Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, YNetNews.com

 

Scott Brown's victory constitutes an unprecedented earthquake in US politics.

 

If a Massachusetts Senate seat is not safe, then no House, Senate or White House seat is safe anymore!

 

Scott Brown's victory dealt a severe blow to the Democratic Party in its own Flag Ship, Massachusetts, the state of the Kennedy family and Tip O'Neil, the state which introduced the health care reform, the only state which voted for McGovern in 1972, the state which had not elected a Republican Senator since Ed Brooke in 1972, the state which accorded President Obama a 26% margin in 2008, a state where only 12% of the registered voters are Republicans.

 

Brown's election highlights a victory of the unique US democracy, which evolves around constituents and not around the President, Congress or political parties. Massachusetts voters supported Brown in defiance of the Republican machine, which did not consider him a worthy candidate at the beginning of the race, and in defiance of the Democratic machine, which attempted to discredit him.

 

Brown's victory is an indicator of Obama's desertion by Independents, who represent 51% of the Massachusetts electorate and 33% of US voters. From a 31% deficit 45 days ago, Brown surged ahead by 4% due to the Independent bloc, which voted Obama in 2008, was frustrated by Obama's performance in 2009 and considers Scott Brown an effective venue to send a loud warning to the White House.

 

Brown's victory will cause after-shocks throughout the USA in general and in the White House, 100 Senate offices and 435 House offices in particular. The victory has adrenalized Republicans, ahead of the spring 2010 primaries and the November 2010 congressional and gubernatorial election. It entices better candidates to enter the Republican primaries and generates more campaign contributions to Republican war chests. On the other hand, it is already causing sleepless nights for Democratic incumbents and increases the potential for retirement and possible switchovers among moderate and conservative Democrats. The closer they get to November, the closer they get to their constituents, and therefore the farther away they may want to get from the President. Read article.

 

Mort Zuckerman, Daily Beast.com

 

Obama punted on the economy and reversed the fortunes of the Democrats in 365 days.

 

He’s misjudged the character of the country in his whole approach. There’s the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” He didn’t get it. He was determined somehow or other to adopt a whole new agenda. He didn’t address the main issue.

 

This health-care plan is going to be a fiscal disaster for the country. Most of the country wanted to deal with costs, not expansion of coverage. This is going to raise costs dramatically.

 

In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.

 

Five states got deals on health care—one of them was Harry Reid’s. It is disgusting, just disgusting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The unions just got them to drop the tax on Cadillac plans in the health-care bill. It was pure union politics. They just went along with it. It’s a bizarre form of political corruption. It’s bribery. I suppose they could say, that’s the system. He was supposed to change it or try to change it.

 

Even that is not the worst part. He could have said, “I know. I promised these things, but let me try to do them one at a time.” You want to deal with health care? Fine. Issue No. 1 with health care was the cost. You know I think it was 37 percent or 33 who were worried about coverage. Fine, I wrote an editorial to this effect. Focus on cost-containment first. But he’s trying to boil the ocean, trying to do too much. This is not leadership. Read article.

 

Paul Krugman, NY Times

 

Health care reform — which is crucial for millions of Americans — hangs in the balance. Progressives are desperately in need of leadership; more specifically, House Democrats need to be told to pass the Senate bill, which isn’t what they wanted but is vastly better than nothing. And what we get from the great progressive hope, the man who was offering hope and change, is this:

 

I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families. Those are the core, some of the core elements of, to this bill. Now I think there’s some things in there that people don’t like and legitimately don’t like.

 

In short, “Run away, run away”!

 

Maybe House Democrats can pull this out, even with a gaping hole in White House leadership. Barney Frank seems to have thought better of his initial defeatism. But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in. Read article.

 

Charles Krauthammer, Investors.com

 

On Jan. 14, five days before the Massachusetts special election, President Obama was in full bring-it-on mode as he rallied House Democrats behind his health care overhaul.

 

"If Republicans want to campaign against what we've done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have."

 

The bravado lasted three days. When Obama campaigned in Boston on Sunday for ObamaCare supporter Martha Coakley, not once did he mention the health care bill. When your candidate is sinking, you don't throw her a millstone.

 

After Coakley's defeat, Obama pretended that the real cause was a generalized anger and frustration "not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."

 

Let's get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that ... it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.

 

And the Democrats are delusional: Scott Brown won by running against Obama, not Bush. He won by brilliantly nationalizing the race, running hard against the Obama agenda, most notably ObamaCare. Killing it was his No. 1 campaign promise.

 

Bull's-eye. Read article.

 

Jeremy Barns, Alabama

 

One year ago, we elected a new president. We were promised change we could believe in, and people were left chanting, "Yes, we can." Now that the honeymoon is over, where do we stand at the end of the first year of President Obama's term? As a bill collector from Alabama, maybe I don't have the political savvy to know everything that's going on, but a year into Obama's term, I am forced to realize he really hasn't accomplished anything of value.

 

In fact, more often than not, he is plunging this nation further into debt and deeper into political partisanship. He seems out of touch with the security issues facing our nation. Whatever accomplishments you may see, to me he has only managed to increase the levels of government control and decrease transparency in government operations.

 

This isn't the change most Americans had in mind. Read article.

Daniel Henninger, WSJ.com

 

Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts will not endure unless Republicans clearly understand the meaning of "the machine" that he ran against and defeated.

 

Yes, it is about a general revulsion at government spending, what is sometimes called "the blob." But blobs are shapeless things, and in the days ahead we will see the Obama White House work hard to reshape the blob into a deficit hawk. Unless the facade is ripped away, the machine will survive.

 

The revolt against the machine began with voters' 2006 ouster of the Republican majority in Congress for making a mockery of fiscal rectitude. An angry electorate then swept Barack Obama into office. Now Mr. Obama is saying voters elected him on the same wave of anger that elected Scott Brown. Sorry, but Messrs. Obama and Brown are not surfing in the same political ocean.

The central battle in our time is over political primacy. It is a competition between the public sector and the private sector over who defines the work and the institutions that make a nation thrive and grow. Read article.

J.R. Dunn, American Thinker.com

 

Scott Brown's victory over Marsha, Marcia, Ms. Coakley was substantial - 52% to 47%, with the balance going to a third-party pest. The results have shaken the political cosmos. It is impossible to see the long-term results at this point.

 

But one thing is clear: Brown didn't just overcome an unworthy, machine-produced opponent, or even provide the crucial vote to prevent the further socialization of the United States. He destroyed a legend -- the legend of Obama the Omnipotent.

 

We are seeing an intrusion of the mythic into everyday life, an instance of the Beowulf factor influencing millennial politics. The result has shocked and disturbed many onlookers. But Carl Jung would not have been surprised.

 

The Obama of 2008 was a figure who came out of nowhere trailing clouds of glory. His followers hailed him as a new phenomenon, of a type unseen in America since JFK and perhaps not ever. He was hailed as superhuman, with more than a touch of the divine. Some openly called him a messiah. One of his media supporters stated for the record that Obama was a godlike entity.

 

Perhaps it seemed like that to some after his November victory. The stunned opposition among Republicans and conservatives were certainly tempted to view it that way. How else to explain the near-mad adulation, the absolute certainty, the pseudo-religious frenzy? People rushed to make offerings at Obama's feet. Buildings and schools were renamed for him. The Nobel committee trashed its reputation to offer him a prize normally given only after lengthy and productive careers.

 

As of this week, that is ended. Obama as Übermensch is a thing of the past. In a short time, commentators from all parts of the spectrum will be scratching their heads and wondering what it was all about. Read article.

James Lewis, American Thinker.com

 

What we see now from the Democrats may be Applied Marxism, Hard Leftism, Gangster Leftism or maybe the Machine Politics of the Left. Europe has killed liberalism in exactly the same way, since the Evil Year of 1968. Even Joschka Fischer, the founder of the Green Party of Germany, has confessed that yes, he sometimes gave in to "the totalitarian temptation." I don't think Hubert Humphrey, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, or even JFK ever had a "totalitarian temptation" in their lives. It takes a German Green Marxist to say such things, with all its bloody echoes in 20th century Europe. Bizarre.

 

There's always been a huge amount of totalitarianism on the Left, all the way from Karl Marx onward. On the real Left the lust for power always wins out over sucker slogans like democracy and peace, because the real Left isn't against the Ruling Class; it just wants to be the new Ruling Class. Obama is the perfect example. When Lenin took over in Moscow it was the Russian liberals who got a single bullet in the head.

 

Jonah Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism" points out a lot of similarities between the modern Left and fascism -- they are only slightly different brands of Control Freak Statism, alternative brands like Coke and Pepsi. I think he is right on the facts but not on the labels. "Liberal fascism" sounds like a contradiction because the Left is no longer liberal. That's all there's to it.

 

The name "liberalism" should be put in a museum of out-of-date political labels, like the Whigs and the Wobblies. If there is ever a real democratic rebellion in the Democrat Party maybe real liberalism will come back. But until such time, we can only wish that the l-word will Rest in Peace. The Left has killed it. Read article.

Kathleen Parker, JWR.com

 

Although Democrats flail against the obvious, the real message of Brown's ascendancy signifies opposition to current health-care reform. His surge has been an echo of 1994, when a backlash to Hillary Clinton's attempt to overhaul health care sparked a Republican takeover of Congress.

 

Brown couldn't have come close to victory in a statewide race without the health-care issue. He couldn't have raised so much money except for welling anger throughout the country.

 

As important as the Massachusetts special election was to the health-care debate, it also represents a come-to-Jesus moment for the GOP. What kind of party will it be? Those Republicans who did everything possible to elect him proved to be pragmatic. They understood that someone like Jim DeMint of South Carolina couldn't win in Massachusetts. But ultimately, as others, including the president, can attest, no one can live up to iconic status.

 

What can be inferred from the Brown-Coakley race is that a new national mantra has emerged from the electorate that bodes ill for Democrats.

 

It's no longer hope and change, but something sturdier: Reform or die

 

C. Edmund Wright, American Thinker.com

 

What has Brown done for us? He just administered a stunning "Tea Party Republican" thrashing to the "Kennedy Liberal Democrats" in Massachusetts -- with Obamacare front and center as the core issue at hand. That's what.

 

Forget any other spin you hear -- that is what just happened. That Brown did not stress the party or the term "tea party" does not matter. His issues were right off of the tea parties' posters and out of the official GOP platform manual. 

 

Sure, Martha Coakley ran a horrible campaign. But Democrats win safe seats with horrible campaigns all the time. Brown ran a great campaign, but good candidates lose uphill battles all the time in places like Massachusetts. 

 

And no, MSNBC, this was not a Tip O'Neil "all politics are local" referendum on potholes and such. Thanks to big government liberals, no politics are local anymore. Not even an obscure congressional district known as NY-23. 

 

Every single seat may now hold the key to Washington's ability to reach into the homes and wallets and lives of every American for any reason they deem necessary. And that's what this was about, with health care as the key issue but only one of many concerns about intrusive government.

 

This was without a doubt another crest in the wave that started when Rick Santelli put CNBC and the term "tea party" on the map in February 2009 -- an anti-big government rant that went multimedia viral thanks to the Rush Limbaugh Show and red "end of the world" headlines on the Drudge Report. It built with April 15 tea parties around the country and through the town halls of August and September. Read article.

 

Mark Alexander, Patriot Post.us

 

On Wednesday, 27 January, Barack Hussein Obama will deliver his first "State of the Union" speech as president, a self evaluation of his first year's achievements.

 

Sprinkled between his infamous "let me be clear" or "make no mistake" introduction to his lies, he will, characteristically, attempt to spin a plethora of failures into something including these phony fallback phrases: back from the brink; signs of recovery; restored our reputation; achieved some successes; more work yet to do; fiscal restraint; greed on Wall Street; affordable health care; relief for working families; job creation.

 

He'll also use the word "inherited," as in "I inherited this mess." He'll speak of "unprecedented" reforms or achievements or challenges. And he'll mention "those who seek to do us harm," but he won't dare utter the term "Islamic terrorists."

 

In advance of his teleprompted propaganda, then, let's take a reality check on Obama and his first year. Read article.

 

John Ellis, FrontPageMag.com

 

When politicians are caught out in lies, their supporters often resort to the old cliché: all politicians lie. But that is itself a lie: most don’t. Even among those who do, there are enormous differences in the importance and frequency of the lies. And it is surely now clear that this nation has a far from routine problem in the scale and regularity of President Obama’s lying.

 

When politicians lie they are usually trying to avoid political damage, or to make themselves look good. Bill Clinton lied (and got himself impeached) to save himself from embarrassment about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Hillary Clinton lied about being under fire in Bosnia to enhance her non-existent foreign affairs profile. Richard Nixon was forced from office because he lied to cover up his involvement in a political dirty trick. John Kerry lied about his Vietnam combat experience to blunt his anti-military reputation. But Barack Obama’s lies are far more corrosive and destructive, because they go the heart of legislation and governance, and so seriously undermine trust in government. His lies generally take a specific form: they attempt to persuade people to vote for him or his policies by categorically assuring them that they need not have the anxieties that they have been expressing. The lies say, essentially: trust me, support what I want, and I promise that what you fear will never happen. But in every case it soon becomes clear either that he knew perfectly well that what the public feared would in fact happen, or that he was giving a firm assurance that he was in no position to give, or that he had no intention of following through on his promise.

 

The accumulated weight of Obama’s deceit is overwhelming: Read article.

 

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