So it was with interest that I read the account recently of a school board member in Florida sitting down to take some of the "high stakes" tests that the students in his district have to take:

A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.

By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness to dialogue and willingness to listen.

.....
“I won’t beat around the bush,” he wrote in an email. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.

He continued, “It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate.

The thing is, this sort of stunt happens every so often. And I wonder about the credibility of the person taking the exams, especially if he said he guessed on all the math problems. Is it really written that poorly, and nobody noticed til now... or is it that this guy sucks at math and does not think "Hey, perhaps people getting a HS diploma should actually know more than I do"?

In comments, MRW pointed to a public release of the test in question, and having looked at the tenth grade math items, I think what I said was unfair. While we have our share of students who struggle with basic algebra, I'm pretty confident that they would pass this test.

Just for fun, here's a selection of a few of the problems from the 2006 math test given to tenth graders, the one where Mr. Roach didn't know how to answer any of them, and "Not a single one of [his friends] said that the math I described was necessary in their profession." See if you're smarter than a Florida school board member:

[go to link to look at the questions... most of these I could do by 5th grade, btw]
....
Now, of course, I've cherry-picked these questions, to enable maximum snark, but you can look at the test for yourself at the link above, and see for yourself that the math involved is not terribly difficult. And, in fact, the test writers have done a pretty good job of putting the math into a useful (if occasionally a bit contrived) context, to demonstrate what it's all for. Maybe whoever selected the questions for him to take pulled out only the most abstract and difficult questions from several years' worth of tests, but that doesn't seem terribly likely.

This is yet another demonstration of a problem I've been banging on about for years: the innumeracy of intellectuals. Mr. Roach holds three college degrees, and clearly considers himself an educated person, but even a lack of practice at taking tests can't really explain this level of failure.
....
Mr. Roach's failure to score at a reasonable level on this test is something that ought to embarrass him, not the educational establishment. As much as I have problems with the notion of high-stakes testing, I have an even bigger problem with people who believe-- and teach our kids-- that basic mathematical competence is not a necessary component of education.

Now when I had seen the info about his multiple degrees, and his inability to do well on very basic math, I guessed that those degrees were in subjects with the word "education" somewhere, which are some of the most degraded degrees out there. This would be ironic, unless you understood how the current education industry "works": you get raises, promotions, etc. as a public school teacher for these degrees. The college and universities granting them get lots of money. And there's no external check on whether those holding those pieces of paper actually learned anything other than how to work the system.

So let's see if I was correct about Mr. Roach:

The man in question is Rick Roach, who is in his fourth four-year term representing District 3 on the Board of Education in Orange County, Fl., a public school system with 180,000 students. Roach took a version of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, commonly known as the FCAT, earlier this year.

....
Roach, the father of five children and grandfather of two, was a teacher, counselor and coach in Orange County for 14 years. He was first elected to the board in 1998 and has been reelected three times. A resident of Orange County for three decades, he has a bachelor of science degree in education and two masters degrees: in education and educational psychology. He has trained over 18,000 educators in classroom management and course delivery skills in six eastern states over the last 25 years.

To be sure, I had these links before I wrote this post, but I'm sure the idea popped in many minds when hearing about those degrees (and I definitely thought it when I heard the credit hours towards a doctorate). Mind you, I'm not calling all education programs to be phony, but ever heard of Gresham's Law?

Bad money drives out good.

This goes for credentials as well. The economic forces as well as the lack of any controls means that there has been a slide downward not only in the meaning of a high school diploma, but also education degrees.

I have written about this dichotomy of what is considered educated, in how much humanities, and at what level, one must take in college compared to math and science. Well, that was college, and here are two posts (post 1 on Cathy Seipp, post 2 on Richard Cohen) of me bitching about people who considered themselves educated, who would also needed to have guessed on that math exam....and trying to make up excuses that it's okay to be that ignorant in math and call one's self educated.

Look - would you consider someone educated who could not write coherently? Who could not read great literature (the accessible stuff, not when it was a virtue to be only for the elite) and comment on it?

I really have nothing to this statement from my Seipp post:

Exit exams need to mean something, or high school diplomas will continue to mean nothing. The only reason so many people feel the need to go to college is because a high school diploma means only that you showed up often enough that they gave you a diploma. If you're getting good grades in math from grades 9-12, but can't pass a 9th grade-level exam -- that should indicate to you that your grades are meaningless. I ran into this problem once before: when I taught calculus at N.C. State. There was a reason they had a pretty strict requirement on placing out of Calculus I. Because over half of the freshman class had had Calc I before and claimed to have gotten decent grades in Calculus the year before... and yet, they didn't even know how to give the equation of a line. Or what the area of a circle was.

So the question is: are people happy that high school grades and diplomas are credentials with no credibility? If they're not happy, you've got to have some kind of do-or-die certification. Having "alternatives" where people can opt out of basic math knowledge or literacy is not a good way to shore up the credential.

These "high stakes" exams do tend to be relatively low level, especially in math. I think it's reasonable to set a high school diploma at Algebra I.

Of course, there will be students, diligent and following the rules, who can't clear that hurdle. It is not kind to anybody to lower the standard such that the HS diploma is merely an attendance certificate. For those who accomplish that, give them the attendance certificate. Don't lie to them that by merely showing up they accomplished something academically.

One of the perspectives I'm coming from is that of special education -- if those students can't demonstrate that basic level of knowledge and application, then don't give them a diploma, pretending it means something. What you're doing is giving everybody a meaningless piece of paper just so that some people supposedly won't feel bad. Some of those special ed students may very well be able to clear the same minimal hurdle everybody else does, and they should have something that indicates that. I'm also fine with an "honors certificate" above and beyond the minimal HS requirements. Or vocational credentials, if that's the route they go.

The point is to change high school from a holding pen for teenagers on the way to the "real" credential of college, which will cost many people in money and time lost on wasteful activities....and find they've got yet another meaningless piece of paper, and many times, not even that.

Meep

Meep is a member of the Irish Catholic mafia, having a suspiciously high number of green-eyed, red-haired friends. While she doesn’t have red hair herself [except when she goes into the sun (rare for any vampire)], she does have green eyes. She’s a raving Papist and is a life actuary on the side [i.e., she counts dead people]. An amateur pain-in-the-ass [willing to go pro!], she likes covering retirement, mortality, math, and education issues.

Perhaps no situation causes me so much frustration as the treatment of animals as if they were akin to children. Often times better. Each of us has a friend or relation who claims without reservation that their dog or cat is no different in import to them as a child is to a parent. Each of us can probably point to pet owners who shower their possessions with better medical care - including prescriptions and operations, pathology and preventative care - than is defensible for a lower creature whose value is arguably more than a snail, but less than a goat.

It is common for me to come across stories wherein we are reminded of how morally bankrupt we have become. Few instances demonstrate this better than a couple which come immediately to mind.

A more helpful post here.

Let us mention here a situation near to me involving a wonderful friend, James Shore, whose life was cut short by a certain James Arthur Ray. Ray, convicted of 3 counts of negligent homicide, received 3 concurrent 2 year sentences in Arizona for his crimes.

In contrast,

"On December 10, Vick appeared in U.S. District Court in Richmond for sentencing. Judge Hudson said he was "convinced that it was not a momentary lack of judgment" on Vick's part, and that Vick was a "full partner" in the dog fighting ring, and he was sentenced to serve 23 months in federal prison."

For...

"being involved in the destruction of 6–8 dogs, by hanging or drowning. The "victimization and killing of pit bulls" was considered as aggravating circumstances that led prosecutors to exceed the federal sentencing guidelines for the charge."

But a far more disturbing pattern has emerged over the past couple decades in respect to Human Life and Society's valuation thereof.

I could cite a newborn human baby being drown at a high school dance.
I could cite a certain mother driving her car into the drink, getting out, and watching her 3 children drown.
I could cite all of the "missing" toddlers and related cases.

But why cite National stories when I could cite the happenings in Milwaukee, Wisconsin?

Oddly, a new, heretofore, unknown cultural by-product has become a regional rage: namely, what has been euphemistically-coined "co-sleeping death". In a nutshell, it appears to be a sort of condition whereby inner-city Black Human Babies go to bed alive only to be smothered by the mother or aunt, father or sibling.

There have been some 10 of these "accidents" in Milwaukee, WI, over the course of the 2011 calendar year. Oddly, no such occurrences were reported in 2011 for Madison, WI or Green Bay, WI. Or, for that matter, anywhere else in WI. My search was not exhaustive. But, at least anecdotal-ly speaking, this trend seems to be isolated to inner-city Black Milwaukeean Families.

So, what gives?

The death is at least the 10th this year of a baby who was either co-sleeping with someone or who was in an unsafe sleeping environment. The girl's mother, who is 22 and unemployed, has two other children who live with their father.

No worries... the City of Milwaukee is on it!

Let me take you to November the 9th of this year,

Minutes before city officials unveiled a new safe-sleep advertising campaign Wednesday, the medical examiner's office announced that a 7-week-old baby was found dead on Milwaukee's south side after co-sleeping with his or her mother.

The best part of this campaign is that it speaks directly to the highest risk families, doesn't kowtow to Political Correctness by say showing a White Baby in its ads, even though there is zero evidence this trend has been picked up by the milk toast denizens of this city everyone in Milwaukee feels much better now knowing that:

1) Milwaukee is all over this!
2) Some Ad Agency is employing a couple more White Agency Rookies to get the message out!

Granted, babies are kind of boring. Especially expendable are Black inner-city babies. An Owl stolen from its cage and let loose to fend for itself? Now that's newsworthy shit. Something any compassionate Homosapien can sink his energy and emotion into. Thankfully he (Dakota the Owl) took a crap today and is now eating solid foods.

Let's put this spike in co-sleeping deaths in Milwaukee in a statistical perspective:

According to the CPSC, at least 515 deaths were linked to infants and toddlers under 2 years of age sleeping in adult beds from January 1990 to December 1997:

121 of the deaths were attributed to a parent, caregiver, or sibling rolling on top of or against a baby while sleeping

WTF is happening in Milwaukee?

Really, really sick and twisted priorities. And what's worse? I am not sure there isn't a much more nefarious motive behind these snuffications. Head. Sand. Nothing to see here.

Manimals: I am talking to you. Viva Dakota! Olvide Los Sin Nombres!

DOUBLE-EFFECT WARNING: Enoch_Root (a White guy) is drawing attention to deaths of Black Babies in Milwaukee. And further, he is suggesting that statistically-speaking, all of these cannot be "accidents". Further, Enoch_Root is accused of butting in to the affairs of a certain minority community. Clearly, his not-so-subtle conjecture is that this is some sort of cultural phenomenon occurring in said minority community. This is clearly a racist piece. He has been denounced in advance.

a more helpful post, here

UPDATE: 1/3/2012 - Another Dead Black Baby.Where's the outrage?

"At approximately 9:47 a.m...the 22-year-old aunt came out to the living room to check on the children and noticed that [Gilmore] was lying supine next to the 10-year-old aunt and was unresponsive."

Enoch_Root

Person with kids,a beautiful wife, a job. Catholic of the Latin Rite.

Website - More Posts

In district after district, Cheeseheads are learning that not only have they been gouged but gouged mightily in this unholy alliance of Big Labor and Monopolistic business arrangements, but that the abuses are being revealed to be more significant than was touted by the Walker Administration and state legislators.

How we know this is the case is that for those districts that refused to extend Public School Teacher Union contracts before Walker's reforms became law, budget surpluses are now being realized. For those school districts that extended Union contracts before the new laws went into effect budget shortfalls. As a result, in those districts with new-found surpluses, property tax levies have either remained flat or been reduced. Of course, the opposite is true for those unfortunates living in districts whose boards shamefully chose the Unions over the taxpayers on behalf of whom we have been reminded they are to serve (ie. Milwaukee Public Schools district).

The extent of the grift perpetrated under the Democrats at the state level and their allies in the Teachers' Union is stunning.

To say nothing about overpaying, double-dipping (whereby a teacher retires and is rehired the next day and subsequently receives full pension, full benefits, and full salary all on the taxpayers' pocketbook), mandated cost of living adjustments, tenure (or the inability to weed out the awful teachers), the worst scam of all appears in the form of WEA Trust.

For years upon years, the Wisconsin Teachers Union has baked in a mandate for a good many districts to purchase Cadillac insurance plans from... wait for it... the Wisconsin Teachers Union. Being over-insured is one thing. Over-paying to over-insure teachers is another thing.

Yesterday, it was revealed that one district in Wisconsin (Oshkosh)

...could save about $774,000 this year and another $1.3 million next year by leaving its union-affiliated health insurance for a new provider".

The district requested proposals from providers in July after its labor unions gave the board full control over health insurance as part of a one-year collective bargaining agreement.

... Business director Bob Tess said[,]"We weren't just looking for the cheapest plan. It just so happens that the best plan was also the least expensive."

Read the whole thing Here

Makes one wonder aloud who will benefit most from Obamacare.

Enoch_Root

Person with kids,a beautiful wife, a job. Catholic of the Latin Rite.

Website - More Posts

I read stories of conservative students attending colleges dominated by liberals, but I had the opposite experience, which only served to reinforce the beliefs of a stubborn 18 year old kid.  At a small college that was, roughly 90% GOP, I reveled in being a Christian Democrat among friends who didn't understand how that was even possible.  I may as well have shown them a round triangle. So voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 came natural, as did voting for Tom Vilsack in 1998. 

By this time, however, I was deeply involved in listserv discussions with newfound internet friends across the country, and I was slowly discovering that these Republicans didn't hate poor people and they weren't just trying to hoard their money.  They honestly believed government was getting in the way, and that if that trend could be reversed, the lower class would have access to more and better jobs.

At the same time, Monica Lewinsky hit the headlines, along with all of his defenders on the left.  All those powerful women on the left, who championed the cause of feminism, were all falling in line defending a man who, at the very least, had abused his position as the most powerful man in the world for personal gratification.  That shattered my idealism, I no longer believed my political heroes (ie Tom Harkin) were so true to their beliefs, so I started questioning their beliefs.  This led to me questioning everything. 

If Democrats weren't the stallwarts of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, as I'd beileved, perhaps Republicans really weren't the living embodiments of Lex Luthor. As I started rethinking things, the 2000 election was approaching and I started, for whatever reason, to think of Bush as a Republican I could actually vote for.  I also started realizing that I was, in a lot of respects, already conservative.  Aside from the social conservatism I'd been raised with, I was coming to grips with the fact that government programs, high taxes, and arbitrary regulation were all hinderances on the economy, and thus job killers. 

When my daughter was born in 2000, and we were considering daycare and other job-related expenses for my wife, I finally understood how the costs of working (and risk) would reduce the incentive to actually engage in financial risks that are inherently necessary for economic growth. Finally, Al Gore made it easier and easier to vote Republican that year, and Tom Harkin's disingenuous attacks on Dick Cheney's lack of a military record pushed me over the edge.  At that time, I not only decided to vote for Bush, but vowed never to vote for Harkin again.  Then there was 9-11, and my decision was confirmed in my mind, as the thought that Al Gore could have been president for that scared me.

Adam Wells

Living life at 84 mph and 7000 feet. All I ask is that you don't block traffic, act like a professional, and don't act all surprised when your actions have consequences. Oh, and don't complain about the refs; trust me, they don't care if your team wins or not.

But, you know, at least they weren't Green Jobs...Yet...From Boston.com :

General Electric Co.’s health care unit, the world’s biggest maker of medical imaging machines, is moving the headquarters of its 115-year-old X-ray business to Beijing.

The headquarters will move from Wisconsin amid a broader plan to invest about $2 billion across China, including opening six “customer innovation’’ and development centers.

The X-ray business, whose financial results aren’t reported separately by GE, will hire 65 new engineers and support staff at a new Chengdu facility, the company said. GE has hired “a large number’’ of engineers who are in training, LeGrand said. GE, based in Fairfield, Conn., also has a global research center in Shanghai.

If you recall, GE's CEO, Jeff Immelt, is the Chairman of President Obama's Job Council; a group committed to creating new jobs.  But who knew they were talking about creating jobs overseas?  Especially considering all of the Sturm-und-Drang one hears about "outsourcing jobs" coming from "Big Labor", one of Obama's vital constituencies, and indeed from the entire progressive left in general whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Look. I've been a free-trading free-market guy all my life; in my opinion any business can do business wherever they'd like.  But really, above and beyond the irony of this story and its concomitant sweet, sweet, schadenfreude there are more important points to be made here.

First and foremost, Americans will not be getting these jobs.  Good Jobs.  High-tech, high paying jobs.  The ones the transnational globalists always said we'd retain here, so it was OK to shop all of those nasty ol' smokestack industry jobs to the developing nations.  And what should be important to the DC politicians is that now they'll be missing out on the tax revenue from these jobs and the associated supply chain activity.  But wait, there's more.

See, what most people don't realize are the details of the Faustian bargain that must be made by any US businesses that wants to set up shop in China.  In most cases they have to cede 51% of the ownership to a Chinese partner, so Hello, GE shareholders-any objections to this?  But far worse is that they have to agree to transfer both the device's operating technology and the expertise associated with manufacturing it to China as well; in other words they're not allowed to just ship the parts there to be assembled, and import tech's to service the units sold.

And really it's the technology transfer, both electronic as well as industrial process related, the Chinese crave.  That way they can be saved the taxing step of actually buying enough units to successfully reverse engineer the device, and associated process, themselves; just ask the Russians about the SU-27 and SU-33 military aircraft.  For a while the Chinese built them under Ukrainian license, (which the Russians protested-they knew better), for a while, and then they simply stopped paying the license fee, renamed the airplanes, and that was all there is to that.

People may think this imaging technology to be a benign transfer at best; which, Bill Clinton thought the same about missile guidance technology transfer to China in the 90s.  We can see today how that's worked out for us...

The same technology that allows for the 3-d imaging of babies in the womb, on a different scale, has applications underwater, which is all I'm going to say about that...

The Chinese are our "frienemies" at best.  Their aggressive, mercantilistic, monetary policies have cost Americans untold numbers of jobs.  We are indirectly paying for their defense expansion and modernization via our monthly trade deficit with them, which most months is equal in magnitude to the amount of money we send overseas to pay people who hate us for oil (we could be producing here).  It's bad enough we're paying for their military build-up. Let's not give them technology that may be useful in doing so to boot!

What do you think, kind reader?

[Cross posted at The Conservatory]

Rocketman

Or alternatively, he doesn't want to put it out there because it will become "politically charged"; so says the man who's boss has threatened to veto the Boehner plan, draped himself in the mantle of Reagan by misappropriating one of the Gipper's quotes out of context, and demanded that Congressional leaders "compromise"-by accepting the Democrats debt ceiling increase plan-all within the last 24 hours.

From Greg Hengler at Townhall:

Chip Reid is the first to ask Carney about Obama's plan: "Why not put it out there?" Reid also asks: "What was the point of giving a prime time address to the nation without an Obama plan?"

Next, Chuck Todd doubles down on Reid's challenge and causes Carney to stutter a bit. After Todd's feisty challenges, a reporter named Carol triples down on the press's "show us the plan" challenge to Carney and Obama. The scene is ugly and unpleasant--if you're on Team Obama.

After all the hemming and hawing from Carney over Obama's so-called plan, we learn that he really doesn't have one "because we want a result." Go figure.

He has a plan but not really. Truly Orwellian...

And ACE calls a spade, a spade :

It's pretty interesting-- the press room jeers in protest when Carney suggests they skipped out of town early on Friday, when he claims the President clearly outlined his "principles."

His "principles." Still not his "plan."

As the CBO said, "We can't score speeches."

Really worth viewing. It's interesting that media is finally starting to chafe under Obama's arrogant reign. Really, really worth watching. The press (particularly Todd and Jake Tapper) will not ease up on Carney over the administration's utter failure to produce a plan.

Hmmm... Obama insists that the debt deal must carry him to January 2013, and here Carney repeats that the President also insists that no tax hikes will go into effect before January 2013.

Is there some economic importance of this January 2013 date?

And AllahP recounts the musing of Steve Hayes:

Steve Hayes notes that it wasn’t so long ago that Obama’s press secretary was mocking the GOP at the podium as “the party of no ideas” for producing a brief budget framework instead of a detailed plan. Fast forward two years and, with the alleged economic apocalypse nearly upon us, we’ve got a different press secretary insisting that O doesn’t need to float a plan because he once gave a speech or something. Good times, good times.

What's black, is white; Up is down; etc.  Check out video at any of the links, at savor the squirming of O!'s minion in service to The Won.

[Cross posted at The Conservatory]

Rocketman

Because through back channels the administration is going out of their way to assure banks that a default just isn't happening. From Charles Gasparino at Fox Business:

While officials from the Obama Administration raised their rhetoric over the weekend about the possibility of a debt default if the debt ceiling isn't raised, they privately have been telling top executives at major U.S. banks that such an event won’t happen, FOX Business has learned.

In a series of phone calls, administration officials have told bankers that the administration will not allow a default to happen even if the debt cap isn't raised by the August 2 date Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the government will run out of money to pay all its bills, including obligations to bond holders. Geithner made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows saying a default is imminent if the debt ceiling isn't raised, and President Obama issued a similar warning during a Friday press conference after budget negotiations with House Republicans broke down.

A senior banking official told FOX Business that administration officials have provided guidance to them that even though a default is off the table, a downgrade "is a real possibility for no other reason than S&P and Moody's have to cover (themselves) since they've been speaking out on the debt cap so much."

This guidance is a big reason why Wall Street has largely dismissed the possibility of default, and though the markets have been jittery amid the talk of default, they haven't imploded as would be the case, many economists fear, if the nation missed a payment on its debt.

The banking official said the administration understands that if there were to be a default, it would likely spark another financial crisis.

"They also know they can pay the debt with cash on hand," this official told FOX Business. The Treasury collects around $2 trillion in tax revenues, and is scheduled to pay out $200 billion in interest to bond holders. In order to meet its obligations to contractors, social security recipients and others, the administration would have to raise another $1 trillion either through cuts, higher tax revenues, the issuance of debt or a combination of all three.

So if this is the case, how much credibility can be put into the Treasury Secretary's words?  And what of the President himself?  Are we to assume it's merely a white lie, to help move the debt ceiling negotiations along at the pace he prefers? Or as some have suggested it is part of a much larger, more cynical plan to pin the blame for the bad economy on the GOP; that next year he'll counter assertions that he has been a poor steward of the economy by counter-asserting that everything was fine until the Wingnut Tea-Baggerz wrecked it with their irresponsible demands during the debt ceiling increase debate.

What this does seem to indicate is that there is more breathing room for negotiations that Mr. Obama or the Democrats want to admit, and that they're more than willing to frighten the public in order to advance their political agenda.  Which, if you recall, was one of Obama's major, damning, criticisms of the GOP during the campaign of 2008; their willingness to engage in fear-mongering to divide the American people.   Not to mention their most recent mediscare demagoguery...

But is any of this really shocking, coming from the crew that subscribes to the maxim, "BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!"

What do you think, kind reader?

[Cross posted at The Conservatory]

Rocketman

Which, as I noted earlier, was the inclusion among Reid's supposed "savings" of funds for not fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq; funds that no one has included in any of their budget baselines.  But Representative Ryan points that out clearly on the House Budget Committee website:

Rocketman

Uncle O! wants YOU! to believe whatever he says

To which I respond all of the usual and customary replies to any uber obvious question; is the Pope Catholic?  Does a bear, well, you know...

The Washington Times' James Curl:

In the weird world that is Washington, men and women say things daily, hourly, even minutely, that they know deep down are simply not true. Inside the Beltway, we all call those utterances “rhetoric.”

But across the rest of the country, plain ol’ folk call ‘em lies. Bald-faced (even bold-faced) lies. Those folks have a tried-and-true way of determining a lie: If you know what you’re saying is patently false, then it’s a lie. Simple.

And lately, the president has been lying so much that his pants could burst into flames at any moment.

His late-evening news conference Friday was a tour de force of flat-out, unadulterated mendacity — and we’ve gotten a first-hand insider’s view of the president’s long list of lies.

Curl goes on to provide a first-class "fisking" of Mr. Obama's Friday afternoon press conference foot-stamping temper tantrum. As we often say, read the whole thing...

[Cross posted at The Conservatory]

Rocketman

If WaPo's ersatz "conservative" Jen Rubin's reportage is correct then it would appear he indeed has:

A Republican aide e-mails me: “The Speaker, Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan. A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the President said no.”

If this is accurate the president is playing with fire. By halting a bipartisan deal he imperils the country’s finances and can rightly be accused of putting partisanship above all else. The ONLY reason to reject a short-term, two-step deal embraced by both the House and Senate is to avoid another approval-killing face-off for President Obama before the election. Next to pulling troops out of Afghanistan to fit the election calendar, this is the most irresponsible and shameful move of his presidency.
[emphasis-ed]

I personally am not as surprised as Ms. Rubin by the President's behavior, because for all his palavering on about a willingness to be satisfied with being a good one-termer who accomplished some of what he wanted than with playing politics in the interest of being re-elected, in my humble opinion every act he's made, decision he's taken, and word he's spoken has always been about holding on to power as long as possible.

Now as this is the only place I've seen this so far, it's hard to tell if it has legs, will be buried by other developments later today, or will simply be embargoed by Obama's campaign arm in the fourth estate.  We'll have to see.

But if it does get more widespread circulation, then it will pose a serious problem, politically, for the self-professed MOST POST-PARTISAN PRESIDENT, EVAR!, since it will at once put the lie to that grand meme as well as some other longstanding facets of the narrative construct that is Barack Obama, such as his Brilliance!, Judgment, and Superior Temperament!

Additionally it may drive a wedge between Congressional Democrats and The Won on this particular issue.  Many of them have run for years on platforms promising fiscal responsibility and balancing our national budget, and they can read the polls showing that the American people prefer to do something about the budget at this juncture; and by "doing something" don't mean raise taxes.

Congressional Democrats have a decision to make.  Do they essentially tie their 2012 electoral fortunes to Mr. Obama by backing his play on this issue, and allow GOP challengers to continually point out their disingenuousness on this matter as being indicative of their candor as a whole and specifically seriousness to rein in DC spending, or do they live up to their promises, pass the bill, and send it to the President for signature or veto.  I say call his bluff, because he doesn't dare throw all of Congress under the bus on this, and overtly take ownership of the issue.

Of course, those of us who pay attention have been aware of his ownership of the debt for sometime; it doesn't take a rocket-scientist to see the slope on this graph and understand who's exploded the US national debt faster that any other President in history.

What do you think, kind reader?

[UPDATE]: Byron York at The Washington Examiner corroborates Rubin's source's story.

And Juice-Box Mafiosi Ezra Klein laments that, "The Republicans have won!", and searches for a silver lining for the Democrats while presenting a time line that will convince the "Fightin' Nutroots" that their pols didn't go down without a fight.

[Cross posted at The Conservatory]

Rocketman