"He who warned, uh... the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free."

Can't she just go away? And what IS this fascination with all things Sarah Palin?!?

Now if the fascination was over TODD Palin, well...that's a different story.

I don't think so, because I know many people who call themselves conservative Republicans who think she should just go away.

The specious faux-conservatism of Mitt Romney, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich et al (the list is quite literally endless) advocates spending our nation to destruction, all while the faux-conservatives rail against liberals and Democrats for their wanton spending.

It's not how much is spent but how much and by whom. The nation's wealth is being spent right now on luxuries for the wealthy using income pirated through securities in the financial market. These will never stimulate the USA domestic economy. You are complaining about the wrong expenditures.

Our financial crisis is a privately-created and privately-funded one. Not a public one. Reducing public expenditures to zero will only make the matter uncontrollably worst.

Interestingly after the Grand Dame of Stupidity made her Revere comment, Wikipedia was flooded with requests to update the page to fit with Palin's account. And while what she said lines up with what historians believe to be true about him being captured and telling the British about the militia, that isn't what she meant at all.

I haven't followed this kerfuffle much. I don't know what exactly Sarah Palin said, but Robert Allison, chair of the history department at Boston's Suffolk University, says she was right. Aaaah, the Left's magnificent obsession with the supposedly "irrelevant quitter" continues.

Liberals HATE Rush Limbaugh for so many reasons, probably most because he's right far more often than suits their tastes. He said of the Left's magnificent obsession over Sarah Palin that liberals will tell us whom they fear most. They're not obsessively trashing Mitt Romney. If one goes by leftist discourse, one wouldn't even know Tim Pawlenty existed. And even though Rick Santorum's social conservatism goes strongly against the leftist grain, they don't talk about him either. But the Left is OBSESSED with Sarah Palin.

The Democratic Party nominated someone just as unqualified—actually MORE unqualified—in Obama, so your argument holds no water.

Regardless, I just think she's an idiot who's almost as smug and unempathetic as Obama.

Puhleeze....the experience of the two is not even close. First and foremost the President is educated. Palin, not so much. It makes a big difference. I also think he'd be able to handle the "gotcha" questions that seem to launch Palin in fantasy land...making it up as she goes along. Oh, the President would be able to tell you which newspapers he reads. I'm certain Palin couldn't because she doesn't.

Educated? Sure, so was George Bush.

Fact: Obama is an elitist who has a lot of classroom experience as a student.

Fact: Obama never held a private sector job.

Fact: Obama was a do nothing, worthless state senator with little elected experience.

Fact: Obama has ZERO executive experience.

Palin, at least, was a governor, even if she quit to make money.

She doesn't dwarf him in experience, but she does have more of the single most relevant experience, that being an executive.

In short, Obama is really a rather stupid individual.

Sorry, but the facts speak for themselves, regardless of your ability to acknowledge them. Your ignorance of Obama's elected career is but one reason you and other liberals have this ridiculous belief that he's smart. Hell, he isn't even that book smart! 57 U.S. states, ay there, Barry?

The guy accomplished nothing as an Illinois state senator; he accomplished nothing as a U.S. senator, and has accomplished little as president. In fact, he is so far an abysmal failure rivaling Jimmy Carter.

Not only is your list not fact,

saving us from financial ruin, ending two wars and finally addressing health care.

Last week, it was noted that various forms of the word "unexpected" almost inevitably appeared in news stories about unfavorable economic developments.

You can find them again in stories about Friday's shocking news, that only 54,000 net new jobs were created in the month of May and that unemployment rose to 9.1 percent.

But with news that bad, maybe bad economic numbers will no longer be "unexpected." You can only expect a robust economic recovery for so long before you figure out, as Herbert Hoover eventually did, that it is not around the corner.

Exogenous factors explain some part of the current economic stagnation. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a slowdown in manufacturing. Horrendous tornadoes did not help. Nor did bad weather, though only a few still bitterly cling to the theory that it's caused by man-made global warming.

But poor public policy is surely one reason why the American economy has not rebounded from recession as it has in the past. And political posturing has also played a major role.

Barack Obama and the Democratic congressional supermajorities of 2009–10 raised federal spending from 21 percent to 25 percent of gross domestic product. Their stimulus package stopped layoffs of public employees for a while, even as private sector payrolls plummeted.

And the Obama Democrats piled further burdens on would-be employers in the private sector. Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation bill are scheduled to be followed by thousands of regulations that will impose impossible-to-estimate costs on the economy.

That seems to have led to a hiring freeze. The Obama Democrats can reasonably claim not to be responsible for the huge number of layoffs that occurred in the months following the financial crisis of fall 2008. And Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did manage to help stabilize financial markets.

But while the number of layoffs is now vastly less than in the first half of 2009, the number of new hires has not increased appreciably. Many more people have been unemployed for longer periods than in previous recessions, and many more have stopped looking for work altogether.

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the threat of tax increases and increased regulatory burdens have produced something in the nature of a hiring strike.

And then there is the political posturing. On April 13, Barack Obama delivered a ballyhooed speech at George Washington University. The man who conservatives as well as liberal pundits told us was a combination of Edmund Burke and Reinhold Niebuhr was widely expected to present a serious plan to address the budget deficits and entitlement spending.

Instead, the man who can call on talented career professionals at the Office of Management and Budget to produce detailed blueprints gave us something in the nature of a few numbers scrawled on a paper napkin.

The man depicted as pragmatic and free of ideological cant indulged in cheap political rhetoric, accusing Republicans — including House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, who was in the audience — of pushing old ladies in wheelchairs down the hill and starving autistic children.

The signal was clear. Obama had already ignored his own deficit-reduction commission in preparing his annual budget, which was later rejected 97–0 in the Senate. Now he was signaling that the time for governing was over and that he was entering campaign mode 19 months before the November 2012 election.

People took notice, especially those people who decide whether to hire or not. Goldman Sachs's Current Activity Indicator stood at 4.2 percent in March. In April — in the middle of which came Obama's GW speech — it was 1.6 percent. For May, it is 1.0 percent.

"That is a major drop in no time at all," wrote Business Insider's Joe Weisenthal.

After April 13, Obama Democrats went into campaign mode. They staged a poll-driven Senate vote to increase taxes on oil companies.

They launched a Medi-scare campaign against Ryan's budget resolution that all but four House Republicans had voted for. That seemed to pay off with a special election victory in the New York 26th congressional district.

The message to job creators was clear. Hire at your own risk. Higher taxes, more burdensome regulation and crony capitalism may be here for some time to come.

One possible upside is that economic bad news may no longer be "unexpected." Another is that voters may figure out what is going on.

The GOP won't have to create any negatives for Obama. He is a landslide victim waiting to happen. I personally know many people who eagerly and enthusiastically voted for him in 2008, but they can't stand him now. Like so many saps, they were bamboozled into thinking he was going to be some wonderful president. Well, with their paychecks having shrunk thanks to the Democrats, with his economy-destroying policies, his horrible energy policy, and more, they've had it with him. The only exception seem to be the blacks, who'd vote for him even if Jesus Christ ran as a Republican.

There was no serious candidate in 1992 until Bill Clinton, some "hick" (who turned out to be a good president) from Arkansas came along, and he beat a president who had approval ratings of 91% at one time.

As far as "destroying" Medicare, fortunately, a majority of the country knows that this is typical Democratic scare tactics and demagoguery at its best. Enough people realize or will realize that Obama is the consummate class warrior, pitting classes of Americans against each other and dividing the country worse than any of his predecessors. Hell, his economic policies alone have done just that.

As James Carville so wonderfully put it years ago: "It's the economy, Stupid!"

Indeed it is, and Obama's economic policies have only made things worse. Jimmy Carter Redux, indeed.

The incumbent will win unless there's someone else with a better plan.

Sorry, but history proves you wrong. Obama's economy is worsening by the month, and because his economic policies inhibit growth, stifle production, and more, things will only get worse. The American people are wise to his failure as a president. It's no secret that the generic, no name Republican candidate beats him in a match-up. I'm not one saying as of this date that "he's toast." No, I'm simply saying that unless the economy dramatically turns around, which it won't or can't under his policies, he will do a Jimmy Carter and get his clock cleaned come November 2012.

As far as your comment about the GOP candidates being radical righties trying to regulate our lives, remember this:

1. It is Liberals who want to control people's lives as much as they can. The Left favors restrictions on speech, religion, and anything that doesn't conform to their ideological views, and they favor forcing their beliefs on everyone else and disallowing others' views, and the American people realize this.
2. The country is right of center and not left. Knowing that Obama represents the radical, Socialist left, the American people will not stand for more of this.

No matter how many times you say it, the President is nowhere near left, let alone socialist.

In other cases where the economy was bad, there was something positive to move toward.

First, yes he is. Second, what is important is that he's perceived as radically left, and that's how the American people have increasingly been viewing him. That's really all that matters, whether you care to admit it or not. It's not too dissimilar from Americans perceiving Republicans as Medicare destroyers. Fortunately, that has been tempered by the facts, as well as President Clinton even being heard telling Rep. Paul Ryan a few supportive words.
This "something positive" can be simply a promise to make things better, which undoubtedly the GOP nominee will do. In addition to Carville's quote of, "It's the economy, Stupid!" there is the question even Bill Clinton asked when he ran: "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" With Obama as president, the answer is a resounding "No!"

Have you even seen the latest major poll trumpeted by ABC News yesterday? A whopping 89% of registered voters says the economy is in "bad shape." A substantial 66% says the country is "on the wrong track." These are ominous numbers for Obama. Considering his policies only serve to cause the problems that result in such abysmal poll numbers, I can't see any way for him to turn things around.

but history shows that the way out of this problem is government spending and higher taxes.

First, yes he is. Second, what is important is that he's perceived as radically left, and that's how the American people have increasingly been viewing him. That's really all that matters, whether you care to admit it or not. It's not too dissimilar from Americans perceiving Republicans as Medicare destroyers. Fortunately, that has been tempered by the facts, as well as President Clinton even being heard telling Rep. Paul Ryan a few supportive words.
This "something positive" can be simply a promise to make things better, which undoubtedly the GOP nominee will do. In addition to Carville's quote of, "It's the economy, Stupid!" there is the question even Bill Clinton asked when he ran: "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" With Obama as president, the answer is a resounding "No!"

Have you even seen the latest major poll trumpeted by ABC News yesterday? A whopping 89% of registered voters says the economy is in "bad shape." A substantial 66% says the country is "on the wrong track." These are ominous numbers for Obama. Considering his policies only serve to cause the problems that result in such abysmal poll numbers, I can't see any way for him to turn things around.

Uh, no it doesn't. The numbers right now totally disprove this myth.

How quickly we forget that big chart the Obama Administration showed us all when they were touting the stimulus bill--MASSIVE spending, BTW, which showed that unemployment would be under 8%, job growth would increase, yadda yadda. Quite the opposite has occurred.

It's time you just get off this "raise taxes and increase spending" soapbox in some sneaky attempt to further implement your socialist agenda. The LAST thing we need to do in this horrible economy is to INcrease debt even further and take MORE money out of Americans' pockets. Good God, dude! Are you even aware of reality???

If you had your way, 100% of our income would be confiscated, and the government would just give us what we need to survive. Considering this would be yet another way for the Left to restrict our freedoms, this doesn't surprise me.

That quote ("Are you better off ...") actually originated with Reagan, and he said it to Carter in the last debate of the 1980 presidential election.

Bush is still wildly unpopular, so I really wouldn't advise it. While most people clearly blame Obama for the bad economy now, the opinion polls also show most people believe that it all started with Bush.

Four years ago was not all that great. Remember? I honestly think people don't feel things have been really good since pre 9/11.

Maybe a lot of people still think Obama is a socialist, but many of them also think he's a Muslim, and some even still believe he was not born in America. They thought all these things when he ran for president the first time, and he still won...

I don't know how it will work out in 2012. These are unprecedented bad times for the American economy, but Bush managed to win in 2004 even though most Americans disagreed with his policies. The Dems ran a terrible candidate named John Kerry. Sometimes I feel as if Obama is heading into a Jimmy Carter scenario, but he is a lot stronger than Carter,

See you want it to not be true, and you're hoping against hope that you're right. However, I've seen the numbers that show that in the times of our highest economic growth taxes were higher and government was spending more. Now that's a fact.

It's a false argument to say the stimulus didn't work. It wasn't big enough, or long enough to repair the damage Bush did.

No, it's not a fact. If it was, we'd be growing with an unemployment rate of 4 to 5%.
The stimulus, the health care bill disaster, his economic policies, his regulations--all these and more have contributed to the horrible state of the American economy. Barone explained this well as mentioned above.

It's time you get off this blame Bush train. You can only ride that for so long, even if it wasn't totally accurate in the first place.

The sooner this job-killing, anti-growth, regulation-happy, class warrior leaves office, the better this country will be.
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I don't have a party, so your question is moot.

I'm a Libertarian-Independent leaning individual, especially in this corrupt state.

The better off than 4 years ago will work because it's effective and gets right to Americans' hearts and minds. It may be a nice, catchy phrase or a slogan, but it will work. Campaigns thrive on such crap.

Every day I meet more people, many of whom are teachers unions members and other Obama voters, who are so fed up with this president and with the idiots who run this state that they can't wait until the next election. Why? Because they see this country gone horribly down the wrong track with an economy that's in a mess, made more so by the clueless guy in the White House. To them I feel like saying, "Well, what did you expect from an elitist who has never held a private job in his life and who was one of the most ineffective legislators (both state and federal) in this state's history?"

I don't have a party, so your question is moot.

I'm a Libertarian-Independent leaning individual, especially in this corrupt state.

The better off than 4 years ago will work because it's effective and gets right to Americans' hearts and minds. It may be a nice, catchy phrase or a slogan, but it will work. Campaigns thrive on such crap.

Every day I meet more people, many of whom are teachers unions members and other Obama voters, who are so fed up with this president and with the idiots who run this state that they can't wait until the next election. Why? Because they see this country gone horribly down the wrong track with an economy that's in a mess, made more so by the clueless guy in the White House. To them I feel like saying, "Well, what did you expect from an elitist who has never held a private job in his life and who was one of the most ineffective legislators (both state and federal) in this state's history?"

The only exception seem to be the blacks, who'd vote for him even if Jesus Christ ran as a Republican.

Yes...this BLACK would vote for Obama if Jesus Christ ran as a Republican. The issue for me wouldn't be that he was Jesus, but rather that he was a Republican. Of course it's so easy to criticize a group who finally had the opportunity to vote for a Black President when all previous contenders looked like you. Either way...over the past few decades all Democratic nominees and Presidents have scored very high against any Republican among Black voters because Republicans have never shown they have given a damn about Blacks. Errrm....seems pretty f**king obvious to me.

Here's one policy that didn't work and was finally repealed.

Interesting that you bring this up just as we are heading into hurricane season and the oil rigs in the Gulf are most at risk of another spill.

Yes...this BLACK would vote for Obama if Jesus Christ ran as a Republican. The issue for me wouldn't be that he was Jesus, but rather that he was a Republican. Of course it's so easy to criticize a group who finally had the opportunity to vote for a Black President when all previous contenders looked like you. Either way...over the past few decades all Democratic nominees and Presidents have scored very high against any Republican among Black voters because Republicans have never shown they have given a damn about Blacks. Errrm....seems pretty f**king obvious to me.

Well, if you like to be fooled by a party that treats you like dependent lemmings, that's fine. I can see the Democrats have done their job well convincing you that the best way to live is to be dependent on government, take no personal responsibility, listen to empty promises to ensure you keep voting for them, and betray your traditionally conservative religious upbringing (most blacks are far more conservative in their religious upbringing than are whites).

I congratulate the Democratic Party for brainwashing a voting bloc so well.