About Anonymous Memes on Facebook

 PREFACE: I got caught up in a flame war on Facebook, because I couldn't help myself. When I realized what I had done, I tried to apologize and make amends. I don't know if I was successful. But I spent all night thinking about it, and ended up posting this the next morning.

I get way too upset when I see people mindlessly reposting inflammatory memes about [[insert current topic of conflict here]]. It's a personal failing; I know, and I apologize for getting worked up over things which don't matter. (p.s. I'm working on it. Your advice is not needed; however, your nonverbal support is appreciated.)

It's not the content of the memes that bothers me so much, it's the fact that you keep reposting them. If you want to know why, keep reading. If you don't want to know why, I will understand if you stop reading now. One of the things that I'm doing to help me get over this personal weakness is this: if all I see from you is reposted inflammatory memes, then I will snooze you for 30 days. If, after 30 days, I'm still seeing that same garbage from you, I'll quietly unfollow or unfriend you. We'll still be friends in real life. I just don't want to see that stuff over and over on Facebook.

If you're still reading, I'm going to cover four more points.

1.Why? Because Big Brother is watching you!

2. Where do the memes come from?

3. What are you going to do about it?

4. Try lifting people up instead.

1.Why? Because Big Brother is watching you!

Now for the why: Facebook has algorithms (thinking machines, if you will) that follow your every move on Facebook (and beyond, I suspect). They know what you look at, and they make conclusions about what you like and what you want to see. So they tailor what will appear on your news feed. You'll end up seeing a lot of crazy memes which are intended to get people angry, and which amazingly support YOUR point of view. Often, you get emotionally stirred up by them, whether you realize it or not, and you decide to repost them, as if to say (again, whether you realize it or not) "See? Amiright? That's what I've been saying!"

This gives those memes new life, and gives them a chance to upset and motivate somebody else.

2. Where do the memes come from?

Ah, that's it. Nobody knows. There's no authorship attached. BUT! Have you heard about these "troll farms", in Russia and other countries? These are people, or groups of people, whose purpose is to destroy the U.S. by sowing division and discord from within, getting us all to argue with each other, to hate each other, and to actively work against each other. Remember what Abraham Lincoln said: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." If they can break up (or FURTHER BREAK UP) the unity that can and should exist in the U.S., then the country descends into chaos, and they win.

They're like those instigators on the playground in middle school who like to play "Let's you and him fight".

All of these anonymous memes, which are designed to sow discord and confusion, they don't do anything except tear down: they tear down society; they tear down our unity; they tear down good (albeit imperfect) people who are trying to make a positive difference in the world; and worst of all, they prompt us to tear down each other.

Nobody signs these memes, or maybe those who share them don't credit the authors like they should. Therefore, nobody's ultimately responsible for their content. Yeah, but if you share them, THEN YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR CONTENT, and you deserve all of the opprobrium and contempt that your respondents heap on you.

(Detour! "Troll" in this case doesn't refer to the fairy-tale creature, although modern trolls are as ugly and sociopathic as that creature. "Troll" in this case refers to the act of dragging a baited hook through the water, with the expectation that sooner or later a fish will take the bait and be hooked. Every time you repost an anonymous meme or reply to one, you've been hooked.

Now, back to the subject at hand.)

3. What are you going to do about it?

We are all involved, to some degree, in politics. We all have opinions about not just the political, but the social, issues of the day. These opinions move us to action.

If the only action you take is to repost memes of anonymous and unknown origin, then YOU ARE AMONG THE LAZIEST CREATURES ON EARTH. It doesn't take a lot of effort to click the "Share" button at the bottom of a meme, and to feel self-satisified, like you've done your part in Advancing the Cause. The Internet calls this "slacktivism".

If it really means that much to you, then for Pete's sake, GET OFF YOUR LAZY BUTT AND GO FIND SOMETHING TO DO ABOUT IT. You will not change the world by sitting there and clicking "Share". The world wants deeds, not clicks.

4. Try lifting people up instead.

Jenna Ames Crellin and Jason Wilson are two of my heroes on Facebook. They mostly repost stuff -- but everything they repost on FB is intended to lift somebody up, to put a smile on somebody's face, or to make somebody laugh out loud. (Or to get excited about football.)

Janis Ian posts a lot of original stuff, and the things she reposts are things that she has carefully researched to make sure they're for real. A lot of what she posts is entertainment, a lot of it is to lift up strangers or to say hi to her friends, and some of it is intended to make you uncomfortable, to make you think, and to make you take action. (Real action. See above.) I don't agree with everything Janis posts, but I read and think about all of it.

Jodi DeLong/bloomingwriter has a wicked sense of humour, a vicious command of the English language, and ... well, she always posts original stuff. I don't know if I've ever seen her repost an anonymous meme. And her original photographs of her flower garden, and of the beauty of the Maritime Provinces, brighten my day and lift my soul.

Jordyn Prestwich doesn't have time to repost garbage on Facebook. She's too busy just living in Ghana and making a difference in the lives of the people there. Props to #ghanamakeadifference .

I have some other friends whom I won't name, who are on journeys of self-discovery, and who feel comfortable posting about their progress. It builds me up to see them growing and getting stronger and wiser.

I have yet other friends, whom I also won't name, who are having fun just being alive, and who share their adventures with their friends. I've vicariously traveled the world and climbed mountains with these friends.

(I guess that, in order to be named in this post, your name must start with "J".)

All of that is what I come to Facebook to see. And that is what I myself aspire to contribute. Given a choice between building up and tearing down, I prefer to build up. You can, too. That's a choice you'll have to make for yourself.

The Wall is a Dumb Idea

Come on, somebody say it out loud: The Wall is, simply put, a dumb idea.

Physical barriers have been tried in the past, and people either go through them, under them, over them, or around them. Witness Hadrian's Wall, the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, the fortified border between West and East Germany, the Iron Curtain, and the Maginot Line.

The only counterexample I can think of might be the fortified border between North and South Korea. but even then, small numbers of people just go around the wall, traveling first to China and then to South Korea.

Walls eventually crumble, or become irrelevant - or they're preserved as tourist attractions. Trump's Wall will be symbolic, but not much else, because would-be immigrants will find ways to bypass it. . The attraction (and the desire) to live and work in the United States, legally or illegally, is simply too strong.

What is needed is not a $25 billion physical wall, but an immigration policy that is sound, enforceable, and humane. Both the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress can do better than they're currently doing. And the President is as dumb as his Wall.

p.s. Why not use the $25 to do something useful? Like give it as a grant to the states, specifying that it be used to increase K-12 teacher pay and to hire more teachers?

What this country needs

What this country needs are more radical moderates. Alt-independents. Conservative liberals. Liberal conservatives. People who think with their whole brains, and love with their whole hearts.

And you can quote me on that.

Five out of six Democrats and Republicans are stupid

Okay, I've seen two news articles lately with polls like this. These poll results are powerful indictments of the stupidity of the majority of Republicans, and the majority of Democrats.

Here's one example, but it's only an example. Don't get hung up on it. This is a poll that asks people "Whom do you trust more: Donald Trump, or CNN?"

I saw a very similar diagram last week, for a poll that asked people something like "Do you believe in the Trump-Russia collusion connection?" and I've seen similar diagrams for the health care bill, Supreme Court nominees, James Comey's firing, and so on. Let's paint a generic picture of the results of these polls:

Now, I'm going to use some math here. If you're not very good at math, that's okay. You may have a lot in common with the majority of the people I'm going to talk about here. And if you're offended by my condescending attitude, that's your problem, not mine. Don't look here for an apology.

Let's dissect that figure above. First of all, look at the line marked "Independents". These are people who vote, but who don't consider themselves Democrats or Republicans. Most of them don't identify with any political party - not because they're politically apathetic, but because they prefer to do their own research and weigh the pros and cons of an issue (or a candidate) before making their own decision. The party line does not exist for them.

So you can use the statistics on the Independents as a bellwether: politically, they're atheists, logical, dispassionate, and not swayed by labels like red/blue, liberal/conservative, or Democrat/Republican. In this example poll, you can see that 40 percent of the independents lean pro-Trump on the issue, and 55 percent lean anti-Trump. Let's round that 55 percent up to 60 percent, to make the math easier for this example.

(Those of you who don't understand math and statistics may cry "Not fair!" at my rounding. Relax. 40 vs 60 is being kind to Mr. Trump. I saw a poll in June, where 30 percent of independents leaned pro-Trump and fully 70 percent of independents leaned anti-Trump on the question being asked. How about I use 30 vs 70 instead? No? Then stop whining.)

Now, I'm going to propose a theory. I think that political parties are composed of two kinds of people. One kind actually thinks about an issue or a candidate before they make a decision or form an opinion. The other kind always toes the party line. They only need to know what the party line is - no thinking required.

I'm going to pose a second hypothesis. I have nothing to base this suggestion on, other than my belief in the basic goodness of people, and humanity's natural gifts of logic and reason. I'm going to suggest that, if only the thinking Democrats AND the thinking Republicans were polled, their split would be very similar to the Independent results, as shown above.

This means that it takes some independence of thought for a Republican to lean anti-Trump, or for a Democrat to lean pro-Trump.

So let's give those 9% of Republican respondents who leaned anti-Trump credit for thinking for themselves. Using the 40/60 ratio from the Independents, let's also give 6% of the Republicans credit for using their heads, thinking it out, and coming out pro-Trump.

What does that say about the other 83% of Republicans, the ones who voted the party line without bothering to think? It says that they're stupid.

Is stupid too strong a word? How about sheep? Blind followers? Willfully ignorant?

On the Democrat side, let's give those 5% who leaned pro-Trump credit for thinking for themselves. Again using the 40/60 ratio from the Independents, let's give 8% (I rounded up; so sue me) of the Democrats credit for using their heads, thinking it out, and coming out anti-Trump.

EDIT: The following two graphics have an error. The 8% should be labeled "anti-Trump (thinkers"). One day I may get around to fixing the graphics.

What does that say about the other 83% of Democrats, the ones who voted the party line without bothering to think? It says that they're stupid.

Is stupid too strong a word? How about sheep? Blind followers? Willfully ignorant?

Wow. According to this and other public opinion polls, 83% of Democrats and Republicans are mindless party loyalists. THEY ONLY THINK WHAT THE PARTY TELLS THEM TO THINK.

Democrats think that they are the party of "thinkers" and the Republicans are the party of "stupid". Republicans think that they are the party of "thinkers" and the Democrats are the party of "stupid". Both parties are wrong. As the results of this and many other polls show, they're both the party of "stupid".

If you are a Democrat or a Republican, and you think you're one of the thinking minority, there's an 83-percent probability that you're wrong, that you are one of the party loyalists. The sheep. The stupid ones.

If you disagree with me, there are a couple of articles on Wikipedia that you need to read. The first is about fundamental attribution error, and the second is about self-serving bias, both of which are logical mistakes to which we mortals fall victim, over and over again.

The acrimony, the political divisions in this country will continue to get worse until people stop blindly supporting their party and learn to think for themselves. The poll results will get more and more extreme, and the divide between the two major political parties will get wider and deeper. Polite

political discourse has already ceased; inflammatory rhetoric has taken over. Violence is stomping through the door, and oppression is not far behind.

If you are a Democrat or a Republican, you have to do something to fix this. You don't need to abandon your party affiliation. You do need to abandon your mindless loyalty to your party. Use your brain to figure things out. If your party, or your party's representative, is wrong about something, then separate yourself from the majority on that issue, and make it known.

I don't pledge allegiance to a political party. I pledge allegiance to a flag, the nation that it symbolizes, and the Constitution that it is built upon. I don't vote for party leaders, political appointees, or lobbyists and influence peddlers, and I don't want them running the country - I mean, dictating how people think. That happened in the Soviet Union, but it should not happen here.

Election Day 2016 - Say It Isn't So

Please don't tell me that the next U.S. Presidential election will be a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

UPDATE: If it does boil down to Clinton vs. Trump, then vote for the vice-president of your choice, and wait for the president to get impeached.

The IRS: No credibility at all, part 2

Yesterday, in my article The IRS: No Credibility At All, I said:

"The IRS expected the public to believe that the agency did not have a regular data backup plan in place, and that backup tapes of Lerner's hard drive did not exist. I find that impossible to believe."

and, speaking of all IRS email, not just Lerner's email:

"To suggest that the IRS did not have a backup policy for their mailserver is way, way beyond stupid. It's unbelievable. Inconceivable. Asinine."

It turns out that the mailserver backup tapes were safe in a storage building in West Virginia. Last July, a lawyer went to court to get hold of those tapes and look at them. The Department of Justice basically shut down that request. It took until mid-February this year to finally get the tapes. Everything I said in my previous article was true.

You know what's funny? Actually, it would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. The IRS treated everyone else like chumps - as if everyone else were stupid. But the IRS comes out of this looking ... well, looking stupid, idiotic, immoral, and any number of other adjectives you would use for a bunch of twelve-year-old boys who tried to start a fire on the gym floor, then cover it up and think they could get away with it. That is what the IRS, collectively, looks like right now.

Now I'll let somebody else do the talking. This is Patrick Howley, political reporter for The Daily Caller. The original article is at http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/02/exposed-department-of-justice-shut-down-search-for-lois-lerners-emails/. (I try not to copy entire articles like this, but they have a nasty habit of disappearing if I only post the links, and I don't want that to happen. I will remove the article and just write a summary of it if Patrick or the DC ask me to, but it's important enough that I'd rather leave the verbatim copy here.)

Here's the story about how the IRS and the DOJ tried to keep the backup tapes of Lois Lerner's emails from going public.

---

The Department of Justice blocked an attempt to force the Internal Revenue Service to search for Lois Lerner’s missing emails at off-site storage facilities, according to a lawyer pushing to obtain the emails.

The IRS never looked for Lerner’s backup email tapes at the West Virginia storage facility where they were being housed. Treasury deputy inspector general Timothy Camus told Congress that the IRS never asked IT professionals at the New Martinsville, W.V. storage site for the backup tapes. Camus only found the backup tape for Lerner’s missing 2011 emails about two weeks ago.

But the Obama administration knew that emails were stored at off-site facilities, and even shut down a legal request to send somebody to go look for them.

“We said in court that there are off-site servers where all IRS emails are stored,” lawyer Cleta Mitchell told The Daily Caller.

Mitchell represents the voter-ID group True the Vote in its lawsuit against the IRS over improper targeting. Shortly after it was revealed last summer that the IRS was missing Lerner’s emails, Mitchell petitioned U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton for an independent forensic examiner to be appointed to investigate the missing emails.

Mitchell referred to the IRS’ off-site storage facilities in West Virginia and Pittsburgh in court in July. But DOJ lawyers representing the IRS and the Treasury inspector general argued that Mitchell could not even discuss the existence of the storage facilities in her capacity as a lawyer.

“The Department of Justice lawyers objected to that and said I shouldn’t even be allowed to mention these off-site servers without sworn affidavits,” Mitchell told TheDC. “They meant that I was trying to testify to the judge without bringing in witnesses with sworn affidavits.”

Mitchell’s motion to get an independent forensic examiner was denied. The IRS’ internal investigation never headed to West Virginia, and the Treasury inspector general’s investigation managed to find a pertinent tape in West Virginia a mere two weeks before last Thursday’s House Oversight hearing. One of the IRS employees tasked with finding data on Lerner’s crashed hard drive was legally blind.

Mitchell’s statement about the off-site servers was clear as day, according to court transcripts obtained by TheDC.

“I’m advised that the IRS maintains servers that are in different states in different locations and that IRS employees are advised that their emails are never lost,” Mitchell said in court, according to the transcripts.

“That’s what I’ve been told as far as my emails here,” the court replied.

“And I have had individuals who worked with, for the IRS from all across the country who have communicated that to me,” Mitchell continued. “And they say — I hear from government employees, retired and active, who say what is being said is not possible. It is not plausible and it is contrary to what we are told as employees of the IRS.”

Mitchell requested “the opportunity to at least have some expert look at whether the perimeters of the investigation are complete and … will fully cover all of the potential ways or places in which this investigation should look or take into consideration.”

But the email tapes sat there in West Virginia, alone and unexamined.

DOJ did not return a request for comment for this report.

As TheDC reported, the IRS fired its email-storage contractor Sonasoft just weeks after Lerner’s email-deleting computer crash.

The IRS: No credibility at all

You know, it's really sad that we in the USA are all subject to the will, the caprices and the passions of the IRS.

In less than a day, the Internal Revenue Service can deprive us of our homes, our bank accounts, our credit ratings, our personal reputations, our livelihoods, and even our freedom (I mean, like locking us in jail), for what some IRS employee perceives as our breaking the law.

This is the tax law. You know, the Internal Revenue Code, or whatever it is called. A law so huge and complicated that even the IRS admits that they don't completely understand it. Heck, even the congressmen who voted for it don't understand it.

Yeah, and if the IRS even thinks you are cheating the government out of their rightful share of your hard-earned money, they can come down on you like a ton of bricks, and there is literally nothing you can do about it.

HOWEVER, if you work for the IRS and you do something that is blatantly illegal, and you do it over and over and over again, nothing happens to you. How does it feel to be both omnipotent and invincible, unaccountable to anyone even though it's obvious that you are the biggest jerk, collectively, in the entire country?

Does anybody who works at the IRS wonder why regular, everyday, ordinary, law-abiding Americans hold the taxman in such deep contempt?

In 2013, it was obvious to anybody who could read a newspaper that the IRS had unfairly targeted and bullied conservative action groups - especially those who chose to include the words "tea party" or "patriot" in the names of their groups. The IRS even issued a public apology for having done so.

The big question at the time was whether this was the work of a few rogue IRS agents, or whether the directive came all the way from the top. "Top" could be defined as the head of the IRS, Lois Lerner, or someone even higher, up to and including President Obama himself.

To answer this question, investigators ordered the IRS to turn over all of Lois Lerner's emails for the critical period of time. The IRS responded that the emails were lost because the hard drive on Lerner's computer had crashed and the contents could not be retrieved - the contents including the emails in question. They used all sorts of tech mumbo-jumbo to claim that the hard drive had been physically damaged and, consequently, physically destroyed. They claimed that this was per department policy, stupidly ignoring the fact that that same department policy had a "records retention clause" dictating that all electronic correspondence should be backed up and saved for several years.

This clause had the force of law - which the IRS flouted. Destroying emails or hard drives containing them could be construed as destroying evidence.

The IRS expected the public to believe that the agency did not have a regular data backup plan in place, and that backup tapes of Lerner's hard drive did not exist. I find that impossible to believe.

The IRS also expected the public not to understand the concept of a mailserver - the electronic post office that handles all the mail in and out of an office or a company. Mailservers are regularly backed up as well, especially in a place like a government office, where a "paper trail" can be crucial to conducting everyday business and to enforcing both contracts and laws. To suggest that the IRS did not have a backup policy for their mailserver is way, way beyond stupid. It's unbelievable. Inconceivable. Asinine.

(SHORT EDIT, THE NEXT DAY: Oh, it gets worse than that. See my next article .)

In testifying before a congressional inquiry into the matter, Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, adding, "I will not answer any questions or testify about the subject matter of this committee’s meeting." I can't think of an appropriate word to express my contempt for someone like that.

So Lerner's excuse was the equivalent of "My dog ate my homework," and the public was expected to believe her, in spite of the glaring evidence to the contrary.

President Obama even contributed to the deception, declaring in February 2014 that there was "not a smidgen of corruption" in the IRS or in their handling of the "tea party" paperwork. He expected us to believe him simply on the strength of his voice.

His earnestness reminded me of what Jean Girardoux once said: "The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made."

(Maybe Obama didn't realize that what he was saying was false. Maybe he thought he was telling the truth because he didn't know the truth yet.)

After Lerner resigned, other IRS officials said that (surprise!) backup tapes DO exist, but that retrieving the thousands of emails from the tapes would be "onerous."

So investigators tried other ways to retrieve the missing emails. In fact, trying to retrieve the missing emails by scouring thousands of other  users' email accounts for messages sent To or From Lois Lerner netted about 67,000 emails, at a cost to the taxpayer (yes, the TAXpayer. Catch the irony?) of about $14 million. It took over a year. This whole time, the backup tapes were staring them in the face, and any high school nerd with a PC and Python could have written a program to search and retrieve the missing emails from the tapes in much less time and at a much lower cost.

Well, finally somebody did just that - but not a high school kid. Investigators hired an outside company, who took the tapes and TWO WEEKS LATER retrieved ALL of the emails from them, including an additional 32,000 Lois Lerner emails. That is MUCH less "onerous" than the exercise that the IRS put us, the American public, through to find the first 67,000 emails.

There is no question in the public's mind that Lerner, and the IRS departments that bullied the conservative groups, were corrupt. And dishonest. AND thoroughly, completely, despairingly incompetent. The agency's credibility in the public eye is absolutely zero. And while they have spent the past two years  babbling about this to the press and to Congress, they have hoped that the public would buy their story and not see through the flimsy fabric it was written upon.

The game's up, you morons.

You freaking morons.

You all ought to be fired. I wouldn't give you a job as a greeter at WalMart.

I hesitate to be so bold in my pronouncements, all of which are taken from public news reports, because I have also heard that the IRS targets people who speak out against the agency. Nobody believes those "random" audits are completely random. But I'll give it a shot and we'll see what happens.

Manufacturing Outrage

Someone on Facebook pointed me to a political blog called IVN, written by a published author and retired professor named Michael Austin. His blog entries are balanced and well-written. If you perceive a bias in any of his articles, bear in mind that it's an opinion, and a logical and well-supported one at that. You may or may not agree with his opinion, but that is precisely why you need to read this article.

The July 11 article, "Manufacturing Outrage," points out how the continuum between agreement and disagreement no longer exists. If you don't like someone's viewpoint or behavior, you slip past all the socially-accepted degrees of disagreement and go straight to outrage. This causes serious problems, as he explains.

I wish everyone who goes into spasms of outrage at the slightest provocation would read this article. Because blogs occasionally disappear or become unavailable, I am reposting it here in its entirety, with Mr. Austin's permission.

Manufacturing Outrage

Here’s an interesting little fact: to the best of my ability to recall, I have never seen one of my conservative friends post anything on their Facebook feed by Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or Pat Robertson.

But my liberal friends post something outrageous by one of these commentators every day. When Ann Coulter wrote a column denouncing soccer as a symbol of America’s moral decline, I probably saw a hundred links to it. I forwarded it on myself.

But every single person who forwarded it did so with the intention of mocking it. A million people probably read Ann Coulter’s column that day just so they could laugh at what a Neanderthal she was. To my knowledge, nobody read it and agreed with her.

So Ann Coulter gets a million readers and makes a big pile of money so that liberals can smile smugly at their superiority, even as they drive another million readers to her site by forwarding her posts. Outrage, as it turns out, is kind of fun.

It’s fun for everyone, liberal and conservative alike. Though none of my conservative friends forward things by Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, quite a few of them forward nearly everything that President Obama says or does or is rumored to have done—normally with a statement like “there he goes again.”

I read, dozens of times a day, descriptions of Obama as a “tyrant,” a “dictator,” a “communist,” a “traitor,” and, of course, “the worst president we have ever had.” I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say that he is merely a bad president, or even one in the bottom quartile. Come to think of it, I have never even heard him described as the “second worst president we have ever had.” Millard Fillmore and James Buchannan get a pass—outrage only works with superlatives.

And this pretty much sums up our political environment today: we are outraged. Everything is outrageous. Obama is outrageous. Benghazi is outrageous. The Tea Party is outrageous. Ann Coulter is outrageous. Immigration, health care, contraception, the Supreme Court, Russia, Israel, Egypt, and the World Cup—it’s all outrageous, and it all proves that things are worse than they have ever been.

I suspect that this narrative prevails on both sides of the aisle because we really do enjoy being outraged. It makes us feel smart and special, like we are actually doing something noble by reducing everything to the most vile proposition we can imagine and then getting outraged about it. If we feel especially noble, we will go out on the internet and call people stupid. That’ll show ‘em.

And, at the same time, the political parties know that outrage works. It gets people to the polls, and, more importantly, it convinces them to donate to politicians and their causes. Not many people will donate to defeat a “mediocre manager with left of center positions.” But make them believe that they are donating to defeat “the most liberal, tyrannical dictator in our nation’s history,” and they will take out a second mortgage to support you.

Actual political argument is hard, while recreational outrage is easy. As long as we can fool ourselves into thinking that we are participating meaningfully in the political process–when all we are really doing is stoking our own outrage and that of people who think exactly like we do–then we will be at the mercy of people who know how to use our outrage to their advantage and our intellectual sloth as a way to make sure that nothing significant ever changes.

The IRS "Apologizes"

The news outlets are full of words from IRS officials, saying "we apologize" for targeting certain groups which had applied for non-profit status in the past six years.

Do they "apologize" for all the extra money those groups had to spend to comply with the demands of the IRS? Do they "apologize" for the lost time that those groups had to spend? Do they apologize for, let's be honest, harassing those groups and effectively abridging their freedom of speech?

You know, in a lot of cases, a victim will be charitable and noble and say, "I don't want their money. I don't want them to go to jail. I just want a sincere apology."

NOT IN THIS CASE.

The IRS is in the business of taking our money. That's their mission. If they don't get the money they're due, they will fine you, garnish your wages, shut down your business, throw you in jail, and commit all sorts of other legally-sanctioned nasty things.

THIS TIME, WE WANT THEIR HEADS.

We want to see the IRS treated the same way, when they abuse tax law, as the rest of us are treated when we abuse tax law. And more, because they acted from a position of ultimate power.

We want to see heads roll. We want to see people fired. We want to see people forbidden from ever having another job that includes handling other peoples' money. We want to see them reduced to WalMart greeters and lawnmower operators.

Moreover, we want to see the guilty parties jailed. From the minions all the way up to the directors, we want to see everyone in the chain of command, who knew about this or should have known about it, and who could have done something to stop it but didn't - we want them to serve jail time.

And we want to see financial restitution. That's right: we want to see the IRS financially penalized for their evil behavior. Hit 'em where it counts, just like they do to us. It would be really nice to see the money distributed among their victims.

But none of this will happen. A few people will get fired, but not very many, and certainly not the guilty ones. After six weeks or less, we'll be back to business as usual. That's the way Washington works.

From 'Sideshow' to Three-Ring Circus

Yesterday I posted a short article, rebutting the Obama administration's assertion that the Benghazi affair was just a 'sideshow.' Boy, how things have changed overnight.

It turns out that the Obama administration is engaged in a full-blown three-ring circus. After last night's bombshell about the Associated Press, we have the following three scandals involving the Executive Branch. And if they weren't scandals before, they are now — or will be soon.

1. Benghazi. It is now clear that the State Department never told us the truth about what happened in Benghazi. Secretary of State Clinton's "What difference does it make?" dismissal of some of the important facts will come back to haunt her next year, should she decide to run for President.

2. The IRS. It is now clear that the Department of the Treasury was using the IRS as a tool to hound and harass non-profit groups with a clear political agenda  — in short, abridging their freedom of speech. It is also clear that higher-ups in both the IRS and the Executive Branch were aware of this practice long before they said they were, and that they allowed it to continue. One could even accuse them of ordering it or mandating it. The IRS and the Treasury Dept. stomped on Americans' constitutional right to free speech.

3. The AP phone records grab. This is brand-new news, and it is developing even as I write this blog entry. But it is already clear that the Justice Department secretly and illegally stole two months' worth of telephone records from Associated Press reporters. DOJ's excuse for doing this was that they were trying to stop an unauthorized leak from inside the White House (as opposed to an "authorized leak"? what a bunch of clumsy idiots!) , but they totally flouted the law to do this, acting imperiously, maybe even dictatorially, and having a potentially chilling effect on the AP's ability to investigate and report the news. This time it was DOJ that stomped on Americans' constitutional right to free speech, to due process, and to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

That's the three-ring circus, folks. And I hear that other acts are waiting for their turn in the ring.

I didn't start out anti-Obama. I was one of the independents who said, "Give the guy a chance." I note with chagrin that presidents Reagan, Carter and (Bill) Clinton had similar problems during their terms in office. Reagan was completely oblivious to what his staff was doing, Carter was too trusting of everyone, and Clinton's staff were merely following the boss's dishonest and conniving example. I don't know what Obama's excuse is.

But we've heard enough of the president and his staff dismissing all of this as partisan bickering, Republican grandstanding, and so on. They have acted unethically, if not illegally, they have used terribly poor judgement, and they have attempted to cover their tracks or to shift the blame to other, innocent parties. It's time for them to stand up and be accountable for what they have done.

And we need to make sure that the former Secretary of State, who once said she would "do whatever it takes" to get elected president, doesn't get that chance in 2016.

(Image copied from Townhall.com. I would ask for permission to repost this if I could contact them. I hope that this attribution/credit will be enough for them.)

He just opened his mouth, and something stupid fell out

Okay, first Democratic "strategist" Hilary Rosen said something stupid about Ann Romney. Then Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner said something stupid about Barack Obama. Now a Republican candidate for the Senate from Missouri, Todd Akin, said something stupid about women in general. He really put his foot in it good.

Basically, he was repeating some pseudo-legalistic pseudo-science invented (according to NPR) by a conservative southern politician some decades ago and repeated by a few (but fortunately, not very many) conservative southern politicians since then. It was offensive to all women who have been through the trauma of rape, and especially those who found themselves pregnant as a result. In fact, it devalues the women in Africa, India, Bangladesh, China and the Far East who have suffered rape and pregnancy as a consequence of war.

I think he was sincere in his apology today. But once again, as with Hilary Rosen, I don't think the apology went far enough. He apologized for "one word and one sentence" and then said that he didn't think those should negate all the good things he's said and done. And he's absolutely right. But if you looked behind the "one word and one sentence," you could see the core beliefs of a man who you may not want to entrust with the power to make laws. I'm not talking about being pro-abortion or anti-abortion, either.

For myself, I will decide who to vote for, based on what they have said and what they have done, and not what others have said about them. If Akin were from Colorado and not Missouri, he would have lost my vote yesterday.

The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win

One of my friends (a real one, not a FB one) saw an article on Reason.com and suggested that I read it. In today's political climate, which is at turns divisive, extremist, absolute and contrarian, the author of this article channels Jonathan Swift to warn us about something really important. The article is called The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win . I'm not going to post the text of the entire article here, because I'm hoping that after November 2, nobody will need to read it again. But it's really important, right now.

A government that really works: is that too much to ask for?

Today I'm reprinting an article from ABC News. I was going to write a blog entry like this anyway, but I found this article by Amy Walter while I was doing research for my entry, and she says it so much better than I would have. Excerpting it wouldn't have done it justice.

If ABC or Ms. Walter asks me to take it down, I will, but I wanted to post a copy of it here because I've noticed that articles like this on the mainstream news outlets have a tendency to expire. They disappear after some length of time. This one deserves an extended life. It's something that all politicians need to keep in mind, both before and especially after an election. And as Ms. Walter points out, the rebuke applies to all political parties.

An Ideological Battle that Voters Don't Want

In picking Rep. Paul Ryan, whose eponymous budget plan has become synonymous with political polarization, Mitt Romney assured an ideological campaign where a debate over the role of government will be front and center. It is a debate the Obama campaign and partisans on both sides are also eager to have. But it’s not a debate that swing voters want.

They aren’t as interested in choosing whether government should be more active or less. They are more interested in simply having it work.

BLAME IT ON THE WAVE

This debate is the culmination of four consecutive wave elections — elections where each side (wrongly) assumed a mandate from the American public.

It started in 2006 when, fed up with one party control, voters tossed Congressional Republicans out of power. Once, the party of “outsider” Republicans had turned into creatures of Washington. Voters saw them as gluttonous, self-absorbed and more interested in retaining power than using their power to help the little guy.

Two years later, voters elected a president who promised to break the partisan gridlock and to focus on an agenda that transcended party and special interest groups.

Yet, elected as a counter-weight to previous GOP rule, Democrats turned out to act much like them. They passed legislation on party-line only votes. They pushed a health care law through Congress, but failed to make the case for how it was going to help people survive a flailing economy.

Fueled by this frustration, voters put Republicans back in control of the House in 2010. But like the Democrats before them, Republicans mistook the election as a mandate for their own ideology — an ideology that saw compromise as a dirty word. And, less than two years after providing the energy for the 2010 sweep of Congress, the tea party is an unpopular than ever.

Six years after voters sent a message to Republicans that they were sick and tired of a government that was polarized and self-absorbed, they find a political system that is as polarized and ineffective as ever.

Each wave election has ultimately produced a class of politicians who are convinced that their victory was about them rather than a repudiation of the tactics and behavior of the other party. They were convinced that voters were choosing an ideology, when in reality they were simply trying to punish the folks who put ideology over accomplishment and compromise.

PHILOSOPHY FOLLOWS FUNCTION

Which brings us to today. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney argue that this election provides voters with a very stark choice between two competing ideologies. One that says that government can be part of the solution (Obama) and one that says that government is getting in the way of the solution (Romney).

But there are plenty of voters out there who are more concerned about function than ideology. They aren’t spending their evenings debating the benefits of Hayek or Keynesian economic models. They are just trying to figure out which candidate is capable of getting something done. They will reward the politician who succeeds in getting things moving again. But that shouldn’t be taken as proof that voters are endorsing the philosophical underpinnings of that success.

In other words, voters are looking less at ideology and more at competency. And that’s not something that either side has been able to show that can deliver.

"Never had a real job" - Karma, round two

Loose-cannon Democrats have not cornered the stupidity market in this election year. Republicans are now taking their turn in the arena.

Remember back in April, when Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen said (in an interview on CNN) that Ann Romney had "never worked a day in her life," and then Rosen got buried in the blowback, and abandoned by her fellow Democrats?

Well now, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said (in an interview on Fox News, yesterday) that Barack Obama has "never even had a real job, for [God's] sake."

Huh. According to celebritynetworth.com, Barack Obama is worth $11.8 million. He didn't inherit that money from his father. According to his résumé, he worked hard for at least part of that money. I think that working hard for your money is what constitutes a "real job," don't you?

I guess it depends on how you define a "real job." If Speaker Boehner means that Obama never had to punch a time clock, then he may have a point. (Then again, he may not. Maybe Obama worked at McDonald's when he was a teen. Surely, that would qualify as a "real job.")

What's makes Boehner's statement really stupid is that, only a few sentences earlier, he said "Sometimes I have to catch my breath and slow down because the rhetoric in this campaign is just so over the top."

Watch for the blowback.

Oops - the secret's out

It's a good thing the Obama administration has such a tight hold on operational security. I'm sure that the rebels in Syria are both impressed and reassured by it.

To quote the header of a news item today:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said."

It seems to me that somebody inside the Obama administration doesn't understand the concept of "secret."

Contempt of Congress

The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner, is moving ahead with plans to charge U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder with "contempt of Congress", for his refusal to cooperate in the Congressional investigation into the horribly mismanaged, criminally botched, gun-running program the Justice Department was running on the Mexican border.

That's what the papers are reporting.

But hey, if you want to charge someone with "contempt of Congress," then you're going to have to charge me too. The archives of Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters show just how much contempt I have for the currently seated Congress of the United States.

In fact, if the honorable Speaker is going to charge me and AG Holder with contempt, he might have to charge 240 million other Americans with the same offense. According to the latest polls, between 75 and 79 of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job right now, and it would be fair to say that most, if not all, of those 75 to 79 percent have nothing but contempt for today's U.S. Congress.

Here is a measure of our contempt:

Dear Senators and Representatives: have you stopped being idiots yet? How's that budget coming? How about that tax code rewrite? Social Security reform? Have you stopped messing with our schools? Have you stopped catering to the banks, the insurance firms and the other too-big-to-fail companies that do more favors for you than we, the average Americans, can do for you?

Are you still blindly voting the party line? Are you still spending money that isn't yours to spend? Are you still voting to give to the military, things that the military has said they don't want, and don't need? Are you still filling the pork barrel for your state, for your constituency, even to the point of making "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" deals with your colleagues who have their own pork barrels to fill?

Have you rewritten things so that your families and fortunes are subject to the same challenges and difficulties as the rest of America, or are you and yours still exempt from so many of the rules and regulations the rest of us have to live under?

Are you still quietly voting yourselves pay raises or other emoluments that the rest of us cannot get? Especially those of us who are still without a job, even though we voted to send you to Washington?

Do you feel even the slightest twinge of guilt after reading this, or do you instead feel as much contempt for the American people as they feel for you?

On Polls, Politicking, and Super PACs

About super PACs:

They're not fooling anybody, you know. They're a blatant move by the classic men-behind-the-scenes to control the political landscape and the political discourse like they used to do. They're not about free speech. They're about money and power. We all know that.

But they're frighteningly effective, and so are their tactics. Most voters in a given election will vote based on emotion, not logic or facts, and the super PACs' tactics are focused on manipulating voters' emotions.

About politicking:


You know, since we stopped subscribing to cable TV and watching network TV, we have missed all of the political ads. And when I say "missed," I mean "not seen" or "not been subject to."

When we listen to the radio, we change stations every time we hear a political ad. (In fact, we frequently change stations for any kind of advertisement.) In radio parlance, political ads are an automatic tune-out.

When we read the newspaper, we read the political ads for local issues or candidates, and then go to the Internet to find detailed, impartial facts and to read both sides of the issue.

We get most of our news today from the Internet. We read from a variety of news outlets, analysts, and opinion leaders. We assume that everybody has a bias, and so we make sure to take our news from across the political spectrum. Some of the most detached, unbiased reporting comes from overseas, from outside looking in, but even then we are careful to watch for hidden biases.

We've noticed a lot more political advertising on the Internet. We ignore all of it. (However, we are intrigued by which political ads AdSense chooses to serve up on places like Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters.)

We listen to speeches, or read transcripts of speeches, on the Internet. Sometimes we will find multiple versions of the speech. Sometimes it takes a little work to find an accurate video of the speech, unedited and uncut. We listen to some of the after-speech commentary, but not much. After 5 or 10 minutes, the commentators go into talking-head mode, and then it's time to move on.

About polls:


I used to participate in telephone polls and surveys, thinking that I was fulfilling my civic duty in making my voice heard. Boy, was I mistaken. It took me a while, but I finally caught on to the fact that a "poll" is not really a "poll": the pollster is pushing a specific agenda, and is politicking (or selling, if it's a consumer poll and not a voter poll) just like everybody else.

Caller ID is a wonderful thing. During election season (like, right now), we ignore incoming calls if we don't recognize the calling number, or if no number is shown. There's no law that requires you to answer a ringing telephone.

That short pause before the human starts talking is also a wonderful thing. One day autodialers will be fast enough to eliminate the pause, but for 2012, that brief time while the autodialer processes our "Hello?" and routes us to a human or to a recorded message, is just enough time to alert us to the fact that it's a call we can safely hang up on.

This year I'm going to try something new. If I answer a ringing telephone and I don't realize it's a political call until the caller starts talking, I'm going to abruptly and wordlessly hang up. It may be rude, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to listen to them, any more than I have the time or inclination to listen to a door-to-door salesman.

To wrap up:

Politicians must hate voters like us. We think about the candidates, and the issues. We do our research. We look at all sides of the story. We judge the credibility of everything we hear or read, and we ignore  emotional appeals. And we hate buzzwords, slogans, and cute catchphrases, with a hatred that surpasses all understanding. We don't vote a strict party or ideological line, although we prefer moderates over radicals because we know they will get things done and not just crow like a rooster all day long. We vote for what we think will be best in the long run for our community, our state and our country.

Who's Flip-Flopping Now?

A long time ago, I wrote about a politician's prerogative to change his mind about a position, based on new knowledge the politician may have acquired. I never mentioned Mitt Romney by name, because I think that all politicians (and all people) should have that right: the right to think new thoughts, to keep an open mind, and to adopt new ideas.

Many Republicans wouldn't give Romney that right. They insisted that once he stated his position on an issue, he must stick with that opinion forever, unchanging. When he did change his mind on an issue, they said he was doing so for purely political reasons, and they called it "flip-flopping." Mitt has been accused of being a flip-flopper since he first aspired to the presidency in 2007.

This has been a particularly bitter and divisive campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Attacks and negativity ruled the airwaves and the Internet. Now that Mitt Romney has the nomination all but sewn up, party leaders are suddenly aware of the need for unity. A divided Republican party has no chance of winning the presidential election this November.

So let's see what one former presidential candidate and one prominent Republican are saying about Romney.

First, Newt Gingrich, just four days ago:  "I think it's a very substantial mistake for Governor Romney to be pretending these primaries aren't occurring and for him to be having quote a general election speech tonight in New Hampshire. He's the frontrunner but he's not the nominee."

Now, Newt Gingrich, shortly after he announced he's giving up: "I do think it's pretty clear that Governor Romney is ultimately going to be the nominee and we're gonna do everything we can make sure that he is in fact effective. And we as a team will be effective in winning this fall."

(As an aside, I think it's kind of funny that Gingrich is offering his services to "do everything we can [to] make sure that he is in fact effective." Yeah. He spent months torpedoing his own campaign, and now he wants to help Romney. I think that a "Thanks but no thanks; go back to your professorship now" would me more likely. Gingrich's help on the general campaign, like Donald Trump's public endorsement, is more a liability than an asset.)

Second, Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and a one-time presidential candidate in his own right. A few months ago, stumping for one of the other GOP hopefuls, Giuliani had this to say about Romney: "I have never seen a guy - and I've run in a lot of elections, supported a lot of people, opposed them - never seen a guy change his positions on so many things, so fast, on a dime. Everything."

Did you catch that? "Everything." And "never seen a guy." Rudy Giuliani really didn't like Mitt Romney. There was no room in his mind for any candidate to be worse than Romney. Now, contrast that with what he said this week: "I'm proud to support Mitt Romney and encourage all those who worry about our country's future to do the same."

(Another aside: Doesn't it seem to you that Giuliani changed his position rather fast - on a dime, even? He went from "never" to bootlicking in the blink of an eye.)

Who's flip-flopping now, boys?

We know why Newt and Rudy did it. It's called "business as usual." Or "politics," if you prefer.

(I got these quotations from Samara Mackareth's Politically Foul column.)


UPDATE, MAY 3: Today we can add Michele Bachman to the list of flip-floppers. She was one of his loudest opponents, even after she dropped out of the primaries in January. I think it was in January that she said there was "no way" Mitt Romney could beat Barack Obama in a general election. It took months of behind-the-scenes negotiating (in her words, "working behind the scenes, bringing together all factions of our party"), but today she publicly endorsed Romney's nomination.

Hilary Rosen versus Ann Romney, part two

A national association, composed of women mostly of the Christian faith and of the conservative stripe, the Concerned Women for America (CWA) are not afraid to speak out on issues of national importance that affect women.

Another national association, composed of women of various faiths and mostly of the liberal stripe, the National Organization for Women (NOW) are also not afraid to speak out on issues of national importance that affect women.

CWA's Response

Here's what the CWA had to say, in response to Hilary Rosen's putdown of Ann Romney and stay-at-home moms everywhere. (The original article, "Only 'Real' Women Count", is reprinted here in full, with the permission of CWA.)

Only “Real” Women Count
By Penny Nance


Self-control is a virtue. And I am trying really hard to exert that virtue as much as possible in my response to the complete nonsense spouted by DNC adviser and strategist Hilary Rosen.
In a pathetic effort to discredit Mitt Romney and continue the liberals' recent "war on women" cry, Rosen decided to attack Romney's wife Ann. In an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN, Rosen said, "Guess what, his wife has actually never worked a day in her life."


Of course, she only stayed at home to raise five kids!


As the mother of two, I have to admit that my immediate reaction to hearing this was to have the veins in my forehead almost pop. But after a moment, I had to remember that this type of attitude is nothing new among liberals - especially among those who claim to speak for women.


The reality is that for liberals only "real" women count. You know, those who believe in having a "choice" on abortion and put career first, instead of the "enslavement" of staying at home to raise a family. In essence, those who believe like liberals do are the "real" women; those "others" out there somewhere on a farm are still living in the 1950s.


As the President and Chief Executive Officer of Concerned Women for America (CWA), I represent these "other" women. CWA is the nation's largest public policy women's organization with over half-a-million members around the country, and a lot of them are stay-at-home moms who work - and work hard! - for their families to thrive.


These moms have more positive impact on our culture than any government entity or program could ever dream of having. It is in them that the answers to many of our societal ills lie.


But liberals, especially liberal women who self-proclaim themselves as the "voice" of American women, believe that no one should listen to these other, lesser beings. Isn't that what Miss Rosen's comment really says? "Mitt Romney shouldn't be listening to his wife; she doesn't even work."


Preposterous!


This is why they don't believe these "other" women should be listened to when the "others" say that because of their religious beliefs, they don't want the government forcing them to pay for other women's contraception.


Apparently Rosen's way of making the remarks "better" was to clarify that Romney should not listen to her on "economic" issues. Right, because running a household has nothing to do with economic issues. She wrote on her Twitter account:

When I said [on Anderson Cooper] Ann Romney never worked I meant she never had to care for her kids AND earn a paycheck like MOST American women!

Words cannot describe how sorry I feel for this woman. The most amazing thing about moms is that they do so much without getting a paycheck. I only wish that Rosen and others like her would stop and consider that. Stay-at-home moms are to be considered more, not less.


I stayed at home for several years while my children where young, and I can tell you that there is not a more practical place where Washington could look to discover the tangible impact their theoretical economic proposals have than the American family. A great number of moms run the budget in the house; they pay bills, give to charity, buy groceries, etc.


Talk about energy policy; these women see the effects every day of desperately trying to manage paying almost four dollars a gallon for gas at the pump. They make tough choices so they can live within their families' budget every month, something this administration is clearly unable to do. Stay-at-home moms are also experts in the areas of education, nutrition, and a host of other issues.


Americans would be wise to remember this as they get ready to go the polls and vote. The issue is much bigger than a simple statement. The statement is a representation of a worldview (shared by our president, I might add) that defines women and "women's issues" in an authoritarian way and purposely ignores anything or anyone who would dare challenge their assumptions.


It puzzles me how liberals do not get how important stay-at-home moms are to our nation? Haven't they heard the saying, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world"? And in this case, it swings elections.

The NOW response

Here's what the NOW had to say, in response to Hilary Rosen's putdown of Ann Romney and stay-at-home moms everywhere.

That's right, nothing.


Correction: a reporter for CBS' local affiliate in Washington, DC, chased down the head of NOW and got this statement from her:


Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, told CBSDC that she felt this was a made up controversy.


“I think Rosen’s point was that Ann Romney’s experience was limited,” O’Neill said.


That's not much better than the crickets.

Part three: the stay-at-home decision - is it a luxury, and does it render women out of touch?

Hilary Rosen versus Ann Romney

Hilary Rosen (left), Ann Romney (right). Picture swiped from abcnews.com.

You have, no doubt, heard about the hornet's nest that "Democratic strategist and political commentator" (that's what the newspapers call her) Hilary Rosen stirred up, when she had this to say about Ann Romney on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees show:

With respect to economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney is right, that ultimately, women care more about the economic well-being of their families and the like. But there's -- but he doesn't connect on that issue either.

What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, "Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing."

Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and how do we -- why we worry about their future. 

Yes, she really did say that:  Ann Romney "has actually never worked a day in her life." And I provided the context in the quotation above, so you would know that she meant exactly what she said.

Wow. Hilary Rosen just disenfranchised every single stay-at-home mom in America. Now, I will grant that stay-at-home moms now constitute less than half of the female electorate in this country.  (Let's define a "stay-at-home mom" as a woman who chooses to be a full-time mother and homemaker instead of being a part-time or full-time member of the paid workforce.) But stay-at-home moms haven't been this marginalized since the other famous Democratic Hil(l)ary said, on March 15, 1992, "I suppose I could have stayed at home and baked cookies."

Well, as the son of one stay-at-home mom and the husband of another one, I've been truly pleased to see the reaction Rosen's comment has gotten. High-value Democrats are running over each other in their haste to get away from her. The  president and the first lady have distanced themselves from her, as have national leaders of the Democratic Party and Democratic leaders in Congress. Some of them have even said, "She's not part of the Democratic leadership" - even though she has been called a "Democratic strategist" and, I might add, acted the part in other venues.

Republicans have taken her comment for the free gift it is, and still haven't stopped capitalizing on it.

Perhaps the most interesting thing so far has been Wolf Blitzer scolding her, on the air,  demanding that she apologize to Ann Romney, and scolding her again for her lame non-apology.

(Her apology? She said to Wolf, "Oh, well I sent out an apology this afternoon." First, she insulted this high-profile lady in a high-profile way, and then she either emailed or Tweeted her an apology, twenty-four hours after she made the insult,and now she expects that to be good enough. In this way, Hilary Rosen demonstrates her total lack of class. A handwritten apology, with an original, handwritten signature, in a hand-addressed envelope, either delivered by hand or by express mail: that's what this situation calls for. Maybe even a bouquet of balloons or flowers. But not an email message. That shows no class at all.)

(Update: It turns out she did issue a statement to the press, apologizing to the world in general for her "poor choice of words." In other words, she meant what she said, but she wished she had said it differently. Um, that doesn't count. What we were all waiting for was something like this: "Dear Ms. Romney. I was wrong. I'm truly sorry. To prove it, I'm going to stop talking in public for a while.")

(She tried it again on Blitzer's show:  "I'm sorry if that offended you."  Did you catch the weasel word? "IF." And she wasn't really sorry. What she said was: "If you're thin-skinned, then I apologize for that flaw in your personality." That's not an apology. )

She keeps trying to talk her way out of the situation, but with every word she says, she digs herself deeper and deeper into the pit she dug for herself. The best thing Hilary Rosen could do right now is give Ann Romney a sincere, public apology and then SHUT UP.


Stay tuned for part two: what two national women's organizations have to say about it.


Postscript: This is totally off-topic, but after I wrote that last sentence, I got to thinking. Maybe Rush Limbaugh should have done the same thing, in his recent situation: issue a sincere, public apology and then shut up.