PAUL RAHE: Appeasement And The Suppression Of Liberty.

On Wednesday, when everyone was obsessing about the upcoming debate and no one but Joel Gehrke was paying any attention. Zbigniew Brzezinski appeared on Morning Joe to tout his recent book Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power and to discuss recent developments. In the course of the ensuing conversation, which focused in part on the events that took place on 11 September 2012 in Libya and elsewhere within the Islamic world, Brzezinski acknowledged, “We’re dealing here with a messy region which is increasingly slipping into increased instability — a region in which American domination is rapidly, rapidly coming to an end.”

In this situation, the former advisor to Jimmy Carter might have said a word or two about the failure of Barack Obama’s new-look foreign policy in the Middle East. He might have mentioned the President’s famous and highly apologetic Cairo speech. He might have noted the manner in which Obama had repeatedly and pathetically tried to suck up to the Iranian government. He might have discussed our betrayal of the Green Movement in Iran. He might have drawn attention to his administration’s embarrassing and futile attempt to flatter Bashar al-Assad of Syria and enlist him as a go-between in his attempt to foster a dialogue with the Islamic Republic. He might have emphasized the President’s marked reluctance to align the United States with those attempting to overthrow the tyrants dominant in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Iran, and he might have ended by commenting on the fact that displays of weakness and attempts at appeasing tyrants are apt to backfire.

But, of course, he did not do that. Instead, as Gehrke was quick to note, he endorsed the preposterous story that the Obama administration has intermittently peddled — that our troubles are somehow due to a fourteen-minute video posted on YouTube more than a month before the attacks in Benghazi by a Coptic Christian film-maker, and he suggested that a “crack-down” on the film-maker and those working with him might be appropriate on the off-chance that the video was designed “to provoke [Muslim] violence” against Americans.

Zbig was manifestly unfit to hold the offices he held, and he hasn’t gotten any fitter in the intervening years. Like Britain, I fear that America is afflicted with a ruling class that fundamentally doesn’t believe in the country it rules. That is unlikely to end well, if it is allowed to persist.

NICK GILLESPIE: Secret Romney Tape Means We Can Finally Stop Talking About Obama’s Failed Foreign & Domestic Policy! “Does anyone still think that Obama has any idea of what he’s doing with regard to foreign policy?” No, but the press doesn’t want to talk about that, so they’re happy to have this tape. Not that they were talking about it before.

For the slow-learners in the press corps, the reason it’s bad when nearly half the electorate doesn’t pay income tax isn’t that they’re somehow parasites. It’s that people who don’t have skin in the game don’t care about the game. In a better world, everyone would pay at least some income tax — enough to feel it, say 5% of gross income — and it would go up and down every year in proportion to government spending. If that happened, there would be political pressure to control government spending, and we wouldn’t have the $16 Trillion debt. Don’t, however, expect our corps of bylined Democratic operatives to stress that point, even if by some chance they manage to grasp it.

Meanwhile, more from Nick:

Obama’s actual record is worth sussing through. As spun out at the Democratic National Convention, Obama’s domestic policy moves have seen nothing but success. Either the stimulus flat-out worked or, if it didn’t actually achieve any of its goals in terms of reducing unemployment, it staved off far worse outcomes. You got that, America: If I hadn’t gotten to do what I wanted, says President Obama, you’d be even more out of a job. The illegal auto bailout was so successful that it will never earn back what was spent on it. Health care reform, which expands the budget-breaking program Medicare and yet manages to protect completely the budget-breaking program Medicare, will help the country’s bottom line because it forces more people to pay for insurance so good they have to be forced to pay for it. The president’s plans for the future include more spending, slightly more taxes (but only on the rich) and deficits for at least the next 10 years (his budget proposal only goes that far).

When the focus shifts from economic policy to things such as the drug war, or immigration, or transparency, well…noboby really wants to discuss those things anyway, right?

Apparently not.

UPDATE: Reader Aaron Chmielewski writes:

Who wants to think of themselves as the 47%?

Mitt can make this work brilliantly.

The implication is people who vote for Obama don’t want people to work. He won’t raise taxes on them, but he will focus on the America that wants to work, the people who don’t want to be part of the 47%.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: By “slow learners in the press corps,” I particularly want to include David Brooks.

MORE: Reader Leslie Eastman writes: “I defy the press to release the full contents of Romney’s speech.”

And reader Tom Gunn writes: “I think this secret Romney tape is not going to do what the progressive expect it to do. 47% of the population on the dole, of that 47%, 23 million are not paying taxes BECAUSE they don’t have a job and would do near anything to be able to pay taxes because that would mean they have a JOB with income!” Yeah, not so many of those going around. Ask Jimmy Carter’s unemployed grandson. . . .

Plus, an excellent point about the Khalidi tape:

Well, the LA Times has a “secret” video of Barack Obama speaking at a party for a famous radical Palestinian, Rashid Khalidi. They’ve been sitting on it since before the 2008 election, and they won’t let voters see it. Why is that?

Because they’re covering for him. Which bears repeating over and over an over again.

JOHN PODHORETZ: Shut Up, They Explained: Romney’s Day. “Romney can be criticized for attacking it. Romney can be criticized for what he said, for his wording, for his ideas. He can be faulted for his timing—although such criticism is really only about style and political smarts, not substance. But the onslaught yesterday wasn’t about that. What Mark Halperin calls ‘the gang of 500’—-the world of conventional opinion-—was saying one thing and one thing only to Mitt Romney, and that was: You are not to speak.”

They defend Obama like crazed Muslims defend the Koran. No criticism can be seen as legitimate, because they have invested everything.

Related: The Media Lash Out.

Meanwhile, Romney’s back in the lead in the Rasmussen tracking poll. He’s also ahead by 3 in Florida.

UPDATE: Obama Echoes Carter With ‘Shoot First’ Criticism of Romney. As I’ve been saying, at this point a Carter rerun is a best-case scenario.

MORE: Media Does What Romney Couldn’t, Solidifies Republican Support.

MORE STILL: Reader Arthur Barie writes:

Glenn, you know what you’re not seeing in all these stories criticizing Romney’s statement?

Romney’s statement.

Can’t let a clear defense of the 1st Amendment, and of American interests leak out into the public eye.

It’s all about the narrative.

OBA-MEH: Krauthammer Pans Obama’s Speech: “He Gave One of the Emptiest Speeches I’ve Ever Heard on a National Stage.”

And “Oba-meh” was actually Ben Smith’s take.

Related: “That’s it?” “Seriously. Like an aging rock star, President Obama, in a downsized venue, with downsized proposal and spewing downsized rhetoric only reminded us how far he has fallen from the heady days of 2008. The man, the agenda and the aura are faint imitations of their 2008 incarnations. And most importantly, he put forth an agenda that was entirely, and obviously, lacking, one that didn’t begin to match the demands of our time.”

The Spinal Tap resonance continues, but without the #1 in Japan salvation. . . .

UPDATE: George W. Bush responds to Obama speech.

Plus, another Jimmy Carter parallel.

IN FOREIGN POLICY, A SUGGESTION THAT THE “SMART DIPLOMACY” ISN’T DOING SO WELL: Putin’s Got America Right Where He Wants It: And that’s bad news for Obama.

Last week’s G-20 summit was the first time U.S. President Barack Obama had seen his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, since 2009. An account of their long, loveless meeting on the sidelines of the conference, along with photographs of their unhappy tête-a-tête, was splashed on the front page of the New York Times. The real story belonged in the obituary section: The “reset,” Obama’s attempt to mend relations with Putin’s Russia, is dead. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed it.

But the two countries’ fundamental disagreement about what to do about Assad, the dictator whose bloody attempts to suppress a popular revolt has resulted in the deaths of 14,000 Syrians, was only the last straw for a policy that has been on life support since its inception. On a vast array of issues — ranging from human rights to Iran to the territorial integrity of the post-Soviet states — Russian behavior has consistently been a thorn in the side of the United States and its allies. The reset only provided Obama with a justification to cover his retreat in the face of Russia’s advance.

Can you say “Carterized?”

MATT CONTINETTI ON THE WAR ON WOMEN: “As amazing as it might seem to liberals, voters neither care about nor are aware of supercilious arguments on cable news. Their behavior is driven by the actual conditions on the ground: the economy, the deficit and debt, and the Sword of Damocles that is Obamacare. . . . But this week brought new developments from the front, when Mitt Romney pointed out correctly that more women than men have lost their jobs under Obama, when the Free Beacon reported that women are paid less than men in the Obama White House, and when Democratic adviser and overpaid consultant Hilary Rosen insulted stay-at-home moms across the country by saying Ann Romney has ‘never actually worked a day in her life.’ Within 24 hours, the Obama campaign had ordered and carried out the political equivalent of a summary execution, distancing itself from Rosen and forcing her to make a humiliating and half-hearted apology on the war’s primary battleground.”

UPDATE: Jennifer Rubin: Why This Week Was Ominous For Obama. “This was a week in which the once pliable national media pretty much called out a key campaign plank — the Buffett rule — as nothing more than a gimmick. So two gimmicks — soak the rich and paint Romney as anti-women — blew up in the White House’s face. And then my colleague Glenn Kessler pretty much shredded Obama’s invocation of Ronald Reagan to push his tax scheme.”

What’s most revealing to me is that Obama had to invoke Reagan. Were there no Democratic past Presidents he wanted to be associated with? LBJ? Carter? Clinton?

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: New York Times Slimes Romney.

Here at Via Meadia, we have written extensively about how reports of impending American theocracy have been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, put into historical perspective, the religious forces acting upon American politics today are far gentler than those of generations past. But it appears that the New York Times remains unconvinced, as evidenced by a recent spate of alarmist editorials about the faith of Mitt Romney.

This is not about Governor Romney, and it is not about the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS). Via Meadia takes no view at this early stage about the merits or demerits of the various candidates, and our inveterate Anglicanism gets in the way of embracing the Mormon faith. But bigotry is something that needs to be fought in all its forms; unreasonable fears and prejudices based on religion will always be with us, but such fears belong in the gutter among the wackos, the haters and the tin-foil hat brigades on both the right and the left. When they rise from the sewers and the swamps into mainstream publications and can be casually uttered in polite company by distinguished professors, something is going very wrong, and people who believe in the American way need to speak up. . . .

As far as I can make out, Professor Bloom is more elitist misanthrope than bigot; his hatred and loathing for Mormonism is part of a broader and deeper disgust with almost everything that the common people think or do in the contemporary United States. The essay drips with condescension and disdain; he hates and fears the Mormons not because they are different from most of their fellow citizens but because they are like them. . . . I say nothing about the motives of Professor Bloom or the New York Times. But so far as I know, neither has ever expressed any concern over the stout Mormon faith of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

I have a comment and a question. Comment: The New York Times would never spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about a Muslim candidate’s religion in this fashion. Question: When George Romney ran in 1968, was the New York Times fretting about his Mormonism?

UPDATE: Reader John Ward emails: “I don’t recall the NYT having a fit when Mo Udall was running for the Democrat nomination for president.” I guess only Republican Mormons are scary.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Burke writes:

I worked in Udall’s New York Presidential campaign in 1975-1976 (after my earlier choice, Birch Bayh, dropped out). Trust me when I say that no one among New York Democrats ever said, boo, about Udall being a Mormon, even though a host of candidates were competing furiously for support within the party (Udall, Bayh, Fred Harris, Scoop Jackson, Jimmy Carter). All these candidates were grilled closely and frequently about where they had stood on the war, where they stood on amnesty for draft resisters, what they had done to block Nixon’s Supreme Court nominations, and dozens of other then-current issues. This questioning took place in living rooms and Democratic clubs with small groups. I was deeply involved in all of this from mid-1975 when Bayh began to line up NY support. I must say that I don’t even recall being aware of Udall’s being a Mormon, although it is a long time ago. I certainly would recall if anyone had made an issue of it (I remember clearly the shades of differences the candidates had on other matters).

Sad to see the NYT becoming so much more bigoted than it was a generation ago.

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED OVER THE WEEKEND, if you were out having a life or something:

Busting Obama’s “Anti-Gay” Demagoguery.

Gunwalker Under White House Control? New documents reveal extensive White House communication with the ATF head behind the scandal.

Thoughts on amending the Constitution in my Sunday Washington Examiner column.

Ken Anderson on the legality of the Al-Awlaki killing. Plus thoughts from Walter Russell Mead, Stephen L. Carter, and Richard Miniter. And Professor Bainbridge mocks some hypocrites.

John Hinderaker: Peppered In NYC. “One can only assume that this kind of police abuse has been going on for a long time, but was not often revealed–at least, not this starkly–before the era of ubiquitous digital photography and video. But the days are gone when a policeman can wantonly assault protesters, no matter how obnoxious they may be–let alone photographers. That’s a good thing.”

How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya? The Forever Recession.

What do you call people who are obsessed with Chris Christie’s weight as a disqualification for the Presidency? Why, “girthers,” of course!

The latest crime wave: Sending your child to a better school. Plus, a tree grows in Scottsdale. [I see what you did there — ed. Of course you do.]

Poll: Obama Cratering In Swing States.

DARPA’S 100-year starship.

A Sicilian explains what’s really behind the Wall Street protests.

I’m guessing not: Will Morgan Freeman answer Ali Akbar?

Plus, for all the “pass the bill” talk, Obama’s Jobs Bill Still Has No Cosponsors, in either the House or the Senate. Perhaps some enterprising journalist should call House and Senate Democrats and ask them why they’re not cosponsoring the President’s bill!

FROM “THE ONE” TO “THE WUN?” Whip Unemployment Now! “The Obama presidency has entered the pathetic phase. This occurs when a president acts in a demeaning fashion while trying to rebuild his popularity and political strength. It’s a product of desperation. There are numerous examples from earlier presidencies. Gerald Ford had his WIN buttons (Whip Inflation Now). George H. W. Bush told New Hampshire voters, ‘Don’t cry for me, Argentina.’ Jimmy Carter boasted endlessly he hadn’t “panicked in the crisis” and insisted he wasn’t contrasting his conduct with rival Teddy Kennedy’s at Chappaquiddick.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Failure Of Al Gore, Part Three: Singing The Climate Blues.

My interest in the decay of the former vice president’s public position is partly because — like Jimmy Carter — he has had such an active post-Washington career. Not even Ronald Reagan won an Oscar, and Reagan (though he deserved it) never got a Nobel. Gore’s signature issue, the climate, is a major one, and Al Gore has been at the center of the most important movement of international civil society since the Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1980s.

The serial rise and fall of these vacuous civil society movements and the peculiar grip they exercise over the minds of some otherwise intelligent people is an important subject: why do so many people who want to help solve global problems waste so much time and money and, sometimes, do so much harm?

Read the whole thing.

HOSNI MUBARAK Refuses to step down. Reader C.J. Burch emails: “It’s as if a third world tin pot dictator just told the President of the United States to stick it without fear of any reprisal at all. Now that’s smart diplomacy.” Well, stay tuned but our diplomacy does seem to have been rather confused.

UPDATE: Mubarak 1, Obama 0. “Obama was just played.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Spooks’ Black Thursday:

Bad day for the “Intelligence Community” here in Washington. CIA chief Leon Panetta opined that Mubarak was very likely going to resign in a few hours, while DNI (Director of National Intelligence) General James Clapper declared the Muslim Brotherhood “largely secular” and has “eschewed violence.” These analyses from our mastodontic Intel establishment no doubt encouraged the president to gush about living through an historic moment in world history, and to proclaim that young people were primarily to praise for the epic events of the day.

Except that Mubarak didn’t resign, and the Brothers aren’t secular and have long embraced and practiced violence, and we don’t yet know exactly what history is being made, let alone who is making it.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

MORE: Mubarak takes a shot at Obama.

STILL MORE: Oops! “Now, with Mubarak thumbing his nose at the president, the Obama administration may manage to achieve what only few governments in history have done: alienate their enemies as well as their friends. Worse, Obama’s actions have regionalized the Egyptian conflict. KSA has belayed Mubarak on the sheer cliff that he dangles from. It has forced a public confrontation between Mubarak and his regional allies and the unrest sweeping the Arab world. If Mubarak goes spinning into the abyss, the House of Saud will find itself pulled right after it. The narrative is set. One the one side are the aging Sunni autocrats, on the other side are the Shi’ite autocrats who are in an alliance of convenience with protesters in Egypt. And on both sides, like a ping-pong ball being swatted back and forth, is President Obama, as noisy and nearly as comical.”

Remember when I said that a Carter-era rerun was the best plausible scenario? Well . . .

Also: Protests in Iraq.

And, via Facebook: “If Mubarak was smart he’d have gotten the Black Eyed Peas to empty out Tahrir Square two weeks ago.” That would have done it . . .

Plus, flummoxed: White House silent after Mubarak shocker.

Well, they did finally release a statement, but it’s getting bad reviews: White House statement on Egypt: Blah blah blah blah.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: IGNORE OBAMA’S SPEECH:

We all know what is coming in 2012 — the most well-financed, Wall Street-subsidized, vitriolic camping in modern memory, in which Obama’s rivals will be metaphorically reduced to caricatures of racist, selfish, and cruel nativists. The 2011 Tucson speech will have about as much resonance with Obama’s impending campaign style as the 2004 oration affected his 2004-9 political behavior. . . .

And finally, why not an iota of presidential follow-up when in nanoseconds Obama’s own progressive supporters returned to form and took up the old successful hate tropes? Rep. Cohen (D-TN) was soon comparing conservative opponents to Nazis in their Goebbels-like propaganda that likewise would, we were to believe, result in a Holocaust-like denial of basic human compassion. Columnists in Slate were back to the old Jonathan Chait-style (“I hate George Bush. There, I said it”) of declaring their unabashed loathing for political opponents (“Why I Loathe my Connecticut Senator”). All that was left was the reemergence from his Atlanta peace center of a smiling Jimmy Carter, quoting scripture as he might yet again remind us that the elder Bush was “effeminate,” Vice President Cheney was a “militant,” the younger Bush was the “worst” president, and Israel is an “apartheid” state.

Running dogs, I think they used to call them.

TED KOPPEL: 30 years after the Iran hostage crisis, we’re still fighting Reagan’s war. Um, wasn’t Jimmy Carter President when the Hostage Crisis began? And if he’d taken decisive action instead of dithering, we probably wouldn’t still be fighting this war, and doing badly enough that supporters of the current Democratic President are trying to blame Reagan. Instead, Carter temporized, much as Obama has been doing on numerous fronts. I don’t remember Koppel sounding bellicose back then, but of course I was young and might have missed it.

On the other hand, I can’t help but think that to a lot of Democrats, heating things up with Iran now might seem to have short-term political benefits. It would distract people from what’s going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and, for a while, at least, in the American economy.

A MILLENNIAL CRI DE COEUR: InstaPundit reader McKean Evans emails in response to this Michael Barone post:

I’ve read your blog nearly every day since I was in high school (class of ’04), when the 2000 election disputes and 9/11 really woke me up to the world of politics, and while I haven’t always agreed with you about everything, this is the first time I’ve felt compelled to write to you. So let me say in advance that for about ten years now I’ve been an avid reader and for the most part, very much appreciated what you’ve had to say. I’ve done my very best to avoid ranting and to produce a courteous and reasonably concise statement of why, longtime reader that I am, I’m frankly quite angry with some of your recent postings. Of course, you’re the one with the blog, you’ve got the right to your opinion, and it’s an opinion that I’ve had a great deal of respect for for a long time, so all I ask is that you think about what I have to say in the future.

There’s been a real trend in the blogosphere lately, among people with a variety of different views, to make arguments which run something along the lines of: “the Millennials are lazy, they had everything handed to them on a silver platter, they’re the byproducts of the cult of self-esteem and they’ve never had to work for anything before now, so why should we care if they have trouble finding work right out of school?” Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve always found a lot of what seems to characterize my generation as fairly repellent (Exhibit 1: /Jersey Shore/), and I think that there are a lot of very valid, very important criticisms to level at the the way in which our society has extended adolescence into (apparently) perpetuity, not to mention the wisdom of borrowing yourself into six figures of college debt. However, this new trend of shamelessly and self-righteously laying into 20-30 year olds who, for example, are forced to move back home after graduation because they can’t get a job, or who are forced to remain on their parents’ health insurance, is just counterproductive. Moreover, it’s incredibly insulting. New college graduates are among those most impacted by the recession, and they’re in the worst position to handle unemployment. We don’t have savings, or CD’s, or a 401(k), or home equity to fall back on. What we have is our parents. And make no mistake, nobody, but nobody, is excited to move back home with the folks.

Now of course it’s tempting to make the point that most of us wouldn’t be in this position if we hadn’t borrowed so heavily for school, and that’s absolutely a valid point. That’s a discussion that absolutely has to happen in our society. But it’s completely unjust and inappropriate to simply tell everybody who graduated in the past two years, who still can’t find steady work, that it’s their own damn fault. We weren’t of voting age when Congress decided it was a great idea to undermine the housing and financial sectors, by giving huge home equity loans to persons with no capacity to ever repay them. You wouldn’t have found us among those who blindly followed the financial gurus of the late 90’s and early aughts, who just /knew/ that you could buy a house and that its value would increase forever. You definitely wouldn’t have found us working for the UAW, while the unions bled the heart of the manufacturing sector dry over the past thirty years.

But I’ll tell you where you would have found us over the past ten years, while the stage was being set for everything to go to hell. We were at school, in the library, doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing. And if there’s one great sin of my generation, it’s that we blindly listened to everything that our parents and teachers told us about the value of a college education, of a “liberal arts” degree, and the risks of heavy student loan debt. To grow up in the late 1990’s and in the aughts was to be constantly inundated with the importance, the absolute necessity of Almighty Higher Education. I started hearing about planning for college when I was around 13, and my parents were comparatively very laid back. For the vast majority of people who are now in their 20’s, adolescence wasn’t about anything at all but getting in to college. Our teachers talked about College the way that Churchill talked about Victory. I’ve long argued that the reason why popular culture among young adults today is so obnoxiously, insufferably adolescent is at least partly due to the fact that we were never /allowed/ to be adolescents. You didn’t play sports or write for the school newspaper or volunteer at the soup kitchen because you wanted to, you did it to pad that college application. I can’t tell you how many times I was told, point blank, that the way to success was to get into the best college you could, and borrow as much money as you could to pay for it. Of /course/ college was worth six figures in debt. To even ask the question was unthinkable for most of us, because we had never been allowed to consider the possibility that it might be otherwise.

So now we’ve just graduated, and the fact is that there are simply no jobs. I myself graduated in May from a very competent, middle-of-the-road law school, and probably around 75% of my class is unemployed. And I can tell you first hand that none of them are happy about moving back in with the folks. They’re not doing it because they’re too lazy to support themselves, they’re doing it because they’re looking at 150-200k in student loans and no employment. When I say “no employment” I don’t mean a lack of big-law, 100k associate employment. I don’t even mean that we’re having trouble getting the clerkships and government jobs that the ivy league law schools so despise. I mean nothing–there are simply no jobs.

Did my generation grow up with unreasonable expectations about life, employment, and the value of a degree? Absolutely. But before you’re so quick to judge us, please remember that for the vast, vast majority of our admittedly short lives, we worked intensely hard to do what we were told was the right thing to do, the only thing to do, by absolutely everybody in authority. The worst you can really say about us is that we did what we were told when we were children.

Yeah, it’s a really tough jobs environment out there right now. And Barone’s comments, while correctly observing a trend, are somewhat at odds with his book Hard America, Soft America, which says that America has the worst 18-year-olds and the best 30-year-olds in the industrialized world.

UPDATE: Reader James Ruhland emails: “The best reply a Boomer can give to McKean Evans comes from Animal House: ‘You f’d up. You trusted us.'”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Douglas Landrum writes:

My heart goes out to McKean Evans. My son just graduated from college – a very tony private school and his Mom and I footed the bill. Our son is still on the payroll – to our chagrin. The rap that Millennials are lazy or had everything handed to them just isn’t so. I think they will be the next greatest generation. They see the ultimate greed of the Boomers (of which I am ashamed to be one). We are the greediest generation. We expect to have our Social Security and Medicare too. We expect to benefit from Obamacare – or so the predominant liberal core of the Boomers do – all at the expense of younger generations. My son has degrees – business marketing major and studio arts minor. He has no job in his field. My son is an ocean lifeguard and delivers pizzas. I am sure he would work as third job if he could find it. These kids will mature up tough and savvy. They will also allow us to be death paneled out of their lives. Don’t under estimate their grit.

Well, the death-paneled-out thing doesn’t sound so great. Meanwhile, Charles Austin writes:

He has it down pat, the whole it’s somebody else’s fault but mine. But as their expectations of the high paying career they are entitled to are smashed between the Scylla of debt as far as the eye can see and the Charybdis of progressive nanny-statism and they are forced to move back home to stretch their adolescence out just a little farther, is it fair to say the chicks are coming home to roost?

I graduated in 1981. That too was a tough job market. If anything really does annoy me about this kind of commentary it is that they think it has never happened before and that they are a special case worthy of special treatment.

The Carter generation vs. the Obama generation. I think the latter has it worse, personally. At this point, a Carter rerun would be an improvement.

MORE: Reader Steve Poling writes:

Your post http://instapundit.com/101267/ is one of those rare, long ones that always pique my interest. I don’t think the millenials are lazy, but they may have been misled, victims of educational malpractice. If you have an entire country in which nobody learns how to create value, you should not be surprised if nobody has a job. There will be work for lawyers as long as human nature is as it is. Plumbers, electricians, mechanics, cooks and barbers will also be needed as long as people use such things, get hungry or have hair that grows.

However, a sizable portion of the academy has been diverted into useless endeavors. How many religion and gender studies majors does this nation need to keep America strong and prosperous? How many fill-in-the-blank studies departments exist to provide sinecures to politically connected fellows whose core competency is railing at cops and drinking beer with the President? If your college major teaches you how to create trouble for others, I’m happy when you can’t find work. Conversely, if you can make something besides trouble, then I hope you’ll create value for yourself and for society.

My daughter graduated from Michigan’s Engineering school last year and turned down a job offer in lieu of graduate study. When she finishes her Masters next month, she’ll be able to find work at several places worldwide because she picked a useful major.

Well, creating value is less rewarded than it used to be. And people tend to flock to things that are rewarded. And reader Robin Tillings writes:

I think the themes of your posts yesterday are at a confluence. McKean Evans’s email was a convincing argument for teaching critical thinking skills, which might seem to be in the realm of school curriculum, but really falls into parental responsibility.

Evans is correct that our society emphasizes the roll of higher education as a gateway to a better living. But, as you pointed out in that link to the WP article about college grads going into the trades for a more secure future and readily available jobs, reality intrudes when parents offer their kids the sink or swim choice. Somehow, I don’t think young Mr. Evans is envisioning a future of plumbing despite his dismay at living at home post-college, but that might change if Mom and Dad were asking for rent and utilities money.

My husband and I both hold degrees in liberal arts from good schools and graduated into the 1990 recession. My parents wisely counseled graduating without debt ( Dad a conservative after all), which was the best advice they ever gave me as we had to work a lot of unpleasant jobs to pay the rent post-graduation, a turnip farm one summer being the most memorable and unpleasant. My husband learned the trade of fine cabinetry and construction, which has been extremely lucrative and allowed me to be a stay at home mom and homeschool our eldest. Every valuable skill my husband has in his proverbial toolbox, he learned himself or on the job, and even in this deplorable job market, he landed a wonderful job when his own business went sour with the housing market.

While it’s nice to tell acquaintances in our Ivy League town that we have college degrees (fits the snob appeal), the truth is I’m not sure I’ll counsel my children that college is the single path to success, despite cultural pressure. Self education is a wonderful journey and what we’ve learned on our own stumbling path is that demonstrable skill sets and a strong work ethic trump degrees for most careers. These days it seems that college degrees are paying for a title and a Rolodex of contacts, which can’t be dismissed as unimportant, but should be placed in context of the big picture. Would you pay $100K for a list of names?

Well, I suppose it depends on the names. But point taken. Another reader emails:

I’m a member of Gen-X and have found that the baby boomers seem to claim that any subsequent generation to theirs is lazy and shiftless. I’m firmly of the belief that the boomers project their own vices upon subsequent generations without any true understanding of the wreckage that they’ve left in their wake. Our generations have been starting the career ladder facing higher college debt, higher rent/housing prices, and older employees who have benefited from improvements in health care and don’t intend upon retiring from their well paid perches. From a Gen-X perspective, we have been judged by how much less our generation has produced despite the fact that *per*capita* we’ve outperformed the baby boomers, there are just fewer of us. I’ll bet that the millenials will be at least as productive as we, and there are more of them. The baby boomers should be singing our praises in the streets, for without our industry *and*tax*dollars* that is where they’ll be in their twilight years.

Stay tuned.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Obama And America’s 20-Year Bust. “America faced a similar turning point a generation ago. During the Jimmy Carter years, the Malthusian, Limits to Growth crowd argued that natural-resource constraints meant Americans would have to lower their economic expectations and accept economic stagnation — or worse. Carter more or less accepted an end to American Exceptionalism, but the 1980 presidential election showed few of his countrymen did. They chose growth economics and the economy grew. Now they face another choice.”

Related: The United States of Argentina?

ANN ALTHOUSE WILL BE LIVEBLOGGING the State Of The Union. And Jason Pye emails that the folks at UnitedLiberty will be liveblogging, too.

Stephen Green, of course, will be drunkblogging it, and has links to various State Of The Union drinking games. Jim Treacher will be liveblogging, too, and while it isn’t formally “drunkblogging,” well, informally it just might be . . . .

The country’s in the very best of hands. Our future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades. So sit back, relax, and watch!

Plus, Sandy Levinson on a SOTU catastrophe. “If we really do believe that there is, say, a 1% probability that a successful attack will take place on the Capitol when everyone gathers for the State of the Union address, that’s a good reason either to revert to an earlier tradition, when Presidents delivered written messages, or, at the very least, telling most of the Cabinet and Justices, for starters, that they can, like the rest of us, watch it on TV. (I note that Dick Cheney did not attend the immediate post-Sept. 11 address to Congress, but did seemingly attend all of the States of the Union address thereafter. But why? I ask this as a fully serious, and not cheap-shot, question.)” Well, Hillary isn’t attending tonight, but not as a security holdout. What does that mean?

UPDATE: More liveblogging from a panel of experts at the Cato Institute.

Also the inimitable Dana Loesch.

Plus, Jules Crittenden is doing the drinking games.

From the Cato Liveblog: “The assertions about the Depression we would have had are outrageous. Their forecasts of the stimulus’s impact have been horrible, so how can they have any credibility on this kind of issue? ” I think it’s full speed ahead, here, credibility be damned. Plus this: “Bastiat is spinning in his grave.”

The “stimulus” didn’t produce any jobs, but if we pass a new stimulus and call it a “jobs bill,” it will!

On Facebook, Alex Lightman writes: “I was looking forward to the State of the Union speech. Then I read most of it, and got depressed. It’s as if he’s running for office, not holding office. I didn’t hear anything about what’s going to be cut. Anyone can make promises to spend other people’s money.”

Reader C.J. Burch writes: “‘The worst of the storm has passed.’ Forget Green and Crittenden, what the Hell is Obama drinking?”

More from Cato: “Wonderful, more government-directed investment. That worked really well with Fannie and Freddie.” Plus this prediction: “He’ll pivot from a new $100 billion jobs bill to cutting the deficit.”

Ann Althouse: “Small businesses are good. (Come on, talk to them.) Big business sucks though. We want to help small business grow… so it can become big business and then we can hate it.”

Seems pretty much like a recycled campaign speech to me.

And not just recycled campaign speech — the Cato folks note this:

“Through stricter accounting standards and tougher disclosure requirements, corporate America must be made more accountable to employees and shareholders and held to the highest standards of conduct.”

–George W. Bush, 2002 SOTU

They told me if I voted for John McCain we’d see a third Bush term. And they were right! [LATER: Tad DeHaven keeps running quotes from Bush SOTUs that match what Obama’s saying tonight.]

More from Cato: “He has decided to run against lobbyists. The populist turn again. Carter did that too.” Those guys are on fire. Just head over there to catch all the gems. But here’s one more: “This is the most awful anti-trade position of any president in a long time.”

More liveblogging from Jason Van Steenwyk.

Ed Driscoll: The Semiotics Of The Anointed.

Stephen Green: “’Our approach would bring down the deficit by as much as one trillion dollars over two decades.’ Fine. But when those two decades mean another 20 or 30 trillion dollars of debt, you’re talking about scooping pee out of the ocean with sieve.”

Plus this: “’Let me know.’ Dude, the voters of Massachusetts just did.”

And: “The guy who just bragged of his (mysterious) 25 tax cuts just ragged on the Bush tax cuts.”

An Obama speech word cloud.

“But we took office in a crisis — and never let a crisis go to waste!” Okay, I kinda interpolated the second part. . . .

Hey, does this sound familiar?

Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt. I listened, and I agree. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now, and I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years.

It’s from George W. Bush’s 2001 SOTU.

A reader emails: “Oh for heaven’s sake. It’s a freaking stump speech. You’ve been elected all ready Mr. President. Now you have to do things. See the difference?”

The freeze starts next year? And I start my diet tomorrow.

From Dan Mitchell at Cato: “We’ve all done something very naughty if this is the government we deserve.”

Now Obama, after delivering an hour-long stump speech, criticizes the perpetual campaign. Luckily for him, most people will be watching Teen Mom on their Tivo by now.

A reader sends a link to Reagan’s 1982 State Of The Union by way of comparison.

The Insta-Daughter: “He needs to quit referring to Bush. It’s weird.”

Nick Schulz: The Definition of Chutzpah.

John Samples at Cato: “I agree with Chris. It is surprising how unsurprising this speech has been, particularly for a president in deep political trouble.”

More liveblogging at Reason. Radley Balko: “wow. no none is better at trivializing opponents’ arguments than obama.”

A call to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I’m for it, but I’ll bet there’s not much follow-through.

Stephen Green: “’I have embraced the vision of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.’ Okay. Except you embraced the competence of Jimmy Carter & Herbert Hoover.”

Jim Harper at Cato: “Following through on his transparency promises would be a great way to actually deliver change.”

Matt Welch: “8-year-olds sending money to the president don’t make me all tingly inside.”

Reader Rob Lain emails:

Others have probably done this already, but I just ran these numbers:

Obama SOTU 2010 First Person Singular Pronoun Count

I – 96 times

me – 8 times

Bush SOTU 2008 First Person Singular Pronoun Count

I – 39 times

me – 2 times

Think this may wind up correlating to their relative contributions to the national debt, when all is said and done?

I dunno, but what’s funny is that I think Obama was restraining himself here . . . .

Okay, it’s over. My sense is that he was trying a bit too hard. Comparing the mood to last year, the Democratic applause and cheering seemed rather forced, too. Plus, I don’t think his public scolding of the Supreme Court was very Presidential — or, for that matter, very smart.

Krauthammer is noting that Obama treats “Washington” as a pejorative, but that he is Washington now.

Matt Welch: “I think I’ve forgotten it already. Except for the I WON’T QUIT part. Don’t worry, it *is* about you, etc.”

Reader Matt Barger writes: “There has never been a SOTU as patronizing as this. God help us.”

C.J. Burch emails again: “A brittle speech by a brittle administration. He’s done as a political force, I think. If not now, soon.” We’ll see.

And Stephen Green concludes: “We’re into the Big Finish… but there’s no new here. For a guy who got his bottom handed to him in three big elections, he’s strangely reluctant to change course. In fact, he’s not even willing to change tone. Which means, whatever you thought of Bush’s lousy last three years, Obama has already outdone him in being tone-deaf. Let me restate that. This guy hasn’t gotten one single thing done since Porklulus was passed 11 months ago, and he just doubled down. Well, you know what? Who cares how much is in the pot when it’s other people’s money?”

Reader Allen S. Thorpe writes: “It is probably better to think of it as a State of My Presidency speech and it’s probably the best chance he’s had since his Inauguration to speech to this size of an audience. He’d better be in campaign mode, because he’s losing the election right now. From the back of my memory, some familiar words are floating up: ‘Lipstick on a pig.'”

Gerard van der Leun emails with praise: “Excellent digest. All the hot liveblogging lines with none of the screen refreshing tedium.”

Thanks! As Leon Lipson once said, “Anything you can do, I can do meta.” But really, follow the links to the other blogs as this is just the merest skim of cream.

And there’s always the Zomby translation.

Plus, Richard Fernandez weighs in. “Since the current administration is doing all these good things, it will stay the course. It won’t let the aforementioned saboteurs and wreckers stand in the way.”

The McDonnell reponse? The bar for these things is low — and he was certainly infinitely better than Jindal last year. But the big story is the subtext: “I was just elected in a state Obama carried, even though Obama campaigned against me. Whatever he may say under the lights, he can’t save you come election day.” Likewise, the Scott Brown mention.

And from Meryl Yourish: Breaking the Obama Code:

Tonight, he addressed the American people, and he addressed Congress. Go back and look at the speech. He was earnest, and his chin was down, his head relatively level, when speaking to Congress. When he spoke to us, his chin rose, and he talked down to us—literally.

Go ahead. Take a look. Note his posture. You’ll see it, too. You and I, we are not his equals. He is above us.

That’s what sets my teeth on edge every time I listen to him.

That’s almost worth rewinding the DVR for, but . . . no, I’ve suffered enough.

Some extensive thoughts from Dan Riehl, including this: “Obama praised the concept of separation of powers, then immediately turned to question the Supreme Court’s recent decision on campaign finance reform. That tendency caused much of speech to ring hollow throughout.”

Alex Castellanos writes: “There were too many Barack Obamas tonight, making too many promises to too many interests. The same president who said he wasn’t interested in relitigating the past . . . did exactly that for over an hour. The same president who yearned for less partisanship also resorted to it without hesitation, often just a few sentences afterwards, blaming his problems on his predecessor one long year into his own administration.”

Jim Geraghty: On His Last Day in Office, Obama Will Still Be Talking About What He Inherited.

More from The Anchoress:

You know, one could argue that President Bush “inherited” Al Qaeda from Bill Clinton, who did little-to-nothing in response to all of Al Qaeda’s provocations throughout the 1990’s and unto the USS Cole bombing. But never, not once, did Bush ever say, “I inherited this…” It’s time for Obama to become a man.

Much more at the link.

John Podhoretz: “One liberal trope after the speech, voiced by Chrystia Freedland of the Financial Times on Charlie Rose, is that Obama is putting Republican politicians on notice he will go after them as the do-nothing impeders of progress. Republicans should pray this is the case, and it may be the case.” In New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts he’s proven impotent. Why should people fear him more now, when he’s weaker?

And reader Eric Naft writes:

You posted a CATO link that mentioned Bastiat, but do you realize exactly how precisely delicious that observation is? In extolling the virtues of the stimulus, President Obama cited several small businesses, including a “window repair company” in Philadelphia.

Having read Bastiat’s influential “That Which Is Seen & That Which Is Not Seen: The Unintended Consequences of Government Spending,” I don’t think he could have chosen more poorly (or perhaps more aptly?). The opening vignette of Bastiat’s seminal work, which demolishes the notion that government spending stimulates anything, is subtitled, “The Broken Window.” It explains that paying to repair broken windows doesn’t help the economy at large because the money used to pay for the repair is money that can’t be used to buy a shirt or to do whatever else the private citizen may be inclined to do with his money.

Has nobody in the administration’s speech-writing team ever read basic economics? Never mind. I think I know the answer to that.

Yes, I do realize. But heck, forget the speech-writing team. What about the economic team?

Plus, what the voters think about Obama’s speech points.

Chris Matthews on Obama: ‘I Forgot He Was Black For an Hour’.

Good grief. Why is this guy still on the air? Oh, wait, he’s not — he’s on MSNBC . . . .

And reader Scott Blanksteen writes:

Obama’s comments about the Supreme Court’s decision enabling foreign corporations to donate in US campaigns are particularly ironic given that it was his campaign that mis-configured their credit-card acceptance software in a way for which the only purpose would be to enable foreign donations!

More on that here, here, and here.

Jules Crittenden: “But seriously, we have just witnessed an extraordinary exercise in presidential oratorical animation that may be without peer or precedent. Can it be said that any American president has ever tried to blame so much on other people, or has been willing to so rapidly abandon his own principles for the betterment of his standing with the people, to seize up the banner against himself in our nation’s time of need, that this nation should not stand against him? For this, the president deserves our unabashed, gaga-eyed astonishment.”

CAN I CALL ‘EM, OR WHAT? Back in September, noting a continuing pattern of White House incompetence, I predicted: “Expect this to play out in thumbsucker columns on whether America is ‘ungovernable.'”

And, right on cue, here’s Matthew Yglesias: “The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it’s the fact that the country has become ungovernable.”

Funny, that dumb cowboy Bush seemed to get a lot done with fewer votes in Congress. . . .

Plus, from the comments: “There have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to ‘become ungovernable.’ There just isn’t enough political support to enact various news laws and policies that you favor. Tough. If you hadn’t become seduced by the delusion that Obama is a ‘progressive’ and that last year’s election represented some kind of historic realignment in favor of ‘progressive’ policies you might have seen this coming.”

Or, as Ed Morrissey noted a while ago: “Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the Senate would not have been prepared for the toughest executive position in the Free World? We did. Repeatedly. So did John McCain, and for that matter, so did Hillary Clinton.”

UPDATE: Moe Lane says Matt and I are both right. “The country is indeed ungovernable. …By Democrats.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “What I appreciate especially is how Matthew notes that the smarter elements are starting to pick up on some observation of his…”

MORE: Ed Morrissey offers some fresh thoughts.

Plus, reader Zachary Terry writes: “That silly, silly Constitution. It always seems to get in the way. In all seriousness, though, wasn’t the United States intended to be relatively ‘ungoverned?’ Why is it not surprising that blatant deviation from the intended structure and function of our national government has led to this quandary?”

Can we get a T-Shirt that says Proudly Ungovernable Since 1776?

Further thoughts over at TalkLeft. “I suppose this is all a set up for a Truman-like ‘Do Nothing Republican Congress’ campaign in 2012 by Obama. Of course that will require the Democrats lose the Congress in 2010. Hey, wait a minute . . .”

FINALLY: Reader John Hendrix writes:

The MSM didn’t start saying things like that until Carter’s fourth year.

So can we now say that the Obama’s main achievement was to get the MSM to go all “The country is too big for one man to govern” in his first year instead of his fourth year?

Yeah, it’s like Carter on fast-forward or something.

L.A. TIMES: Why Obama’s sudden news conference today? And what he’ll say. “Here’s the scary thing for the new White House: the terrifying words ‘Jimmy Carter’ have started appearing in print and on the air . . . . Sen. John McCain’s angry Senate Neda speech Monday, also reported and analyzed here with a video, dramatically changed that equation, forcing Obama to talk today more powerfully about the power of talk. . . .Obama needs to re-seize the initiative; hence, Monday’s decision to schedule a Tuesday presidential news conference. Such staged affairs are not only irresistible to the media (CBS will break into normal programming to carry it live), but they suck the oxygen out of any other competing story for the cycle.”

MORE ON PIRACY: Ruth Wedgwood: The Law Adrift. “The West is tangled in a postmodern confusion over the law of armed conflict, human rights law, solipsistic views of national criminal jurisdiction and, above all, a stunning lack of common sense. This should arrest the attention of any legal historian. In the origins of international law, piracy was considered the gravest act against the good order of the state system.”

Further thoughts from Eric Posner. “President Obama has every reason to be concerned. He also has little room to maneuver. Having just returned from a trip promoting internationalism, he has raised expectations that any anti-piracy endeavor will have an internationalist flavor. This will mean costly, time-consuming negotiations for the sake of largely symbolic contributions by other countries, if history is any guide. Having also raised expectations that his administration will act with the utmost respect for legality, Obama will either have to direct American forces to walk on eggshells or risk exposing his words as empty. If the pirates continue to take American hostages, he will have trouble maintaining these commitments while giving satisfaction to the inevitable nationalist backlash driven by the mounting sense of powerless and humiliation that we haven’t seen since the Carter years.”

SHANNON LOVE on piracy and the will to do something about it. “I think that, as with terrorism, the return of piracy indicates the collapse of international law and the liberal order it establishes. It tells us how dysfunctional international law has become.”

Plus this, from Tam: “Our new President is displaying all the resolve, aplomb, and effectiveness of Jimmy Carter during the Tehran embassy crisis.”

UPDATE: The Ghost of Fecklessness Past. “Although, if I remember well, Carter at least looked pained and troubled by the whole Iranian Hostage Crisis. That’s why Obama’s attitude is – in my opinion – sub-Carterian in that regard: he just appears too aloof.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reuters: Pirates Pose Annoying Distraction to Obama.

But at least some people are finding the humor in the situation.

POLITICO: NYT hits Obama. “The leading liberal voices of the New York Times editorial pages all criticized—and, in some cases, clobbered—President Obama on Sunday for his handling of the economy and national security. . . . The sentiment, coming just two months after the president was sworn in, reflects elite opinion in the Washington-New York corridor that Obama is increasingly overwhelmed, and not fully appreciative of the building tsunami of populist outrage.” Well, he could start here. That won’t help the “overwhelmed” part, though.

UPDATE: CBS to Obama: “Are you punch-drunk?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: “At this stage in 1977, even Jimmy Carter wasn’t Jimmy Carter. But, 30 days in, the horror of what they’d wrought began to dawn on Brooks, Buckley and the Obamacons. And, after a mere 60, the A-list libs are starting to figure it out, too.”

MORE: Charlie Foxtrot: I told you so.

Plus, Obama sounding like Dick Cheney?

STILL MORE: “Thoughtful Thinkers Think.”

MOVIE-SET HUMANITARIANISM:

RESIDENTS of a model housing estate bankrolled by Hollywood celebrities and hand-built by Jimmy Carter, the former US president, are complaining that it is falling apart.

Fairway Oaks was built on northern Florida wasteland by 10,000 volunteers, including Carter, in a record 17-day “blitz” organised by the charity Habitat for Humanity.

Eight years later it is better known for cockroaches, mildew and mysterious skin rashes.

Ouch.

STEPHEN GREEN WILL BE drunkblogging the debate. Ann Althouse is liveblogging, and so is Jason Pye. Likewise Jeralyn Merritt at Talkleft. And they’re promising nonstop blogging at Hit & Run and The Corner. Also FishBowlDC. And Jules Crittenden.

UPDATE: More at The Sundries Shack, including a list of more livebloggers. And TigerHawk is livetired-blogging from Madrid

ANOTHER UPDATE: Biden keeps talking about deregulation. But wasn’t it Barney Frank, Charles Schumer, et al., who shielded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from regulation?

MORE: The McCain folks email: “Biden said McCain voted ‘the exact same way’ as Obama to raise taxes on people making $42,000/year. That’s a lie. McCain didn’t vote on either bill.”

Stephen Green: “Biden has an easy command of the facts, even when his facts are BS. Given the pressure on Palin, that’s probably all he needs to do tonight for a draw or better.”

STILL MORE: I think that Biden’s doing fine, but Andrew Sullivan disagrees: “Biden is just dreadful. He speaks in Washingtonese. She just issues the soundbites and wrinkles her eyes and tells stories. And that works. The speed and chirpiness she delivers overwhelms one’s ability to even quite absorb what she’s saying. And it has put Biden off-stride. It’s Biden who seems over-crammed.”

I think Palin’s doing fine, especially once she got on her home-base topic of energy. But Biden seems fine, too – but what will Andrew say about this: “Senator Biden, do you support gay marriage?” “No.” They conclude their discussion of the topic by agreeing that Obama, Biden, and Palin all have the same position.

There’s a poll at Drudge and Sarah Palin’s winning in a runaway. Doesn’t seem that big a gap to me, but what do I know? I thought Carter beat Reagan . . . .

Hey, now the Drudge poll has vanished, but Ann Althouse has a screenshot, and a poll of her own.

Jim Treacher is live-blogging, too: “Ah! Obama is against gay marriage. So Biden’s previous answer was… unclear.”

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is wrong about the Vice President and the Constitution — the Vice President does have a legislative role, and the VP doesn’t just preside over the Senate in case of a tie. The VP only votes in case of a tie, but voting isn’t the same as presiding. Good grief.

Also, Joe, Article I of the Constitution deals with the legislative branch, not the executive. Again, good grief.

MORE STILL: Reader David Rensin emails: “He didn’t just call the citizens of Bosnia ‘Bosniacs’, did he?” Yeah, he did.

FINALLY: Still more on Joe Biden’s constitutional flubs.

Plus, Stephen Green emails: “Jim Dunnigan and Austin Bay use the word ‘Bosniaks’ in reference in Moslem Bosnians.” So give that one to Biden. Though if I thought he actually read Dunnigan and Bay I’d give him two points.

And, yes, the VP’s legislative duties are in Article I. But that cuts precisely against the point that Biden was trying to make. Here’s what Biden said: “Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history. The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. . . . The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.” This is wong on multiple levels at once. Article I — which deals with the legislative, not the Executive branch, says: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” The Vice President presides over the Senate by right, whenever he/she wants to, regardless of whether there’s a tie vote.

What’s more, Vice Presidents, until Spiro Agnew, got their offices and budgets from the Senate, not the Executive Branch. The legislative character of that office is traditional — treating the VP as part of the Executive Branch, and a sort of junior co-President, is a recent and, to my mind, unwise innovation. That’s discussed at more length in this article from the Northwestern University Law Review.

ABC: Is The Recession All in Your Head?

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Ed Cone criticizes criticism of over-the-top recession reporting. I’m unpersuaded. A recession is not a synonym for “a time when some people are hurting and there are worries about the economy,” and dismissing efforts to keep the language straight as a reliance on technical mumbo-jumbo seems pretty weak to me. As I’ve noted in the past, there’s plenty to worry about regarding the economy, and it’s likely that — despite all the talk about the “recession” we’ve allegedly been in for the past year or so despite positive economic growth — the press is missing economic news that’s worse than what it’s been reporting. They certainly weren’t ahead of the curve on Fannie Mae. Nonetheless, saying that it’s a recession because you’re worried about the economy is like demanding antibiotics because your child feels bad, without waiting for a diagnosis. People do it, but it’s not smart.

Plus, it’s mostly political. In the 1990s people were hurting — farmers in particular, though only Willie Nelson and Joel Dyer cared much — but all we heard about was how great the economy was, even though it was in a big bubble. Now, with numbers that are actually not that bad, we’re hearing about how dreadful the economy is right now. Not about problems that ought to be addressed, not about potential issues for the future, but about how we’re in a depression of Steinbeckian proportions. As I’ve suggested before, this is partly excusable on the grounds that journalism really is facing such a depression — their numbers are horrible — but I suspect that if President-Designate Barack Obama were already in office we wouldn’t be getting this kind of reporting.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Regarding the ABC story, reader Thomas Prewitt writes:

These lines at the end of the piece struck me:

SNOW: Which is not to say it’s not painful to go to the gas pump and pay those prices. Well, thank you so much — go ahead.

YARROW: I was going to say, and you know, gas prices and food prices in particular are causing people to be very emotional a bout it because every single day, they’re aware of difficulties.

This reminded me of Ronald Reagan saying that the American People should be required to pay their income taxes in one big check at the end of the year as this would remind them how much of their money they were sending to the government.

Yes, and it should be the day before Election Day . . .

MORE: Reader Terrence McMahon emails:

I would say that there are some segments of the overall economy that are in really bad shape. Housing and transportation definitely, and where I live, manufacturers of heavy steel items like automotive lifts and steel shipping containers. Mostly due to the price of fuel. However, unemployment is still low. In the rural area where I live, unemployment is well under the national average and right now, many manufacturers can’t hire enough skilled workers.

But try and remember back to the last real recession, how many people were standing in line to buy a $200 + cellphone with a two-year $100 per month contract attached? How about running out and buying a new TV, PC or laptop? How about a $50 videogame? I’m not going to say it didn’t happen, but…

And you may remember the last time there was a “gas shortage”, gas stations actually ran out of gas. I drive all over the Mid-West and South for my job, I pay anywhere upwards of $4 for gas, but I haven’t seen one “No Gas” sign. Think this is a bubble? I’ll bet you the house I paid too much for.

I don’t know if it’s a bubble, but it’s not the Great Depression. It’s not even the Carter Malaise yet, though if folks in Washington have their way that might change . . . .

DICK CHENEY AS A LEGISLATIVE OFFICIAL: Ed Morrissey is not impressed with this gem of a legal argument. He’s right not to be, and he’s right that this is a political and legal embarrassment for the Administration, but it’s not because of the constitutional language he quotes.

The argument that the Vice President is a legislative official isn’t inherently absurd. The Constitution gives the Vice President no executive powers: The VP’s only duties are to preside over the Senate, and to become President if the serving President dies or leaves office. The Vice President really isn’t an Executive official, and isn’t part of the President’s administration the way that other officials are — for one thing, the VP can’t be fired by the President: As an independently elected officeholder, he can be removed only by Congress, via impeachment. (In various separation of powers cases, the Supreme Court has placed a lot of weight on this who-can-fire-you test).

And traditionally VP’s haven’t done much. That changed when Jimmy Carter gave Fritz Mondale an unusual amount of responsibility by historical standards, and has continued with subsequent Administrations, particularly under Clinton/Gore and Bush/Cheney.

But here’s the thing: Whatever executive power a VP exercises is exercised because it’s delegated by the President, not because the VP has it already. So to the extent the President delegates actual power (as opposed to just taking recommendations for action) the VP is exercising executive authority delegated by the President, but unlike everyone else who does so he/she isn’t subject to removal from office by the President (though the President could always withdraw the delegation, of course). However — and here’s where the claim that Cheney is really a legislative official creates problems for the White House — it seems pretty clear that the President isn’t allowed to delegate executive power to a legislative official, as that would be a separation of powers violation. So to the extent that this is what’s going on, the “Cheney is a legislative official” argument is one that opens a big can of worms.

None of this is to say that the President can’t, in his own capacity, decide to apply different rules to the VP (who, after all, is an elected official, unlike cabinet secretaries, NSC staffers, and the like) if he chooses. But that’s a different issue entirely from the “legislative official” angle. Like a lot of the Bush Administration’s arguments, this is one that would make an interesting law school paper topic, or law review article, but that is politically idiotic and legally self-defeating. It’s reminiscent, as one of Capt. Ed’s commenters notes, of the Clinton Administration’s effort to stall Paula Jones’ lawsuit by claiming that as Commander-in-Chief the President is a serving member of the military. Clever, in a way. But definitely not smart.

UPDATE: Mike Rapaport says that I’m wrong. Sort of. “Glenn’s argument is more far reaching than one might at first think. If he is right, then Presidents cannot delegate power to VPs, but they appear to have done this regularly in the last generation. It would make this modern practice unconstitutional. Of course, this is not an argument against Glenn’s reading — lots of modern practices are unconstitutional. But it would be significant.”

Meanwhile, some excellent snark from Orin Kerr: “Today’s Washington Post kicks off a series on Senate President Dick Cheney, who apparently has also exercised some influence in recent years within the Executive Branch.”