"As the Dossier Scandal Looms, the New York Times Struggles to Save Its Collusion Tale."

A must-read by Andrew McCarthy (at National Review).

Seven months after throwing Carter Page as fuel on the collusion fire lit by then-FBI director James Comey’s stunning public disclosure that the Bureau was investigating possible Trump campaign “coordination” in Russia’s election meddling, the Gray Lady now says: Never mind. We’re onto Collusion 2.0, in which it is George Papadopoulos....

Well, it turns out the Page angle and thus the collusion narrative itself is beset by an Obama-administration scandal: Slowly but surely, it has emerged that the Justice Department and FBI very likely targeted Page because of the Steele dossier, a Clinton-campaign opposition-research screed disguised as intelligence reporting. Increasingly, it appears that the Bureau failed to verify Steele’s allegations before the DOJ used some of them to bolster an application for a spying warrant from the FISA court (i.e., the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court)....

"Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium..."

"... the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews. Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show...."

The Hill reports.

In the perceptual entropy of the metamodernist, the Sanders revolution has already happened.

From an Atlantic article — "This Is How a Revolution Ends/The Democratic insurgent’s campaign is losing steam—but his supporters are not ready to give up" — by Molly Ball:

The Sanders movement has become impervious to reality. Some have even called into question the nature of reality itself: “Bernie Sanders’ ‘political revolution’ is political only inasmuch as thought is political,” a self-described “metamodernist creative writer” named Seth Abramson wrote in the Huffington Post a few days ago. “By the very nature of things—we might call it perceptual entropy—the impossible, once perceived, enters a chain of causation whose natural conclusion is realization.” By this logic, Abramson reasons, Sanders is actually winning. It’s, like, the Matrix, man, or something....

Clinton, for her part, has taken to pretending Sanders does not exist....

Just stop believing and he'll go away.

Sanders was introduced [in Anaheim] by a blind Filipino delegate and a gay actress who... compared Sanders to a unicorn, because “he seems too good to be true.”...

Ball is pushing the Hillary theory: It can't be true. A blind lady can see that he looks like a unicorn. Why won't everyone just stop?!!

But it's not that kind of year. And that unicorn is getting in position to win California.



IN THE COMMENTS: shiloh said:

ok, Althouse just wanted another excuse to use her Hillary's in trouble tag.

I said:

I made that tag to correspond to my tag for Obama: "Obama's in trouble."

That tag arose from a comic take we had at Meadhouse, which was, in longer form, "Obama's in trouble! We need to help!" I thought that was the tone of the news around Obama, and we were — I am not kidding — riffing on the old TV show "Lassie," where Lassie would bark about someone being in trouble and people would then know to spring into action and help.

But with Hillary, we don't have that instinct: If she's in trouble, then that means we need to help. She just doesn't inspire us that way. Few politicians do.

"Pelosi Knifes Obama."

Headline at The Wall Street Journal. (Google some text to get a link to enter as a nonsubscriber.)

Mr. Obama began [Friday] by paying a rare, unannounced visit to Capitol Hill for an emergency closed-door pep rally with House Democrats, which was in retrospect a bad omen. His talk was reportedly well received at first but then he advised the caucus that “a vote against trade is a vote against me,” while Democrat Peter DeFazio of Oregon noted that the President “tried to guilt people and impugn their integrity.” In other words, it was a vintage Obama performance.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had until Friday promised the White House she’d remain neutral. But after the meeting she took to the floor to deliver a rambling speech that sounded off-the-cuff and encouraged Democrats to vote against a program called Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA. To understand how remarkable this surprise attack was, imagine Pearl Harbor as an inside job....

George W. Bush is much more popular than Barack Obama.

According to a new CNN poll: 52% disapprove of Obama and 45% approve.

[I]t's dropped since April, going from a near-even 48% approve to 47% disapprove split... [T]he rising disapproval ratings come across party lines, from both men and women, from whites and non-whites.

As for George W. Bush:

For the first time in a decade, more Americans say they like him than dislike him.... 52% of adults had a favorable impression of George W. Bush, 43% unfavorable.

So Obama is 7 points into the negative and Bush is 9 points into the positive.

"I have never seen a president in exactly the position Mr. Obama is, which is essentially alone."

Writes Peggy Noonan in "The Loneliest President Since Nixon/Facing adversity, Obama has no idea how to respond."

He’s got no one with him now. The Republicans don’t like him, for reasons both usual and particular: They have had no good experiences with him. The Democrats don’t like him, for their own reasons plus the election loss.... No one at [his post-election lunch with congressional leaders] looked at him with colder, beadier eyes than outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who clearly doesn’t like him at all. The press doesn’t especially like the president; in conversation they evince no residual warmth. This week at the Beijing summit there was no sign the leaders of the world had any particular regard for him....

The last time we saw a president so alone it was Richard Nixon, at the end of his presidency, when the Democrats had turned on him, the press hated him, and the Republicans were fleeing.... But Nixon had one advantage Obama does not: the high regard of the world’s leaders, who found his downfall tragic (such ruin over such a trifling matter) and befuddling (he didn’t keep political prisoners chained up in dungeons, as they did. Why such a fuss?).

"I am going to squeeze every last little bit of opportunity to help make this world a better place over these last two years."

Said Barack Obama, responding to one part of a 2-part question from CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta at a press conference yesterday. The part of the question he answered was: "Are you running out of time? How much time do you have left? And what do you make of the notion that you’re now a lame duck?" And he really didn't even answer that question. He turned it into the question: What are you going to do with the rest of your time?

The other part of the question, the first part, was: "your party rejected you in these midterms...  they did not want you out on the campaign trail in these key battleground states. How do you account for that?" Obama blabbed so long on the reframed second part of the question that, I guess, he hoped we wouldn't notice that he never got around to that. But what would he have said? Those loser Democrats have their loss to themselves, so don't smear their loserhood onto me. I am the one the American people embraced heartily twice. They love me.

We can only imagine what he might have said and what he really thinks. I pulled out the quote I put in the post title, because I found it appealing. I read it out loud to Meade, and he latched onto the word "squeeze": "I do not like him squeezing and getting into my life. He can try to get onto the track of making my life better, but that's not his job, to make my life better."

I always get Meade's approval before blogging a quote of his, and this time the quote-check triggered another quote that I couldn't get verbatim. I've got to paraphrase: Obama's policies were rejected in the election, what was rejected was the Democratic Party's excessive intervention into the lives of the people, so Obama needs to get back to the proper role of the President, Commander in Chief and executing the laws of the United States.

I find myself attracted to trifling stories this morning.

I got started with: "Cab company responsible for failed ride to airport, appeals court says."

Larry and Donna Peters... had sought damages of $5,225 for airline tickets, which had to be re-booked in a short time frame; $300 in ticket exchange fees; and $615 for hotel fees for the days they missed because of their late departure.

Small claims.  More smallness: "Hugh Jackman sliced the tip of his finger onstage during a preview of his Broadway show 'The River' Wednesday night":

A witness said the “Wolverine” star accidentally cut himself with a knife as he chopped a lemon around 30 minutes into the performance, and noticeably bled for an hour.

That caught my eye while I was reading the NY Post in an effort to learn exactly how the movie "The Social Network" hurt Mark Zuckerberg's feelings:

"They just kind of made up a bunch of stuff that I found really hurtful. They made up this whole plot line about how I somehow decided to create Facebook to attract girls."

And he'd never even heard of an appletini.

I also felt drawn into the details of this 1912 brothel menu. Interesting, what 50¢ bought back then and the language used to convey the differences between the various services.

I don't know. Maybe it's the after-effects of the election. Everything was so big the other day. It was a wave election. No! It was a tsunami!! (There are "About 15,700 results" for the Google news search "tsunami election.")

Oh, shut up, all you blowhard commentators and pollsters who didn't know what was going to happen before that gigantic thing happened. Your post-show is pointless. I watched none of that last night.

I taught my law school class — about Christmas decorations — had a glass of wine in a café with a friend, watched the most boring episode of "Survivor" ever with Meade, and went to sleep at 10. Had a dream about going to a bookstore and lugging along an entire bookcase full of one's own books, as if the owned books needed to socialize with the unbought books. Woke up at 5 and started reading the above-mentioned stories on my iPhone in bed. Got into a conversation about the election and its aftermath again. Meade said: "I'm ready to love Obama." But to explain that is to get past the topic of this post, the attraction of trifling things.

Unfair attack on Obama... by a metaphor.

Air Force One won't fly!

Remember when Air Force One eagerly stepped up to the demands of propaganda — even beyond the call of duty?

Now we know: It's time to panic.

"BREAKING: Obama postpones campaign trip to convene cabinet meeting on Ebola."

UPDATE: The link goes to the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and with the story no longer "breaking," you can find it, with the same title, is here.

Leon Panetta says Obama needs to "get in the ring" and "fight."

ADDED: Transcript:

Bob, there are--you know, having been in this town close to fifty years, you know, I've seen Washington at its best and Washington at its worst.... And this country cannot tolerate another two and a half years of stalemate. The President can't tolerate it. If he wants to be able to get the things done that he wants done, and I respect him for-- for what he wants to get done, he has got to get into the ring. Everybody's got to get in and fight to make sure that we do the right thing for the country....

He almost yelled "fight," so I sensed some real frustration there.

You know... I don't mind Presidents who have the quality of- of a law professor in looking at the issues and determining just exactly, you know, what needs to be done. But Presidents need to also have the heart of a warrior. That's the way you get things done, is you-- you engage in the fight. And in this town, as difficult it is-- as it is, and it is difficult. I mean you've got Tea Party members in Congress who basically want to shut the government down and tear it down. He still has to have the ability to engage and to try to work with people up there who want to get things done in order to make sure that we just don't stalemate as a country

"What Panetta is doing is a hit – a contract killing – for Hillary."

"Panetta at core is a Clinton person, not an Obama person. By accurately and truthfully describing the deliberations in the [Obama] cabinet, he makes Hillary look better, and he makes Obama look worse … And I think he’ll get his reward in heaven."

Said Dick Morris.

Poor Obama!

This is so mean:



There's that brilliant smile America fell in love with. The man is photogenic. Is that so wrong?! Maybe the beams of joy will go out to Foley's parents... and to ISIS... and to the people of Ferguson...

***

Smile though your heart is aching/Smile even though it's breaking./When there are clouds in the sky/you'll get by.... Light up your face with gladness/Hide every trace of sadness/Although a tear may be ever so near....

"I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq."

Obama assured the American people, even as he stressed the importance of doing something.

We watched last night. Here's the video. He was speaking in the White House dining room, without an audience, and he used the style of teleprompter reading that has him looking to one side for a while and then to the other, as if he were addressing a roomful of people. I guess there were people in the room, technicians and advisers, but we TV-watchers were the audience, and the side-to-side business felt evasive. He looked and sounded half robotic and half scared.

I don't know what was really going on in his head...

... thousands of Iraqi civilians who are trapped on a mountain without food and water and facing almost certain death.... operations to help save Iraqi civilians stranded on the mountain... hiding high up on the mountain, with little but the clothes on their backs.  They’re without food, they’re without water.  People are starving.  And children are dying of thirst... descend the mountain and be slaughtered, or stay and slowly die of thirst and hunger... on that mountain -- with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale... what we’re doing on that mountain....

The vision of children dying of thirst on a mountain haunts the President, but not unmixed with the nightmare of the looming fall election. 

... the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye.  We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide.  

Doing nothing is not an option, but we also cannot do too much. Obama is trapped on his own mountain, but what he owes us — we who have put him on the mountain — is to do what is right, without taking any account of the fall elections, but you can see in his face and hear in his voice that he won't do that.

... targeted airstrikes, if necessary.... humanitarian airdrops of food and water... consulting with other countries -- and the United Nations -- who have called for action....

That's not much, and it must cheer the enemy in Iraq. Instead of explaining why he wouldn't do more, he spoke next to Americans he pictured thinking even this is too much:

I know that many of you are rightly concerned about any American military action in Iraq, even limited strikes like these.  I understand that.  I ran for this office in part to end our war in Iraq and welcome our troops home, and that’s what we’ve done.  As Commander-in-Chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq.  And so even as we support Iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists, American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there’s no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq.  The only lasting solution is reconciliation among Iraqi communities and stronger Iraqi security forces.

I picture the enemy watching this video and laughing.

ADDED: "U.S. military jets carried out two airstrikes Friday on Islamist militants outside the Kurdish capital of Irbil, hours after President Obama authorized attacks against the Sunni extremists advancing on the northern Iraq city."

Do we have to talk about talking about impeachment?

Who started it?

Who benefits?

Chuck Todd says Obama's "over," Cheney says he's "so wrong about so much," the GOP has the votes to impeach, and "Obama Meets Giant, Talking Robot Giraffe at White House."

Drudge tells a dire story:



Click image to enlarge

Links: "so over," "so wrong about so much," impeachment, and talking robot giraffe.

On theme today — the theme is self-refutation — the name of Obama's new press secretary: Josh Earnest.

So Jay Carney is out, and the new Obama mouthpiece is Josh Earnest. Great name! And that name is on theme today. We were just talking about self-refuting statements... on the occasion of Hillary's "I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans... Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me."

"The Obama administration hasn’t been distinguished by cool, cerebral, sure-footed professionalism, but by something closer to amateur hour."

"From the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act to the bloody aftermath of the intervention in Libya, from enabling political witch-hunts at the IRS to being repeatedly outmaneuvered by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, from swelling the debt he was going to reduce to embittering the politics he promised to detoxify, Obama’s performance has been a lurching series of screw-ups and disappointments."

From "Obama fails to show his vaunted ‘competence,'" by Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe.

"Perhaps because poverty strips people of happiness in the short term, it forces them to take the long view..."

"... to focus on the relationships they have with their children, their gods, and their friends, which become more meaningful over time."

From a piece in The New Yorker titled "Do the Poor Have More Meaningful Lives?" The phrase "long view" resonated with something in that much-talked-about New Yorker piece about Barack Obama. "The Long View" is the title of section 2 of the 10-part article:

While we were waiting for Obama to speak to the group, I asked [Valerie] Jarrett whether the health-care rollout had been the worst political fiasco Obama had confronted so far.

“I really don’t think so,” she said. Like all Obama advisers, she was convinced that the problems would get “fixed”—just as Social Security was fixed after a balky start, in 1937—and the memory of the botched rollout would recede. That was the hope and that was the spin. And then she said something that I’ve come to think of as the Administration’s mantra: “The President always takes the long view.”

That appeal to patience and historical reckoning, an appeal that risks a maddening high-mindedness, is something that everyone around Obama trots out to combat the hysterias of any given moment. “He has learned through those vicissitudes that every day is Election Day in Washington and everyone is writing history in ten-minute intervals,” Axelrod told me. “But the truth is that history is written over a long period of time—and he will be judged in the long term.”

What I'm hearing in the resonance between the 2 articles is: Settle down and stop expecting anything anytime soon. It's really not important that you be satisfied now, with your life or with the leaders who you might imagine should be helping you with your immediate problems. It's all for the best. Trust me. It will all make sense in the end.

Oh, no, we have to talk about "Tiger Mom" again.

I should be immune to the efforts of law professors to get us all talking about themselves, and Amy Chua has already done it once, with her "Tiger Mom" book in 2011, so I should be able to resist as she reappears, 3 years later, with another book, this time co-authored with her husband (who's also a law professor). But this one is cleverly packaged to make us say: Hey! Isn't that racist?! How can they say something so racist?!! Do they think because they are Yale law professors that they won't be accused of racism?!!!