If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 2 or 3 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).

I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.

I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.

And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, always remember: We do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

President Obama accepts the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal and replaces him the David Petraeus.

He said, she said: Senator Jon Kyl claims that Obama told him, there would be no effective enforcement of the border until they agreed to comprehensive immigration reform. The White House denies these remarks.

Top administration aides have been subpoenaed for the Governor Rod Blagojevich corruption trial.

Witnesses in the Blagojevich trial say that the Governor held back business bills and grants, requiring donations first.

It now appears that Guantanamo prison will not be shut down during President Obama’s first term (NY Times story).

White House to shut down drilling rigs in the gulf is stopped by the courts. White House to refile a new ban and to appeal the original ban.

The White House is poised to file suit against the Arizona illegal immigration law, which is a mirror image of the federal immigration law. $123,000 in private donations have been sent from all over the United States to the state of Arizona to defend this law.

The Washington, DC, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has served McDonald's a letter of intent to sue in California court "if the fast-food chain continues to use toys to promote Happy Meals." Why? They say the toys lure kids into eating unhealthy foods.

Riots have broken out in Toronto, stemming from demonstrations against the G20 summit.

CNN (Client Nine Network) has hired Eliot Spitzer to co-host a crossfire type show. (Jim Pinkerton gave CNN that name)

Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel resigns after emails are leaked where he talks about how much he hates conservatives.

Welfare recipients in California have been cashing in their monthly debit card balances at California casinos. This involves millions of dollars and has apparently been going on for several years.

Moveon.org unceremoniously removes it General Betray Us ad from its own website. Recall, they ran a full page ad in the New York Times a couple years back, with the headline: "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" The Times gave them a discounted price.

A report reveals that we taxpayers are bankrolling the largest abortion provider in America. Over $1 billion in federal funds went to 6 controversial nonprofit organizations (including Planned Parenthood) between 2002–2009.

1300 prison inmates participated in the federal tax credit program for buying a home, while still incarcerated.

Peace activist Cindy Sheeran speaks at a socialist conference, where they apparently understand the issue, as the debate is “Socialists vs. the TEA party.”

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate to pass the banking reform bill, said, "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done."

Democratic Congressman Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania said. “We're giving relief to people that I deal with in my office every day now unfortunately. But because of the longevity of this recession, these are people - and they're not minorities and they're not defective and they're not all the things you'd like to insinuate that these programs are about - these are average, good American people.”

Chris Matthews told his Friday "Hardball" audience "Being a suicide bomber is the new political role model [for Republicans]; just kill everything, destroy everything, blow it up, nothing gets done. You're dead, but who cares?"

Paul McCartney: "Sadly we need disasters like this [the gulf oil spill] to show people. Some people don't believe in climate warming - like those who don't believe there was a Holocaust."

From the AFL-CIO blog: “Working families need to take part in the discussion to make sure our views aren't drowned out by deficit hysterics who have Social Security and Medicare in their crosshairs.”

Blagojevich on wire-tap, said, “[Obama is] a lot more hen-pecked than me; he listens to Michelle.”

Emails written by Dave Weigel:

•"This would be a vastly better world to live in if Matt Drudge decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly, and set himself on fire."

•"Follow-up to one hell of a day: Apparently, the Washington Examiner thought it would be fun to write up an item about my dancing at the wedding of Megan McArdle and Peter Suderman. Said item included the name and job of my girlfriend, who was not even there -- nor in DC at all."

•"I'd politely encourage everyone to think twice about rewarding the Examiner with any traffic or links for a while. I know the temptation is high to follow up hot hot Byron York scoops, but please resist it."

•"It's all very amusing to me. Two hundred screaming Ron Paul fanatics couldn't get their man into the Fox News New Hampshire GOP debate, but Fox News is pumping around the clock to get Paultard Tea Party people on TV."

Oscar Martinez, a University of Arizona history professor: “[Governor Brewer] must apologize to the people of Arizona for lying to them so blatantly [about the majority of illegals now being in the drug trade]."

Janeane Garafalo: “If you don't recognize the racist element in the teabag movement, you're either dishonest, or you've never seen the teabag movement, or heard of it, or been acquainted with it in any way.”

Jon Kyl: “The problem is, he [Obama] said, 'If we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform.' They want to get something in return for doing their duty.”

Obama spokesman Bill Burton: “The president didn't say that, [and] Sen. Kyl knows the president didn't say that.”

Obama told CNN's Larry King on June 3, "We've already put more resources into border security than we ever have."

Neil Cavuto interviewing AFL-CIO economists Ron Blackwell:

Cavuto: "You're not creating the jobs, with all this money you're wanting us to spend - then why should we keep digging?" Cavuto asked. "What's wrong with saying let's put the shovel down - that's not working?"

Cavuto continued to press Blackwell on his premise that it would take more of the Keynesian medicine - an idea Blackwell wasn't willing to concede was an incorrect one.

Blackwell: "I'm answering you right now - these programs did create jobs but not net creation. We lost more jobs because of the recession than were created by these programs. Net, gross - is that a complex idea for you?"

Cavuto: "Ron, you're the chief economist there; Where did you get your degree, a baking school? Where are you cooking up these numbers? The fact is we spent a trillion dollars..."

That comment drew an upset response from Blackwell.

Blackwell (interrupting): "Oh, that's an insult. Forget about it. You're a joker - you're an asshole."

Glenn Beck, “The President’s ability to attract rats and insects is kind of creepy.”

Governor Jan Brewer: “Washington is broken, Mr. President; do your job! Secure our borders; Arizona and the nation are waiting.”

Brewer again: "I believe today, under the circumstances that we're facing, that the majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in."

Governor Bobby Jindal: “I want everybody in the country to hear that: there is nobody in Louisiana that wants an unemployment check; we're not even asking for a BP check. We want to go back to work."

Tracy Byrnes from Cashin’ In: “The tax code right now is basically a book of favors.”

Vern Buchanan: “Our national debt has gone up by $1,729,000,000 during the Isner v. Mahut match.”

Huckabee: “If Helen Thomas or Nancy Pelosi were the only choices, I’d be for same sex marriage.”

Our enemies are watching Obama carefully to see how well he does with this oil emergency. His success or failure will tell them a lot about our President.

The news media proclaims Obama’s brilliance in selecting General David Petraeus to move the ball forward in Afghanistan:

Hannity’s segment on this, with Brent Bozell, along with the news approach to other stories (more media bias).

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer stands up to President Obama, delivering a message from a federal sign in the United States warning Americans not to enter into this area:

Milwaukee Democrat argues against Arizona’s new immigration law because it is “a ways removed from the border.”

This is an amazing set of photos from the G8 and the G20 conference protestors. I don’t need to know much about these protestors; I can tell a lot about them based upon their methods and approach. What if these were TEA party goers; do you think you might see continuous coverage of this, and TEA party people soundly dissed by the alphabet media?

Hilda Solis has a PSA about how the federal government can help you get the wages you deserve, whether you are legal or not:

KELO 5 years later (where the courts ruled that the government could take your property and give it to another private individual or corporation). Text and video:

Jodi Miller: “NASA has ended its plan to put a man back on the moon. This news was a big disappointment to Helen Thomas; she was hoping to send the Jews there.

1) Michael Yon, one of the best journalists for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who tends to present an honest and insightful portrayal of the two wars, has been calling for General Stanley McChrystal to be replaced for some time now. It has nothing to do with McChrystal’s interview with Rolling Stone Magazine (although Yon weighs in on that), but Yon simply believed that McChrystal was not the right man for the job. Personally, after all of the reporting I have seen in these wars, I have come to trust Yon the most, so I defer to his opinion on this one.

2) I find it fascinating that, when President Obama’s ego is at issue, he is able to make a swift, decisive decision. However, when it comes to the lives of our soldiers in Afghanistan or the oil disaster in the gulf, that requires a lot more pondering.

3) I now have 4 people, living in 3 houses, who are on social security. The amount that one of them makes is far more than my mother collects. All of these people are in their 30's, and may possibly never work again, although all 4 of them appear to be reasonably intelligent and healthy. Is this what social security is for? Do you wonder why social security is going broke?

4) Shell oil’s John Hofmeister explained the problems in the gulf coast cleanup, disorganization and disinterest in the number of people who will be unemployed if Obama can shut down the oil wells we wants to shut down. There is the east coast anti-drilling contingent on one side, and the west coast anti-drilling contingent on the other and the pro-drilling sentiment of the gulf coast. The states of Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama are not Obama states, so, quite frankly, President Obama could care less what happens to these states or the people in them. I don’t know if I completely buy into this, that Obama is doing this purposely to cause destruction and chaos to the gulf states, but the alternative is, he is acting stupidly with regards to the cleanup and with regards to safety.

5) I meant to mention this 2 weeks ago. The White House had a report done by a panel of oil experts, who signed off on it. Then, the White House inserts a couple of additional paragraphs, suggesting that there be a partial drilling moratorium in the gulf. The idea was, it looks as if these experts have agreed to that. It’s the Chicago way.

7) Speaking of which, I am so sick and tired of hearing that illegals will work for $2/hour. They won’t. Many do not work minimum wage. They expect more.

8) Perhaps you have seen the photo of the fly landing on Obama (June 22^nd). There is a major fly and bee problem right now at the White House. No doubt, you recall Obama getting that fly in the middle of the interview. When Obama was speaking from a podium in front of the White House, a rat ran by.

9) There was a proposal in the early 1800's to celebrate January 1^st to commemorate the ending of slave trade in the United States.

10) Here is how you can tell someone is honest and forthright: they write legislation which you can read and understand, and they urge you to read it (see http://securetheborder.org/ for the Arizona legislation). If they are dishonest, they trash the legislation without reading it (Holder, Napolitano); they trash it without asking you to read it to decide for yourself (Obama); and they ram through 2000 page legislation which is filled with legalese and they never ask you to read it; they just pass it and ask you to support it (Obama and the Congress new financial reform law).

11) You may or may not recall how we stuck our noses into the business of South Africa and Rhodesia, because they were not integrated as much as we believed ought to be. These nations are now ruled by tyrants, and 55% of the people in South Africa say that there have been times in the past year when they could not afford food for their family (which is a fairly static statistic over the recent years).

12) It is fascinating that the President has no problem with illegal aliens, but he is opposed to foreign workers helping us clean the water in the gulf.

13) The proposed Mosque to be built in the shadow of the World Trade Center is set to open on 9/11, 10 years after the Muslim attack. Do you think that is some kind of a coincidence? Do you think that is just some random day picked out of a hat?

14) I’ve got the idea for a fiction thriller. 2 great generals realize that the rules of engagement for their soldiers are making Americans moving targets for radical Islamists. The president refuses to back off on these rules. 1 general agrees to throw himself under the bus, knowing that the 2^nd general will come in to save the president’s bacon—but only under the condition that the rules of engagement are changed. The first general then invites a far left writer of Rolling Stone Magazine to embed with him and his troops for a month.

15) Here’s a good game; find the word Reid on Rory Reid’s website (Rory is Harry Reid’s son). No fair using your browser to find it.

2000 pages (give or take) is the length of the financial regulatory bill proposed by Dodd and Frank. Number of Senators who read the entire bill: 0.

According to John Hofmeister of Shell oil, the United States has the potential to mine:

500 billion to 1.1 trillion barrels of oil can be recovered from the shale oil in Utah, Colorado, and Montana (this is about triple the reserves in Saudi Arabia).

50 billion barrels of oil is available off the outer continental shelf around the lower 48 states.

Hofmeister distinguished between proven reserves and what is actually there and recoverable. I did not quite catch the distinction; but the numbers which he was throwing out, were about 100X what the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates.

Average illegal household yearly income: $36,000. Very few of them are working for minimum wage.

42% of Americans describing themselves as either very conservative or conservative. This is up slightly from the 40% seen for all of 2009.

Obama job approval is just about dead even by Gallup, where 46% disapprove and 45% approve.

44% approve of Obama’s handling of the oil crisis and 48% disapprove. I wonder what this would be like if the alphabet media harped on conditions on the ground as often as they did for Bush and Katrina?

Surprisingly (to me), 49% view the passage of healthcare legislation as a good thing and 46% as a bad thing.

When President Bush chose David Petraeus, the NY Times ran an ad, which was discounted, wit hthe headline General Betrayus. Various news sources reported Democrat talking points, that he assessment of Iraq would just echo whatever Bush wanted. Hillary Clinton said something about having to willingly suspend disbelief (a quotation which still makes little sense to me), and I heard this over and over again.

President Obama choose General David Petraeus and a half-dozen or more newscasters proclaim Obama to be brilliant. What was the last thing that Bush did, that a dozen newscasters praised as brilliant?

You have no doubt heard that those white, racist Republican conservatives who outnumbered the liberals at the Texas textbook committee worked hard to keep minorities out of the history books. Previously, 11% of the people mentioned in American history books were non-white; because of these conservatives, it is now up to 25%. Is it starting to occur to you just how much your news is flat out lying to you?

On NBC's Today on Friday, White House correspondent Chuck Todd preemptively dismissed any criticism of President Obama referring to "the headquarter of Twitters" (obviously, misplacing the s) during a joint press conference with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev on Thursday: "It turns out he didn't misstate it. It was written incorrectly in his prepared remarks."

The Washington Post, this week, in their gardening section, even skewered Governor Palin for building a bad fence. Recall that an autobiographer moved next door to the Palin’s, so they erected a tall fence between the properties.

Brazilian oil company Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) has made a bid to lease the rigs which Obama is closing down. George Soros, activist Democrat supporter, has $800 million invested in Petrobras. U.S. to lend Petrobras $2 billion. Do you hear anything about this in the news? I can recall hearing over and over again about Haliburton and Dick Cheney, although there has been nothing to connect illegal government action with Haliburton.

We need a yes-man to interview liberals. No matter what they say, he is to respond with, “That is brilliant” or “that is so insightful.” Etc. First guest would be Janeane Garafalo, explaining how the Bible is just like a children’s book for a child-like audience. The liberal’s opinions could be presented as snippets with the yes-man to insert, “Brilliant, Miss Garafalo!” from time to time. Sean Penn to be the second one interviewed.

Obama’s speech about McChrystal was respectful and struck the right tone, under the circumstances.

President Obama also said, “Our children don't need us to be superheroes. They don't need us to be perfect. They do need us to be present. They need us to show up and give it our best shot, no matter what else is going on in our lives. They need us to show them, not just with words but with deeds, that they, those kids, are always our first priority. I can't legislate fatherhood; I can't force anybody to love a child.” Although I disagree with almost everything Obama is doing, this is one arena where he plays to his strengths.

Did you violate the 5^th amendment when you required BP to set up a $20 billion fund?

No matter what the White House says, we know that what is going on at the border is out of control. When there are vast areas of the United States with signs posted saying, “American citizens, do not enter, or you will be risking your life” then this is out of control. Maybe I am leaning to my conservative side, but I do not doubt Jon Kyl’s statement that President Obama was going to drag his feet when it comes to protecting the border until he got some comprehensive immigration legislation on his desk.

You think Obama is going to do anything to reduce the deficit. The majority he has in Congress means that he can do almost anything.

Obama will prevent aides from testifying at the Blagojevich trial, citing executive privilege, and this will set off even some media types on the left (like Jon Stewart). However it is done, I do not see White House aides going to the Blago trial. This is going to be, very possibly, a great tug of war between the judicial branch and Obama’s White House, unless deals are worked out behind closed doors.

That President Obama will do what he promised, to fundamentally transform the United States during his 4 year term.

First off, let me say that I believe that the creation of a $20 billion relief fund by BP, if paid out judiciously, is a good idea. Those who have been affected adversely by the gulf oil spill will receive their money faster and, as a result, I think that BP will be paying out less money overall (with fewer lawsuits at the back end of all this). So, this is a good idea, even if this came directly from the White House.

Here is my concern: the way that this was portrayed was, the White House strong-armed BP into doing this. I don’t know if they did or not, but if they did, that was wrong. There is no law which allows the White House to do this. This particular White House could care less about the limiting nature of the constitution, and of law itself. If they want something, they appear to be relentless when it comes to getting that thing, no matter what.

No matter who came up with this idea, if BP looked at this, as I have, and figured this is better, faster and cheaper, and then set this up in association with the White House, that is great. If that is what happened, the White House and BP are to be commended. This is coming from a person who is disappointed in the mismanagement of this particular oil well by BP and by the White House mismanagement of this crisis from day one (as they like to say).

Process matters; if the White House stayed within the law, and BP acquiesced to this, that is one smart thing which has been done. It was a right thing done in a right way. If this was a matter of the White House saying, “This is what you are going to do, and you aren’t leaving until you sign on the dotted line,” that is a whole other thing.

Let me offer up a simple analogy: we can all agree that there is some church or charity or some organization deserving of a donation. For us to make this donation of our own free will is a good thing. However, if we go out and rob a convenience store, and give that money to the deserving organization, then it is wrong, because we have a right thing being done in a wrong way.

This could begin a great discussion of the difference of the left and the right. Many on the left, for instance, believe that, gay unions ought to be equivalent in all ways to heterosexual unions, and how this is achieved is immaterial to the left. If it gets voted in, great; but if it doesn’t get voted in, then take it to court and get a handful of men to sign off on it, and to find some law which can be twisted in such a way as to support gay marriage. That is the wrong way for this to be done. It does not matter about the rightness or wrongness of gay marriage; having a handful of men make that decision is wrong. If a state votes for it, it becomes the law of the land. I don’t agree with it, but I would have to accept that as the law of the land. However, if a court makes this decision, that is an entirely different thing. The court would be, in effect making law, when they are not a law-making authority. The proper thing for a gay-sympatric court to do, in such a case, would be to decide against gay marriage, but urge the state in question to pass gay marriage legislation.

Process matters. That is what makes us a nation of laws, and this is what makes the President and Congress subject to the same laws that we are subject to.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Regulation: The financial reform bill that's about to be passed is reform in name only. It does little to correct the problems that led to our meltdown, and may do more harm by giving people a false sense of security.

The media have called this "compromise" legislation the most sweeping change in U.S. financial regulation since the 1930s. Which is saying a lot.

The two sponsors, Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, are as much responsible for the financial crisis as any two people in America. Yet, we're now supposed to believe that they, and their flailing party, which can't even meet its legal obligation to produce a budget, have now fixed our financial system.

President Obama crowed about it in the press, and planned to use the bill as leverage in negotiations with his European counterparts at the G-20 meeting. Obama hopes to sign the bill by July 4.

Before you get too excited, you should know the "compromise" in Dodd-Frank isn't between Republicans and Democrats, but between Democrats and Democrats. In short, it's the left's idea of how to regulate Wall Street. And while some things in the bill aren't bad, most of it is.

We won't go into everything the bill would do, since the 2,000-page tome can't be distilled into a few easy-to-digest bullet points. But what we can tell you is what it doesn't do, which is plenty. In fact, the bill fails to address any of the key issues raised by the 2007-08 market meltdown, while imposing onerous new restrictions on both banks and consumers.

For instance: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were inarguably at the heart of the financial crisis, and which have already cost U.S. taxpayers $146 billion (with hundreds of billions more on the way), aren't addressed in this bill at all.

This is insane, given the role these two government-sponsored enterprises played both in encouraging lending to poor, unqualified homebuyers and repackaging those securitized loans for resale to banks and investors around the world.

Worse, the bill does nothing to amend the "too-big-to-fail" doctrine that has guided U.S. banking policy for decades. Any bank that runs into trouble can still walk up to Uncle Sam's borrowing window and, hand outstretched, ask for money. And if the bank is politically connected or very large, it will get it.

This puts every small bank, investor or lender at a huge disadvantage, since they're most certainly not "too big to fail." This is a big reason why the biggest U.S. banks didn't squawk too much about the legislation. As bad as it is, it gives them a competitive edge.

The bill also gives federal regulators sweeping new powers to seize and break up financial firms. Good idea, you say? Remember: The government also gets to decide what is a "financial" firm. Does GM, which makes loans, fall into that category? How about Wal-Mart, which issues its own credit cards?

In effect, this lets the government seize and dismantle the assets of almost any company - and then force others to pay for it.

The bill also creates a new agency inside the Federal Reserve that will have extensive power over consumer lenders. Hold the applause, because likely new limits on checking account fees and interest on credit cards will mean less access to credit, not more.

Another part of the bill, and one that's gotten little attention, makes changes to the amount of capital banks must keep to back up their loans. Banks eventually will be forced to raise more capital, or to reduce their lending. It also gives the government oversight over the $600 trillion derivatives market, without telling us what the rules will be. That, no doubt, will be left to bureaucrats.

We've just scratched the surface here. We'll have more to say in coming weeks as we plow through this monster of a bill that appears to reform little but harm a lot.

The flap about General Stanley McChrystal's "resignation" was nobody's finest hour. But there are some painful lessons in all this that go beyond any of the individuals involved-- the general, the president or any of the officials at the Pentagon or the State Department.

What is far more important than all these individuals put together are the lives of the tens of thousands of Americans fighting in Afghanistan. What is even more important is the national security of this country.

It is certainly not politic for a general or his staff to express their contempt for civilian authorities publicly. But what is far more important-- from the standpoint of national security-- is whether what those authorities have done deserves contempt.

My hope is that General McChrystal will write a book about his experiences in Afghanistan-- and in Washington. The public needs to know what is really going on, and they are not likely to get that information from politicians.

This is, after all, an administration that waited for months last year before acting on General McChrystal's urgent request for 40,000 more troops, which he warned would be necessary to prevent the failure of the mission in Afghanistan. He got 30,000 eventually-- and a public statement by President Obama about when he wants to start withdrawing American troops from that country.

In no previous period of history has an American president announced a timetable for pulling out troops. They may have had a timetable in mind, but none of these presidents was irresponsible enough to tell the world-- including our enemies-- when our troops would be leaving.

Such information encourages our enemies, who know that they need only wait us out before they can take over, whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere. At the same time, it undermines our allies, who know that relying on the United States is dangerous in the long run, and that they had better make the best deal they can get with our enemies.

But the worst aspect of the national security policy of this administration is its clear intention to do nothing that has any realistic chance of stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. This may be the most grossly irresponsible policy in all of history, because it can leave this generation-- and future generations-- of Americans at the mercy of terrorists who have no mercy and who cannot be deterred, as the Soviet Union was deterred.

All the current political theater about "international sanctions" is unlikely to make the slightest difference to Iran. Nor is the administration itself likely to expect it to. What then is its purpose? To fool the American people into thinking that they are doing something serious when all that they are doing is putting on a charade by lining up countries to agree to actions that they all know will not have any real effect.

Everyone seems to be agreed that Stanley McChrystal has been a soldier's soldier-- someone who knows what to do on a battlefield and is not afraid to put himself in danger to do it.

Do we need more generals like this or do we need political generals who know how to cultivate Washington politicians, in order to advance their own careers?

Some people see a parallel between McChrystal's "resignation" and President Harry Truman's firing of General Douglas MacArthur. No two situations are ever exactly the same, but some of the parallels are striking.

MacArthur was proud not only of his military victories but also of the fact that he won those victories with lower casualty rates among his troops than other generals had. But General MacArthur too was not always discreet in what he said, and also had reasons to have contempt for politicians, going all the way back to FDR, who cut the army's budget in the 1930s, while Nazi Germany and imperial Japan were building up huge military machines that would kill many an American before it was all over.

If we are creating an environment where only political generals can survive, what will that mean for America's ability to win military victories without massive casualty rates? Or to win military victories at all?

When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics. Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.

"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive. In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.

The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.

Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.

And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP's oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated. But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men." If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion-- or $50 billion or $100 billion-- then so be it.

But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law." Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in Constitutional government. And, without Constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a "crisis"-- which, as the president's chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to "go to waste" as an opportunity to expand the government's power.

That power will of course not be confined to BP or to the particular period of crisis that gave rise to the use of that power, much less to the particular issues.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt arbitrarily took the United States off the gold standard, he cited a law passed during the First World War to prevent trading with the country's wartime enemies. But there was no war when FDR ended the gold standard's restrictions on the printing of money.

At about the same time, during the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law "for the relief of the German people." That law gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people-- indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others.

If the agreement with BP was an isolated event, perhaps we might hope that it would not be a precedent. But there is nothing isolated about it.

The man appointed by President Obama to dispense BP's money as the administration sees fit, to whomever it sees fit, is only the latest in a long line of presidentially appointed "czars" controlling different parts of the economy, without even having to be confirmed by the Senate, as Cabinet members are.

Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power-- versus the rule of law and the preservation of freedom-- are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom?

CHICAGO-Money problems were at the center of opening arguments on both sides of the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial in federal court here Tuesday.

Prosecutors said the former Illinois governor's hundreds of thousands of dollars of consumer debt led him into a series of schemes to line his own pockets. Mr. Blagojevich's attorney said his empty pockets were proof of his innocence.

"This is the biggest politician that's corrupt in America and he's broke?" asked defense counsel Sam Adam Jr. "And do you know why he's broke? He ain't corrupt."

The opening statements come 18 months after Mr. Blagojevich was arrested in December 2008 and charged with wide-ranging corruption, including a scheme to profit from the sale of the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. That day, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said Mr. Blagojevich's conduct would have made Abraham Lincoln roll over in his grave.

Echoing that sentiment, federal prosecutors on Tuesday described the defendant as a greedy shakedown artist whose interest wasn't in serving constituents but in enriching himself. When the governor of the state of Illinois was supposed to be asking 'What about the people of Illinois?' he was instead asking, 'What about me?' " said Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Hamilton, as she searched the jurors' faces in the packed courtroom of the Federal Courthouse here.

Ms. Hamilton chronologically outlined the government case, which is based on 500 hours of secretly taped conversations between Mr. Blagojevich and aides. Among the allegations: Mr. Blagojevich attempted to squeeze $25,000 from the president of Children's Memorial Hospital in exchange for $2 million to help pay doctors' salaries.

In 2008, Mr. Blagojevich ramped up his alleged shakedown activities before a state ethics law kicked in, Ms. Hamilton continued. At the time, his finances were souring; to drive that point home, she showed two bar charts, a blue one she said showed Mr. Blagojevich's income and a red one depicting his debt. By 2008, that debt had climbed to $200,000 and nearly exceeded his income.

Mr. Adam said the allegations aren't supported by facts and don't show Mr. Blagojevich, a 53-year-old Democrat, enriched himself as a public servant. He mocked investigators for spending years looking for dirt and coming up empty.

He also cast blame for corruption within Mr. Blagojevich's administration on a trio of advisers who may all be called as witnesses for the government: Alonzo "Lon" Monk, his former chief of staff, who pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud; real-estate developer Tony Rezko who was convicted of scheming to defraud state pension money; and Stuart Levine, a major Blagojevich fundraiser who pleaded guilty to trying to use his position on state boards to extract kickbacks from contracts.

Eliciting both laughter and grimaces from jurors, Mr. Adam said Mr. Blagojevich's great talent is that he is a big-idea guy, and his fatal flaws are that he is deeply insecure, gullible and that "his judgment is horrible."

"What happened here, ladies and gentlemen, was that he was fooled, absolutely fooled."

Mr. Adam hinted the trial could spill into the Washington Democratic establishment by saying the man at the center of Mr. Blagojevich's troubles was Mr. Rezko, calling him such a talented con man that he dealt with then-Sen. Obama and nearly every other prominent Democratic politician in Illinois. The defense has subpoenaed President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Mr. Adam promised to call Mr. Blagojevich to the stand.

The former governor arrived in court flanked by his wife, Patti and famed newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin, who is writing a book on Chicago politics, using the Blagojevich case as a jumping off point.

Aiming to keep a tight rein on the trial, U.S. District Judge James Zagel began the day by warning participants against filing to their Twitter accounts from the court room and warned Mr. Blagojevich that his future public statements may come back to haunt him.

Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. Some print editions of this article incorrectly gave the year as 2009.

We should've seen it coming. As his Fox News Channel television audience exploded in 2009, it was only a matter of time before the liberal Left organized itself into a full-court press against Glenn Beck.

Since the conservative radio phenom made the jump from CNN's Headline News to FNC, Beck has set cable ratings records, adding more fans to his radio audience of millions. His five o'clock timeslot on Fox has grown to rival the primetime titans of cable news, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Though O'Reilly and Hannity are no strangers to hatred from liberals, Glenn Beck's "fusion of entertainment and enlightenment" incites a particularly unique level of vitriol unmatched by any other television commentator today.

The concentrated disdain for Beck has also united the Left behind one common goal: getting him off the air.Various levels of the Left-rrom grassroots organizers to the Obama White House- are working in an all-hands-on-deck concert to discredit Beck with a barrage of attacks in a relentless smear campaign.

To Beck's regular audience, his disregard for political correctness and adherence to no-nonsense common sense are refreshing. To his detractors, he is a fear-mongering extremist whose opinions represent reckless "vitriolic rhetoric."

When third-year University of Wisconsin law student Angelo Carusone was annoyed by Beck's "controversial" opinions, he launched StopBeck.com -an online effort aimed at pressuring advertisers to withdraw their commercial support from Beck's broadcast on Fox and, in turn, force Beck off the air.Working from an office in his two-bedroom apartment in Madison, Wis., Carusone sends sound bites of Beck's show to corporate sponsors and questions whether their products and services should support Beck's programming. In many cases, this slight nudge is enough to make the targeted advertisers pull their commercials. If advertisers don't pull their support, Carusone uses his

website and social networking sites to organize other Beck opponents- including his nearly 8,000 followers on Twitter-to bombard the companies with messages in support of a Beck advertising boycott. And if the snowballing effect of thousands of outspoken anti-Beck activists doesn't stir enough commotion for a company to relent, Carusone picks up the phone to personally confront them. In what he calls his "least flattering method of persuasion," Carusone argues with corporate media executives until they give in.

StopBeck.com also claims that Beck "uses his media platform to disseminate vitriolic hateful rhetoric and stoke racial anxieties,"and the group works in conjunction with ColorofChange.org - a group founded by dismissed Obama green jobs czar Van Jones- in boycotting Beck's commercial sponsors. Both organizations disparaged Beck for questioning President Obama's personal motives in condemning the Cambridge, Mass., Police for arresting Harvard professor Henry Gates in 2009. ColorofChange.org Executive Director James Rucker told Townhall that the group's goal has been "to bring Beck's pattern of race-baiting to advertisers' attention, to let them know about our members' concerns and to ask whether those companies feel comfortable enabling Beck's rhetoric."But when rapper Kanye West infamously stated that President George W. Bush "doesn't care about black people" following Hurricane Katrina, there was no boycott of West's album sales. And when pressed by Townhall about uber-Leftist comedian Bill Maher's recent comments about Barack Obama not being a "real black president" because he didn't carry a loaded pistol in his waistband,Rucker and Color of Change did not respond. By Color of Change's own standards, these comments seem "repulsive and dismissive," yet Beck and Fox News remain the group's only boycott targets.

Color of Change and StopBeck.com represent a small niche of the anti-Beck movement on the Left that uses advertising dollars as leverage to silence what they refer to as Glenn Beck's "brand of hate"- a "brand" they've constructed by using selective interpretation of mere fragments of Beck's contextual dialogue. But the Left's efforts in smearing and silencing Beck run well beyond the limits of these two online campaigns. The complex structure of the Left's Glenn Beck smear campaign also includes some familiar big players in liberal politics.

Beck is a daily fixture of self-described "progressive" media "monitor" Media Matters. However, instead of pointing out factual errors in Beck's programming, Media Matters merely inserts its own political opinion. Media Matters obsessively posts nearly a dozen anti-Beck stories on their website daily and thrives on clipping apart Beck's statements to paint crude and incomplete pictures of Beck and his large devoted audience. Media Matters also publishes media "research" on its site that other liberal outlets pick up and disperse across the Internet and blogosphere. Among these hard-hitting items:

Media Matters joins StopBeck.com and Color of Change in supporting a widespread boycott of Beck's programming and advertisers and runs a daily list of companies who advertised during the Fox show.

Another group providing the Left with invaluable out-of-context quotes and blatantly slanted interpretations to use in attacking Beck is John Podesta's Center for American Progress (CAP), which talks about Beck "claiming [Van] Jones' proverbial scalp" and complains about Beck's "vitriol" that is "increasingly allowed to infect our public discourse."

Incidentally, Podesta's CAP and Media Matters not only spread each other's research, but also share staff. In fact, Podesta was a pivotal figure in founding Media Matters. And CAP's Eric Alterman, who writes about Beck's "hatred for sale," likes to remind readers that he's a senior fellow at- surprise! -Media Matters. Not surprisingly, Media Matters and the Center for American Progress share common donors that keep operations running smoothly, including generous financial gifts from George Soros and his Open Society Institute. Soros "affiliate" MoveOn.org has also joined in spreading the Left's disdain for Beck, including a joint venture with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)in constructing a fake broadcast video that pokes fun at Beck's "conspiracy theories."

Saul Alinsky's fifth "rule for radicals" says, "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon."Against irrational ridicule, there is no defense and an enemy is forced into concessions. Taking a page right out of Alinsky's playbook, the Left uses various media outlets to push not only its policy agenda but also to advance its campaign against Glenn Beck.

By himself, Beck represents a formidable opponent in the media market. He's a media giant in every sense of the word - commanding a broad audience in radio, television, books and public appearances- and it drives the Left and their friends in the mainstream media crazy. On average, Beck's five o'clock timeslot ratings wallop cable competitors CNN and MSNBC's combined primetime line-up ratings. When Beck had his regular show on HLN, the media could largely ignore him. But when he was added to the Fox roster with the policies of a new Democratic administration to comment on, Beck became an unstoppable force and Fox's cable competitors and other mainstream media outlets have had to put up a concerted effort to drown out his success.

"Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it," Alinsky wrote. "Don't try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame."Time magazine recently ran a cover story on Beck titled, "Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?" Time's own Joe Klein lobbed a heavier accusation while appearing on MSNBC's "The Chris Matthews Show," claiming that "people like Glenn Beck . rub right up close to being seditious."

Further, Time's managing editor, Richard Stengel, appeared on Joe Scarborough's "Morning Joe" on MSNBC to plug the magazine and personally attack Beck. Beck's work, he claimed, "plays a part in the lack of civility in political discourse," Stengel said. He also claimed Beck was stoking the public's angst about many things, including the fact that President Obama is an African-American.

The New York Times dubbed Beck "mad" and "apocalyptic." Veteran liberal journalist Cokie Roberts dubbed Beck "a traitor to the American values he professes so loudly to defend"and claimed he is "corrupting the very essence of democracy."MSNBC's Rachel Maddow cherry-picked statements from Glenn Beck's radio show to accuse him of lying about global warming

To illustrate how the liberal attack machine works, follow this sequence of exchanges between MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck:

Friday, Feb. 12: As the East Coast was pounded with record amounts of snow fall, Beck joked on his morning radio program (in a stereotypical mobster voice, no less) that God was sending people like Al Gore a message, but noted that one large snowstorm does not prove or disprove anything.

Friday, Feb. 12: In a brief segment on her primetime MSNBC show, Maddow quotes Beck's joke as if he were serious in claiming the snowstorm disproves Al Gore's global warming theory.Maddow conveniently leaves out Beck's comment that "one storm does not prove anything."

Monday, Feb. 15: Beck takes to the radio airwaves and responds to Maddow's Friday segment, calling her "dishonest" and reminding listeners that his stereotypical fake mobster/God voice was nothing more than a joke.Beck implied that it was irresponsible for Maddow to present his joke as "evidence" in an attempt to discredit him.

Tuesday, Feb. 16: Maddow fires back at Beck: "I think it's between you and your God or you and your conscience as to how much you're willing to stir up Americans' fear and prejudice for profit. But it's between you and me when you accuse me of lying.I didn't lie. Back o! ."

Wednesday, Feb. 17: Beck plays the audio of his original comments, proving that Maddow had indeed selectively edited the audio in order to suggest Beck based his opinion of global warming on one large snowstorm: "The very next line that I said was`you're an idiot if you believe this one storm in Washington proves there's no global warming.'I mean, it's the very next line. They are so dishonest they have to go that far." In many cases like this, there is not one ounce of truth in the attacks on Beck. The tactic is also known as propaganda - and it's just another tool in the Left's smear arsenal.

Ex-CBS anchor Dan Rather considers Beck "controversial," but says he "loves" Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.

Speaking of MSNBC - not content on merely calling him a "racist," the network cut right to the chase and called on Fox News to fire Beck. Following his comments that Obama has deep-seated problems with white people, MSNBC's "First Look" said that it was "amazing" that what Beck said "isn't a fireable or even a suspendable offense." Arianna Huffington, the namesake of President Obama's suggested reading for the American people, the Huffington Post, says she "resents spending even a second of my life thinking about him. But part of me recognizes that [Beck]'s too dangerous to ignore."She goes on to accuse him of inciting violence and anger and argued that while the government cannot hold him legally liable,

The New Yorker calls Beck "energetically hateful, truth-twisting," and blasts the "negative, regressive take on politics" he expresses with "raw-throated outrage, smiley sarcasm and, occasionally, a display of hurt, even tears."

Newsweek went so far as to prominently feature Beck in an article titled, "HATE: Antigovernment Extremists Are on the Rise -and on the March."Pictures in the article link Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to 1930s socialists with a caption that reads: "Huey Long castigated the rich and Father Coughlin denounced Jews in the 1930s. Today, the microphones belong to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin."

A week before Beck's latest best-seller, a novel titled "The Overton Window," was even released, the Left was already working to discredit the book and its author. Media Matters derided the fictional work as sheer "lunacy" and once again labeled Beck a conspiracy theorist. The Huffington Post critiqued a short video trailer promoting the book, which featured stanzas written by British poet Rudyard Kipling, stating, "The trailer for Glenn Beck's new book is just as nuts as you'd expect." Baseless charges like these are hurled at the conservative talker on a daily basis from the mainstream media - a liberal salute to Alinsky's Rule 8: Keeping the pressure on your opponents. "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage." When the media's feigned outrage over Beck's opinion does not hinder the growth of his audience, they turn to the next slanderous charge. When Fortune ran a cover feature on Beck's unique ability to turn his political and comedic commentary into cold, hard cash, the media accused him of being a money-grubbing showman.

When Beck warned viewers about Black Liberation Theology and the Left's ideas of "social justice," newspapers such as the Washington Post reserved copy space for a rebuttal. The radical progressive Rev. Jim Wallis, Obama's own "spiritual adviser," urged Christians to "stand up to Glenn Beck" and accused him of "picking a fight." Time echoed Wallis with an article asking, "Why Does Glenn Beck Hate Jesus?"

It's not uncommon to go through a week with a different Glenn Beck hit piece splashed across the pages of all the country's major newspapers, magazines and left-wing cable channels. Simply put, the media are reacting to a threat to their agenda - and their agenda is Barack Obama.

As a result, the mainstream media have joined the liberal blogosphere and organizations like Media Matters and the Center for American Progress in an organized effort to attack Beck with amazing coordination from coast to coast.

With a close look at various media outlets' coverage, it seems clear they all use the same set of recycled Glenn Beck talking points and all regurgitate the same distortions and outright lies.

In addition to Wallis, others close to President Obama have played a role at various levels of the Left's smear machine. The White House began waging war with Fox News last spring, accusing the cable network of spreading false information about the president's health care plan and pedaling propaganda from the Republican Party.Ironically, then-communications director Anita Dunn said the White House would not just sit back and defend itself because the conservative media "will say anything. They will take any small thing and distort it." Most recently, the Left's attack machine has moved to a new level, incorporating the power of the federal government. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., is accusing Beck of misleading his viewers in an attempt to profit off Americans' economic jitters. Weiner is accusing Beck of maintaining an "unholy alliance" with Goldline, one of Beck's television and radio sponsors, and suggests that Beck talks about America's dangerous levels of debt only to try and scare people into purchasing gold. Lost on Weiner, apparently, are the fact that Beck himself is a customer of the gold dealer and the fact that America's debt is indeed at a dangerous level.

"Goldline rips off customers, uses misleading and possibly illegal sales tactics and deliberately manipulates public fears,"Weiner claims, yet the company maintains an "A+" rating from the Better Business Bureau. Typical of government bullies, Weiner promises a future congressional investigation into Beck's business relationship with Goldline.

Finally, when all else fails, the Left brings in the big guns. President Obama himself has singled out Beck's programs, calling Beck and Rush Limbaugh "troublesome" and telling Americans to get their news somewhere else.

During a recent commencement address at the University of Michigan, Obama told the audience, "If you're a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website." But even with the power and prowess of the president behind the Left's smear of Glenn Beck, it's doubtful Beck fans will happily hop over to a website that promotes a "Twitter protest" against Beck or features headlines such as "Lewis Black: `Glenn Beck Has Nazi Tourette's'"; or stories about how Glenn Beck hates Mother's Day; or riveting video of HLN's Joy Behar telling Beck, "I don't give a flying f**k about you."

To a regular viewer and listener of Beck's programs, the accusations thrown at him from the Left's smear campaign machine are ludicrous, untrue and sometimes even comedic. Suggesting Glenn Beck "hates Jesus" or leads an "axis of the obsessed and deranged" serves only to unite Beck's loyal bloc of viewers against the Left.

Though he does from time to time use over-the-top imagery and sarcasm on his shows that may be lost on many people, it's not this behavior that causes the Left to froth at the mouth and howl with outrage. Perhaps most offensive to the far-Left is that Glenn Beck refuses to succumb to the rules of political correctness and doesn't try to soften the blow of the harsh realities the country faces today. The American people appreciate honesty, and Beck dishes out his own daily dose.

Above it all, Beck has sparked a movement toward enlightenment in America - both political and historical-and this movement represents a significant threat to the Obama agenda and, subsequently, the media. He has reignited the public's interest in our nation's founding principles, exposes left-wing policies and individuals that make up the Obama administration and serves as the common man's advocate against their disastrous economic policies. For a self-educated, self-described "rodeo clown," Glenn Beck must be doing something right. For the time being, Beck is a pivotal public figure in the fight against the agenda of President Obama and his liberal progressive cohorts. And as long as he's able to withstand the onslaught of attacks from the Left, Beck will remain a de facto leader of the movement working to take our country back.

"Beck has sparked a movement toward enlightenment in America -both political and historical- and this movement represents a significant threat to the Obama agenda and, subsequently, the media."

Americans lament the partisan venom of today's politics, but for sheer verbal savagery, the country's founders were in a league of their own. Ron Chernow on the Revolutionary origins of divisive discourse.

In the American imagination, the founding era shimmers as the golden age of political discourse, a time when philosopher-kings strode the public stage, dispensing wisdom with gentle civility. We prefer to believe that these courtly figures, with their powdered hair and buckled shoes, showed impeccable manners in their political dealings. The appeal of this image seems obvious at a time when many Americans lament the partisan venom and character assassination that have permeated the political process.

Unfortunately, this anodyne image of the early republic can be quite misleading. However hard it may be to picture the founders resorting to rough-and-tumble tactics, there was nothing genteel about politics at the nation's outset. For sheer verbal savagery, the founding era may have surpassed anything seen today. Despite their erudition, integrity, and philosophical genius, the founders were fiery men who expressed their beliefs with unusual vehemence. They inhabited a combative world in which the rabble-rousing Thomas Paine, an early admirer of George Washington, could denounce the first president in an open letter as "treacherous in private friendship.and a hypocrite in public life." Paine even wondered aloud whether Washington was "an apostate or an imposter; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any."

Such highly charged language shouldn't surprise us. People who spearhead revolutions tend to be outspoken and courageous, spurred on by a keen taste for combat. After sharpening their verbal skills hurling polemics against the British Crown, the founding generation then directed those energies against each other during the tumultuous first decade of the federal government. The passions of a revolution cannot simply be turned off like a spigot.

By nature a decorous man, President Washington longed for respectful public discourse and was taken aback by the vitriolic rhetoric that accompanied his two terms in office. For various reasons, the political cleavages of the 1790s were particularly deep. Focused on winning the war for independence, Americans had postponed fundamental questions about the shape of their future society. When those questions were belatedly addressed, the resulting controversies threatened to spill out of control.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 had defined a sturdy framework for future debate, but it didn't try to dictate outcomes. The brevity and generality of the new charter guaranteed pitched battles when it was translated into action in 1789. If the constitution established an independent judiciary, for instance, it didn't specify the structure of the federal court system below the Supreme Court. It made no reference to a presidential cabinet aside from a glancing allusion that the president could solicit opinions from department heads. The huge blanks left on the political canvas provoked heated battles during Washington's time in office. When he first appeared in the Senate to receive its advice and consent about a treaty with the Creek Indians, he was so irked by the opposition expressed that he left in a huff. "This defeats every purpose of my coming here," he protested.

Like other founders, Washington prayed that the country would be spared the bane of political parties, which were then styled "factions." "If I could not go to heaven but with a party," Thomas Jefferson once stated, "I would not go there at all." Washington knew that republics, no less than monarchies, were susceptible to party strife. Indeed, he believed that in popularly elected governments, parties would display their "greatest rankness" and emerge as the "worst enemy" to the political system. By expressing narrow interests, parties often thwarted the popular will. In Washington's view, enlightened politicians tried to transcend those interests and uphold the commonweal. He was so opposed to anything that might savor of partisanship that he refused to endorse congressional candidates, lest he seem to be meddling.

In choosing his stellar first cabinet, President Washington applied no political litmus test and was guided purely by the candidates' merits. With implicit faith that honorable gentlemen could debate in good faith, he named Alexander Hamilton as treasury secretary and Jefferson as secretary of state, little suspecting that they would soon become fierce political adversaries. Reviving his Revolutionary War practice, Washington canvassed the opinions of his cabinet members, mulled them over at length, then arrived at firm conclusions. As Hamilton characterized this consultative style, the president "consulted much, pondered much; resolved slowly, resolved surely." Far from fearing dissent within his cabinet, Washington welcomed the vigorous interplay of ideas and was masterful, at least initially, at orchestrating his prima donnas. As Gouverneur Morris phrased it, Washington knew "how best to use the rays" of intellect emitted by the personalities at his command.

During eight strenuous years of war, Washington had embodied national unity and labored mightily to hold the fractious states together; hence, all his instincts as president leaned toward harmony. Unfortunately, the political conflicts that soon arose often seemed intractable: states' rights versus federal power; an agrarian economy versus one intermixed with finance and manufacturing; partiality for France versus England when they waged war against each other. Anything even vaguely reminiscent of British precedent aroused deep anxieties in the electorate.

As two parties took shape, they coalesced around the outsize personalities of Hamilton and Jefferson, despite their joint membership in Washington's cabinet. Extroverted and pugnacious, Hamilton embraced this role far more openly than Jefferson, who preferred to operate in the shadows. Although not parties in the modern sense, these embryonic factions-Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans-generated intense loyalty among adherents. Both sides trafficked in a conspiratorial view of politics, with Federalists accusing the Republicans of trying to import the French Revolution into America, while Republicans tarred the Federalists as plotting to restore the British monarchy. Each side saw the other as perverting the true spirit of the American Revolution.

As Jefferson recoiled from Hamilton's ambitious financial schemes, which included a funded debt, a central bank, and an excise tax on distilled spirits, he teamed up with James Madison to mount a full-scale assault on these programs. As a result, a major critique of administration policy originated partly within the administration itself. Relations between Hamilton and Jefferson deteriorated to the point that Jefferson recalled that at cabinet meetings he descended "daily into the arena like a gladiator to suffer martyrdom in every conflict."

The two men also traded blows in the press, with Jefferson drafting surrogates to attack Hamilton, while the latter responded with his own anonymous essays. When Hamilton published a vigorous defense of Washington's neutrality proclamation in 1793, Jefferson urged Madison to thrash the treasury secretary in the press. "For God's sake, my dear Sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies, and cut him to pieces in the face of the public." When Madison rose to the challenge, he sneered in print that the only people who could read Hamilton's essays with pleasure were "foreigners and degenerate citizens among us."

Slow to grasp the deep-seated divisions within the country, Washington also found it hard to comprehend the bitterness festering between Hamilton and Jefferson. Siding more frequently with Hamilton, the president was branded a Federalist by detractors, but he tried to rise above petty dogma and clung to the ideal of nonpartisan governance.

Afraid that sparring between his two brilliant cabinet members might sink the republican experiment, Washington conferred with Jefferson at Mount Vernon in October 1792 and expressed amazement at the hostility between him and Hamilton. As the beleaguered president confided, "he had never suspected [the conflict] had gone so far in producing a personal difference, and he wished he could be the mediator to put an end to it," as Jefferson recorded in a subsequent memo. To Hamilton, Washington likewise issued pleas for an end to "wounding suspicions and irritating charges." Both Hamilton and Jefferson found it hard to back down from this bruising rivalry. To his credit, Washington never sought to oust Jefferson from his cabinet, despite their policy differences, and urged him to remain in the administration to avoid a monolithic uniformity of opinion.

Feeding the venom of party strife was the unrestrained press. When the new government was formed in 1789, most newspapers still functioned as neutral publications, but they soon evolved into blatant party organs. Printing little spot news, with no pretense of journalistic objectivity, they specialized in strident essays. Authors often wrote behind the mask of Roman pseudonyms, enabling them to engage in undisguised savagery without fear of retribution. With few topics deemed taboo, the press lambasted the public positions as well as private morality of leading political figures. The ubiquitous James T. Callender typified the scandalmongers. From his poison-tipped pen flowed the expose of Hamilton's dalliance with the young Maria Reynolds, which had prompted Hamilton, while treasury secretary, to pay hush money to her husband. Those Jeffersonians who applauded Callender's tirades against Hamilton regretted their sponsorship several years later when he unmasked President Jefferson's carnal relations with his slave Sally Hemings.

At the start of his presidency, Americans still viewed Washington as sacrosanct and exempt from press criticism. By the end of his first term, he had shed this immunity and reeled from vicious attacks. Opposition journalists didn't simply denigrate Washington's presidential record but accused him of aping royal ways to prepare for a new monarchy. The most merciless critic was Philip Freneau, editor of the National Gazette, the main voice of the Jeffersonians. Even something as innocuous as Washington's birthday celebration Freneau mocked as a "monarchical farce" that exhibited "every species of royal pomp and parade."

Other journalists dredged up moldy tales of his supposed missteps in the French and Indian War and derided him as an inept general during the Revolutionary War. In his later, anti-Washington incarnation, Thomas Paine gave the laurels for wartime victory against the British to Gen. Horatio Gates. "You slept away your time in the field till the finances of the country were completely exhausted," Paine taunted Washington, "and you had but little share in the glory of the event." Had America relied on Washington's "cold and unmilitary conduct," Paine insisted, the commander-in-chief "would in all probability have lost America."

George Washington pleaded with Alexander Hamilton to end his feud with Thomas Jefferson, saying he hoped that "liberal allowances will be made for the political opinions of one another." He continued, "Without these I do not see how the reins of government are to be managed, or how the union of the states can be much longer preserved."

Another persistent Washington nemesis was Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, and nicknamed "Lightning Rod, Jr." for his scurrilous pen. In his opposition newspaper, the Aurora, Bache questioned Washington's loyalty to the country. "I ask you, sir, to point out one single act which unequivocally proves you a FRIEND TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF AMERICA." Resurrecting wartime forgeries fabricated by the British, he raised the question of whether Washington had been bribed by the Crown or even served as a double agent.

So stung was Washington by these diatribes that Jefferson claimed he had never known anyone so hypersensitive to criticism. For all his granite self-control, the president succumbed to private outrage. At one cabinet session, Secretary of War Henry Knox showed Washington a satirical cartoon in which the latter was being guillotined in the manner of the late Louis XVI. As Jefferson recalled Washington's titanic outburst, "The President was much inflamed; got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself," and only regained control of his emotions with difficulty. A few years later, in a strongly worded rebuke to Jefferson, Washington reflected on the vicious partisanship that had seized the country, saying that he previously had "no conception that parties" could go to such lengths. He hotly complained of being slandered in "indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pick-pocket." To Washington's credit, he tolerated the press attacks and never resorted to censorship or reprisals.

As it turned out, the rabid partisanship exhibited by Hamilton and Jefferson previewed America's future far more accurately than Washington's noble but failed dream of nonpartisan civility. In the end, Washington seems to have realized as much. By his second term, having fathomed the full extent of Jefferson's disloyalty, he insisted upon appointing cabinet members who stood in basic sympathy with his policies. After he left office, he opted to join in the partisan frenzy, at least in his private correspondence. He no longer shrank from identifying with Federalists or scorning Republicans, nor did he feel obliged to muzzle his blazing opinions. To nephew Bushrod Washington, he warned against "any relaxation on the part of the Federalists. We are sure there will be none on that of the Republicans, as they have very erroneously called themselves." He even urged Bushrod and John Marshall to run as Federalists for congressional seats in Virginia.

Only a generation after Washington's death in 1799, during the age of Andrew Jackson, presidents were to emerge as unabashed chieftains of their political parties, showing no qualms about rallying their followers. The subsequent partisan rancor has reverberated right down to the present day-with no relief in sight.

Despite its failure last week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is continuing to push his tax-extenders bill. Bundled together with the many egregious pieces of this bill is a $2.5 billion Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency fund. This provision ties right into the current administration's philosophy on government welfare: grow the number of Americans dependent on government by increasing spending.

This is obviously the wrong approach. Instead of throwing more money at the ever-expanding and fiscally unsustainable welfare state, Congress should implement practices that work to move people out of poverty, versus those that do nothing but grow federal bureaucracies.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his famous "War on Poverty" in 1964, his intent was to win the war by eliminating the causes of poverty. He actually promised to shrink, not enlarge, the welfare state.

Just the opposite has occurred. Today, we spend 13 times more on welfare than in 1965 (even after adjusting for inflation), and the welfare state has made the problem of poverty worse by undermining the very fundamentals that decrease dependence: stable families and a strong work ethic. Out-of-wedlock childbirth is at an historic high of 40 percent and means-tested welfare has grown faster than any other sector of government.

Furthermore, since the 1960s, the United States has spent $15.9 trillion on welfare. Despite the current state of the nation's debt, President Barack Obama plans to spend $10.3 trillion more over the next 10 years.

The welfare reforms of 1996 attempted to tame this beast by putting in place reforms that would make welfare programs do what they should: move people out of poverty. It did this by restructuring one of the more than 70 welfare programs. What had been the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) - a cash-assistance program - became the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Instead of simply receiving a check from the government each month, recipients were now required to be involved in work or a work preparation activity for 20 to 30 hours a week in order to receive aid. These reforms were dramatically successful. State welfare agencies became job placement offices, and recipients moved from a cycle of poverty into job seeking and employment. The number of families in poverty dropped by 2.8 million and the child poverty rate dropped significantly.

Instead of adding $2.5 billion to the welfare state, which will only increase the number of individuals dependent on government assistance, the federal government should make fundamental changes that would decrease dependence and subsequently ease the burden on the nation's ever-growing deficit. Reforms, such as those that took place in 1996, along with others, must be put in place if the United States ever hopes to get back on a track of financial stability.

1. Slowing the growth of the welfare state. After the recession ends, Congress should roll back welfare spending to pre-recession levels and then cap it at the rate of inflation.

2. Promoting personal responsibility and work. Similar to the TANF reforms, other large programs such as Food Stamps and housing assistance should include work requirements.

3. Providing a portion of welfare assistance as loans rather than as grants. Government assistance can incentivize behaviors that lead to increased dependence. To reduce this risk, some welfare assistance should switch from grants to loans that must be partially repaid.

4. Ending the welfare marriage penalty and encouraging marriage in low-income communities. The decreasing rate of marriage is the greatest cause of child poverty. Today, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the United States is at an historic high. Marriage penalties, present in many current welfare programs, should be reduced or removed, and information on the importance of marriage should be provided in low-income communities.

5. Limit low-skill immigration. A significant portion (15 percent) of welfare spending goes to homes headed by lower skill immigrants with a high school degree or less. The government should limit immigration to those individuals who will be net fiscal contributors, meaning they will pay more in taxes than they take in benefits. Also, the government should not provide amnesty to illegal immigrants, as doing so would instantly add millions of people to the welfare roles.

Throwing more money at the ever-growing behemoth that has become the U.S. welfare system will do nothing to improve the wellbeing of our nation's poor. Instead, it will lead to increased dependence and unsustainable national spending. Congress must implement policies that attack the roots of poverty, instead of promoting it with more handouts. This is the only way the United States will produce self-reliant individuals and stable families: the greatest weapons against poverty.

It's great that President Barack Obama and his advisers finally seem to understand the atmospherics of responding to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Now if they'd only get the policy right.

Whether Obama has been demonstrative enough in his public handling of the catastrophe is a legitimate question, but it's somewhat beside the point. Yes, there is an aspect of theatrical performance inherent in the presidency, and no, Obama doesn't seem to relish that part of his job. But the man is who he is -- he doesn't thump tables or pound podiums. How well Obama learns to communicate empathy and passion while staying true to himself is relevant to his long-term effectiveness as president, and ultimately to his legacy. No amount of scenery-chewing, however, can begin to ameliorate what the White House calls the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

The issue isn't what Obama is feeling, it's what he's doing. Why haven't skimmers been brought in from around the world to scoop up more of the oil? Why isn't the defense of the coastline being run like a military campaign, with failure not an option? Why is the answer to every question essentially the same -- "We've repeatedly asked BP to get that done" -- when we're dealing with a crisis that has to be seen as an urgent matter of national security and the public welfare?

Enough of asking BP. The company is responsible for the spill and must be made to pay dearly. But BP management answers to the company's shareholders, not to the American people. And even if BP's gaffe-prone chief executive, Tony Hayward, and his lieutenants had only the purest and noblest of intentions, the problem they have created in the gulf is far beyond their capacity to solve.

This is, essentially, a war that is partly being fought one mile beneath the surface of the gulf, where crude oil continues to gush out of the highly pressurized "Macondo" deposit -- which carries the name of the fictional town in Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magical-realist masterpiece, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" -- at a calamitous rate.

The administration had no choice but to leave the initial response on the sea floor to BP. The government simply doesn't have the equipment or the expertise to stanch the flow. This unfortunate situation may reflect bad policy choices in the past, but that's the reality. One smart decision was to order BP to begin drilling a second relief well, in case the first one misses its target -- but neither will be completed until August, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

A second battle is the effort to contain the tens of millions of gallons of oil that have already polluted the gulf and its coastline. Here, too, the administration has gone by the book and pressured BP to honor its responsibilities. It should be clear by now that this has been a mistake.

The Washington Post reported Monday that the administration has received offers of assistance from 17 nations. Sweden has volunteered to send three ships that can each collect about 15,000 gallons of oil an hour. Norway has offered to send nearly a third of its oil-spill response equipment. Japan has offered to send some boom, which authorities on the scene complain is in short supply.

The Swedes, the Norwegians, the Japanese and most of the other would-be Samaritans are still waiting to hear from the U.S. government or BP. Last week, according to the Post, the administration did ask the European Union to help with any specialized equipment it might have. But meanwhile, oil has penetrated the marshes of southern Louisiana and is lapping onto the beaches of Alabama and Florida. The main spill is spreading, and hurricane season is upon us.

Every available piece of equipment in the world that can vacuum, skim, scoop or sop up oil ought to be in the gulf by now, deployed under a central -- probably military -- command structure. The beaches should be defended as if from a threatened enemy invasion. This is a time for overkill, for the Powell Doctrine, for "decisive force."

There's no silver bullet that can defeat this blob-like enemy, but each drop of oil that gets removed from the gulf and its shores is a victory -- and each drop that doesn't is a defeat. It's that simple. This is war.

The NY Times’ most left wing movie reviewer and Oliver Stone, proclaiming Hugo Chavez as a good-hearted man of the people:

Washington Post religion columnist Anthony Stevens-Arroyo suggests that Catholics embrace wealth redistribution.

New drinking game: take a drink every time Janeane Garafalo uses the word racist in and interview. 2 drinks when this word is in close proximity to TEA partiers or conservatives.

RUSH: Somebody needs to ask Obama -- I know it's not gonna happen -- but some press person needs to say, "Mr. President, what exactly have you done to foster and support private sector growth? Can you name one thing, Mr. President, you have done that has caused private sector growth?" I'm sure he'd say health care, but it's not true. Obama said all that about the US can no longer pull the train for the world economy, he said all that yesterday while he was pushing for Russia and Putin to get into the World Trade Organization. Putin, Russia, those are the kind of people Obama wants to lead the world economy. Not us. And at the same press conference yesterday, Obama bowed to Putin's puppet -- this Medvedev guy -- more than he's bowed to everybody, and he's a master of "bowboy" diplomacy. He knows how to bow. In fact, we ought to establish that as a term for how Obama engages the world, "bowboy diplomacy." Let's stick with the audio sound bites. Here's Obama this morning outside the White House before leaving for Toronto. Audio sound bite number seven.

OBAMA: We'll put in place the toughest consumer financial protections in our history while creating an independent agency to enforce them. Through this agency we'll combine under one roof the consumer protection functions that currently are divided among half a dozen different agencies. Now there will be one agency whose sole job will be to look out for you.

RUSH: That's already being done. Ted Baxter's already doing that, Barack. Ted Baxter's already looking out for us. I don't want the government looking out for me in this kind of way. "We'll put in place the toughest consumer financial protections in our history while creating an independent agency to enforce 'em." Independent? It's going to be part of the regime! "Through this agency we'll combine under one roof the consumer protection functions that currently are divided among half a dozen different agencies. Now there will be one agency whose sole job will be to look out for you." Fox News already has that wrapped up, eight o'clock every night, looking out for you. By the way, here's Mark Knoller. This is a question that Obama got before leaving for Toronto. Mark Knoller, CBS Radio White House correspondent.

RUSH: You bet. Can you get the bill to the Senate? You bet. No question about it. Here's Timmy Geithner. This is yesterday, an interview with the BBC.

GEITHNER: I think the world understands now that the world -- growth in the future around the world can't depend as -- on the United States as much as it did in the past. So for the world to grow together, you're going to have to see more growth in the other major economies, too, not just in the emerging markets, which are very strong now in the United States.

RUSH: Okay, growth in the future, around the world can't depend on the United States as much as it did in the past. We're admitting it. The regime's leaders are admitting we're not going to be an economic engine of growth. Obama said it yesterday. This is how he said it.

OBAMA: The US economy for a long period of time was the engine of world economic growth. We were sucking in imports from all across the world, financed by huge amounts of consumer debt. Because of the financial crisis, but also because that debt was fundamentally unsustainable --

OBAMA: -- the United States is not going to be able to serve in that same capacity to that same extent.

RUSH: Yeah. What he's saying is you have so much consumer debt that you're not going to be able to expand your lifestyles anymore, you're not going to be buying a bunch of products because we're not going to let you. That's what the financial reform bill is all about. We're not gonna let you do too much consuming. Besides, you're not going to have enough money to do any consuming because we're going to raise everybody's taxes. And therefore there won't be any private sector economic growth, and therefore there will not be any engine of economic growth that is the United States of America. Ain't going to happen. Get used to it. This is what the American people voted for 18 months ago. Now, this next is appalling and it is groveling at its most abject. This is Obama at the press conference with Dmitry Medvedev. Just listen to this. Sound bite number 11.

OBAMA: The generation that stood together as allies in the Second World War, the great patriotic war in which the Russian people suffered and sacrificed so much.

RUSH: To call World War II the great patriotic war, which is what Stalin called it, we call it World War II. The great patriotic war. It is groveling, it's just appalling. Carter may have kissed Brezhnev on the cheek. Obama is kissing Putin's butt with that press conference. Folks, this is abominable.

CALLER: Hello, and let me start off with: Our beautiful beaches are open, our fishing is great, and the weather is great, so please come to Florida. Don't worry about the oil spill.

RUSH: Yeah, go to the West Coast of Florida if you're going to come. Go over there, exactly right. Go to Tampa.

CALLER: Today is just a frustrating day to wake up and see what was done again overnight while we were all sleeping, getting ready to go to work today.

CALLER: Once again (chuckles), it seems like 2,000 pages of legislation is passed that no one's read and we don't know what's in it, and we're supposed to just accept it. That's become the norm. It's just frustrating. I grew up in a dysfunctional family with a bipolar parent, and I feel like I'm back there again. My country's leadership is bipolar, schizophrenic and paranoid.

RUSH: No, it's not. It's liberal. Well, it may be all that, but it's liberal. It is Marxist-socialist, is what it is. This is what you get. You know, folks, let me tell you about this business with the war. Snerdley asked me during the break, "What's so bad about the Great Patriotic War?" That's what Stalin called it! We have the president of the United States with a Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, sucking up or whatever the hell he was doing yesterday by referring to World War II as the Great Patriotic War. "The Great Patriotic War," to give you a little history lesson here, was only coined by Stalin after Hitler turned on him. They used to be allies. The Russians and the Germans were allies. All of a sudden Hitler turned on Stalin and Stalin suddenly needed to whip up some nationalistic fervor to repel the German invasion.

The Germans were coming and Stalin needed to get his gang up in morale. So the Great Patriotic War is what he called it. You know, Stalin even reopened the churches at the same time -- and that's another cynical move. But to have our president on our soil refer to the Great Patriotic War? My friends, it's an abomination. It is just appalling. It is groveling at its most abject. I mean, the Russians? Everybody thinks the Russians were such great allies of ours in World War II. Yeah, they wouldn't even declare war on Japan until the day before it was to end! The Russians were not our big allies. They only did that so as to be able to seize a couple of Japan's northern islands. We didn't have any allied status there. Remember, Patton got into trouble because he wanted to keep going to Moscow and wipe 'em out. He had a fear of what was coming.

The Great Patriotic War. So we have an idea here of just... This is "bowboy diplomacy." This is how Obama wants to impress people. These are the people he wants to impress, the Russians. He doesn't want to stand up for anything American, American exceptionalism. We're no longer going to be the engine that drives the world economy. We're not even going to be an engine that drives our own economy. I mean, every day, every day we wake up here with another one of our freedoms having been taken away, a new boot on our face, a new boot on our neck. Nobody -- nobody! -- calls it the Great Patriotic War except existing Stalinist hardliners, and there are still some around. You find 'em in California, south Florida, in New York, San Francisco. But nobody -- nobody -- refers to it as the Great Patriotic War.

RUSH: Big news still coming outta Washington on Stanley McChrystal, General Petraeus, but everybody's missing this. As I said yesterday, the reason you listen to this show -- I mean these people are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites, all this praise for Petraeus now? We're gonna go back and we're gonna revisit all of the audio sound bites of all these Democrats ripping Petraeus a new one. Look at this in The Politico: "How Obama Took Command," by Mike Allen. I predicted this. I'm going to play you the prediction from the program yesterday. I predicted that this would be Obama rising to the occasion. Joe Klein, TIME Magazine: "The sort of moment people write books about." I feel like I'm on another planet. We've already written 50,000 books on this guy trying to buck him up and now you have to sit here and say how Obama took command? If you have to write a story that says Obama took command, it's obvious that he hadn't taken command, and I'm still not sure that he has.

What a pathetic example of journalism. "How Obama Took Command." He's only been commander-in-chief for a year and a half. He's only delivered how many speeches at West Point. He's only dithered how long about all the policy in Afghanistan. He tried to affect the elections in Afghanistan, got Karzai out of there, and now because he fires the general, they come up and say, "How Obama Took Command." Well, what's he been doing up to now if he didn't have command? This is nonsense. This is flat-out absurdity, journalistic malpractice trying to portray something here. It's like the first year of Clinton, "He's still searching for his voice. Bill Clinton is still searching for his voice." I don't know.

RUSH: You know what would be funny -- and, by the way, it would be totally intellectually honest -- is if the Senate Armed Services Committee does not confirm Petraeus. Well, they're going to hold the hearings starting next week on Petraeus. That has to happen, as the new commander in Afghanistan. Now, everybody in that committee, the Democrats -- and they're the majority and you're gonna hear the audio coming up in due course in the program today. They all accused him of being a liar. They all said he was incompetent. They all said the surge wouldn't work. They all said the war was lost. For these guys to come now and confirm him? (snorts) What hypocrisy is that? If these guys were intellectually honest, they would say to Obama, "This guy is gonna guarantee to lose Afghanistan like he lost Iraq. We can't confirm this guy! Who do you think you are?" We know that's not going to happen. That would be the intellectually honest thing to happen.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Yeah, let BP run the show, said now, now, he's on top of things, he took care of McChrystal, it's going to help him out here, looking like a leader now. That's what the spin's going to be: Obama finally taking control, Obama finally kicking ass, Obama finally asserting his authority here.

RUSH: Yeah, The Politico: "How Obama Took Command." And here's a media montage, the same stuff.

MICHAEL SCHERER: Obama's done very well at asserting himself as the Commander-in-Chief.

BARRY MCCAFFREY: The good news is you've got a Commander-in-Chief that took decisive action.

FRAN TOWNSEND: It was a brilliant and inspired move to look to General Petraeus.

DAVID RODHAM GERGEN: I would rate this as one of the best decisions he's made as president. He managed a brilliant choice in General Petraeus.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: The recruitment of General Petraeus for this new assignment is brilliant. It's perfect.

RUSH: I really do not understand any of this. These people all ripped Petraeus to shreds. Every one of these media people, and every one of these people in this bite that are not media like Fran Townsend -- well, they're all media now, I guess. Brilliant choice to choose Petraeus? Wait 'til you hear the sound bites we have coming up illustrating what people like this were saying about Petraeus during Iraq. But let's put this in perspective. The best decision Obama ever made, to go with George W. Bush's general? Do they not realize that's what they're saying? The best decision Obama ever made is to go back to George Bush's general? I mean honestly, folks, that's the take. The president came out smelling like a rose today. "He showed he's commander-in-chief," that's Wolf Blitzer. What do you mean, he showed he's commander-in-chief yesterday. What's he been doing for the past 18 months?

Do these people not realize how they sound? Do they not realize what they're saying? For the first time in 18 months, we're proud of him. It's kind of like what Michelle said, "For the first time in my life I'm proud of my country." Well, these guys are saying, "For the first time in the last 18 months I'm proud of my president. Why, today he sounded like commander-in-chief, why, today he took control." What are some of these other quotes? "Obama's done very well asserting himself as commander-in-chief." Asserting? "The good news is you got a commander-in-chief that took decisive action." That's Barry McCaffrey. What the hell, you mean it's a crapshoot when we elect somebody? Yes, in this case it was a crapshoot and all these comments prove it. That's why you listen.

RUSH: Oh, yeah, folks, I love it. Best decision Obama ever made, to go with George W. Bush's general. Ha! Doesn't Obama run around complaining about what he inherited from Bush? He's just inherited his general. He just inherited Petraeus. Ha! Folks, I love this. So is he gonna start complaining about having inherited Petraeus from Bush if things go wrong over there? And how decisive is it to fire somebody and then realize you don't have anybody else that can replace him, so you have to make his boss do his job, too? He didn't know anybody else in the military other than Petraeus 'cause in the Senate hearings he didn't like him. This is a joke, it is a total joke!

RUSH: Now, the extended stack here on the McChrystal and Petraeus thing. I'm stunned by the herd, the stampede -- actually I'm not stunned, but I wonder where the intellectual honesty is. The media herd, "Oh finally, we got a commander-in-chief, this guy asserted control, he's showing he is not going to mess around, why, this guy, this guy, how Obama took over." What? He's the president of the United States. He's been there 18 months. We're getting all these stories, "Whew, wow, finally Obama shows up," is what they sound like. So he fires McChrystal. He inherits Petraeus. He didn't hire Petraeus. Petraeus was there. Petraeus was hired by George W. Bush. Obama's constantly complaining about all the problems he inherited from Bush. Now he's inherited Petraeus. He got Bush's general, who his party and his voters hate. And by the way, MoveOn.org has removed their Petraeus ad from their website. Oh, yes. Remember that full page New York Times ad, General Betray Us? It's gone. And their good friends at like-minded Google have removed the ad from their caches, so you can't see the ad. It's gone everywhere. They hated Petraeus, and now they're praising Obama for one of the smartest moves he's ever made?

And let's not forget the media. The media was right in there bamming up on Petraeus during the hearings in the Senate leading up to the surge. Look, it is technically inaccurate -- this is another important point, I think -- technically inaccurate to say that Obama replaced McChrystal with Petraeus. He didn't replace him with anybody. We have a void. We're down one four-star. McChrystal was a four-star general. He is gone. We have not elevated anybody. We simply took Petraeus from his CENTCOM commander's job and sent him to Afghanistan. McChrystal has not been replaced, technically. Meanwhile many of the same people who said that McChrystal had to be fired because of his criticism of the Afghan policy, the withdrawal deadline, the rules of engagement, the same people are now saying they hope Petraeus will stand up to Obama and get him to forget the withdrawal guideline and change the rules of engagement. I'm watching this. Where is intellectual honesty? Where's anybody in the media's concern for credibility? Well, I know it sounds funny, and it is, but we're talking about the nation at war here at the same time.

They get rid of McChrystal because he was insolent, disrespectful, critical of the president's policies. So they go out and they get rid of him and they hire Bush's general, and the same people who are mad at McChrystal for criticizing the policy now say they hope Petraeus can convince Obama to change the policy. Were it not for me, my friends, your head would be spinning. We're going around the world here 360 degrees. I have stopped the globe putting the focus on all this. We still have incompetence, we have cheerleading on parade, we do not have serious accountability going on here, nobody's reporting any of this accurately, because it's all about Obama, 'cause they know, everybody in the State-Controlled Media knows it's a disaster. They haven't got the guts to say it, but he's an absolute embarrassment and a disaster. That's why they're having orgasms today over what? He hired Bush's general. Having orgasms because finally he's acting like commander-in-chief.

So the same people who said McChrystal had to go because he was criticizing the Afghan policy now say they hope Petraeus will be able to convince Obama to change the policy. The New York Times hated Petraeus so much they gave MoveOn.org a half-price deal on their full-page Betray Us ad. The New York Times, and they're right in there with all of the rest of them today singing Obama's praises. I want just one of them, I don't care, CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, I don't care what paper, I want one of you to put, if not a headline, a subhead: "Obama Turns to Bush General." It's the truth. It is precisely what's happened out there. And the Betray Us ad scrubbed from MoveOn.org's site, and it's all gone from the Google cache. Google, you know, left-wing buddies of MoveOn.org. Let's go to the audio sound bites. This is Obama January 14th, 2007, Slay the Nation. This is during a discussion about the status of the Iraq war.

OBAMA: We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality, we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believes that that is gonna make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.

RUSH: He was talking about Petraeus' surge. Doesn't matter how many troops, it won't work, no matter how many troops were sent. Flashback, Biden, September 9, 2007, Meet the Depressed, Tim Russert: "General Petraeus said in a letter to his troops that we've not had the political reconciliation we thought we would have, been much slower, but there's some hope. Then he said my sense is that we have achieved tactical momentum. We've wrested the initiative from our enemies in a number of areas of Iraq. We are, in short, a long way from the goal line, but we do have the ball, we're driving down the field. Is that what you expect him to say tomorrow?" This is a question for Senator Joe Bite Me on the eve of the Petraeus hearings. Here's Bite Me's answer.

BIDEN: I think he's dead-flat-wrong. The fact of the matter is that this idea of these security gains we made have had no impact on the underlying sectarian dynamic, none, none whatsoever.

RUSH: That's the current vice president of the United States saying no way Petraeus knows what he's talking about. Flashback. September 11, 2007, on Capitol Hill during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq, Senator Hillary Clinton said this to General Petraeus.

HILLARY: You have been made the de facto spokesman for a failed policy. The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.

RUSH: She just called him a liar. She said he is nothing more than a stooge for the White House. Hillary Clinton, now the secretary of state, this was just three years ago talking about General Petraeus, who now represents the smartest move Obama has ever made. Flashback. Nancy Pelosi, August 2, 2007, PBS NewsHour, Jim Lehrer. He says to her, "From your perspective --" are your eyebrows moving, Nancy? Are you okay? Okay, well, let me continue. He said, "From your perspective, Ms. Pelosi, what General Petraeus says in September about the surge is irrelevant in your mind?"

PELOSI: The purpose of the surge was to create a secure environment in which political progress could be made. That has not happened. The president's own benchmarks are not being met. The surge was to make the area more secure so that the political solution could take hold and the measure will be, okay, did the surge achieve its purpose? Did the political progress occur? Amending the constitution, calling for provincial elections, having a law for the fair distribution of oil in the region, reviewing the order on de-Ba'athification, some of the president's own benchmarks.

RUSH: Nancy Pelosi, one of the many Democrats who ripped General Petraeus. September 11th, another flashback, 2007, Washington, Capitol Hill, during the Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq policy, Senator Obama said this to General Petraeus.

OBAMA: This is not a criticism of either of you gentlemen. This is a criticism of this president and the administration which has set a mission for the military and for our diplomatic forces that is extraordinarily difficult now to achieve. And there has been no acknowledgement of that on the part of this administration so that we have the president in Australia suggesting somehow that we are, as was stated before, kicking a-s-s. How can we have a president making that assessment?

RUSH: Yeah, that's an interesting question. So here's Obama talking to Petraeus, ripping Bush for saying, "Yeah, we're kicking ass out there," how can we say that? And Obama's admitting he's looking for some ass to kick when he's the president. Only the ass he wants to kick is BP, not the Taliban. Flashback. September 10th, 2007, Capitol Hill, the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Iraq. Robert Wexler, Democrat, Maryland, who said he was representing Florida. He questioned Petraeus. Here's a bit of what he said.

WEXLER: The surge has failed. In truth, war-related deaths have doubled in Iraq in 2007 compared to last year. Tragically, it is my understanding that seven more American troops have died while we've been talking today. Cherry-picking statistics or selectively massaging information will not change the basic truth. It is my patriotic duty to represent my constituents and ask you about your argument that the surge in troops be extended until next year, next summer. I am skeptical, General --

RUSH: That's Robert Wexler calling Petraeus a liar, essentially. And now Petraeus, the best move Obama has ever made?

RUSH: Let's return to the audio sound bites. General Petraeus, George W. Bush's general, despised, hated, lied to, lied about, accused of being a liar about the surge in Iraq, by Democrats and the left-wing media. Here's Chris Matthews, another flashback. September 12, 2007, on Hardball. Matthews' assessment of David Petraeus' Iraq report.

MATTHEWS 2007: What do you make of the pony? You're speaking well of the dog. What about the pony?

RUSH: Chris Matthews is also one of those now saying, "Smartest move Obama ever made! Why, he asserted control. Why this is really great. He fired that guy, he put Petraeus in there." These people despise Petraeus. You know, in truth they don't. The bottom line is they didn't despise Petraeus. They hated Bush, anything associated with Bush had to fail so they were in the chorus trying to defeat Petraeus. This is -- this is just so delicious flashback. September 6, 2007, montage. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Jack Murtha, Jim McDermott, Susan Swain all referring to Petraeus' pending report as "the Bush report."

OLBERMANN 2007: President Bush via his surr-a-gate, General David Petraeus, delivers his report.

RUSH: That was Baghdad Jim McDermott: "The report the White House is writing for General Petraeus." Flashback, September 6, 2007, floor of the House, Baghdad Jim McDermott spoke. He said this...

MCDERMOTT 2007: "We're Kicking Ass in Iraq" might be the headline of the report the White House is writing for General Petraeus to deliver to the Congress next week. Here's what the president's kick-ass assessment translates to on the ground: Ten US soldiers killed so far this week, 793 US soldiers killed so far this year, 3,752 US soldiers killed since the beginning of the war, and 27,186 US soldiers wounded since the beginning of the war -- AND 71,000 documented Iraq civilian deaths since the beginning of the war, although the actual number is much higher.

RUSH: So here's Jim McDermott, House floor, rebutting the president and General Petraeus on behalf of Al-Qaeda. Audio sound bite number 32. This is Dingy Harry April 19th of 2007 at a press conference talking about General Petraeus.

REID 2007: I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, secretary of defense -- and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows -- that this war is lost.

RUSH: (doing impression) "This war is lost. This war is lost." That's Dingy Harry, April 19th, 2007, talking about Petraeus. It's also ironic, my friends, that Obama claimed yesterday he was firing McChrystal because he didn't want any division on his national security team, but in the same announcement he said that he and McChrystal were in total agreement on policy. Now, he said it! Whatever McChrystal or his aides said in the Rolling Stone article was aimed at the folks who opposed Obama's policy. That would be Joe Bite Me, Kerry, Jones, Holbrooke, Eikenberry. But they kept on. The guy who was loyal, the guy on BHO's side, was canned. If he really wanted to get rid of the division in his national security team, he should have gotten rid of Biden, Jim Jones, this Holbrooke guy, and Eikenberry. We're still not through.

RUSH: Look, we got an inept commander-in-chief. We got some of the media pretty much admits hasn't been a commander-in-chief up until now -- and I, frankly, am still not inspired. We have the Drive-By Media cynical ecstatic, practically orgasmic over the choice of...Bush's general! Who they all claimed to say was a lying sack of whatever, only doing Bush's bidding. He was a sock puppet. They impugned his honesty and his integrity. They accused him of losing the war with his strategy. Now, all of a sudden, (doing Howard Cosell impression) this is the best move Barack Hussein Obama has ever made. I'm sorry, my friends, I'm not buying it at all. I think the intellectual dishonesty, the void here of any media integrity whatsoever to talk about what this story's really all about is striking.

They were trying to make Petraeus into William Westmoreland here from the Vietnam days. If that doesn't work, they'll try to turn him into Lloyd Bucher, who was commanding the ship that was taken over by the Koreans or somebody boarded it. I don't know what it was. I'm having a mental block. You remember that? (interruption) Jimmy Carter's fiasco, I forget where it was. Lloyd Bucher, I forget what the name of the ship was. That's right, it was the USS Pueblo. (interruption) They were trying to make Petraeus into Westmoreland. Westmoreland was lying about the body count, the KIAs and so forth. That's what they were accusing Petraeus of back in 2007 was cooking the books and lying about the number of casualties. That's what Moran was all about. Now the personification of the vilification of the entire Iraq strategy is a hero to these same people?

I'm sorry, folks. I can't get on the bandwagon. Not because I've got anything pro or con about Petraeus. In fact, if you want to go even further with this, you might say -- and some might look at it as a stretch, but you might say -- the Rolling Stone piece has actually presented us an unexpected opportunity, because now Petraeus can win the war, and there's nothing Obama can do to stop him. (sigh) Well, I admit that I am applying a lot of logic here. But everything Obama's got is now rolled into Petraeus. They've doubled down, tripled down. Everything is now up to Petraeus. So if Petraeus wants to go win this thing... You know, when Obama said, "I don't like the concept of victory," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So because a left-wing general who somehow maneuvers himself into an interview with Rolling Stone and gets canned.

We now have a general who's gonna win the war despite what Obama wants. You know, I told you. I don't do this very often, blow my own horn. I told you they would never close Gitmo. I told you that all of that was nothing but a bunch of rhetoric to satisfy the lunatic, insane fringe base that populates their websites out there and their television network. I told you they were never gonna close Gitmo. And I'm going to tell you right now, this July 11th withdrawal? They may bring a couple people home just to say that but it ain't going to happen. It isn't going to happen, mark my words -- unless we win by then. 'Cause I also told you this. I don't care who they are. The biggest pacifist, the biggest sissy in the world could be president but if he's a Democrat, he only wants America to lose when he's not president.

The Democrats hate the military, and they don't like it being victorious, but I don't want to sit there and be saddled with the results of the military losing while they are in office. After all, LBJ essentially lost it but look who they ended up giving credit to it for: Nixon. JFK and what's-his-face, LBJ, essentially blew that war sky-high with "the best and the brightest," and they dump it all on Nixon before it was all over. Not that Nixon didn't deserve some of it but let's face it: That war was lost because Walter Cronkite said it was over, and even LBJ said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America." Thankfully there was no president who will say, "Oh, my God I've lost Olbermann, I've lost the country. Oh, my God, I've lost Chris Matthews, I've lost the country." That can never be said." Oh, oh, my God, I've lost Sergeant Schultz, I've lost the country," cannot be said. "Oh, no! Oh, no, I lost Katie Couric, I've lost the country." It will never be said. "Oh, no, I lost Diane Sawyer? Oh, no, I've lost the country." It will never be said. "Oh, no, I just lost Brian Williams..." You think Obama sits there, "Oh, no, I just..." In the first place he never loses these people but even if he did, it wouldn't mean anything like it did when what's-his-face, LBJ lost "Klondike." My, how times change. (laughing) Yeah. And it will never be said, "Oh, my God, I've lost Ted Baxter, I've lost America." It'll never be said. Okay. "I lost David Brooks, I've lost America." No, it will never be said.

CALLER: Hey, I'm looking at this McChrystal situation, and I'm thinking how the Dems are very calculating, liberals. I served 27 years in the United States Air Force, and you're right when you claim we should all know by now that they just don't like the military. So do you think that very possibly, he's either looking at this ( and you just touched on it) to pin a loss in Afghanistan? By using Petraeus, they'll pin that on Bush, but, looking at it the other way, Afghanistan is his war. Biden's already said some things earlier this year, some successes in Iraq, they're trying to take credit for it. Now, Petraeus goes into Afghanistan and wins, or we stabilize the country to where they can start growing their own government, et cetera, don't you think the libs would take full credit for that?

RUSH: Hell, yes. Of course they will. But they're not going to give Petraeus the credit. Obama will get the credit. 'Cause Obama had the courage, the strength, the foresight to get rid of the mad dog general and bring in this great guy Petraeus. Oh, yeah! That's the hope. That's why Petraeus has to go win this thing. Otherwise, if it doesn't happen, Obama does not want to say, "Well, I inherited that General Petraeus. I inherited it. I didn't lose that war. That was Bush's general." I wouldn't put it past Obama to say that if things blow up over there. We hope that they don't, by the way.

RUSH: Here's more. Joe Biden, now Vice President Bite Me. On February 10th of this year on CNN's Larry King Live, Biden was talking about, well, Iraq.

BIDEN: I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq, and this can be one of the great achievements of this administration.

RUSH: I play this because somebody called last hour, "Do you think Obama's going to take credit for Afghanistan?" Yeah, yeah, he might deserve some of the credit for not getting up and getting out of there, but certainly not in Iraq. They deserve no credit, and yet there's Senator Bite Me -- well, I'm sorry, Vice President Bite Me -- "I'm very optimistic, Larry, about Iraq. This could be one of the great achievements of the administration." They didn't lift a finger! This administration has done zilch, zero, nada.

RUSH: Now, the day after Biden said, "This Iraq thing, this is going to be one of the great achievements of this administration," that was February 10th of this year, February 11th, White House daily press briefing, a reporter said to Gibbs, "The vice president last night said the Iraq war could end up being one of the president's greatest achievements. Now, given the vice president was in favor of a partial partition of the country and President Obama opposed the surge that helped stabilize it, how is it one of the president's great achievements?"

GIBBS: Look, putting, uh, what was broken back together and getting our troops home, which we intend to do in August of this year.

REPORTER: But the status of force agreement to bring troops home was signed before the president took office.

GIBBS: (stammering) Uh, uh, uh, something that, uh -- something I think that, uh, the political pressure that the president, uhh, as -- as a then-candidate helped to bring about. Look, I -- I think that we will long debate Iraq. We will long debate whether at a very important moment in, uhh -- in our efforts to root out terrorism, particularly in Afghanistan and on that border region with Pakistan, whether we took our eye off the ball. I -- I think historians will debate that long after, uh, we're gone. I think they will come likely to the conclusion that, uh, no single event took our eye off of what needed to be done --

GIBBS: -- in order to occupy a country that until we got there, didn't have a single member of Al-Qaeda.

GIBBS: So, look, obviously the vice president's been deeply involved in fixing the political process there so that elections can be held --

RUSH: This is the absolute... That takes the cake. Not a single word of that was true. (laughing) This is reminiscently Baghdad Bob, you know, the PR guy, the spokesman for Hussein. We had thousands of troops about to take over Baghdad. (doing impression) "They're not here! I am looking out the window right now. The troops are not here, see? Look! No Americans here," and here's Gibbs, "Oh, yeah, we stabilized it. We put it back together, we made sure the elections took place." It was your party, Gibbs, it was Senator Kerry who wanted to cancel the elections 'cause they might be too dangerous! Actually Senator Kerry wanted to cancel the elections because he did not want them to work. The Democrats wanted nothing about Iraq to work! They are invested in total failure, and they were invested in total defeat.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Hey, Rush, I'd like to make a comment, a prediction, really, about the McChrystal-Petraeus transition.

CALLER: Before I do that, that was a great counterpunch. You knocked that Church Lady out and you're a super counterpuncher. You're a puncher, but a great counterpuncher, too, that was phenomenal.

CALLER: Wow. Here's what's going on with Petraeus. Obama hates all of us. He wants to sink the entire country. We all know that. He got rid of McChrystal, got Petraeus in there, who will now be spread way too thin eventually and I betcha any amount of money within a year he'll fire Petraeus, the entire thing over in Iraq and Afghanistan will unravel and we'll spend another trillion dollars for no good reason whatsoever.

RUSH: Gosh, I hope not. (laughing) I hope not but I would be hard-pressed to disagree with you.

CALLER: Yeah. I mean think about it, that's what he's doing. This poor Petraeus cannot -- nobody can do that job now, and they hated Petraeus, now they love him. They don't love him, they hate him. They hate everything about the military. I'm not even a military guy --

RUSH: Well, see, that's the thing. I don't know that they ever really hated Petraeus. They hated him because they thought he was an emissary of Bush, but regardless whoever they hated or didn't hate the fact is now they can't get around the fact that in order for Obama to save his bacon he's had to go get Bush's general. And I know what you mean when you say Obama doesn't want to win. He himself has said so. And we have not replaced McChrystal, you're right about that. Petraeus runs CENTCOM. That's a big job in and of itself. Who's going to run CENTCOM while he's in Afghanistan? I guess he's going to do both things. Well, both things involve Iraq and Afghanistan. And Iraq, I mean I don't think there's as much attention to holding things together now. There certainly was under the Bush administration. But, look, even if Mike is wrong, listen to this. He's not a dumb guy. He's probably an average citizen, look what he thinks this president is capable of. You know, in my lifetime I've not heard people talk about a president in these terms, wants America to lose, you know, wants to sack America. I never heard this before. A lot of people think it because of the actions the president is taking. Not just because of what he says.

CALLER: I have a comment on the McChrystal firing or whatever you want to call it. If George Bush had taken a day and a half to fire a general, he would be accused of being a cowboy and shooting from the hip and all kinds of things. And here the mainstream press is calling him decisive. I don't get it.

RUSH: Yes, you do. The mainstream press is a bunch of lapdogs. The very way they're covering Obama is indicative that even they know he's beneath the job. They know he's not up to it. No question about it.

RUSH: Governor Chris Christie. This guy needs a lot more attention. He needs a LOT more attention. People need to listen to this man, the governor of New Jersey, and what he's doing and how he's going about it. He was on Cavuto yesterday on the Fox Business Network. We have some sound bites. Cavuto said, "Folks are saying that you side with the rich. When you vetoed a 'millionaires tax' that actually would have affected those earning always little as 400 grand, you were on the side of 'fat cats.' New Jersey Education Association president said, 'The choice could not be more stark: tax cuts for millionaires or full school funding for New Jersey kids.'"

GOV. CHRISTIE: Raising taxes on businesses in New Jersey, which that would have done, and individuals in New Jersey is not what's gonna make our private sector grow. We already have the worst tax burden of any citizens in America, when you combine all of our taxes. So raising taxes on anybody... Because, believe me: Today they're going to raise taxes on those people? Next year they'll come back and raise taxes on somebody else, and then it's going to get into your pocket. Someone has to stand the line and say, "No, we can do this by cutting spending and reducing the size of government." That's what I was committed to doing. So these other things are just politics and false choices, and I think they thought they had a governor like Jon Corzine who when they pushed I will fall over. They misevaluated this governor.

RUSH: Governor Chris Christie in New Jersey, defending his choice to cut taxes, to cut spending. Cavuto said, "You know, governor, in growing more famous in this job in the few months that you've been at it, you strike a lot of people as like a bull in a China shop. And I could tell you -- you and I are neighbors in New Jersey so disclosing that for the record here -- just down the street, everybody in town, people say, 'What a nice guy, what an affable guy,' and then they see you chewing out some union dude or they see you jumping ugly on a reporter and they say, 'Hey, is it the same guy?'"

GOV. CHRISTIE: I'm passionate about what I believe in, and I also think that the public needs to start being treated like adults. You know, politicians too much, in my view, they cow.

GOV. CHRISTIE: They try to figure out what everybody wants to hear. They try to figure out what he need wants to hear. I want to treat New Jerseyans and I am treating New Jerseyans like adults, and that's not just my constituents. It's reporters, it's union leaders. If I feel something, I'm going to say it.

RUSH: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie! Cavuto said, "Well, many union leaders have targeted you in attack ads that have gone viral nationally. One of the things that typical union members will say or the ones that they talk to for their ads is, 'I paid into these benefits. These are benefits I was promised years ago and now along comes Chris Christie to say, "Well," I'm "not going to get them." He's broken a covenant, he's broken a promise.' Never mind it was never your covenant or your promise, you've inherited a lot of this. What do you think of that argument, governor? The public workers feel that you have a bull's-eye on them."

GOV. CHRISTIE: The public sector has been shielded from this recession in New Jersey. We've continued to give public sector workers four and five percent increases, despite the fact that there's zero inflation. We've continued to say that the teachers union is right, that teachers in the main should have to pay nothing -- nothing! -- for family health coverage, medical, dental, and vision. I mean, there's no one in the world who has this deal, and the property tax payers -- the ones who have lost their jobs, the ones who have had their hours reduced, the ones that are paying more for their own health benefits if they have them -- they're the ones picking up the tab. Now, listen: "Shared sacrifice" is shared sacrifice, and the public sector unions have been shielded from that, and it's got to stop.

RUSH: Right on, right on! Right on, right on, right on. Here comes the truth! You see? The truth works! Just stand up to these people. He's winning every fight in New Jersey. He's winning every one. Just stand up to them and tell the truth. They haven't shared sacrifice. They haven't shared in this recession. They haven't been in pain. They talk about shared sacrifice? Well, here it is! Cavuto said, "People compare you to Reagan. What do you think of that?"

GOV. CHRISTIE: I have great admiration for President Reagan, and I think he was the first person I voted for for president. My first vote in 1980 when I turned 18 years old was to vote for Ronald Reagan. And it's still one of the proudest votes I ever made because he understood leadership. He understood how to lead a country, how to lead a people and how to inspire and how to be tough and how to fight for the things he believed in. And so in many ways he's one of my role models, and so any time my name gets put in the same sentence with Ronald Reagan it's a bad day for Ronald Reagan, but a good day for me.

RUSH: (laughing) I don't think Reagan would say that. I don't think Reagan would say that at all. And, let's see, we have one more. Here we go. Final one. Cavuto says, "Look, there's talk of Governor Christie maybe being a President Christie. What do you say to that?"

GOV. CHRISTIE: You know, I want to be governor of New Jersey. I ran for governor of New Jersey.

GOV. CHRISTIE: You have to be really, in your gut and in your heart, ready to be president of the United States if you decide to run for that -- and I simply do not have the desire to do it, nor do I think I'm to be [president].

CAVUTO: You already now, governor, have more experience than Barack Obama when he announced.

RUSH: What an answer! Just because I have more experience than Big Ears doesn't mean that I'm ready. There you have it, Governor Chris Christie of in New Jersey.

MCDERMOTT: Mr. Speaker, I rise today out of disgust over recent comments by Rush Limbaugh about child hunger. A few days ago I was sent Mr. Limbaugh's response to the news that more than 16 million children will face, quote, "a summer of hunger," quote, "because they won't have access to free or discounted meals they usually get at school." Mr. Limbaugh ultimately recommended these children "Dumpster dive" -- Dumpster dive! -- to find food until school starts back up. In the midst of a deep recession that has forced millions of Americans to face the daily fear of losing their homes and failing to provide food for their kids --

MCDERMOTT: -- is another awful example of shameless and callous commentary. Ask yourself: When is the last time that Rush Limbaugh missed a meal? Take a look. You judge for yourself.

RUSH: What, did he have a peculiarity of me on an easel on the House floor? (laughs) Baghdad Jim McDermott, that's yesterday. Here is Jim Moran today on the House floor, one-minute speeches.

MORAN: There have been 379 incidents involving threats and abuse towards census employees so far this year. That's more than double the violence that occurred during the last census in 2000. The reported incidents have consisted of robberies, assault, violent threats, being held against their will, and carjacking. They are doing very important work, and getting paid very little for it. Ironically, it is the work of census takers that will ensure that each American receives their fair share of federal resources. I'm afraid that this abuse may be directly tied to some of the anti-government rhetoric that is coming from some people in this body, and the Republican noise machine -- in other words, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and countless other so-called shock jocks. Rather than disparaging federal employees, this body should be applauding the work that they are performing.

RUSH: That's Jim Moran. It was Baghdad McDermott yesterday and Jim Moran today. He's from Virginia. You see what's happening here. This is serious. When these kind of guys start leveling these anti-government charges at you on the floor of House of Representatives, they are setting up what they hope will be some issue or incident of violence down the road where they can say, "See? See? Limbaugh is causing it!" For the record when's the last time we talked about census workers on this program? I mean, it has been weeks. It has been awhile.

The last thing I remember saying about census workers is talking about them, and how they are being perceived out there doing their jobs, and the last story we did on a census worker was one who talked about, "My God, I can't believe how angry people are at the government out there." We've also heard about how the census workers are being hired and fired and rehired and fired and rehired and fired to build up the employment numbers. They're hired and a lot of people aren't doing anything. Hired, fired, hired, fired, all of it to make it look like there's new job creation going on. But nobody on this program has ever suggested don't participate with these people. Not in the census. There is some other sort of wacko community survey that some people are running around trying to get you to give information on, but I don't know what he's talking about. They just make this stuff up because it fits the template, and it is very serious stuff, while statement being hilarious.

RUSH: Whoever is out there -- it might be Media Matters, it might be somebody on Jim Moran's staff, congressman from Virginia. Whoever is out there either monitoring this program or whoever is taking transcripts of this program and editing them and giving them to Baghdad Jim McDermott or Jim Moran so they can head up there and make statements about me on the floor of the House, please hear this. To Congressman Moran I say, "All the armed robberies against small businesses are encouraged by left-wing hatemongers like Jim Moran. They're always trashing businessmen, they're always trashing capitalism, they are always trashing corporations. They're always talking about how these people are ripping off the American people about how they're abusing the American people.

"Jim Moran and his ilk are encouraging people to steal, to rob, to threaten their fellow citizens and hold 'em responsible for this kind of crime." Hey, it's only tit-for-tat, Moran. If you're going to run around out there and make up things I have not said about the census as "anti-government rhetoric," what about you and all of your rhetoric your entire career? Anti-business, anti-military, anti-Big Oil, anti-Walmart, anti-Big Drug, you name it. Is there any wonder, Mr. Moran, why there's so much hate in this country? It's because of people like you and your colleagues in the House and the Senate and everywhere else Democrats are found. You've been ginning up hatred against private sector entrepreneurs, businessmen and individuals for as long as I've been alive. I also think that Moran encouraged terrorists to try and attack our country. His constant attacks on George Bush gave aid and comfort to the enemy -- and not just Moran.

Baghdad Jim McDermott goes over to Baghdad to say (paraphrased), "We love Saddam Hussein. We don't think we should be an invasion here." You guys have drummed up so much anti-American sentiment around the world by criticizing George W. Bush that I think you, Congressman Moran -- and you, Congressman McDermott, you two -- and all of your colleagues are primarily responsible for the recruitment of terrorists all over the world, not Guantanamo and not the war in Iraq and not the war in Afghanistan, but people like you have been running down your own country and running down your own president, encouraging our enemies to take action against us. Doesn't talking up income redistribution encourage robbery, Mr. Moran? I mean, you want to take from people something they've earned that's not yours to give to somebody else.

You want to take from people who work and give it to people who don't work. Does that not encourage robbery? Are you not in fact robbing people yourself, Mr. Moran, by virtue of your so-called progressive tax policy? In fact, didn't Jim Moran cheer the looting of BP? Wasn't he all for the looting of BP? So you guys want to play this game, ah, you go right ahead. Jim Moran? I know Jim Moran is the guy who hit a seven-year-old kid. This was long before Bob Etheridge did it, another Democrat. I think Moran went out there and slugged a seven-year-old black kid. He thought he was stealing his car! Jim Moran thought a young seven-year-old black kid was stealing his car so he hit him, and why did Moran assume the kid was stealing the car? Well, because policies made by Jim Moran have kept people poor and minorities for the longest time.

RUSH: Plattsburgh, New York. This is Howard, and great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I just want to thank you for the Limbaugh Institute and its beautiful campus in the shape of America.

CALLER: I just want to back up briefly here to the attacks on census workers. I would love to see a demographic breakdown of those incidents because I kind of suspect that they're mostly happening in the bluest of the blue cities and the bluest of the blue neighborhoods, and that's my comment.

RUSH: Hang on just a second. I'm telling a guy who's got eight iPhones, buy 'em. (laughing) Go ahead. I'll take 'em. We multitask here. I know exactly what you're talking about. He was talking about Jim Moran accusing me of inspiring violence against census workers, and where it's happening is in the blue states and the blue neighborhoods, where, ahem, the blue voters are, and if there's violence being committed against census, it's not happening in the red states. Howard here is exactly right. But whatever, this program doesn't inspire violence in any way, shape, matter, or form, on anybody.

As we shut our rigs down, the rest of the world ramps up its production. Petrobras is a part of this article:

Since there are some links you may want to go back to from time-to-time, I am going to begin a list of them here. This will be a list to which I will add links each week.

Janine Turner’s website (I’m serious; and the website is serious too). This is if you have an interest in real American history:

Since this will be with us for a long time, the timeline of the BP gulf oil spill:

This is cool: a continuous timeline of the spill, with the daily info and the expansion of the oil, and the response:

Do you want to watch what is happening on our border? These are actual videos of observations cams along the border:

Celebrity Jihad (no, really). The headline to one story: Heroic Helen Thomas Tells Jews to "Get the Hell Out of Palestine," Go Back to Germany, Poland. Under the heading harlots, there are bunches of photos of starlets showing cleavage or wearing bikinis. This site appears to be deeply tongue-in-cheek.

Legendary White House reporter and founding member of the Muppets Helen Thomas made a heroic stand against the Zionists late last month, telling Jews to "get the hell out of Palestine" and to go home to "Poland and Germany."

Before the Jews sink their devilish claws into Helen, we want to show our solidarity by calling on all Jews to leave Zionist Occupied Hollywood by the end of June, or we shall begin "Operation Gevalt," which will disrupt all shipments of Nova lox to the west coast.

The Freedom Project (most a conservative news and opinion site which appears to concentrate on matters financial)

Weekly poll, asking you to identify what we ought to cut in governmental spending:

Are you tired of all the unfocused news and lame talking heads yelling at one another? Just grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and see what is really going on in the world:

Judith Miller is one of the moderate and fairly level-headed voices for FoxNews:

Conservative New Media (it is so-so; I must admit to getting tired of seeing the interviewer high-fiving Carly Fiorina 3 or 4 times during an interview):

Army Ranger Michael Behenna sentenced to 25 years in prison for 25 years for shooting Al Qaeda operative

Maybe the White House does not need to hold press conferences? It releases exclusive articles daily right here:

This is quite helpful; it is a list of all leftist groups, with links to background information on each of these groups (when I checked, 879 groups were listed). This is a fantastic resource.

One of the more radical people from the right, calling for the impeachment of Obama:

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a free enterprise site (there are several videos on the flat tax):

This is a pretty radical site which alleges that Obama is a Marxist hell-bent in taking over our country:

1982 interview with Larry Grathwohl on Ayers' plan for American re-education camps and the need to kill millions

This is an interesting site; it seems to be devoted to the debate of climate change:

This is a news site which I just discovered; they gave 3 minute coverage to Obama’s healthcare summit and seemed to give a pretty decent overall view of it, without slanting one way or the other:

I have glanced through their website and it seems to be quite professional and reasonable. They have apparently been around since 1942.

This is fantastic; Florida (the Sunshine State) is now putting its state budget online:

Suzanne Somers s supposed to be older than Bill O’Reilly? He interviewed her this week, and she looked, well, hot. She is big into vitamins and human growth hormones.

The National Journal, which is a political journal (which, at first glance, seems to be pretty even-handed):

And I am hoping that most people see this as non-partisan: Citizens Against Government Waste:

This website reveals a lot of information about politicians and their relationship to money. You can find out, among other things, how many earmarks that Harry Reid has been responsible for in any given year; or how much an individual Congressman’s wealth has increased or decreased since taking office.

This is an outstanding website which tells the truth about Obama-care and about what the mainstream media is hiding from you:

Politico.com is a fairly neutral site (or, at the very worst, just a little left of center). They have very good informative videos at:

On Obama (if you have not visited this site, you need to check it out). He is selling a DVD on this site as well called Media Malpractice; I have not viewed it yet, except pieces which I have seen played on tv and on the internet. It looks pretty good to me.