Karl's Weekend Reading

Randall Hoven asks What Would a Communist Do? in his American Thinker article this week. A good review of recent Communist Party USA posts at their site, and their opinions of current political events and proposed legislation. Regarding health care:

So what would a communist do about health care? Support Obama, tenaciously and with persistence, and especially insist on including a public option. And attack your opponents as right-wing extremists and racists.

Mark Steyn writes at NRO, The Long Retreat: Our security will now depend on the kindness of strangers. This paragraph on missile defense was our favorite:

Vladimir Putin is no longer president but he is de facto tsar. And he thinks it’s past time to reconstitute the old empire — not formally (yet), but certainly as a sphere of influence from which the Yanks keep their distance. President Obama has just handed the Russians their biggest win since the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, in some ways it marks the restitching of the Iron Curtain. When the Czechs signed their end of the missile-defense deal in July, they found themselves afflicted by a sudden “technical difficulty” that halved their gas supply from Russia. The Europe Putin foresees will be one not only ever more energy-dependent on Moscow but security-dependent, too — in which every city is within range of missiles from Tehran and other crazies, and is in effect under the security umbrella of the new tsar. As to whether such a Continent will be amicable to American interests, well, good luck with that, hopeychangers.

Charles Krauthammer analyzes Obama's communication skills in his Townhall article, Does He Lie? It appears Charles has figured him out. Obama's changing arguments for healthcare reform:

That transparent attempt to exploit Emanuel's Law -- a crisis is a terrible thing to waste -- failed for health care because no one is stupid enough to believe that the 2008 financial collapse was caused by a lack of universal health care.

So on to the next gambit: selling health care reform as a cure for the deficit. When that was exploded by the Congressional Budget Office's demonstration of staggering Obamacare deficits, Obama tried a new tack: selling his plan as revenue-neutral insurance reform -- until the revenue neutrality is exposed as phony future cuts and chimerical waste and fraud.

Obama doesn't lie. He implies, he misdirects, he misleads -- so fluidly and incessantly that he risks transmuting eloquence into mere slickness.

James Taranto does some analysis on the recent ACORN defunding vote in congress, specifically the votes from the Black Caucus members. In his Best of the Web series, Shrieker of the House:

...fewer than 1 in 4 Black Caucus members voted to stop spending taxpayers' money on an organization that has been caught on video at least five times offering advice on how to practice slavery.