Billings Blog

Either Chuck Johnson has slipped a notch, which I doubt, or Denny Rehberg has. In a speech to Republicans in Great Falls, Rehberg outlined a series of tax cuts. If he mentioned any spending cuts, they failed to make Johnson’s story.

So Rehberg opposes pay-as-you-go, opposes a deficit commission, opposes raising the debt limit and favors tax cuts — all without mentioning the spending cuts that would be needed to keep the deficit from careening further out of control. Is the man shameless or clueless, or both?

Jon Stewart caught Newt Gingrich in a telling lie the other night. Stewart isn’t the first to point out the odd way Republicans criticize Obama’s handling of the Christmas bomber while declining to criticize Bush’s nearly identical handling of the shoe bomber, who committed a nearly identical crime. But Stewart asked the question in an interesting way: Why do Republicans not only disagree with Obama’s handling of the case, he asked, but characterize it as radical and left-wing?

Gingrich said the difference is that the shoe bomber was an American citizen. Which, of course, he wasn’t. Honest mistake? Maybe. But a lie all the same. Because if the shoe bomber’s citizenship were what defined Obama’s policy as radical and left-wing, then Gingrich surely would have bothered to check out the matter. The fact that he didn’t shows that he was just thinking of a reason to excuse a judgment he already had made.

In reality, Gingrich couldn’t say what he and Stewart and most of the rest of us know to be true: Republicans have invested a great deal of time and effort in painting Obama as a left-wing radical. Even Gingrich, playing the role of the sharp observer, can’t challenge that narrative.

All was well. To a man, the talk-show gabbers bravely and relentlessly assaulted the leading threat today to American freedom, justice and survival: Barack Obama.

Sen. Jon Tester’s office has set up a website for Montanans who want Haiti information.

Denny Rehberg’s recent spending votes:

1. He voted against reinstating PAYGO, which requires Congress to raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere to offset any new spending.

2. He voted against creating a budget deficit commission.

3. He voted against raising the public debt limit, saying that Congress should instead balance the budget.

So Rehberg opposes two measures that might actually help reduce deficits, then votes against a measure that allows us to pay the debts we are running up because of budget deficits. I think there’s a word for that: insane.

I hear a lot on talk radio that I disagree with but not too much that offends me. Now I have been offended twice in two weeks. Last week it was Limbaugh saying that Obama’s State of the Union message could have come from Fidel Castro (I missed his “retard” rant this week).  If speech alone can be treason, then that hit awfully close. Thursday it was Glenn Beck, mocking Obama’s appearance at a prayer breakfast.

Turns out that what Obama was saying wasn’t part of an actual prayer, which makes Beck’s remarks slightly less evil, I suppose. It wa’s still pretty damn low. How can you mock a man for going somewhere to pray?

It’s despicable. Disloyal. Un-American. Shameful. Why do local radio stations tolerate it?

Electric City Weblog, which has become the go-to site for conservative politics in the Montana blogosphere, is undergoing a redesign. It looks like a bit of a muddle to me, but maybe that will work itself out (or I will just get used to it).

Politics in the Pub, a new nonpartisan political group in Billings, will hold its first meeting (and first glasses) on Feb. 15 at Hooligan’s. Cool.

I thought I understood in today’s Gazette that Ed Kemmick’s City Lights blog is back up, but I guess I am too dumb to find it on the Gazoo’s new and degraded web site. Send me a link if you find it.

Speaking of dumb, this letter in today’s Gazette says “people don’t want to listen to ‘agenda-driven programming’ that is hateful. Just look at Rush Limbaugh and Fox News ‘chew up’ the competition.”

This just three days after Limbaugh said the State of the Union speech could have been delivered by Fidel Castro. That’s not agenda-driven? That’s not hateful?