Photo of the Day: Obama's Nightmare

Hat tip: Ace of Spades.

Tweet of the Day

"Paul Ryan represents Obama's most horrifying nightmare: math."
- Iowahawk

Thoughts on Paul Ryan

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
- Abraham Lincoln, January 27, 1838

Paul Ryan is an exceptionally smart and very capable guy. He is thoughtful and articulate. He will make an excellent vice president. You will not wince inwardly during his debate performances.

However, I am reminded of the above quote. Paul Ryan's budget proposal is strong medicine for a nation with a very serious problem. It is, in my opinion, perhaps the best solution currently being put forward to our nation's fiscal crisis.

However, Ryan's budget is easily demagogued. Democrats have already depicted Paul Ryan pushing an old lady in a wheelchair off a cliff in television ads. They have already depicted Mitt Romney as a murderer (in a blatant lie, no less). Worse is doubtless on its way.

If Americans are not ready to admit we have a fiscal problem, they are not going to be ready for Paul Ryan's solutions. And, like it or not, the Ryan budget is now an integral part of Mitt Romney's platform. If he loses, Ryan's budget loses.

As we say down here in southern Indiana, nobody pees on an electric fence twice. If Mitt Romney, with Paul Ryan on his ticket and Ryan's budget as a part of his campaign, goes down to defeat, nobody will want to propose or undertake solutions to these problems in the future.

In that sense, the citizens of the United States--should they vote for more of Obama over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan--will be voting for national suicide.

Are the people ready for tough medicine for a serious problem?

We're about to find out.

When Paul Ryan Met Barack Obama

Watch all six minutes of this. The look Obama gives Ryan at 5:26 or so is priceless.

Photo of the Day: John Gregg Steps Out in Style

Who wears wingtip dress shoes, gray pinstripe dress slacks, a pink dress shirt, and a tie to a parade? Why John Gregg, that's who.

Today, at the Harrison County Fair Parade:

Note also the bizarre giant cardboard cutouts of Shelli Yoder's head that her supporters were carrying in the parade.

Quote of the Day: Lincoln on Liberty

"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name — liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny."
- Abraham Lincoln, April 18, 1864

WISH TV:

Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock is a student of Abraham Lincoln but his use of a Lincoln quote during a speech in Texas last night is raising some eyebrows.

Mourdock is under fire from Democrat Joe Donnelly for his efforts to stop the Chrysler bankruptcy. His defense of those efforts led him to use part of a Lincoln quote that also includes a reference to slavery. (see full quote below)

He was speaking to a Freedomworks audience in Dallas telling the conservative political action committee that he fought the Chrysler bankruptcy to stop the bankruptcy court from taking the pensions of retired teachers and state troopers. "So that someone else can be given their assets," he said. "It is the same tyrannical principle as in 1858."

The 1858 reference is to a Lincoln quote, one that includes a reference to "one race of men enslaving another race." Today Mourdock said he wasn't comparing the actions of the Obama Administration to slavery. "No, that wasn't the issue at all," he said. "It was about governments actions and taking property."

This afternoon State Democratic Chairman Dan Parker issued a statement calling Mourdock's references to the Civil War era embarassing and inexcuseable. He said Mourdock should apologize.

Here's what Lincoln said in a debate with Stephen Douglas:

"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, 'You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle." --October 15, 1858 Debate at Alton

Abraham Lincoln clearly felt in 1858--and still in 1864--that the key principle in question throughout history (not merely during the period of and leading to our Civil War) is not slavery, but that of tyranny: the notion of one person (or group of people) doing as they pleased with the fruits of the labors of other people.

That notion applies down through the ages in countless forms of despotism that elevate some men above others.

It's going to take more than false outrage over Richard Mourdock quoting Abraham Lincoln to get Hoosiers to elect a big government, big spending liberal like Joe Donnelly.

The Imaginary World of Joe Donnelly

Matt Tully's column this weekend is a love letter to Joe Donnelly, singing the praises of the liberal Congressman from northern Indiana whose voting record has been in lockstep with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi from the moment he took office.

This liberal voting record--a hard and objective, unchallenged fact--is something that is inconvenient to the narrative of Tully's paean to Joe Donnelly (really a sour grapes lament of the defeat of Dick Lugar), so Tully simply omits it.

In Tully's world, Donnelly is a soft cuddly moderate who loves bipartisanship, a guy who can get away with an outright lie of claiming he never voted for Nancy Pelosi for house speaker when in fact he voted for her twice.

Let's look at the column:

It's easy to be depressed about politics these days.

Super PACs shape campaigns from the shadows, and cable news entertainers influence politics from the edge of sanity. Big issues go unaddressed because of partisan gridlock; yet, somehow, politicians such as Indiana's U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock emerge with promises to bring even more gridlock and partisanship to Capitol Hill.

Mourdock bluntly said recently: "We need less bipartisanship in Congress." Among many other such statements, there was this one: "To me, the highlight of politics, frankly, is to inflict my opinion on someone else."

I could go on; Mourdock is the Energizer Bunny of juvenile political ideas. So it's been nice to see that his divisive brand of politics has caused him trouble recently and helped make Indiana's Senate race competitive.

I'm curious about what makes the Senate race any more competitive than the one in 2010, other than columnists like Matt Tully proclaiming it to be so.

Gone are the pre-primary days when the Republican state treasurer had only to appeal to a small slice of the voter pool -- a slice that loved his inflammatory rhetoric. The general election season has arrived, and Mourdock's opposition to working with anyone who doesn't share his far-right worldview is a tougher sell among the 91 percent of Hoosier adults who either didn't vote in the Republican primary or didn't vote for him in that primary.

Fair enough. Mourdock must now sell his worldview to the 60% of Hoosiers that had him lead the Republican ticket statewide in 2010 (and had him beat Joe Donnelly in Donnelly's own district). This is neither a tough sell nor a new one for Richard Mourdock.

Mourdock's fortunes are not helped by the fact that his Democratic opponent is a workmanlike Blue Dog moderate. Joe Donnelly, a former small-business owner and current third-term U.S. House member from Northern Indiana, delivers a message built around two core ideas: create more jobs and turn Washington, D.C. into less of a toxic swamp.

This is interesting, as Joe Donnelly is currently in Washington and has by his voting record contributed greatly to 1) things that destroy jobs rather than create them, and 2) continue to keep Washington a toxic swamp.

There is also nothing "workmanlike" about Joe Donnelly's background (he's an attorney and a Democratic party hack), just like there's nothing actually moderate about him when you examine his voting record.

"This is about making Hoosier lives better and our country stronger," Donnelly told me over coffee at the City Cafe Downtown last week. "(Mourdock) is going there as a partisan warrior. I'm going there as the hired help from Indiana to make our state stronger."

Again, with his votes for Wall Street bailouts, Obama's economy-strangling deficits, Obama's budget-busting failed stimulus plan, and Obama's government takeover of health care, there is no record of Joe Donnelly using his time in Congress to "make Hoosier lives better and our country stronger."

Does anyone seriously think that the life of the average Hoosier is better today than it was when Joe Donnelly went to Washington? Is our country stronger? Certainly not with Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Donnelly minding the store. Indiana is not any stronger, either.

Hired help, indeed. Most people would fire hired help with a record like Joe Donnelly's.

So far, Mourdock has been Donnelly's most valuable political asset, routinely saying things that his opponents couldn't make up. For example, he has said that if the Senate is not in Republican hands next year, his main goal as a taxpayer-salaried senator would be to travel the country campaigning to get more Republicans elected. He believes compromise can be achieved only if Democrats and moderate Republicans cave on every issue and embrace his positions. He has offered a laughable proposal to eliminate several federal agencies and departments without offering a sensible plan to replace the services they provide.

If you believe that more government and more debt and more spending is the answer, clearly you're going to be voting for Joe Donnelly. If you want less government and less debt and less spending, clearly you're going to be voting for Richard Mourdock.

As Mitch Daniels is fond of saying, "You'd be surprised how much government you'll never miss."

"What will happen if you act that way is people will ignore you," Donnelly said. "How can you be a serious part of any discussion if you've said from the beginning that the only plan you'll be a part of is your plan?"

Joe Donnelly hasn't exactly gotten a lot accomplished in Washington other than be a rubber stamp for a liberal agenda written out of Chicago by Obama and San Francisco by Nancy Pelosi.

In a state that leans to the right, those pulling for Donnelly point to his opposition to abortion, his support of gun rights and his call for less spending.

Oh, well that seals the deal, right? How encouraging.

Joe Donnelly has "called" for less spending.

His voting record, however, has been in lockstep for ever more spending.

Joe Donnelly says he is opposed to abortion.

His voting record, however, has been for policies like Federal funding of abortion and coercion of private Catholic hospitals to go against their pro-life beliefs by order of government decree.

Pay no attention to what he does in DC, folks. Only pay attention to the sweet lies he tells back here in Indiana.

That record could help sell his candidacy to independents and moderate Republicans. But what about Democrats? To that question, he said he would support President Obama "when he's right" but added that the problems facing the country aren't about partisan labels.

If his voting record is any indication, by Joe Donnelly's own words we can conclude that he believes Barack Obama is right with ballooning government spending, raising taxes, and Obamacare.

Remember, Joe Donnelly says he supports Barack Obama "when he's right."

His voting record shows that Joe Donnelly thinks Barack Obama is right a lot.