Writing at the American Spectator, Quin Hillyer notes that President Obama is back to his old whine that Republicans and conservatives wish for him to fail.

As this is neither a particularly profound nor difficult-to-explain notion, Hillyer disposes of it with relative ease.

First, Obama’s actual quote from yesterday:

“They’re making the same calculation they made just before the inauguration: If I fail, they win,” he said. “Well, they might think this will get them where they need to go in November, but it won’t get our country where it needs to go in the long run.”

And now Hillyer’s evisceration of it.

He stipulates to everything Obama says, save for the final clause. Hillyer draws a major distinction on the desire for the president to fail, one which has two operative parts.

First, in those actions which genuinely move America forward he (and we) supports Obama’s success. Unfortunately, none of those actions seem to be included in the president’s agenda – Obamacare, Card Check, Net Neutrality, bailouts, financial “reform,” Cap And Trade and the rest are disastrous offenses against individual liberty and prosperity, and any believer in the principles of the country’s founding would surely condemn them as such rather than wish Obama well in his efforts at cramming them down our throats.

And second, and perhaps most importantly, Hillyer recognizes the arrogance inherent in Obama’s “If I fail…it won’t get our country where it needs to go” griping…

Obama seems to conflate his agenda with the only possible way to right the ship of state. He seems to believe that “l’etat, c’est moi.” He’s dead wrong.

And then comes prose which massages the conservative soul…

So I do hope he fails. I hope he fails in making government bigger and more powerful. I hope he fails at passing any more stimulus or infrastructure spending. I hope he fails at his payoffs to union bosses and jackpot justice big-money plaintiffs’ attorneys. I hope he fails at politicizing and corrupting the Justice Department. I hope he fails in almost all of his over-bearing regulatory schemes and administrative end-runs (some of them arguably illegal) around Congress. I hope he fails at raising taxes. I hope he fails at continuing to destroy what’s left of the 1996 welfare reform bill. I hope he fails at subjugating American interests to the desires of supposedly elite international actors. I hope he fails at “transforming” America, which needs no transformation at all. I hope he fails, fails, fails, fails, fails. And the reason I hope he fails is not so somebody else can gain political advantage, but so the United States can thrive again — free from the shackles imposed by a philosophical alien in the White House. Yes, Mr. President, in that sense I hope you fail.

Hell, yeah.

The “L’etat, c’est moi” mentality on display in Obama’s statements that Hillyer identifies is, I think, the operative element at work here. Obama’s presidency has been marked by exceedingly extralegal conduct within the executive branch and utter disregard for popular opinion in his pursuit of policy. In short, this administration looks a lot like that of a Third World ruling cabal, where the rule of law is debased and the consent of the governed is derided. As such it’s no surprise that the potentate in charge of the regime would treat opposition to his policies not as driven by principle but as a rejection of his imperial person – and seek to demonize that opposition in kind.

This means eight weeks of “John Boehner is a doodie-head” and “those Tea Party kooks are just like the Klan.”

It’s unlikely the American people will be swayed by such low-brow rhetoric on the part of the nation’s highest-ranking elected official. Polls show that in the upcoming midterms, as with many of his other political endeavors, a majority of the nation joins Hillyer and most conservatives in hoping Obama fails.

He’s going to have to deal with that after Election Day. How he copes will be a significant story to watch unfold.

Hat Tip: DRScoundrels

Conservatives are presently enjoying a growing sense of impending victory in the mid-term elections.  We’re told that a transformed, conservative Republican group will almost certainly enjoy a majority in the House of Representatives, and quite possibly in the Senate as well.  This news is accompanied and encouraged by increasingly favorable poll results.  While all of this is good news, it creates a risk that the conservative movement will come to suffer from a complacent sense of having already won the battle, and as a result, will not show up at the polls in November.

What can you do to help assure that doesn’t happen?

We are all aware of the “sudden” outburst of conservative activism since the campaign of Barack Obama, and especially since Obamacare was shoved into a variety of anatomical orifices by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  As Katy Abram, an unknown (then) wife and mother warned Arlen Specter, liberal politics has “awakened a sleeping giant.”  It would be a tragedy for that giant to return to its former state of hibernation and let this opportunity pass.

Only you can choose not to let that happen.  First and foremost, you must choose not to become complacent.  Following that –

Search out a few good, conservative political blogs.  While we at TheHayride would like to be one of your regular reads, it is not the intent of this post to promote the site (you’ve already found us or you wouldn’t be reading this).  Check out some of our friends on our Blog Roll, as well as Big Government and National Review Online, the latter two of which will expose you to the thoughts of prominent national conservative analysts in a hurry.

When you find a site the content of which stirs you to action, promote it to your friends.  When you read a post that teaches you something new or moves you in other ways, email its links to your friends who share your political views, and especially to those who don’t, or those who are indifferent.

Use Facebook and Twitter to share your ideas and again, to follow conservative politicians or analysts.  Post links to articles you like on Facebook and tweet them on Twitter.

Talk it up!  In conversation with friends and colleagues, steer the conversation toward the agenda of the current administration and Congress, and point out the reasons you disagree.  Spread information, and fight misinformation.  If you are not familiar with the issues, such as Cap and Trade, invest the time to do a little research to understand those issues.

Get involved with a conservative action group such as your local Tea Party.  Volunteer to support a candidate by working phone banks from your home.

Put your money where your mouth is.  While we recognize that these are difficult economic times for many people, how much more difficult will they become if we don’t change the face of Washington?  Perhaps you can only afford to donate $10, but if you help find and encourage 999,999 more people to do the same thing, you’ll be part of $10million going to the cause you support.

Put a sign in your yard.

Put a bumper sticker on your car.

Whatever you do, don’t let the growing wave of encouraging news allow you to become complacent.  Rather, help it grow into the conservative tsunami we all look forward to as polls close on November 2.

Well worth a listen.

Via Rightscoop.com.

So we’ve been talking here at the Hayride about this tidal wave, this earthquake, this electoral holocaust which is coming in November. And we’ve been describing all the reasons why the Republicans are going to get the votes to make John Boehner Speaker of the House next year. They might even have the votes to take control of the Senate; the conventional wisdom so far is that’s unlikely, but our analysis says if current trends continue the conventional wisdom is going to be worth what it’s usually worth – a bucket of warm spit.

So it’s November 3rd, and the newly-minted GOP House majority leadership is asking itself that famous Robert Redford/The Candidate question: what now? After all, following a massive wave election which sweeps them in and Nancy Pelosi out of control of the House, the American people are going to expect results. They’re going to want to see something done about deficits and debt, they’re going to want the tax code and immigration fixed, they’re going to want something done about Obamacare, they’re going to want an end to bailouts and favored treatments and they’re going to want to feel some pride in being American again.

But unfortunately, even if the GOP manages to cobble together a Senate majority to go with a Boehner speakership those things are simply not in the cards. Without a suitable majority to overcome a Democrat filibuster in the Senate or an Obama veto, the options for making substantial progress in substantive policy are severely limited. Boehner will need to perform major surgery on the expectations of the American people in the regards discussed above, because while he and his compatriots in the Senate might manage to pass some bills addressing those concerns the likelihood of legitimate reforms to get the country moving again is slim. The last Democrat president in a similar situation, Bill Clinton, chose to tack hard to the center and in doing so secured re-election in large measure by glomming onto Republican legislation and taking credit for the results. But Obama is not Clinton, and even if he does decide to follow his Democrat predecessor’s path he won’t swallow Republican reforms whole.

In fact, Obama has repeatedly proven his political style is the Chicago style. Might makes right with this president, and any progress made against him will require very tough dealing. Boehner and his gang will have to exceed the ruthlessness and audacity of the White House if they want to succeed – something the conservative movement is not yet convinced they’re willing or capable of doing.

So Boehner and his team are going to need to consider the next two years not in terms of immediate political success or policy triumph; in all likelihood they’re going to be engaging in trench warfare. Progress will be slow and bloody on the policy front – unless the House Republicans are willing to take steps to change the game in Washington by circumventing Obama’s veto in several key areas.

Five of those steps are outlined below.

1. The Inquisition. This is, on the surface, anything but an unexpected or unprecedented idea, but it’s what the Democrats fear most and it’s also perhaps the best way to pave the way for a larger GOP majority and a Republican in the White House after the 2012 elections. Incoming GOP chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa is already considering hearings and investigations into the behavior of the Obama administration and the current Democrat leadership on a host of issues; he needs to proceed. In fact, if Issa was to make himself the new Torquemada and conduct a regime aimed at completely discrediting every Democrat in sight, starting with Nancy Pelosi and the myriad abuses of her speakership, those investigations would likely bear fruit. While the public perception of politicized hearings will initially be negative, that’s OK; if Issa gets going immediately and brings out some skeletons by the summer or fall of 2011, the results will be the main story and not the investigations themselves.

Let’s not forget that Pelosi has already told us investigations are her greatest fear. She’s been blasting out letters to Democrat donors using the fear of Republican investigations, invoking the name of Ken Starr and “the politics of personal destruction” and warning of impending recriminations all summer. It’s a classic case of one’s opponent showing his hand; if Pelosi is so concerned about Issa’s investigations it’s not for the sake of her convenience. Let’s face it, Pelosi is a gold mine all by herself. Whether it’s her misuse of military jets, her dissimilation on the CIA interrogation issue, the corrupt process by which she rammed through Obamacare or her blocking of accountability for corrupt Democrats in Congress, there is enough material out there to turn Pelosi into the Emmanuel Goldstein of American politics. And this is useful to the GOP, because while it’s unlikely Pelosi would return to the Speaker’s chair if the Democrats were to retake control in a future cycle, the current makeup of the Democrat Party would mean someone not dissimilar to her – like Ed Markey, for example, or Henry Waxman, or Debbie Wasserman Schultz – would take over. The American people need to have a frame of reference for what that would be like. 

Pelosi isn’t the only piece of low-hanging fruit. When the House Ethics Committee commenced its long-overdue probe into Maxine Waters, she immediately cried racism. The new GOP majority should voice its agreement and launch an investigation into Barney Frank and his efforts to prevent reform of Fannie and Freddie before those two government-sponsored behemoths, operated by Democrat apparatchiks like Jamie Gorelick and Franklin Raines, burned our economy down. But the Obama administration, and in particular Attorney General Eric Holder, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Obama’s unvetted and seemingly unaccountable czars, has to be a major target as well. A resolution on the New Black Panther issue must be sought; ditto for the administration’s inexplicable decision-making on Salazar’s offshore drilling moratorium. The recent revelations of the Department of Homeland Security’s dropping cases against illegal aliens requires scrutiny, as does the decision to sue Arizona over its immigration law. And lots of other issues.

None of these probes need to be fishing expeditions. Issa and the other Republicans need to make sure that when they fire at a target, they hit it. The American people won’t stand for this if they think it’s political payback; real wrongdoing needs to be uncovered. 

But even if it is, the GOP is going to take a hit. “The Inquisition” will be reported by the legacy media in the worst possible terms, even and especially in the event Republican-led probes hit paydirt and uncover fraud, waste, abuse and criminality. In fact, if Congress’ approval rating stays just as low as it is under Pelosi’s management, that’s fine; it’s actually a feature rather than a bug if ”The Inquistion” so completely poisons the well in Washington that people hate everybody there with a passion. It’s OK if people hate Republicans, too.

Why? Because Step 2 involves a structural change which can have long-term implications.

2. Defund and devolve. The House controls the purse strings, and Boehner and his team need to use them as a garrotte on the federal government. To pass a budget through normal means will require the Senate and the President, but without the House agreeing to put money in to begin with, nothing gets done at all. And if they’ve got the will, they can take the broken budget process Pelosi is leaving to them and use it to the utmost advantage.

For example, lots of House Republicans are talking about de-funding Obamacare. The time to talk will be over in January; they’ll need to do it. But by all means, don’t stop there. De-fund Obama’s education programs, his EPA, his EEOC and every other federal department which is being abused by his czars or bureaucrats. It’s the power of the purse which is driving Boehner’s proposal to impose a moratorium on new federal regulations; while that’s good stuff it’s not ambitious enough.

In fact, in the case of the EPA the case could be made to de-fund the agency altogether. Every state has a counterpart body charged with environmental regulation; taking some of the EPA’s funding and block-granting it to those states amounts to a devolution of power from Washington. In places like California’s San Fernando Valley, for example, where idiotic EPA actions in shutting off irrigation have caused 40 percent unemployment in favor of something called the Delta Smelt, pulling the EPA’s boot off the local economy’s throat would prove quite popular. State agencies, should they choose to pick up where the EPA left off, would be accountable to those directly affected.

Parceling out block grants to the states with few or no strings attached, while at the same time de-funding federal agencies to a massive extent, is a game-changer. Why? Because the GOP is about to have some 30 or more governorships – it looks like as many as 35, in fact - after this fall’s elections. One of the things which isn’t being reported is that a massive Republican wave is going to hit the statehouses. So devolving power to the states by way of defunding federal programs is the easiest way possible to short-circuit Obama and govern the country in spite of him. It’s also a way to move power closer to the people where it belongs and drain the swamp of lobbyists and bureaucrats in Washington; something everyone in America seems to profess to want done.

Obviously, you’ll need more than just the House to effect this policy. But a budget which de-funds lots of agencies and begins the process by starving the federal government, with block-grant provisions heartily endorsed by large majorities of the nation’s governors, will not only shake up Washington but force the other side to compromise on favorable terms.

Which leads us to the third stage, in which negotiations ensue between Boehner and the president.

3. Federal employee reform. Once the federal bureaucracy is on Boehner’s chopping block, the president will be faced with the prospect of laying off employees or asking for pay cuts, pay freezes and other austerity measures. This is political gold for the GOP, since the majority of the American people are flat-out furious about the glaring disparity of federal employee compensation compared to the private sector. This disparity has been described as a bubble, and Boehner will be in a position to pop it. Obama, on the other hand, will see his political future as defined by how well he can save the benefits of unionized federal employees.

Herein lies a sensational opportunity for structural change.

What Boehner can do is offer a deal. A partial restoration of funding, to stave off some layoffs and furloughs and so forth, but under terms designed to break the unions to which federal employees belong. The arrangement might include some sort of block grant program that devolves power to the states, a federal salary/hiring freeze, and most importantly a reform of federal pensions currently underfunded as a condition for restoring some of the funding. On the pensions, the offer is a changeover that individual employees could take on an individual basis where they could take a tax-free cashout of their pensions and then roll that money into whatever individual savings program they want. By offering such a deal to the individual employees, you break the power of the unions; those employees are no longer pensioners-to-be but individual investors. And in most cases, they’re upper-middle class individual investors at that. This won’t make them Republicans overnight, but what it will do is make them a lot less enthusiastic about wasting money on union dues when they’re now in control of the most important benefit they receive as part of the union.

If Obama refuses the deal, he risks a government shutdown of sorts. The Republicans in the House can pass continuing resolutions to fund the parts of the government not subject to Obama’s social engineering – the armed forces, for example, or Social Security – but deny him the opportunity to govern. If there are some 30-35 Republican governors who very publicly state that they’re capable of taking on the functions the feds don’t have the money for, what you have a recipe for is a de-facto return to constitutional federalism. In some states this might not work so well. But in most of them, it will work just fine – most federal regulations could go away (or cease to be enforced) tomorrow and the average American would never notice a negative repercussion. And of the remaining ones, most could easily be replicated and enforced at the state level with no negative consequences.

It’s a real catch-22 for the President. He either has to be complicit in the ultimate destruction of the federal employee union structure upon which the Democrat Party is highly dependent, setting a precedent which might threaten public employee unions all over the country, or he faces the loss of his ability to govern at all in areas Boehner chooses to deny him funding for. Neither option is palatable, but Boehner has the power to present him with just such a Hobson’s choice if the will is there.

Once the table has been set to destroy the Democrats’ ability to project political power from Washington, another major step can be taken which would likely begin repairing the damage to the GOP’s popularity in time for the 2012 elections.

4. Changing the process on the budget. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington three weeks ago proposing to replace the annual budget with a biannual one, so you’d have a budget year in the odd years after an election, and then in an election year the budget could only be cut and not added to. It may be that a House rule is all that is necessary to put such a program in place, though if the GOP were to lose the House that rule could be sent packing. This, of course, is more a feature than a bug. Why? A biannual budget which eliminates the ability to add funding willy-nilly like Pelosi and Reid have conspired to do since the beginning of the current Democrat majority in 2007 (during which the federal deficit has exploded to levels previously unimaginable) would go a long way toward stanching the fiscal bleeding in Washington – and as such it is destined for popularity. It’s a hook to keep the American people interested in a Republican House majority rather than a Democrat one.

On the other hand, if in fact it’s necessary to amend the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act to institute biannual budgeting, I’m told it’s entirely possible that there may be Democrat votes in the Senate to do just that. This is, after all, a question of process rather than policy – and it’s a substantial change. There is none of the typical political advantage the Democrats look for; in fact, if by the time the GOP gets around to pushing this initiative it begins to look like the Democrats forecast themselves in a long-range cycle outside of power they’ll likely see a biannual budget as a chance to limit the Republicans’ ability to wield power and this as a hidden benefit.

Another idea would be to change the process from a resolution which isn’t binding to a statutory budget. Nothing would impose discipline on federal spending better than giving the budget the force of law. A Republican majority willing to take that step – particularly if they were able to pass a budget which slashed the federal deficit only to see it vetoed by the president – would be in a position to change the political landscape in ways the Democrats wouldn’t soon recover from.

5. Ethics reform. Dick Morris put forth a whole bunch of Congressional ethics reform proposals in a column he wrote two weeks ago. The proposals have the look of a big political winner:

• The establishment of an office of special prosecutor for Congress, with its head appointed by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for a fixed term. The office should have subpoena power, a well-funded staff and the right to convene grand juries and issue indictments. Self-policing by ethics committees obviously does not work.

• All earmarking should be banned. Congress cannot be trusted with this power.

• A ban on spouses of members of Congress serving on boards or accepting employment by any company or organization that receives federal funds. In cases like Mrs. Chris Dodd and Mrs. Evan Bayh, corporate board employment was a way for special interests to influence their husbands and pad the family checkbook.

• A ban on families of members of Congress serving as lobbyists.

• No free travel, whether sponsored by foundations or lobbyists. Only government trips on official business — real business — should be allowed.

• Full disclosure of the precise amounts of members’ net worth, debts, investments and holdings, including home mortgages.

• Full publication, online, of all committee votes.

• No student loan repayments for congressional staffers.

• A five-year ban on lobbying for members of Congress or their staffs after leaving office. The ban should also apply to employment by a company that performs lobbying services.

• If a senator or congressman is absent more than 10 percent of the time for reasons other than illness — including running for president — his pay should be docked proportionately.

• Term limits for congressional staffers. No staff member of Congress should be permitted to serve in a job that pays above $100,000 a year for more than eight years. If we can’t get term limits for Congress, let’s at least clean out the professional staffers!

Once the other four blows are struck, and you’ve basically destroyed the Democrats’ ability to spend money and exercise power in Washington, then a bunch of hard-core reforms like these which make it a terrifying prospect to steal from the trough will resonate with the American people and restore some faith in Congress.

The Congressional special prosecutor idea is a particularly good one, as it’s a poison pill for the Rangels, Waterses and the other crooks up there who think they can use politics to break the law. It also both insures a standard of ethics with the incoming GOP majority that will be superior to the Duke Cunningham/Jack Abramoff nightmare the previous Republican majority collapsed into and insulates the party from the inevitable corruption its membership will be subjected to at some point. It’s hard for the Democrats to cry “culture of corruption” about Boehner’s majority when it was the GOP which instituted a nonpartisan mechanism – and gave it teeth – to insure against unethical activity. Individual bad behavior, uncovered and punished, will thus be less reflective of the organization as a whole and therefore less politically damaging.

So while you might have the country screaming and yelling for the first year the GOP is in the majority, by 2012 when Boehner and his team are making rules that let the air out of Congressional privilege it’s perfectly reasonable to expect them to regain a lot of the popularity they might lose with the reaction of the Left and its media operatives to steps 1-3. But even if the successful implementation of this plan turns out to be a political negative, the structural changes it could bring about will have long-lasting political and logistical effects which will make it difficult for any Democrat majority and White House to reprise the two-year period we’re going through right now.

And at the end of the day, it is the structure in Washington which has broken down. The future of the Republic depends on remedying that failure. If Boehner is willing to aim for permanent changes rather than a series of cheap political scores to maintain his speakership, his majority can be historically significant even if Obama is bound and determined not to cooperate.

This might come off as a bit of inside baseball, or at least something of limited general interest. And if it does, I apologize and you’re excused from having to go below the fold. But today the Daily Caller ran a story which accuses conservative bloggers of participating in a form of payola – in which the Republican Party and some of its candidates might be throwing money around and “buying” positive press.

The piece casts folks like me in a terrible light and I find it as hideously unfair as it is nakedly self-serving. Tucker Carlson, as the “face man” of the Daily Caller, and reporter Jonathan Strong have done damage here and need to be called out for it.

First, one of the major problems within conservatism is the unfortunate prevalence of some pundits and media figures on the Right to assault individuals within the movement or even the movement itself. Bob Tyrrell, in his excellent recent book After The Hangover, addressed the subject this way…

“The diminishment of other conservatives and of conservative organizations by these self-marketing opportunists is an example of what social anthropologists studying other marginalized people call “crab antics.” Studying upward mobility among marginalized populations in the Caribbean, anthropologists have noted that many act like crabs at the bottom of a bucket. When it is tipped, the crabs scramble to leap over one another…Some pull others back. The crabs at the top must always evade their rivals’ outstretched claws or fall back into the bucket.”

Carlson has made a career as a “pet” conservative on non-conservative television networks and in non-conservative publications (CNN, PBS, MSNBC, Esquire, The New Republic, The Daily Beast), in such role as to sing a hateful song about other conservatives for his dinner. Recent examples have been in his piece trashing Grover Norquist’s integrity in The New Republic and, more recently, the Daily Caller’s hammering of Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele for the Voyeur scandal. Carlson’s bailing on the Iraq war after initially supporting it was another example of his infidelity as a “conservative” pundit.

While those examples are arguably justifiable – there are things to criticize about Norquist, Steele has indeed run a loose ship at the RNC and there was a lot to criticize in Iraq before President Bush managed to turn things around and win the war – what his site ran today was something else altogether.

The gist of the story is that most conservative blogs monetize themselves by selling favorable content to Republican candidates. Maybe that’s true in a few cases; it mentions RedCounty.com and its relationship with Meg Whitman’s campaign in California. It quotes Robert Stacy McCain in discussing the monetary challenges faced by the New Media on the right. Primarily, as McCain notes, conservative foundations and organizations are a lot less generous in patronizing blogs on the right than left-wing foundations and organizations are with “progressive” sites. This largely flows from the fact that there is a whole lot more money percolating in left-wing foundations and organizations than on the right side of the aisle; a fact the Daily Caller article neglects to mention.

And so, the article says, more conservative blogs than not are surreptitiously selling out their content. Dan Riehl, a vocal critic of DC’s reporting on the Voyeur affair, is painted with the “payola” allegation.

This has generated no small amount of uproar within the blogosphere. Riehl’s response to the article is, as one might imagine, more than a little heated. McCain responds this way:

There is a notable tendency of all organizations on the Right to hire buttoned-down, strait-laced College Republican types. There is a glaring disconnect between these GOP clonebots and the conservative blogosphere, which tends to attract hell-raisers, wild cards and loose cannons who don’t like being told what to say and do.

McCain also notes that stories like what the Daily Caller has put forth create something of a dilemma for bloggers – namely, if you write what you believe, would it be unethical to write more of it because somebody wants to pay you for it?

What McCain neglects to mention is that while the Daily Caller calls itself a news site, it operates in the exact same space as the bloggers its piece criticizes – which means that today’s attack is nothing other than self-serving “crab antics,” as Tyrrell so eloquently describes, in an effort to increase traffic and, ultimately, market share.

Meanwhile, John Hawkins at Right Wing News, who is a community organizer of sorts for the conservative blogosphere, says the Daily Caller’s charges are wildly overblown:

I don’t deal with that many state bloggers, so I can’t speak as to what’s going on with them. But, on the national level, with blogs you’ve heard of — what was said there is not only wrong, it’s spectacularly wrong.

To the best of my knowledge, there just aren’t that many name brand bloggers or even former name brand bloggers who do a significant amount of consulting work. Off the top of my head, let’s see there’s Lorie Byrd, Bettina Inclan, David All, Jon Henke, Patrick Hynes, Liz Mair, Soren Dayton, & Patrick Ruffini.

That’s not an exhaustive list and there may be a few more that I’m forgetting, but that should be a pretty good grouping of the main names — and if you already know who half of them are, congrats, you’re officially a blogosphere junky.

Now, you may be saying, “Okay, so there aren’t a lot of bloggers working as consultants, but what about the allegation that bloggers are being paid for favorable coverage?” Here’s my answer to that: I’ve been a blogger for almost a decade and I’ve been a professional blogger since early 2005. In all that time, I’ve never even had anyone offer to pay me for favorable coverage on RWN. That should tell you something.

I can pick up the story from here, because you could call me one of the “state bloggers” Hawkins can’t speak to. Here in Louisiana, there is one purveyor of a conservative site who doesn’t run advertising at all but takes money from candidates in return for slanting coverage.

One. That’s it.

To the best of my knowledge, that’s the extent of the payola in the Louisiana conservative (and for all I know, the left-wing as well) blogosphere.

That’s hardly the “standard practice” the article says, or the “at least half” it accuses of being in on this supposed pay-for-content scam. The article seems like one more example of Carlson’s “crab antics,” and the hit to the credibility of blog sites which provide, in my estimation, more lively and insightful commentary and research than the legacy media has done in more than a decade is significant.

I can say without reservation that here at the Hayride we’re not in on any payola program. I’ve never claimed that we’re objective in providing content. We’re unabashedly conservative. I initially conceptualized this site as a place that ultimately James Carville and Mary Matalin might both be comfortable posting their opinions, but I realized quickly that the left has no shortage of venues to spread its message and decided to focus on what our readership has told me they want from us. Namely, passionate, honest reporting and commentary from a cogent perspective. In my case, that means a conservative perspective.

Now, like McCain notes, in my dealings with various organizations, campaigns and advocacy groups I will run across story ideas and narratives seeking avenues all the time. If those ideas and narratives interest me I’ll run them on the Hayride. A lot of them will actually percolate around the web and get us some of the all-important traffic which is the lifeblood of the site. But what leads me to the decision whether something is interesting enough to run is a very simple question; “do I think our readers would find it worth reading?”

Not “how much am I getting paid to put this on the site?”

Maybe that’s going on elsewhere. And maybe I’m a sucker for not shaking folks down for money every time I write something. If I’m now going to be accused of that anyway, that is.

Look, we have political advertisers on this site. For example, Jeff Landry’s campaign has banner space. David Vitter’s campaign does, too. We’re getting another candidate in here in another couple of days. And SaveUSEnergyJobs.com is advertising as well.

But as you’ve seen on our site, two things are true. First, before any of those groups or organizations put one dime in our bank account we were saying good things about them. I like Landry as a candidate for Congress, just like I like Hunt Downer and Kristian Magar. I’ve said that repeatedly and I’ve tried to be as objective as possible in our coverage of the GOP primary in the 3rd District race – which is getting increasingly difficult as that race has gone down the toilet.

And while nobody who supports Vitter thinks he’s perfect, the guy votes exactly the way I want him to – of course I’m going to be friendly toward him and nasty toward Charlie Melancon, whose record in Congress put him to the left of Dollar Bill Jefferson in 2008, for crying out loud. As for the American Energy Alliance, the group behind SaveUSEnergyJobs.com, what they’re trying to do is get the moratorium lifted and fight new taxes on the oil industry. What Louisiana conservative website wouldn’t be singing the same tune they are? I took a trip to DC a couple of weeks ago on their dime in order to help tell the story of Louisiana people whose livelihoods are being destroyed by federal action to people who don’t know what’s going on and don’t seem to care, and blogged about the trip, but nothing I said since that relationship began is any different than what I said when the asinine moratorium was begun. Nor will it be.

As such, I can honestly say our content has not been influenced by our advertisers. The content on this site is exactly the same as it would be if we didn’t have them aboard.

And the second truth here is that when political advertisers come to us, the discussion is about their ad space and our readership. Our content is not part of the discussion, at least not in the sense that a relationship with them will change our perspective. That’s why the National Organization for Women or the Sierra Club aren’t likely to show up on our site. But when a candidate or an advocacy group turns up, in all likelihood not only will you see their ad but when we talk about their stuff in the content area it will be because we agree with their position.

This stuff isn’t rocket science anyway; when we’re approached by an advertiser it’s because they already see what we’re writing and recognize that the majority of our readers will be receptive to their message. There’s no point in Vitter’s campaign approaching the Daily Kingfish, for example – even if they tried to buy those guys off, they’re never going to buy off the lefty readers of that site and all they’ll end up doing is making a mess. They’re smart enough to recognize that, so they don’t throw money around over there. But Melancon’s campaign, I suppose, might.

The idea that we’re bought is offensive, and it’s laughable. Anybody who could buy me this cheaply is wasting his money. And the broad-brush assault the Daily Caller perpetrated today from their East Coast Establishment crab bucket is reprehensible.

Following on yesterday’s batty Nancy Pelosi statements about investigating the Ground Zero Mosque opposition, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has a new web ad out along the subject of “extreme.”

This is quality stuff, and it can generate a quality discussion. We like it when the Republicans actually talk about the future of the country instead of playing stupid gotcha games on who’s sleeping with whom and so on (it’s inevitable that stuff like that will happen in a primary, but general elections need to be about differing visions for the city, state or country). And the ad does so, in a fashion.

Because Senate candidates like Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Ron Johnson, Rob Portman and Ken Buck might be of various levels of physical attractiveness, they might come from backgrounds the legacy media would disparage as not suitably Ivy League and they might occasionally make a gaffe. But those candidates represent the first sizable batch of true small-government conservatives – and a departure from the “Me, too” Richard Lugar/Bob Bennett/Lindsey Graham/Susan Collins gang already ensconced in Washington – to come along since 1994. They share a philosophy which has its roots in that of our Founders, and the far Left has no choice but to call them extreme.

But in the Age Of Obama, when religion is to be despised unless it’s Islam, when American exceptionalism is only acceptable when it’s apologized for as unexceptional, when class warfare is so entrenched as government policy that the world’s highest business taxes are non-negotiable among the party in power, when the concept of federalism is so perverted that a state passing a law to mirror federal legislation finds itself on the business end of a Justice Department lawsuit, what Democrats and their allies in the legacy media term “extreme” is embraced by large portions of the public. And the Republican candidates they disparage merely represent the will of the American people who are disgusted with the statism, arrogance and corruption of the ruling class and seek to rein it in.

This will be a signature election cycle. Most pollsters are now showing a GOP takeover in the House and the previously-unthinkable possibility of a Republican Senate majority is now within the realm of possibility. But what is perhaps even more important is what the new Senators and congressmen the 2010 cycle produces will mean for the Republican Party. A Rubio replacing Mel Martinez or a Lee replacing Bennett will force the party’s Beltway wing to accept that the GOP can no longer slide by as a friendly repository for K Street dollars or be complicit in inching the country leftward; the new additions will drive the party away from the politics of its disgraceful Bush-era big-government “conservatism.”

Because polls repeatedly show that it’s not Lee, Angle, Paul or Rubio who are “fringe.” Their positions are favored, in large measure, by majorities or pluralities of the American people. The fringe is in Washington, New York, Hollywood and the halls of academia. The fringe is governing, and it’s being rejected.

I guess when the Washington Post hired Greg Sargent to run its Plum Line blog it figured it was serving the consumers of D.C. conventional wisdom and thus keeping the paper relevant. What the powers that be at WaPo might not have recognized was that in doing so they were also providing clarity as to the gaping divide between that conventional wisdom – which can properly be described as our ruling class mindset – and the rest of the country.

Consider this from Sargent’s blog today, which carries a headline of “Rand Paul’s solution to unemployment and drugs: Rich people?”

The other day, Rand Paul got into a bit of trouble for saying that the drug problem in Eastern Kentucky is “not a real pressing issue.” Paul’s Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, blasted Paul for being out of touch with the state.

Now Paul has stepped forward to clarify those remarks in an interview with local WYMT-TV, claiming that as a physician, he does view the drug problem as a serious one. But it’s unclear whether his clarification will help much. In sum, he said the best solution to drug use is to bring down unemployment — which is best done by giving rich people the freedom to invest and create jobs.

It’s not a stretch to ask whether Paul thinks the best solution to the drug problem is leaving the rich alone to do their thing. From the interview:

“I personally think we’ve been trying the government solution, and maybe there are some good aspects to it. But we’re still failing, and we’re not getting rid of the drug problem,” Paul said.

Paul says reinvesting money in the local economy will help ease the unemployment, which he says leads to more drug use.

“You want rich people because that’s what creates jobs. If you punish people, they won’t expand or create jobs,” Paul said.

It’s unclear what Paul meant by warning against “punishing” the rich. But given his past statements, which have depicted Federal action against the private sector as punitive, he is presumably saying high taxation and regulation “punish” the rich and discourage them from investing in the local economy. This keeps unemployment high, which in turn keeps drug use rampant.

I hear Dems are going to jump on this in order to depict Paul as fundamentally unserious on economic and drug policy. I’ve asked the Paul campaign for clarification and will update you if I hear back.

Sargent got his clarification, and then put up another post about Paul’s take:

The question then became: Does Paul really believe the best solution to unemployment and drugs is to get out of the way of the rich? Paul spokesman Jesse Benton sends over a statement clarifying again:

One of the things that has made America great is ability of our citizens to invest in themselves. We must fight to preserve the power of not just the rich, but also the middle class and working class to invest through savings and investment to build a nest egg and earn financial security, or to invest in business that creates jobs for their neighbors. Dr. Paul is committed to cutting unsustainable debt and spending so we can fundamentally strengthen our economy and preserve our American way of life.

The abuse of both legal and illegal drugs is serious and complex issue. We must keep a strong focus on prevention, treatment and enforcement, and healthy employment is great prevention. There is no silver bullet, but a gainfully employed, productive person will be far less likely to succumb to the evils drugs. Dr. Paul will fight onerous EPA regulations and Obama’s plans for Cap and Tax scheme so we can preserve and grow Kentucky coal jobs in the eastern part of our state.

While the statement clarifies that we need to “keep a strong focus on prevention, treatment and enforcement,” it doesn’t say how, or whether government should have any role in doing that. The statement says twice that healthy employment is a good cure, and says the best way to ensure high employment is to free up investment — not just by the rich, but other classes as well.

In other words, though he’s broadening the original claim, the Paul campaign is basically sticking by the central thrust of it, which is that getting government out of the way of private wealth may be the best long term solution to unemployment, and by extension, drug use.

This is wonderfully droll stuff, in that Paul’s statements are anything but controversial in voicing a mainstream libertarian-conservative philosophical point that a robust legitimate economy will make illicit economic activity less desirable. In Eastern Kentucky, which is an economically depressed area serving as home to America’s largest domestic supply of cannabis, the reverse of Paul’s argument is plainly seen; government policies which retard the growth of lawful private activity – for example, coal mining – will force the locals into engaging in the drug trade and thus creating a larger supply of illicit substances. All Paul is saying is that a healthy legitimate economy, the primary path to which is proven free-market economic policies, will reduce the importance of illegal drugs as a problem in Kentucky communities.

Sargent acts like Paul is speaking in Sanskrit. He hears from his Democrat sources that this is a big winning issue for Paul’s opponent Jack Conway and that the Democrats can score points against Paul for his having offered this take.

Maybe I’m a geek, but I find this hilarious. Should Paul play the typical game and talk about more money to bust people for smoking or growing marijuana? Maybe. But my guess is more folks in Eastern Kentucky are terrified of Conway’s position favoring Cap And Trade – which would do for that region what President Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium is doing for South Louisiana – than they are of Paul’s tepid stance on drug enforcement. Considering that Paul has been accused of kidnapping teammates on the Baylor swim team and forcing them to do bong hits and he’s still ahead of Conway by double digits, it’s a classic case of ruling class disconnect with the rest of the country.

But what’s worth the biggest belly-laugh is this gem, which is well worth repeating:

But given his past statements, which have depicted Federal action against the private sector as punitive, he is presumably saying high taxation and regulation “punish” the rich and discourage them from investing in the local economy. This keeps unemployment high, which in turn keeps drug use rampant.

Uh… yeah, Greg. That’s what he’s saying. When you tax the hell out of rich people, they hire lawyers and accountants to find ways not to pay taxes and spend less effort on finding ways to make more money. This is called “punishing” the rich, and it tends to depress economic activity – or drive it underground, like in the case of the deep-forest cannabis fields of Eastern Kentucky. And when economic activity is depressed, less people have jobs. And folks who aren’t gainfully employed quite often consider sitting around and smoking rope – or maybe growing it to sell to others.

Sargent might be a bit dim for the ruling class, but unfortunately there are lots of elected officials who share his economic illiteracy and see Paul’s free-market stance as “unserious,” if amusingly quaint.

What a rude shock awaits these people in November.

Other readings in this series…

The Overton Window, by Glenn Beck
The Obama Diaries, by Laura Ingraham
Nullification, by Tom Woods

This is the part where I admit I’ve been a dork for a very long time. I was probably the only college kid at LSU to have a paid subscription to the American Spectator in the early 1990′s, and I read every word of that sucker. Now that the internet has made print obsolete, I’m on that site daily.

As such, it’s anything but a surprise that I’m going to say nice things about a book Bob Tyrrell wrote. The guy isn’t a good writer; he’s a great writer. If you like highbrow smartassery, you will find no better purveyor of it than Tyrrell.

And in After The Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road To Recovery, we get Tyrrell in top form. The book, released in April, is an examination of the state of conservatism in the aftermath of the 2008 disasters as it rebounds. It’s a sober, yet cheerful account of the conservative movement’s elevation from a personal crusade of William F. Buckley, of whom Tyrrell was a protege of sorts, to what is now a mass movement fueled by New Media, cable news and talk radio which carries the bulk of the intelligent political thought in the country (the blathering of the faux-elites notwithstanding).

Tyrrell’s history of conservatism notes, for those who aren’t aware, that its modern form hardly even existed until the 1950′s. At the time there was virtually no difference between the two political parties – Eisenhower Republicans were as invested in the welfare state as New Deal Democrats. The Right at the time was preoccupied with fighting communism, an endeavor in which they had ample support in the Democrat Party. Confiscatory taxation of the rich was understood as perfectly acceptable economic policy until a paragon of liberalism, John F. Kennedy, came along and slashed the tax rates – engendering a decade-long economic boom which didn’t die until Nixon’s economic mismanagement strangled it.

As Tyrrell explains, what Buckley brought about was something that didn’t exist when he first came on the scene in the early 1950′s. And his celebrity helped drive the construction of a movement which was fueled by such thinkers as Russell Kirk and Frank Meyer, who joined with Buckley in the creation of National Review. From there came the establishment of think tanks like the Manhattan Institute and the Heritage Foundation, and the movement then galvanized into practical politics – first with the failed presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater, who was ahead of his time, and then the revolutionary era of Ronald Reagan.

So Tyrrell’s understanding of the history of the movement, and his perspective on its current situation, is fairly complete. That’s why he’s able to authoritatively articulate such a delightful passage as this in describing the depths of despair among conservatives following Obama’s election:

Faced with death or the wilderness years, I opted for the great outdoors. Right after the election, at the American Spectator’s Robert L. Bartley Dinner, annually given for our writers and supporters, I urged that we had best prepare for the wilderness. To help my friends survive, my staff distributed four hundred copies of the L.L. Bean catalog. Admittedly, the L.L. Bean company was suspicious when the Spectator ordered them for an annual dinner having more to do with politics than with fishing, hiking or bird-watching.

The famous catalog features sportswear and outdoor accoutrements for every circumstance. Winston Churchill, during his wilderness years, was comforted by cases of Pol Roger and fistfuls of Havanas. Unfortunately, nowadays champagne is very pricey and smoking is malum prohibitum almost everywhere. Even in the great outdoors, a lit cigar could be highly controversial. So I urged my friends to settle for the offerings made available in the Bean catalog. Properly attired, we might not find the wilderness so bad. Sure, there would be poison ivy and wolves, clouds of mosquitoes and grimfaced members of the World Wildlife Foundation stomping around on the mountain laurel, but there would be many instances of natural beauty. Once in the wilderness, I planned to pitch my tent close to that of the comely Governor Palin. She is very cute and can handle a shootin’ iron. Moreover I heard tell that she has an excellent recipe for sauteed elk and would probably drive out in her Hummer. That hardy vehicle might prove useful. Assuming that the governing Liberals would about to perform as recklessly as in the past, we conservatives would probably be clearing out of the wilds in a hurry and heading back to the campaign trail. As it turned out, conservatism’s wilderness years lasted only a few months, and I never did get an opportunity to taste Palin’s sauteed elk.

The book is covered with such examples of delightful prose.

It’s also covered with signature formulations. For example, Tyrrell describes the unfortunate spectacle of “pet” conservatives in the legacy media – Ross Douthat, David Brooks, David Frum, Tucker Carlson, who he describes as “Reformed Conservatives” – as “crabs in a bucket.” He notes that such creatures tend to expend much energy in attempting to climb over one another to exit the receptacle, which is not unlike the savagery one sees among many “conservative” pundits who find employment at the New York Times or CNN as a result of taking an axe to their ideological fellows. Of Brooks and Frum, Tyrrell is especially dismissive, calling them the Davidian Branch of the conservative movement.

Another:

“Throughout the decades, there has been only one Liberal principle that the Liberals have agreed on without fluctuation. That is their solemn belief that it is fundamental to the progress of our nation that Liberals disturb the peach…Liberalism is the world’s only nontotalitarian political movement founded on a petty crime.”

The book’s premise is that conservatism has built up a huge infrastructure since its origins with Buckley at Yale, and despite the doomsaying from self-serving Liberals (he makes a point to use an obnoxious capital L to describe left-leaners, as he agrees with me there is little true liberalism in their policies) and climbing conservative crabs it isn’t dead or dying. Tyrrell notes the poisonous and pervasive nature of the left-wing legacy media, which he calls the Kultursmog, but predicts that with the alternatives currently populating the landscape it will be more and more difficult for the Left to set the narrative on the issues of the day.

And finally, he offers some suggestions for conservatives going forward into political power. Among them, capping federal budgets at no more than 20 percent of GDP (or taxation at more than 18.5 percent), a flat tax along the lines Steve Forbes laid out in 2005, private Social Security accounts for younger Americans, market-based health reforms, smart immigration strategy, a free-market educational system, a renewed commitment to national security and a robust domestic energy strategy.

But most of all, After The Hangover is an exercise in rejuvenating the conservative movement through humor and perspective. In that mission it succeeds. Despite Tyrrell’s often ornate vocabulary, it’s an easy read and a good laugh – something we can all use these days.

Other readings in this series…

The Overton Window, by Glenn Beck
After The Hangover, by R. Emmett Tyrrell
Nullification, by Tom Woods

For most of us out here in Flyover Territory, the personages of the people in the White House aren’t an item of particular concern, and the lives of the President and his family hold only passing interest. The President is a politician, after all, not a celebrity – and short of sex or money scandals, it’s just none of our business.

Or at least that’s my take.

But in The Obama Diaries, radio talk host and Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham crafts a satirical world in which the President IS a celebrity, surrounded by a shrewish First Lady, a slew of sycophant staffers, a stumbling and screwy Vice President and others. Ingraham’s world seems fairly close to real life, and she cuts deeply.

The premise of the book is that Ingraham gets dropped off a package of documents by a secretive stranger who tells her “You’ll know what to do,” and upon opening the package, she finds that they’re actually diary entries from President Obama, the First Lady, Vice President Joe Biden, OMB Director Peter Orszag, former White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, Sen. Harry Reid, Obama’s Mother-In-Law Melanie Robinson, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, chief White House political strategist David Axelrod – even Russian proto-dictator Vladimir Putin is in the group.

Of course, the “diaries” are fictional. They’re funny as hell. They’re all in different fonts, and they paint a picture of their “authors” which in most cases is a caricature of the persona the public already perceives. Obama, for example, is pathologically self-absorbed and thinks he can do nothing wrong; Michelle Obama alternates between tyrannizing her kids and her husband and burnishing an image as the new Jackie Kennedy. Axelrod is the fawning sycophant, Emanuel’s diaries are peppered with F-bombs and violent threats, Clinton plots and schemes to overthrow the Obamas and Biden fulminates over his thinning hair and women out of his league (including his wife).

It’s a quick read and a laugh a minute. Ingraham is a terrific satirist.

The diaries are about half the book. The rest is pretty standard conservative talk-show stuff. Ingraham deals with the 18-month history of the Obama administration – his foreign-policy change of direction, Obamacare, the stimulus, the Beer Summit, the constant parties and celebrity schmoozing, and the rest – with facts, figures, logic and philosophy. It’s well-written and pithy, but it’s nothing particularly novel or earth-shaking for those of us already immersed in the movement.

But a few points she makes in the book are worth passing along.

One of the best is the exhortation to conservatives – and Americans as a whole – is to reject the “five stages of grief” as a template to deal with Obama’s election and the perception of American decline. The five stages, of course, are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Going beyond anger is a mistake, she says, because nothing about the Obama administration or our declining competitiveness is set in stone.

The urging to “rage against the dying of the light” pervades much of the polemical part of The Obama Diaries – whether the subject is economics, physical fitness, foreign policy or politics. Ingraham continuously rails against private citizens or companies backing down in the face of an overweening government. She indicts health insurers for playing ball with the president on Obamacare, auto company bondholders for allowing themselves to be buffaloed by the president as he handed GM and Chrysler over to the unions and Obama himself for the constant apologizing for America.

It’s a good vision to communicate, and it’s well-articulated with a positive, if sometimes caustic, tone. The Obama Diaries is a fun, light read on heavy subjects and well worth picking up – even if it’ll do more to brighten your mood than enlighten your political philosophy.

Yesterday was a long, hot, sweaty day tromping around Washington and telling anybody who would listen that Obama’s moratorium on offshore drilling is a really lousy idea. Whether we did any good is a difficult question to answer, but the 50-odd folks from Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama who traveled up to the nation’s capital certainly covered some ground.

I can’t speak to how the meetings with congressmen and senators went from personal knowledge, as what I was doing was a bit different. After a press conference on the Capitol Hill lawn (and it was REALLY hot out there) at which several members of our traveling group took turns explaining the damage the moratorium is doing, I and a few others broke off for a lunch meeting with Grover Norquist from Americans for Tax Reform at their offices, and following that a “press breakfast” at those same offices hosted by The American Spectator.

What was said was little different than our readers have seen on The Hayride for weeks. The moratorium is a stupid policy, it’s destroying the economy of the central and western Gulf Coast, it has little basis in science, it affects national security, our trade deficit, energy prices and most of all high-paying American jobs.

But for all of the jaw-jawing which went on, what struck me was how blindingly ignorant so many of the D.C. denizens seem to be on energy. There is an attitude that oil as a whole is no good, that those who deal in oil are somehow dirty, that times are changing and there is no future for fossil fuels. When those with that attitude are challenged to provide a solution for replacing oil and gas – and coal, for that matter – they shrug. “We’re Americans. We can find something.”

This is dangerous stupidity, and it seems to cover Washington like a shroud.

Norquist, in our lunch meeting, offered up some interesting advice. He says Mary Landrieu is the key to the moratorium going away. He says that Landrieu is playing her constituents in Louisiana by talking the talk about oil and gas and lifting the moratorium, but until she stops being a vote Harry Reid and President Obama can count on in the Senate she’s not helping. Norquist says if Landrieu really wanted to help Louisiana she would withhold her cooperation on ANYTHING the administration or Democrat leadership wants done until there is no moratorium.

I don’t know if it’s that simple, but it certainly seems like Norquist’s is a hypothesis worth testing. And it’s clear that Landrieu, and Charlie Melancon (whose staffers got an absolute earful from several members of the Louisiana delegation yesterday) are not fully engaged in this fight as they should be.

For example, there was this quote Landrieu gave on Monday about  Melancon’s CLEAR Act amendment debacle on Friday:

“Charlie Melancon’s efforts to get the House of Representatives on the record against the moratorium is extremely significant and is a positive step to getting the oil and gas industry up and running,” Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said. “Protecting the jobs of the 330,000 Louisianians who work in the oil and gas industry should not be partisan issue.”

Melancon’s legislative director Chris DeBosier, I’m told, said in a meeting with Louisiana members of our group that he was responsible for the language in the amendment and that the “Section F” which has generated such controversy in that it gave statutory power to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to reimpose a new moratorium at any time for virtually any reason was language that had been in place in federal statutes since 1959 and was nothing new.

The delegation didn’t like that much, I’m told, and they would have liked it a lot less had they known that Melancon’s initial proposed amendment didn’t have a “Section F.” It only extended to a “Section C.” And Section C said this:

Which is pretty good language, as to us it sounds like Salazar is directed to stop screwing around with de facto moratoria on shallow-water drilling by dragging his feet on issuing permits.

Section C managed to make it into the final amendment, but a Section E and a Section F were added before it went to the floor. Section E provides for a report for Salazar to make to Congress about drilling safety “no later than October 31, 2010,” which doesn’t exactly sound like an early end to the moratorium would be in the offing, and then there’s Section F, which pretty much wipes out any effect the Melancon Amendment might have.

In case you’re not aware, Section F reads as follows:

Some of the other staffers for the Louisiana congressional delegation I talked to said that there’s a real stink going on right now about where Section F came from. Was DeBosier its source? Did he dream that up on his own? Or was he asked to add it by someone else?

This one isn’t going away.

Other observations from the D.C. trip:

- While the idea that the GOP might pick up 10 Senate seats and get to 51 in November seems pretty far-fetched, Democrats in D.C. are terrified that’s exactly what will happen. They already expect to lose the House. As such, the thought up there is that between now and Election Day in November you’ll see an absolutely furious pace in the House and Senate in an effort to pass as much legislation as possible. Reid calling the House back from vacation yesterday was no surprise. And the Senate’s voting to throw $26 billion at the teachers’ unions yesterday was no surprise, either.

- Reagan National is a nice little airport. You want to fly into Reagan National if you can. Dulles and BWI are too damn far out.

- At the end of the day, I took a side trip over to the Heritage Foundation to hear Sen. John Thune (R-SD) make a quick speech on reforming the budget process. Thune wants to change the budget to a biannual affair, so that the year after the House elections (odd-numbered years) Congress would pass a budget, and then in the election years Congress would be then charged with scrubbing that budget to look for savings. During World War II, he said, there was a joint commission of the House and Senate which was charged with dumping as much government waste as possible so as to pay for the war effort, and it was that commission which got rid of the WPA, the CCC and some of the other giant New Deal monstrosities. Thune thinks reviving that idea could lead to some real cuts being made, and he’d like to put some teeth into such a commission by mandating that it come up with a minimum recommendation of cuts of 10 percent of the budget deficit each year.

What he said was good stuff and if it ever came to pass it might well create a healthier budget process than the legislative diarrhea we have now. But I got the impression from listening to Thune that even he didn’t think this could ever get passed. And while he absolutely looks the part of a 2012 presidential candidate, I just couldn’t get excited listening to him (maybe because he’s in the weeds talking about the budget, but more because he just doesn’t come off as the super-dynamic young guy he’d need to be to come out of nowhere). Somebody asked Thune about getting rid of the Department of Education, which at the Heritage Foundation is a highly popular idea, and Thune wouldn’t go there; instead muttering about making sure the tax dollars aren’t wasted. Bad answer in 2010, I thought.

What you notice going to Heritage for one of these events, though, is that while you’ll see a few recognizable folks (Stephen Hayes from the Weekly Standard, who’s on Fox News all the time, was there yesterday) the vast majority of the people there are kids. The place is crawling with 20-somethings who your average lefty would decry as the Hitler Youth – but P.J. O’Rourke once remarked that you can tell whether a political movement has momentum based on how many good-looking chicks it attracts, and if that’s a standard with any meaning then conservatism is in good shape.

- Back to the reason for our trip to D.C. in the first place, I found it somewhat interesting that when the AEA reached out to the administration to get someone from MMS to sit down with our group, they received silence in response. Even the Democrats in the House and Senate would take meetings with our people. The administration? Nope. They sent Michael Bromwich to New Orleans this week, but wouldn’t even let us talk to an underling.

- Finally, has anybody seen Oscar? Last I heard, he was gonna go chew on some Congressmen from Florida yesterday. Hope he didn’t do anything impolite.