Washington Post fashion reporter Robin Givhan, best known to many as Michelle Obama’s worshipful accessory to fashion, lectured Sunday to the dumpy masses of America. As most U.S. citizens have "blighted" the landscape in horrid summer clothes, they should really honor the First Lady for knowing how to dress on vacation — even if Mrs. Obama is wearing a French-designer top that most likely cost upwards of $500 as she took taxpayers for a ride with a fancy Spanish vacation.

There is no populism in the fashionista world.

The headline on E6 in the Sunday Post read "Tourists, take some tips from an always photo-ready first lady: Don’t be slobs". And so the lecture began:

First lady Michelle Obama returned to the White House last week after spending her summer vacation walking the fine fashion line between comfortably casual and utterly camera-ready. Her travel attire served as a wake-up call to all those American tourists who have blighted the national landscape with their ill-fitting shorts, sad-sack T-shirts and aggressively revealing tank tops: You can do better.

More than her cocktail dresses, evening gowns and the rest of her official wardrobe, which all draw boisterous analysis, Obama’s vacation clothes are positioned to have the most widespread impact. Please, let it be so.

In a society where public attire has grown increasingly pajama-fied, the first lady offered proof that informal doesn’t mean sloppy and pulled-together doesn’t have to be stuffy.

As usual, Givhan found Michelle struck a perfect balance, classy without being snobbishly elite:

Through her vacation apparel, with its mix of Banana Republic and Narciso Rodriguez, Obama threw down the gauntlet, providing folks with a high-profile lesson on how to be a well-dressed tourist who does not cause the locals to flinch in dismay. Yet she still managed to convey a middle-of-the-road Americanness. She represented the populace in a manner that was approachable but savvy.

In the most prominent photograph from her trip to Spain, she was wearing a black and white one-shoulder top by designer Jean Paul Gaultier. Certainly, Gaultier doesn’t come cheap, but the blouse wasn’t ostentatious and, paired with black trousers, it was a fine example of how to be bare without baring all.

Notice that Givhan doesn’t labor to give us a specific price for the French top on the pricey Spanish trip, or compare that to the aura of failure left by a 9.6 unemployment rate and a failed Obama "stimulus" spending binge. Instead, in full worship mode, Givhan found that Mrs. Obama is a real-life fantasy for fashionistas who can’t stand the awful casual clothes choices of the lumpenproletariat:

Obama also tapped into a fantasy that the fashion industry has been desperately selling for years. Designers have long imagined a world in which women and men are thoughtfully polished and even chic as they go about their daily activities. Stylists constantly counsel clients to keep aesthetics in mind, as well as comfort, when they choose their weekend wear. In fashion-land, no one ever wears skimpy jogging shorts when they bike; they wear charming clam diggers. They don’t wear lumpy basketball shoes, instead they choose laceless, retro sneakers.

The images of Obama cycling along the paths of Martha’s Vineyard called these fantasies to mind. She proved that they can be made real. She reassured designers that no, they are not off their rocker. American vacation sloppiness is not inevitable; it’s willful.

Givhan at least had to admit that she was at the front of the line attacking Mrs. Obama’s choice last summer to wear one of those awful, sloppy summer outfits as she disembarked a plane to visit the Grand Canyon. Apparently, this is Givhan’s way of letting the reader know that Mrs. Obama is paying attention to her critiques.

Does Givhan thinks she’s doing Obama or the Democrats any favors with this kind of lecturing to Middle America? Get with it, and get out of your ghastly J.C. Penney togs! Get thee to Bergdorf Goodman! But Givhan she concluded the whole piece with another lecture, about how gauche Americans traveling abroad send all the wrong fashion signals:

[W]hen regular folks travel abroad, they represent both themselves and the collective American identity. Must we continue to be perceived as the most poorly dressed of all tourists? And for those who remain in the States during the final long weekend of the summer, as you visit national parks and local beaches, remember: We are all part of the landscape. We are part of the postcard image, the memory that’s tucked into a scrapbook. We should do our best not to mar this country’s natural beauty.

Howard Kurtz on Sunday asked the editor of Time magazine why he doesn’t have any conservative columnists. 

"Rick [Stengel], you’ve just hired Fareed Zakaria, whose "GPS" program on CNN precedes mine," said Kurtz on CNN’s "Reliable Sources.

"And you have, of course, Joe Klein, well-known liberal writer and columnist," continued Kurtz.

"Now, with all the hiring that you’ve done, how have you not managed to find a conservative columnist?"

Most humorously, after giving what he must have thought was a cute answer, Stengel quickly contradicted himself (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Rick, you’ve just hired Fareed Zakaria, whose "GPS" program on CNN precedes mine. And you have, of course, Joe Klein, well-known liberal writer and columnist.

Now, with all the hiring that you’ve done, how have you not managed to find a conservative columnist?

RICHARD STENGEL, TIME EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: I would love to find one. So I’m talking — if you’re listening and you’re a fantastic conservative columnist, and you want to write for "TIME," give me a call.

Cute answer, but pretty pathetic when you think about it.

After all, there are many conservative writers out there. If Stengel wanted to hire one, it wouldn’t be too difficult.

Unfortunately, Kurtz gave him a pass on this and moved on: 

KURTZ: And you know, you have Nancy Gibbs writing the back page column, but at times I look at "TIME" magazine and it seems like a bit of a boys club. You have a lot of prominent male writers.

Is that an area you need to work on as well?

Here comes the truly delicious contradiction: 

STENGEL: Of course it’s an area we need to work on. I mean, we do a lot of stories that actually are focused on a female audience and female readers. You know, I do think that just the way "TIME" in many ways is actually a snapshot, a mirror of America — you know, we’re red and blue, we’re in the center of the country, we’re on the coasts — I mean, we should also mirror the way America is too in terms of diversity, gender, all of that.

How can a magazine be "red" without one conservative contributor?

Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Sadly, Kurtz gave him a pass on this as well. 

Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager on Sunday said Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin are currently the leaders of the Republican Party, and this represents a long-term problem for the GOP.

Appearing on NBC’s "Meet the Press," David Plouffe was asked about a number of questions facing the nation as well as the President he helped get elected.

Apparently feeling the need to do some conservative bashing, host Gregory asked Plouffe about a section from his book "Audacity to Win" dealing with Limbaugh, Beck, and Palin.

This set the Obama adviser up nicely to go after targets liberals just love to hate (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

DAVID GREGORY, HOST: Finally, a quote from your book, handicapping the Republican field, this is what you write in the new part of "Audacity to Win." "This is the Republican Party of 2010, and I think it will be the Republican Party for a long time. It is hard to see how a Republican gets the presidential nomination without winning the plurality of the Palin-Limbaugh-Beck base of the Republican Party. Without a drastic change in orientation, they will probably nominate someone a good bit out of the mainstream." Who do you have in mind? Who do you think is the most formidable Republican likely to challenge President Obama?

DAVID PLOUFFE: Oh, I have no idea. I mean, this time four years ago there was very few of us talking about Barack Obama running for president, including me. So I think some of the people that we think are going to run may not run. There’ll be other people who’ll run. We’ll see. I wish I could just sit back with a tub of popcorn and, and enjoy it because I think it’s going to be quite an adventure.

MR. GREGORY: But who is the leader of the Republican Party, would you say?

MR. PLOUFFE: I think the–I think right now–and this is a problem for them long term–I do think that Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, they are the leaders of the party. And you see whenever–I was struck by–Senator Coburn from Oklahoma, I think, was at a town hall meeting and said, "I don’t agree with anything the Democrats are doing, and I don’t agree with Speaker Pelosi, but she’s a nice person," and got attacked for that. There, there is an intolerance in that party and an extremism that I think is where the real energy is. And so I think, as you see in ‘11 and ‘12, as that presidential primary, those are the people that are going to come out to vote. So I think that’s where the real energy is, and I think particularly in, in elections where more people vote, in presidential elections where you have a lot more younger people, minorities, independent voters who skew a little bit more moderate, that’s going to be a big problem. So we’ll just have to wait and see. But let’s get this–through this election first, and then we’ll be right on to the next one.

It truly is fascinating the left and their media minions continue to bash Limbaugh, Beck, and Palin.

After all, with the possible exceptions of Obama and the Clintons, there aren’t any other liberal political figures in this nation that come close to the popularity and visibility of these three conservatives.

As such, suggesting that they represent a problem for Republicans is like saying ground beef and potatoes are bad for McDonalds.

Regardless, Gregory just couldn’t resist giving his guest the opportunity to attack three of the nation’s most well-known conservatives.

As the jingle goes, "If it’s Sunday…" 

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, NBC host David Gregory wrapped up his interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham by setting up a debate with anti-war NBC reporter Richard Engel, who wasn’t shy this week in asserting on NBC’s Today that the Iraq war was unnecessary, that Saddam Hussein was growing more moderate and respectable by the day, and was gaining acceptance in Europe.

After Gregory played a clip of that — complete with Engel calling Iraq a "giant distraction of resources" from Afghanistan, just like a congressional Democrat – Senator Graham insisted that the NBC reporter was "completely rewriting history" and that Saddam "was not becoming a good citizen, he was becoming a more dangerous dictator. The world is better with him dead."

Even as this stage of the Iraq war, as the surge seems to quite clearly brought peace and calm, never-say-it’s-a-win die-hards in the liberal media are the first line of attack on the Republican position:

DAVID GREGORY:  Senator, I want to conclude by asking you a question about Iraq and Afghanistan.  The president, of course, ended Operation Iraqi Freedom with an Oval Office address, addressing the nation on that point on the end of the war.  Our own chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, who covered the war throughout and has covered the war in Afghanistan as well, offered some analysis during an appearance with Ann Curry on the "Today" show about the legacy of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  I’d like you to listen and react to it.

RICHARD ENGEL:  If there had been no invasion, Saddam would still be in power.  He was probably getting more moderate.  He was being welcomed into the–into–by, by a lot of European countries.  He was being welcomed into Eastern Europe in particular.  He as heading in a, in a direction of, of accommodation.  The, the sanctioned regime that was holding him in place was starting to fail.  So I think he would–it would be somewhat of a, a basket case, but it would still–it would be–Iran would be a lot more contained. So it would be a dictatorship that was trying to break out of its box, but Iran would not be as dangerous as it, as it is today.

ANN CURRY:  And had the United States not invaded Iraq, would we be done in Afghanistan?

RICHARD ENGEL:  Probably.  That was a giant distraction of resources, of intelligence assets.  That war would probably be over.

GREGORY:  Senator, what do you say?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM:  Completely rewriting history.  Our planes were being shot at in the no-fly zones, Saddam Hussein was violating every U.N. resolution to account for his weapons program, he was openly defying the international community when it came to controlling Iraq.  He was not becoming a good citizen, he was becoming a more dangerous dictator.  The world is better with him dead.  If we can get a government together soon in Iraq and it becomes stable and secure, we’ll have a democracy between Iran and Syria.  Iran’s biggest nightmare is to have a neighbor on their border who practices democracy.  So the 4,400 young men and women who’ve died have done this country a great service by securing Iraq and making…

GREGORY:  Well, nobody’s disputing whether they’ve done the country a great service.  But even our current…

GRAHAM:  We’re safer.

GREGORY:  …defense secretary, who’s a Republican says, "Iraq will always be clouded by how it began." Three-quarters of the American people think it was not worth the cost.

GRAHAM:  Well, I can tell you, we will be safer by how it ends.  History will judge us, not by what we did wrong at the beginning, but what we got right at the end.  If we can get the government stable in–and, and President Obama, it is now his job to finish out Iraq. 

If it finishes out well and it becomes secure and stable, allied with us on the war on terror–this is the place al-Qaeda was beat by fellow Muslims.  I can’t underestimate how important that was.  Al-Qaeda went into Iraq to topple our efforts to bring about stability and representative government, and they were, they were beaten by Muslims with our help.  That is a huge win in the war on terror. 

So Afghanistan is a — we’re getting things better, we got a long ways to go, but I am glad we did what we did in Iraq.  America will be safer and history will record this as a big event in the Mideast where a dictatorship was replaced by a democracy in the heart of the Arab world.

PS: I am not related to Senator Graham.

Looking for someone to investigate theft and questionable spending in government programs? Think twice about hiring Rachel Maddow. The earnest MSNBC polemicist has deemed such a thing impossible, at least when it comes to Social Security.

Reacting with the reptilian defensiveness of liberals whenever conservatives suggest Social Security is unsustainable, Maddow made this whopper of a claim on her show Sept. 1 in response to former senator Alan Simpson’s pithy criticism of the FDR-created sacred cow —

MADDOW: Here’s the broader context, what he said, it was in an email, what he wrote in that email, in which that quote, from which that quote was taken. This is what he said — ‘yes, I’ve made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know ‘em too. It’s the same with any system in America. We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million [tits]‘, thing that starts with T that rhymes with bits.

If you can avoid being distracted by the metaphor, consider what Sen. Simpson’s broader point is here — people on Social Security, milking it to the last degree, the same with any system in America. You know what, this is worth saying — there is no milking of the Social Security system, to any degree. Social Security is a payroll deduction, it’s taken out of your paycheck. Every single time you are paid there’s a line in your paystub showing that your money has been taken out of your paycheck now while you’re working. That’s you earning your Social Security benefits. The idea being, you will get that money back someday, you fund to the program now for today’s retirees and then when you retire the money will be paid back to you by the next generation of workers.

When later in life you get paid the benefits you’ve earned, that is not milking it. That’s getting paid your due. It is a social contract. You did your part. You get something for that. The real issue is not that a cranky retired senator uses distractingly funny metaphors to talk about how much he hates that social contract. The real issue is that he’s got that hate. This isn’t a tea party, this is the country. Whose idea was it to let Alan Simpson anywhere near Social Security?

Along the same lines, whose idea was it to let Maddow anywhere near analysis of Social Security? One must travel back to the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union to hear such strenuous gushing about a government diktat, in the manner of an agricultural apparatchik extolling yet another record harvest.

Seeing how MSNBC’s answer to Inspector Clouseau has ruled out even the possibility of malfeasance in Social Security, the office of inspector general within that mammoth agency is clearly redundant and can be eliminated, the savings redounding to the benefit of other equally pure government programs (which also, at risk of stating the obvious, do not need inspector generals, what with these programs being worker- and taxpayer-funded).

But before the office of inspector general of Social Security is consigned to the dustbin, let’s look at its recent work to get a better sense of how any "milking" of this government entity taking in hundreds of billions of dollars annually is clearly impossible.

From the executive summary of the inspector general’s semi-annual report to Congress for the first half of fiscal year 2010 –

During this reporting period, we received more than 75,000 allegations from SSA employees, Congress, the public, law enforcement agencies and other sources. Our agents closed more than 3,700 criminal investigations, resulting in over 300 arrests, over 400 indictments and informations, 794 criminal convictions (including pretrial diversions) and 69 civil judgments/civil monetary penalty (CMP) assessments. During this reporting period, our agents also secured 6 indictments and 8 convictions of fraudulent activity related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and they continue to work with law enforcement agencies to arrest subjects identified through the Fugitive Felon Program. …

During this reporting period, our auditors identified more than $1.3 billion is questioned costs and about $2.06 billion in Federal Funds that could be put to better use. Highlighted audits include the financial impact of conducting fewer full medical continuing disability reviews (CDRs), and identifying Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients who were potentially eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits.

In the first half of FY 2010, we are reporting over $173 million in monetary accomplishments, with over $29.5 million in SSA recoveries, restitution, fines, settlements, and judgments; and over $143.5 million in projected savings from investigations resulting in the suspension or termination of benefits. In addition, we participated in multi-agency investigations that resulted in over $25 million in savings, restitution, and recoveries for other agencies. Highlighted investigations in this section relate to representative payee fraud and concealment of work activity in order to collect disability benefits.

Our Cooperative Disability Investigations (CDI) Program continues to be one of our most successful initiatives, contributing to the integrity of SSA’s disability programs. The efforts of our CDI Units during this reporting period resulted in more than $117 million in SSA program savings.

During this reporting period, our attorneys initiated 74 CMP actions (Section 1129 cases) that involved false statements, representations, or omissions made in connection with obtaining or retaining benefits or payments under Titles II (Federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Benefits) and XVI (Supplemental Security Income) of the Social Security Act (the Act). Included in our investigative accomplishments above is nearly $2 million in penalties and assessments that our attorneys imposed through our CMP program.

But hey, why cry over massive amounts of spilled milk when it’s only workers feeding the cow?

Long-time Los Angeles Times political cartoonist Paul Conrad has died, but the most interesting paragraph of his obituary in The Washington Post is the little hint by Post writer Matt Schudel that great newspapers only gain that reputation once they become liberal:

He won his first Pulitzer in 1964, then left Denver for Los Angeles. Mr. Conrad’s incisive cartoons, which he drew six days a week, helped raise the reputation of the once-moribund Times, which had parroted the Republican Party line for decades.

A similar version of this trope appeared in the Los Angeles Times itself in a story by James Rainey, but at least it suggested that there might be a difference between mediocre reporting and a Republican viewpoint. Conrad viciously attacked Nixon and Reagan with his pen, which was and is apparently the secret of media prestige:

In the early 1960s, The Times was just beginning to rouse itself from decades of mediocrity. The newspaper had been politically and economically dominant in Southern California but a laughingstock in most of the country because of its mediocre journalism and blatant Republican boosterism.

Otis Chandler took control as publisher in 1960 and, with Editor Nick Williams, decided to hire top talent to lift the paper to a higher level.

The duo, determined to bring Conrad to Los Angeles, impressed him with their resolve. "The one thing I said," Conrad recalled, "was, ‘Nobody tells me what to draw.’"

The arrival of Conrad jarred many Times readers, not least the ultra-conservative members of the extended Chandler family, who already were displeased that their more liberal cousin, Otis, had taken control of the family business.

"Nick [Williams] saw that Paul was this strident and very dedicated liberal and Nick thought that I would take a real beating, which I did," Chandler said in a 2006 PBS documentary about the cartoonist. "But it was worth it, because he’s a real genius. He brought enormous credibility and prestige to The Times."

The late Peter Jennings, shortly after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994: “Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week.”

Washington Post Associate Editor Eugene Robinson, a frequent guest analyst on MSNBC, in his Friday column on polls showing voters will throw out Democrats, again, in November: “This isn’t an ‘electoral wave,’ it’s a temper tantrum.”

More Jennings from 1994: “Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.”

And more from Robinson this year: “The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.”

James Taranto highlighted the similarities in his Friday “Best of the Web Today” for the Wall Street Journal’s online opinion page.

Then-ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings in his daily ABC Radio commentary of November 14, 1994, the winner of the “Sore Losers Award (for Midterm Election Reporting)” in the MRC’s “The Best Notable Quotables of 1994: The Seventh Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting.”

Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It’s clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It’s the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week….Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.

Robinson’s September 3 column, “The spoiled-brat American electorate,” began:

According to polls, Americans are in a mood to hold their breath until they turn blue. Voters appear to be so fed up with the Democrats that they’re ready to toss them out in favor of the Republicans — for whom, according to those same polls, the nation has even greater contempt. This isn’t an “electoral wave,” it’s a temper tantrum.

Later:

But there’s no mistaking the public mood, and the truth is that it makes no sense. In the punditry business, it’s considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it’s impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.

National Review’s Rich Lowry on Sunday had a classic debate with Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne about whether or not the tax cuts implemented by former President George W. Bush should be allowed to expire.

Dionne agrees with President Obama that they should only be extended for folks making less than $250,000 a year; Lowry thinks that raising anyone’s taxes right now could send the country back into recession.

With this in mind, NBC’s David Gregory opened the panel segment of "Meet the Press" with a discussion about the current state of the economy and how this issue might impact the upcoming midterm elections.

As he tossed the baton to Lowry and Dionne, one got the feeling Gregory was intentionally lighting a fuse he knew would result in some entertaining fireworks (videos follow with transcripts and commentary): 

DAVID GREGORY, HOST: E.J., the economy and taxes and where things stand.

E.J. DIONNE, WASHINGTON POST: Well, actually, I think the administration is in a position where it should pick a big fight with the Republicans. I, I at least half agree with what Rich just said. They’re clearly down in this election. If the election were held now, they’d probably lose the House, though not the Senate. I think they can claw back enough to hold on to the House. I think they should pick a big fight on the renewal of the Bush tax cuts and say, "We want to renew them for everybody earning under $250,000 a year. Heck, maybe we can actually renew them for everybody earning under a million dollars a year." Draw a line and say, "We want to give them tax cuts now. They want to fight for millionaires." So you can have that fight. I think they can win it. But they need to shake up this race to salvage some of those seats. They need to hang on to 218 House seats.

MR. GREGORY: Right. I’m going to get to Charlie in a second.

But, Rich, back to the–you know, because I’ve, I’ve pressed Republicans on the point of, "Hey, you want to cut the deficit? Well, it’s going to cost $3 trillion to extend all of these tax cuts. How do you pay for it?" And Republicans say to me, "You know, that’s–that argument is off base here, that it’s existing tax policy and that you shouldn’t be making that argument." And respond to E.J.’s point.

Readers are recommended to fasten their seat belts, for Gregory likely without knowing it had nicely placed the ball on the tee for Lowry, and the National Review editor was about to launch the longest nationally televised drive of his life straight down the middle of the fairway: 

RICH LOWRY, NATIONAL REVIEW: Well, there, there, there are a couple things. I think E.J.’s political advice is exactly wrong, although I appreciate him half agreeing with me. I’ll take what–I’ll take whatever I can get.

MR. GREGORY: Right. That may be all you get.

MR. DIONNE: That’s great progress.

MR. GREGORY: That may be all you get.

MR. LOWRY: But, you know, before August, before they left–Congress left for the August recess, you had three Senate Democrats saying, "We need to extend all these things less temporarily." And that was before this awful last month the Democrats suffered. I think it only got harder, if not impossible, not to extend all of these. So I expect the Obama administration either to say, "Let’s do it for one year," or to punt it to the lame duck session. But even if they extend it for one year, that will be an amazing sign. If you have these large Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House extending all the Bush tax cuts, huge sign of the way the worm has turned politically.

MR. GREGORY: Yes.

MR. DIONNE: One idea is to put on the table, one of the things you could do with the money you save from not giving the tax cut to people earning over $1 million, you could either redistribute the rest of that to people down below a million, or you could begin to create an infrastructure bank to try to build us for the long-term. You need to look like you’re making a–you’re drawing a clear line with the Republicans.

MR. LOWRY: But there, there, there you’re sucking money out of the economy in the short-term in order for the long-term in a weak economy. That makes no sense. Raising taxes, there’s no theory in which raises taxes in a slow economy makes sense.

MR. GREGORY: All right.

MR. LOWRY: Keynesians don’t favor it, supply-siders don’t favor it.

Round one clearly went to Lowry.

A bit later as promised, Gregory brought Charlie Cook into the discussion. As readers will notice, this also set Lowry up to demolish Dionne:

MR. GREGORY: All right, but for everybody here, what is the bottom line? How did the president and Democrats get to this point? Is it a bad economy, case closed, Charlie, or is there a leadership question, a failure of leadership by the president that has got him to this point?

CHARLIE COOK, EDITOR THE COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Democrats desperately needed three things to happen this year. Number one, they needed unemployment to turn around. And when you look at the, the groups that were sort of the booster, that pushed them over the top, among African-Americans the unemployment rate is 16.3, you know, way more than it was when the president took office; Hispanics, 12; young people, 26, the job market for recent college graduates the worst in 35 years. He desperately needed unemployment to turn around. Number two, he needed attitudes toward healthcare reform to fundamentally change, with people saying, "OK…

MR. GREGORY: And that hasn’t happened.

MR. COOK: And that–it just hasn’t happened. And they had to get control of the agenda. And right now what they’re doing is they’re paying a price for having focused so thoroughly on health care for a solid year at a time when the economy was deteriorating. And, for a lot of voters, they just see the president and Democrats as having checked the box on stimulus and then gone to cap and trade and health care leaving the economy to deteriorate.

Absolutely outstanding analysis by Cook. With the table nicely set, Gregory invited Lowry and Dionne to continue the debate: 

MR. GREGORY: Have it out, you two. The question of the economy rules everything, or a question of leadership, E.J.?

MR. DIONNE: First of all, in that Donnelly ad, it’s interesting that John Boehner, the Republican leader, was also in that picture.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MR. DIONNE: And there are Republicans–the Republicans are unpopular, too. That’s going to be something Democrats want to play. I think the biggest mistake Obama made was in not making a big argument from the beginning, "Here’s where we started, here’s where we’re going. It’s going to be rough getting there. But if you stick with me, this is going to get better." FDR did that, Ronald Reagan did that. He needed to do that.

MR. GREGORY: But trust in government was different when FDR did it.

MR. DIONNE: Right. But he needed to restore trust in government, and I think he was in a position to do that. He needed to emphasize the way they’re actually reforming government, which they are, but nobody knows it.

MR. GREGORY: The flipside of that question, you can address this big one.

MR. LOWRY: Sure.

MR. GREGORY: But is also, have, have Republicans done anything to really regain trust about their leadership…

MR. LOWRY: No, it’s most…

MR. GREGORY: …to an oppositional strategy?

MR. LOWRY: …it’s mostly a free gift from Obama fundamentally fumbling this. And I disagree with E.J. again. I’m going to have to agree with you at some point, E.J. just to be a good colleague here on the set. But people know what Obama’s about. They know what the program is. They know he’s growing government because he thinks that’s good for the economy and good for the country’s future. They get it. The problem, I think, is threefold. One is ideological grandiosity. Democrats thought in ‘08 they had a mandate from heaven to do everything they ever wanted, when really they were just getting an opportunity because people were recoiling from the Republicans and the poor state of the economy.

Indeed. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman made the same point on ABC’s "This Week" Sunday about Obama over-reading his mandate. But I digress: 

LOWRY: Then there was the cynical opportunism that Charlie referred to, a crisis is–never let a crisis go to waste. Therefore do health care, try to cap and trade, things that have nothing to do with the economy or may actually be harmful to it. And then three, there’s the fact that the program has not worked on its own terms. The stimulus has not worked. So you add all three of those things up and you have a very grim picture. And another huge problem, independents are much closer to the tea partiers on the big issues and even on the smaller hot-button ones–spending, debt, Arizona immigration law, Ground Zero mosque, all that–much closer to the tea partiers than they are to the Democrats. 

Indeed.

Game, set, and match Lowry.

Bravo, Rich. Bravo. 

A Washington Post news story earlier this week served to demonstrate that mainstream media journalists apply the same prism overseas as they do domestically when covering illegal immigration and the Ground Zero mosque: When an overwhelming majority of the public goes against the media’s position, journalists see division and portray politicians sharing the majority position as causing rancor.

Case in a point: An article from Paris on page A6 of the Tuesday, August 31, Washington Post, “Crackdown on Roma divides French: Unease grows as Sarkozy razes camps, expels residents,” in which the newspaper’s Edward Cody led: “Much of France has returned from summer vacation in a rancorous mood, disturbed by a crackdown ordered by President Nicolas Sarkozy against illegal Roma camps and naturalized immigrant youths who attack police in troubled suburbs.” Yes, the French people are “disturbed” that the police are reacting against immigrants who attack them.

Cody proceeded to assert “the unease over the action against illegal Roma immigrants, most from Romania and Bulgaria, has been particularly strong, with the expulsions drawing criticism at home and abroad.” Indeed, “for many, such policies undermine France’s idea of itself as a haven for exiles and a beacon for human rights. Similar fears of intolerance were raised in July when, at Sarkozy’s urging, the National Assembly passed a law banning women from wearing full-face Islamic veils in public.”

Those Cody cited were hardly the citizenry, but Sarkozy’s political opponents and meddling foreigners, starting with how “a U.N. human rights panel sharply criticized Sarkozy’s actions against the Roma camps last week and called on him to halt the campaign. Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in French to make sure the message was received, called on Catholics to respect human diversity.” Cody also maintained: “In the political arena, the policies have generated protests from Sarkozy’s opponents, on the right as well as the left.”

Not until the 7th paragraph did Cody relay some information that undermined his entire premise and explained why a politician like Sarkozy would be pursuing policies that supposedly enraged the electorate:

In a recent poll, two-thirds of those queried approved of the campaign, suggesting the policy might provide at least temporary gains as Sarkozy maneuvers to set the stage for reelection in 2012.

Cody’s next sentence should have been: “Never mind.”

Jay Leno on Friday ribbed Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the poor state of the economy.

In his opening monologue on the "Tonight Show," the comedian began with a lot of politics first joking about the President’s Middle East peace talks, then moving to the war in Afghanistan, and eventually a poke at airline security.

On the day the Labor Department announced an uptick in the unemployment rate, Leno had a number of jokes about how bad the economy is.

Finally, the monologue concluded with a nice tribute to a United States Marine Corps unit in the audience (video follows with commentary):

It sure is nice to see the late night comedians feeling that this White House is no longer off limits.