Now this is how it’s done:

“I want his policies that I believe take us in the wrong direction to fail,” Thompson told Roberts on CNN’s American Morning.

Beautiful. What a difference those extra words make.

“If he takes us down the road of tripling our national debt in ten years and making us vulnerable to higher interest rates and higher inflation, and things of that nature, I want all those policies not to succeed,” he said.

Well said.

Thompson, who made the rising cost of entitlement spending a focus of his 2008 presidential run, said he’d be happy to help Obama overhaul those programs.

“If he wants to do that, I will join with him. I’ll do everything I can to make him succeed with regard to that because that’s the whole ball game in terms of our fiscal future in this country,” said the former Tennessee senator.

Thompson criticized Obama’s ambitious health care agenda, telling Roberts the president’s plans would cost the government more than they would save.

Bravo, Fred. Bravo!

A touch wordier than some similar sentiments from He Who Will Not Be Named — but fifty times more effective.

Fred Thompson’s words will no doubt be twisted by the cynical left and the press (but I repeat myself), but that’s not his fault. No reasonable listener could come away with any conclusion from the quote above other than this: Fred Thompson stands ready to help Obama on policies that will help the country, and to fight him on policies that will hurt the country.

If someone tries to distort that, I will be the first one to man the barricades and defend him. And I’m grateful to him for making that job easy for me.

Radley Balko’s full story about the Jimmie Duncan case — an article which accuses prosecution experts of manufacturing bite mark evidence in a capital case — was posted online yesterday, along with a large cache of documents.

My initial reading is that many of the criticisms I had of the original story still apply. It is written the way a defense brief for Duncan might be written: with the details that support the prosecution position (such as the newly revealed fact that witnesses saw marks on the victim’s cheek before the autopsy) pushed deep into the story, and then revealed in the same breath as the defense explanation.

For example, early on, we’re told that “the bite marks were the only physical evidence used to elevate Duncan from a negligent guardian to a lethal child rapist.” The “only evidence,” that is, except for the anal injuries that a doctor testified were indicative of anal rape. This evidence is not discussed until the 34th paragraph of 50 — at which point it is presented with a pro-defense spin.

A fuller analysis is yet to come. I haven’t looked at the documents, and I have been promised the full video.

Just wanted Steve Verdon to know that something’s coming, since the piece has already been online for more than 54 minutes.

[Posted by Karl]

Pres. Obama went on TV again Tuesday night to flog his “too much, too soon” approach to government, claiming his budget is inseparable from economic recovery, particularly his proposals on healthcare, clean energy, deficit reduction and education.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, key Democratic Congressional leaders were already performing major surgery on the Obama budget.  Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad’s mark does not provide for Obama’s signature middle-class tax cut or money for future bank bailouts, and merely patches the alternative minimum tax increasingly hitting the middle class.  Technically, these should all be counted as gimmicks, as it is virtually certain these will pass as needed.

More significantly, Obama’s ginormous global warming tax will not be fast-tracked in either chamber, while (as thought yesterday) healthcare will not be rammed through the Senate.  Indeed, Conrad said he would leave out new spending for Obama’s proposed expansion of healthcare coverage.  It is tough to see how a deficit-neutral Obamacare proposal emerges from the bowels of Capitol Hill.

Moreover, Sen. Evan Bayh’s Gang of 16 moderate Democrats — without whom the Democrats cannot move a budget — plan to push for further cuts.  Obama’s ineffectual astroturfing seems unlikely to change this environment.

Accordingly, Pres. Obama spent last night talking to the TV audience (many of whom would have preferred American Idol), while the audience that really matters — Congress — plans to punt on at least two of his key priorities in favor of the deficit reduction Obama only claims to champion.  That a Democratic Congress is more hawkish on the deficit shows not only how reckless the Obama agenda is, but also how little Obama may get out of the budget process.

–Karl