I finally got around to listening to a Ricochet podcast, which I’ve been seeing recommended around the webs for a month or so. Episode 5, recorded on Friday 02/26, features Rob Long, Peter Robinson, Mark Steyn, and Andrew Breitbart. They discuss – among other things – last week’s health summit, and humorless institutionalized leftism.

Ricochet’s a great listen if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s the perfect accompaniment to a game of Filler 2 on Kongregate.com! Or to a commute, if you have one of those Empee-three Players and a car that knows how to talk to it…

The New York Times confirms that, after President Obama’s Thursday Theater proved a helpful showcase for ideas Republicans have been touting since last summer, Nancy Pelosi is readying spoonfuls of sugar:

Seeing no prospect of a bipartisan agreement on health care, Congressional Democrats said Friday that they would make another effort to pass sweeping health care legislation on their own.

The Grand Old “Party of No” came prepared to a production that Obama’s people thought would make the same idiotic scam look less idiotic (or at least new), but don’t expect the left to retreat from their weak rhetorical position! It’s interesting that the Republican ideas which burst from the ether yesterday have already been deemed incompatible with the Pelosi & Reid definition of bipartisanship. Almost… almost as if the outcome was predetermined.

Throughout 2009 voters grew increasingly disgusted by the dishonest accounting and shameless favoritism Republicans criticized in the House and Senate bills… and Democrats, naturally, blamed the Republicans. Since Boehner et al didn’t have union-boss level access to the legislative process, the only way to do this was by drawing attention away from the awful legislation and towards the angry old white guys fighting Progress^TM.

Then Scott Brown took their seat in Massachusetts, and the leftists in control of Congress were suddenly not so in control. It was time for Obama to dust off a few old saws about bipartisanship, repeat them each a thousand times, and schedule a TV appearance wherein his rapier wit would disarm Republican opposition. That sounded like a good idea to someone, I guess?

Since that didn’t buy them any credibility, it’s RAMMIN’ TIME!

Ms. Pelosi described the steps she had in mind, saying: “What is the substance? That’s what we will be putting together, and we didn’t want to do that before we could hear from our Republican colleagues yesterday. Secondly, what is the Senate able to do with a simple majority? And then we will act upon that.

“I believe that we have good prospects for passing legislation,” said Ms. Pelosi, of California.

I believe you have got to lay off the recreational drugs, Nancy. With all the sugar in the world, it’d take far smoother operators than yourself and Harry Reid to make this medicine go down.

Good news for conservatives from an unlikely locale, as Scott Brown wins the Senate seat vacated at death by Ted Kennedy! This is something few could have predicted as recently as several weeks ago, but it turns out even Massachusetts voters have their limits where big government is concerned. The great thing about Brown’s victory, of course, is the Democrats’ loss of a guaranteed vote for Obamacare. The aftershocks should also be positive, as squishy Dems in states far less blue than Massachusetts pause to reflect on their political mortality.

Hot Air has some thoughts on a Politico story wherein the White House tacks a characteristically arrogant course. If there were any chance the national implications of Brown’s victory could have been overlooked, Obama went ahead and thrashed those over the weekend with a halfhearted last-minute speech. What now for the left’s health care, cap & tax, open borders, and more-rights-for-terrorists endeavors? Nancy Pelosi isn’t worried about the current project:

“Let’s remove all doubt,” Ms. Pelosi said. “We will have health care one way or another.”

“One way or another” is a reassuring promise (threat?), coming from the most transparent Congress in history. While the White House gets serious about digging themselves deeper and Nancy Pelosi talks like the Cheshire Cat on crystal meth, prominent lefty Arianna Huffington mopes about Obama’s failures:

On the eve of the first anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration, it’s become painfully obvious that elected officials are not going to save us. The 2008 election was all about “Hope.” But Hope is simply not cutting it.

No kidding. See, I have never bothered to read anything from the Huffington Post before, so at this point I was optimistic that Arianna might come to a sane conclusion, if not one I’d agree with. Hah!

One year later, wracked with conflict and discord, and battered by petty grievances, false promises, and worn out dogmas, we stand on the verge of passing a giant boon to health insurance companies and calling it “reform.”

The reason we are given? What else: the votes just aren’t there for a real reform bill.

That’s where Hope 2.0 comes in. If the votes aren’t there, the people need to create them. Just like King did. They need to build a movement. And to make that happen, we need to adopt another of the great lessons of Dr. King’s life: elevating the role empathy must play in our society.

Arianna Huffington is sad that the Progressives in Congress are ruining her government health care dreams by catering to special interests (e.g., groups lobbying furiously to secure their place in a rigged system). Somehow she thinks a majority of Americans agree that unaffordable state-run health care is a right we must force down Washington’s throat, which indicates she doesn’t talk to many people who live outside her head. Even among public option supporters, how many would be cheering for government intervention if Congress were remotely honest about the costs?

Here’s hoping the John McCains and Lindsey Grahams of the GOP don’t swoop in on gilded bipartisan unicorns to help the leftists salvage their shell game. Congratulations to Senator Brown (R-MA)! “R-MA” – now there’s something new.

Remember when Barack Obama was running for president, and it was magical because of the cadence of his voice, the unpopularity of President Bush, and the spending habits of the GOP? Remember how millions of moderate voters accepted Obama’s sketchy associations (his America-hating preacher of 20 years, the unapologetic terrorist who helped launch his first political campaign, etc), thin voting record, far-left opinions, and general lack of experience?

Hope. Change. Bull. Sorry, but if you believed a word of it in 2008 you were out of your gourd. If you believe any of it now, you’re… further out of your gourd, I guess? Wonder if he’ll sign the result of this:

WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled Senate on Saturday cleared away a Republican filibuster of a huge end-of-year spending bill that rewards most federal agencies with generous budget boosts.

The $1.1 trillion measure combines much of the year’s unfinished budget work — only a $626 billion Pentagon spending measure would remain — into a 1,000-plus-page spending bill that would give the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others increases far exceeding inflation.

I will happily agree that congressmen of all shapes, sizes, and party affiliations funnel too much of our money to groups that support them. But when we’re talking about bureaucracy that stifles production and penalizes the most successful through both regulation and the higher taxes required to fund it, which party spends more? And where is President Obama in all this? He promoted himself as the voice of “smarter government” and bipartisanship; as someone who would “trim the fat” and halt runaway spending. With help from a Democrat-controlled Congress, that’s going great:

Maybe I’m too harsh on President Obama: he is changing some things. Victor Davis Hanson, at National Review, wrote a great article to that effect this week. A highlight -

Foreign policy? It is still “Bush did it,” not reflection on his own rookie errors.

The economy? Jobs saved by borrowing are better metrics than the old unemployment statistics. Blame Bush again, tinker with the stats, and print more money.

Small businesses? Employers are still “they,” who must and will pay higher income and payroll taxes, and higher premiums for medical insurance. They won’t be thanked for their greater contributions; rather, they owe a sort of penance for doing well and creating the nation’s wealth.

Energy? President Obama is on his way to Copenhagen — oblivious to Climategate. He ignores the paradoxes of a planet the last decade slighting cooling, when it is supposed to be radically heating. And he does not worry at all about the effects of new green taxes on the country — when the productive classes may soon be paying 65 percent of their incomes in state and federal taxes and increased insurance premiums.

Political Editor Mark Preston peeked out of President Obama’s pocket early this morning to post a side-busting election results story on CNN.com  - “Analysis: Elections not a referendum on Obama.” It doesn’t matter, you see, that Republicans Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell won governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, respectively. It also doesn’t matter that Christie got the support of 60% of Independents, while McDonnell received 66% of the Independent vote – numbers that, since CNN seems to have forgotten, are what you’d call “a landslide.”

Naturally CNN knows what went wrong for Democrats Corzine and Deeds:

Neither Democratic candidate was Obama; neither was a great spokesman for “change;” and Democratic strategists and grassroots activists said each candidate failed to give independents a reason to support them.

I honestly laughed out loud at this sentence. When President Obama was elected amid circumstances that would have challenged a party far more competent than the GOP of 2008, CNN pundits could scarce contain their delight. A new era! A monumental shift towards the sort of government-first, government last, and government in the middle country that CNN wishes we had! Now the network would rather wax nostalgic on 2008 than consider that maybe Americans are smarter than that. My hope is that Krauthammer’s right, because the alternative would be mighty depressing.

Still, in the coming days a storyline will develop that this was a referendum on Obama and his policies.

But not if CNN’s crack reporting staff has anything to say about it. Back to the important angle: partisan strife in the GOP!

At the same time, another narrative will continue to evolve over the future of the Republican Party as grassroots conservative activists seek to increase their influence following the success of forcing the centrist Republican nominee in a New York congressional special election from the race.

No one outside of Manhattan, Chicago, or San Francisco would call Dede Scozzafava a “centrist Republican.” No one. CNN’s continued flagrant bias, combined with their winking assertion that they possess none, can only guide them downward into irrelevance (while helping the stock of a certain evil non-news network I’m happy to own).

True colors, shining through:

Scozzafava dropped out after Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman experienced a late-in-the-game surge. The move was expected to consolidate GOP voters behind Hoffman on Tuesday.

But on Sunday, Scozzafava backed Democrat Bill Owens — the announcement was made in a statement sent out by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Scozzafava was always a dumb call by Gingrich and the National Republican Congressional Committee. When Scozzafava ended her campaign, though, it looked like maybe she was stepping aside so her supporters could line up behind the conservative candidate. Nope – just admitting the obvious so she could funnel votes to the candidate of the big government party!

It says nothing good about the GOP when a “Republican” backed by the party’s elite is left of the Blue Dog Democrats… and won’t even endorse a conservative opponent who voters have rallied around.

Reuters is carrying a story today about John McCain, who says the GOP had better shape up before the 2010 elections. You remember John McCain, right? He’s that Republican senator whose regular flirtations with big-government nonsense represent the party’s most serious problem. Forgive me if I read this story with more than the standard amount of skepticism.

“There’s something going on out there. And I’d love to sit here and tell you that we Republicans are attracting all of those unhappy people, but we’re not. They’re out there kind of in the middle and they haven’t found a home. And in fact they haven’t even channeled their anger yet,” he said.

Despite what you may think, McCain is not joking. While most pundits muse on whether Tea Party wingnuts who dare complain about out of control spending will pull the GOP too far to the right, McCain crams a new situation into his standard argument that conservatism is for losers and Republicans should “moderate” their ranks.

I seem to recall the leading case for John McCain in 2008 being that he could win “moderate” and “independent” voters. That went… poorly. I’d love to see Republicans offer fiscally and socially conservative candidates in every election – especially given how wildly off-the-rails the Democratic leadership is on spending, personal freedom, and national defense. But instead we have old pros like John McCain telling us, no, the problem is that Republicans aren’t helpful enough when it comes to piling debt on top of debt to pay for things government has no business doing.

But he said Republican candidates running in 2010 needed to “portray a far more positive agenda for America” and that the party needed to recruit good candidates and attract Hispanic voters who have been heavily courted by Democrats. Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority in the United States.

Right… sorry we forgot, John – amnesty for the win. I’m sure you’ll also help the GOP in this election cycle by crafting some cap & trade compromise where Americans get screwed only six instead of seven ways from Sunday, Senator.

At The Corner today, Mark Steyn was commenting on the 23rd District race in New York, where GOP leaders are lining up behind another “moderate” Republican (ie, someone whose positions are indecipherable from the average Democrat’s). Steyn had this to say:

The problem with NY-23 is that we don’t have a two-party system. The GOP leadership decided to join the Democrats in offering voters a one-party system of Dem and Demmer. Nuts to that.

If you’re not fired up about government health insurance, foreign policy dictated by the UN, and environmentalist control of the economy – start getting fired up. Our centrist President is not going to drop any of his big-government plans, and the GOP is barely going to slow his stride. We can at least hope that harsh realities in Iran, North Korea, or Pah-kee-stahn will draw President Obama’s attention away from… hah! Just kidding.

While Boehner, Cantor, and several others repeat a consistent message about prudence and personal responsibility, their fellow Congressmen and governors have better things to do.

The GOP faces long odds at getting a message through the national media in the best of circumstances. And while prominent Republicans keep fooling around? Maybe our problem is that we ask too much. We want our elected officials to govern well and legislate wisely, but who has time for either when you’re juggling an affair? And how is the media supposed to dedicate any time to Republican proposals, with Obama Obama Obama and GOP scandals to chatter about?

Senators hate pork and wasteful spending, until it’s time to vote against:

The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to approve a five-year, $307 billion farm bill, sending it to President Bush for what is expected to be his futile veto.

The 81-to-15 Senate vote, like the 318-to-106 House vote on Wednesday, attracted broad bipartisan support and received far more than the two-thirds that would be needed to override Mr. Bush’s veto, should he keep his pledge to wield his pen.

Mr. Bush has said he wants to sharply limit government subsidies to farmers at a time of near-record commodity prices and soaring global demand for grain. Most legislators were not swayed by Mr. Bush’s description of the bill as bloated, expensive and packed with “a variety of gimmicks.”

Look forward to more of this “compromise” legislation in 2009 and beyond, as Republican congressmen continue pandering like Democrats and losing elections as a result.