Pivot! President Obama has decided not to endorse his deficit commission’s recommendation to raise the retirement age, and otherwise reduce Social Security benefits, in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, cheering liberals and drawing a stark line between the White House and key Republicans in Congress. Who cares if he lies on substance? It’s the soaring oratory that gives the establishment types that tingle.

Re-imaging himself as a fiscal conservative, is he? Is that what we’re supposed to believe? From Jake Tapper, ABC News: Pursuing a path of deficit reduction and government reform, President Obama will tonight in his State of the Union address call for a ban on earmarks and he will propose an overall budget freeze, ABC News has learned. The proposals come as the president prepares to tackle the deficit and

1. “Investment” = “government spending” 2. “civility” = “now shut up, you bitter-clinging racists. Because I’m trying to persuade here, and persuasion (per Buckley) is paramount. Plus, I’m just like Reagan. No, really. I wrote about it just yesterday. Sputnik!” 3. “competition” = “See? I’m all for capitalism, provided I can control the outcome, and get mine in return. So, for instance, it’s cool with me if, say, GE gets

Here, Rahm. Have a fish head. On us.

David Gregory, laying the trap for Eric Cantor on this weekend’s “Meet the Press”. Having first insisted that “many on the right” are engaging in “crazy talk” in calling for the release of Obama’s birth certificate (Chris Matthews, on the other hand, is given a pass, because his reasoning for calling for the release is the good and righteous kind), Gregory then goes on to try to wring an admission

From the WSJ’s weekend interview with Walt Williams: “Sometimes I sarcastically, perhaps cynically, say that I’m glad that I received virtually all of my education before it became fashionable for white people to like black people,” writes Walter Williams in his new autobiography, Up from the Projects. “By that I mean that I encountered back then a more honest assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Professors didn’t hesitate to criticize

Citing specific examples from the linked article, spot the rhetorical spin. Extra credit: discuss the irony of use of the term “marketing” as deployed in this story. You have 30 minutes to complete your test. Good luck! (h/t Right Bias)

Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr. and Niger Innis: Skyrocketing energy prices and lost jobs also mean millions of otherwise healthy Americans are subjected to new health threats: higher air conditioning, heating, transportation and other energy bills. For those who cannot afford the increased costs, this can mean death from heat stroke and hypothermia; reduced budgets for healthy food, proper healthcare, home and car repairs, college, retirement, and charitable giving; and psychological

Here in the States, Thomas Friedman mused on the Chinese government’s idyllic governing arrangement with its subjects people — one in which the relative non-messiness of competing ideas and dissident expression allows the ChiComs to get things done. Cleanly. Efficiently. Progressively! And now, not to be outdone, we have Stephen Kinzer agitating in the Guardian for an end to “human rights imperialism” — which is essentially a kind of updated