The Discerning Texan

America, meet the UAW.

So now tell me why we need to print up another trillion dollars to throw good money after bad and make the rest of us poorer.

Brit Hume, quite simply, was the best in the business. Here is a video clip put together by his colleagues at Fox News--and a few special guests--just prior to Hume's final newscast as the Managing Editor at Fox News and the anchor of Special Report.

Well done, sir. Don't be a stranger.

A brilliant piece today from Richard Fernandez (and Stratfor) today: if you think you know what went down in the whole Watergate episode, think again.

How long will the American electorate sit still for allowing Big Media to deprive it of its legitimate and Constitutional voice?

It is not out of the question.

If you have just been elected President, with full time assistance from a news media that went to ridiculous lengths to downplay your connections with a sleazy, corrupt political machine, it might be easy to think they would continue to give you a "pass" if more of those connections were to suddenly materialize.

If the central message of your campaign was to change and "clean up" the corruption in Washington, stop influence peddling by special interests, etc., you might (for example) hope that the media would "overlook" evidence to the contrary.

If the man you just picked to be your White House Chief of Staff is caught red-handed in wiretapped conversations co-conspiring with the (now indicted) Governor of Illinois to sell your own US Senate seat to the highest bidder--perhaps one of the most blatantly corrupt abuses of power an elected official can undertake--well, let us just say that it is not exactly the greatest way to start a "clean up" of Washington corruption.

(As of now we do not know for sure that Rahm Emanuel was the infamous "Advisor B"... but given his evasive--if not openly hostile--behavior to the media over the last few days it is safe to say that he is prominently on the list; and then there is this little ditty that came over the wires today. And, given Patrick Fitzgerald's legendary tenacity and skills at turning witnesses for "bigger fish", this may not be the end of it...)

Meanwhile Barack Obama is already starting to go to Nixonian lengths to deny everything--and he hasn't even been inaugurated yet. Here is a great summary of what we know so far. Stay tuned...

UPDATE: Iowahawk: Senate seat for sale on eBay!

Iowahawk on the Auto bailout. Pure gold.

Christopher Hitchens on the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan, and the see-hear-speak-no-evil media:

The obvious is sometimes the most difficult thing to discern, and few things are more amusing than the efforts of our journals of record to keep "open" minds about the self-evident, and thus to create mysteries when the real task of reportage is to dispel them. An all-time achiever in this category is Fernanda Santos of the New York Times, who managed to write from Bombay on Nov. 27 that the Chabad Jewish center in that city was "an unlikely target of the terrorist gunmen who unleashed a series of bloody coordinated attacks at locations in and around Mumbai's commercial center." Continuing to keep her brow heavily furrowed with the wrinkles of doubt and uncertainty, Santos went on to say that "[i]t is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."

This same puzzled expression is currently being widely worn on the faces of all those who wonder if Pakistan is implicated in the "bloody coordinated" assault on the heart of Bombay. To get an additional if oblique perspective on this riddle that is an enigma wrapped inside a mystery, take a look at Joshua Hammer's excellent essay in the current Atlantic. The question in its title—"[Is Syria] Getting Away With Murder?"—is at least asked only at the beginning of the article and not at the end of it.

Here are the known facts: If you are a Lebanese politician or journalist or public figure, and you criticize the role played by the government of Syria in your country's internal affairs, your car will explode when you turn the ignition key, or you will be ambushed and shot or blown up by a bomb or land mine as you drive through the streets of Beirut or along the roads that lead to the mountains. The explosives and weapons used, and the skilled tactics employed, will often be reminiscent of the sort of resources available only to the secret police and army of a state machine. But I think in fairness I must stress that this is all that is known for sure. You criticize the Assad dictatorship, and either your vehicle detonates or your head is blown off. Over time, this has happened to a large and varied number of people, ranging from Sunni statesman Rafik Hariri to Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt to Communist spokesman George Hawi. One would not wish to be a "conspiracy theorist" and allege that there was any necessary connection between the criticisms in the first place and the deplorably terminal experiences in the second.

Be sure and read the whole thing.