Politico: excusing in 2012 their lack of foresight about 2010?

I need to push back on this cover-their-rear statement by Politico on the ‘surprise’ flipping of the House of Representatives in 2010.

[House Speaker John] Boehner doesn’t play political prognosticator often. But when he does, those close to him say, there’s usually a calculated reason. In April 2010 — almost two years ago exactly — the then-House minority leader said in a radio interview that an astounding 100 seats were in play in that year’s midterm elections, a figure he said was broader than “anything we’ve seen around here during my 20 years” in the House.

Few from either party believed Boehner at the time, but his assessment proved accurate. Republicans put about 100 Democratic-held seats in play, ultimately winning 63 of them to seize the majority.

(Bolding mine) Actually, people who read RedState (or MoeLane) were prepared for that scenario. People who read Sean Trende at RCP were prepared for that scenario. People who read Hot Air and AoSHQ were at least prepared for the possibility.  In fact, people who were following the election using right-leaning sites and news sourcess were by and large prepared for what happened. But the people were relying on the Daily Beast or the Left-blogosphere or, well, Politico for their political content? …Yeah, those folks ended up being kind of surprised in November. Usually unpleasantly.

This is not quite pedantry on my part – although it’s certainly inside-baseball. I’m bringing this up in order to get it on the record that in fact many people in the GOP took seriously the idea that up to 100 seats were in play in the House that year. It wasn’t actually that hard to come to that conclusion: the trend was unmistakably going in the Republicans’ direction, the economy was (and still is) awful, unemployment ditto, Congress had just spent its entire political capital on a health care rationing program that was (and still is) loathed and despised, and it was just sinking in that the President had (and has) precisely zero ability to persuade people who don’t actually want to be persuaded. But people – and sites! – that had an emotional investment in seeing the Left win did not want to come to the conclusion that the Democrats faced DOOM, so they allowed themselves to ignore all of that. Which makes it awkward for them now, because they turned out to be so wrong, then. So… best make everybody wrong at the time, right?

Sorry, but I am not going to subscribe to that narrative. I assessed the situation properly*, it wasn’t a difficult assessment to make, and the Left has no excuse for assessing the situation wrongly. They can jolly well deal with it.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Now watch: I’ll end up never being right again.

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Did Elizabeth Warren (D CAND, MA-SEN PRI) actually claim minority status for her own benefit, after all?

Alternate title: I was wrong about Elizabeth Warren.

I hate to admit being wrong, of course, but I’m pretty much stuck here.  You see, last week I RedHotted a post where in passing I more or less indicated that I didn’t think that it was particularly fair to ding MA senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren for her claims of Native American ancestry.  When I read the story, it seemed that she had merely repeated it as an anecdote from her family history – which is to say, something that I’ve done myself (family history claims a Huron great-grandmother; I have no evidence whatsoever for this).  I also didn’t really think that it was all that big a deal that Harvard University was claiming minority status for her for a time; universities do weird things for publicity, she wasn’t running for office when it happened, and besides, Harvard stopped doing that a while back anyway.  I figured that there were more important things that I could be doing with my time.

Well.  This is what happens when you trust the ethical sense of a progressive politician.  It turns out that Elizabeth Warren in fact claimed minority status:  specifically, in the “Association of American Law Schools’ annual directory of minority law teachers” (H/T: @CoonDawg68) from 1986 to 1995 (more about this at The Volokh Conspiracy (via Instapundit), which also has some interesting details about  ‘racial fraud’ as a legal concept in Massachusetts).  As the Boston Herald helpfully notes, universities would have had access to this information… which, presumably, would include their hiring committees.  Are we really expected to believe that Harvard University didn’t consult the AALS minority directory as part of their vetting process?  In fact, are really expected to believe that the University of Pennsylvania didn’t, either?  – Because I don’t, and that means, again, that I was wrong.  And I’m sorry about that.

Meanwhile, and very much to pile on the liar, there’s this additional piece of Elizabeth Warren mendacity, courtesy of the NY Post:

As recently as January, [Elizabeth] Warren was still crying poor, saying on MSNBC: “I realize there are some wealthy individuals — I’m not one of them — but some wealthy individuals who have a lot of stock portfolios.”

No, she has mutual-fund portfolios. Her financial disclosures put her worth between $4.6 and $14.5 million.

I should probably note for the record that when this came out it raised eyebrows from The Daily Caller to The Huffington Post, although everybody at the time looked more at her net worth than at the way Warren held her wealth.  It’s still representative of the essential unreliability of the candidate: after all, there’s nothing wrong with being wealthy.  My family is not making anywhere like this kind of money, and we are doing fine; I don’t resent Elizabeth Warren her money.

I do resent being lectured to on economic affairs by a rampaging, hypocritical opportunist.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: You know what Scott Brown‘s never done?  Condescended to me about my middle class travails when he’s been insulated from them for over a decade via a Ivy League bubble.

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Tech at Night: CISPA passes the House, FCC passes campaign regulations, Boehner calls out Obama

So, the Internet died this week or something. CISPA was amended much, as I gather mostly tightening up some alleged privacy concerns. Then it passed the House. I don’t know if it’ll become law, but it’s a good idea. The comparisons with SOPA are deceptive.

Speaker Boehner cut to the heart of the matter, pointing out that President Obama’s CISPA veto threat was rooted in his desire to control the Internet. The White House was stung enough to reply, but it’s true: CISPA opposition is a ruse to fool feeble minded leftys into thinking Republicans are the threat, rather than the Democrat Cybersecurity bill in the Senate, pushed by Joe Lieberman. It’s Lieberman-Collins that’s the threat to liberty online.

More and more it’s clear we dodged a bullet by preventing Joe Barton from becoming Energy and Commerce chairman.

Darrell Issa’s on a roll: His FISMA overhaul also passed, passing easily under suspension on the heels of his transparency bill passing by voice vote. Secure the government. If the government is so good at Internet security that Barack Obama wants to regulate, then let’s just clean house internally instead. As long as Anonymous can hit things like the CIA website, there’s work to be done. I know, it’s just a website, but what other websites are at risk?

Look, guys, the bad guys are out there and looking for ways to attack America online. They’re sharing information amongst themselves, too. That’s why we need CISPA: to level the playing field. That’s also why improving the government’s standards for itself also matters.

The FCC continues to outdo itself when it comes to power grabs. Now they’re after content: passing regulations attempting to stifle political speech ahead of the election.

Yet unfortunately Chuck Grassley is relenting on his FCC holds, saying he’s satisfied with the FCC starting to open up to him, even though there’s still more investigating to be done on the LightSquared situation.

Jim DeMint has got some people worried. Even as he questioned Aereo, he’s threatening the unfair advantage broadcasters have in retransmission negotiations. That’s why lately you’re seeing lots of sob stories about broadcasters. This is a coordinated effort to make you think that DeMint is the Grinch attacking the poor local TV station. Ignore it.

Spectrum: we need it, the Democrats obstruct that process as in the cases of Verizon, AT&T, and any other high profile deal they can get their thieving hands onto, but Cliff Stearns and the Republican House are trying to fix it. Enough said.

That’s all we need for a great wireless market. we don’t need regulation, just freed-up spectrum for competition and growth.

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A Killer Among Us? #ThingsObamaKilled

As President of the United States, Barack Obama wants us to know he killed Osama Bin Laden. The SEALs? Pfffffftttt . . . nope. Barack Obama did it. If you don’t believe him, wait till the campaign commercials tell you. Don’t believe them? Well, just in time for the election, Hollywood will provide us with an in-kind contribution of a propaganda film.

True, the President did give the order and he should be commended, as should the SEALs. And it is fair game for him to want to campaign on killing Osama Bin Laden in the same way George H. W. Bush campaigned as a war hero in 1992.

In 1992, Bill Clinton would commend George H. W. Bush on the campaign trail and lament that he just wished President Bush was as successful getting Americans back to work as he had been getting Iraq out of Kuwait.

This morning, my dad called and pointed out that Barack Obama may just be the most successful killer to ever take up residence in the White House — more successful even than the 19th Century vampire slayer who first led the Republican Party into the White House. In fact, consider the serial killing spree Barack Obama has been on:

Osama Bin LadenOur credit ratingThe coal industryThe oil and natural gas industryThe healthcare sectorJob creationEconomic growthSmall businessesOur relationship with IsraelOur relationship with Great Britain

The list goes on and on. Truly, Barack Obama is a killing machine. Well done, Mr. President! I look forward to the GOP highlighting everything else you’ve killed besides Osama on the campaign trail.

UPDATED: More from friends:

Religious libertyThe Blue Dog caucusLouisiana’s effort to clean up the BP oil spillHope

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A not-friendly reminder to the Activist Left about Gitmo.

In three parts:

The current President of the United States campaigned on a platform that included the closing of the prison for international terrorists at Gitmo.Gitmo is, in fact, still open. But they’ll get to it Real Soon Now (SPOILER WARNING: they won’t).The Right noted at the time that Gitmo was going to remain open. On more than one occasion. We, in fact, told people time again and again and again and again that Barack Obama was not going to close Gitmo. Which means that nobody really has an excuse for being surprised.

Why am I mentioning this now? Isn’t it obvious? Because I’m trolling, that’s why! There’s a lot of people out there who are even now trying to pretend that President Obama ran on closing Gitmo, that the Activist Left pounded the tables and shouted about closing Gitmo, that closing Gitmo was supposed to be the central moral dilemma of our generation… and that the issue of Gitmo was quietly garroted to death in a narrow, dusty room* because it became an embarrassment to the Democratic Establishment. Better and better (from the Right’s point of view): the Activist Left has to pretend that this sort of thing is just fine with them. When we know that it’s not.

Not that it really matters whether the Activist Left is happy, of course. They are, after all, commodities whose utility begins and ends with how much money and underpaid labor they can contribute to the Democratic establishment – or, as the Democratic establishment itself probably puts it in private, ‘their betters.’ And it is a measure of their degradation that progressive activists will simply swallow their bile and go on with trudging in circles. It’d be almost pathetic, except that pity is mostly wasted on people who voluntarily choose to abandon their dignity and all sense of self-respect.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: So why did I bring this all up? – Because it’s my job as a conservative blogger/New Media activist to highlight these sorts of things. Plus, as noted earlier I am a bit of a troll. Or at least I am to trolls what wolfhounds are to wolves…

*Literary reference.

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