Posse Incitatus

Defense Dominates Green and White Game - Plus Fall Predictions

Because we are powerful and influential members of the Spartan Nation, the Posse viewed Saturday's Green and White game from the luxurious comfort of the new press box. 

From our lofty perch, it was clear that the Spartan defense has the upper hand, though without starting quarterback Andrew Maxwell, there was bound to be some weakness on the offensive side of the ball.

Backup QB Connor Cook looked terrible in the first half, with several pics and near-pics, but we are inclined to believe this is because he was forced to run both offensive schemes.

While this gave him extra playing time, it prevented him from developing a rhythm.  Often QBs can huddle on the sideline after a 3-and-out and discuss problems with patterns, coverage, blocking and so forth.  But with Cook having to do double duty, there was no chance for him to adjust.

In the second half, Coach Dantonio changed things up, allowing Cook time to focus on one set of players.  The third and fourth string QBs then took some snaps while he rested and adjusted.  The result was a much more effective offense.

MISSING PERSONS:  In addition to Maxwell and the other injured players, Larry Caper and La'veon Bell were both scarce during the game.  Nick Hill was the only known running back to see much action.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE FALL:  In 2009, the Posse - like many observers - thrilled to the epid shootout between Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol.  The high-scoring scrimmage seemed to bode well for the future.  It fact, it was the harbinger of doom.

The Spartans were not the offensive powerhouse we assumed, they were simply weak on defense.  Since then, both Green and White games have been underscoring grinds - and this has resulted in highly successful seasons.

Based on the highly effective secondary, the Posse expects a similar dynamic.  If Maxwell can perform and the offensive line can provide adequate protection, we should do well.  The schedule shows the usual tough stretch in the mid-season, with road games in Madison and Ann Arbor, bracketed with home games against Iowa and Nebraska.  This stretch is tough, but less than those of previous years, leaving the Spartans solid contenders (if not outright favorites) to repeat their division championship.

MEANWHILE, SNOW EXPECTED IN ANN ARBOR:  For the Skunk Bear faithful, the schedule looks a lot worse.  In fact, it looks positively grim.  Starting with what we predict to be a massacre at the hands of Alabama, the Wolverines then must face Air Force and Notre Dame on the road - a far cry from last year's roundup of patsies.

They also play Ohio State and Nebraska on the road, which leads me to predict that they will probably lose at least five, possibly six games (Air Force may get an upset, depending on how badly Alabama mauls them).

DEATH TO THE BCS:  Rumors of some sort of playoff game leave me cold, but anything is better than the current travesty where teams can claim the national title without winning their own conference.

As a traditionalist, I much preferred the old system where rival organizations handed out rival trophies, creating a truly free market for claims to national dominance.  The creation of the BCS was yet another example of how baby boomers ruined everything they inherited.

Still, a system where merit rather than attendence figures and popularity would be an improvement.  One cannot simulateously claim that we are rewarding excellence while denying teams like Boise State a chance for glory because they won't sell enough tickets.

I also hope that Big Ten considers adopting a rule making conference standing a determinant over bowl selection.  Last season's travesty of punishing a division champion for losing the conference title game will be repeated unless something is done.

Slow Motion Meltdown

Many of us predicted early on that President Obama and the Democrats would overreach, simply because they were oh, so confident and full of hubris. (After all, isn't that just typical for smug leftists?)

The overreach came fast-and-furious (pun intended), with the administration ramrodding the stimulus program and Obamacare down our throats, naming czars who circumvented the Senate vetting/approval process, targeting stimulus funds to Democrat special interest groups, granting Obamacare waivers to cronies, politicizing the Department of Justice and turning the EPA into a hydra-headed monster, to name just a few developments.

The backlash and boomerang effect is starting to pick up steam, but couldn't possibly hit as rapidly as the enactment of damaging policies in 2010 and 2011. Early on, it became clear the administration didn't have the support, even in a Democrat-controlled congress, to implement union card-check legislation, so that died on the vine. So much for all the clout of the well-heeled union bosses. Maybe their bark is worse than their bite.

But some of the other failures and backlash have taken longer to surface. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court's recent hearings on the constitutionality of Obamacare, and the court's examination of Arizona's immigration laws, do not bode well for the administration and liberal Democrats.

The administration's supporters and many of their sycophant media stooges arrogantly dismissed the lawsuit filed by state attorneys general against Obamacare.  But as evidenced by the line of questioning and comments of Supreme Court justices during proceedings a few weeks ago, these pompous know-it-alls aren't quite so arrogant now. Instead, they seem to be pivoting, gearing up for a possible June Supreme Court smackdown with two key strategies: 1) Castigate the court as "activist," partisan, and overstepping its bounds by overruling Congress and the president; and 2) Use an anti-Obamacare ruling as an impetus to fire up Obama's leftist base and independents, hoping they'll overwhelmingly support Obama's reelection so that he can appoint progressive Supreme Court justices who won't let such an outrage happen again.

Last week, the high court heard arguments regarding Arizona's entirely reasonable and, in my view, constitutional immigration law. Many news reports have stated that the U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli stumbled badly in attempting to paint Arizona's law as unconstitutional, just as he performed miserably in his Obamacare appearance a few weeks earlier. So far, it looks like he's 0-for-2. Maybe he's not a bad lawyer, but has been dealt an impossible hand by the administration's naive, progressive dreamers.

Obama's refusal to green light the Keystone pipeline angered millions of people, and this was reflected in bad poll numbers on the issue. So the O-man promptly tried to grandstand in Oklahoma, taking credit for a Keystone-related refinery project he had nothing to do with. Meanwhile, his vaunted green jobs companies were going belly up all around us. And don't look now, but the walls are closing in on uber-hack Eric Holder, whose Department of Justice authorized the disastrous Fast and Furious gunwalker program that resulted in God knows how many deaths. Stay tuned for big developments on that front.

Also worsening voters' already bad perceptions of progressivism were a number of other developments this spring. Hillary Rosen spouted off about Mitt Romney's wife, reaffirming the commonly held notion that feminists and progressives are disdainful toward stay-at-home moms. 

That had hardly died down when the videotapes of carousing idiots at the General Services Administration hit the Internet and airwaves. The brash, reckless behavior of these supposed civil servants, and the horrible lack of judgment by their "leader" Jeff Neely, seem to underscore a monstrous government that's lost its moorings.

The Secret Service hooker shenanigans in Cartagena, Colombia, add fuel to the fire. Even though this problem cannot be pinned specifically on the Obama administration, the timing is horrible for Obama's reelection team. Just what they needed!

Topping it all off, John Edwards, the ambulance chasing trial lawyer who had the gall to try portraying himself as a populist when he was really a millionaire shark lawyer living in a 30,000 square-foot mansion, is being filleted on national television.  His trial for allegedly misusing campaign funds to cover up his affair with a mistress and their love child, both of which were going on while the former senator's late wife, Elizabeth, was dying of cancer, keeps revealing more ugliness about this phony philanderer with each passing day.  Just another typical liberal Democrat; they're a dime a dozen.

Yes, it's been a rough spring for those who still belong to the Obama cult and haven't given up hope on "change you can believe in," whatever that means. It's an immolation of misguided, idiotic progressivism. Shocking!

Two Schools of Thought

For many years, I have contemplated the two schools of thought that frequently clash following an outrageous development or trend from which people draw conclusions and form opinions.

Those views are:

A) This is the exception to the rule; don't judge the vast majority of upstanding, law abiding, honest (JOB TITLE or POSITION IN SOCIETY) by these (INSERT PEJORATIVES); or

B) These are just the ones who got caught; this shit goes on ALL THE TIME... This is just the TIP of the iceberg!

The outrageous and appalling juvenile behavior and dissipation by employees of the General Services Administration that has flooded Youtube and the network news poses one of these cases that's ripe for analysis and soapbox sermonizing.

Most everyone knows that people sometimes cheat, steal or goof off, even if only in moderation. Who hasn’t viewed sports stories or personal email on the work computer, or printed out a recipe or interesting article at work for personal use? Who hasn’t pilfered a pen, taken a long lunch hour or snuck out early on a Friday afternoon when the boss isn’t around?

And don’t people at conventions, be they in the private or public sector, often go out carousing with friends and colleagues at night, and end up less than productive at the morning seminar or workshop?

But it’s a matter of degree. The same people who do engage in these minor cases of “stealing” from their employer are often conscientious about getting their job done, working through lunch, staying late to meet deadlines, and sometimes taking work home on weekends. The willingness to go the extra mile, to sacrifice so a project stays on track, is a justification or rationalization for those long lunch hours, times spent chatting with a friend on the phone, or color prints made for your grade school child's homework project.

Typically, today's fast-paced and information-intensive world demands nothing less than a willingness to put your nose to the grindstone when necessary.  Sure, you can party hearty the night before the symposium workshop, but that doesn't mean you slack off all the time. When push comes to shove, you get your work done or face serious consequences.

At least, that's the way it's supposed to be. And in the private sector, I daresay, it is that way far more often than in government.  But when it comes to the public sector, I suspect local and state employees are much less likely to A) attempt abuses like the GSA employees; and B) get away with them if they do go down that road.

The fact is, the federal government is so far-gone in terms of size, accountability and functionality, that the potential for abuse, corruption, fraud and utter disrespect as was shown by the GSA morons, is huge. Back in the 1980s, the press was rife with stories about waste and corruption in the Pentagon. Remember the horror stories about $600 toilet seats and $500 screw drivers? Perhaps computer technology, data bases and the Internet have helped reduce those egregious follies, and embarrassment/humiliation might also have played a role in the cleanup.

Medicare and Medicaid are chock-full of corruption and mismanagement, and many other agencies and departments have pissed away taxpayer dollars wantonly without suffering consequences. The Obama administration has flushed literally trillions down the rathole for such garbage as the stimulus program (now, if some of the money went toward vibrators, prostitutes and Viagra, maybe "stimulus" is not a misnomer); and for payoffs to political supporters and cronies (Solyndra and other fiascos).

The laid-back, anything goes attitude of our Leviathan federal government seems to have permeated the thinking and attitudes of workers.  I am not saying all federal employees are lazy, smart-ass goof-offs who mock taxpayers and have the gall to videotape their shenanigans on the taxpayers' dime. Matter of fact, probably a fairly small minority of them are.

But I firmly believe that, despite the Office of Inspector General's occasional watchdog activities, there are far too many federal employees who don't take their positions seriously and are too nonchalant. The fact that a clown like Jeff Neely could rise to a level of responsibility and supposed leadership in the GSA despite being so devoid of judgment and maturity, is a telling indicator that things are amiss.  And the public employee unions sure aren't helping matters, as they care more about raking in union dues than ensuring taxpayers get a good bang for their buck.

If nothing else, the GSA brouhaha will spark a spirit of inquiry and skepticism in otherwise detached voters and citizens. Maybe this outrageous abuse and infantile behavior will raise the red flags on just how out of control and obscenely large our federal government is. And if it took a few million dollars and a lot of wasted time to do it, so be it. In the long run, we might be better off.

One thing's for sure: Barack Obama's pathetic class warfare and hyperactive urging of higher taxes for "millionaires and billionaires," which might bring in a paltry $47 billion over 10 years, may well be the last straw. Juxtaposed against the shameful GSA behavior, it's enough to make us puke. Yeah, I'll support higher taxes for government. Sure!

 

Oui, Oui, Monsieur, Touché!

Our Gallic neighbors across the pond may have just given us a sneak preview of the November presidential election.

Fed up with a chronically sick economy, French voters sent Nicolas Sarkozy a message: We want change. You've had your chance, and you've failed miserably. 

Socialist challenger Francois Hollande took 28.4 percent of the vote and Mr. Sarkozy 25.5 percent, according to early, unofficial estimates.  The two will face each other again in a May 6 runoff. Conservative Marine Le Pen (18.5 percent) and far left Jean-Luc Melenchon (11.7 percent) finished well behind the two front-runners. 

If you combine the voter percentages of his three primary opponents (over 58 percent), Sarkozy's support was weak indeed.

Now, obviously one cannot compare the actual results (a socialist gaining greater support than his more conservative incumbent opponent) with what is likely to transpire in the United States come November. France has long leaned much farther left than the United States, and probably always will. But what's telling is the huge number of voters who did not vote for Sarkozy. And that's what I foresee here in the U.S. 6 1/2 months from now.

France's 10 percent unemployment rate and years of anemic growth in gross domestic product (e.g., 0.2 percent in fourth quarter 2011) have left a bad tase in voters' mouths. You'd think they'd learn their lesson that moving further left is NOT the answer, as France's long-term economic performance has been like Jimmy Carter for life (perish the thought!). 

Check out this appalling factoid: From 1978 until 2011, France's average quarterly GDP growth was a sickly 0.48 percent, reaching an historical high of 1.60 percent in June 1978 and a record low of -1.60 percent in December 2008, according to the website Tradingeconomics.com.

Expect this brand of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with incumbents to result in massive upheavel across the European continent during the next few years. Here in the U.S.A., I don't care WHAT the insipid media and Obama's spinmeisters say, I am growing more and more confident the O-Man is going to face a monumental slapdown in November.

Only here in America, the voters will want a leader who cuts spending, reduces the size and scope of government, and respects individual liberty. Many of us may disagree on whether Mitt Romney is the best person to take us in that direction. (I happen to think other Republicans would be far more effective.)  But what we can agree on is that Romney will at least stop the progressive hemorrhaging that is ruining our nation.

Obama's presidency has put us on the critical list. We cannot expect to jump out of our hospital bed and go jogging. But stanching the bleeding and embarking on a healthy recovery course will bring this patient back eventually. 

As Nicolas Sarkozy will attest, there's a heavy price to pay for economic failure. C'est la vie.

 

Left Wing Double Standard

The 2012 presidential campaign is bound to get uglier.

The left wingers will continue grasping at straws and wallowing in gutter politics, as that's their only hope. President Barack Obama faces the daunting task of trying to get re-elected despite his miserable track record, so slash-and-burn is definitely the way to go from the lefty perspective.

Condeming Mitt Romney's Mormon faith and Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, will be a key tactic in the left's efforts to divert voters' attention from the failures of Barack Obama and the economic wasteland over which his policies have presided.

Check out Jeffrey Lord's column in American Spectator. He points out that MSNBC hack Lawrence O'Donnell criticized Mitt Romney's Mormon faith and ridiculed Smith, but the left wing blowhard never said a word about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid being a Mormon.

And, taking it one step further, O'Donnell's selective indignation doesn't extend to the Prophet Muhammad, who not only had multiple wives, but also was a pedophile.

Even if you don't read the entire column, go to page 4 and read the transcript of an interview talk radio host Hugh Hewitt had with O"Donnell. Hewitt called O'Donnell on the Mormon-Islam double standard. Incredibly, O'Donnell admitted that he was afraid to criticize the Prophet Muhammad because Muslims might come after him. "I'm afraid for my life if I do" criticze Muhammad, O'Donnell said. Um, yeah, Larry. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make!

Being as magnanimous as possible toward O'Donnell, I will give him kudos for appearing on the show of Hewitt, a conservative law professor and commentator, and also for admitting that he cannot unload on Muhammad for fear of his personal safety. But if I were James Carville, David Axelrod or David Plouffe, I would be scratching my head and wondering, "What was he THINKING?"

 

Holding Rick Snyder Accountable

Overall I have been pleased with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who has been in office nearly 16 months. He took the reins on Jan. 1, 2011 after eight woeful years of Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whose spineless leadership and obsession with inane pursuits like "Cool Cities" and "Green Jobs" delayed Michigan's lawmakers from doing the heavy lifting necessary to cure our state's sick economy.

Snyder has reformed Michigan's abysmal tax system, restructured government, and put a halt to the sickening union pandering that was so prevalent in the administration of his predecessor, whom I like to call "Governor Tinkerbelle."

But a couple of things have gone on in this administration that conjure up bad memories of Jen-Jen's incompetence and are therefore disturbing and disappointing: welfare fraud and foul-ups by the Department of Corrections that have resulted in violent criminals going free and victimizing innocent people.

In the past few months, there have been two high profile cases of violent individuals slipping through the cracks of the Department of Corrections system, with deadly consequences.

There have also been two separate people on welfare who won the Michigan Lottery, yet continued collecting state assistance (until they were caught).

First the violent crimes. In the early morning hours of April 16, 19-year-old Tucker Cipriano and a friend broke into Cipriano's parents' home in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills. Cipriano killed his father in a baseball bat attack, and seriously wounded his mother and brother, who both remain hospitalized.

The Department of Corrections suspended the probation officer who was supposed to keep tabs on Cipriano but lost track of him. The suspended officer apparently did not follow proper protocols.

In November, a couple of lowlife ex-convicts murdered an 80-year-old woman in another Detroit suburb, Royal Oak.  The Department of Corrections suspended the two probation officers who failed to throw the pair back in the slammer for repeated parole violations.

As for the welfare cheats, earlier this week charges were filed against a 25-year-old woman who recently became the second food stamp recipient in Michigan to win the lottery and continue receiving public assistance. If you watch this video of Amanda Clayton, you'll agree she won't win any Mensa awards. In 2010, 60-year-old Leroy Fick of Bay City continued receiving food stamps after winning $850,000 in the lottery. That incident was on Jen-Jen's watch, but you'd think Snyder and his folks would have observed and learned from it.

Snyder just signed legislation to prevent lottery winners from receiving welfare benefits. This begs the question: Why is such legislation even needed? Why isn't there already a procedure in place to do routine background checks on lottery winners to ensure they're not getting welfare or Medicaid for which their new winnings make them ineligible? This is elementary stuff. And ditto for the Department of Corrections foul-ups. Why can't there be checks and balances and more effective monitoring?

Snyder can't blame Jen-Jen for these recent screw-ups (although if he were as badly lacking in character as President Obama, that's the first thing he'd do).

Clearly Michigan's government has plenty of room for reform. There's a much greater chance of reforms being implemented under Snyder than under Granholm. And they can't come soon enough.

 

 

The Perfect Storm

What a week!

First, the GSA buffoons get ample play on network news and the Internet, rapping, strumming, prancing, wining & dining & dancing with clowns — in and out of uniform. The GSA: Just one small sliver of a bloated, arrogant, out-of-control government — the type of enormous, bureaucratic colossus that Barack Obama's policies promote and sustain.

GOP congressmen are falling all over themselves to grandstand in front of the cameras with righteous indignation, holding hearings and calling the feckless GSA hacks on the carpet big-time. 

Then there was the moronic foot-in-mouth statement by left-wing hack Hillary Rosen. Obviously she is disdainful of Ann Romney; hell hath no fury like a liberal woman has for a conservative woman — especially if the latter is a stay-at-home mom. (And don't even mention home schooling or we're likely to have some aneurisms!)

People who make a living being pundits are bound to say something stupid or regrettable every once in a while.  But c'mon, Hillary! You weren't born yesterday. Didn't you think for one second before spewing such an outrageous, inaccurate and arrogant statement as, "She never worked a day in her life"?

A junior high student running for student council would know better than to make such an utterance in public. Better get that hatred and condescension under control, Ms. Rosen. Your side is going to need all the help it can get come November. If you and Bill Maher keep spouting off, you'll be driving nails into the Democrat coffin. You might have enough humility and common sense to realize that, but Maher? Fat chance.

Well, anyway, back to the circus sideshows...

While things heated up stateside, there were shenanigans down under.  The Secret Service as well as several members of the military were assigned as part of President Obama's security detail in Cartagena, Colombia.  It seems a number of them got into a dust-up with some ladies of the night, and what happens in Colombia definitely doesn't stay in Colombia!

The potential to compromise the security of the president and other top officials is very real. Some news reports have stated advance copies of the president's schedule were in at least one of the hotel rooms where the hookers plied their trade. The Russians were notorious for using beautiful women to lure American officials into compromising positions (literally and figuratively). Who says there couldn't be such evil designs in Latin America?

Investigations have been launched, and it may be a while until we have the full story.

Granted, the Secret Service is a nonpartisan federal agency, but the fact this happened under Obama's watch doesn't bode well for an administration struggling badly to retain a shred of respect after more than three years of mostly failure. It simply reinforces and reaffirms bad perceptions in the minds of the populace: This is an out-of-control government under the stewardship of an idealistic ideologue who is in way over his head.

Great week for the Romney campaign. BAD week for the O-Team. 

A Tale of Two Cities

Nearly a year ago, Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Joplin, Mo., were hammered by devastating tornadoes. An EF-4 tornado pounded the Alabama city on April 27, 2011, and an EF-5 cut a swath through the southwest Missouri town on May 22, 2011.

Recovery and rebuilding in Joplin are far ahead of the pace being set by Tuscaloosa. Why? Because the all knowing leaders of Tuscaloosa have taken it upon themselves to dictate from the top down how development will proceed. Business owners and developers seeking to redevelop must jump through regulatory hoops to comply with a utopian master plan. Red tape, stifling zoning constraints and permit headaches are the norm.

In Joplin, by contrast, the city government has been mostly hands-off and flexible, allowing wide lattitude to those who wish to rebuild. Their philosophy seems to be, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

According to a piece in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, (I won't link to it because you cannot read the entire article if you are not a subscriber), the recovery plan for Tuscaloosa is 128 pages long; Joplin's is 21 pages. According to the Joplin Chamber of Commerce, eight of 10 Joplin businesses affected by the tornado have reopened. In Tuscaloosa, less than half the affected businesses have even applied for building permits. Let's just say it's Obama's kind of people who are running Tuscaloosa. They have their grandiose schemes that they're CERTAIN will benefit everyone, reality be damned.

 What's happening in these two towns represents the two directions our nation can go with this year's presidential election: Either toward an administration that respects liberty and trusts the American people to do what's best for our economy and nation, or toward elitist, all-knowing micromanaging statists who think they know better than the rest of us and attempt to lord it over us in untold numbers of ways.

Far more than our nation's fiscal state, and the future of entitlement programs are at stake seven months from now. The very relationship between the governors and the governed hangs in the balance.

WHICH ONE'S GOLDWATER? — This morning, "Meet The Press" host David Gregory mentioned to one of his panelists, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, that President Obama is portraying this year's election as offering the starkest choice since Johnson vs. Goldwater in 1964. Obviously, Obama thinks he is the reasonable, progressive Johnson, and Romney the neanderthal reactionary Goldwater. Amusingly, Murphy came right back at him: "Which one's Goldwater?"  

No doubt, in the minds of tens of millions of Americans, Obama is this year's Goldwater. It is doubtful the 2012 election will result in a landslide like that of 1964, in part because multi-millions of Americans are on the dole and likely to vote for The One. But rather than being the untested outsider, this year's "Goldwater" has a real, failed track record from which he cannot escape.

And Romney has, despite his flaws and mistakes such as Romneycare, achieved a great deal. He's been a hugely successful businessman, did a tremendous job heading up the Salt Lake City Olympics, and fared reasonably well as governor in heavily blue Massachusetts. When he entered office in early 2003, Massachusetts faced a $3 billion deficit. He wiped that out, and reduced the state's umemployment rate from 5.6 to 4.7 percent during his one term in office.

Yes, huge numbers of Americans regard the Community Organizer as this year's Barry Goldwater. That ought to be causing some sleepless nights in the Obama camp.

Eight Years of the Posse

So after months of neglect, I finally got around to clearing out the comments.  We keep a fairly open mind as far as comments go, but the spam is just too much.

As I was wiping out these vermin, it occured to me that  the Posse has finally got enough traffic that people think spamming our comments will mean more traffic or something.

Then I realized we've been around for eight years.  Wow.  Doesn't seem that long.

While the Hated Instapundit is doing "Ten Years Ago Today" posts, we are treating the anniversary of our existence with the customary laziness and inattention that our readers have come to know and love.  Heck, half of the blogs we link to went away in 2008.

Anyhow, feel free to share your favorite post as we take this minute to look back on our greatest moments.

Low Hanging Fruit

The Romney campaign had better not blow it.

Although Republicans have a bad track record for tripping all over themselves and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the Obama administration has offered ample targets and fertile ground for speechwriters and political ad copywriters.

Let's see, there's high gasoline prices, food inflation, a failed stimulus program, annual deficits topping $1 trillion that a monstrosity health care program will only exacerbate, Fast and Furious, a politicized Department of Justice run by a partisan hack, a rogue EPA that sticks its tentacles out across the land, extremists like Van Jones and Steven "nine-bucks-a-gallon" Chu, and a bevy of unelected, unaccountable "czars" made delusional by the thin air high up in their ivory towers and who also bypassed the normal Senate vetting and approval process...

But talk about shooting fish in a barrel, why not juxtapose some of Obama's asinine rhetoric from a few years ago with today's realities.

The grandstanding that particularly sticks in my craw took place on the Senate floor in 2006 and on the campaign trail in 2008. Then-Sen. Obama railed with self-righteous indignation about George W. Bush's deficits, boasting about his ostensibly principled stand to vote against raising the debt ceiling. Bush's debt was "irresponsible" and "unpatriotic," said the future spendthrift. While Obama drones on about the debt of "W", a computerized line graph could gradually take shape across the screen depicting the sharp rise in deficit spending and the obscenely increased national debt.

And why stop there? Why not recalculate the estimated debt burden per capita? As Obama rants about the $30,000 every man, woman and child will have to pay back, flash the new figure across the screen. What is it now, $50,000?

Then there are the rallies where Obama fired up his gullible cult worshipers with anger about gasoline prices being "too high" at $1.85 per gallon. Juxtapose that footage with today's prices and the effect on monthly household budgets.

The many empty promises made during the months leading up to passage of Obamacare also are easy pickings. "If you like your present doctor and health plan, you can keep it," is supplemented with statistics on how many employers are dumping health insurance, and how premium costs have soared. Oh, and, don't forget to mention the hundreds of waivers granted by this "do as I say, not as I do" administration.

The Hypocrites Hall of Fame is bursting at its seams.

Lastly, augment footage of bold predictions of how effective the stimulus program would be with today's unemployment realties. Be sure to mention that the real unemployment rate is much higher than what the dim bulbs in the media report, simply because the workforce is smaller (millions have simply given up looking for work in this progressive economy).

Rather than just numbers, percentages and line graphs, show some painful consequences. Families living in seedy motels or tents, beggars on the streets waving sad cardboard signs summarizing their hard-luck circumstances, neighborhoods dotted with "FOR SALE" signs and foreclosed homes with the ominous sticker on the storm door window ("Sheriff's Sale")...

You could also expand upon the suffering by showing Obama living it up playing golf, shooting hoops, holding forth at a $30,000 per plate black tie fundraiser, and sitting in the Oval Office with his feet up on the desk... All of this while the grim statistics flash by.

This could be fun. I wish I could get a job with the Romney campaign's ad team, because it would keep me busy doing work I love AND offer a golden opportunity to help save our country.