this: You are better off than you were four years ago. After adjusting for inflation, the average American earns about $2500 a year more today than on the day of W’s second inaugural. That same average American now spends a little less time at the office or on the assembly line, and a little more time on vacation or on the couch. He or she shops online for products that were unimaginable just four years ago. (How many of you read this morning’s paper on your Kindle or iPhone?) The air is cleaner than it was a decade ago and life expectancy is up.” Read the whole thing.

Including this warning:

In the long run we have nothing to fear but fear itself–and the rush to poor judgment that is the spawn of fear. Poor judgment makes people say things like “Hey! This new guy in town seems likable and right-minded. Let’s give him everything he’s asking for so he can take care of us.” We’ve been down that road before. I’m hoping for some change I can believe in.

Me too.

BOSTON HERALD: Barney Frank’s Hypocrisy:

Ah, the dirty little secret is out. That $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bill was in part simply a variation on congressional pork – except this time the recipients were banks with friends in high places.

One of those powerful friends was Rep. Barney Frank (D-Newton), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. And one of the recipients of a $12 million infusion of federal cash was the troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston – a bank that had already been accused of “unsafe and unsound banking practices.” Its CEO, Kevin Cohee had also been criticized by regulators for “excessive” pay that included a Porsche.

Frank admits he included language in the TARP legislation specifically designed to bail out OneUnited. He also acknowledges contacting officials at the Treasury Department about the bank’s bailout application.

Transferring wealth from the politically unconnected to the politically connected. Hope and Change!

DAVID POST ON LIBERTARIAN AND FEMINIST VIEWS OF AUTONOMY.

POLITICO: Dems Wrestle With Ethics Problems.

Even as President Obama has instituted tough new ethics guidelines for administration officials, House Democrats continue to wrestle with the ethics problems of two of their most senior members—Reps. John Murtha (Pa.) and Charlie Rangel (N.Y.).

While neither case directly involves the Obama team, the allegations leveled against Murtha and Rangel open Democrats up to charges that even as their president preaches change, his party remains mired in traditional transactional politics.

Charges that seem quite well-founded, I’d say . . . .

THE RISE OF THE “GREEN LUXURY HOME.”

It’s certainly no I-House.

THEY TOLD ME THERE WAS A REVOLUTION COMING. I didn’t know they meant a wine-box revolution.

ACTUALLY, I THINK THAT’S PRETTY MUCH THE POLICY: “Is he also going to end torture, except where it might yield useful information?”

CHRIS DODD — A “CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE?”

The country will continue to suffer hard times until credit starts to flow again and people begin to regain confidence in the economy, U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., told Eastern Connecticut leaders Friday. “It’s a crisis of confidence,” Dodd, chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, told the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments.

Of course, one reason for losing confidence appears later in the story: “Dodd is being investigated for possible ethics violations in connection with discount mortgages he received from Countrywide Home Mortgages during his committee chairmanship.”

FROM EXTREME MORTMAN, an extreme goodbye. Extremism in pursuit of Mortman is no vice.

MEET THE NEW WAR: Same as the old war?

Plus, “the Goodwar begins.” Well, getting the media to view national defense positively is one real benefit of an Obama presidency. Not that it says anything good about the media that they change tone when the White House changes parties.

WERE OBAMA’S ATTACKS ON LIMBAUGH AND FOX A MISTAKE? “Beyond the absurdity of a Democrat barking orders at his political opposition, he’s especially foolish to air his fear of Limbaugh and talk radio in a public setting.”

Plus this: “I’m picturing Rush delirious with glee, pacing the cavernous rooms of his mansion, booming out monologues to his kitty cat Pumpkin, as he waits for Monday noon to finally roll around. This will be good.”

HMM: Anti-War Groups Silent on Obama’s Predator Strikes.

What about all that bombing villages and killing civilians talk? No longer operative, I guess.

UPDATE: Charges of racism. “Was that too harsh? No? OK, let’s try again: the antiwar movement is run by racists who only like brown people when they can be used as clubs with which to beat anybody to the antiwar movement’s Right. Well, anyone to their Right, and Jews.” That is a little harsh, isn’t it?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Moe Lane emails: “Hey, I’ve been saving this up for years. I knew that these people would flip their rhetoric once a Democrat was in office; that wouldn’t have been so bad, except that they’re going to try to pretend that (as their favorite work of porn puts it) Oceania was always at war with Eurasia. So now that this day is here, time to start kicking. :)”

BRRR: UT cuts energy costs by lowering temperatures.

Don’t I know it. My office has been like a meatlocker lately.

LOU DOBBS TAKES ON Robert Reich’s racial views. “What In The World Is He Thinking?”

AT BORDERS, more change than hope?

Is it political? Surely not in Madison.

MORE EMBYRONIC STEM-CELL RESEARCH, this time in Britain. I’m fine with that. Funny the extent to which the Brits are taking their cues from America on this, though.

IN THE MAIL: Daniel Suarez’s Daemon. Unlike most in-the-mails, this wasn’t sent by the publisher; I ordered it at reader Mike Daley’s suggestion. Er, or insistence. It’s blurbed by a lot of bigshots, from Craig Newmark to Stewart Brand.

NOT MUCH MURTHA SCANDAL COVERAGE YET:

Two firms funded with over $100 million in earmarks from the Democratic Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, John Murtha, were raided and temporarily shut down yesterday by the FBI and IRS. Surprised that you didn’t hear about such big news? Well, it did manage to hit page A6 of the Wall Street Journal today.

Here’s the WSJ story. I don’t think they’re going to be able to downplay this one.