It’s Tuesday, August 20th, 2013…and here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of National Review Online, Victor Davis Hanson details how the Progressive MSM betrayed their duty to the Republic when they made a deal with a devil they thought they knew:

The Press and Dr. Faustus

Too late, American journalists realize their mistake. 

In the old Dr. Faustus story, a young scholar bargains away his soul to the devil for promises of obtaining almost anything he wants. The American media has done much the same thing with the Obama administration. In return for empowering a fellow liberal, the press gave up its traditional adversarial relationship with the president.

But after five years of basking in a shared progressive agenda, the tab for such ecstasy has come due, and now the media is lamenting that it has lost its soul.

At first, the loss of independence seemed like a minor sacrifice. In 2008, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews sounded almost titillated by an Obama speech, exclaiming, “My, I felt this thrill going up my leg.” Earlier, New York Times columnist David Brooks had fixated on Obama’s leg rather than his own: “I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president, and b) he’ll be a very good president.”

For worshiper and former Newsweek editor Evan Thomas, Obama was divine: “Obama’s standing above the country, above the world, he’s sort of God.” TV pundit and presidential historian Michael Beschloss ranked the newly elected Barack Obama as “the smartest guy ever to become president.”

For a press that had exposed Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the Monica Lewinsky affair, and had torn apart George W. Bush over everything from the Iraq War to Hurricane Katrina, this hero worship seemed obsessive (not “seemed obsessive”; rather it in fact was!) . The late liberal reporter Michael Hastings summed up a typical private session between President Obama and the press during the 2012 campaign: “Everyone, myself included, swooned. Swooned! Head over heels. One or two might have even lost their minds. . . . We were all, on some level, deeply obsessed with Obama, crushing hard.” (Remember friends, we’re talking about fully-grown adults, not emotionally-immature teenagers prone to swooning over rock stars.)

Sometimes the media and Obama were one big happy family — literally. The siblings of the presidents of ABC News and CBS News are both higher-ups in the Obama administration. The White House press secretary’s wife is a correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America.

When Obama’s chief political aide, David Axelrod, went to work for MSNBC, Obama jokingly called it “a nice change of pace, because MSNBC used to work for David Axelrod.” Nor was Obama shy about rubbing in his subjects’ hero worship: “My job is to be president; your job is to keep me humble. Frankly, I think I’m doing my job better.” In Africa recently, Obama advised his traveling press corps to “behave,” then compared them unfavorably with the more polite and compliant media of an increasingly authoritarian South Africa.

Four hundred reporters even formed their own off-the-record shared email chat group, JournoList, to strategize attacks against Obama’s political opponents. AttackWatch.com (paid for by Obama for America) read like some sort of secret-police operation, asking readers to report any criticism of Obama as it compiled “Attack Files” in blaring black and red headers.

When President Obama kept open Guantanamo Bay or expanded the Bush war on terror, he was described as “anguished” and “torn” as he broke his earlier promises. Bad news like unemployment spikes or flat GDP growth was customarily editorialized with adverbs like “unexpectedly” — as if Obama’s setbacks surely were aberrant and would quickly subside. In one of the 2012 presidential debates, the moderator, CNN’s Candy Crowley, was so exasperated that Obama seemed to need help that she jumped in to challenge Mitt Romney.

Obama rightly assumed that when the Benghazi scandal surfaced during the 2012 campaign, the press would largely ignore it. Likewise, he knew that the politicization of the IRS would not warrant headline news. Ditto Fast and Furious and the NSA mess.

But then a Faustian thing happened. This year it was also revealed that the Obama administration had monitored the communications of Associated Press reporters on the suspicion that they were publishing leaks. For the first time, outrage arose: Liberal presidents were not, in Nixonian fashion, supposed to go after liberal reporters.

The Obama administration did not object to AP reporters’ leaking classified information per se. Indeed, it had leaked the most intimate details of the cyber war against Iran, the drone protocols, and the bin Laden raid to pet reporters like the New York Times’s David Sanger and the Washington Post’s David Ignatius. The election-year “exclusive” revelations of both usually portrayed Obama as an underappreciated, muscular commander-in-chief.

The crime instead was that AP was freelancing and might publish leaks that were not always flattering. Since long ago the media had made a pact, it was natural that the Obama administration assumed it had a right to monitor what it had bought.

In one version of the tale, Dr. Faustus at least got 24 years of freebies before being hauled off to Hell. Our poor media did not even get five years of adulation before Obama called in their souls.

Hanson believes the Fourth Estaters now “realize their mistake”; perhaps.  The question is do they regret it; and more importantly, will regret lead them to repair the damage their mistake has already caused?  Not even for a moment…and not a chance!

Next up, courtesy of NRO‘s The Corner, Mark Steyn offers his thoughts on the…

Consensus in Egypt

Further to Andy’s and David’s observations on Egypt this weekend, I would add only that everywhere except Washington people are thinking strategically: General Sisi has made a calculation that he has a small window of opportunity to inflict damage on the Muslim Brotherhood that will set them back decades and that it is in Egypt’s vital interest to do so. Grasping that, the Brothers are pushing back hard.

Which brings us to our “A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words” segment, as Hope n’ Change presents this succinct summation of contemporary American foreign policy:

Meanwhile, courtesy of Jim Geraghty, the deal most thought couldn’t get any worse just did…at least for tens of thousands living under Chris Christie’s corpulent thumb:

The Unaffordable Care Act: Ending Our Long National Nightmare of Inexpensive Basic Health Insurance

If you like your plan, you can . . . well, okay, no, under Obamacare, you’re up a creek without a paddle:

The bare-bones health insurance policy that’s been the plan of choice for New Jerseyans who can’t afford something better is set to go away next year, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. And what those policy holders will be left with may be a choice among pricey, pricier and priciest.

About 106,000 people in the Garden State are insured under what are known as “basic and essential,” or B&E, health care plans, according to state data. Since 2003, all health insurers that operate in New Jersey’s individual health market have been required to sell these plans which, as their name implies, offer only a thin layer of coverage for things such as doctor’s office visits and procedures that don’t involve a hospital stay.

But while B&E plans were meant to help young families get coverage and stanch the drop of enrollment in the individual health market, their relatively low price — as little as a couple hundred dollars a month for some people — made them the most popular option for those who don’t get insurance through an employer or a government program such as Medicare or Medicaid. About 71 percent of those covered by the individual health market have a B&E plan.

Soon no longer. In addition to requiring most everyone to carry health insurance, the Affordable Care Act — better known as Obamacare — starting next year will force health care plans to cover certain essential services while capping the out-of-pocket fees people pay in addition to their premiums.

As a result, after Dec. 31, insurers won’t be able to sell or renew plans that don’t meet this litmus test. That includes B&E plans.

Swell.

“Swell” is right; just like…

…an overripe corpse!

In a related item, writing at the WSJ‘s Political Diary, Stephen Moore describes yet another abominable aspect of The Unaffordable Care Act:

The ObamaCare Slush Fund

Last week, the Obama administration revealed that three Planned Parenthood affiliates would be among the groups receiving federal dollars to educate Americans about the Affordable Care Act. The announcement did not go unnoticed by conservative Republicans who want to defund ObamaCare.

The three groups, based in Iowa, Montana and New Hampshire, will receive a total of $655,000 in federal funds. More than a hundred other organizations will also get money. An affiliate of the left-leaning Urban League received a $565,000 grant, for example. The Obama administration defends the grants by noting that some of the money went to groups affiliated with the Catholic Church and others with a more conservative orientation.

But GOP Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee, a pro-life advocate, says that the Planned Parenthood grants are tantamount to “the federal funding of abortion providers.” Since ObamaCare was first debated in the House in 2009, Republicans have tried to block federal funds from flowing to Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s primary abortion providers. With these grants, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius seemed to be saying to Republicans, “in your face,” as one GOP leadership aide put it.

Republicans, along with some Democrats, were angrier still at where the money is coming from. Originally, the Obama administration said it would spend $54 million on this so-called Navigators program, but the amount was recently upped to $67 million. The extra $13 million will come from ObamaCare’s Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF). That the administration is sliding funds around so easily from one purpose to another confirms for many ObamaCare skeptics that the $12.5 billion dedicated to the PPHF is essentially a slush fund to pad the budgets of leftwing advocacy groups.

The administration’s decision to use ObamaCare dollars for whatever purpose it wishes is especially ironic given the sequestration debate, where the White House has argued that it doesn’t have the authority to move money from one account to another. This was the administration’s excuse for the temporary shutdown of air traffic control towers at busy airports this spring. The administration said it needed specific legislative authority from Congress to restore the funding of many essential services. But it has not sought such authority when it comes to funding what it wants with ObamaCare appropriations.

Part of the problem, which Congress may now try to fix, is that the language of the statute creating the PPHF is vague. (Inconceivable!) The law says that money may be used for programs “to improve health” or “help restrain the rate of growth” of health-care expenses. Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan wrote a letter earlier this year to Ms. Sebelius complaining that some ObamaCare grants “appear to fund lobbying activities contrary to the laws” governing the use of federal funds. Even Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, a Democrat, has objected to the use of preventive health dollars for unrelated projects as “an outrageous attack on an investment fund that is saving lives.”

The latest Navigator funds are certain to intensify such investigations into the cozy relationship between groups that lobby for ObamaCare, such as Planned Parenthood, and groups that then get funds for carrying out the law. My Republican sources on Capitol Hill tell me that Congress is asking the General Accountability Office and the Inspector General at HHS to investigate whether these taxpayer funds are illegally financing liberal activities to lobby for ObamaCare’s political survival. This story isn’t going away.

Speaking of Liberals up to their hindquarters in illegal activities, here’s today’s Money Quote, courtesy of Townhall.com and Terry McAuliffe’s reaction to the two separate federal probes into his GreenTech Automotive:

“Here are the facts: I’ve not been contacted in any way by those conducting the investigation and have no knowledge of it beyond what has been reported. From what has been reported, the investigation appears to be looking at a document allegedly prepared for potential investors – something I was not responsible for as chairman.“

Seriously…no, SERIOUSLY…is there any Dimocrat heading up any organization anywhere on the planet…

…responsible for anything?!?

And in the Environmental Moment, forwarded by Jeff Foutch, the latest red herring from The Greens:

Keystone XL Seen Damaging ‘Quality Night Skies’ Near Parks

Building the Keystone XL pipeline would lead to more manmade light and noise in sparsely populated regions, which may harm natural resources, wildlife and visitors to national parks, the U.S. Interior Department said. In comments submitted to the State Department as part of an environmental review, Interior warned that developer TransCanada Corp. (TRP) isn’t adequately dealing with risks to “cultural soundscapes” and “high quality night skies” from disturbances during construction and from pumping stations that keep oil flowing along the route.

“The cumulative effects of the project could adversely impact the quality of the night skies and the overall photic environment,” Willie R. Taylor, director of the office of environmental policy at Interior, wrote in a letter on April 29. The State Department posted the letter on its website this week as it releases 1.2 million comments received about the project.

…The pipeline won’t pass near the most-visited parks, such as Yellowstone in Wyoming. It will cross the popular Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail, which stretches across 11 states, and the Missouri National Recreational River in South Dakota and Nebraska, which combined draw an average more than 386,000 visitors a year, according to park service data.

Interior also mentions impacts to the Niobrara National Scenic River in northern Nebraska, which gets about 68,000 visitors a year. The impact of the ambient light from the pipeline could be felt far from parks adjacent to the project, Interior said in its letter. In addition to the impacts of light and noise, the department said it “has concerns with the proposed pipeline’s stream and wetland crossings,” especially those near parks, such as the Missouri recreation area.

On the Lighter Side…

Then there’s this from the “Everyone Deserves A Trophy” segment, courtesy of your local Leftist librarian:

Library director says 9-year-old should ‘step aside’ to let others win reading contest

Library director Marie Gandron, who appears to know a thing or two about hogging…or at least pigging out!

A 9-year-old who has won five straight reading contests at a New York library now has a new challenger to his throne – the library’s director, who says the young reader “hogs” the contest prizes each year and should “step aside.” Tyler Weaver, who starts fifth grade in September, won the “Dig Into Reading” contest at the Hudson Falls Public Library this summer by reading 63 books from June 24 to Aug. 3, the Post-Star reports.

Weaver said he felt “great” that he won the contest again, winning prizes such as an atlas, a water bottle and certificates of achievement. “Everybody he tells, he gets high-fives. Everybody’s so proud of him,” his mother Katie told the Post-Star.

Everyone except the library’s director. “Other kids quit because they can’t keep up,” Marie Gandron said, adding that she considered changing the rules of the contest so prizes are given to children whose names are pulled out of a hat instead of reading the most books. But Gandron says she won’t change the contest now that Katie Weaver has come forward to the Post-Star with Tyler’s accomplishments.

Lita Casey, a library aide, called Gandron’s plans to change the contest “ridiculous.”

Were we Lita Casey, we’d be seeking alternative employment in a field which rewards both extra effort and common sense.  In other words, most anywhere but government or higher eduction.

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with News of the Bizarre, and this cautionary tale from California:

Sea snail grows and hatches out of boy’s knee

A 4-year-old boy from California has come home from a family beach holiday with a rather unusual souvenir — a sea snail which hatched and grew inside his knee. Paul Franklin, from Aliso Viejo in Orange County, fell and grazed his knee on rocks while on a summer camping trip. His parents became worried as the wound started to become swollen and infected.

Three weeks later, (“Three weeks later?!?  They were worried alright!) the boy’s mother, Rachael, decided to squeeze the sore on his knee – and out popped the sea-snail. “His knee was size of orange, and hot to the touch and he’s limping. She said what came out “looked like a rock – it was a black thing and I put it on paper-towel and it had whirls and I turned it over and it was a sea-snail and I just like had to laugh.“

Forget the fact the parents waited three weeks to do anything other than worry about their son’s increasingly serious infection; here’s the best part:

The family have now put the creature into their fish-tank and named it Turbo.

Is it any wonder it’s called The Land of Fruits & Nuts?!?

Magoo