The Devil and Daniel Webster

Paybacks are a bitch:



Townhall created this clever little spoof to spotlight the evil Alan Grayson's path to electoral damnation.  Fortunately Webster doesn't need to resort to pulling Grayson's statements out of context to paint him as the devil; Grayson does a fine job in that department all on his own.

Obama barbequed in the backyard by small businessman - UPDATED

What to do when you start getting an earful from an informed small businessman at a backyard event? If you're Barack Obama you cut them off and pretend you're happy to address all their points - cause you know - he's so smart like that. Fox News caught up with the man after the event who was happy to fill them in on the rest of the question he wanted to ask. My guess, Obama would have done a whole lot of stammering trying to answer this one:



H/T: Gateway Pundit

UPDATE: It looks as though Obama was slow-roasted over an open flame:

About 70 people awaited him in the backyard, where Mr. Obama got an earful. One woman told him that her 24-year-old son had “campaigned furiously for you and was very inspired by your message of hope,” but is now out of college and struggling to find a job.

Another said she had “great concerns about your health care bill.” A priest told of an unemployed parishioner. A small-business owner expressed irritation with the president’s plan to raise taxes for people earning more than $250,000, to which Mr. Obama, showing his own flash of own irritation, replied: “Your taxes haven’t gone up in this administration.”

The questions were so downbeat that at the end of the hour-long session, Mr. Obama tried to pick up the mood.

“As I listen to the questions,” he said, “it’s a good reminder we’ve got a long way to go, but I do want everyone to be encouraged about our future.”

We're encouraged Mr. President. We're almost a month away from sending your dysfunctional Democratic Congress packing and a mere 2 years away from sending you home with your ballerina boy.

Grayson in real trouble

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy:

A new poll from Susquehanna Polling and Research and Sunshine State News has Grayson pulling only 36 percent of the vote, with his GOP opponent, Dan Webster, at 43 percent among likely voters. Now, it's aRepublican pollster and this is also the only independent poll we've seen in the race. But it's still bad news for Grayson. As RealClearPolitics puts it, "An incumbent congressman at 36 percent almost never wins; Grayson is in real trouble."

Despite the hatred Grayson inspires, Republicans initially struggled to recruit a candidate to oppose him, but were eventually able to draw in Webster, a former speaker of the state House of Representatives. The district has traditionally voted Republican, although it's started to move to the left.

Grayson began as a brash young congressman who attracted plaudits among liberals for speaking harshly against Republicans. It was, for the Netroots crowd, a breath of fresh air to see a Democrat using the scorched-earth tactics of Rush Limbaugh against conservatives. But as his stream of comments has continued, there's been a gathering backlash against him; the nonpartisan political scientist and media critic Brendan Nyhan has called him "loathsome."

Loathsome somehow doesn't quite cover the depths to which Grayson sinks.  Of those I most want to see lose in November, Grayson ranks near the top of the list.  Grayson's lunacy may win him points among the base but his right-leaning district is not likely to see him as a "breath of fresh air." Needless to say there is a little deep denial  among the nutroot crew that adores him:

It's not hard to imagine voters in a generally Republican-leaning swing district being turned off by Grayson's rhetoric...but this poll doesn't mean too much.

It's a Republican pollster and it's the only poll out there. Grayson's rhetoric will fire up the base of the district and he should be able to (narrowly) hold on.

Wouldn't Grayson's base be fired up and ready to go already? Did the pollster miss the base in the sample? I doubt it. Nevertheless, there were many pledges in the comments reflecting a commitment to send the hero Grayson money to fight the good fight against Republicans. Feel free to help save America with a donation to Daniel Webster.

Democratic voters are the new Martha Coakleys

Jane Hamsher summarizes the Obama GOTV strategy, "they're all Martha Coakley now:"

I can tell you without fear of contradiction that in the last days of a tight race, or even a not-tight race, short of the FBI finding a stash of kiddie porn on your laptop there is nothing worse than the headline-grabbing news that the head of your party, the President of the United States, thinks you are a shitty candidate and his aides are privately saying you are going to lose.

It could easily shave 5 points off your total and mean the margin of defeat. It threatens to instantly suppress all those difficult-to-motivate 2008 “surge” voters the Democrats have been chasing, and which Obama’s support was supposed to deliver.

In the case of Specter and Lincoln, that support was promised in exchange for their votes on measures Obama is now crowing about. He tells Rolling Stone he has achieved “70%” of his campaign promises. That’s a bit far-fetched, but be that as it may, Lincoln’s vote for his health care bill cost her dearly, and without Specter’s vote for the stimulus, it never would have happened.

Now I don’t feel the least bit sorry for either of them, but it doesn’t say anything good about Obama that he would abandon them in the clinch like that either.

But this is a clear pattern with the Obama White House. Insulating the President from blame for electoral losses is paramount, even at the risk of triggering the loss. Setting up the narrative, pre-election, that the campaign was doomed anyway and there was nothing Obama could do to save it was considered more important.

This is a pretty simple formula for success in Obama's mind: lousy candidates + angry dejected voters = lousy November for Dems.  As long as he isn't tainted in the process, it's all in a day's work.  This is essentially his formula for the economy when you come right down to it.  No one really believes Obama is blame-free though, well, except for maybe Obama.  In his mind he was elected to point fingers, give lectures and golf.  Nice work if you can get it.

For the record though, lecturing and scaremongering the young is not always an effective strategy for motivation.  Don't tell him though.  I personally hope Obama spends all his time from now until November attempting to motivate his base.  There will be plenty of time for living in a van when they're living in a van.

Desperate Measures: Patrick Murphy releases a purple people eater poll

Desperate times  my friends lead to incredibly desperate measures:

"Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Vote Vets Action Fund released a poll today showing Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy leading Republican Mike Fitzpatrick among likely voters by 49 percent to 46 percent, with 5 percent undecided. Murphy enjoys an even wider lead among more likely voters. Among the 87 percent of respondents who say they will “definitely vote,” Murphy holds a 50 percent to 45 percent lead. Among the 75 percent of respondents who actually voted in the last mid-term election in November 2006, Murphy’s lead expands to 52 percent versus 44 percent for Fitzpatrick."

Notice that the poll shows Murphy's lead magically expanding as respondents are narrowed to likely voters.  Not only is this diametrically opposed to all the trends in voter enthusiasm across the county, it is precisely the opposite of the findings of only independent measure of the race thus far:

Still, the most recent 6ABC-Franklin and Marshall College Poll has Murphy behind 46-36 percent among registered voters.

And it's even worse news for Murphy among likely voters who have the challenger leading 49-35 percent.

Murphy criticized the findings of the Franklin and Marshall poll relentlessly yet expects the public to accept the findings of a poll bought and paid for by the SEIU without hesitation.  Riiiiiiiiiiiight, maybe that will happen after we find out what is in that health care bill and fall hopelessly in love with it.

Take me to your obscure Malaysian astrophysicist

Just in case we're invaded by alien space creatures, the the UN has our backs:

THE United Nations was set today to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth’s first contact for any aliens that may come visiting.

Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN's little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society’s Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire.

She is scheduled to tell delegates that the recent discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars has made the detection of extraterrestrial life more likely than ever before - and that means the UN must be ready to coordinate humanity’s response to any “first contact”.

Right, well, I can't think of anyone better to do the meet and greet with the little green dudes can you?  A certain someone - who shall remain nameless - would probably bow or something.  Maybe we can get David Axelrod to spin the whole invasion as the universe beating a path to sample our fabulous ObamaCare.  That ought to chase the aliens out of here at the speed of sound.

Via Memeorandum

38 Days - We have a rendezvous with destiny

November is truly "a time for choosing:"



Video created by Ben Howe at RedState

Read Reagan's speech after the jump - it's timely 46 years after it was first delivered

Fitzpatrick leads Murphy by 14 in PA08

If Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District is truly the bellwether pundits predict, Democrats are in trouble:

• In the 8th congressional district, Mike Fitzpatrick has an advantage over incumbent Patrick Murphy among all registered adults, 46% to 36%, with about one in five (17%) adults still undecided. Fitzpatrick’s advantage is larger among those more likely to vote, 49% to 35%, with 15% undecided. The survey finds that Fitzpatrick’s advantage increases as the likely voter screen becomes more restrictive.
• Two in five (41%) registered adults in the district rate Representative Murphy’s job performance as “excellent” or “good.” About the same proportion (40%) believe he deserves re-election while almost half (47%) believes it is time for a change.
• In the PA senate race, Pat Toomey leads Joe Sestak in the district among all registered adults, 39% to 30%, and among likely voters, 42% to 32%. In the gubernatorial race, Tom Corbett leads Dan Onorato among registered adults, 37% to 29%, and among likely voters, 40% to 30%. Many registered adults in the 8th CD are still undecided about their choices for US senate (30%) and governor (34%).
• Unemployment and the economy (57%) are the primary issues facing respondents and their families in the district. The positive job performance rating for President Obama (37%) is low in the district, but is similar to his overall state-wide ratings. Governor Rendell’s positive job performance rating (46%) is higher than the President’s in the district and is also higher than his overall state-wide rating.

The most stunning take from this poll is the degree that Barack Obama is an albatross around Patrick Murphy's neck.  Murphy is not weighed down by Obama unfairly, however.  His voting record is testimony to Murphy's commitment to the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda.

While this poll is certainly good news for Fitzpatrick, it does not mean the race is over.  Murphy has a sizable cash advantage which he will surely use to his advantage.  There is also a large percentage of undecided voters in the district.  Though undecided voters tend to break away from the incumbent, Murphy's cash advantage will certainly be used to persuade some to break his way.

There is plenty of work to be done yet in this district.  Last Saturday I volunteered to make calls at the Bucks County GOP Victory Center in Doylestown.  I was recruited by a persuasive young conservative and I plan to be there to help again on Saturday as well.  The Victory Center is working to ensure the election of all GOP nominees including Fitzpatrick, Corbett and Patrick Toomey.  Those who are in the area please consider volunteering some time to make certain these great candidates are elected.  We can take nothing for granted, only with hard work will we make sure that incumbents like Murphy are sent a message they can't deny in November.

Can we get Harry Reid to call anyone else a "hottie"?

Because it is working like a charm:

In the Special Election to fill the final 2 years of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s term, incumbent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand and former Congressman Republican Joe DioGuardi today finish effectively even, with Gillibrand’s nominal 1-point lead being within the survey’s theoretical margin of sampling error.

Gillibrand leads in the 5 boroughs of NYC but trails elsewhere.

Men vote Republican, women vote Democrat and, in this contest, cancel each other out.

This wasn't even a race considered in-play which makes this poll pretty shocking.  There's a lot of that  going around these days.  Joe DioGuardi will gladly take a donation to send Harry's Hottie to an early retirement.

How's that health care law working out for you Democrats?

Nearly half (48 percent) of all independent voters said that even if a candidate otherwise held perfect views (in the eyes of the voter) — even if they “agreed with him on all other issues” (italics added) — they still couldn’t vote for him “if [they] disagreed with him on health care reform.” (Another 13 percent weren’t sure whether they could abide such a costly error in judgment or not.)

And what must the candidate’s position on health-care reform be? For 83 percent of the respondents who said their vote would hang in the balance, the candidate must oppose Obamacare. So, according to the survey, if you support Obamacare, you’ve just lost 40 percent (83 percent of 48 percent) of the independent vote — before any other issue is even addressed.

Now who would have thought that health care bill would be a bigger liability than a word of praise from Harry Reid?

North Korea looking for new leader ....... hmmmmm

Help wanted:

North Korea’s ruling party is to hold a conference next week to elect new leaders, the Stalinist state’s official KCNA news agency said on Monday. “The conference of the WPK (Workers’ Party of Korea) for electing its supreme leadership body will take place in Pyongyang on September 28,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported. The agency gave no details of the agenda, but the conference is expected to anoint an heir as the Kim Jong-il’s health deteriorates. . . . New dictator worst as the first. — GP

Are there golf courses in North Korea?  Why yes, yes there are!

Photo White House Flickr

I personally hope if our dear leader runs for reelection he uses that "fore more years" slogan every chance he gets.  Is it me?  How is it that no one around him thought posing with that sign might be a bad idea?

Oh that crazy wacky Harry Reid does it again

Sharon Angle should send him a thank you for this little gem.  It wasn't even a week ago he made news calling Chris Coons his pet now we find out he lets a massively stupid sexist comment slip from his uncensored lips this morning at a fundraiser:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had an unusual form of praise for New York's junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, this morning at the fundraiser Mayor Bloomberg hosted for him at his townhouse - referring to her as "the hottest member" as she sat just a few feet away, according to three sources.

The comment prompted Gillibrand to turn red, according to the sources, and created a bit of stir among the small crowd there.

"It was pretty shocking when he said it," said one source familiar with the remark and the reaction.

I am not going to try and pretend to be outraged because - seriously - this guy is the gift that keeps on giving. Someone follow him around 24/7 with a microphone before he is sent to his forced retirement November 2nd,  please.   The lone left-wing blog brave enough to touch this statement on Memeorandum sums up the magnitude of Harry's stupidity perfectly:

Speaking of Harry Reid's office, all I could say about the Senate Majority Leader after reading this was "Oh, f*ck no."

Oh yes, he's all yours.

Wisconsin is looking mighty red these days - Feingold down 11 points

Woah Daily KOS previews the PPP poll they sponsored in Wisconsin and it is truly the disaster for Democrats he announced on twitter this morning:

 Those internals should be giving the DNC heartburn.  When the Republican is leading among women and winning 33% of the African American vote Feingold can kiss his Senate seat goodbye.  Johnson picks up 18% of Obama voters in a state that Obama won by 13.9%.  Even among the younger voters, the only group to maintain enthusiasm for Obama, Feingold barely holds on to a lead with a mere two point separating him from Johnson.

Obama is under water with 54% disapproving of his performance as president:

Earlier today Rasmussen released a poll of likely voters in the race for Wisconsin Governor.  The poll showed the same 8 point lead found in the Daily KOS/PPP poll for the Republican candidate Scott Walker.  Rasmussen has had Walker with a consistent lead over the Democrat Tom Barrett since they began tracking the race back in February.  Maybe it's time to move these races out of the toss up category.

Thanks to Fox Politics News for linking!

Good News - The recession is officially over

Good news, the recession is officially over. Now for the bad news the recovery is a bust:

The problem isn’t that we are still in a recession, but that we haven’t had much of arecovery. The CNBC hosts note that the NBER warns that most recoveries start with sub-par growth, but we’re more than a year out from the end of the Great Recession and growth is slowing, not accelerating. Even Reuters expects to see less growth in 2011 (2.4%) than they predict in 2010 (2.7%), and neither year will have the kind of growth that creates large numbers of new jobs.

People just aren't feeling it.  Moreover, they aren't particularly hopeful they will be feeling it anytime soon either.  In a CNBC townhall today a woman confronted President Obama with precisely that sentiment:  (See video here)

Monday's town hall meeting started off on a sour note when the first questioner from the audience, a woman who said she voted for him, said she is "deeply disappointed with where I am now."

"My husband and I thought we were beyond the hot dog and beans of our lives. ... Is this my new reality?" she asked.

"I understand your frustration," Obama said. He defended his administration's efforts to help the middle class, listing achievements such as better protection for mortgage loans and health insurance for those with preexisting conditions.

But the hits continued.

The Washington Post reports that Obama appeared at ease when addressing the negative questions from the audience. I would argue this point. He appeared at ease but his answers offered little in substance and what little substance there was - well- it was the same litany of legislative accomplishments nearly everyone hates. For example, to the woman who expressed deep disappointment with where she was now, Obama started off stating she was the type person he wanted to help. He noted that she was one who probably played by the rules, lived within her means etc etc. He proceeds to tell her that he has protected her from the credit card companies. Hello? If she lived within her means why would she need protection from the credit card companies? She wasn't feeling it because Obama's legislative accomplishments aren't designed to help people like her.  Everyone knows this yet Obama can't pass the opportunity to list his "accomplishments."

There was, however, a question that threw him:

The one question that seemed to throw him off was about the "tea party." A Georgetown University MBA student asked him to comment about the conservative movement's calls for the administration to get the budget under control.

After saying that the United States has a "noble tradition" of being "helpfully skeptical of government," Obama went on the attack. He said members of the tea party are "misidentifying sort of who the culprits are here." He said the government has been dealing with two tax cuts that weren't paid for and two wars that weren't paid for -- alluding to actions by the Bush administration.

He challenged the tea party to come up with specific tax cuts or ways to control spending, rather than just talking about the need to reduce the $4 trillion deficit and hoping that "magically somehow things are going to work."

"We're not going to be able to solve the problem just by yelling at each other," he said.

As to the last part I would suggest Obama take some age old advice, "Physician heal thyself." As to the first part, the tea party is well aware who the culprits are and profess almost daily that they plan to hold big-spending Republicans accountable. Anyone remember that election last week in Delaware? As angry as tea party members have been at Republicans however, they know without a doubt who the truly dangerous culprits are as well:

Some pictures are worth several trillion words.
Via Memeorandum

Inside look at a lazy dysfunctional Obama White House - Update

Roger Simon shared a link last night on Facebook to a three-part series on News Flavor that offers a revealing look inside a dysfunctional Obama White House.  A picture is painted of an out-of-touch, immature and lazy president as seen through the eyes of a disgusted D.C. insider with access as a former advisor to the Obama election campaign and transition team. The source, for obvious reasons, is unnamed. Much of what is revealed in the interview, however, rings true and is frequently intuitive to those who have been witness to the stunning fall to earth of Barack Obama. I highly recommed reading the entire series, which is a bit lengthy but well worth your time:

• Part One: White House Insider on Obama: “the President is Losing It.”
• Part 2: "The President needs to grow up."
• Part 3: "What the hell have we done?"

In the 3rd portion of the interview the source reveals his motivation for giving the information that is disparaging of  Barack Obama and the people who enable his dismal performace as President.  In short, the source sees a tsunami coming and lays the blame almost entirely in the laps of the terrible triumvirate of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid:

we got Congressmen and Senators running for re-election right now whose political careers are about to be ended because they supported a president and a Democratic Party leadership that told them to do so.  They trusted they would be politically protected, that the American people would agree with the agenda.  Well guess what?  That hasn’t happened.  Good people, good Democrats, are being tossed aside like so much trash – and this White House DOES NOT GIVE A DAMN.  In my eyes that is absolutely unforgivable.  You just don’t do that to your own people.  And some of these politicians are talking.  They are – but for the most part the media is ignoring them because they don’t want to hurt the administration.  To that I say enough!  Do your damn job.  Report what is going on within the Democratic Party.  We need to clean up this mess, and it starts by getting the truth out there.  That is my motivation.

What a surprise the media would ignore news that would almost surely destroy the Obama presidency or what's left of it. Still, the source believes the coming deluge of revelations from those who feel betrayed by this president will be so loud the media will no longer be able to ignore it. I wouldn't bet on that but I guess time will tell.

Nevertheless, despite the insider's perception that the coming tsunami is both self-inflicted and necessary to awaken the lazy, petulant, thin-skinned man who has proven to himself unworthy of the power bestowed upon him, the reader gets the unmistakable impression the insider is doubtful Obama has the capacity to begin listening to the American people he has chosen to ignore for the sake of his left-wing agenda. Indeed, the insider seems to believe it may be best if Obama loses in 2012:

No. Obama is not up to the job of being president. He simply doesn’t seem to care about the work involved. You want to know what? Obama is lazy. He really is. And it is getting worse and worse. Would another four years of Obama be the best thing for America? No it would not. What this country needs is a president who is focused on the job more than on themselves. Obama is not that individual. I actually hope he doesn’t run again. Looking back, as much fun as the campaign in 2008 was, Hillary Clinton should have been the nominee. Hillary was ready to be president. Obama was not ready. He had never lost a campaign. Everything was handed to him. He doesn’t really understand the idea of work – real, hard, get your heart and soul into it work. And frankly, that is very disappointing to a whole lot of us…

There are many revelations in the three-part series that not only confirm perceptions many on the right formed about Barack Obama during the election but also the naivete of those who blindly supported his election and subsequently walked the plank for his agenda.  As indignant as those who sacrificed their careers in service of Barack Obama may feel, they willingly believed he possessed some powerful magic to protect them.  They willingly believed he had the power to transform the hated health care bill into a popular accomplishment the public would suddenly adore.  Perhaps they naively believed Obama would continue convincing the public the bill would make their lives better but honestly what was left to be said that wasn't said in the many months leading up to its passage?  Where is their accountability for votes that only those who were as out-of-touch as Obama could cast with anything remotely resembling a clear conscience?

There are hints given throughout the series that the marriage between Michelle and Barack is held together by a slender thread.  I found some of this dubious at best and largely irrelevant to the larger issue of Barack Obama's competence.  Perceptions of other people's marriages are often wrong.  I do not, however, find this type of speculation unusual given the seeming dysfunction and disappointment among those who feel betrayed by Obama.  What was more interesting to me was the insider's perception of Michelle the ideologue:

Here is what I get from the First Lady. She is very much the Chicago ideologue. Nancy Pelosi is the far left of the Democrat Party, right? Well, Michelle Obama might be to the left of Nancy Pelosi. She really doesn’t care for how things work in the country and she wants to see it all changed. I can respect that, though I would guess she is far too liberal even for me – and I consider myself a liberal Democrat.

This is not terribly surprising in and of itself but it does hint why Obama may find himself incapable of heading to the center if he is handed a huge loss this November.  Obama is surrounded with those who believe as he does  they know better than the American people what they want and need.  They believe in their prescriptions and are unlikely to give them up.  Instead Obama seems to believe his policies would be working brilliantly were it not for the banks and businesses conspiring against him.  Those who might paint a clearer picture of reality for Obama appear to be headed for the door though there is no indication they would successfully change Obama's mind were  he to start listening:

Hopefully without sounding disrespectful, I would tell the President to pull his head out of his ass. To man up, grow up, and start to pay attention to what the American people want and need. That is a big-big flaw with this president. He comes at it from the position of thinking he knows what we need because we don’t have the ability to know for ourselves. And he doesn’t respect any opinion that is different from his own. He just doesn’t care to know any other side to any given issue. I really believe it’s a maturity thing. I think our president needs to grow up. I hate to put it that way, but there it is. President Obama – grow up.

While I can't vouch for the credibility of the source in the series, the series is an interesting read.  If nothing else it is consistent with depictions of Obama as the lazy President of Harvard Law Review and lazy senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.  Time will tell whether he is correct there is deep rancor among those who will pay the heavy price for their uncritical acceptance of Obama the healer of planets and oceans.  The insider suggests that "the door will be kicked open" when we hear news involving Pelosi.  This seems rather cryptic given all that has been said under the cover of anonymity.  Nevertheless, I believe we will start to see more and more desperate Democrats denying allegiance to Nancy Pelosi prior to the election.  What they say after the election is likely to fill many books.  I can't wait.

UPDATE:  Roger Simon has posted his reaction to the series and offers a suggestion to the source:

Sadly, this White House Insider, try as he or she may, still seems mired in this “reification.”  Not only does he (let’s assume a “he” for grammatical convenience) suffer from excessive  CIS – Clinton Idolatry Syndrome – he is still apparently more concerned for the health of the Democratic Party than he is for the health of our nation.

Otherwise, why hide behind this cloak of anonymity?

If you really want to make a difference, White House Insider, tell us who you are.  I know – it’s difficult. There are job considerations, friendships, etc. and we are all cowards. It’s normal human behavior.  But “man up” or “woman up” or whatever and take the plunge.  It’s not so bad.  I can attest to it.  Almost a decade ago I came out quite publicly in disagreement with my former views – in Hollywood of all places – and I’m still here.  (Well, sort of.)

Read the rest. More reactions here and on Memeorandum

Double double, toil and trouble

Tales of moonbats; tongue of dog

Cool it with a baboon's blood

Then the socialist is firm and good

Burn her at the stake, Christine O'Donnell "dabbled into" witchcraft once upon a time.  Never fear dear reader, her "friend" Bill Maher, has her in a leg iron and threatens her with a little good-natured Wendelin the Weird treatment:

Maher seemed to remember her visits to the show fondly, sending her good wishes and predicting that she may be more successful than Sarah Palin because “Sarah Palin is mean and Christine is not.” Despite deeming her nice enough to not attack her in any direct way, Maher was not above digging through old clips of her on his program saying wacky things in order to get her back on his show. “It’s like a hostage crisis,” he explained, “Every week you don’t show up, I’ll throw a body out.”

With friends like that, as they say:

O’Donnell is being attacked for having been cutesy and wacky in the 90s, (as if she were the only person who was cutesy and wacky in the 90s). Not even Bill Maher can come up with something particularly mean-spirited to say about her. As embarrassing as the clips may be, having a far-left commentator try to coyly humiliate her just to get face time with her is about as positive an endorsement as any Tea Party candidate has gotten.

The divine Ms. Althouse is having none of it either:

It's a good attention-getting ploy by Maher. He's got the video and he's taking clips out of context for the maximum shock/comic effect. It's perfectly okay to do that with video, right? Remember when Andrew Breitbart did something like that to Shirley Sherrod, and all the liberals got all righteous about taking things out of context?

Well the left gets all righteous - when it suits them - then they turn back into the newts we know them to be:




Speaking of bit witches.  Someone take the stake to Alaska, Lisa Murkowski needs to be weaned off a powerful narcotic - stat!

The cauldron is stirring on Memeorandum

Excerpt - Christine O'Donnell's Values Summit Speech

She seems to have handled herself quite well as she asks "is freedom worth it?"

The Michelle is Miserable Roundup

Just the sort of news that perks up my dreary day:

Merde, alors Anne Leary takes the scenic route through "Michelle's Private Hell"

Jill notes Michelle's having a hell of a time in that rubber dress while Michelle Obama's Mirror writes Here's where the rubber meets the load.  Ouch!

Political Junkie Mom offers a let her eat cake recipe from Paula Deen for our "stuck in hell" FLOTUS.

That was fast, the Michelle in Hell walkback begins:

Update: Roger L. Simon asks the logical follow-up question: If Michelle hates being first lady, what does her husband think about being POTUS?
Update (10:55 AM PM 9/16/10): Well that didn’t long for the walkback to begin; currently on Drudge: WH: ‘The first lady never said that’…

 And as Karl Rove notes in the Wall Street Journal about the president’s largely self-inflicted domestic woes, “in just 20 months, Mr. Obama has lost control of his presidency’s narrative.” The damage control this morning over the FLOTUS doesn’t help matters.

Walk back or not, you know these two had no idea what they were getting into. Though they love the perks I am sure they would rather sell t-shirts or something.    May their dreams come true in that regard.

O'Donnell's a contender says ... Chris Matthews?

Broken clock theory applies here naturally, but it's still interesting to hear Chris Matthews, Eugene Robinson and Howard Fineman caution Democrats they dismiss Christine O'Donnell's candidacy at their peril.  Fineman quotes a source who suggests the race will come down to single digits which is far different than the predictions from Rove and his Greek chorus.

Predictably, Democrats having been spiking the ball on this election all day.  I seem to remember an election in Massachusetts that was impossible to lose recently.  Fortunately for O'Donnell, Democrats have already begun repeating the same mistakes they made in Massachusetts.  Talk about your kiss of death:
 

"I'm going to be very honest with you — Chris Coons, everybody knows him in the Democratic caucus. He's my pet. He's my favorite candidate," Reid said.

"Let me tell you about him: A graduate of Yale Divinity School. Yale Law School. A two-time national debate champion. He represents two-thirds of the state now, in an elected capacity. I don't know if you've ever seen him or heard him speak, but he is a dynamic speaker. I don't mean loud or long; he's a communicator. So that's how I feel about Delaware. I've always thought Chris Coons is going to win. I told him that and I tried to get him to run. I'm glad he's running. I just think the world of him. He's my pet."

Keep talking Harry Reid, keep talking. Pay no attention to the tingly-types behind the MSNBC curtain:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Harry Reid's "pet" statement currently at the top of Memeorandum
Woah - Be sure to see the photoshop on this topic at Michelle Malkin's blog

More from Karl Rove on Christine O'Donnell

Last night's statements about Christine O'Donnell From Rove and the NRSC establishment were every bit as newsworthy as O'Donnell's upset victory over the establishment candidate Mike Castle. It is clear Rove was smarting as he believed, as many did, the nomination of O'Donnell put a GOP win in Delaware out of reach. In the light of day, clearer heads prevailed at the NRSC as well they should. But what does Rove have to say today? As you will see in the video below he isn't backing off much though what he says here will be nothing compared to the full full nuts and sluts treatment the Democratic candidate Chris Coons has in store. I wasn't expecting the "balls to the wall" support Rush Limbaugh asked of his listeners today but Rove would do well to take some of Rush's advice; save the slime for the Democrat:

O'Donnell Wins GOP Nomination for Delaware Senate

Stacy McCain called it from O'Donnell headquarters around 9 PM minutes before the AP called the race.

Jim Geraghty strikes the right tone:

1. As much as I may have had many bones to pick, this is a victory for Christine O’Donnell and her supporters to savor. The turnout is set to go well ahead of the expected 45,000, and she’s had no trouble finding the votes on a scale that large. Rep. Mike Castle and those who preferred him threw everything they had at her; she managed to persuade Delaware GOP primary voters that the key issue in the race was Castle’s record and not hers.

2. Delaware Republicans are a much more conservative group that past elections would lead us to think. In retrospect, how did Mike Castle never have a primary challenger in 9 terms?

3. She didn’t just beat Mike Castle’s campaign. She beat the state party.

4. Go beat the heck out of the once-bearded Marxist, ma’am.

The reference to the "once-bearded Marxist refers to this Chris Coons profile at Politico:

An article Democrat Chris Coons wrote for his college newspaper may not go over so well in corporation-friendly Delaware, where he already faces an uphill battle for Vice President Joe Biden’s old Senate seat.

The title? “Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist.”

UPDATE:
Heh - Election post of the day goes to Fishersville Mike

Live Stream Delaware, Massachusetts and New Hampshire Primary Results

Watch live video from Ra(]io_MaИdo on Justin.tv


Stacy McCain is reporting live from Christine O'Donnell headquarters in Dover DE tonight.

The Sebelius Thugocracy: "They're more subtle than this in Caracas".

In other administrations you would expect news like this to turn up in a parking garage somewhere delivered by an anonymous "Deep Throat." Not so in the Obama administration, where thugocracy reigns supreme; we find this news in the Wall Street Journal instead:

'As a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that's going to increase our costs—we knew that," President Obama said at his press conference Friday in response to a question about rising health spending.

That wasn't how he sold the plan, but, anyway, that's a truism. Here's another: The White House was always going to blame insurance companies for any cost increases, even when its own policies cause them.

Witness Kathleen Sebelius's Thursday letter to America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade group—a thuggish message even by her standards. The Health and Human Services secretary wrote that some insurers have been attributing part of their 2011 premium increases to ObamaCare and warned that "there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases."

Zero tolerance for expressing an opinion, or offering an explanation to policyholders? They're more subtle than this in Caracas.

What Ms. Sebelius really means is that the government will prohibit insurers from doing business if reality is not politically convenient for Democrats. ObamaCare includes a slew of mandated benefits for next year, such as allowing children to remain on their parents' plans until age 26 and "free" preventative care (i.e., no direct out-of-pocket cost sharing for consumers). The tone of Ms. Sebelius's letter suggests that she doesn't understand that money is exchanged for goods and services, and that if Congress mandates new benefits, premiums will rise.

No wonder the economy is in the crapper with this group of thugs threatening business at every turn.  As if the Obama health care agenda hasn't gone out of its' way to make life miserable for insurers already; insurers are now prevented from explaining the consequences of this outrageous law to their customers.  I guess they should write a letter explaining they are all money grubbing whores hoping to profit off the misery of the American people in justification for rate increases necessitated by the health care law.

Shhh, don't look now but the 1099 insurrection is underway:

You might not have seen it reported, but the Senate will vote this morning on whether to repeal part of ObamaCare that it passed only months ago. The White House is opposed, but this fight is likely to be the first of many as Americans discover—as Nancy Pelosi once famously predicted—what's in the bill.

The Senate will vote on amendments to the White House small business bill that would rescind an ObamaCare mandate that companies track and submit to the IRS all business-to-business transactions over $600 annually. Democrats tucked the 1099 reporting footnote into the bill to raise an estimated $17.1 billion, part of the effort to claim that ObamaCare reduces the deficit by $100 billion or so.

Much like the rest of the miraculous deficit reducing powers of the health care law, the onerous provision requiring business to file truckloads of 1099's would produce the $17.1 billion Dems claimed only in a mythical beltway fantasy land.  Instead it will bury business and the IRS in paperwork and increased costs.

The provision is such a failure that even the White House is quietly backing its removal from their grotesque law.  They're not backing the repeal of the provision, however, for fear that would set repeal fever in motion:

Most Democrats now claim they were blindsided and didn't understand the implications of the 1099 provision—which is typical of the slapdash, destructive way the bill was written and passed. As the critics claimed, most Members had no idea what they were voting on. Some 239 House Democrats voted to dump the 1099 provision in August, and the repeal would have passed except Speaker Pelosi rigged the vote procedurally so it needed a two-thirds majority. She thus gave Democrats the cover of a repeal vote without actually repealing it.

In the Senate today, Nebraska Republican Mike Johanns will offer his amendment to scrap the new 1099 rules altogether. But the White House is opposing this because it fears it would set a precedent for repealing the larger health bill. Over the weekend the Treasury Department pronounced the Johanns amendment "not acceptable in its current form."

Yesterday the White House endorsed a competing proposal from Florida Democrat Bill Nelson that would increase the 1099 threshold to $5,000 and exempt businesses with fewer than 25 workers. Yet this is little more than a rearguard action in favor of the status quo; the Nelson amendment leaves the basic architecture unchanged while making the problem more complex.

Businesses would still have to track all purchases, not knowing in advance which contractors will exceed $5,000 at the end of the year. It also creates a marginal barrier to job creation—for a smaller firm, hiring a 26th employee would be extremely costly. The Nelson amendment also includes new taxes on domestic oil production, as every Democratic bill now seems to do.

If this weren't all so dire, it would almost be comical the lengths this administration will go to throw barriers onto business for job creation.  No doubt some administration official will take it upon themselves to pen a letter to business threatening them to keep quiet about why they have zero incentive to hire new people.  Never fear America, we have the new improved empathetic Obama to "stand in the hot sun" with us - in unemployment lines presumably - as he "feels our pain."

UPDATE:  Wyblog reports Senate Dems refuse to repeal the 1099 reporting requirement:

The Barack Obama Death to Small Business Tax Reporting Act of 2010 will stand.

Senate Democrats successfully defeated an amendment offered by Senator Mike Johanns (R-Neb) that would have repealed an Obamacare provision which requires all businesses to file Form 1099 with the IRS for every vendor that sells them more than $600 in goods.

Death to small business seems to be their middle name.

More on this at Memeorandum

She's Melting

At Angela's request, I post the quintessential Ruby Slippers political ad produced by Ladd Ehlinger. How can I possibly refuse?



The last Ehlinger ad I posted was the divine Young Mattie Fein: Ahmadinejad was . . . my . . . boyfriend!!! As Allahpundit notes in his headline, I am sure going to miss these ads after the election. Of course, we will have been comforted with visions of buckets of water when they are finally tossed at that wicked one. Naturally, Ehlinger will be busy thinking up ads that will relieve us of the Tin Man after that.   The cherry on this sundae, however, would be to see John Dennis take Pelosi's seat, follow the link to help make that happen.

The literary disembowelment of Meghan McCain

Leon Wolf shreds Meghan McCain's book Dirty Sexy Politics today in the New Ledger.  Truthfully, I am not sure the word shreds paints a full enough picture of the literary disembowelment Wolf delivers to the petulant daughter of Senator John McCain.  Here is a sample:

It is impossible to read Dirty, Sexy Politics and come away with the impression that you have read anything other than the completely unedited ramblings of an idiot.  This being a professional website for which I have a great deal of respect, I searched for a more eloquent or gentle way to accurately phrase the previous sentence – but could not find one.

It is important to know that I was repeatedly tempted just to put the book down, eat the relatively small price I paid to download it to my Kindle, and silently curse Hyperion for publishing this book. After all, they are the ones taking advantage of this particular idiot’s fifteen minutes of fame by exposing her idiocy for the entire world to see. By all appearances, they didn’t even have the decency to hire someone to edit the book – more on that later.

In the final analysis, however, I determined that most of Meghan’s flaws – such as her unbearable narcissism, delusions of persecution, anti-religious bigotry, and mendacity – couldn’t be chalked up to her manifestly below-average intelligence. These are blameworthy traits born of a malfunctioning moral compass, and they are laid bare in spades on every page of Dirty, Sexy Politics. Furthermore, it is important to address them because Meghan McCain’s book is an active attempt to split the Republican Party in two and thereby destroy its ability to win elections. And even though she is an idiot, she is a useful idiot in the hands of the media and other assorted Democrats, who also want to achieve this goal.

Therefore, let us thoroughly evaluate this book on the merits, and see whether anything worthwhile is contained therein.

Needless to say, Wolf finds nothing worthwhile contained therein.  Nothing.  The best Wolf is able to manage to say on behalf of the book is that Meghan McCain successfully painted a sympathetic portrait of her father in the days following his defeat to Barack Obama.  Wolf does this out of obligation, finding it incumbent upon the book reviewer to find at least one positive thing to say about the subject of his scathing review:

I suppose that it is incumbent on me as a book reviewer to mention one positive thing about the book that I liked.  The section where McCain describes the days after her father’s crushing defeat on election day were just as poorly written and rambling as the rest of the book, but they were definitely touching and successfully painted her father in a very sympathetic light. As she described the way that Senator McCain achieved catharsis by grilling ribs day after day and healing his wounds surrounded by his family, you get the sense that whatever their flaws, the McCain family does love one another and stick together. So that is something.

Yes that is something I suppose.  Wolf accurately describes Meghan McCain as a "useful idiot" in the hands of the media and Democrats intent on destroying Republican chances to win elections.  Those who have followed her inexplicable prominence in the days since her father lost the election have lamented this fact repeatedly.  Wolf wisely points to the reason McCain's book was doomed to disaster: "The sad truth is that Meghan McCain is never going to write a book that imparts a basic level of understanding about any topic until she reaches a basic level of understanding about herself."

That Meghan McCain lacks sufficient insight to regret being the useful idiot once again seems a foregone conclusion.  Sadly for her, she was poorly served by those who gleefully put her back in the limelight by publishing a rambling book sorely in need of an editor.  It may takes years before she realizes, if she ever truly realizes, publishing her narcissistic ramblings on the faults and failures of conservatives was meant entirely for the entertainment of those who treat Republicans as part of the "ugly travelling circus" day in and day out.  Providing Ms. McCain with a strong editor serves no purpose from their point of view.  They would far prefer the portrait of a spoiled heiress with delusions of persecution to show that even the supposed "moderates" on the right are stupid.  Polishing her writing or challenging her to prove her thesis is entirely antithetical to that ultimate goal.

As sure as the sun will rise, Meggie Mac will chastise Mr. Wolf and the conservative movement he represents for raining on her media moment with this scathing review.  She will surely blame anyone but herself and the liberals who use her as an idiot pawn in their game.  To do anything different would require the basic level of understanding required for her to write a thoughtful book to begin with.   Should Ms. McCain reach that level of maturity and insight, I will gladly buy a book that reflects such development.  In the mean time I am not holding my breath.

More on Memeorandum
The brutal truth about Meghan McCain's book
Hey, has anyone else noticed that Meghan McCain is intensely stupid?
Epic beatdown of Meghan McCain:

Upset in the Delaware Senate primary?

Oh my, the latest PPP poll on the GOP primary for Delaware gives Christine O'Donnell a 3 point lead over Mike Castle. The lead, it should be noted, is well within the margin of error:

It looks like there’s a real possibility of a major upset in the Delaware Senate primary on Tuesday night, with insurgent conservative Christine O’Donnell leading longtime Congressman and Governor Mike Castle 47-44. That 3 point lead is well within the poll’s margin of error.
If Castle is indeed defeated Tuesday night it will be yet another sign that conservatives have a strangle hold on the Republican Party and moderates may or may not be welcome anymore. Castle has an overwhelming 69-21 lead with moderate voters but they only make up 33% of the likely primary electorate. O’Donnell has a 62-31 lead with conservatives that’s more than enough to propel her to the overall lead.

It’s clear that Castle’s popularity has taken a sharp turn in the wrong direction over the last month. An August PPP poll found his favorability with Delaware Republicans at a 60/25 spread. Now his favorables within the party are negative at 43/47. That’s largely a product of 55% of voters in his party saying they think he’s too liberal compared to 37% who think he’s about right.

...General election Senate numbers we'll release later this week make it clear the biggest beneficiary of this primary becoming so unexpectedly hotly contested is Chris Coons. He would start out with a large advantage over O'Donnell in a general election match up, and is polling closer to Castle than he was when PPP polled Delaware last month.

Delaware Republicans have a tough choice ahead of them on Tuesday. As a wise professor suggested voters should vote for the candidate they prefer:

Prof. Stephen Bainbridge and Dan Riehl have been debating the Delaware Senate Republican primary, and whether it is worth electing "RINO" Mike Castle.  Bainbridge says yes, Riehl says no.

I don't know enough about Castle or Christine O'Donnell to weigh in on whether Castle is a RINO or O'Donnell is a true conservative -- but both Bainbridge and Riehl implicitly assume the point.  I also don't know about whether Castle is a sure thing in the general election, and O'Donnell a likely loser -- again, Bainbridge and Riehl implicitly assume the point (although Bainbridge more so than Riehl).

So, assuming Castle is a RINO yet significantly more likely to win in a general election, what to do?

I say, vote for the candidate you prefer, and let the electoral chips fall where they may.  That is so now more than ever.

The argument is that a Castle election may be the difference between Republican control of the Senate or not, assuming the tsunami happens.  So what?  So long as Republicans control the House (the much more likely scenario), further legislation implementing the Obama agenda is DOA with or without the Senate.

Meanwhile Jay Cost argues we will need every Senate seat we can get in order to repeal ObamaCare:

If you want to repeal Obamacare, leave Mike Castle alone.  Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Tea Party-backed Christine O’Donnell is going to make next week’s GOP Senate primary battle in Delaware an attention-grabber.

Republicans can peel back much of Obamacare through de-funding, but a full-blown repeal is probably going to require not only a new president, but a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

That is a possibility, though it won’t be easy.  The GOP is currently 19 seats short of a filibuster-proof majority, but this year polling averages suggest that the party is currently set to pick up 8 seats.   Then in 2012, scores of Democrats are up for reelection: in California, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. 

The GOP just cannot win some of these seats, e.g. Hawaii, but if the Republicans are strong enough to take the White House in 2012, they will probably be on the attack in many of these states.  I count 12 seats in states that either went for Bush in 2004 or for which Bush was campaigning heavily.  An R+5 year could tip many of these seats to the GOP.  So, it’s possible.

But this also means that every seat counts.  Mike Castle voted against ObamaCare, and he has co-sponsored the bill to repeal it.  Is he really worth going after?  A pickup of 19 seats in two years is a monumentally difficult task.  It seems to me that at a time when the party needs every seat it can get, Castle can get one.

Dan Riehl  points to Mike Castle's lobbyist problems while the Weekly Standard points to O'Donnell's troubled history in previous elections.   Having been convinced in the past I needed to hold my nose to vote for Arlen Specter when I found him way too Arlen Specterish, I am loathe to tell anyone they should vote for a candidate they disagree with.  I do, however, think there are reasons to be concerned about O'Donnell.

There are wars breaking out everywhere over the best way to vote in this election.  I wish this were not the case, we have way too much work ahead and I hate to see one election divide people who should really be working together.  I am inclined to let the Delaware Republican voters make the call here.  Whatever they decide on Tuesday night, I will rally behind the winner.

A few shrews left untamed

I am ashamed that women are so simple

To offer war where they should kneel for peace.

The Taming of the Shrew, 5. 2

Eleanor the Curst declares Republicans unworthy of the gift Barack et al have bestowed upon them.  Naturally she sharpens her claws and has a hissy fit:

The upcoming election has nothing to do with the Republicans. They’re the beneficiaries of a completely unearned gift, and if they behave true to form, they’ll squander it. They’re like someone who’s won the lottery. They’re getting a windfall, but they haven’t put forth any serious ideas about legislating, or governing. And why should they? The election is not about them…

I’d like to believe that once the voters know more about John Boehner, the House speaker-in-waiting, they will recognize that elevating him is like buying fire insurance from the guy who lit your house aflame. He’s part of the crowd that spent money and ran up the deficit, and now he’s hawking fiscal sanity. He still smokes cigarettes, and in 1995, after the Republicans took over, he was videotaped passing out checks from the tobacco industry on the House floor while members were considering an end to tobacco subsidies. Judging by his complexion, he spends a lot of time in a tanning bed. Maybe he hasn’t heard of skin cancer, or he thinks that’s another myth, like global warming.

Eleanor girlfriend, can we talk?  Your prince still smokes cigarettes and he talks up fiscal sanity while proposing vast new entitlement programs the country needs like melanoma.  The only reason Republicans are on the receiving end of this "windfall" is because no one believes Obama has a clue what he is doing.

I would have liked to believe that once voters knew more about Obama they might have seen this coming.  I certainly did.   I certainly thought handing the crew who believed there was absolutely nothing amiss with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac the keys to the country was a bit like buying fire insurance from the guy who lit your house aflame.  Let's not pretend the progressive left had nothing to do with driving this country into a ditch.  I guess if you repeat a lie often enough it starts to sound like the truth.

Perhaps the Republicans and Boehner haven't proved themselves worthy of their windfall but voters have less confidence in the group who spent a trillion dollars on jobs that can only be counted like magical beans.  We have to believe it would have been way worse without the dog walk parks, tattoo shops and earmarks for Planned Parenthood.  Guess what Eleanor, no one seems to be buying that.  No one really believes that Obama brought us back from the economic abyss or if we had we only invested in more tattoo shops and dog-walk parks things would be hunky-dory.

 Lastly, no one seems to believe the Senate needed to hold hearings on Christmas Eve for a health care program that neither bends the cost curve downward or puts us in charge of our health care decisions.  No, health care wasn't his "major achievement" two-thirds of the country hates it as much as we hated having it crammed down our throats.  There's small choice in rotten apples, Eleanor. The voters, however, seem to have decided some apples are more rotten than others.  Choke on that in November.

Thanks so much to Dan Collins for linking!
H/T: Hot Air Headlines

Project 2996: Remembering Christopher Michael Grady

The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion."  Richard P. Feynman

Nobel laureate Richard P. Feynman  once said, "the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion."  Christopher M. Grady exemplified this definition of enlightenment, filling the lives of those he touched with infectious laughter and  the tender-hearted compassion of an Irishman .

Chris Grady grew up in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn where he attained recognition as a talented athlete.  A  star pitcher for the prestigious Poly Prep Upper School before his graduation in 1990, Chris went on to play ball in his college days at Le Moyne College near Syracuse.  He spent idyllic summers filled with baseball and days on the beach in the tight-knit Irish community of Breezy Point, NY.  He continued to play competitively on the "Brennan and Carr" team in the Breezy Point/Rockaway Point Mens Softball League until just a few years before his death.  Though he was a devoted Mets fan, I am sure the dreams of a talented young boy were contented when he pitched for a Yankee's batting practice.  He later showed the same zealous devotion to his golf game including sitting vigilance for a desirous tee-off time.

Greater than his love and dedication for sports, however, was the love he held for his wife Kelly and their two children Dylan and Kayla.  Finding success in his career as a broker with Cantor Fitzgerald, Chris and Kelly moved to Cranford, NJ to raise their family.  He loved spending time with his children and his wife and was known dote on his dog Motai.  His sense of  commitment to family was, no doubt, born from his strong family bonds as the oldest of four children.  His siblings Brendan, Patrick and Deidre and mother Rita have rallied to support Chris' young family and participated  in an annual  memorial golf outing to raise funds for  a scholarship and charity in Chris' honor.  A website is maintained in his honor by his cousin Paul Clare who describes Chris as "one of those bright lights."

The remains of Chris Grady were never found, a thought that troubles his wife Kelly.  Kelly and her children continued to listen to Chris' voice on their answering machine for comfort.  She described some comfort knowing they had completed a self-enhancement course that required writing your own eulogy. Looking back at them a year after his death, Kelly said: "Everything he wanted, he already had."  These are gifts of comfort left behind by a truly "enlightened" knowing man.  With comforting words or a raucous laugh that shakes the skies and reverberates here on earth; the tender-hearted Irishman dries a tear and spreads a smile from his rightful place in Paradise.