HALF-FULL REPORT 03/23/12

Published March 23, 2012 | By Jack Kelly

Jack Wheeler is still in Africa, so I’ll be subbing for him this week and next.

We’ll begin this HFR with unadulterated good news. The Supreme Court smacked down the EPA Wednesday for regulatory overreach. Details here.

I can think of another case of regulatory overreach the Supreme Court will address this term. Let’s hope this decision is a harbinger of things to come.

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The mission in Afghanistan is on track, Marine Gen. John Allen, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday.

If Gen. Allen really believed that, he’d be delusional.

Afghan soldiers and policemen have murdered a Coalition soldier or aid worker a week since early 2010, according to an Army study. Seven U.S. troops were killed in the wake of the Koran burnings last month.

Our soldiers think their Afghan "allies" are unstable, incompetent, drug abusers and thieves, according to that Army study. They’re cowardly, lazy, lack discipline, are dangerous in firefights, and have poor hygiene.

So don’t bet on the Afghans being ready to take over in 2014, the deadline the president set for withdrawal of U.S. troops. But that’s the lesser problem. The larger problem is there is very little difference between the Karzai government and the Taliban – and the troops know it. If you didn’t read Ralph Peter’s magnificent rant last week, here’s another chance.

In 1997, H.R. McMaster, then a major, wrote a book about an earlier war in which senior military leaders paid excessive deference to political superiors. It was entitled: "Dereliction of Duty." Now a brigadier general, Mr. McMaster is one of the Army’s brightest stars. I wonder what he thinks of today’s senior commanders?

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There is always stiff competition for the stretch of the week by a liberal journalist. This week’s winner is Mika Brezinski of MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" program, for trying to link the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla to Rush Limbaugh’s remarks about Sandra Fluke.

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The fat lady was warming up after Mitt Romney’s big win in Illinois Tuesday. Then Romney’s own campaign manager revived fears Mitt is a duplicitous squish:

You hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-a-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.

Eric Fehrnstrom’s comment, said Allahpundit, was:

So stupidly vivid and vividly stupid given Romney’s vulnerabilities that it ends up being more effective than 99 percent of the attacks Santorum and Gingrich have lobbed at Mitt.

This wasn’t the first gaffe by the Romney campaign. But this time, it wasn’t Mitt who made it. The primaries are making him a better candidate, Rush Limbaugh thinks. So maybe it’s good Fehrnstrom’s blunder will stretch them out. But probably not much longer, because Rick Santorum has jumped the shark.

Romney’s been winning primaries by bombing his opponents with negative ads. I’ve said before that he has yet to make a positive case for his candidacy. I worry about this less now, because Rep. Paul Ryan is making it for him.

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GOP prospects hinge heavily on how the middle class responds to Ryan’s budget, which the House will vote on next week. Ryan proposes to spend $5.3 trillion less over the next decade than Zero does. Here’s a summary of what’s in his plan. Ryan describes the stakes here.

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Bill Kristol calls it "the document of a serious governing party." At National Review, Larry Kudlow likes the "supply side" tax reforms. Yuval Levin thinks it makes the politics of Medicare reform "significantly easier" for Republicans.

I hope he’s right, because Democrats already are running Mediscare ads. Kevin Williamson frets that middle class Americans will oppose any reduction in entitlement programs. But Michael Barone notes that last year’s Mediscare campaign did not reduce GOP standing in generic House vote polls. And Obama media guru David Axelrod beclowned himself trying to defend Senate Democrats for failing to produce a budget.

The Ryan plan doesn’t balance the budget quickly enough, says the Club for Growth. Sens. Rand Paul, Jim DeMint and Mike Lee have proposed a budget that cuts spending $5 trillion more than Ryan does.

With the Dems in charge of the Senate, neither budget can pass. But in the titanic PR battle to come, conservative criticism may make it harder for Dems to portray the Ryan plan as "extreme." The bottom line is that:

There is no way Ryan can sell his plan, or even part of his plan, unless he can convince a majority of Americans that the country, and not anyone’s grandmother, is headed over a cliff. The message of the Democrats’ 1,056-day stall is that nothing needs to be done. Ryan has risked a lot to argue that that is wrong, and this could be the year his message is finally heard.

Zero has increased the debt more in less than four years than George W. Bush did in eight. Debt is rising so fast Congress may have to raise the debt ceiling just before the election.

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As gas prices rise, Obama’s poll numbers plummet, and he’s flailing. Zero is racing around the country, frantically trying to fool half the people one more time. In Cushing, Oklahoma, yesterday (3/22): He was incredibly defensive because little of what he says is true.

And, like Big Brother in the George Orwell’s novel 1984, he’s trying to drop inconvenient facts down the Memory Hole.

But posing with an oil derrick won’t solve his problems.

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General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt has been Barack Obama’s favorite businessman. The president appointed him to head his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. But he’s planning to vote for Romney, says Charles Gasparino.

Obama’s best friend on Wall Street in 2008 was JP MorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon, a Democrat from Chicago who Zero considered making Treasury Secretary .

They are buddies no longer. Like most on Wall Street, Dimon is pissed about Finreg, and by Zero’s anti-business rhetoric. But Noam Scheiber writes here Obama dumped him. Zero may come to regret that. Dimon attended a Romney fund-raiser last September.

It isn’t just Zero’s economic policies that are causing some big time backers to bolt.

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Obama isn’t the only Dem having troubles. Senate Dems up for re-election this year are going to get blown out, Dick Morris thinks.

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It’s been a year this week since President Obama intervened militarily in Libya. Things haven’t worked out the way he said they would.

Wednesday was the second anniversary of the passage of Obamacare. Zero said he is more proud of Obamacare than of killing Osama bin Laden. So why is he hoping Americans won’t notice Obamacare’s anniversary? The Republican National Committee remembered.

Democrats don’t want to talk about Obamacare because everything they said about it was a lie. Obamacare will cost twice as much as Zero said it would, says CBO. You can keep your private health insurance if you want to, Zero promised. He was lying. Obamacare raises health care costs, will create a doctor shortage, and is killing jobs. And, oh yeah, there are death panels.

The biggest issue is liberty, which Rep. Paul Ryan addressed on the infamous day the Dems snuck this socialist monstrosity through.

Try as they might, the Dems can’t hide Obamacare from the voters, Charles Krauthammer said. Romney says here why he’d repeal it.

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The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had their prime suspect in the "Fast and Furious" (Gunwalker) case, but let him go, reports Richard Serrano of the Los Angeles Times.

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Diana West, a "mainstream" conservative with a distinguished journalistic pedigree, agrees with Sheriff Joe Arpaio that there’s something fishy about Zero’s birth certificate. Lord Moncton agrees.

West berates the silence of the lapdogs.

One editor told me the problem is the evidence of fraud might prove to be true! A very famous conservative figure told me that if the president were proved to be an identity thief, "that would alienate too many people" from the Republican Party!

I am reminded of Groucho Marx’s answer to the question, Are we mice or men? "Throw some cheese on the floor and we’ll find out."

It’s time for us to throw some cheese on the floor. And on that note, I’ll close this week’s HFR.