Gallup

Conservatives are growing at the expense of both moderates and liberals. I suppose that's why the folks at CNN have so desperately tried to denigrate the tea party movement and town hall protesters.

This is, of course, the asymmetry of American politics: there are more conservatives than liberals, but more Democrats than Republicans. Hence the constant anxiety among Democrats that their party could crash and burn; hence, too, the frustration by conservatives that so many Republicans can't bring themselves to embrace conservative ideals.

NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The plunge in U.S. newspaper circulation is accelerating, according to the latest figures released on Monday, as more people cancel their subscriptions and publishers cut distribution and sales of discounted copies.

Average weekday circulation at 379 daily newspapers fell 10.6 percent to about 30.4 million copies for the six months that ended on Sept. 30, 2009 from the same period last year, according to the U.S. Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The pace of decline more than doubled compared with last year. From September 2007 to September 2008, circulation fell 4.6 percent. Sunday circulation, which was measured at 562 papers, fell 7.5 percent to 40 million copies. Last year's Sunday decline was 4.9 percent. None of the top 25 papers by circulation made any Sunday gains in the latest figures.

One wonders what it will take to get news executives' attention.

Recently, President Obama's advisors have decided that it's easier to blame the Bush Administration than support our troops. This weekend they leveled a charge that cannot go unanswered. The President's chief of staff claimed that the Bush Administration hadn't asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.

In the fall of 2008, fully aware of the need to meet new challenges being posed by the Taliban, we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that repeatedly went into the country, reviewing options and recommendations, and briefing President-elect Obama's team. They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt. The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them. They made a decision - a good one, I think - and sent a commander into the field to implement it. Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced . . .

In short, the Obama administration falsely claimed that the Bush administration had done no planning or analysis regarding the worsening situation in Afghanistan, even though it (1) knew this was false, (2) had asked the Bush administration not to disclose its work, and (3) relied in part on the same work it claimed the Bush administration had not performed.

We've known for some time that Obama and his operatives have no class. This is apparent, for example, from the fact that Obama has never been able to say a positive word about his predecessor. George W. Bush, by contrast, was quite gracious towards Bill Clinton as, indeed, Clinton was towards George H.W. Bush.

But what Cheney described last night goes well beyond lack of class. One typically exhibits class by doing small, gracious things beyond the minimum that is expected. Class, in another words, is a plus. It's a very good thing to have, but its absence is not really a negative and certainly does not pose any danger.

But the rank, opportunistic dishonesty described by Cheney demonstrates an affirmatively bad character. And an administration craven enough to engage in it is a dangerous, potentially thuggish administration -- the kind that probably would think nothing of developing and acting upon an enemies list, for example.

A few weeks ago, a funny thing happened - call it a late night political paradigm shift. Conan O'Brien put some extra bite to his bark by featuring a tape of Sesame Street characters who earlier in the day had visited with the First Lady to talk about healthy eating. Conan overdubbed the clip and, suddenly, instead of talking about food, the muppets questioned Obama's 'United States birth certificate' and his 'socialist health care agenda.'

In the past, satire like this might have been automatically assumed to be an attack on the right, but the skit ended up taking some Obama fans aback. Perhaps it struck a nerve.

Then, Saturday Night Live rolled out a skit blatantly saying Obama had accomplished nothing, and followed it up by laughing at his Nobel Prize - relatively mild in execution, but they managed to cause a stir in the press.

These comedic bits, once routine against President Bush, distressed many Democrat opinion leaders. Suddenly, more than a few talking heads were calling for the White House to start making their accomplishments clear - (so it looks like they have some). Others were killing the messenger - calling SNL's Fred Armisen, who plays Obama, "no Tina Fey."

Touchy.

Allow me to explain. I'm not from around these parts. I grew up in Scotland, spent a decade in Russia, and arrived in the US three years ago. As something of a night owl I soon found myself confronted with America's strange, televisual dream-world of nocturnal gibberish, and the even more perplexing national obsession with the personalities, rivalries and ratings battles that played out between the competing purveyors of this gibberish. . . .

What was most striking about these shows however was that they were all crap: boring, repetitious, filled with padding, and containing an endless stream of plugs for films and CDs delivered by sublimely tedious celebrities. I couldn't understand why there were so many of these chat shows, why anybody watched them, or why - with so many writers - the hosts were at best only ever mildly amusing, and intermittently at that. Most of all I couldn't understand the cult of David Letterman. . . .

Arriving in the states, however, I kept hearing the name: Letterman, Letterman. So I decided to give his show another stab. But every time I tried to sit through an episode this is what I saw: a smug, lazy old bore, seething with suppressed rage and bitterness. The bitterness was intriguing: it always is when you see it in highly successful people, such as Letterman's equally over-rated comrade in entertainment, the legendary Paul McCartney. In McCartney I understand it, however: he's jealous of Lennon, who everyone knows was the greater talent in the partnership. But what's eating Letterman? Is he still angry about Leno? Or is it that he's filled with contempt for what he does, considering himself above the whole chat show schtick? Who knows? Who cares? Even when he caused outrage with his comments about Sarah Palin's daughter I was more shocked by how complacent, how lazy he was. With an army of paid writers, this is the best he can come up with?

Levi Johnston's shameless exploitation by the liberal media is more than just a convenient cudgel for bashing Sarah Palin. It's a modern minstrel show, with "Middle American" substituted for "African-American" as Levi capers for his condescending media "friends" wearing figurative blackface. And just as the minstrel shows of the past were tools to reinforce prejudice, the Levi Johnston show is meant to reinforce the prejudices and smug sense of superiority of its elitist liberal audience.

Levi is the Kevin Federline of American politics, a good-looking, not-too-bright guy catching a break by impregnating a rising star, or at least one's daughter, then basking in the reflected glow. When things went south with Bristol Palin, he found, in a mainstream media eager for anything that might derail the Sarah Palin express, an opportunity to go farther than he ever thought he could. Movies, modeling, memoirs - anything was possible, they assured him. Just tell us what we want to hear, Levi - the good stuff, the juicy stuff, the stuff too good to fact check. Oh, and hand over your dignity while you're at it.

But Levi's antics are about more than just manufacturing ammunition to fire at Governor Palin. The minstrel shows of the past were calculated to demonstrate white superiority through the employment of the most degrading stereotypes and the ritualized humiliation of the African-American performers. This shameful circus is no different. Levi's mindless brand of masculinity, his dropping out of high school, his troubled home life - these are all the hyper-exaggerated cultural touchstones the bicoastal liberal elite imagines define the rest of our country.

Levi Johnston is what they want to see when they look at Middle America. They don't want to see the young heroes like Track Palin, an Iraqi Freedom vet. They don't want to see Americans whose commitment to a better world is manifested by their putting their lives on the line instead of pasting a "Hope & Change" bumpersticker to the back of their Prius. They want - and need - clowns, and Levi is only too happy to oblige them.

Center-left to center Volkskrant (Netherlands): ”It’s clear that Obama has increasingly more difficulty meeting expectations. His inspiring words about peace and deproliferation have yet to be supported by any concrete results. What is meant to be a reward [for great achievements], could very well end up being tremendous burden for Obama.”

The right-of-center Telegraaf (Netherlands): “This isn’t the first mistake of the Committee, but it is the biggest. The value of the Nobel Peace Prize has been diminished.”

Benedict Brogan, writing for the British newspaper the Telegraph: “To reward him for a blank results sheet, to inflate him when he has no achievements to his name, makes a mockery of what, let’s face it, is an already fairly discredited process (remember Rigoberta Menchu in 1992? Ha!). That’s not the point. What this does is accelerate the elevation of President Obama to a comedy confection, which he does not deserve, and gives his critics yet another bat to whack him with. Shame on the Swedes Norwegians*. He should turn it down, even if he does look great in white tie and tails.”

The Times of London: “Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.

“Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.”

Left-wing rag the Guardian: “Indeed, the reasoning behind the awarding of the prize to previous American presidents has been easier to discern. Teddy Roosevelt opened the court of arbitration in the Hague and helped mediate a peace treaty between Russia and Japan; Woodrow Wilson was the founder of the League of Nations. Jimmy Carter won his prize for his “untiring efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts”.

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

. . . . It’s the final nail in the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s coffin.

A Chinese dissident and an Afghan women’s rights activist lost out to this:

The Nobel committee praised Obama’s creation of “a new climate in international politics” and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage. The plaudit appeared to be a slap at President George W. Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama’s predecessor for resorting to largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Rather than recognizing concrete achievement, the 2009 prize appeared intended to support initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.

I can’t capture the incredulity this morning any better than Allahpundit has: “Am I awake?”

Erik Erickson at RedState quips: He’s Becoming Jimmy Carter Faster Than Jimmy Carter Did.

WASHINGTON: In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance.

Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about ... themselves. Although the working of the committee's mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago's bid for the 2016 games on aesthetic grounds -- unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport.

In the 41 sentences of her remarks, Michelle Obama used some form of the personal pronouns "I" or "me" 44 times. Her husband was, comparatively, a shrinking violet, using those pronouns only 26 times in 48 sentences. Still, 70 times in 89 sentences was sufficient to convey the message that somehow their fascinating selves were what made, or should have made, Chicago's case compelling.

A group of red shirt-wearing Chavista thugs show up at a farm and seize the farm in the name of the government, under the pretext that the 103 hectare farm is “idle land” and that the law allows them to take it over for “food production.”

The farmer protests politely, explaining that he’s been raising cattle on his farm for 23 years. He is rebuffed by another guy, who says, “this is not going to be a debate; this is a public act approved by the Venezuelan people. I’m governor and I’m here to ensure public order. There won’t be a debate, I ask you to listen to the document, after which the public will take charge of the land.”

When the farmer’s wife protests, he tells her to discuss it in court.

Chavez controls the judiciary.

The farmer is told to sign the form, and then to gather the animals so they can be accounted for.

When another one of the people who lived at the farm tries to ask a question, the man who identified himself as the governor insists that “this is not a debate, this is not a meeting, and if there’s any disruption, the public force is here,” pointing to the crowd in red shirts.