If you have spent any time lately on Conservative Websites, you have probably noticed in the comments sections, what appears to be an organized effort by supporters of Mitt “The Legacy” Romney to attempt to convince Conservatives that the Republican Primary is a fait d’accompli.

The number of Romney supporters who have suddenly flooded these sites is reminiscent of the return of the seven-year locusts.

Fuhgeddaboutit, they write.  It’s a done deal.  

There’s just one problem with that.  He’s only won 2 states.  We’re just getting started.

Boston.com explains:

Even if Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, does well enough in South Carolina on Jan. 21 and Florida on Jan. 31 to retain front-runner status, new party rules that distribute delegates in proportion to the vote in later states may prolong the campaign. Some Republicans fear this will weaken the ultimate nominee. Ron Paul has signaled that he intends to compete for a share of convention delegates in small caucus states over the next couple of months.

South Carolina polls have placed Romney at the head of the pack, in front of Rick Santorum and Gingrich, by an average of 10 points. The last time he faced voters in South Carolina, in the 2008 presidential nominating contest, Romney placed fourth, behind John McCain, who won, and Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson, who came in second and third.

Romney must do a lot better this time to prove to conservatives around the country that he can perform well in Southern Bible Belt states, not just in the Midwest and moderate New England.

Highlighting the importance of South Carolina as the first major conservative test: No Republican candidate has won the party nomination since 1980 without winning the South Carolina primary.

Winning there would keep Romney on a strong trajectory heading to the Florida primary; placing second in a state where 70 percent of poll respondents are weekly churchgoers, many of them evangelical Christians, would also be respectable for the first Mormon in US history challenging strongly for the White House. But, respectable or not, a second-place finish for Romney would mean that the winner becomes a viable alternative to him. That could prolong the race and cause him problems down the road.

Sorry, Mittens.  There is more to the country than New England.  

Welcome to the South, Bubba.  The Conservative South.  In fact, the whole country’s still mostly Conservative, per gallup.com:

Political ideology in the U.S. held steady in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This marks the third straight year that conservatives have outnumbered moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservatives.

The percentage of Americans calling themselves “moderate” has gradually diminished in the U.S. since it was 43% in 1992. That is the year Gallup started routinely measuring ideology with the current question. It fell to 39% in 2002 and has been 35% since 2010. At the same time, the country became more politically polarized, with the percentages of Americans calling themselves either “conservative” or “liberal” each increasing.

Gallup measures political ideology by asking Americans to say whether their political views are very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, or very liberal. Relatively few Americans identify with either extreme on this scale, although 2 in 10 Republicans self-identify as very conservative — double the proportion of Democrats calling themselves very liberal.

…The majority of Republicans say they are either very conservative or conservative, but the total proportion of conservatives grew 10 percentage points between 2002 and 2010, from 62% to 72%. At the same time, the percentage of moderates fell from 31% to 23%. Relatively few Republicans say they are liberal — just 4% in 2011. Republicans’ ideology largely held at the 2010 levels in 2011.

I conducted a web search using bing.com in an effort to see how my fellow Southerners felt about “The Legacy”.  All I could find was articles written by non-Southerners concerned that we ig’nant inter-marrying rednecks would not vote for “Mittens” because he’s a Mormon.

Reality Check, Boys and Girls:  Mitt’s Mormonism does not bother Southerners as much as his flip-floppin’ political ideology.  You see, down here, a man’s word is his bond.  That’s one reason that Unions are not as prevalent in the South as they are in other regions.  Major business negotiations are oft-times settled in the South with a handshake.

So, how can we support “The Legacy” when we don’t know what he stands for, from one day to the next?

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds Obama earning 44% support to Romney’s 41%. Seven percent (7%) prefer some other candidate, while eight percent (8%) are undecided.

If Romney is the great Republican Nominee that his locust-like internet troops proclaim him to be, shouldn’t he be absolutely burying the worst president Americans can remember in a landslide of popularity?

Or, judging from the results of Gallup’s Political Ideology Survey, is the reality of the situation, the simple fact that America is still a Center-Right country, and not, despite the protestations of the G.O.P. Elite up in the Northeastern Corridor, a Center-Center country?

Hmmmmm.  It’s a possibility.

You know, I guess it’s more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here and a strong woman and a, you know, but that’s been an image that people have tried to paint of me since, you know, the day Barack announced, that I’m some angry black woman.

First Lady Michelle Obama spoke those words on CBS This Morning yesterday, during an interview with Gayle King.  The interview was in response to a new book, written by New York Times Reporter Jodi Kantor.

The book is a look into the inner workings of the Obama White House.

Among the book’s claims is that Obama had doubts about Rahm Emanuel, her husband’s first chief of staff, and that their relationship was “distant and awkward from the beginning.” Obama said she in fact has “never had a cross word” with Emanuel, and that he and his wife are some of her closest friends.

Obama also disputed the portrayal of her as having a more hands-on role in the West Wing than the public would have known, and said she has rarely sat in on senior staff meetings or even visited the West Wing other than for official functions.

“I do care deeply about my husband. I am his biggest ally. … I am one of his biggest confidants. But he has dozens of really smart people that surround him,” she said. “That’s not to say that my husband doesn’t know how I feel.”

People want to believe the claims because they feed into their preconceived notions, she said.

Where did these “preconceived notions” come from?  Why do we peons out in the Heartland view The First Lady as an “angry black woman”?

Could it be something she said?  Mmmmmm…could be.

Jake Tapper of ABC News reported the following on February 18, 2008:

Speaking in Milwaukee, Wisconsin today, would-be First Lady Michelle Obama said, “for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Then in Madison, she said, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

Some conservatives out there seem to find Mrs. Obama’s quote offensive, wondering why a 44 year old woman never felt proud before today.

Asked for a response to the remark, Obama campaign spox Bill Burton said, “Of course Michelle is proud of her country, which is why she and Barack talk constantly about how their story wouldn’t be possible in any other nation on Earth. What she meant is that she’s really proud at this moment because for the first time in a long time, thousands of Americans who’ve never participated in politics before are coming out in record numbers to build a grassroots movement for change.”

She wasn’t particularly proud of her city, either:

Mrs. Obama worked in the Daley administration between Sept. 16, 1991, and April 30, 1993, according to City of Chicago personnel records. She was hired by Jarrett, then Daley’s deputy chief of staff.

Kantor writes Mrs. Obama “disapproved of how closely Daley held power, surrounding himself with three or four people who seemed to let few outsiders in — a concern she would echo years later with her own husband.

“…She particularly resented the way power in Illinois was locked up generation after generation by a small group of families, all white Irish Catholic — the Daleys in Chicago, the Hynes and Madigans statewide.”

When Jarrett was forced out of City Hall in 1995 — even though she was close to Daley — “the Obamas were horrified, their worst suspicions about the world confirmed.”

While living in Chicago, Michelle and Barack attended Trinity Church and sat under the teaching of Reverend Jeremiah Wright for 20 years.

In fact, on page 293 of his book “Dreams for My Father,” Obama recounts Wright’s “The Audacity of Hope” sermon.

Obama quotes this passage:

It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!

In the March 10th, 2008 edition of The New Yorker, a 10 page article titled The Other Obama,  covering the future First Lady was published.  Here’s an excerpt:

Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and life is not good: we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents. “We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day,” she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. “Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I’m young. Forty-four!”

Now, for the life of me, I just can’t figure out how we peons in the Heartland ever came up with the notion that the First Lady of the United States of America is an “angry black woman”.  Can you?

Last night, Mitt “The Legacy” Romney won the Republican Primary in his home state of New Hampshire solidly, but still got only 38% of the vote.  His closest challenger was Ron Paul, who garnered 24%.

Paul’s Campaign Chair, Jesse Benton, then proceeded to issue the following statement (You had better sit down for this one.):

Ron Paul tonight scored an historic second-place victory in the 2012 New Hampshire Primary. Below please find comments from National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton:

“Ron Paul tonight had an incredibly strong second-place finish in New Hampshire and has stunned the national media and political establishment.

“When added to Paul’s top-tier showing in Iowa, it’s clear he is the sole Republican candidate who can take on and defeat both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

“The race is becoming more clearly a two-man race between establishment candidate Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, the candidate of authentic change. That means there is only one true conservative choice.

“Ron Paul has won more votes in Iowa and New Hampshire than any candidate but Mitt Romney.

“Ron Paul and Mitt Romney have been shown in national polls to be the only two candidates who can defeat Barack Obama.

“And Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are the only two candidates who can run a full, national campaign, competing in state after state over the coming weeks and months. Ron Paul’s fundraising numbers — over $13 million this quarter — also prove he will be able to compete with Mitt Romney. No other candidate can do all of these things.

“Ron Paul is clearly the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney as the campaign goes forward.

“We urge Ron Paul’s opponents who have been unsuccessfully trying to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney to unite by getting out of the race and uniting behind Paul’s candidacy.

“Ron Paul has the boldest plan to cut spending, a dedication to protecting life, and a lifelong dedication to the Constitution and limited government. He also has the necessary support to campaign nationwide against Mitt Romney.

“Our campaign is already planning ahead for South Carolina, Florida, and beyond. Soon Ron Paul will head to South Carolina to begin a feverish round of campaigning.

“Ron Paul is in this race for the long haul. And he is ready to fight.

“See you on the campaign trail.”

Cheeky, huh?  You don’t know the half of it.  

But…but…he embraces the foreign policy of the Founding Fathers! (per the Paulnuts)

Even if he does… it does not take our enemies years to travel the ocean to attack us anymore.  He lived through 9/11/01.  Is his memory that short?

Per Michael Filozof at americanthinker.com:

It’s often believed that if the Iranians obtained nuclear weapons capability, they’d nuke Israel.  I’m not so sure of that.  An Iran-Israel nuclear war would be a textbook example of Mutual Assured Destruction.  The doctrine of MAD requires a credible second-strike capability by the target country, and Israel would be certain to retaliate.

But the Iranians would have many options to maximize their leverage without resorting to an all-out nuclear exchange.  The greater concern should be that the Iranians would use nuclear blackmail to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and embargo 40% of the world’s oil supply.  Oil could spike to $400 or $500 per barrel overnight, crippling the global economy and turning the West into scene from a Mad Max movie.

If the Iranians were to create a nuclear blockade by threatening to use nuclear arms against any American vessel attempting to transit the Strait, would the threat of American nuclear retaliation be credible?  Of course not.  The U.S. did not use nuclear weapons in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan.  Numerous presidents have publicly stated the desire for nuclear disarmament and ultimately a nuclear-free world.  President Obama even declassified the number of nuclear warheads the U.S. now possesses.  If the Iranians can be 100% certain of anything, it is that the U.S. will not use its nuclear arsenal against them, especially if they threaten to detonate, but do not actually detonate, a nuclear weapon in the Strait.  Since deterrence theory requires a credible threat of retaliation, and U.S. threats are hollow, deterrence will not work, and the Iranians will have a free hand to strangle the world’s oil supply.

The other problem with Paul’s foreign policy is his assumption that we oughtn’t “interfere” around the globe, especially without congressional declarations of war.  But we’ve been doing exactly that to protect American interests since the country was founded.  President Jefferson, the paradigmatic states’-rights, small-government, libertarian president, prosecuted the First Barbary War against — no surprise — Islamic pirates in the Mediterranean, and did so without a formal declaration of war by Congress.  (According to Paul’s theory of foreign policy, maybe American ships shouldn’t have been sailing in the Mediterranean in the first place.)

Paul is a libertarian who believes in the power of free markets.  But he must be naïve to think that a nuclear Iran would want a global free market for oil.  If the Iranians had nuclear weapons, they’d surely succeed in cornering the global market by closing the Strait.  So, oddly enough, a preemptive intervention to prevent Iran from getting The Bomb would enhance free-market libertarian principles, not violate them.

Now, I could write a novel about what an absolute whackjob this septuagenarian, perennial also-ran is,  or I could offer this mini-rant I published recently, as my reply to all of the obnoxious Paulnuts out there in general, and last night’s official statement from the Paul Campaign, specifically, which strains credulity:

Reality Check: Ron Paul is a old man, who has run for President several times. He is this generation’s Pat Paulsen (look him up). He is anti-semitic, pro-Iranian, and is a cranky, old isolationist nutjob, whom one would expect to find in a corner somewhere, with his underwear on top of his head, babbling , “I like cheese!” If he was the genius you idiots claim that he is, he would have won the presidency by now.

Loosen up your tin foil hat, boy. It’s shaping your head into a point.

Today’s the day.  “The Legacy” Mitt Romney is scheduled (yes, I said scheduled) to win today’s Republican Primary in the state which he now calls “home”.

Unionleader.com has the last minute details:

Mitt Romney’s rivals Monday turned up the heat during the final day of New Hampshire primary campaigning, trying to portray him as a heartless venture capitalist who, as head of Bain Capital, “looted” troubled companies and threw people out of work.

Romney’s campaign countered that it was “puzzling” to see Republicans engaged in “attacks on free enterprise.”

Primary eve was fierce on the campaign trail. It all comes to an end on Tuesday, when an estimated 325,000 Granite Staters are expected to go to the polls, with 250,000 of them expected to vote on the Republican side and 75,000 expected to vote in a Democratic primary in which President Barack Obama is not being contested by a major candidate.

To monitor potential voter election fraud and voting rights abuse issues throughout primary day, U.S. Attorney John P. Kacavas announced the Justice Department has set up a “primary day hotline” (603-491-7078).

Romney, who has led in New Hampshire throughout the campaign, appeared poised to become the first non-incumbent Republican in history to win both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

While trying to stick to the message that has propelled him to his current standing, Romney poured gasoline on the fire over his Bain Capital years by saying in Nashua, “I like to fire people.”

It didn’t matter to one rival or some in the national media that he was not talking about workers and was referring to the ability many Americans have to switch health insurance companies if they are displeased with the service they receive.

By the way, when you go to the home page of The Union Leader’s website, you’re greeted with not only a Romney banner ad on the top, but a Romney ad in the body of the site, as well.

Per The Union Leader, 325,000 are expected to vote today.

Meanwhile, the Republican Candidates whom the citizens of New Hampshire are going to vote for, have not only ignored Reagan’s 11th Commandment, they’ve ripped its heart out and stomped that sucker flat.

The freshly suspended MSNBC Token Conservative, Patrick J. Buchanan, (more on that in a moment) elaborates:

There still exists a possibility that, come Jan. 20, 2013, we could have a Republican Senate and House, and a Republican president.

But there is also a possibility that a Goldwater-Rockefeller-type family bloodletting could sunder the party and kick it all away.

America is bored with Barack Obama. The young and the minorities are still with him but exhibit none of the excitement or enthusiasm of 2008.

Moreover, we have been through three years of 23-25 million unemployed or underemployed. Our national debt is now larger than the national economy, approaching Italian proportions. The class warfare rhetoric is beginning to grate. A huge majority believes the nation is on the wrong course.

Who wants four more years of this?

Democratic hopes for 2012 hence hinge on that party’s ability to portray the Republican alternative as unacceptable if not intolerable. And the Republicans have begun to play into that script.

The GOP field of candidates suddenly seems headed to a finale that will call to mind the last scene of Hamlet, the dead and dying everywhere, but no Fortinbras to restore order in the house.

In the Sunday debate, Jon Huntsman accused Mitt Romney of virtually questioning his patriotism, when Mitt asked how he could serve as Obama’s man in Beijing and be a credible opponent of Obama.

“This nation is divided … because of attitudes like that,” said Huntsman.

Newt Gingrich, who promised in Iowa not to go negative, now calls Mitt a liar. A super-PAC supporting Newt is about to paint Mitt as a Bain Capital corporate predator, a Gordon Gecko whose modus operandi was to swoop down on troubled companies, loot them, fire workers, leave a skeleton crew and move on.

Newt’s bitterness is understandable.

A month ago, he was surging. He had opened up a lead in national polls, moved ahead in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida, and, with the backing of the Manchester Union-Leader, was closing in on Mitt in New Hampshire.

From his crisp debate performances, Newt had steadily risen from his disastrous debut, while one after another of his rivals – Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain – had taken the lead and lost it.

Newt had engineered a spectacular comeback, seemingly peaking at exactly the right moment, only weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

Came then the Iowa blitz, round-the-clock air strikes from a Romney super-PAC. Millions were dumped into attack ads portraying Newt as a Beltway bandit who had exploited his speaker’s ties to enrich himself, pocketing $1.6 million from Freddie Mac and millions more from Big Pharma to promote the Bush prescription drug benefit for seniors, the largest unfunded entitlement program of the century.

After weeks of unreturned fire, Newt’s poll numbers had been cut in half. He finished a distant fourth in Iowa. Having come back from the dead once in this primary season, it is hard to see how he resurrects himself a second time, given the depth of his fall, his seemingly uncontrollable anger and the little time he has left.

Five weeks ago, Newt looked like the GOP nominee. Now, his political career seems about over. Hence the desire for revenge. And with his friend Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson dumping $5 million into a super-PAC for Newt, his allies have the resources to exact retribution on Mitt for what Mitt’s friends did to Newt.

And this is only the second primary.

Concerning Pat Buchanan, he has been suspended indefinitely by MSNBC.  

…he essentially has been absent from the network since the release of his latest book about America’s heritage and history. And MSNBC President Phil Griffin said recently, “When Pat was on his book tour, because of the content of the book, I didn’t think it should be part of the national dialogue much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC.”

…The move was stirring an abundance of comment on the web, with the notation from Griffin as recently as this weekend that there was no decision on whether Buchanan would return.

Mediaite’s Frances Martel said the network’s statement was vague, but “The Week” said, “when you read between the lines, it’s rather obvious that he’s through.”

Chapters in Buchanan’s book include: “The End of White America,” and “The Death of Christian America.”

As far as Buchanan is concerned, you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.  

Romney should probably take note of Buchanan’s treatment by the folks that he wants to reach across the aisle to, but, he probably won’t.

He’s not a Conservative.

This past weekend, Americans had two opportunities to see the Republican field of candidates for nomination being grilled by Liberals.

Why does the G.O.P. subject themselves to that?  If they went in to the debates expecting objectivity, I need to meet these guys.  I have a couple of bridges over the MIssissippi River at Memphis to sell them.

New Hampshire front-runner Mitt “The Legacy” Romney, wound up being on the offense on Saturday night and on the defense on Sunday morning.

From dailymail.co.uk:

While Mitt Romney skated through last night’s [Friday’s] Republican debate largely unscathed, one of the debate’s moderators is being called out for an excessive and biased line of questioning.

George Stephanopoulos, who served as a top adviser to President Bill Clinton in the 90s, hammered at the GOP frontrunner on jobs and contraception with unsupported facts and figures during last night’s New Hampshire debate.

The ABC News commentator said: ‘I’ve read some analysts who look at it and say that you’re counting the jobs that were created but not counting the jobs that were taken away. Is that accurate?’

Mr Romney responded: ‘No, it’s not accurate. It includes the net of both. I’m a good enough numbers guy to make sure I got both sides of that.’

Mr Romney also tried to avoid answering a question by Mr Stephanopoulos about whether states should be able to ban contraceptives, insisting that they wouldn’t want to anyway.

He seemed perplexed by the question and suggested it was irrelevant and Mr Stephanopoulos’ characterization was too hypothetical.

Mr Romney drew applause from the audience while saying: ‘George, I don’t know whether a state has a right to ban contraception. No state wants to.

‘I mean, the idea of you putting forward things that states might want to do that no state wants to do, and asking me whether they could do it or not, is kind of a silly thing, I think.’

Contraception, he said to laughter, is working ‘just fine.’

Then, Sunday morning, while moderating the MSNBC/Facebook Republican Debate,  NBC News moderator David Gregory gave the candidates an opportunity to explain in front of everyone’s favorite flip-floppin’ Moderate why they thought Romney should not be the GOP nominee:

“There’s a huge difference between a Reagan conservative and somebody who comes out of a Massachusetts culture with an essentially moderate record,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been on the blunt end of Romney’s media attack apparatus for weeks. “I think he’ll have a very hard time getting elected.”

Visibly frustrated after being slammed by Romney as a “lifetime politician,” Gingrich hit back on stage, labeling Romney’s claims about being a man of the private sector “pious baloney.” (Watch the clip below.)

“You’ve been running consistently for years and years and years,” Gingrich said. “So this idea that suddenly, citizenship showed up in your mind—just level with the American people, you’ve been running since the 1990s.”

The debate began just 10 hours after the ABC/Yahoo! debate ended in Manchester. During that event, candidates largely failed to chip away effectively at Romney’s record.

During the “Meet the Press” debate, Romney defended himself as a “solid conservative who brought important change to Massachusetts,” and touted his long list of endorsements, including those from several New Hampshire officials. “I’m very proud of the conservative record I have,” he said.

That’s when Santorum jumped in.

“If his record was so great,” he said, turning to Romney, “why didn’t you run for re-election?” (Romney served one term as governor of Massachusetts.) Santorum, facing tough re-election odds in 2006, ran anyway and was trounced by double digits. “Why did you bail out?” Santorum said.When asked how conservatives could trust him to promote their agenda, Romney replied: “They’ve got my record as governor.” That answer may come back to haunt him, offering an easy opening for attack over his support for a state-sponsored health care program.

MSNBC’s miserable excuse for a television host (one of several) Lawrence O’Donnell, said over the weekend, that:

Romney is the one they don’t want. They know they can beat anybody else. Romney, they think they can beat, but it’s a harder road.

Yeah, right.  And the Dems were scared of John McCain in 2008.  Gimme a break.

Remember Operation Chaos?  Rush Limbaugh asked his listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primaries, in an attempt to derail the “Lightbringer”, Barack Hussein Obama.  People actually complied with Rush’s wishes, and the results, will not leading to a Hillary victory, were noticeable.

Speaking as a Reagan Conservative, I firmly believe that the Democratic Party and their slavishly sycophantic Main Stream Media Lackeys, plus all of the 30-something year old Liberals, publishing blogs out of their Moms’ basements, could be attempting the very same political strategy that Rush authored in 2008.

Think about it.  If you wanted the opposition to elect someone that you thought would be a pushover for your candidate, what better way than to convince the opposition voters that you are deathly afraid of the candidate that you actually wanted to face your party’s representative?

All this buzz about Romney from the National Media, old and new, may be Operation Chaos – Progressive Style.

I always get the last word in with my wife.  It’s usually, “Yes, Dear.”

Apparently, it’s the same with President Barack Hussein Obama:

In a much-anticipated book about the first couple’s relationship, Michelle Obama emerges as a powerful, behind-the-scenes force committed to keeping President Barack Obama true to his campaign promises and willing to battle his top aides when she believed they were steering him off course.

The book, by Jodi Kantor of The New York Times, reveals the first lady’s deep ambivalence about her role in the White House, portraying her struggle with decisions as basic as whether to stay temporarily in Chicago with her girls after her husband moved into the White House.

It depicts her as the president’s compass on signature issues he pushed for in his 2008 campaign, including immigration and comprehensive health care reform — a constant reminder within the walls of the White House of his liberal vision of change, even as some of the president’s top advisers encouraged him to be more of a political realist.

And it reveals her clashes with senior advisers Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs.

Gibbs, the president’s first press secretary, had an especially rocky relationship with the first lady and Valerie Jarrett, another senior adviser and a longtime friend of the first couple.

After Gibbs worked to knock down a report asserting that the first lady had told her French counterpart, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, that living in the White House was “hell,” Jarrett said at a staff meeting that Michelle Obama had concerns about the White House response. Gibbs responded with an expletive-laden explosion, Kantor writes.

“That’s not right, I’ve been killing myself on this, where’s this coming from?” he yelled. Jarrett stayed calm, which seemed to further infuriate Gibbs. Eventually, “the press secretary cursed the first lady — colleagues stared down at the table, shocked — and stormed out.”

Precious little flower, aint she?

Earlier this week, the little blossom showed more of her demure, self-effacing manner:

First Lady Michelle Obama is to make a guest appearance on an upcoming episode of the popular Nickelodeon show iCarly.

In the episode, which airs on January 16, the First Lady helps the show’s title character Carly get in touch with her father, an Air Force colonel who can’t make it home for his birthday.

Obama surprises the girl and her friends, which leads to her being called “Your Excellency” by Carly’s friend Sam Puckett.

After being corrected by a friend that you don’t call the First Lady that, Michelle Obama jumps in and says “No, no, I kind of like it.”

I mean, she’s just like the average American housewife, isn’t she?  She goes on shopping trips to Target, and takes the girls on small family vacations.

Remember this little jaunt?

Michelle Obama is under fire from her husband’s foes for the expense to American taxpayers of taking her younger daughter Sasha on a “girls’ holiday” with friends to a luxurious Spanish retreat.

Andrea Tantaros, a Republican party strategist, caricatured the First Lady as a “modern-day Marie Antoinette” in a scathing New York newspaper column. Some among a flurry of newspaper and television reports, have estimated the cost to the American taxpayer of her entourage’s trip at $375,000, drawing criticism as much of the US is mired in economic gloom.

Her stay at the lavish Villa Padierna in the hills above Marbella – where rooms cost up to $2,000 a night – has coincided with the news that the US lost 131,000 jobs last month, significantly more than expected.

President Barack Obama struggled to put a positive gloss on the numbers. “The road to recovery doesn’t follow a straight line,” he acknowledged on Friday.

But the blanket coverage of his wife’s five-star Mediterranean break – including private viewings of the Alhambra palace in Granada and an expected lunch with the Spanish royal family on Majorca today – could not have contrasted more sharply with the bad economic news being battled by the President.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, declined to comment on Mrs Obama’s holiday, saying “she is a private citizen and is the mother of a daughter on a private trip”. But officials have quietly been briefing that some reports of the costs are exaggerated.

We’re not worthy of Michelle.  

She told us how she felt about us, way back in February of 2008:

Speaking in Milwaukee, Wisconsin today, would-be First Lady Michelle Obama said, “for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Then in Madison, she said, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

Some conservatives out there seem to find Mrs. Obama’s quote offensive, wondering why a 44 year old woman never felt proud before today.

Asked for a response to the remark, Obama campaign spox Bill Burton said, “Of course Michelle is proud of her country, which is why she and Barack talk constantly about how their story wouldn’t be possible in any other nation on Earth. What she meant is that she’s really proud at this moment because for the first time in a long time, thousands of Americans who’ve never participated in politics before are coming out in record numbers to build a grassroots movement for change.”

Burton, a little weasel who is no longer employed by the White House, was wrong.  Michelle said exactly what she meant.

Her winsome demeanor and remarkable patriotism are just some of the lady-like qualities which have endeared her to all us peons…err…I mean the American public.

Since being First Lady is “Hell”, as she told Carla Bruni, I think that we should end her (and our) suffering by rewarding her with a long vacation…beginning January 21, 2013.

I’m getting a feeling of deja vu all over again, with a vision of a Trekkie future to go with it.

From the New York Times, published February 2, 1994:

President Clinton’s military budget for the 1995 fiscal year puts Pentagon spending in a holding pattern, canceling some weapons to finance better training and higher pay for military personnel.

Military spending would rise $2.8 billion in the coming fiscal year under the Clinton plan. Taking inflation into account, that represents a decline of slightly less than 1 percent from the budget for the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. The Administration plans a 5.9 percent cut for the 1996 fiscal year.

The $263.7 billion proposal submitted today has something for almost everyone to dislike. Some members of Congress want to cut more weapons programs to pay for social needs. Others fear the advent of a military unable to fight two major wars at once, a benchmark for Pentagon planners. A third faction sees the Pentagon’s budget not only as the bulwark of military preparedness but also as a jobs supplier, from soldiering to shipbuilding to software manufacturing.

Things didn’t turn out so well, per David Horowitz’s discoverthenetworks.org:

In 1994, troops were sent to Haiti, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Clinton asked for a Defense increase of just $2.8 billion but Congress approved a decrease of $17.1 billion. The shrinking budget caused sharp reductions at the Pentagon.

There were more peacekeeping missions to come, including in Somalia where 1,800 Marines provided cover for the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers. But the downsizing of the military continued with 40,000 troops removed from Europe. The Base Closure Commission recommended shuttering 79 more bases. Clinton’s budget request for fiscal 1996 was $10.2 billion lower than the prior year.

At this point, we are well into the Clinton presidency and the eleventh straight year of declining military budgets. The president and the Congress have slashed the defense budget to the point where, after adjusting for inflation, it is some 40% less than in 1985 during the second Reagan term.

The year 1996 saw cruise missile strikes against Iraq and 18,000 U.S. troops stationed in the Balkans as part of a NATO force. Clinton sent the U.S. aircraft carrier Independence and three other ships to the Taiwan Strait because of tensions between Taiwan and China. For 1997, Clinton sought another $10 billion reduction, though the bill he eventually signed set aside $244 billion for defense—finally halting the long string of declining budgets, but just barely.

It was a bit calmer overseas in 1997, though 8,500 Americans were still keeping the peace in Bosnia. The Defense budget rose to $268 billion but Clinton proposed more base closures. The Senate rejected the recommendation.

In 1998, the U.S. and Britain struck military targets in Iraq because Saddam Hussein refused to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors. Clinton also launched missiles against targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan. These attacks came on August 20, three days after Clinton admitted on TV that he had misled the nation about “that woman.”

Defense Secretary William Cohen had become concerned about his budget, and so he called for more base closings—and more money. The Joint Chiefs said that unless funding levels could be increased, some weapons systems or overseas deployments would have to be eliminated. In 1999, the budget was at $250 billion—the same year we were using our military to halt Slobodan Milosevic’s “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo.

For fiscal 2000, Defense requested $267.2 billion billion, including a pay raise for soldiers. The USS Cole was bombed and peacekeeping efforts continued in the usual spots like Kosovo and Bosnia. Clinton’s presidency was winding down and his final Defense budget totaled $288 billion with a supplemental bill of $6.5 billon to help pay for all the peacekeeping.

After Bush was elected and the country had suffered the 9/11 attacks, former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said Clinton had cut back the military so much that we might not be able to fight a war on terrorism on several fronts. He listed the problems brought on during the Clinton years: lost air and sea lift capacity, two or three years during which nothing was procured for the military, and cuts in R&D.

Everybody sing:  “Everything old is new again…”

President Barack Obama unveiled a defense strategy on Thursday that would expand the U.S. military presence in Asia but shrink the overall size of the force as the Pentagon seeks to reduce spending by nearly half a trillion dollars after a decade of war.

The strategy, if carried out, would significantly reshape the world’s largest military from the one that executed President George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cyberwarfare and unmanned drones would continue to grow in priority, as would countering attempts by China and Iran to block U.S. power projection capabilities in areas like the South China Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.

But the size of the U.S. Army and Marines Corps would shrink. So too might the U.S. nuclear arsenal and the U.S. military footprint in Europe.

Troop- and time-intensive counter-insurgency operations, a staple of U.S. military strategy since the 2007 “surge” of extra troops to Iraq, would be far more limited, with the force no longer sized for large-scale, long-term missions.

“The tide of war is receding but the question that this strategy answers is what kind of military will we need long after the wars of the last decade are over,” Obama told a Pentagon news conference alongside Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Panetta said the new strategy would mean the Pentagon would field a “smaller and leaner” military force but said the exact number of personnel would not be determined until the Defense Department finishes its proposed 2013 budget in the coming weeks.

Administration officials have said they expect Army and Marine Corp personnel levels to be reduced by 10 percent to 15 percent over the next decade as part of the reductions.

The Army’s current strength is about 565,000 soldiers and there are 201,000 Marines, meaning an eventual loss of between 76,000 and 114,000 troops.

Critics already are charging that the cuts are being driven by budget woes rather than U.S. defense needs but Obama and Panetta emphasized that the reverse is true. They did not divulge details of spending and cuts, which will be detailed in Obama’s upcoming federal budget for fiscal year 2013.

“Some will no doubt say the spending reductions are too big; others will say they’re too small,” Obama said.

There’s the Deja Vu.  Now, about that Trekkie future…

During the original Star Trek Series (1966 – 1969), there was an episode titled “Return of the Archons”:

The U.S.S. Enterprise is investigating Beta III, where the U.S.S. Archon disappeared over 100 years before.

When the landing party exhibits strange behavior, Kirk sends another party down to investigate. They find the culture on Beta III is quiescent, with no creative tendencies. The entire culture is controlled by a group of ‘lawgivers’ known as “The Body” which is, in turn, controlled by the omniscient Landru. The inhabitants change from normal, peaceful people to a violent mob at the coming of the Red Hour. This ‘Festival’ is the society’s only outlet for the tyrannical hold that Landru has over them at all other times.

Meanwhile, the U.S.S. Enterprise is being pulled from its orbit, its crew to be absorbed into the Body. This, they discover, is what happened to the U.S.S. Archon, so many years before.

Archon survivors have formed an underground of sorts to fight the Body, and they help Kirk and Spock reach Landru. Landru turns out to be an incredibly complex computer built by Landru, a scientist who lived 6,000 years before, who wanted to guide his people into a peaceful, civilized progress.

Landru had affected the computer with his scientific thoughts and memories, but not his wisdom. For centuries the computer, ‘Landru,’ has been interpreting his suggestions to the point that no one is allowed independent thought. Kirk tells the computer that instead of helping to nurture the culture of Beta III, it has harmed it. Landru destroys itself, leaving the Betans to work toward the sort of culture Landru had wanted so many centuries before. With the promise of Federation help on the way, Kirk and his crew beam back to the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Before Landru, there were probably Drones.