Ezra Klein responds via Twitter. See below.

There’s so much wrong in this column from Ezra Klein’s blog at the Washington Post that it’s hard to know where to begin. Ezra is waxing partisan about the recess appointment of Richard Cordray to be President Obama’s head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, trying desperately to find some justification for this unprecedented flouting of the Constitution. But Master Klein plays too fast and loose with the facts, even for a liberal wunderkind.

Let’s try to take them one at a time.

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As the clock ticks closer to Friday’s deadline for an extension of the continuing resolution currently funding government operations, the voices on the left and in the media grow ever louder and shrill at the prospect of a government “shutdown.”  Note the scare quotes in use there, because in reality what will happen if Congress cannot agree on spending levels for the current fiscal year will be anything but what the term “shutdown” implies.

Republicans are on the right side of the argument in principle and are in line with the political mood in the country.  As evidenced by their overwhelming victory in November, Americans want Congress to cut federal spending.  Republicans campaigned on it, and the voters expect them to keep their promises.

So why, then, do polls like this one from Gallup show that 6 in 10 Americans do not favor a government “shutdown” in lieu of an agreement to cut spending?  The answer is in the framing.  Republicans can’t win a debate with liberals by accepting their use of terms.  What is needed is a way to frame the debate on spending in a way that more accurately reflects what will really happen on Friday at midnight if the government “shuts down.”

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The unrest in Egypt is easily the most critical international crisis of the Obama Administration, and by all accounts the president is not handling it well.  His ambiguous and overly cautious statements on the popular uprising in that crucial Middle East nation have managed only to alienate both the pro-democracy protesters and the pro-regime forces from America, opening the door for truly radical elements like the Muslim Brotherhood to potentially exploit the chaos and seize power.

Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt by emergency powers for nearly thirty years.  Mubarak’s chief value to the United States lies in the continuation of his predecessor Anwar Sadat’s peace with Israel, for which he collects $1.5 billion annually in American aid to prop up his government, close military cooperation for the forces that keep him in power, and the legitimacy that comes with being a “key” U.S. ally.  In return, the United States has received “stability” in a vital region – a benefit that looks far less valuable in light of the events of the past two weeks.

President Obama’s initial instinct was to support Mubarak over the protesters.  At the outset of the unrest, Vice President Biden refused to label Mubarak a “dictator,” and early Administration pronouncements on the situation stressed Egypt’s important role in maintaining peace in the Middle East.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed the protests entirely early on, declaring Egypt’s government to be “stable.”

This early support for the regime, however tepid, enabled Mubarak to hold on to power at the most critical juncture.  Moreover, the Administration’s decision not to come down squarely on the side of the people against an autocratic government led directly to the violence visited on the protesters by government-organized gangs of regime supporters this week.  The White House’s condemnation of the violence and call for an, “orderly transition,” have been completely ignored.

Some might chalk up President Obama’s hesitancy in embracing the protests to inexperience or the gravity of the situation.  However, the Obama Administration’s response to events in Egypt follows along the same lines as its responses to two other uprisings that have occurred on its watch:  Honduras and Iran.  In each case, President Obama chose to side with a dictatorship over its democratic resistance.

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Pageantry, tradition, and protocol all play a big part in the annual State of the Union address.  They are the reason that the speech is like no other in American political life.  In recent years, another equally important element has joined those three: atmospherics.  The success of a State of the Union can be judged in no small way by the reaction the speech generates in the House chamber.  The ritual standing for applause and approval – or remaining seated to express disapproval – by the assembled legislators acts as the first snap poll of the speech’s overall effectiveness.

In every other year in memory, the Congressional audience for a State of the Union sat segregated by party, mixed by house, astride the central aisle of the House chamber.  This year, led by young, eager, and inexperienced Democrats in the Senate, many lawmakers decided to break with this tradition and sat intermixed, Republican and Democrat, lion and lamb, together.

It was intended as a show of unity in the face of the evil of the Tucson shootings two weeks ago.  More cynical commentators smelled a plot to dilute the effect of the November elections, by obscuring the size of the Republican opposition in the new House.  Whatever the purpose, it now seems clear that the Democrats’ bi-partisan sit in was too clever by a half.  The seating arrangement contributed to an uncharacteristically restrained audience for the speech, which when combined with a lackluster performance from the president, ended up killing one of President Obama’s best chances to make the case for his agenda.

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After dominating the headlines in the run up to the November elections, the controversy over a proposed thirteen-story Islamic cultural center and mosque to be located two blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan has largely abated.  Last week, however, the developers of Park 51, as the project is known, suddenly announced that the controversial imam who had been the chief public proponent of the mosque was leaving the project to focus on other initiatives.

In a statement released last Monday, Park 51 said that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan would be focusing their attention on nationwide speaking tour in support of Rauf’s Cordoba Initiative.

“Due to the fact that Imam Feisal is focusing most of his energies and passion on launching this new and separate initiative, it is important that the needs of Park51, the Islamic Community Center in Lower Manhattan, take precedence…Our focus is and must remain the residents of Lower Manhattan and the Muslim American community in the Greater New York area. It is important to note though that while on tour and afterward Imam Feisal and Daisy Khan will not be speaking on behalf of Park51, nor will they be raising funds for the project.”

Rauf will remain on the board of Park51, but the developers appointed Imam Abdullah Adhami to serve as Senior Advisor to the project to help create, “a robust and dynamic religious and interfaith component.”

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to be a key advisor on a project going forward that has enormous creative and healing potential for the collective good in New York City and in our nation,” Adhami said in the statement.

But critics of the mosque do not share Adhami’s belief in the healing potential of the mosque project, much less in his ability to help bring it to fruition.

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Newark Star-Ledger columnist Tom Moran has an op-ed today that very well may be the most disingenuous editorial thus far written on New Jersey Governor Chris Chrtistie.  Titled “The Anatomy of an $11 Billion Myth in New Jersey,” The piece makes wildly inaccurate claims about Christie’s fiscal year 2011 budget, falsely alleges that Christie has made false claims about his budget, and attempts to pin blame on Christie for inaccurate reporting on the budget in the press.

As if all that isn’t enough, Mr. Moran bases his baseless conclusions on an internal contradiction so glaringly obvious even a liberal Star-Ledger columnist should be able to spot it.

In comments on his editorial, however, Moran says critics shouldn’t focus on him in addressing the claims he makes, but should instead seek to refute the arguments.  He’s pretty confident that it can’t be done.

“How about this crazy idea: Let’s assume our fellow citizens are acting in good faith, let’s stop attacking motives and instead address the argument.

Haven’t heard anyone dispute the heart of the argument. And how could you? [...] These are facts, unrefuted.”

That sounds like a Tuscon Challenge™, Mr. Moran.  So here goes, civilly, one at a time.

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Democrats have not reacted well to the “shellacking” voters administered to the party at the polls earlier this month. Far from doing any soul searching or introspection of any kind, Democrats embarked on a campaign to vindicate their leaders, reelecting Nancy Pelosi to head their now minority House caucus and Harry Reid to lead a reduced Senate contingent.

The leadership brooked no second-guessing of Democrats’ electoral strategy, either, declaring that the message was good and only the party’s delivery was flawed. They consoled themselves in the voters’ inability to understand just how wonderful four years of Democratic control of Congress had been, and rued their failure…no, their incomplete explanation of the benefits of another two years with Pelosi as speaker.

Democrats’ refusal to spend any time in the wilderness, indeed in their refusal to acknowledge the existence of a wilderness, has not served them well as they struggle to gain a foothold from which to spring back to power. The lame-duck session of Congress thus far has resulted in no legislative accomplishments: no deal on extending the Bush tax cuts, no talk of spending cuts, no incentives to create jobs, nothing to acknowledge the voters’ anger and frustration at the way Democrats have run the government.

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Debra Burlingame, spoke exclusively to RedState in reaction to President Obama’s comment that America could “absorb” another terrorist attack.  Ms. Burlingame is co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America and the sister of hijacked American Airlines flight 77 pilot Charles Burlingame.

RedState asked Ms. Burlingame to respond to comments reported by celebrity Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in his forthcoming book, “Obama’s Wars.”  On the possibility of another terrorist attack in the United States, the president said:

“I said very early on, as a Senator and continue to believe, as a presidential candidate and now as president, that we can absorb a terrorist attack. We will do everything we can to prevent it. but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever, that ever took place on our soil, we absorbed it, and we are stronger. This is a strong, powerful country that we live in, and our people are incredibly resilient.”

Ms. Burlingame said that the comments were inappropriate.

“The first thing I see are the three thousand families who probalby wouldn’t think we absorbed it that well. The first ones I think of are the four children on my brother’s plane. I think of the Falkenberg family, who lost four people: a husband, wife, and two children.  The three year old was so little, the family received no remains. Those are details that can be multiplied by the tens of thousands of people who were impacted by 9/11, probably hundreds of thousands if you include the rescue personnel.

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Americans have largely forgotten about Iraq and have long since tired of hearing about it.  That is in large part a reflection of our troops’ success in reducing the violence and producing a stable enough situation for a government to stand up, albeit slowly.

For this reason, Obama’s speech marking the end of combat operations in Iraq will play well with the public. In truth the speech was not so much a wrap up of the war in Iraq as it was a “Like-you-I-am-tired-of-hearing-about-Iraq-so-let’s-just-declare-it-over-and-move-on-to-things-I-care-much-more-about” speech. That much is evidenced by what the speech did not contain.

• Context: Neither the name Saddam Hussein nor any reference to his history of brutality toward his people and his neighbors was mentioned, let alone his coddling of terrorists and his history of making threats aimed at the United States.

• Accomplishments: This was a speech devoid of statistics. Did US troops build any schools? Fix any roads? Treat any Iraqi children? Restore any power? Do anything other than get wounded and die? One wouldn’t know it from the president’s text.

People who don’t generally pay too much attention to politics at this time of the year will hear about this speech (Iraq war over!), breathe a sigh of relief, remember that it was Obama who ended it, and move on with their lives. Ultimately, that will not redound much to Democrats’ benefit in November, because this election is not about national security.  On the contrary, Democrats will not be made to answer for their feckless political opportunism on Iraq unless something else happens.

That is why a Republican push for a declaration of Victory in Iraq and an accompanying national celebration is so important.

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Mark Levin has a Facebook post that takes a critical look at some comments New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made in his appearance on This Week this past Sunday. Levin is concerned that Christie is soft on immigration and Obamacare.

“Regarding the former, he sounds like John McCain three years ago. ‘Commonsense path to citizenship.’ Regarding the latter, the cost of joining with the other states in challenging the health care monstrosity is minimal. That’s a poor excuse.”

Democrats and the left in New Jersey are throwing absolutely everything they can at Christie to try and blunt some of the momentum America’s Best Governor™ has been rolling up at their expense.  Remember Momentum [p] = Mass [m] X Velocity [v].  So with Christie’s considerable mass*, Dems are going to have to use a lot of force to slow him down. With all due respect to Mark Levin, our side shouldn’t be helping.

* We kid, governor. We kid because we love.

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President Obama’s much hyped Oval Office address on the Gulf oil disaster is being roundly criticized from the left and the right as lacking in substance and leadership on the spill but full of presidential inaction on the cleanup. An analysis of the number of words the president devoted to the four general topics of the speech shows that the critics are right.

The problem seems to be in Obama’s priorities, as the word count shows. This was not a speech about the oil spill, the aftermath, or recovery in the Gulf. It was largely a sales pitch for Obama’s “green energy” agenda.

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Former White House Counsel John Dean spoke those words to President Richard Nixon almost 40 years ago as the Nixon White House was desperately trying to cover its role in the Watergate scandal—ultimately unsuccessfully. The cancer did bust, the administration was laid low, and succeeding generations of Americans learned that the cover up is often worse than the crime.

Now, the Obama administration finds itself in the middle of its first genuine Washington scandal. And the White House’s ham-fisted effort to sweep the budding scandal under the rug—failing to heed the lesson of Watergate—is largely to blame.

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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wasted no time yesterday in vetoing two tax increases passed by the Democratic legislature. Christie signed his disapproval of the measures reinstating an expired surcharge on “millionaires” almost before the ink was even dry on their pages. Video here.

State Senate President Steve Sweeney, who is also a private sector union boss, let his thuggish ways show just a bit after Christie rejected the bills. Sweeney taunted the governor from the back of the room. “We’ll be back, Governor.”

Christie dismissed him, “Okay. We’ll see,” he said.

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At the White House today, during the welcome ceremony for Mexican President Filipe Calderon – a welcoming to an official state visit wherein Calderon is to be celebrated – President Obama stood by as Calderon trashed the state of Arizona and its citizens over Arizona’s immigration control law:

At the start of Wednesday’s White House visit, Calderon said the law discriminated against Mexicans and called for the two countries to work together to develop an immigration policy that did not force people to live in the shadows “with such laws as the Arizona law, which is forcing our people to face discrimination.” [emphasis added]

Obama did not defend Arizona, as one might expect a President of the United States to do, especially at the White House. No, that’s not what change looks like. Obama instead joined in with a foreign head of state in bashing US citizens on US soil.

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New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has come out against Arizona’s immigration enforcement law. Menendez called on Major League Baseball to move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Phoenix.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Robert Menendez is urging the Major League Baseball Players’ Association to boycott next year’s All-Star Game in Phoenix over the recently passed Arizona law to crack down on illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Democrat says in a letter that 27 percent of Major League players are Latinos and they shouldn’t be subjected to a law Menendez says codifies racial profiling.

Leaving aside the fact that he is ignorant of what the law does and does not codify – racial profiling is specifically outlawed – as the head of the DSCC, Menendez presumably speaks for Democratic Senate candidates, including Arizona’s Rodney Glassman.  Does Tuscon City Council member Glassman support Menendez’s aim to deny Arizona millions in tourism and advertising dollars, not to mention the free exposure that hosting the mid-summer classic would bring in these tough economic times?  Or does he side with the 64% of Arizona likely voters who favor the law?

Moreover, illegal immigration is a problem nationwide, not just in Arizona.  Democrats running in other states must have a position on the law.  Do Democratic Senate candidates endorse Menedez’s call to essentially ignore illegal immigration in their states, leaving it up to a federal government that has shirked its responsibility to secure the border?  Or do Democrat candidates side with the 60% of likely voters nationally who support local enforcement of immigration status?  Maybe they should be asked.

Sen. Menendez has just made campaigning a little more difficult for Democrats.

Arizona’s newly passed law requiring police to determine the immigration status of persons suspected of being in the country illegally has created a firestorm of controversy in all the usual quarters on the left. Democrats and liberal pundits decry the state’s attempt to get a handle on its burgeoning illegal immigration problem as heavy-handed, inherently discriminatory, and racist. President Obama calls the law “misguided,” Rev. Al Sharpton promises “freedom walk” marches in the state if the law is not rescinded within 90 days, and San Francisco—the nation’s pre-eminent “sanctuary city”—has called for a boycott. This criticism is as expected as it is wrong.

But there are some on the right as well who are critical of Arizona’s actions, if not its intent. Among those critics is Matt Lewis, who penned an op-ed that appeared in The Daily Caller yesterday. In his piece, “Avoiding hypocrisy on immigration,” Matt argues that conservatives should be skeptical of the new law on the grounds that it gives too much power to government. Matt is concerned about discrimination against people of color, too. But primarily he thinks that conservatives are principle-bound to oppose the law.

“I can’t help but find the willingness of many conservatives to grant the police unprecedented power to question U.S. citizens in Arizona as somewhat ironic. Conservative activist Grover Norquist has dubbed the conservative movement the “leave us alone coalition,” and as Justice Brandeis might have said, this law infringes Arizonans’ “right to be left alone”—free from government intrusion. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer should have vetoed it.”

First, let’s establish what Arizona’s law does and does not do. It does not empower police to stop random people on the street and demand their papers, Gestapo-style, as many on the left have claimed. The law quite simply requires police to check immigration status with reasonable suspicion only after they have made “lawful contact.” In other words, the police have to have good reason to stop someone for some other reason before even getting to the immigration check. This power is not unprecedented. In fact, police in all 50 states already check immigration status in this way every time they ask for a driver’s license, since in most states, illegals cannot obtain one. Furthermore, the law specifically prohibits racial profiling as a tool. So the worries about discrimination seem themselves to be an emotional overreaction.

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UPDATE: The Daily Caller reports that the House GOP will introduce a privileged resolution calling on the Ethics Committee to investigate Pelosi’s and Hoyer’s handling of the Massa allegations. Specifically, the resolution calls on the committee to find out what the Democratic leadserhip knew about Massa, when they knew it, and what they did – or didn’t do – about it.

Good for the House GOP. This is exactly what Democrats would have done had the roles been reversed. And I think it’s safe to say now that this action officially makes the Massa allegations a scandal and a campaign issue. As they should be.

UPDATE 2: The GOP resolution passed the House on a vote of 402-2. No Democrats voted against the resolution, which means shenanigans are afoot. It is now up to the House GOP to keep Democrats honest on this.

The Eric Massa sideshow just became a full-fledged election year scandal aimed like a dagger directly at the Democrats’ House majority. Numerous press outlets are now reporting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was informed in October of last year about the former New York representative’s odd behavior with male subordinates.

Joe Racalto, Massa’s chief of staff, was uneasy that Massa, 50, was living with several young, unmarried male staffers and using sexually explicit language with them, one source said. But what finally prompted him to call Pelosi’s director of member services, the source said, was a lunch date that Massa made with a congressional aide in his 20s who worked in the office of Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

According to a person briefed on the call, Racalto was concerned that the lunch followed a pattern by Massa — who is married and has two children — of trying to spend time alone with young gay men with no ostensible work purpose. Racalto, according to this person, also alerted Frank’s chief of staff. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the matter.

Last week, Pelosi said the she first heard of concerns about Massa’s behavior in early March. Pelosi said her staff did not inform her of every rumor about members of Congress. But that explanation is no longer operative, since this was not a rumor that her staff picked up. It was a plea for intervention by none other than the member’s chief of staff, his highest ranking aide.

Pelosi’s “hear no evil” act is now about as believable as her pledge to run the “most ethical Congress in history.” She knew, and chose to do nothing.

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Politico has a piece today on preparations President Obama and his inner circle are making for his reelection campaign, which the article states is set to launch early next year.  Mike Allen reports that the campaign is likely to be run out of Chicago and staffed by a cadre of veterans from Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Of particular interest given the news of the week is the role Allen reports for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina.

President Barack Obama’s top advisers are quietly laying the groundwork for the 2012 reelection campaign, which is likely to be run out of Chicago and managed by White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, according to Democrats familiar with the discussions.  [...]

Advisers said Messina is valued for his relationships on Capitol Hill…

“Jim can bring the bare knuckles, and he can make sure members are advocating for the president,” a colleague said.

Bare knuckles, and felonious offers of plum Administration jobs, too.  Messina is the White House official who allegedly offered Democrat Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff a job in the Department of the Interior to drop his primary challenge of Sen. Michael Bennett in Colorado.  Offering a federal job in exchange for a political favor is a violation of federal law.

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We take a break from the hyperventilating over the latest moves in the slow-motion kabuki dance that is the Obama Administration’s efforts to ram its federal takeover of the health care system down the throats of the overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose the various bills to take a look at what should be a much, much bigger story.

Last week, Democratic Senate Candidate Joe Sestak, a retired Admiral, let slip in an interview that someone in the White House offered him a position in the Administration if he would drop his primary challenge of Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania.  Sestak wouldn’t elaborate on which job he was offered – speculation centers on Secretary of the Navy – but it hardly matters.  As Jeffrey Lord points out, federal law prohibits anyone from offering, soliciting, or receiving any federal office in exchange for a political favor.

“Whoever solicits or receives … any….thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” – 18 USC Sec. 211

It seems highly unlikely that this was a misunderstanding or exaggeration on Sestak’s part.  It’s the second time in this election season that another Democrat has accused the White House of trying to buy them out of a Senate challenge with an offer of employment.

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Moe was ahead of the curve and discussed New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s budget speech to the state legislature here.  But all who have not yet seen the entire speech should run – not walk – to see it in its entirety.

Video can be found here.  Text will be posted after the jump.

It is difficult to describe the extent to which New Jersey is a Democratic machine state.  This was a speech delivered to a hostile Democratic-controlled legislature smarting from Christie’s decisive victory in November.  Yet the new governor minced no words, and offered no quarter.  He went directly at the Democrats and their entrenched and entitled interests that have for years used state coffers as their own personal slush fund, nearly bankrupting New Jersey in the process.  And he challenged them to join him in changing the way Trenton does business, or be exposed to the harsh light of the truth.

This speech should be required viewing for every Republican seeking office in 2010, both candidates for governorships and legislative seats at the federal and state level alike.  The actions Governor Christie describes taking to balance the state budget are conservative leadership on display – the kind of leadership the Republican Party, and the nation at large, has been searching for in vain since November of 2008.  There will be much more to hear from Governor Christie in the weeks and months ahead, and not just on the budget.  With this speech, he has thrust himself onto the national scene in a way that even his upset victory could not.  Republicans have a new rising star in the Governor of New Jersey.

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