BREAKING NEWS

Obama has authorized 40,000 troops for combat ... with Fox News.

THE GIBBS SEAL OF APPROVAL

FOX News’Brit Hume wonders whether American journalists from other news organizations really will become the lackeys of the Obama administration by ignoring news stories originating at Fox, just because Robert Gibbs disapproves of FOX News.

RIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK

Via WTOP radio.

[Washington DC] Metrobus operators have been disciplined hundreds of times for speeding, running red lights and striking pedestrians since 2004. During the same time period, many drivers have been caught driving while distracted, including one case where a bus operator was watching television behind the wheel.

Documents obtained by WTOP through a public records request show that since 2004, bus operators have racked up almost 400 violations for running red lights, as well as 260 speeding violations. In one instance, a bus operator was driving 59 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.

One has to wonder how many are affirmative action employees hired in spite of bad records ... but that question will never be asked.

To be fair, Metro has several thousand drivers, most of whom have never had a violation. But still ... how do so many get through the screening process, and why are they still employed?

VOTING RIGHTS?

U.S. Justice Department blocks North Carolina city's nonpartisan vote.

Voters in the city [Kinston, NC] decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.

The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

Republicans need not apply ....

POST ENDORSES DEEDS FOR VA GOVERNOR

I knew I was correct in deciding to vote for Bob McDonnell for Governor of Virginia.

Polling agrees: McDonnell, 59%; Deeds, 40%. One commenter snarks “Do you have a nest of racist, right-wing fascists in your newsroom? It will only encourage the sheep to vote Republican, against their own best interests. Get another polling firm quick -- one that produces the correct results.”

Glenn Reynolds wonders if there’s time left for the Washington Post to produce another “Macaca moment.”

DOES OBAMA BELIEVE IN HUMAN RIGHTS?

Of course he does. It’s all in the definition of “human.”

WHOLE FOODS DEFENDS CAPITALISM

"As long as it [capitalism] is seen as a philosophy of “greed,” [Whole Food CEO John] Mackey warns, then it will remain vulnerable to statist alternatives that kill economic growth, liberty, and technology."

The interview is here.

IN A CATEGORY BY HIMSELF

Believe it or not:

The Magazine Publishers of America's American Society of Magazine Editors has added a category to its annual magazine cover awards: Obama. This new category is the only ASME category focused on a single person, and highlights the reverential attitude for the President widely held in the magazine publishing community.

It's true; scroll to the bottom for details.

JUST ASKING

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders: "If the Democrats' health care package is so great, why are President Obama and Democrat congressional leaders so hungry to share the credit for its passage with a Republican?"

LETTERS TO CAMILLE

Paglia responds to her readers:

On Obama's administration:

Yes, ever since week one of the Obama administration, I have been doggedly calling for heads to roll. As months of crass ineptitude drag on, however, the blacklist of those who should be tagged for the guillotine gets longer and longer. The most recent fiasco, of course, was sending the president of the United States on a humiliating fool's errand to beg for the Olympics as a Chicago boondoggle. I cheered when splendiferous Rio de Janeiro rightfully got the gig.

You are correct to argue that the cluster of appointees around a person in power reflects his or her belief system and modus operandi. However, it is a mark of leadership to recognize the need for professional evolution beyond an old comfort zone. Obama is approaching a turning point which will define his political future, if he has one. He is surrounded by some mighty small potatoes who need shoveling into the dumpster. The petty provincials need to go, and far more sophisticated and world-savvy analysts must urgently be brought on board.

On Sarah Palin:

I too have been repulsed by the elitist insults flung at Sarah Palin in the massive, coordinated media effort to destroy her. Hence I have been thoroughly enjoying the way that Palin, despite all the dirt thrown at her by liberal journalists and bloggers, keeps bouncing back as if unscathed. No sooner did the gloating harpies of the Northeastern media think they had torn her to shreds than she exploded into number one on Amazon.com with a memoir that hadn't even been printed yet! With each one of these amusing triumphs, Palin is solidifying her status as a bona fide American cultural heroine.

Yes, the snobbery about Palin's five colleges is especially distasteful, given the Democratic party's supposed allegiance to populism. Judging by the increasingly limited cultural and factual knowledge of graduates of elite schools whom one encounters working in the media, blue-chip sheepskins aren't worth the parchment they're printed on these days. Young people forced through the ruthlessly competitive college admissions rat race have the independence and creativity pinched right out of them. Proof? Where are the major young American artists, writers, critics or movie-makers of the past 20 years? The most adventurous and enterprising minds have gone into high tech. We're in a horrendous cultural vacuum because our status-besotted education industry is geared toward producing not original thinkers but docile creatures of the system.

There's more. Read it all.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

This is what a "big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick" looks like.

And this is what a blithering idiot looks like.

Via PowerLine.

WHO'S PARTISAN?

The Obama administration has declared political war on the Fox News Channel, claiming that "it really is more a wing of the Republican Party."

Well, maybe.

Fox's news operation ... slants conservative ... in the choice of topics: fiscal irresponsibility, the expansion of big government, an imperial judiciary, the war on terrorism, radical Islam, crime, teenage out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and the culture wars.

Fox has filled an ideological vacuum left by the likes of CNN and MSNBC.... Fox consciously - even proudly - caters to God-fearing, gun-toting, red-state viewers. It speaks to the populist, patriotic and conservative values embodied by Middle America - principles that have been consistently mocked by media elites.

Which, perhaps, is the reason its ratings are soaring while its competitors are moribund.

THREE YEAR COLLEGE DEGREES

The three-year solution. Think of how much money could be saved if the Ivy League schools would just send a diploma on acceptance. And the new graduates would probably be better off, too ....

Linked through Hot Air.

BLACKBALLING CONSERVATISM

Diana West on the vicious, public campaign to blackball Rush Limbaugh as a potential owner of an NFL team.

Keith Olbermann. In addition to his nightly gig on MSNBC -- a numbing blend of Leftist politics and something approaching Tourette's syndrome -- Olbermann is a co-host of NBC's "Football Night in America," the pre-game show that leads into "Sunday Night Football." Naturally, that would be Sunday night NFL football.

Olbermann calls an accomplished and best-selling conservative author, commentator, blogger, wife and mother a "big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick," but such dehumanizing venom doesn't count as controversial, or even lightly strain his NBC-NFL connection.

A must read.

Link from Michelle Malkin.

GIVE ME A CHOICE

At present, I don't have a choice - at 65, I have to sign up for Medicare if I want to receive Social Security benefits, even if I have excellent coverage on my wife's plan. No Medicare, no Social security.

But that may be changing.

Seniors who want to collect their Social Security benefits and opt out of Medicare won a court victory recently that hopefully will pave the way for them to be able to do just that.

U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer denied a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs claim [that] the federal government has no right to force them into Medicare while holding their hard-earned Social Security benefits hostage.

If Ross Perot - and I - want to pay for our own health care, shouldn't we be allowed to?

WHITE HOUSE ANKLE-BITERS

The New York Times insults bloggers, comparing the White House Reality Check web site "to the blog of some unemployed guy living in his parents’ basement.”

Via Instapundit.

[Update] Hmm. The White House "Reality Check" site seems to have changed from that described by the Times. Embarrassment?

[Another Update] From the Fox News website. Jeez, it it my imagination, or does the Obama administration really look petty?

THE (NON)TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS

Sometimes I think the desire for coercion comes first, then the theory to justify it. . . .

MUST-READS FROM VICTOR DAVIS HANSEN

Confessions of a Cultural Drop-out.

Have you stopped reading, listening, watching, and paying attention to most of what now passes for establishment public or popular culture?

I don’t particularly like the idea that I want little to do with contemporary culture. But I feel it nonetheless ....

Confusions of the Age.

Sports: "But with the Limbaugh matter, the entire Potemkin edifice is exposed .... Is Ted Turner never allowed to buy another sports team, given his outrageous political statements about Iran, Israel, Bush, global warming, etc?"

Russia: "When we serially cried out “reset” button, blamed Bush for the new Cold War with Russia, and promised to “listen”, we knew the US was walking blindfolded up the steps of Putin’s guillotine."

Sexual hypocricy: "[I]f popular culture has all but suggested that heterosexuals who engage in such an act are depraved when carried out consensually, and especially worthy of odium beyond that accorded to the rapist, when as an act of coercion, why is the subject simply taboo in matters of public discussion of male homosexuality?"

Racism: "[I]n just 9 months there have been more racially charged rhetoric and more charges of “racist!” than we’ve seen in the past decade."

Wealth: "The rich offer bromides for the poor, but are exempt by their capital from the consequences should such social policy prove ill thought-out."

Read them both.

FOOLS OR KNAVES

Tom Blumer on government spending:

We’re surrounded by either fools or knaves.

The support for the “knave” alternative is becoming more compelling. People who are serious about their desire for an economic recovery simply don’t do the things they have done and don’t propose the things they are proposing. What they want are things you would expect from the government of a banana republic, not the supposed leader of the free world.

My suppport for the “fool” theory is wavering. Read the whole thing.

MR. PRESIDENT

It's about time.

[Update] The source for the photo - a protest in San Francisco during President Obama's visit on October 15.