The Super Bowl Pool is here! Pick the team that you think will cover the spread. Pick "over" if you think the total points scored will be above 46.5; "under" if you think below. And, for the tiebreaker should more than one participant get the first two right, list the number of points you believe the teams will combine to score. Here are my selections:

Steelers -6.5 over Cardinals, UNDER 46.5, 44

It might have been this Super Bowl's Orwell/Apple 1984 commercial. Instead, NBC refuses to show the advertisement and the big-media muzzle becomes a new-media megaphone. See the commercial NBC doesn't want you to see--and I'm not talking about the obviously deceitful ad that claims that lethargic, emaciated, glassy-eyed vegetarians have better sex--here.

The New Deal didn't end the Great Depression. It exacerbated it. Only a masochist would want to repeat the New Deal. Yet, that's just what a chorus of liberal journalists sing for--a 'new' New Deal. Roosevelt couldn't spend America out of the doldrums in the 1930s. Obama won't be able to do so today. Read my article at TakiMag that compares the Hoover-Roosevelt New Deal to the Bush-Obama 'new' New Deal, bolstering the maxim that everything old is eventually new again.

What happened to the post-partisan Obama? His stimulus package, the one that doles out $2 billion to research car batteries and $20 billion for food stamps, received the votes of zero Republicans in the House of Representatives. In His rhetoric He reaches across the aisle. In reality He does so only to dish out a slap across the face.

"[Herbert] Hoover's role as founder of a revolutionary program of government planning to combat depression has been unjustly neglected by historians. Franklin D. Roosevelt, in large part, merely elaborated the policies laid down by his predecessor. To scoff at Hoover's tragic failure to cure the depression as a typical example of laissez-faire is drastically to misread the historical record. The Hoover rout must be set down as a failure of government planning and not of the free market."
--Murray Rothbard, America's Great Depression, 1963

I resolved to read President Obama's stimulus package, AKA the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, AKA HR1. Then I discovered its girth: 647 pages. I have read the Bible, but I'll pass on Obama's salvation-dispensing tome. When the Bush administration wanted to keep the American people in the dark regarding their banker-bailout bill, their modus operandi involved submitting a three-page bill that esentially said you give $700 billion and we'll spend it how we see fit. The Obama administration's modus operandi in obfuscating their designs involves submitting a bill so mammoth that no regular citizen will ever bother to read it. And should some Joe Six-Pack read the bill, last-minute amendments will ensure that the monstrosity he reads won't be the monstrosity that becomes law. And guess what? If 647-pages sounds too voluminous for you, it probably is for the average congressman, who, is you might have deducted, is quite average.

You get the government you deserve. Here in Massachusetts, the speaker of the state house of reprehensibles resigns today amid a corruption probe. He is the third speaker in a row to resign thusly. His two predecessors, Speaker Tax Evasion and Speaker Obstruction of Justice, are now convicted felons. A few weeks ago, despite widespread awareness of the corruption investigation, the speaker's colleagues overwhelmingly reelected him to his post. Such are the perils of one-party rule.

Governor David Paterson has made his choice. Now he has to live with it--and the Kennedys. For four generations, the political dynasty has refused to play nice with fellow Democrats who don't do their bidding. From experiencing primary challenges to discovering secret support of their Republican opponents, Democrats can attest best the vengeful nature of the first family of Massachusetts politics. Read my article at The American Spectator to find out what awaits the New York governor who dared bypass Caroline Kennedy.

The Presidential Pledge, the YouTube video produced by an admirer of Leni Riefenstahl, is creepy. I pledge that I will remain an individual, and not a mindless cog. I pledge to look after myself, but not after you--and if you look after me I pledge to give you the finger. When Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher, and Puff Daddy tell me to do something, I pledge to do the opposite. I pledge to not follow leaders and to watch the parking meters. As the Boston Herald's Michael Graham notes, "Seriously--if a dozen college conservatives had lined up on TV to pledge their service to George W. Bush, wouldn't there be an HBO documentary on 'America's BusHitler Youth' by the end of the week?" Good Germans make bad Americans.

Jeri Ryan was unforgettable as a Star Trek sex-symbol. People have forgotten the sci-fi diva's biggrest role: launching the national political career of the president. Sarah Gellick remembers in an entertaining piece at TakiMag. Ryan's ex-husband Jack's 2004 run for the U.S. Senate was derailed after a court strangely released the five-year-old court records on the custody dispute between the Ryans, which both Jeri and Jack had requested be kept private for their child's sake. Who has time for child welfare when there's a rising political star's career that could use a boost? Instead of a multimillionaire local candidate, Illinois had to settle for Alan Keyes as Obama's opponent. "All this makes me think of other sealed records," Gellick writes. "I think back to John Kerry's divorce records in Massachusetts; Barack Obama's Columbia University records.... Wouldn't you love to read them all? But you never will. Sail on, Jeri Ryan."

The New York Post reports that Caroline Kennedy, after Governor David Paterson decided not to appoint her to the senate seat that Hillary Clinton has just vacated, has withdrawn her name from consideration. What!?! This is so junior high. It's like your girlfriend, almost at the I-hope-we-can-still-be-friends part, breaking the bad news of the break-up to you, only to have you cut-in to inform her that you are breaking up with her. Did you expect more from a woman who dishes out "you know" and "uh" the way Obama says "hope" and "change"?

UPDATE: A source, perhaps Caroline's BFF, gossips to the Associated Press that John Kennedy's daughter wants the senate seat, after all. Like I, you know, said, this whole thing is so, eh, seventh grade.

UPDATE of the UPDATE: I'm in. I'm out. I'm in. I'm out. Caroline Kennedy issued a statement declaring that "for personal reasons I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate." That settles it--until the next mood swing. Might those "personal reasons" have something to do with Governor Paterson's rejection of her candidacy?

UPDATE of the UPDATE of the UPDATE: A source close to me, who is me, says that these are the "personal reasons"--exhibit 1 and exhibit 2--that Mrs. Kennedy obliquely referenced in her withdrawal statement.

"We can not continue these brilliant successes in the future, unless we continue to learn from the past. It is necessary to keep the former experiences of our country both at home and abroad continually before us, if we are to have any science of government. If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations. We must realize that human nature is about the most constant thing in the universe and that the essentials of human relationship do not change. We must frequently take our bearings from these fixed stars of our political firmament if we expect to hold a true course. If we examine carefully what we have done, we can determine the more accurately what we can do."
--Calvin Coolidge, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925

The most memorable aspect of Obama's inauguration address was how forgettable it was. He is a victim of the high standards He had set in His campaign speeches, particularly the Election Night sermon. But it was not just, yawn, pedestrian by Obama standards, but by the standards of mere mortal presidents. We remember the inaugural addresses of Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush (2nd inaugural) because they permanently etched a line or two into our brains. Obama didn't do that. There is no highlight reel line, no quote for Mr. Bartlett.

Obama spoke of "big plans" but, still in campaign mode, didn't bother outlining any plan, let alone a "big" one. It's an inauguration address and not a state of the union, so a laundry list of programs would be inappropriate. But even in comparison to other inaugurals, vagueries and platitudes were in abundance. The weather analogies were stale and tedious. All of the "gathering clouds and raging storms," "the icy currents," and the "storms [that] may come" conjured up images not of an inaugural address, but of a conference room littered with pizza boxes and amateurs--devising what they imagine an inaugural address should sound like.

If He accentuated the existing negatives to boost His future positives, Obama suceeded only in delivering a depressing, downer of a speech when the moment called for uplift and renewal. He gracelessly and unsubtly stuck it to his predecessor several times, e.g., imagery of broken "levees," declarations that "we are ready to lead once more," and talk of rejecting "as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." The campaign is over, and George Bush was never on the ballot anyhow. Other than sharp rhetoric occasionally directed at His predecessor, He is tepid and reluctant to offend. Obama quoted the Bible and mentioned God, but then He was also quick to mention "non believers"--a phrase certainly unfit for the throngs gathered. For the President serenaded by a multicultural quartet--an Hispanic pianist, a Jewish violinist, a Chinese cellist, and a black clarinetist--inclusion is a must, which might explain the inclusion of an extra president in his speech. "Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath," He explained. But only forty-three men have been U.S. president (Grover Cleveland served non-sequential terms, which is why we refer to Obama as the forty-fourth president). Could He have been giving props to President J.F. Davis as part of His message of inclusion?

The fruit loops outside of the barricades at the last two inaugurations made their way inside this time around. How else does one explain the taunt, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey, goodbye," to outgoing President George W. Bush? They trashed offices and lifted "W" keys from White House computers when he came into office. They boo and break out into sporting-arena chants when he departs. What the crowd lacked in class it made up in numbers. Today, Obama transformed the Capital Mall into a massive port-a-potty; tomorrow, America.

One would think that at an occasion as fancy as a presidential inauguration, they could at least spring for a poet capable of rhyming. Even Ludacris reciting that vulgar rap about Hillary Clinton would have been better. Words that I never thought I'd say: Aretha Franklin sucked. Rick Warren, you are nothing if not verbose. Worst fashion statement: Dick Cheney impersonating Dr. Evil in his wheel chair (Or was it Dr. Evil who impersonated Dick Cheney?). What did it say? I told you I'd never stand for this turkey! Best fashion statement: George H.W. Bush channelling Daniel Boone with his coonskin cap. What did it say? I am too old, too accomplished, and too comfortable to care what I look like on national television. The Rev. Joe Lowery, on the other hand, was inauguration day's big octogenarian loser. His clock apparently stopped sometime around 1957. What type of prayer concludes with an insult of white people? It was Barack Obama's inauguration, not Theodore Bilbo's. And Rick Warren is the controversial one?

If you belonged to the where's-Obama's-birth-certificate club, then promptly thank Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for giving your movement a second wind. I can hear it now: Obama isn't the rightful president! He didn't take the oath of office correctly! Perhaps this was part of the longstanding Cheney-Bush plot to stage a coup d'etat on inauguration day that I have been hearing so much about these last eight years. If you believe as I do that we are just characters in some Great Novelist's story, then flubbing something as basic as the oath of office is what is known as foreshadowing.

The ubiquitous bumpersticker, in these parts at least, that lists today's date marks, with a high degree of accuracy, the occupant of the driver's seat as a douche bag. At least Christmas arrives once a year for children. For these oversocialized poseurs, it has taken eight years for their day to come. Now that it's here, with the enormity of the Bush presidency in full view, I'm left wondering if it would have been more appropriate for right-wingers to celebrate 1/20/9.

George W. Bush is the worst president of my lifetime. Though in agreement with the 1/20/9-crowd in this assessment, the reasons could not be more different. The failure to understand why Bush's presidency failed is as depressing as the failed presidency itself. For it is not the bailouts, the big government, or the nation building to which the 1/20/9-mob objects. They will undoubtedly cheer the same policies when undertaken by the leader of their cult. One is thus left with the impression that the matter if not the manner of the Bush presidency will continue with Barack Obama taking the presidential oath of office today.

What of the Bush presidency was so disastrous?

He was the alarmist-in-chief who thrived on "crisis." He outlined mushroom-cloud-over-Manhattan scenarios that overwhelmed commonsense, resulting in a "cakewalk" that killed more than 4,000 American servicemen and an advertised pricetag of $50 billion that, after the bait and switch, will cost several trillion dollars. He conjured up Great Depression-imagery to manufacture support for bailouts of myriad companies and financial institutions.

He was President Yes, the chief executive who could not utter the most conservative word in the English language: "no." President Bush didn't veto a single bill until his sixth year in office. The gap marked the longest stretch without a veto since the 1820s. It was not because the period was devoid of unwise and unconstitutional legislation.

He was the titular leader of the Republican Party who more effectively instituted liberal policies than any Democratic Party leader in at least a generation. Whereas the 1996 Republican Platform called for the elimination of the Department of Education, George W. Bush labelled education his number one priority and ushered his No Child Left Behind Act--school-choice provisions predictably jettisoned--through Congress in his first year in office. Whereas liberals accused Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" Congress of cutting and gutting Medicare and Medicaid, George W. Bush proudly added an expensive prescription-drug entitlement that will become ever more onerous as his fellow baby-boomers get older and sicker. Whereas W the candidate dubbed the McCain-Feingold Act limiting political speech "unconstitutional," W the president signed it into law. Whereas Governor Bush mocked opponent Al Gore for favoring "nation building" during the 2000 presidential debates, President Bush wasted his term of office attempting to transform South-Asian Muhammedans into New England-style town-meeting members.

As Bush gazed into cloud-cuckoo-land in his utopian second inaugural address, closer to home Venezuela, Brazil, and Nicaragua fell more firmly under the grip of Communists. He announced, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." No it does not. "Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation," Bush opined. "It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security and the calling of our time." George Washington ("Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?"), Thomas Jefferson ("peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none"), and John Quincy Adams ("she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy") prove that the second inaugural address was not only idiotic, but so obviously contrary to the stated wishes of America's early leaders. Let no man say his words did not match his actions. They were both consistently imprudent.

George W. Bush reintroduced a word foreign to the American lexicon for more than a half-century: nationalization. He nationalized airport security. He nationalized AIG, the largest insurance company in the world. He partly nationalized nine of America's largest banks and two of the three largest U.S. automakers. That nineteenth-century crackpot who called on his followers to nationalize the means of production would be proud. That his twenty-first century followers are not demonstrates the impossibility of satiating extremists.

Predictably, Bush's big-government schemes harmed the economy, expanded deficits, and devalued the currency. The man who presided over America's first $2 trillion budget bequeaths to America its first $3 trillion budget. The man who inherited a surplus leaves America with a $1 trillion-plus deficit. The man who rode into office following the booms of the eighties and nineties presided over an economic bust.

That the president who compiled such a record of failure could stay popular for so long owes something to his enemies. Had he invented them, he couldn't have come up with a more loathesome bunch. An obese, obnoxious, ball-capped filmmaker, placard-waving protestors comparing him to Hitler, conspiracy theorists charging him with masterminding 9/11--whose side were you on? A politician has never been blessed with such an off-putting opposition. Why did they hate him? Bad feelings over the outcome of the tightly-contested 2000 election and the curiousity of the popular-vote loser winning the electoral-college vote poisoned the well. For liberals, George W. Bush was a villian straight out of central casting, complete with a rich daddy, a Texas oil-man background, and a black-and-white worldview that saw clarity when its critics saw shades of gray. Though the Bush Haters proved their own worst enemies initially, their ultimate success could be seen in the widespread acceptance of the patently crazy idea that the president of the United States should be held responsible for the sad outcomes of natural disasters.

Current polls reflect the public's disgust with Bush. History will identify his co-conspirators as the same Democrats who verbally eviscerated him on a daily basis. Hillary, Kerry, and Biden voted for the Iraq war. Obama championed the bailouts. Democrats in Congress disproportionately supported No Child Left Behind, the prescription-drug entitlement, amnesty for illegal aliens, and the endless series of bailouts. Though they shared responsibility, the public blamed one man. The lesson to future Republican presidents is clear: Sucking up to Democrats is a thankless endeavor.

The last eight years weren't uniformly negative. President Bush went in the right direction, downward, on taxes. The top-rate, though significantly higher than what it had been at the end of Ronald Reagan's term, and higher even than the top rate under the elder George Bush--he of "No New Taxes" infamy--inched from Bill Clinton's 40 percent down to 35 percent. Though Bush failed to avert the coming Social Security trainwreck, he at least tried to fix the problem from a market-based perspective. The federal bench is more thoroughly comprised of judges who respect the Constitution and interpret the law as it was written rather than as they would have written it. This is evident at the Supreme Court, where the additions of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, seem, at this point, to be wise picks. It will become more evident at the appellate level. Bush tried to kill terrorists rather than understand them. If 9/11 is an afterthought, it is because subsequent attacks that would have served as a reminder have been prevented. His best moment came during America's worst. In the rubble of the World Trade Center, Bush was Reaganesque, Churchillian. For those who doubt that one of the modern-era's least popular presidents was once the most popular, show them that dramatic footage.

If principled conservatives celebrate the Oval Office departure of George W. Bush, they do so with temperence. For the conservative, unlike his liberal counterpart, is imbued with the depressing wisdom that it can always get worse. Welcome to the Bush-Obama years. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Am I the only one who has noticed that MSNBC omitted a crucial part of the presidential oath in their incessant promotional montage of past swearing-in ceremonies? Notably absent is, well, the swearing-in part: "So help me God." It's not "So help me Baal" or "So help me Michael Newdow." Granted, "So help me God" is an appendage voluntarily tacked on by presidents. But can you remember any inaugurations when the president left that part out? I can't. Yet, MSNBC did.

Barack Obama is not even president yet, and his supporters are ready to etch his face upon Mount Rushmore. I'm not sure if this works for or against the president-to-be. On the one hand, tens of millions of people are emotionally invested in the success of his presidency. No matter how badly he stumbles, Obama's votaries won't be ready psychologically to call it failure. On the other hand, the bar has been raised to a level impossible to meet. Obama has been compared to Moses and Jesus, and a congressman, anticipating the success of his presidency, has introduced legislation to repeal the 22nd amendment limiting president's to two full terms in office. Should Obama neither part the Red Sea nor walk on water, he will fail to meet the lofty expectations set for him. It's unclear which phenomenon will prevail. What is certain is that the success or failure of the 44th president of the United States has been in part decided before Barack Obama has taken the oath of office.

George Washington never even spoke his Farewell Address and it remains among the most quoted documents in American history. George W. Bush spoke his farewell address on national television and it was forgotten by the time the networks cut back to Scrubs, CSI, and My Name Is Earl. The Georges' conflicting visions explain why one address is timeless and the other disposable. Twenty-first-century George proclaims that advancing the belief that "freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God and that liberty and justice light the path to peace" is "the only practical way to protect our citizens." Eighteenth-century George counselled that it is "our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." He asked, "Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?" Believe one. Believe the other. You can't believe both. You honor your George. I'll honor mine.

The Messiah dined with various Beltway/Big Apple conservative scribes Tuesday night. The participants are publicly mum on the subject. Privately, several of Obama's new friends are eager to spread His good news. Someday, the writers, as writers are known to do, will pen slightly differing versions in National Review, the Almanac of American Politics, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Though the scribes will undoubtedly denounce my account as apocryphal, I have the exclusive, gospel-truth, inside scoop of what was said and done at the dinner.

Obama sent two of his advance men to scout out a location where He and a dozen friends could break bread, drink wine, and discuss important issues. As it turned out, the advance men settled on columnist George Will's Chevy Chase manse. Obama arrived, and George Will, in a self-abasing tone rivalled in its grovelling only by his chance meeting with the great Cal Ripken years earlier, explained: "Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul will be healed." Rich Lowry rang the dinner bell. The dozen or so surrounded Obama at the elongated table. And then Obama addressed His new apostles:

"Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you." Michael Barone, David Brooks, Paul Gigot, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Larry Kudlow, Rich Lowry, Peggy Noonan, and George Will each took a slice of Wonder Bread and ate it. Heavy stuff--the moment, not the bread.

The meal needed just the right drink--my sources tell me it was grape soda--and Obama was up for the occasion, just as he was when he fed that whole stadium full of people in Denver (Or was it Berlin?). Chalice raised above head, He pronounced: "Take this all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all men so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me."

As the Apostles sipped from the Holy Grail of Fanta, they reflected on their many sins. Michael Barone had judged the Chosen One guilty of "condescension and snobbery." Bill Kristol had compared Obama unfavorably to another prophet, saying that He was "the opposite of Lincoln." Charles Krauthammer had dubbed one of His sermons a "fraud" and "sophistic." They needed His forgiveness if they wanted to work in the City of God for eternity, or at least for the next four years.

Obama informed the apostles that one of their number would betray Him (To Matt Drudge, one presumes?). There were many potential Judases in this crowd. David Brooks's face expressed disbelief. Larry Kudlow and Paul Gigot looked at each other dumbfounded. Peggy Noonan--who had quit her job to follow the Lord less than four years ago, only to discover that he was a false god and expose him in the Wall Street Journal a few months later--dropped her jaw. Obama, ever the prophet, warned: "All of you shall be scandalized in me this night." David Brooks retorted, "I will never be scandalized in thee." The One said to him, "Amen I say before thee that in this night before the cock crow thou wilt deny me thrice."

Alas, the prophecy was not entirely fulfilled. The Chosen One did not rise from the dead a few days later, but instead was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. That did nothing to diminish the fervor of his votaries. God. President. What's the difference to some people?

Dynastic politics at its worst? Check. Inarticulateness that makes Britney Spears sound like Winston Churchill in comparison? Check. Voting-booth apathy by a wannabe senator? Check. Like Uncle, Like Niece, my piece at CityJournalOnline, explores the eery similarities between Ted Kennedy's rookie run for the Senate in 1962 and Caroline Kennedy's neophyte bid for a Senate seat in 2009. Read it, and weep.

I don't regard Timothy Geithner as a moral leper for failing to pay $34,000 in taxes. I just don't think that as secretary of the treasury he will display the same tolerance to others who similarly transgress. Another case of "do as I say, not as I do," I guess. The Associated Press piece on controversy is an exhibit in suck-up journalism, calling Geithner's tax dodging "a last-minute complication in an otherwise smooth path to confirmation." Would this yawn mentality apply if the tax-dodging treasury secretary-to-be were a Republican?

The headline says it all: Bad Times Are a Boon For DC-Area Economy. For partisans of big government, the formula for success is time-tested: scare the pants off America. It worked on the president of the United States, who confessed that he abandoned his "free-market principles" once he was told the economic downturn "could be worse than the Great Depression." This may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the actual Great Depression was prolonged and deepened by the interventionism that was touted as the cure. Keep transferring money from hardworking Americans to federal bureaucrats and the recession may indeed become a depression. And then statists will point to the worsened economic situation as proof that centralization, bureaucracy, and intervention are needed now more than ever. That's the vicious cycle of liberalism. The lesson of this old trick, which worked on Bush with Iraq and with the bailouts, isn't lost on Barack Obama's incoming team. "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel candidly professed to Wall Street Journal in November. "Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."

Ricky Henderson, the best leadoff man in the history of baseball, was elected to the Hall of Fame today. It would have come earlier had Ricky decided to hang up his spikes before making innumerable comeback attempts, including a run in the independent minor-league circuit. Henderson, who played for 10 different teams, including four stints in Oakland, is the ultimate free-agent era player. His contract-year numbers don't lie. Ricky, who retired from Major League Baseball in 2003, played in the 1970s for goodness sakes. Jim Rice, a dominant pre-steroids-era hitter, is perhaps the first inductee to benefit from a backlash against gaudy performance-enhanced numbers that has voters rediscovering an appreciation for the likes of the Boston LF/DH (and perhaps someday Andre Dawson, Dale Murphy, and Tim Raines). Rice is certainly a first-ballot inductee to the Hall of Very Good, but Cooperstown might be debatable for those who value speed, defense, and longevity. In his defense, he was the most feared hitter in baseball from the late 1970s until the mid-1980s. Also, I collected his baseball cards and he was briefly my favorite player--so that settles that. The glaring omission, for one who grew up watching baseball in the 1980s, continues to be Jack Morris. He was the winningest pitcher of the decade and the ace of three World Series Champions. Unfortunately for him, they were Detroit, Minnesota, and Toronto and not New York, Los Angeles, and Boston.

"I readily concede I chucked aside my free-market principles when I was told...the situation we were facing could be worse than the Great Depression," George W. Bush explained in his final presidential news conference. When was he told the situation might compare to the Great Depression? His first day in office? The truth is that Bush never really had any free-market principles. Remember, the nationalization of airport security, the No Bureaucrat Left Behind education bill, and the prescription-drug giveaway all happened during his first term. It's a myth that Bush jettisoned the free-enterprise (non) system after facing this current economic downturn. Like most confessions, it's intent is more to conceal than to reveal.

It's been a bad year for conservatives. How bad? Not only has the post-Reagan free-market conventional economic wisdom been killed through the myriad bailouts, but so many of the architects of the small-government, anti-communist, values coalition that comprised the conservative movement have literally died during the last twelve months as well. National Review founder William F. Buckley, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Senator Jesse Helms, Heritage Foundation founder Paul Weyrich, Fox News's Tony Snow, actor Charlton Heston, and, most recently, Father Richard John Neuhaus have all passed away over the course of the last year. The movement that several of these men dedicated their lives to building expired sometime before they did. When something dies, something must fill the void.

14, 10, 13, 10, 0, -5, 1, 8, 19, 15. These are the fahrenheit lows forecast for outside the FlynnFiles lair for the coming ten days. No high is predicted to reach the freezing point. It's snowing now, and will apparently do so in five of the next ten days. Whoever said April is the cruelest month never spent January in New England.

Listen for me in the third hour of today's Savage Nation, America's third largest radio program. Michael Savage has inaugurated a new feature on his program that features outside guests delivering a report on a hot topic. So, for a good seven minutes or so, I'll have the airwaves all to myself talking about Uncle Ted's return to the senate and niece Caroline's heavy-handed entrance into the senate. Tune in.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released its National Vital Statistics Report (PDF) pertaining to births, which increasingly involve children entering the world who lack parents committed to one another, and their offspring, through marriage. The report indicates that in 2006, the latest year for which statistics exist, thirty-nine percent of births in the U.S. occurred in unmarried women. This suggests more dropouts, jailbirds, and drug addicts years from now. Add the abortion rate, twenty-two percent of all pregnancies, to the illegitimacy rate, and a picture of an irresponsible society emerges. Aliens, or perhaps mere historians, observing from afar will note that the most dramatic change to happen in America over the last half century was not computers, cell phones, or some other electronic gadget, but the social upheaval that resulted in the erosion of the two-parent family. Today, unmarried women gave birth to two of five children; in 1960, the fraction was one of twenty.

A sure-fire way to devalue a product is to flood the market with supply. This applies to cars, milk, gold, oil, and, yes, money. The more money you print, the less that money will be worth. It's a simple matter of supply and demand. The federal government is currently following a deliberate policy of devaluing U.S. currency. This is not the primary intent of balooning deficits, but it is the primary effect.

Current forecasts hold that the deficit for the current fiscal year will exceed $1 trillion. This is a grim milestone. Consider that the federal budget deficit has surpassed $500 billion just twice. Consider further that the budget forecasts don't take into consideration Barack Obama's reckless scheme for a $1 trillion wealth transfer that he deems a "stimulus package." It certainly will stimulate the wealth creators, just not in the manner intended. Ditto for the overall economy, for which one indicator of strength is the stability of the dollar.

The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures strength of the dollar versus other currencies, plunged to its lowest level on record last year. The dollar is slowly gaining strength against other currencies, but for how long? Certainly a deficit that exceeds a trillion dollars will not boost the dollar. This will have negative consequences. A weak currency makes foreign investment expensive for Americans. It makes it attractive to foreigners investing here, which is obviously not entirely a bad thing. It's just interesting that the same people who lament foreign ownership of Anheuser-Busch, the Chrysler Building, and Holiday Inn support the very policies that bring about foreigners gobbling up iconic American companies and landmarks.

Bigger government is one legacy of the Bush Administration that the Obama Administration will continue. The result of this will be a currency with less purchasing power. Bigger government can be financed with tax increases, which in a recessionary economy are neither prudent nor politically expedient. Bigger government can be financed with budget cuts, which judging by President-elect Obama's gargantuan stimulus package and other schemes doesn't seem likely either. The third way to finance bigger government is debt, which will be financed by neither taxes nor cuts but by printing more dollars.

Barack Obama could have distanced himself from Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich when evidence of his corruption came to light during his first term, but he endorsed him for a second term instead. Illinois Democrats could have impeached Blagojevich after the revelations of his auction of a U.S. senate seat, but they didn't. Illinois Democrats could have changed state law to allow for a special election to fill the senate vacancy left by Barack Obama, but that would have left matters to the voters rather than the corrupt Democrat governor so they didn't. Senate Democrats could have refused to seat Blagojevich's tainted pick, Roland Burris, but, apparently, they won't.

They should rename the Sunshine State the Darkness State. A father/daughter couple has been arrested in Florida on charges of incest. Don't the authorities know that love makes a family? Really, troglodytes, get into the 21st Century. Who are you to impose your morals on the rest of us? Hate is not a family value.... Okay. Okay. I needn't have turned the sarcasm up to 11 for you to get the point. Every cliche employed in support of so-called gay marriage can be used in defense of this most unusual arrangement on the Atlantic coast of Florida. That the taunt "incestphobe" isn't common parlance yet is an encouraging sign demonstrating that within Oedipal unions, at least, lies the recognition of how truly shameful such conduct is. Put another way, once "Incest Pride" parades hit the streets we are done. Hang on to something, the slope is slippery. The love-makes-a-family logic leads one to some peculiar places, none more so than the master bedroom of the Smith household in Bunnell, Florida.

Since politics increasingly resembles satirical representations of it, Senator Al Franken makes a particularly apt sigh of the times. He's more articulate than Caroline Kennedy, more credible than Ted Kaufman, and more likely to step onto the Senate without a sergeant-at-arms tackling him than Roland Burris. Fortunately for Franken, voters were more able to differentiate his Stuart Smally persona from the man playing him than they were able to separate Tina Fey's Sarah Palin from the genuine article. This weekend on The McLaughlin Group, to cite but one example among millions, Montgomery Clift's sister-in-law attributed Fey's "I can see Alaska from my house" to Palin in deriding the Alaska governor. Elinor is able to discern that her brother-in-law only played a mentally-damaged man sterilized by the Nazis. Why does she conflate Sarah Palin with the woman who parodied her on Saturday Night Live?

In New York, Caroline Kennedy looks to inherit a senate seat as is her birthright. In Minnesota, Al Franken has apparently sued his way into the senate. In Illinois, Governor Rod Blagojevich attempted to auction off a senate seat. When Ben Franklin explained the Constitution provided "a republic, if you can keep it," selling, inheriting, and suing your way into "elected" office may have been a few of the dangers that Franklin envisioned imperiling the fledgling republic.

Is it a coincidence that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's political donors won lucrative state contracts? If so, Richardson must be lamenting, oh unhappy accident! Alas, these "coincidences" are rarely that. The unseemly juxtaposition of a corporation donating more than a hundred thousand dollars to New Mexico's governor only to have New Mexico's government then award it more than a million dollars in contract work has cost Richardson a spot in Obama's cabinet. He withdrew his name from nomination as the new administration's secretary of commerce. More government, more corruption--something to think about as Obama seeks $700 billion to stimulate the economy. What corporate fatcats, merely by investing a few hundred thousand dollars into Barack Obama's campaign, will reap an exponential return on their investment through profits on this stimulus package? A small, constitutionally-restrained government offers few temptations for political entreprenuers on the make and politicians on the take. A $3 trillion behometh invites corruption.

There are too few stoners to make today anything like December 5, 1933. Nevertheless, I've heard numerous firsthand reports of veteran potheads celebrating the demise of pot prohibition in Massachusetts by sparking up a joint. I voted for it in November. But tonight I vote for liquids rather than herbs. In other words, it's the principle, not the particular, that motivated my "yes" vote on Massachusetts Ballot Question 2. And if that logic doesn't do it for you, consider that when you vote your narrow interests and ignore the principles today, the principles may come back to undermine your interests tomorrow. More than 150 years ago, for instance, the Massachusetts Know-Nothings made the Bay State the Dry State. Booze? Pot? Six of one, half a dozen of the other.