Poor poor Peggy. She’s come down with a pundit’s case of the Notices. Every time she gets a feeling about a thing, she Notices that it’s come to life. Her emotions routinely spring up everywhere around her. She’s happy. The daisies! She’s sad. The rain. Those things weren’t there before, folks.

When you’re a writer it just doesn’t get any better than that. It’s like a miracle, having the world made new every day by the whims of your moods. In the forms of other people, in their doings, and in their jobs. In the habits of their President, his icky words, and his pitiful failings. In the environs of the Wyndham of Bradford Woods, with its miserable employees, and dreary walkways:

I’m in Pittsburgh, making my way to the airport hotel. The people movers are broken and we pull our bags along the dingy carpet. There’s an increasing sense in America now that the facades are intact but the machinery inside is broken.

I scratch at the surface of something here. But just what? What is the thing? I don’t know. Is it bad? I think the thing is. I think it’s a bad thing.

The hotel has entrances on two floors. I search for the lobby, find it. Travelers are milling about, but there’s no information desk, no doorman, no bellman or concierge, just two harried-looking workers at a front desk on the second level.

There’s something here . . less. Smaller than it was. Not the full. Couldn’t call it proper. As if sagging. Or shrinking. A . . depressing. Yes. Of something, but what? I don’t know.

Things are getting pretty bare-bones in America. Doormen, security, bellmen, people working the floor—that’s maybe a dozen jobs that should have been filled, at one little hotel on one day in one town. Everyone’s keeping costs down, not hiring.

What that hotel looked like is America without its muscle, its efficiency, its old confidence.

That’s it. America. It’s not what it used to be. It’s not as good. It’s not as grand. The country is less. It’s all noticeable now. Things have changed, not for the better. Yes that’s it. Wonder. Somebody. Who did this?

Meanwhile, the president is stuck in his games and his history. He should have seen unemployment entering a crisis stage four years ago, and he did not.

He did not. That’s who did this. That’s how it happened. And where has he been? Why hasn’t he done anything? The way it is now, just look at it. Heavens. Business. Unemployment. I don’t. Like it.

At that time I was certain he’d go for public-works projects, which could give training to the young and jobs to the experienced underemployed, would create jobs in the private sector and, in the end, yield up something needed—a bridge, a strengthened power grid. He instead gave his first term to health care.

To healthcare. And the stimulus package. Let’s not forget that. That was, what, $700 billion? For? I don’t even know. A trillion dollars. For what?

Women stepping into combat roles. Who knew the right wing would freak out this way? This is, well, women already do that. Been doing ‘war’ for a while thanks. But until now I don’t suppose conservatives had the chance to complain about it properly. They could really use some time to work the whole thing through in their heads:

Regarding sex, what’s going to happen if a leader appears to show preferential treatment to his lover? What if he has to pick a few soldiers for a dangerous mission – will his lover be included? What happens to morale and cohesion if some soldiers are receiving love and sex on a regular basis and some are left out? What if some soldiers are extremely jealous or show stalking tendencies? What happens if soldiers are willing to literally fight for their love interest?

That last bit works for me. But, generally, if you’re furloughing soldiers two-at-a-time for honeymoons you’re not doing combat readiness any favors.

James Taranto at Wall Street Journal gets a note from a Marine Corps veteran about this. It’s such a leveler he reprints it for his column.

As a Marine Corps veteran of three combat tours, the first as a rifle platoon commander during the Vietnam War, my concern is what this policy will contribute to further breaking down the already-troubled relationships of men and women in our society.

That’s a new one. After seeing front line action, women aren’t going to like men any more. Have I got that right?

My concerns:

What kind of a man is it who can send women off to kill and maim? What kind of society does that?

What kind of society does that to anybody? A sick one. But as long as women don’t have to do it, they won’t complain. And that way we just keep on keepin’ on, which is nice.

What kind of society bemoaning that men don’t seem to respect women can’t see that part of the respect they demand is predicated on the specialness of the other?

Better to have the specials sitting at home fretting if their boyfriends and fathers are still alive and breathing. Wondering if they have the use of their arms and legs. That’s better for everybody.

Perhaps it is possible in a firefight to distinguish between how one treats women and men, but I doubt that I could do it. And if I am trained to treat men and women the same throughout my career, can this have no significant effect on how I treat women otherwise?

Like when some random guy at the hardware store tells this guy to shoot someone, he does it. Men are officers, remember? Countries have for the most part sorted this problem out I think, with the uniforms and such. Taranto then throws in his civilian pennies:

One way of defining feminism is as the pursuit of the mutually irreconcilable goals of sexual equality and sensitive treatment of women.

Let’s take it for granted James means “gender equality.” Sexual equality is too mind boggling an idea to consider. Can you imagine the numbers of male prostitutes society would have to provide? Not sure how that “Plushy” thing would work, either.

You’d think that contradiction would be a weakness, but it’s actually a strength: Every advance for equality creates a demand for more measures to promote sensitivity, and vice versa.

And to wit: Every demand for more measures to promote sensitivity would create an advance for equality. Have I got that right? Or is that meaningless?

Feminism’s failures perpetuate feminism, at the expense of other goals such as defending the country.

As I mentioned before, the Israeli Defense Forces had women in combat roles from the beginning. They haven’t lost any wars yet.

I think the nuts are getting panicky because the portrait of the American Warrior comes tightly bound with the notion of Ultimate Authority. That’s no place for women, or so they thought. It’s already bad enough that so few of them obey The Bible.

What color are the ginger ponies in your world?

John Boehner looks bad, though to many in Washington he’s a sympathetic figure because they know how much he wanted a historic agreement on the great issue of his time. Some say he would have been happy to crown his career with it, and if that meant losing a job, well, a short-term loss is worth a long-term crown. Mr. Obama couldn’t even make a deal with a man like that, even when it would have made the president look good.

Johnny twied, but Bawack was mean. Aww. Let someone remind Peggers that the Speaker walked away from bargaining in order to accessorize his ‘Plan B’ truncheon with poison spikes and accordingly wave it at the President. The bill raised the highest tax threshold to a million dollars, threw the estate taxes back to the Bush era, and retained the miniscule rates on dividends and capital gains. Meanwhile it let expire the Child Tax and American Opportunity Tax Credits. Net result: Millionaires got a $118,000 tax break, the working poor got a $1,000 tax increase.

It was everything a Republican guerrilla could want. And Boehner’s people pissed on it. Had any survived, a single ‘Plan B’ provision would have caused the President to veto whatever bill came his way. But Boehner couldn’t get his own terrorists to carry the dynamite. The legislation wasn’t bad enough. Not nearly destructive enough. Though it favored the rich over the poor by hundreds of billions of dollars, it was too liberal. Give us something really despicable, they said, something we can get behind. The Speaker quickly adjourned the House and flew home. Oh Peggy the President has lost his mind.

Time for the Wall Street Journal to weigh in on the latest Romney shambles. Sniff, snort, publish. Roll over, order room service.

Whatever the timing of the Cairo Embassy’s statements, Mr. Romney is right that a U.S. Embassy ought to ignore YouTube videos produced by obscure cranks. As Tuesday’s events showed, pandering to Islamists who would use the video to inflame anti-American sentiment isn’t going to stop the protests.

So when the Cairo delegation smelled smoke in the wind, their official response should have been “Bring it on, motherfuckers.” None of these editorial geniuses has ever been posted abroad I’m thinking.

His political faux pax was to offend a pundit class that wants to cede the foreign policy debate to Mr. Obama without thinking seriously about the trouble for America that is building in the world.

Mitt Romney’s political “fake peace.” That is precious. I figure our president being a Kenyan ipso blackto confirms his desire to kiss Arab ass. You guys really showed the pundits who the smart ones are. Most of the goats on Murdoch’s farm eat tin cans, but some are used for fire prevention.

Speaking of horny, Ann Althouse. You politic-snots just can’t stand it, can you? It makes you jealous when a candidate tries to win.

There was an opportunity to go for the win, and Romney took it. The media noticed, of course, and sprang into such intense, concerted action that it was obvious that they knew it was a day to be won and if the other side was going to go for the win, they had to act quickly and ensure that their guy won the day.

But today? It’s Thursday. Today Ann won.

Now that we’re all being herded into Soviet gulags because we can see the doctor, there’s trouble afoot. Do you see it? Can you hear it? The foul wind it blows. The clouds chafe, then they scatter. Like the weather. ‘I used to like the weather,’ he thought. A baleful dog barks. It bales. The crow hiccups. ‘Don’t ever tell a Navy man he’s had too much to drink’ it says. She is dying because I loved her too much. I HAD TO KILL HER. The Supreme Court, they said. That’s what they all say.

Noonan: Obama Has a Good Day
But liberty has a bad one.
DECLARATIONS | Wall Street Journal

ObamaCare, including the insurance mandate, was upheld. What would have been a political disaster for President Obama has been averted. He has not been humiliated, and the centerpiece of his efforts the past 3½ years has not been rebuked by the Supreme Court.

And yet. I feel as if there’s something more to this. Something . . else.

The ruling strikes me as very bad for the atmosphere of freedom in our country, the sense of freeness and lazy, sloppy liberty we’ve long maintained with some hiccups along the way. Those hiccups seem to come more and more now, and closer and closer together.

‘She stole my hiccups’ he realized. ‘I should read this crap before I blog it’ he thought. No. It was too late for that.

There will be a downside: The president is left carrying the burden defending a bill nobody likes. It certainly has the worst public reputation of any new government program of my lifetime.

I suppose the War in Iraq wasn’t a program. Nor was Vietnam. And then he remembered Peggy Noonan’s face. Yes, the War of 1812 was fairly popular. Nice try.

Those already insured will find their coverage “more secure and more affordable,” insurance companies will provide “free preventive care like checkups and mammograms,” “seniors” and “young adults” will receive benefits, those with pre-existing conditions will no longer be denied coverage. Also, the insurance companies “won’t be able to charge you more just because you’re a woman.”

It was a targeted base-greaser.

‘Say, are you talking about me?’ he wondered. ‘That’s not my thing.’ He protested. He protested too much. ‘Something’s greased,’ Peggy thought. She knew.

The president had a good day, the first in a long time, in months.

Is it too late for him to change his image to modest and moderate man of the center who’s only trying to do what’s best for America?

Can we bomb Tehran? ‘I think so,’ he replied. They’re still around. We still have bombs.

Because that’s what he’s trying to do. He’s in a perfect position now to tell the leftwardmost parts of his base that he’s given them plenty and suffered for it, it’s time they got in line.

‘That would be good,’ Peggy thought. ‘After giving America tetanus shots, he could balance it. He could go blow up Iran.’ Yes.

‘Very good. Strong, and centrist.’ Her thinker shoulders did ache. She thought way more. To sink in her big chair. And pour a glass. ‘It would be good for him,’ she thought.

What’s the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto up to? Op-eds that suck. Yes, but? On?

The President’s gayness. Now that he’s mentioned same-sex couples should have the right to marry, Barack is one cakey George Washington. He’s the pink black president, did you know?

[Rand] Paul, Kentucky’s junior senator, “joked about President Obama’s changed postion [sic] on gay marriage in a speech in Iowa Friday: ‘Call me cynical, but I wasn’t sure his views on marriage could get any gayer,’ ” BuzzFeed.com reports. Brown, editor in chief of Newsweek, dubbed Obama THE FIRST GAY PRESIDENT on the magazine’s cover . .

And the New Yorker put a rainbow White House on its cover, great. Can we stop this, please? It is difficult to be homosexual. Let’s not throw the word ‘gay’ around like it meant ‘surprising’ or ‘having a new haircut.’ He’s shown some courage now, and that’s to be applauded, but Barack’s hardly shown gay courage. It’s political courage, that’s all.

People get a thrill out of appropriating things foreign and strange to them, like the wiggers I used to see in the 90s. The media are calling Obama ‘gay’ in the same way Clinton was called ‘black’ during his time. I thought that was stupid, too, but here’s the difference: black folks said it first. Fair enough.

Newsweek and the New Yorker? That’s too much, thank you. Back into your computer cubicles, culture whores. More Taranto, ugh:

Paul’s joke was widely condemned, with the lefties at ThinkProgress.org crowing that “even Tony Perkins” of the conservative Family Research Foundation found it “unacceptable.” Of course although Paul and [Tina] Brown made essentially the same joke, the tone was different. Paul’s joke was mocking, perhaps even mean-spirited, while Brown’s (promoting an exultant piece by Andrew Sullivan) was a sympathetic in-joke.

There’s the wind-up, here’s the predictable pitch:

Yet if you think about the substance of the joke rather than the tone, Brown’s version was worse, or at least was representative of something worse. Paul, it seems safe to say, was expressing the views of the majority of his constituents, nearly 75% of whom voted in favor of a 2004 constitutional amendment . .

Rand Paul, Ayn’s frat-boy with the I.Q. to match, decided to throw aside his insulting personality in favor of speaking as an agent of the state of Kentucky. I see. Seeing as how the “Iowa’s Faith and Freedom Coalition” were really begging him to talk about his home state, that’s perfectly understandable. Of course, if anyone should call Obama a butt-boy, it might just bring down the house. Worlds collide.

You can bet Rand’s the sort of guy who stifles the urge to spit in the faces of gays. In a previous life, and still a drunken teen, he’d infiltrate the queer bars on the outskirts of town and lure the fays outside so he and his buddies could beat them half to death. That’s not politics, that’s disgust. And only gay people have to live with being gay.

There is an upside to narcissism. No matter what other people do, you are reminded of your greatness. Lucky you.

Someone invents the Segway, you thought of it years ago. Someone memorizes pi, you just did mom’s taxes. Somebody ran a marathon, you were in the office. All weekend. Challenge is a vestige of childhood.

It’s a cushy gig. The rest of the world busts out in manifold directions, the center of gravity, you, stays still. Greatness never sweats.

James Taranto, writer of Wall Street Journal editorials, is a great guy. He writes about America’s lameness. When a Massachusetts sociology professor describes her research in the New York Times, it’s lame. When she talks about sex, it’s lame. When 15 year old boys don’t want to get girls pregnant, it’s lame.

An odd recent New York Times op-ed by sociologist Amy Schalet touts the rise of, as the headline puts it, “Caring, Romantic American Boys.” Schalet, who studied American high school sophomores (along with Dutch ones) for a forthcoming book, reports that “boys [are] behaving more ‘like girls’ in terms of when they lose their virginity,” by which she means they “are becoming more careful and more romantic about their first sexual experiences.”

Lame.

Maybe her book will flesh out that claim, but in her op-ed the boys sound downright terrified: “American boys often said sex could end their life as they knew it. After a condom broke, one worried: ‘I could be screwed for the rest of my life.’ Another boy said he did not want to have sex yet for fear of becoming a father before his time.”

If “I could be screwed for the rest of my life” is what passes for a romantic sentiment at the New York Times, the editors’ Valentine’s Day cards must be a laugh riot.

Nothing’s as erotic as caring for children. Harlequin Romance built an industry on the language of changing diapers. The Romeo and Juliet fable tickled orgasm as they argued over how to beat autism. Toddlers get fussy, nipples get sucked, and the silk sheets get plenty sweaty.

. . she offers this further point of comparison: “The 2002 National Survey of Family Growth found that more than one-third of teenage boys, but only one-quarter of teenage girls, cited wanting to avoid pregnancy or disease as the main reason they had not yet had sex.”

Given that nature imposes the physical burden of pregnancy on the female of the species, that sounds counterintuitive. And it’s possible that some of the boys in the survey, mindful of what Schalet quotes another sociologist as calling “the stigma of virginity,” are rationalizing away their lack of success with girls by chalking it up to prudence.

This is a WSJ hack pooh-poohing a sociology professor: “Since when do boys care about getting chicks pregnant?” I suppose if that were no longer true, it would be news. James once slagged a survivor of Vietnam, triple-amputee Max Cleland, for being a war critic because he had PTSD. What a loser, huh? Tough guys protect their territory. American boys wanna fuck, dude.

As far as right-wing opinon-ers go, Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto is not the worst. He’s as overboard as anyone else is, but at least his stuff is written in a manner that’s easy on the brain. And he’s occasionally funny. So if you’re stuck, like me, reading these people, you know he’s not going to give you a headache.

Until today, when he weighed in on the Komen fiasco. This is pathetic:

Big Sister Is Watching You
Totalitarian feminism and the smearing of Susan G. Komen.
By James Taranto | Opinion | February 3 2012

Look at how we’ve imprisoned and tortured the poor Komen Foundation.

In breaking ties with Planned Parenthood, Komen made the same mistake: It failed to understand it was dealing with intolerant fanatics. Planned Parenthood’s attitude toward abortion opponents is not unlike that of Egyptian officials in the old regime toward Israelis.

When we’re not scouring the Sinai looking for pro-lifers to shoot, we’re putting the electrodes to anyone who’s circumcised. I’ve read enough: It’s time to pull the head off of James Taranto. Per usual, we’ll make him miserable first, perhaps by reading aloud editorials where he reminded us we’re given to hysteria.

The episode is reminiscent of George Orwell far more than Joe McCarthy. Komen’s actual aim was to extricate itself from the divisive national battle over abortion by severing its connection with a leading combatant.

There’s Planned Parenthood again, all hot-faced and fist-swinging in the national debate. I think Taranto actually believes this. I want a pound of whatever he’s smoking.

Yes, Planned Parenthood does abortions as a small part of its being the “nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care provider.” No, it’s not a screaming partisan hack. Nor a keyboard-banging partisan hack writer. It just provides health services. Because 3% of this is abortion, James thinks that qualifies them as the hippie’s bug-eyed Bachmann. Grow a brain, pal.

And employing George Orwell for this? Photograph and all? Yes, isn’t liberal America a totalitarian government? Put your head in my cage of rats, Jim. You are the dead, buddy.

Totalitarianism politicizes everything, so that neutrality is betrayal–in this case, neutrality on abortion is portrayed as opposition to “women’s health.” As we wrote last year, this is also why purportedly pro-choice feminists can hate Sarah Palin and her daughter for choosing not to abort their children.

Oh, this sounds entirely plausible. Given the tenor of the piece so far, you wouldn’t expect James to back up his hallucinations with facts. But there is a link. So you click it, expecting to see the welcome page of “The Feminist Majority For Feeding Christians To The Abortion Machine”, but instead you get an opinion piece. Of his. Wherein, this:

Recently we were at a party where a woman in her 60s, a self-described feminist, called Palin a “moron” for having encouraged her daughter to carry her child to term and “to marry the sperm donor.”

Wow. Gaze upon the official gathering of America’s feminists. At some party.

Even apart from the gross language, this was a completely irrational thing to say.

Say what? How could that be? It’s the official political position of leftist women! Here they come, Jimmy. Pap Smear! Oogie Boogie!

JUST IN: Karen Handel, enemy of Planned Parenthood and political strategist behind the de-funding/bureaucratic purge, has resigned. Good riddance.

So I’m walking down the street. And then all of a sudden, I can’t move. I’m stuck.

BOOK REVIEW: Saturday, November 26, 2011
Spend It or Save It?
Megan McArdle | Wall Street Journal

A few months ago, I became the proud, and slightly sheepish, owner of what must be the world’s most expensive food processor. The Thermomix costs about $1,500.

Anyway, I was like . . what happened? I can’t move.

It not only chops the food but weighs the ingredients and cooks them for you while stirring constantly. Perfect hollandaise and flawless béchamel can be produced in minutes with virtually no effort.

So I thought I’d open my eyes. But wouldn’t you know it? I couldn’t see.

After seeing one last summer in the home of a friend, I promised myself one if I completed a particularly large and time-consuming research project. By the time I did, I was no longer sure that I wanted to spend the price of a good chair or a bad car on a kitchen-counter appliance.

So I can’t move, and it’s pitch black. What a mess. No idea what to do.

But I went ahead and ordered one. However guilty the pleasure, I couldn’t resist the joy of the long-planned splurge.

Then I heard this voice. ‘Turn around, genius.’

Nor, it seems, can any of my countrymen. For decades, Americans have wallowed in credit, shunned savings and . .

So I turned around. Sidewalk! Wow. I managed a couple steps, and then I turned around again. There it was!

. . all this profligacy supports a rather vibrant cottage industry in polemics . .

A bus. I walked into the side of a bus. It happens. Where was I?

There are the actors, over there, the audience. Here come the media, the go-betweens. Someone has to convey the, uh, hmm. Some group has to tell you, ehh, err. Okay — here come the useless, self-important assholes of the world:

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.

Great journalism, sober and accurate. While he writhed on a bed of fur-lined German bonds, President Bon Bon struck an ominous tone with the Democrat Dauphins:

“Back to wiping your own butts?”

Hell no. Bring back Day Spa America. 4 more years of neck rubs and personal attendants. This circular war footing / economic downturn creates nothing if not a blissed whirlpool of languor. Bankers foreclosing on your house? Whatever. You and 172 people interviewing for the one job opening in past 6 months? I’m tired. Your son’s remains being interred in Arlington? He’s not going anywhere.

Yes, simple times call for simple narratives. You’d be surprised to find out this “news” story didn’t originate with the New York Post. Nor from Fox News Channel, either. This was ABC News style journalism, aka your liberal media. Not that anyone noticed.

Sitter in Chief
Barack Obama and the infantilization of America
James Taranto | Wall Street Journal

. . Here’s ABC News, reporting on the speech the president gave in Fog City: “At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.”

Oh no! Horror of horrors! Obama is the only thing standing between us and having to rely on ourselves! And do you know what they call people who rely on themselves?

Adults.

Here’s a photo of you the WSJ appended to Taranto’s piece:

Much for the worse we’d be without professional, big league journalism.

Rupert Murdoch obviously hates Occupy Wall Street. Otherwise, why would his Wall Street Journal be working overtime to trash the movement?

The examples pile up. For instance, a week ago, Murdoch op-ed columnist James Taranto whined about a protester he saw on This Week with Christiane Amanpour. This guy, he’s a propagandist, a fake, a liar, a loser, Taranto wrote. By far, Taranto proved more pathetic: calling Peggy Noonan authentic working class, mocking protests past and present and laying the responsibility for Occupy at the feet of . . Rupert Murdoch. Nice try, James, but few people are that stupid.

Today, the Journal are at it again. And they’re trying to use the same strategy as they did last week: painting the protesters as extremist and inauthentic. Fortunately, their new hitman man was no more up to the task than Taranto was. They employed Fox News contributor and thoroughly disgraced ‘Democratic’ pollster Douglas Schoen for the work:

That’ll get to me crack up pretty quickly. If ever there were a fix in on a survey, it’d be one where Murdoch asked Schoen to poll the folks at Occupy.

Doug, you may remember, was employed by the WaPo wingnuts last fall to pen a sober op-ed on Barack Obama. What was the heroic, humble ‘Democrat’ asking of his Commander in Chief? Only that he quit his job, nothing more. That way, Schoen opined, Barack Obama would be the greatest president ever.

If Doug’s logic escapes you, that’s because it escaped him long before you approached. He beat it out of his heart to make way for cash. Schoen’s profession is playing an angle to a moneyed, Conservative constituency: you wanna know about liberals and Democrats? I’m one of them. I’ll tell you about them, and you’ll love the results.

So here it is:

Polling the Occupy Wall Street Crowd
In interviews, protesters show that they are leftists out of step with most American voters. Yet Democrats are embracing them anyway.

President Obama and the Democratic leadership are making a critical error in embracing the Occupy Wall Street movement—and it may cost them the 2012 election . .

Already, you can sense his concern. You can bet that Rupert’s worried about the Democrats’ chances in 2012, too.

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies. On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York’s Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion.

With Schoen, we know the fix is in. So we’re wary from the beginning. When you poll a group of entrenched protesters, what do you really expect? When people are so angry that they’ve stopped sleeping at home and are now living in a park, what will their answers about issues tell you?

C’mon Doug — they’re pissed. To figure that, you don’t need polls. And thank god for the rage. If it weren’t for angry people, what good would ever come of democratic politics? The whole Murdoch idea behind the poll — Do you trust these people? Aren’t they different from you? — is a joke.

Rupert, buddy, we’re not asking these people to run the country. We’re asking them to change things. What a big difference that makes. All the difference. Just think of what Schoen’s useless polling of the Egyptian rebels would have told you: these people are dangerously out of step with the nation’s centrist values, like tolerance and non-violence. The WSJ would then have you believe that expelling Mubarak would be wrong. That would be wrong. But seeing as how you one-percenters paid Doug so handsomely for such a pretty poll, by all means, go on.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn’t represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

See? It’s laughable. While the Journal thinks it’s doing a great job of smashing your fear buttons — politics! violence! — it’s gotten me plenty encouraged. I’m sure I’m not the only one. I want these people to be civilly facile. I want them to be politically experienced. I’ll even take a few who have considered violence. A mix of those types can make for a pretty effective movement. They’ll certainly be willing to get things done.

And we want things done. Occupy Wall Street have proven they’re not trivial, and they’re dedicated to change. I’m glad that they’re there, and I enthusiastically hail their efforts. As for Schoen’s whatever, appointed with its numbers and percentages . .

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector . .

. . it’s meaningless.

Except for this: it was meant to scare Wall Street Journal readers. Good.

That’s that, the thing is done. The race for the Republican presidential candidacy is over, and Herman Cain has won. Huzzahs and party favors go to the pizza-flinging xenophobe.

Until now, right-wingers had famously waited to make their solemn candidate choice, unsure of who should ruin the future of America. But like a pack of sober, confident crocodiles, they leapt upon the antelope of Herman Cain this week, tearing him to bits.

Fueled by Tea Party supporters, conservatives and high-interest GOP primary voters, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain now leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

. . Cain checks in as the first choice of 27 percent of Republican voters in the poll, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 23 percent and Perry at 16 percent.

Public Policy Polling found the same thing:

Yesterday PPP released numbers showing Herman Cain leading Mitt Romney 30-22 in Iowa and our monthly look at the national picture finds the exact same numbers. Cain is up 30-22 on Romney with Newt Gingrich sneaking past Rick Perry for 3rd place at 15% to Perry’s 14% . .

The fat lady whinnies, talk to the microphone, you cut your hair, pay the man. This is the greatest story of the story of 2012 campaign history.