Once again some members of the media have taken to branding Rush Limbaugh a racist, offering backhanded compliments and genuine surprise that a black woman could have won the Miss America contest whilst he served as judge.

As Boyce Watkins lamented in his Black Voices article, (emphasis mine throughout):

"This week, Rush Limbaugh was standing in front of a talented black woman who was trying to become Miss America. I am not sure if Rush voted for her or not, but the black woman was able to win.  Caressa Cameron, a 22-year old from Virginia Commonwealth University, was crowned Saturday night as the winner of the 2010 Miss America pageant."

Watkins, himself a fervent anti-conservative from the Al Sharpton School of race baiting, was merely voicing what many in the media are thinking – a black woman won despite the presence of Limbaugh.

Take NBC Washington for example, who explains that Rush was indeed charmed by Ms. Cameron, saying that she won simply because she:

"…has it all. Extraordinarily good conversationalist, amazing presence, unique and classic beauty, glamour… and the girl can sing!"

NBC couldn’t contain their amazement however, as the full paragraph actually read:

The 22-year-old was even able to wow pageant judge Rush Limbaugh. The controversial conservative radio host told the Washington Post that Cameron won simply because she "has it all. Extraordinarily good conversationalist, amazing presence, unique and classic beauty, glamour… and the girl can sing!"

Was there no surprise that she was able to wow the likes of Vivica Fox, or Shawn Johnson?  Nay.  Therefore, it is safe to assume that Limbaugh was singled out specifically. 

Another Web site, HipHopWired.com, pulls no punches in their assessment that the odds were stacked against her because of Limbaugh’s presence:

"Her win came as a surprise to some considering that Rush Limbaugh was judging the competition."

To no one’s surprise, this thorough piece of journalism failed to provide sources for the aforementioned ‘some’ people.  Perhaps they interviewed citizens from the land of lollipops and unicorns, but it’s difficult to tell.

Despite the allusions to Miss America overcoming the allegedly racist Limbaugh, a majority of the media remains enamored with Rush’s dance moves at the pageant, as was reported here by Noel Sheppard.

For example, Joy Behar, whose IQ matches the number of candles on her birthday cake, was enamored with the radio host’s dance moves, discussing the event with Arianna Huffington and Candy Crowley on her show.  In the segment below, Behar attempts to belittle Rush, pointing to the ‘boos’ reigning down from the crowd.  Except, well, there aren’t really any audible jeers.

Behar leads viewers into the clip saying:

"Now some people actually booed Limbaugh when Gretchen Carlson introduced him."

Problem being, the clip shows Limbaugh being introduced, followed by rousing cheers and clearly visible applause from the crowd around him.

To further emphasize that - no really, there are boos coming from the crowd -Behar then goes on to state:

"Okay, they’re booing him.  Has he lost his mojo with these audiences, Candy?"

Huffington and Behar then move go on to criticizing Limbaugh as a person living in a fantasy world, ‘making stuff up’, which prompts Behar to deliver this shot:

"So their stupid speech… then we can counteract it with what we say, isn’t that how it works?"

Behar, a personification of the phrase ‘stupid speech’, apparently has decided to call the kettle black.  

Then again, that would be racist.

The White House continues to throw out random numbers in their quest to convince the public that their behemoth stimulus bill is saving jobs at a massive rate.  The confusion has even seeped into the President’s biggest support group – the media.

CNN recently announced how the stimulus plan funded nearly 600,000 jobs this past quarter.  In their article, which parrots the numbers provided by the administration’s Recovery.gov Web site, CNN hints that these figures may actually be low, in that they do not include jobs created ‘indirectly’ (emphasis mine throughout):

"It does not tally jobs created indirectly through companies buying supplies for stimulus projects, people spending their tax cuts, increased unemployment benefits and the like."

Would adding the number of indirect jobs have provided a boost to the stimulus numbers?

Not quite, according to a source CNN can likely trust – themselves…

Two days prior to the above article, CNN ran a piece about the nation’s first stimulus project, in which they similarly define indirect jobs as being created in the following manner:

"…supplying the steel, pouring the concrete and boosting the local community’s economy."

However, the article points out that federal officials had estimated that the project would create 220 of these indirect jobs.  This despite a statement from agricultural economist, Michael Sykuta, who surmises "that a single construction job normally spins off two or perhaps three indirect jobs at most."

An expert claims that 3 jobs are created indirectly at most, and the feds somehow estimate 220 – a mere increase of over 7,000%.  Embellish much?

Thus, reporting of the addition of indirect jobs created or saved is nearly as futile an effort as calculating those directly created or saved. 

Case in point, the numbers being touted by that first stimulus project.  In it, the administration provides an educated guess of 30 jobs created.  Now the Recovery.gov site is using a mathematical formula to determine that the project created or saved 24.69 jobs.  But the contractor involved in the project estimates that the number of jobs saved was 10.

Review that last paragraph for a moment.  Not only are the numbers trending downward, but the terminology involved is designed to drive the numbers upward.  Here is the transformation simplified:  30 created → 24.69 created or saved → 10 saved.

All of this is moot really, as the AP has already reported that tracking jobs created or saved via the new White House method would be impossible.  Impossible.  So why would the media report these dishonest job announcements from the White House, touting calculations that have already been proven an impossible mathematical feat?

Making things even more confusing are that the 600,000 jobs cited for this quarter are actually inflated by including jobs from the previous quarter.  As the AP reported:

"Recipients of recovery money no longer have to show that a job would have been lost without the stimulus help, and they no longer are required to keep an ongoing tally of jobs saved or created. The new rules allow stimulus recipients to limit the job tally to quarterly reports, making it impossible to avoid double-counting a job that was created in one quarter and continued into the next."

Furthermore, the quarterly job report mentions nearly 600,000 jobs funded, coinciding with the AP report that the calculations will no longer count jobs saved or created, but only jobs funded.  Yet, the White House Web site continues the dishonest theme by continuing to list them as jobs ‘created‘.

Created, saved, funded.  Double-counting directly or indirectly created jobs. 

The Obama administration’s smoke and mirrors tactics continue.  Change they should be embarrassed by…

Photo Credit:  Cleveland Plain Dealer

Michael Moore’s schlockumentary "Capitalism: A Love Story" has been approved for a taxpayer-funded subsidy he once criticized.

According to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a nonpartisan Michigan-based think tank, Moore’s 2009 film is set to receive an undisclosed amount of money from the Michigan Film Office.

Yet Moore, who ironically advises the state-run Office, told a forum in July 2008 that he was opposed to such subsidies (video of MCPP’s findings on this matter embedded below the fold along with highlights from its January 28 press release):

"While we don’t blame Mr. Moore and his production team for taking what is offered, it’s striking that a movie focused on the inequities of granting taxpayer dollars to private enterprise would apply for and receive taxpayer-funded incentives," said Michael LaFaive, fiscal policy director at the Mackinac Center. "Government should not be bailing out or subsidizing Wall Street banks or main street filmmakers. As Moore knows, this marriage between government and business – in the name of creating and saving jobs – can facilitate every sort of mischief." 

At a forum in July 2008, Moore seemed critical of the program, which provides filmmakers with refundable tax credits worth as much as 42 percent of expenditures for movies made in the state.

"These are large multinational corporations – Viacom, GE, Rupert Murdoch – that own these studios," said Moore at the Traverse City event. "Why do they need our money, from Michigan, from our taxpayers, when we’re already broke here? I mean, they play one state against another, and so they get all this free cash when they’re making billions already in profits. What’s the thinking behind that?"

So, as Moore was making a film about evil capitalists taking money from regular folk, he was actually applying for a taxpayer subsidy from a state with huge fiscal problems and staggeringly high unemployment:

"Given the state’s precarious fiscal status, should struggling families and businesses continue subsidizing filmmakers?" asked LaFaive. "How can a state with the nation’s worst unemployment rate justify special tax favors to millionaire filmmakers?"

I guess this is just another example of the liberal mantra "Do As I Say, Not As I Do!"  

Salon editor Joan Walsh said Sunday that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews roots for Barack Obama.

Appearing on CNN’s "Reliable Sources," Walsh was asked by host Howard Kurtz to comment on Matthews’ remark that he had forgotten the President was black during Wednesday’s State of the Union address.

"There’s no such thing as post-racial, and so I disagree with Chris about that," said Walsh.

"But on the other hand, I think his heart really is in the right place in terms of — you know, he roots for this president" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: There tends to be a one-liner that everybody remembers from these kinds of speeches. In this case, though, it was not spoken by the president. It was Chris Matthews.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS: He is post-racial, by all appearances. I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Joan Walsh, I’ve got less than a minute. Your reaction to those words?

JOAN WALSH, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF SALON: There’s no such thing as post-racial, and so I disagree with Chris about that. But on the other hand, I think his heart really is in the right place in terms of — you know, he roots for this president. Like that or not, people criticize him for that. But, you know, he was trying to say something positive on…

KURTZ: He definitely was trying to say something positive.

But did he put it rather clumsily, would you say, David Frum?

WALSH: I would say it was clumsy, yes.

KURTZ: David?

DAVID FRUM, FRUMFORUM.COM: I think the meaning of it so leaps out at people, it almost defies comment. You just wonder what happens all the other hours of his life.

KURTZ: All right.

Isn’t it nice how liberals always forgive the transgressions of other liberals by saying, "Their  heart was in the right place?"

Of course, it’s certainly no surprise Matthews roots for this President. He told us two days after Obama was elected that was his job: 

What’s concerning is how obvious he is about it, and how others in the media — even those on his side of the aisle — are not only beginning to notice, but also criticize him for it.

Maybe this is part of a growing trend: one liberal in the press says something REALLY over the top, and others quickly respond.

But why?

Is it because leftwing journalists are getting sick of hearing how liberal the media are, and they want to squelch the most blatant examples to promote the appearance of impartiality?

Or is it more selfish than that?

After all, if you are willing to publicly call out one of your own, maybe it makes YOU look less liberal.

Whatever the reason, let’s hope it continues for it really is great theatre watching these folks go after each other rather than conservatives for a change. 

CBS White House correspondent Chip Reid took his Friday night cheering routine for Barack Obama’s "command performance" at the GOP meeting in Baltimore and repeated it on Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN. "The president realy did wallop them there," he insisted. "The Republicans were fighting them with one hand, maybe both hands, tied behind their back."

HOWARD KURTZ: How is it that the cameras stayed only on the president and we didn’t get to actually see the Republican members of Congress that were asking those questions?

REID: Well, I think in many ways, the president really did wallop them there. I think the White House feels that way, and it was because the Republicans were fighting with one hand, maybe both hands, tied behind their back.

First of all, they were not on camera asking the questions. It was just a disembodied voice, at least in the live version, because they didn’t have it set up so they could have two live cameras at the same time. It was just a technical thing. Later, we used the questions in my Evening News piece, for example. But if you were watching it live, it was like the president alone was up there.

KURTZ: Up on Mount Olympus.

REID: Exactly. And they would ask the question. And they’re in no more "you lie" moment mode right now. The Republicans are back off from that. They are not in a position to — they wanted so badly to say that’s nonsense, or you know that’s not true, to fight back, but they couldn’t because of the format. So, basically what happened, whatever sports metaphor you want to use, mine is that they would ask a question, then the Republican defense would leave the field and Obama would run for a touchdown because they couldn’t fight back.

Kurtz also played a clip of Obama in his State of the Union address attacking TV pundits: "The more the TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away." That sounds like an attack on the talk-TV titans, but Kurtz suggested to Reid he was being attacked, and Reid said he would accept the criticism, since some of it’s justified:

KURTZ: Look, the president, Chip Reid, went after Republicans, the Supreme Court, sitting right there, but also used your airwaves and CNN’s airwaves, everybody’s airwaves, to go after the likes of you. Were you offended?

REID: Oh, not at all. That’s part of the game. I would expect him to, and some of it’s justified.
(Crosstalk)

KURTZ: I can’t recall hearing the media be a target in a State of the Union speech before. Maybe sometimes.

REID: That may be true, but he certainly has targeted — he targeted me personally at a town hall once. He saw me off to the side and he basically made that same attack, and said, "Right, Chip?" And the whole audience turned and looked at me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to defend myself or my profession. At that time, anyway.

James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal found a liberal who cheered the recent Supreme Court decision on freedom of political speech: Floyd Abrams, an attorney who represented the New York Times successfully in the Pentagon Papers case in the 1970s. (He’s also the father of former MSNBC executive and host Dan Abrams). In the Journal’s Weekend Inteview, Abrams told Taranto it’s ironic that so many media entities support freedom of speech for their companies, but not for non-media companies:

The First Amendment is the lifeblood of the press. Yet most newspapers—the one you are reading is a notable exception—take an editorial position similar to that of the Times. Why? "I think that two things are at work," Mr. Abrams says. "One is that there are an awful lot of journalists that do not recognize that they work for corporations….

"A second is an ideological one. I think that there is a way of viewing this decision which…looks not at whether the First Amendment was vindicated but whether what is simply referred to as, quote, democracy, unquote, was vindicated. My view is, we live in a world in which the word ‘democracy’ is debatable…It is not a word which should determine interpretation of a constitution and a Bill of Rights, which is at its core a legal document as well as an affirming statement of individual freedom," he says. "Justice Potter Stewart . . . warned against giving up the protections of the First Amendment in the name of its values. . . . The values matter, the values are real, but we protect the values by protecting the First Amendment."

A third factor surely is that McCain-Feingold exempted media corporations from its strictures against electioneering. Under this regime, free speech was not a constitutional right but a privilege granted by Congress to companies like those that own the Times and the Journal, but denied to other businesses, labor unions and nonprofit advocacy corporations.

Taranto also brought up the curious case of the ACLU:

Another corporation whose speech was chilled by McCain-Feingold was the American Civil Liberties Union. In his 2005 book, "Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment," Mr. Abrams reports that during the 2004 campaign, the ACLU "broadcast advertisements denouncing the Patriot Act but refrained, as McCain-Feingold required, from criticizing (or even mentioning) President Bush as it did so." Writing for the court in Citizens United, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that if the ACLU "creates a Web site telling the public to vote for a Presidential candidate in light of that candidate’s defense of free speech," it would be guilty of a felony under McCain-Feingold.

Yet even though the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to rule as they did, its Web site has been silent on the decision.

Abrams recently appeared before an ACLU panel trying to talk them out of the notion of reversing their opposition to limits on corporate free speech.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Sunday that CNN’s Larry King does a better job interrogating his guests than Justice Department officials did with Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab after his capture.

Speaking with John King on CNN’s "State of the Union" about whether terrorist trials should be held in civil courts, McConnell said, "What we need to do is deny these people a show trial."

He continued, "We need to proceed to interrogate them, which you couldn’t do obviously with the Christmas bomber."

Then came the zinger, "I mean, Larry King would have a more thorough interrogation of one of his witnesses than the Christmas bomber had by the Justice Department" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Politico):

JOHN KING, HOST: If you ask the White House about this, it highlights — they say it’s not just the president, it’s not just Attorney General Holder, that General David Petraeus says he believes a public trial at a federal courthouse is the best way to do it so that it’s not an al Qaeda recruiting tool.

That Secretary Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration at the Defense Department, also they believes a trial in the federal court system is preferable to a closed trial in the military commission. And that the CIA operatives leading the fight against these guys in Yemen, in Somalia, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, also believe that if you did it in a closed setting in a military commission it would be a powerful recruiting tool.

If General Petraeus, Secretary Gates, and the intelligence leaders say, do it in court, why do you say that’s a bad idea?

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KENTUCKY): I simply disagree and so do the American people.

Look, Guantanamo is — it was not there before they started attacking us in the ’90s, before they attacked us on 9/11. Osama bin Laden did not mention Guantanamo in his last video. What we need to do is deny these people a show trial. We need to proceed to interrogate them, which you couldn’t do obviously with the Christmas bomber.

I mean, Larry King would have a more thorough interrogation of one of his witnesses than the Christmas bomber had by the Justice Department. This is really dangerous nonsense. We have a way to do it, John. Interrogate them, detain them, and try them in military commissions offshore at Guantanamo from which no one has ever escaped.

The American people think that’s the best way to do it. Most of the legal experts that we talk to think it’s the best way to do it.

Indeed. 

There was a marvelous fireworks display on Sunday’s "This Week" when Fox News chairman Roger Ailes squared off against liberal media powerhouses Arianna Huffington, Paul Krugman, and substitute host Barbara Walters.

The one standing at the end likely didn’t vote for Barack Obama.

In the second half of the Roundtable segment, Walters began by asking her conservative guest about the White House’s much-publicized battle with his network.

Almost as if scripted, this teed up Huffington and Krugman to voice their displeasure with Fox.

Fortunately, Ailes was up to the challenge making for a very entertaining segment (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript and commentary): 

BARBARA WALTERS, HOST: That was President Obama appearing before House Republicans at their annual retreat on Friday, an unusually open and honest back-and-forth, and we’ll talk more about that with our roundtable. George Will, Arianna Huffington, Paul Krugman, and Roger Ailes, who is chairman and CEO of Fox News.

Roger, just let me begin with you. You have had your own back-and-forth with the White House. They were not very happy with you, banned you for a while. Have you kissed and made up? Is it hunky-dory?

ROGER AILES. CHAIRMAN FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Well, they tried to ban us. They tried to break the pool, but the other networks stepped up and protected Fox on it, because it was tortuous (ph) interference with a contractual relationship and sort of tramping around on the Constitution…

WALTERS: But now you’re OK.

AILES: We’re fine. I mean, we were — it was not as bad as it was played, and things are not as great (ph) as they should be, but we have a good dialogue. And I saw the president and his wife at the media Christmas party. They were very gracious, very nice, both of them. And we have a dialogue every day with them.

WALTERS: Aw, shucks. It was more fun the other way.

AILES: Well, I’ll pick a fight if you want. I mean, I’ll be happy to get into one.

(LAUGHTER)

AILES: But I think there will be others. We have differences, but…

Round one to Ailes. Next up was the uber-liberal Huffington:

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Well, Roger, it’s not a question of picking a fight. And aren’t you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using, which is, after all, inciting the American people? There is a lot of suffering out there, as you know, and when he talks about people being slaughtered, about who is going to be the next in the killing spree…

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people. So I think he was probably accurate. Also, I’m a little….

HUFFINGTON: No, no, he was talking about this administration.

AILES: I don’t — I think he speaks English. I don’t know, but I mean, I don’t misinterpret any of his words. He did say one unfortunate thing, which he apologized for, but that happens in live television. So I don’t think it’s — I think if we start going around as the word police in this business, it will be…

HUFFINGTON: It’s not about the word police. It’s about something deeper. It’s about the fact that there is a tradition as the historian Richard Hofstetter said, in American politics, of the paranoid style. And the paranoid style is dangerous when there is real pain out there. I mean, with…

AILES: I agree with you. I read something on your blog that said I looked like J. Edgar Hoover, I had a face like a fist, and I was essentially a malignant tumor…

HUFFINGTON: Well, that’s…

AILES: And I thought — and then it got nasty after that…

HUFFINGTON: … that was never by anybody that we had…

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: Then it really went nasty, and I thought, gee, maybe Arianna ought to cut this out, but…

Round two for Ailes. Enter Paul Krugman stage FAR left:

PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: If I can just — you know, what bothers me is not the nasty language. Glenn Beck doesn’t, you know, it’s not — what bothers me is the fact that people are not getting informed, that we are going through major debates on crucial policy issues; the public is not learning about them. And you know, you can say, well, they can read the New York Times, which will tell them what they need to know, but you know, most people don’t. They don’t read it thoroughly. They get — on this health care thing, I’m a little obsessed with it, because it’s a key issue for me. People did not know what was in the plan, and some of that was just poor reporting, some of it was deliberate misinformation. I have here in front of me when President Obama said, you know, why — he said rhetorically, why aren’t we going to do a health care plan like the Europeans have, with a government-run program, and then proceeds to explain whey he’s different. On Fox News, what appeared was a clipped quote, "why don’t we have a European-style health care plan?" Right, deliberate misinformation.

All of that has contributed to a situation where the public…

AILES: Wait a minute, wait a minute…

KRUGMAN: I can show you the clip, and you can…

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: The American people are not stupid…

KRUGMAN: No, they’re not stupid. They are uninformed.

AILES: If you say — if (inaudible) words are in the Constitution, if the founding fathers managed — they didn’t need 2,000 pages of lawyers to hide things, then tell, then tell…

KRUGMAN: Oh, come on. Legislation always is long.

AILES: … then tell people it’s an emergency that we get it, but it won’t go into effect for three years. So you don’t have time to read it, you…

(CROSSTALK)

Round three for Ailes.

Clearly sensing they were losing, Huffington and Krugman decided to try a tag-team:

KRUGMAN: People, again, this was a plan that is — it’s actually a Republican plan. It’s Mitt Romney’s health care plan. People were led to believe that it was socialism. That’s — and that was deliberate. That wasn’t just poor reporting.

(CROSSTALK)

HUFFINGTON: There are two separate problems…

AILES: Let me ask you a question, just as an example…

(CROSSTALK)

HUFFINGTON: … let me just answer that, because there is a problem in the fact that there wasn’t a plan. There wasn’t a plan that people could understand. There were (inaudible) plans with a lot of differences. But there is also a problem when it comes to the words being used. Words matter. And words that are actually being used by people we hire are different than the words that are being used by commenters on our sites, like you mentioned.

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: But there are 300 million people who have a health care plan that they are happy with. There are about 30 million people who don’t have a health care plan. So as an executive, what do you do? You go fix the 30 million. You don’t go over here and upset the apple cart for 300 million…

KRUGMAN: Which is exactly what the plan was.

AILES: No, no, no…

KRUGMAN: It was trying (ph) to leave the employer-based health care…

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: … $500 billion away from old people.

The Huffington-Krugman tag-team didn’t work. So, Walters moments later jumped into the ring and tried to weaken their opponent by bringing up the former governor of Alaska:

WALTERS: I just want to ask, in the few seconds we have left, Sarah Palin is now on your payroll. OK? 2012, presidential candidate?

AILES: I have no — no idea, no idea whether she even wants to. I don’t think she — she knows. I mean, everybody hates her who’s ever written a book because they didn’t sell many. She wrote a book and it sold two million in two weeks, and so now they hate her, they have a new reason to hate her. I don’t know…

WALTERS: But you hired her to be a commentator. Do you think — so you must think she has some qualifications? She seems to be very popular with certain groups. Do you think she has the qualifications to be president?

AILES: FOX News is fair and balanced. We had Geraldine Ferraro on for 10 years as the only woman the Democrats ever nominated. Now we have the only woman that the Republicans nominated. I’m not in politics, I’m in ratings. We’re willing.

HUFFINGTON: Roger, you clearly are in ratings, but if you are in ratings, can you explain to me why FOX went away from the meeting the president was having in — why did you go away, 20 minutes before the end?

AILES: Because we’re the most trusted name in news.

HUFFINGTON: OK and on that note…

WALTERS: I thought we were the most trusted name in news.

AILES: And we believe two liberal polls have now proven it.

Ouch. Say good night!

Add it all up, and Ailes took on three of the left’s media darlings without getting a scratch.

The next time he’s invited on the producers should substitute another liberal for George Will to see if four leftists can fare better against the Fox News chairman than three.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.

Less than two months after receiving a Nobel Peace Prize, the President is proposing a huge increase in war spending.

Despite his campaign pledges to the contrary, Obama’s new budget calls for expenditures associated with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to increase to levels only ten percent below the average of former President George W. Bush’s last two years in office.

Given the media’s anti-war predilections, it’s going to be fascinating to see how the following numbers revealed by Politico a few hours ago will be reported in the coming days:

President Barack Obama’s new budget, to be released Monday, forecasts two consecutive years of near $160 billion in war funding, far more than he hoped when elected and only modestly less than the last years of the Bush Administration.

In 2011 alone, the revised numbers are triple what the president included in his spending plan a year ago. [...]

The president’s 2010 defense budget a year ago requested $130 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and just $50 billion in 2011. The new budget ramps up 2010 spending to $163 billion and for 2011 requests $159 billion in overseas contingency funds for the military.

This reverses the drop in war-related spending seen in fiscal 2009, which ended last Sept 30th and was a transition year of sorts between the two administrations. When compared to the peak war spending of the Bush years, Obama is only about 10% below Bush’s annual average of $176 billion in fiscal years 2007 and 2008-the time of the Iraq war surge.

This budget proposal comes just five days after Obama blamed current and future budget deficits on his predecessor "not paying for two wars."

With this in mind, and given how the media loved to ridicule Bush for what they felt was unnecessary military spending, it’s going to be fascinating to see how they react to Monday’s announcement.

Stay tuned. 

In a contribution to the Boston Globe Magazine published nine days before the January 19 Senate election won by Republican Scott Brown, veteran Globe Magazine writer Charles Pierce ridiculed the idea Brown could win, in a piece formulated as a letter to Brown:

Well, we’re almost here, aren’t we? The end of a long, arduous, four-month campaign for a Senate seat that you have approximately the same chance of filling as you did the pilot’s chair of the Starship Enterprise.

The cocky Pierce wasn’t done, writing in his weekly “Pierced” column toward the front of the January 10 magazine:

The notion that Massachusetts would elect a Republican to fill the seat left vacant by Edward Kennedy was the property of people who buy interesting mushrooms in interesting places. You might as well expect the House of Windsor to be succeeded on the British throne by the Kardashian sisters.

Pierce is infamous for his 2003 Globe Magazine tribute to Ted Kennedy in which he ludicrously postulated: “If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age.”

The quote, from a January 5, 2003 profile, “Kennedy Unbound: After 40 years in the US Senate, Edward M. Kennedy has transcended the family mythology and become his own man,” was recognized as the worst of the year at the MRC’s DisHonors Awards in 2004. For a longer excerpt, check this BiasAlert from the time of last year’s Chappaquiddick 40th anniversary.

Last year Pierce wrote a book denigrating Sarah Palin, amongst others, ‘Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.’ (Screen shot is from a June of 2009 MSNBC appearance to promote it.)

In this January’s column, titled “The longest shot: Call it a Senate race if you want, but it’s not,” Pierce suggested the sure-loser Brown become the perennial losing candidate for the Senate seat:

But you’ve got a career now. In fact, I’d like to make you an offer. You may not have noticed, but your party doesn’t have much of what the sportswriters call a bench around these parts. I would like to make you the permanent Republican candidate for US senator.

From the top of the article, to which I was alerted by a Boston-area friend who wishes to remain anonymous:

Dear Scott Brown:

Well, we’re almost here, aren’t we? The end of a long, arduous, four-month campaign for a Senate seat that you have approximately the same chance of filling as you did the pilot’s chair of the Starship Enterprise. Things might not be looking too terrific for our Democratic president — or, for that matter, for his good pal, our Democratic governor — but the notion that Massachusetts would elect a Republican to fill the seat left vacant by Edward Kennedy was the property of people who buy interesting mushrooms in interesting places. You might as well expect the House of Windsor to be succeeded on the British throne by the Kardashian sisters.

(And, by the way, if Teddy gets wind of how you claimed in your commercials to be the true heir to the tax-cutting legacy of his brother, the president, he’s going to come back from the dead and beat you severely over the head with a yachting cap.)…