The new era of citizen-empowered politics, where personal investment and political energy is created upon “principle,” means Senator Lindsay Graham (SC) has already lost his re-election bid of 2014; he just doesn’t know it yet. (more)
I really thought that the media and political class were starting to get it. The giggling from tea bag jokes started to subside and “mainstream” media coverage seemed less slanted. The maladjusted schoolboy bullies seemed to be maturing. It turns out that the only thing developing was the complexity of their anti-tea party propaganda campaign. (more)
From the outset, the wildly popular Tea Party movement was ignored, marginalized, and ridiculed by the media and political elites that cheered President Obama into office. While today many in the media and political class tend to over-simplify the movement, most commentators—save for the propagandists on some outlets—have figured out that this is a very healthy, very mainstream civic reawakening. (more)
This week, conservatives of all stripes will gather in Washington for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. As this event also marks the one-year anniversary of the birth of the Tea Party movement, I think it is particularly appropriate to take a step back and reflect on the impact of the movement in its short one-year history. (more)
There is plenty of speculation regarding what President Obama will say tonight during the State of the Union address. I am apathetic, and I would wager that millions of folks feel the same way. Why? Because over the past year, the president and his sharp-elbowed Chicagoan crew have shown that what they say bears little or no correlation with what they do and is equally detached from the stark realities this nation faces. This administration is at best politically impotent, at worst as dishonest and manipulative as the worst of the Beltway hacks they assailed while campaigning on the promise of a new, post-partisan era. (more)
I wake up today and, per usual, turn on Fox, do some e-mailing, and peruse the headlines online. It’s a Cinnamon Toast Crunch morning, which bodes well, but I realize I’m deep in the midst of Conan/Leno fatigue. Die, story, die. (more)
