With the obvious global meltdown of Keynesian economics, how could anyone remotely intelligent support the continued deficit spending that is driving the Western World into bankruptcy?

And yet a large proportion of our population still backs Barack Obama for a second term. Yes, some of this is due to the reactionary identity politics the Democratic Party has practiced for so many years and some to the large number of people working for the government and therefore voting their self-interest.  Even so, it’s difficult to avoid this conclusion:

Liberalism as an ideology is in its death throes. Only the power trip remains.

An indication of this ideological flimflam is the recent braggadocio from various MSNBC hosts that Obama is really the King of Austerity and has spent less than other presidents.  Apparently, this assertion was based on the misleading figures of an economist who lumped nearly a year of Obama’s expenditures under Bush, including at least half the stimulus, but never mind.  What you have is MSNBC, of all paleo-liberal outlets, bragging about their man’s lower government spending.  Whatever happened to liberalism?

Similarly, and for some time, the Democratic Party is running as far as possible from the Occupy crowd and the relentless demands.  Most Democratic leaders know what the majority of the public knows.  The Occupyers are retreads from the Summer of Love more likely to be freeloaders or con artists, even rapists, than people with something positive to contribute to society.

Democrats — more of them, I imagine, than will publicly admit it — are recoiling from Obama’s attack on Bain Capital as well, anyone with an IQ in triple-digits knowing private equity firms have more potential to revive our economy than recycled government programs out of some five-year plan.

Democrats and liberals are confused.  They have to be.

Lionel Chetwynd and I have been taking a hiatus from Poliwood until recently. Perhaps we were getting tired of the sound of our own voices.

But that was then and this is now and we’re back with a revitalized and we hope (not to be confused with the Obama brand of the same word) a better show. It has a more rigid format – first television, then film and then… here’s the new, new part… an ending segment by Matt Atchity, Editor-in-Chief of Rotten Tomatoes. Matt’s a cool guy with a cool eye on what’s coming out in the cinema. He gets to see all the reviews early. (Hey, someone’s got to read them.)

Anyway, the second of the new shows is up now – The Avengers: Has Hollywood Rediscovered Patriotism?

You can see the YouTube above or check it out on PJTV here. Let us know what you think. Any improvements – we’re game. Also, suggestions on movies or television shows you would like us to discuss.

How could that be? Why would they think such a thing?

There are only two forks in this road — either he was born in Kenya or he wasn’t.

I have never been a conspiracy theorist and will assume the latter, although I have to confess that for the first time, given this revelation, I have the tiniest soupçon of doubt.

Nevertheless, the more interesting, and actually frightening and depressing, conclusion is the former. So what if he was born in Kenya? At least we know why he lied about it. He wanted to be president.

But why did Obama’s agents think he was born in Kenya? That’s a more interesting question. (Obama, of course, is a liar either way.)

I will leave aside for the moment the question of whether he vetted the agent’s material himself. As the author of eleven published books and seven produced feature films, I have had plenty of dealings with agents and publicity people and always looked over the bios they had written about me. Every author I ever talked to about it always did too. We’re those kind of egotists. But I have no way of proving that Obama did — although I would faint if he hadn’t.

But whatever he did, the question remains. Why did they put “Born in Kenya” in his bio and leave it there until 2007? The latter part of that question can of course be ascribed to normal human sloth, but the first part — there’s the rub.

Here are the explanations I can think of:

1. Obama told them.
2. It was in some early draft of Obama’s abandoned book (Journeys in Black and White) he submitted to them.
3. Obama wrote it in his book proposal to them.
4. Obama told them in a query letter.
5. Obama answered one of those biographical forms.
6. … Well, I’m running out because they all amount to the same thing.

There is one other possibility. The agents simply made up the place of Obama’s birth, but I have never in all my life heard of a literary agent doing such a thing. It’s possible I suppose, but hardly likely. And why?

Anyway, per Occam’s Razor, I am going with the obvious — the agent’s source for Obama’s birthplace was… Barack Obama.

But again why? Why would he lie about where he was born?

Well, he might have wanted to glamorize his past, but if that’s so, it’s pathetic. I suspected there was a more substantive reason, one that would cause him to leave his African birth place in place in the bio. But to take the risk of being found out, it would have to be strong.

In The ESPN Man, the New York Times’ David Brooks wonders why Barack Obama remains personally popular despite the horrendous economy.

The key is his post-boomer leadership style. Critics are always saying that Obama is too cool and detached, arrogant and aloof. But the secret to his popularity through hard times is that he is not melodramatic, sensitive, vulnerable and changeable. Instead, he is self-disciplined, traditional and a bit formal.

I think Brooks is behind the curve here and Obama is about to implode. The signs are everywhere, including the just released North Carolina poll showing Romney in the lead by eight percent in a state Obama won narrowly in 2008.

Other indications of incipient implosion that Brooks appears to have missed or ignored are the swing to Romney among women voters in the latest NYT/CBS poll and the overwhelming public sentiment that Obama’s new stance on same-sex marriage was politically motivated.

It is becoming okay not to like Barack Obama.

The Teflon cloak of being a cool, hip black guy, our first African-American president, is losing its power. That cloak of supposed post-racialism – not a “post-boomer leadership style,” whatever that may be – is what protected Obama. No one, not me, not David Brooks, wanted to be accused of racism. America desperately wanted to like Obama.

But they can’t. We can’t. And not just because the economy is brutal.

I have bullied and — to make matters worse — I have eaten dog.

I don’t care if this will open up an investigation at the Washington Post. I have to come clean. These are the facts — to the best of my recollection, of course. (It’s been some time.)

The bullying incident occurred in 1957 when I was a 13-year-old ninth grader at Robert F. Wagner Sr. Junior High School 167 Manhattan. At that time I goaded Ernie Schaub — a fellow student in the rapid advance class – into a fight and beat him up (sort of).

It may be have been more serious than the Romney incident as reported by the Post since, as I recall, Ernie was bloodied up a bit and may have had a broken nose, though I don’t remember any imputation of Ernie being gay — or a “faggot” as we used to say in the “attractive” parlance of the time. In fact, Ernie, like a character out of Grease, wore his hair in a Frankie Avalon dip and affected the attitude of what we then called a “rock.”

Nevertheless, I bullied Ernie, at least for a short time. My mother was called into the principal’s office and I was suspended from school for a few days.

Phew! I’m glad I got that off my chest.

Now — in the spirit of bipartisanship — on to the dog-eating.

That said, I think same-sex marriage is being shamelessly exploited by the president whose constant vacillations on the topic are the stuff of farce — first supporting it, then not, then “evolving” a policy, then being absolutely against it (only a year ago, according to a spokesperson) and finally, May 9, 2012, claiming to have sufficiently “evolved” to be for it.

Liar.

Barack Obama has been for same-sex marriage (to the extent he is for anything other than himself) since he declared himself a supporter back in the nineties in Chicago. He just changed his mind publicly for electoral expediency. Now he is changing his mind back for the same reason, but it’s amped up. He wants to put Mitt Romney – who polls are showing to be a formidable presidential opponent – on the spot on an issue the governor would rather not talk about (and probably shouldn’t).

Obama and his people are seeking to change the subject of this election from the dreadful financial condition of our country to same-sex marriage or anything else that sticks.

Don’t fall for the bait.

In Romney’s words: “It’s the economy — and we’re not stupid.” (We better not be!)

Keeping the focus, however, won’t be easy. You can bet the media will be beating the drum constantly on this one, gay marriage being a far more emotionally potent issue than the trivial nonsense they’ve been flogging of late, dogs on car roofs, etc.

Moreover, our gay friends and relations are going to be angry about being asked to have their rights put on the back burner again. It may be of little use to remind them that they too are suffering from the unending economic meltdown whose greatest indicator is the similarly unending decline in the Labor Particiption Rate. More and more people of all sexual orientations have simply given up on finding a job.  Even the high 8.1% unemployment rate is a fake. The real numbers are staggering.

It’s not our fault for the most part. It’s the way of the world these days. The Left talks to the Left and the Right talks to the Right.

Sure we have some internal differences (gay marriage is one area), but PJM writers and readers largely agree on the big issues of the economy (stop spending), size of government (less is more), and, mostly anyway, on foreign policy (be strong).

The vast majority of people reading this article will vote for Romney, some grumpily, some not.

In sum, we’re preaching to the choir, albeit a somewhat fractious one.

So we’re not changing anyone’s mind — or hardly anyone. At best we’re giving people arguments and nuggets of information with which to regale their liberal friends at the water cooler, ammunition for a possible conversion or two. We’re also deepening our readers’ understanding of the issues and, we hope, entertaining them a bit.

Nothing wrong with any of that but, alas, it doesn’t move the meter much. And in this election year — universally acknowledged the most important since the invention of the secret ballot or maybe since drawing straws — we’d like to do better than that.

The question is how. Should we engage liberals in respectful discussion? Back in the early days of Pajamas Media, we attempted to do just that. It didn’t last long. Neither side “worked or played well with others,” as it used to say on our grammar school report cards, though I like to think it was the libs that were the more dysfunctional.

What you see now in mainstream media is a form of faux opposition installed for appearance’s sake or, even more, entertainment value (like Bob Beckel on Fox or, let’s be honest, David Brooks in the New York Times).

We don’t have any faux opposition on PJM, not that we want that. What we really want is a way to get our message out to the other side so that they actually read and consider it.

Socialism is a rich man’s game.

Oh, sure, random overheated (sometimes impoverished) Occupiers agitate for their version of economic equality, possibly gumming up the works at the Lincoln Tunnel, but the real financial justice action comes from the wealthy – or so it would seem.

And I’m not just talking about Hollywood, where George Clooney is full steam ahead on a putative record-breaking ten million dollar fundraiser for Barack Obama, or the laughably meretricious theatrics of the “Buffett Tax” that no one would pay anyway, but across the nation.

According to a book about to be released, The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, Obama has held more fundraisers than all presidents since Nixon combined.

What does this have to do with socialism?  A lot, really, because what Obama promises – especially in his second term — is a socialism of permanent elites, a kind of new, very American, version of the old Soviet-style nomenklatura. And those who are in it will get to stay in it (via government support) as social mobility, aka the American Dream, diminishes or disappears.

This was what socialism ultimately was all about, indeed is all about, the preservation of nomenklaturas, whether of Hollywood, the media, union, and bureaucratic leadership or what remains of selected industry. Keep hoi polloi out.

All those fundraisers and bundlers, from Clooney to the considerably more anonymous, know this on one level or another. It’s certainly not subtle and those too clueless to understand were reminded by the recent quasi-blacklisting of potential Romney supporters. A warning shot was fired. No elite status for them.

Being part of this new nomenklatura is particularly crucial in hard times and even more so in hard times that look to be long-lasting and possibly permanent.

Seemingly disastrous undertakings, like the overweening government support of the feckless solar company Solyndra, therefore can actually have what would appear to be a reverse effect, reassuring elites that they will be protected, even cosseted, in their most irrational enterprises. Just stay on the team and all will be well.

So after our first ever attempt at a Pulitzer Prize for Christian Adams & Hans von Spakovsky’s series “Every Single One” – revealing how every single Obama Justice Department appointee has been a liberal — lost this April, you won’t hear a peep out of us.   We will not complain even though a 2007 Pulitzer was awarded to a similar series that detailed how 57 percent of Bush’s Justice Department appointments went to conservatives. (Okay, that’s maybe a peep.)

We know the biases of the Pulitzer Prize and did not expect to win.

No, at PJ Media we don’t get mad or complain… we get even.

Starting this year, PJ Media, in conjunction with our good friends at The New Criterion, will be awarding the first annual Walter Duranty Prize for Journalistic Mendacity.

Walter Duranty – it will be recalled — was the New York Times’ Moscow correspondent in the 1920s and 1930s who whitewashed Joseph Stalin’s forced mass starvation of the Ukrainians (the Holodomor) and many other aspects of Soviet oppression.

Duranty was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his efforts.

Despite numerous attempts by Ukrainian organizations and others, the prize has never been revoked. Duranty’s photograph remains in its honored place on the New York Times’ wall along with the newspaper’s other Pulitzer winners.

The Duranty Award

The first annual Duranty Prize will be given for what our readers consider the most egregious example of dishonest reporting for the fiscal year 2011-2012 (July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2012).

We will be officially accepting nominations from PJM and TNC readers starting May 1, 2012, at Duranty@pjmedia.com (but if you want to go ahead now, no one’s going to stop you – the email address is functioning).

A Duranty Prize Committee of seven journalists and writers will then sift the nominations and decide the winner (or winners) to be announced at a ceremony in New York in the Fall.

Committee members are: Peter Collier, Roger Kimball, Cliff May, Ron Radosh, Glenn Reynolds, Claudia Rosett, and Roger L. Simon.

The intention of this award is to highlight the continuing extreme bias and misreporting of our media.  Nominations are welcome in text and video forms, in print or on the web.  The committee would appreciate an Internet link with your nomination.

Since this is a new prize the committee also solicits your suggestions on how we should carry on our work and any other suggestions regarding the Walter Duranty Prize in the comments section.  You are free to put your nominations in the comments section as well, but in order for them to count, please remember to send them to Duranty@pjmedia.com.

Writes Philip Rucker of the Washington Post’s Election 2012 Blog:

Grenell brings foreign policy chops and more than a decade of political experience to the aggressive but relatively young Romney staff. His is one in a series of hires as the presumptive Republican nominee rapidly expands his small staff as it moves into the general election against President Obama.

During all eight years of President George W. Bush’s tenure, Grenell served as the administration’s director of communications and public diplomacy at the United Nations. He advised four U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations: John D. Negroponte, John C. Danforth, John R. Bolton and Zalmay Khalilzad.

From what I know of Richard, he is particularly close to John Bolton, which augurs well for those of us who would like to see Bolton return to the UN or assume an even higher foreign policy role in a possible Romney administration. With all the ongoing treachery of Iran, Syria, the putative “Arab Spring,” Hamas, Hezbollah, North Korea, etc., etc., Bolton’s more needed now than ever — and the Grenell appointment points the way.

Richard also has considerable background as a spokesperson for Republican politicians (George Pataki, San Diego Mayor Susan Golding, etc.).

But there’s one thing about Grenell not mentioned in the politically correct WaPo – he’s openly gay.

What, you say – who cares? And you are correct.

But I am putting that essentially irrelevant fact out here on PJM as a safeguard of sorts against attacks that are likely to come. Some — a tiny number, really — on the most extreme end of the socially conservative right might object to an open homosexual in such a key position on Romney’s foreign policy team. But almost all would likely ignore this, respecting Grenell’s bona fides and — let’s be honest — his solid hawkish leanings.