Posts By Author » B. Daniel Blatt

Barney Frank’s Opponent Gets Rousing Welcome
23 Aug 2010 2:36 am

To get this audience going, all it took was for this guy to say he was running against Barney Frank.

In sending in this link, a reader offered, “I’m becoming more and more convinced that Frank believes he’s vulnerable which is why he’s behaving the way he has been lately ie Saying Fannie and Freddie should be abolished, etc.” Just over a week ago, Jim Geraghty cited a poll from the Bay State indicating that “54% of registered voters inMassachusetts are either somewhat or very likely to vote against their incumbent Democratic …

Katie Couric: Sean Hannity Without the Integrity
7 Aug 2010 3:57 pm

In one of the better back-and-forths we had in a comment thread at GayPatriot, a thoughtful left-of-center reader considers Katie Couric’s bias, then makes an interesting point:
. . . if Biden and Palin were both to be interviewed on Fox News, I think you’d see the same difference in treatment (i.e., Fox would gun for Biden much more than they would gun for Palin)
Now, I don’t know how familiar that reader is with FoxNews, but the network features a variety of anchors, reporters and commentators — who have a great …

That’s the Bush-Pelosi Recession, Madame Speaker
7 Aug 2010 3:50 pm

Over at Commentary Contentions, Peter Wehner references House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “pathetic and pitiful” response “to the dismal new unemployment numbers”. Always on the attack, Ms. Nancy would rather blame Republicans than accept the responsibility for her own party’s failures:
Today’s report shows our teachers, police officers, firefighters, and nurses are still feeling the worst of the Bush recession — while Republican leaders demean them as ‘special interests’ and try to block legislation that will grow our economy,
Bush recession? Huh? That good man has been out of office for 18 …

Some Americans Can Only Dream of Owning a Boat Worth One-Tenth the Massachusetts Tax Bill on John Kerry’s New Yacht
1 Aug 2010 1:43 pm

JammieWearingFool helps us get at the most telling aspect of the John Kerry boat-berthing/tax-dodging story:
The fallout continues for the laughingstock John Kerry and his woes over the good ship SS 1040. Or maybe to use his own words we should call it the Botched Joke. Ironically by running to his favorite newspaper to try and control the damage he’s just kept the story alive.
(H/t Instapundit.) Emphasis added.
And the last thing he wants to do is keep this story alive. Other bloggers and pundits have focused on the hypocrisy angle: while the …

Happy Birthday, Ronald Reagan!
6 Feb 2010 12:40 pm

Today marks the 99th anniversary of the birth of the greatest American president of the second half on the twentieth century, the greatest of the entire century if we consider just domestic policy. Born in Tampico, Illinois, Ronald Wilson never lost faith in the American nation — or the American people.
Or, as the Gipper himself might put it, he always have faith in the American nation and the American people. He kept his optimism even when times were tough. When, before his economic policies kicked in and …

It’s an issue when Republican Presidents are Silent about natural disasters, but not one when a Democrat is silent about “man-caused disasters.” and popular uprisings* against anti-American tyrants
28 Dec 2009 11:36 am

Five years ago, there was much bellyaching in the media about how the callousness of the President of the United States for not making a public statement about the tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands, displaced an equal number (if not more) and causes untold damage to property and the landscape, even changing the coastline in some regions. When then-president Bush did not speak out, it was deemed a sign of his indifference, evidence that the recently reelected president was out of touch.
Now, it’s conservatives gnashing their teeth about …

The Fall of the Berlin Wall & the Social Construction of Communism
9 Nov 2009 6:18 pm

As we celebrate today the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Empire, let us take a moment to remember the bitter legacy of Communism, based on an ideology drawn up not by men who studied human nature, but by an intellectual who studied law and philosophy and surrounded himself by other radicals.
Marx had little (if any) contact with the working classes for whom he claimed to speak and little (if any) experience with the actual creation of wealth. He largely …

House Democrats vote to increase Republican gains in 2010
8 Nov 2009 4:02 am

The good news about the House vote yesterday to approve PelosiCare is that the city where I was born, Cincinnati, Ohio will, come January 2001, once again have a Republican Congressman. Now that Steve Driehaus, who currently represents the Queen City, voted in favor of HR 3962, he has all but guaranteed that Steve Chabot, the man he ousted in 2008 by clinging to Obama’s coattails, will win his old seat back. And Chabot won’t be the only Republican ousting a Democratic incumbent next fall.
Just scanning the …

Is Rahm’s Luck Running Out?
3 Nov 2009 3:10 am

Politico has a fascinating story of the lengths to which Democrats went to secure Dede Scozzafava’s endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district tomorrow. The effort in involved the White House Chief of Staff, New York State’s senior senator, the Speaker of the New York Assembly, the chair of the state Democratic Party and other heavy hitters. They even dispatched a Long Island Democratic Congressman to the district to meet with the one-time Republican candidate.
Yet, if the latest polls are …

Corzine Tries to Win Ugly* in New Jersey
3 Nov 2009 3:03 am

In a Democratic state, running against a lackluster Republican opponent and with a war chest filled with twice as much lucre as both his opponents combined, with multiple visits by the charismatic President of the United States, Democrat incumbent Jon Corzine has resorted to playing dirty chests while corrupt organizations try to manufacture a few votes to help him retain his lease on Drumthwacket–and give Democrats something to crow about on Wednesday.
In order to divide the vote of those opposed to the unpopular Democrat, his fellow partisans have all but …

Republican Defeat in NY-23 Could Lead to GOP Victories in 2010
23 Oct 2009 12:21 pm

With word that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has endorsed conservative Doug Hoffman to fill the House seat vacated by Army Secretary John McHugh, there is a real chance the once and future Republican could score an upset, defeating GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava and Democrat Bill Owens. The safe bet though would be for an Owens victory. The one certainty now is that Scozzafava will not be serving the remainder of McHugh’s term.
Given her support of the “stimulus” and other items on the Democrats’ big government agenda, this …

Administration Aggrandizes President, Demonizes Others
20 Oct 2009 2:30 pm

Look, it’s entirely fair to criticize the Bush Administration for not adapting our military strategy to meet changing circumstances in Afghanistan, but it’s unbecoming for the incumbent Administration to act as if they’re the first ones to ask critical questions while the previous one did not:
One of President Obama’s top advisers said Sunday the Bush administration failed to ask critical questions about the war in Afghanistan, leaving the Obama administration starting from scratch — and leaving the war “adrift.”
“The president is asking the questions that have never been asked on …

Administration Attack on FoxNews Makes President Look Petty
20 Oct 2009 3:46 am

You know, if the president really wanted to look like he’s secure in his leadership and confident of the merits of his policies, instead of regularly dispatching his minions to trash FoxNews, he’d given them a talking point like this:
In this era of multiple sources of news, we’re pleased to see them out there. They may give our critics greater voice, but, that just gives us a greater opportunity to expose the flaws in their arguments and so make a better case for our policies.
But, rather than address the …

A quote “too good to check,” or, the prejudices of left-wing pundits
19 Oct 2009 1:54 am

The most telling thing about the media hullabaloo over statements left-wing bloggers and pundits claimed were made by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh was how quickly “journalists” at CNN and MSNBC were to report them to their wide, but dwindling, audiences:
Funny how both of these networks found a quote that happened to be useful in bludgeoning a prominent conservative too good to check. I wonder when was the last time they got the same fact wrong when reporting a political story.
Emphasis added. A statement “too good to check,” …

Hey, Ms. Scozzafava, How’s that “Stimulus” Working out for NY?
19 Oct 2009 12:18 am

When I read that GOP leaders in upstate New York had tapped a state legislator who backed the Democrats’ spendthrift “so-called stimulus,” I was astounded both how out of tune they were with the rank and file of our party and how clueless they were to the concerns of independent voters. They probably thought that by picking a social liberal, they could appeal to more moderate voters, as if the entirety of the party’s problems were related to its backing of social conservative causes and candidates.
Well, since Ms.Dede Scozzafava, the …

Basking in Obama’s Presence
24 Jul 2009 6:04 pm

Reading a Canadian Press article this morning that a friend had forwarded to me, I was struck yet again at how fawning the media have been toward this President, certain that because of his presences, his coolness, his rhetorical gifts and the singular nature of his election (the first black man elected president in a nation with a history of mistreatment of blacks) his must needs be a historic, transformational Administration.
Despite the “adoring press,” Obama has received, he hasn’t yet effected any great transformation for the better. His highly …

So, because she’s a public figure, Sarah Palin can’t raise money to defend herself against frivolous ethics charges filed against her because she’s a public figure?
21 Jul 2009 9:50 pm

As yet another piece of evidence to show just how biased the MSM have become against outgoing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, take a look at the first sentence of an article which Yahoo! featured earlier in the day as one of its news headlines, Investigator rules against Palin in ethics probe:*
An independent investigator has found evidence that Gov. Sarah Palin may have violated ethics laws by trading on her position in seeking money for legal fees, in the latest legal distraction for the former vice presidential candidate as she prepares …

Waxman-Markey Passes:
Job-killing Legislation Crafted by Men who Never Created a Job

27 Jun 2009

3:06 pm

While my Congressman has, to his credit, never taken an earmark to benefit our district, he has also never held a job in the sector he so delights in regulating. He doesn’t understand how money is made, innovation fostered and jobs created. For over forty years, Henry Waxman has served in government, six years in the California Assembly in Sacramento before being elected to Congress in 1974.
Together with his Bay State colleague Ed Markey, who has spent nearly as long as his California elder in elective office …

A Great Writer Gets that the “Great Satan” is Necessary to the Mullahs’ Tyranny
27 Jun 2009 3:03 pm

It is incredible how prescient was the nineteenth century novelist George Eliot (née Mary Anne Evans), who died approximately one century before Iran’s Islamic “Revolution, was about the driving force of this tyranny.
As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashes out at President Obama for interfering in Iranian affairs, it becomes increasingly clear to all but the most narrow-minded ideologues that nothing the United States can do or say, no matter how our leaders abase themselves before the mullahs, will change their attitude towards us. For they “need” to demonize us. …

Will the Spirit of Ronald Reagan Sink Obamacare?
20 Jun 2009 8:22 pm

No Democrat has ever won the White House running against Ronald Wilson Reagan. Walter Mondale tried, but barely won his own state. Michael Dukakis tried to make the 1988 election about competency instead of ideology, but George H.W. Bush made it about Ronald Reagan and Michael Dukakis. The Gipper’s Vice President won forty states that year. Had that Bush remembered the Gipper, he might have held his own four years later against Bill Clinton who, understanding the appeal of the Fortieth President, promised a middle …

The History of Ernesto Che Guevara – A Short Story

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