Syria Violence on Eve of Vote

At USA Today, "Syria violence spreads on eve of constitution vote":

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) – Syria has defied international calls to halt attacks on rebel enclaves and at least 89 people have been killed nationwide on the eve of a constitutional referendum that the opposition sees as a ploy by President Bashar Assad's regime.

Assad presented the revised charter — which allows for at least a theoretical opening of the country's political system — as an effort to placate critics and quell the 11-month uprising against his rule.

But the Sunday vote is unlikely to overshadow a new round of international condemnation and calls that Assad leave power.

The new charter would create a multiparty system in Syria, which has been ruled by the same family dynasty since Assad's father Hafez seized power in a coup in 1963. Such change as unthinkable a year ago.

After 11 months of bloodshed, however, Assad's opponents say the referendum and other promises of reform are not enough and have called for a boycott of the vote.

Assad was roundly criticized Friday at a major international conference on the Syrian crisis in Tunisia, where U.S., European and Arab officials began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the regime falls.

President Barack Obama said Friday of Assad's rule: "It is time for that regime to move on."

Romney Campaign Prepares for Long Haul to the Nomination

At New York Times, "Prolonged Race Forces Romney Campaign to Recalibrate":

TROY, Mich. — Whether Mitt Romney wins or loses the Michigan and Arizona primaries on Tuesday, his advisers are warning donors and other supporters to prepare for a longer, more bruising and more expensive fight for the Republican presidential nomination that may not be settled until at least May.

That is prompting a new round of intensified fund-raising by his financial team, which had hoped by this point to be collecting money for a general election match with President Obama. The campaign is increasingly trying to quell anxiety among Republican leaders, while intently focusing on the mechanics of accumulating delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Mr. Romney’s aides said they were confident their sustained attacks portraying Rick Santorum as a Washington insider, and Mr. Santorum’s shaky debate performance in Arizona on Wednesday, had slowed their rival’s recent surge here in Michigan.

But Mr. Romney is by no means in the clear, they said, as he fights to avert a loss in the state where he was born and raised — and where less than three weeks ago he was expected to win handily, before Mr. Santorum’s surprise triumphs in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri.

Regardless of the results Tuesday, Mr. Santorum is preparing to fight on for weeks or months, enticed by new rules that award delegates in early primaries and caucuses based on each candidate’s share of votes. “The race is going to go a long time,” he said after addressing a meeting here of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group.

The party’s new delegate system is a major contributor to the prolonged nature of the contest, along with the advent of supportive and well-financed “super PACs” that have helped Mr. Romney’s competitors stay in the delegate hunt when their candidacies might otherwise have withered without enough cash.

For many Republicans, the question is not just whether Mr. Romney will eventually capture the nomination, but at what cost.

Continue reading.

It seems to me that this is exactly the kind of prolonged campaign that the GOP National Committee planned for when they "back-loaded" the nomination process and shifted more delegates to proportional representation. I wrote about this at Pajamas Media in December, although at that time it looked like Newt Gingrich was about to permanently dethrone Romney's coronation. But the Times' piece has all sorts of examples of party insiders biting their fingernails about how the harsh primary battle will diminish the party's prospects against Obama in the fall. I think we hear the same worries every four years. Frankly, as Sarah Palin has said repeatedly, the long process will strengthen the nominee because the dirty laundry will have been fully aired and the MFM will have little left for those October surprises that work to damage the Republicans.

In any case, there's some polling out that substantiates the idea of a long campaign, at WSB-TV, "Gingrich holds commanding lead in Georgia" (via Memeorandum) and at Second Front, "Poll: Santorum comes from behind in Alabama three-way" (via Buzzfeed and Memeorandum).

Two U.S. Military Officers Shot and Killed in Kabul

At Los Angeles Times, "2 Americans killed in Afghanistan in new Koran-burning violence," and Blazing Cat Fur, "Two U.S. advisers killed by Westerner at Afghan Interior Ministry: officials (VIDEO)."

And at Telegraph UK, "Two senior American soldiers shot dead in Kabul":

Two Americans, believed to be senior US army officers, were shot dead by a gunman on Saturday in a secure area deep inside one of the most high-security buildings in Afghanistan.

The shootings came after five days of protests against the burning of copies of the Muslim holy book at an American base in Afghanistan.

A Taliban spokesman immediately claimed responsibility for the shootings. A Nato source said an "aggressive search" was underway for the gunman, who was believed to be Afghan.

The two officers, a colonel and a major, were killed inside the interior ministry in Kabul, where they had been advisers working with Afghan counterparts.

Continue reading.

And at USA Today, "U.S. condemns deadly attack on Americans in Afghanistan."

Santorum Was Right About Iran — When It Was Unpopular

A great piece from Michael Ledeen, at Wall Street Journal:

Rick Santorum doesn't fit any of the stereotypes of current foreign-policy ideologies. He's too idealistic to be a "realist," too conservative and too religious to be a "neocon," and too revolutionary to be a "paleocon." He's an old-fashioned, feisty patriot, in the mold of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Santorum's hatred of tyranny traces back to his grandfather Pietro, who took the family from Lake Garda in northern Italy to Pennsylvania's coal country to escape Mussolini's dictatorship in the 1920s. Pietro Santorum worked in the mines until he was 72 and, as Mr. Santorum often says, taught him "to treasure the gift of freedom [and] to have faith in God's grace."

Mr. Santorum believes the United States must lead the struggle for freedom throughout the world, on grounds of morality and national security, which he believes go hand in hand. He does not like the drift away from leadership and engagement in that struggle, especially under President Obama. He often quotes Lech Walesa's recent lament: "The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations," Poland's first post-communist president said. "There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we have lost that hope."

Mr. Santorum wants to restore the hope that America will rescue those for whom things have gone terribly wrong...

Continue reading.

Harvard's Kennedy School of Government to Host Conference On the Extermination of Israel

It's called the "One State Conference."

Caroline Glick wrote about it the other day, "Harvard, Jew haters, motherhood and Israel."

But there's a lot of additional commentary.

See for example, Leah Burrows at the American Jewish Committee, "Harvard under fire over Israel." And also at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, "Harvard to Host Conference Promoting Israel's Destruction."

And at FrontPage Magazine, "Harvard’s Academic Pogrom."

Plus, from the Anti-Defamation League, "ADL Letter to Harvard University regarding 'One State' Conference," and "Harvard's Statement in Response to ADL Letter on 'Offensive' Anti-Israel Conference Welcomed."

And at Big Peace, "Protest, Don’t Ban, Harvard’s Anti-Israel Conference."

Now, that brings us back to Glick's piece. The issue is not just the progressive left's campaign for the destruction if Israel, or that Stephen Walt was able to get an "Israel Lobby" conference going at Harvard. It's that our very institutions of cultural transmission have become so irreversibly corrupted that its frankly not safe for the education of people of decency, faith, and values. And I quote from the essay:

 ... today's crop of corrupt intellectuals of the Walt and Mearshimer variety with all their allies in academia and the media and the blogosphere and politics are seeking to delegitimize Israel - the collective Jew -- intellectually. Like the work of the eugenics champions of the late 19th and early 20th century, their work will provide Muslim Jew haters with the political leeway to murder Jews on a scale they could never have dreamed possible. Hence you'll never find a so-called "anti-Zionist" like Walt lose sleep over the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, but rather over the prospect of Israel preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

And this brings me to the second point. I read the CAMERA alert on my Iphone as I was feeding my newborn son. I looked out the window at Jerusalem and all I could feel was thankful to be living in the independent, free Jewish state of Israel. I am thankful that these pseudo intellectuals no longer can determine the future of my people, as they could in the 1930s. I am thankful that my children will in all likelihood not study in US universities but in Israeli ones that are not as demented as their American counterparts.

And here's a couple of disturbing thoughts for all the parents in the US who are about to put themselves in the poor house to pay for their children's university education.

The embrace of the cause of Israel's destruction by so many celebrity professors today is part and parcel of the destruction of the US higher education system.

At the Harvard conference, not a drop of truth will be spoken by any of the eminent Jew hating participants. Students who attend will be presented with lies dripping with moralistic gobbledygook and be told that they are enlightened for embracing this sewage.

The absence of truth from academic discourses is not limited to discussion of Israel. Rather, the ability of professors like Walt and his pals to prosper with their lies is a function of the general deterioration and corruption of academic institutions.

This general decline and indeed failure was highlighted last week by Prof. Peter Berkowitz in an article he published in the Wall Street Journal about Yale's totalitarian system of "informal justice" that allows the university to effectively destroy young male students' future by blackening their reputations on the basis of unsubstantiated and even anonymous allegations of sexual misconduct. The policies in place deny young male Yalies due process and enable witch hunts.

In his conclusion Berkowitz wrote that the abandonment of even the semblance of due process for male students on campuses is in line with the general deterioration or even disappearance of educational standards. As he put it:

At its best, university education has deteriorated into little more than random forays into the sciences, social sciences and humanities. But traditionally, and for good reason in a democracy, liberal education at its heart involved instruction in the principles of freedom.

If Yale and other institutions across the country were fulfilling their promise to educate students, then their faculties would teach that riding roughshod over due process shows ignorance of or contempt for the rule of law. Professors would be teaching that the presumption of innocence is rooted in a commitment to treating individuals as ends in themselves and not as a means to advancing some social goal or another, even if that goal is given the name of equality or justice. And students would be learning that our established and legitimate justice system does not presume guilt, because to do so is to fail to appreciate the limits of human knowledge and the propensity of those who wield power to abuse it.

Let's not forget that this is the same Yale University that saw fit to close its interdisciplinary center for the study of anti-Semitism last year because YIISA had the unmitigated gall to highlight contemporary "progressive" Jew hatred and its unwashed cousin Islamic Jew hatred.

CAMERA has launched an email campaign to try to fight Harvard's descent into Jew hating insanity. I think that it is good for what it's worth. But I have no expectations from that institution. The madness that has taken control of America's elite educational institutions is a threat to the US because it is robbing a generation of young people of the ability to think freely and critically about the world.

For me, the message is clear enough, as a Jew, a Jewish mother and a person who clings to my freedom, guns and religion, my job is to do everything I can to ensure that Israel remains strong and gets stronger so that today's corrupted elites can't touch us.

Recall my post a week ago, "Why Progressivism Should Scare the **** Out of You." I continue to deal with this kind of corruption at my college. It's not just "elite educational institutions." It's higher education and K-12 as well. Teachers and administrators are educated by the elite, the educational curriculum is designed by the elite, and faculty are held accountable based on the ideas and institutions created and enforced by the elite. Progressivism has metastasized deeply inside the institutions. I have learned this because I'm on the inside. I see how it's the normal course of events for the major agents of the educational bureaucracy to push socialism and the obliteration of traditional culture. I did not understand this years ago. My dissertation built on some of the theories of Stephen Walt, theories of alliance formation and the balance of power. Indeed, at first I didn't even understand the implications of Walt and Mersheimer's "The Israel Lobby." It's taken a while, but seriously, just look at the roster of participants at that conference. That is not an academic gathering. It's a political gathering to further organize for the elimination of the Jewish state. Being disguised as an academic conference and sponsored at the world's most prestigious university makes it all the more insidious. But these things fly under the radar and they work to pick away at the moral foundations of society, infecting the young and idealistic with ideologies that they might not fully comprehend in their hopes for a better world. But the world will not be a better place should the exterminationists win the day. And that's why I keep fighting for what's right. I would leave academe if I could, if I was financially able. But I'll be working on making that a possibility as soon as I can.

More on this later my friends....

Newt Gingrich Slams Obama for Afghanistan Koran Apology

A big report at London's Daily Mail, "'They don't deserve an apology': Gingrich slams Obama for saying sorry to Afghans over Koran burning as death toll rises to 23."

More at Bloomberg, "Gunfire Erupts as Afghans Protest Burning of Koran at Main U.S. Air Base."

BONUS: From Asra Nomani, at Daily Beast, "Outcry Over Afghanistan Quran Burnings Shows Misguided ‘Honor’ About Sacred Book."

"You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, 'There is a price we will not pay'"

Via Theo Spark:

And that's the last part of Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" (1964)

Kate Upton Soaks Up the Attention

Well, Sports Illustrated is leisurely dribbling out the videos on YouTube, so the pace of bikini blogging has been pretty mild around here actually. And frankly, most of the other models are just as lovely as Kate Upton, so I'm looking forward to a little diversification of the coverage. I'll have more on that later. Meanwhile, here she is:

And see London's Daily Mail, "Sports Illustrated model Kate Upton raises temperature again as she steps out braless in a low-cut top."

More Women Seek Pay-for-Sex in No-Strings-Attached Situations

This is an interesting report, although embedding's disabled so check it out at the link: "Gigolos: Is It Prostitution?"

Is this immoral? Perhaps. But personally, it doesn't bother me because I don't see this as a lifestyle choice seeking to overturn societal institutions (like homosexuality and gay marriage, for example). Besides, the setting's in Las Vegas. I think folks should be able to cut loose out there --- "Sin City" and all that.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Accuses Michael Coren of Anti-Semitism

This is an extremely bizarre exchange.

Michael Coren has become one of my favorite commentators. I check over at Blazing Cat Fur's everyday to see if he's got any new clips embedded. And so imagine my surprise at this one, where we have this Rabbi of whom I've never heard going off on some ridiculous rant alleging that Coren claimed the Jews "control" Hollywood. You just have to watch it. It starts off extremely cordial and friendly and then gets ugly fast. Via: "Coren Scraps With Michael Jackson's Rabbi."

Coren has responded at Huffington Post, "Apparently, I'm an Anti-Semite":

The closest I said to my new best friend about Jews and Hollywood was that "Jewish people do have an influence in Hollywood, and that's a wonderful thing, thank God for it, and we should congratulate ourselves on the fact." But by this time the Rabbi was irrational. He became increasingly aggressive, harangued me, and alleged that Pope Pius XII was one of the wickedest men in history.

He obviously knew little about me, about my Jewish background, and about my most recent book -- Why Catholics Are Right -- a best-seller in Canada as well as the U.S. -- in which I devote an entire chapter to Pope Pius. I referred him to Rabbi Dalin's book , The Myth of Hitler's Pope, and my good friend Sir Martin Gilbert's exemplary work on the Church and the Holocaust.

But the Rabbi was a friend of Michael Jackson's and appears on Oprah; clearly he was out of my league! After the interview he refused to leave the studio, threatened me, insulted a young Orthodox Jewish intern who works with us, and then got down to writing, calling, and tweeting the world about the Jew-hater Coren.

It's all come as a bit of a shock to leaders of the Jewish community in Canada, who just last week had me MC the launch of a book by one of their most senior staffers. There are, however, serious issues here. I almost wept when that young intern pleaded with me to not think all Orthodox Jews behaved thus. I told him not to worry -- there were plenty of arrogant and rude Catholics and Protestants as well.

And see, "Statement on “antisemitism” allegation against Michael Coren."

'Does the Left Understand Psychological Denial?'

A must-read essay, from Dr. Sanity.

'Runaway Slave'

Blazing Cat Fur has a report, "Blacks Enslaved by Left, Argues New Film."

New Romney Emphasis on Taxes, Policy Working in Michigan

Well, I took after Romney for the fumble at Ford Field, so here's a little bit more positive news, at IBD, "Mitt Romney Shift to Talking Tax Cuts, Other Policy Specifics, May Be Working in Michigan":

DETROIT — After months of gauzy statements that he "believes in America," Mitt Romney is trying to give Americans concrete reasons to believe in him.

He still believes in America, but he spent about half of Friday's 25-minute speech to the Detroit Economic Club laying out fairly detailed policy proposals that he would pursue as president.

"I want to talk to you about policy today," he said. "It's not exciting and barn-burning, but it's important."

In are discussions of tax rates and entitlements; gone are the quotes from "America the Beautiful." It is a marked shift from a few weeks ago, when Romney's speeches were long on American values and criticism of President Obama, but short on policy.

Romney has had to employ a new tactic after Rick Santorum swept the three caucuses on Feb. 7 and took the lead in Michigan, which along with Arizona holds its primary on Tuesday.

That sounds good. And more at the link.

Wizbang Apologizes for Post Attacking New York Times Columnist Charles Blow as 'Stupid Nigger'

Well, there are some lines you don't cross no matter how bad progressives are --- and Wizbang crossed a line in a post yesterday, seen at the screencap, c/o All American Blogger, "There’s Proving a Point and There’s Going Too Far – Guess Which One This Is?"

And here's the thing: Charles Blow is outrageous. I write about him pretty regularly because I'm blown away at how radical he is, and unintelligent too --- and he's at the New York Times (which explains it, I guess).

Anyway, I posted on this last night, "Charles Blow's Religious Bigoty: New York Times Columnist Mocks Mitt Romney's 'Magic Underwear'." As noted at the title, Blow's a bigot. But I never thought to respond to him with racist bigotry of my own. And I'm surprised that the Wizbang author thought it would be okay, or funny even, to attack Blow as a "nigger." It's not funny. Wizbang's in my blog feed at the sidebar and I saw the "Stupid Nigger" post earlier and it looked dead serious. I don't think that kind of language is ever acceptable, and I don't think it's okay even when black folks call each other "nigga" as a term of endearment, or something.

So, I'm not surprised that the reaction was apparently swift and furious. The author, "Paul," has updated, "About That Disappearing Charles Blow Post." Unfortunately, I don't think he quite gets it. He writes, for example, that the post was pulled only because the title might be misunderstood as genuine racism, not "faux-bigotry" intended to attack real bigotry. Actually, it doesn't work that way, and I think Paul understands this in the end, ultimately, by the looks of the update at that post (added before the post even went live, it turns out).

And that's not all. Kevin, the owner of Wizbang (I guess) now has his own entry: "A Word From the Boss." It's an apology and a good one.

And as Charles Blow has now apologized for his anti-Mormon tweeting, I think it's now a teachable moment for everyone.

I will hazard that the folks at Wizbang have done something here by way of apology that progressives would not do, and I have the Olbermann/Moulitsas #OWS rape denials and attacks on Dana Loesch in mind as I write this.

Mitt Romney's Speech From Ford Field

ABC News has the killer headline, "Mitt Romney’s Ford Field Fumble?" (Via Memeorandum.)

And see New York Times, "For Romney, a Message Lost in the Empty Seats":

DETROIT — Mitt Romney set out on Friday to deliver a sweeping and sober vision for how to revive the American economy in a major policy speech here. In the end, he delivered something else as well: an unintended lesson about how poor visuals and errant words can derail a candidate’s message in this modern political news culture.

In an unusual choice, Mr. Romney gave his speech inside Ford Field, a cavernous indoor football stadium with 65,000 seats.

To the television audience, it appeared perfectly normal. Mr. Romney could be seen standing at a lectern in front of a backdrop that had the logo of the Detroit Economic Club, the event’s host. And when the audience — about 1,200 people — clapped, they filled the screen as cameras panned across them.

But in the age of Twitter and the Internet, that is not all that matters.

Before Mr. Romney had uttered a word, reporters began posting pictures online showing the stadium from every available angle — almost empty, except for the chairs set up on the field itself, near the 20-yard line.

Row after row of barren blue seats across the giant stadium made the crowd seem minuscule. Across the Web, a storyline for the day began to take hold that undercut and detracted from Mr. Romney’s words: big speech, tiny crowd.

Ordinarily, such imagery might be overwhelmed by the news of the day: a highly anticipated, substantive address packed with previously unknown details. Mr. Romney called for a 20 percent cut in income taxes; handing control of federal welfare programs to the states; and creating private sector competition for Medicare services.

But the Romney campaign had leaked most of the speech’s contents several days ago, leaving members of the news media with little to focus on — except, of course, the scene itself.

And shoot, here I was thinking Romney was gonna get a big boost out of that debate the other night. So here he is shooting himself in the foot?

Man, it ain't over 'till it's over, that's for sure.

Los Angeles Times to Launch Subscription Paywall

I've been a subscriber to the Los Angeles Times for almost 30 years.

I cut my political teeth reading that newspaper. But like anything else these days, there comes a time when you rethink your loyalties. I don't need the paper in hard copy. Mostly, I renew my subscription out of familiarity and habit. And I'm old-fashioned. I still like reading a broadsheet. And I like having the hard copy for teaching. But there are many days when I don't even pick it up. I go online first thing in the morning and the dead-tree version sits there all day. I might take a look at it over coffee if I go out for breakfast or lunch.

Yet for the first time last week I seriously thought about cancelling my subscription. I was almost physically sick at the Times editorial on the Heartland Institute's "Fakegate" scandal. The background's at Mememorandum. And here's the editorial at the Times, "Climate denial in the classroom." Especially loathsome is the editorial's reference to Michael Mann, the discredited climate change asshat at the University of Pennsylvania:

Fortunately, if we're about to enter a battle over classroom instruction on climate change, it won't go on for decades, because the impacts of global warming are already patently obvious. Seven of the 10 warmest years since global record-keeping began in 1880 have occurred in the 21st century. Despite an intense campaign to discredit his work, Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph, which shows that temperatures in the latter half of the 20th century soared to their highest level in 1,000 years, has been validated repeatedly. Last year set a record for the most climate-related disasters in the United States costing more than $1 billion in damage each — drought-fueled wildfires in Texas, Hurricane Irene, and Mississippi River flooding were among the 14 cases.

These are facts, not philosophical or religious dogma. Another fact: Sophisticated climate models show that things are going to get a lot worse. It's bad enough that we're gambling our children's futures by doing so little to fight this problem; let's not ask their teachers to lie to them about it too.

The "hockey stick" was at the center of the East Anglia research scandal a few years ago. Since then whatever genuine "consensus" there was on global warming has been destroyed once and for all. There is simply no one on the left who is credible or trustworthy on the "science" of climate change. A good backgrounder is Marc Shepard's piece from 2009, "Understanding Climategate's Hidden Decline," and more recently, from Steven Hayward, "Climategate (Part II)."

In any case, I read the Times' editorial knowing all this and then forgot about it as one more stupid example of progressive journalism. But the Heartland story continued to develop. Most significantly is that climate scientist Peter Gleick confessed that he'd lied when he sought information from the Heartland Institute. He published an admission at the Huffington Post, "The Origin of the Heartland Documents." There's more on that at Christian Science Monitor, "Climategate sequel? Scientist lies to get Heartland Institute documents," and Steve McIntyre has the latest at Climate Audit, "Heartland Publishes Gleick Emails." And here's this at The Other McCain, "In Apologizing for Global Warming Hoax, Peter Gleick Blames His Victims," and from Moose and Squirrels, "Alarmist climate change quacks debate the “ethics” of stealing: #Gleickgate / #Fakegate":

I am sick to death of these communist-loving, global governance anti-humanity assholes trying to shove their climate change quackery down our throats. Please, Heartland et al (WUWT, etc), sue Gleick into extinction. And here’s hoping criminal charges against the identity thief leading to incarceration will follow.

And even more from Rand Simberg at PJ Media, "Fakegate: Can’t Hide This Decline."

So, with that, there's now the news that the Los Angeles Times is going to a subscription model beginning March 10th: "Los Angeles Times launches new membership program." Folks can read it at the link. Apparently, the New York Times is having success with its subscription paywall and the folks at the Los Angeles Times are looking to share some of the profit. I don't really care either way. I won't be subscribing online. If I reach my limit of 15 free articles per month I'll cut and paste the headline into Google and read it for free. And as for home delivery? I think I'll let the subscription expire. I can do without it, frankly. I'll continue to read the news as I always do and evaluate each and every article on its own merits. Even the progressive hack newspapers like LAT and NYT sometimes publish good stuff and these are the leading outlets for institutional news. You ignore them at your peril frankly, although I don't have to contribute to their bottom line.

Woman Pushed Onto the Tracks at Leicester Square Tube: British Transport Police Seek Information

This is literally unreal.

At Telegraph UK, "Police hunt man who pushed woman onto Tube tracks - CCTV footage."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Who is this vile thug? Shocking CCTV images show the moment crazed commuter shoves 23-year-old woman on to Tube tracks."

Obama Welcomes High Gas Prices

At The Foundry, "Correcting the Record: Five Half-Truths From Obama on Higher Gas Prices":

During a speech on gas prices Thursday in Miami, the President tried to dodge responsibility for the pain Americans are feeling at the pump. Recognizing the trouble these higher prices are causing Americans, the President tried hard to demonstrate his concern over higher prices.

But as the video above shows, the President and his Administration have repeatedly stated that they want higher energy prices. They want to use the pressure of higher energy costs as an excuse to force their green energy boondoggle on Americans.

In a new report, Heritage’s Nick Loris breaks down five half-truths in the President’s speech...

Continue reading.

Also at IBD, "5 Biggest Whoppers In Obama's Energy Speech" (via Memeorandum) and Doug Ross, "Deconstructing Barack Obama's Blatant Energy Lies."

BONUS: At Washington Free Beacon, "Obama Politicized High Gas Prices in 2008, Now Accuses GOP of Playing Politics."

Danica Patrick Crash at Daytona 500 Qualifying Race

Well, The Lonely Conservative ties up some of the loose ends surrounding Danica Patrick's comments and crashes, "Danica Patrick is Just a Symptom, not the Disease":

The other day Danica Patrick made an inane political comment, and Smitty was there to point out her absurdity. I was going to weigh in, but got sidetracked by more important matters. But then Danica crashed, and Troglopundit blamed it on the political question that resulted in heaping piles of scorn.

It’s all quite stupid. Danica Patrick is a race car driver and a model or actress, or whatever she is. She’s certainly not someone most people would look to for political advice. Her answer to the question kind of proves the theory.

I guess this is the sort of thing that happens when it’s a slow week in politics.

I’m sure Danica Patrick is a nice person, but that’s not the point. She’s just the symptom of the problems plaguing our republic. Too many of us are so busy watching the latest reality shows, playing games, or engaging in other distractions to have even the slightest clue about what’s really happening to us.

There once was a time when it was uncool to trust the government. I don’t know when it changed, but now the “in” thing to do is to believe everything the government tells you. The left taught us one important lesson – to distrust the government. And now we’re supposed to just take their word for it and we should just trust the government? If so, does that mean when Republicans take over we should trust them, too?

Yeah, well. Maybe Danica should stick to racing and bikinis.

 BONUS: At USA Today, "Danica Patrick uninjured, earns respect after violent crash." And at Los Angeles Times, "NASCAR: Danica Patrick crashes during Daytona 500 qualifying race."

Explaining the Santorum Surge

From Larry Sabato, "The Santorum Surge and Its Larger Meaning" (via Memeorandum):

Buyer’s remorse is very common in the history of presidential nominating politics. Just when it appears that one candidate is headed for the party nod, the voters pause and say, “wait a minute, let’s think about this some more, the frontrunner’s inadequacies trouble us.” Then they opt to keep the contest alive by elevating one of the other candidates — for a while, at least. Rarely, though, has buyer’s remorse been as acute as in 2012. In fact, it is not at all clear that most Republicans have ever bought into Romney at all. Temporary non-Romney frontrunners included Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, not to mention ghost frontrunners (such as Chris Christie) who never entered the race. Romney has only floated to the top in the absence of a well known substitute.

Of the three remaining non-Romney alternatives, only Ron Paul has never held the title of king-for-a-day. Newt Gingrich has risen from the dead twice, and he will persist as long as his iron will and Super PAC angel Sheldon Adelson’s money hold out. His chances of becoming a three-time Lazarus are not bright, but remembering the first two resuscitations, who would risk real money to bet against him?

However, it is Rick Santorum who wears the current anti-Romney crown. Propelled by an unexpected trio of victories in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri on Feb. 7, Santorum now leads Romney in most national surveys, some by a wide margin. More disturbing for Romney, Santorum led Romney in his own home state of Michigan for quite a while, before dropping back in some surveys. As we’ve just suggested, Santorum is partly on top because he is the latest ”great anti-Romney hope.” But it is more than that. As the economy improves and President Obama’s ratings creep upwards, many Republicans have become less certain that any nominee is going to defeat the incumbent. This may change if worse economic numbers crop up later in the year and high gas prices begin to take a presidential toll. But for the moment, the trend is encouraging activists to look beyond Romney, the economic manager, to someone whose social-issue conservatism and blue-collar image may enable the GOP to serve up a different kind of presidential option.

A few intellectual leaders of the Republican party’s right-wing have begun to convince themselves that Santorum may be a risk worth taking. He gives activists some fallback reasons to vote should economic recovery continue, and he will stir the base, especially Tea Partiers and evangelical Christians. GOP enthusiasm has been on the wane lately but with Santorum, goes the thinking, GOP turnout may increase. (The swing independents in competitive states are another matter. Many independent analysts think Santorum is too far right on social issues to be elected in November.)

That's sounds great, up to a point. Frankly, Tuesday night's debate could be hurting Santorum --- and the debates have been a significant factor in the surging (and resurging) prospects of previous challengers to Romney's lead. See, for example, Los Angeles Times, "Michigan polls show Romney gained after GOP debate."