Yet there is a sense of desperation in the Administration, a sense that nothing can be as efficacious at the moment as a sticking plaster. Edward B Montgomery, deputy labour secretary in the Clinton administration, now spends his time on day trips to decaying towns that used to have a car industry, not so much advising them on how to do something else as facilitating those communities’ access to federal funds. For a land without a welfare state, America starts to do an effective impersonation of a country with one.

From the Daily Caller:

According to photos released by an anonymous twitter user, Jay-Z, along with his entourage and his wife Beyonce, visited the White House Wednesday before a concert in Washington, D.C. During the visit, Jay-Z and company were apparently allowed access to the Situation Room. Photos from the visit feature Jay-Z sitting at the head of the table in the Situation Room under the president’s seal.

And CNN via Mediaite:

GOP strategist Alex Castellanos has a great line:

It’s an interesting thing here. Some people wonder why Jay-Z’s in the president’s chair. Some people might wonder why Barack Obama is. After all, Jay-Z’s created more jobs.

Regrettably, our Starfucker-In-Chief was absent from the photos:

It is taboo to ask our failing youth a simple question, “What exactly have you done the last month to ensure your birthright to the world’s most sophisticated lifestyle propped up by advanced math, science, social stability, and political tranquility?”

It other words, our elite is becoming more elite and refined, while our non-elite is becoming more rough around the edges. But they share a disturbing commonality: both expect something that they are not willing to invest in.

Unsurprisingly, the political class — which talks mostly to itself — thinks that it is far more popular, and legitimate, in the eyes of the country than is in fact the case. In this, as in so many things, America’s political class is out of touch with reality.

But forget the views of America — where, it seems likely, more people believe in alien abductions than in the legitimacy of our rulers — and look just at the more cheerful view of the political class.

Even among the rulers, only 63 percent — triple the fraction of the general populace but still less than two-thirds of the political class — regard the federal government as legitimate by the standards of America’s founding document. The remainder, presumably, are comfortable being tyrants.

Via the Washington Examiner.

So I know Frank Rich and a lot of liberal columnists and bloggers have struggled mightily to pin the murderous violence of Joseph Stack and J. Patrick Bedell to the teabagger movement. Sure, there has not been a single recorded instance of violence perpetrated by a teabagger, but you know it’s just a matter of time. And in the meanwhile, here’s a useful tool to help us all keep a perspective on the lurking menace that we face:

And that doesn’t even include teabagger thoughtviolence!

Check back for updates. I feel like the meter’s itching to get to yellow.

You would think that at this particular moment in history, even Al Gore would be trying to stay away from Al Gore.  He is the poster boy for global warming, a concept that recently has been shattering to pieces like the frozen tears of an endangered baby polar bear.

The University of Tennessee, however, will not be deterred from awarding Gore with an honorary doctoral degree.  It has been speculated that they are angling for the recently created “Nobel Prize in Unwarranted Award Giving”.  The Nobel committee has naturally awarded that prize to itself for the past two years since its inception, but for the first time there may be some serious competition.

The University chancellor had this to say:

Vice President Gore’s career has been marked by visionary leadership, and his work has quite literally changed our planet for the better.  He is among the most accomplished and respected Tennesseans in history, and it is fitting that he should be honored by the flagship education institution of his home state.”

Although currently hiding in his ice fortress somewhere in the arctic circle and thus unavailable for comment, a ghostwritten editorial in the New York Times bearing Gore’s name asserted:

Come on, guys…climate change is super serious!  There’s so many earthquakes! 

 

Bow before the high priest of Climate Change, ignorant polluters

Stupid and shameful.

[I]f Obama were actually smart his community organizing efforts would have effected change in Chicago. But the David Brooksian “educated class” isn’t to be judged by something as pedestrian as performance. They tend not to engage in jobs, such as installing a light switch, unclogging a drain, or fixing a transmission, that can be objectively evaluated as done or not done. Perceived failures in community organizing, academics, column-writing, and governing are open to interpretation and can be explained away. Not so with a car that still doesn’t start.