New York: Bush

OK, so Obama gets into office and immediately sets up a group to make suggestions on what to do about Afghanistan. They give recommendations. Obama puts "his guy" in charge, Gen. McChrystal. This is roundly applauded as McChrystal is widely acknowledged as a guy that knows how to do what must be done. McChrystal tells Obama he needs tens of thousands more troops, a surge, to quell rising violence and protect the populace.

Obama commences weeks, months of dithering. The attacks from the right heat up as the attacks on our troops heat up in Afghanistan. They culminate in comments from Dick Cheney who basically tells Obama to stop screwing with our troops, follow the plan that was given to him by the people that he asked to give him a plan, and stop screwing around.

Star Parker has an interesting hate crime analogy:
Can you imagine a football game where the penalty for roughing the passer is 20 yards rather than 15 yards if the referee concludes that the violence perpetrated was motivated because the quarterback was homosexual?
Most open and transparent administration - evah!
Late Friday during the idle hours of the news cycle, the administration released the names of 100 White House visitors in 481 visits. It wasn't exactly the transparency the president promised. It was simply in compliance with two court rulings that ordered the names to be made public record. Unable to admit misconduct, the White House insisted its disclosure was voluntary.

IBD's view:
But the reason Hoffman was able to end Scozzafava's candidacy is that the people in NY-23 preferred a Reaganite citizen politician to a party machinist doing an impersonation of liberal Sen. Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican.

Now that Scozzafava has, in an act of incalculable pettiness, endorsed the Democrat in the race, Bill Owens, Gingrich looks like a professor at the Mister Magoo school of political science.

The Politico reports, "the White House got Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the most powerful figures in the state, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to place calls to the assemblywoman on Saturday evening to coax her into" endorsing her former Democratic opponent in the race.

Jolly pumpkin day, everyone. Be good. And, uh, sorry about being behind on these.

Gee, commie Chavez (big fan of Obama and vice-versa) is ruining his country by trying to centralize everything...anybody surprised?
In his latest absurdity, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is dictating three-minute showers and no singing. Claiming it's to save water, his act is nothing but a "green" fig leaf to cover his socialist mismanagement...

But the water and electricity shortages are his own doing, and the scope of the crisis signals the systemic shortages of socialism.

There shouldn't be any shortages at all. Green, jungly Venezuela, with some of the world's most spectacular waterfalls, also boasts some of the best hydroelectric capacity in all Latin America.