"As the Occupy Wall Street movement has gradually turned ugly in recent weeks, the Democrats who had earlier associated themselves with the protests have no doubt begun to recognize the peril in which they have put themselves and their party by even tacitly encouraging the resurrection of this most disagreeable liberal type. They have yet to fully grasp, however, just how much damage the simultaneous reemergence of so many harmful and unpleasant aspects of the modern left may yet do to the Democrats in 2012. 

"A Gallup poll published this month showed that only 21 percent of Americans consider themselves liberals. The rest of the country might well put up with liberals in power now and then, but not if the left insists on constantly reminding us why, to coin a phrase, we are the 79 percent."

"When the nation’s highest law enforcement official lies to the American people, he must go. 

"And if he claims that he didn’t lie, then how else do we explain this situation? He’s either lying or he’s so grossly incompetent and lazy that he didn’t read important life and death briefings from his deputy attorney general and didn’t know about this deadly operation run by people under him. So, which is it? Incompetent, lazy, or lying? No matter which explanation fits, he needs to go. 

"Holder conceded this week, 'I have ultimate responsibility for what happens in the department.' He can prove it by resigning. And if he refuses to resign, then President Obama – with whom the bucks ultimately stop – can prove that he respects honesty, transparency, and accountability in his administration by firing Holder.

"I stand with the members of Congress who are calling for Holder’s resignation. I stand with the family members of Brian Terry who are demanding transparency and accountability. Mr. President, where do you stand?"

"Last week, Politico reported that the Federal Housing Finance Agency paid $13 million in bonuses to 10 Fannie and Freddie executives. It's true that Fannie and Freddie bigs are making 40 percent less than the bygone execs who drove their organizations into conservatorship. But with Freddie reporting a $4.4 billion loss for the past quarter, bonuses hardly seem in order. 

"The problem with these government-supported entities is that, with Washington serving as the deepest of deep pockets, there's no such thing as failure. 

"Congressional Republicans and Democrats have moved to block further bonuses. Of course, they'll hold hearings -- just to show how indignant they are. 

"But they're not likely to do anything about the corrosive forces that fueled Fannie and Freddie. Boosters were able to claim that Fannie and Freddie could open the door to broader homeownership -- at no cost to taxpayers. When the bill finally arrived, it was too big to stop."

"The White House laments that America hasn't built enough massive government infrastructure projects. Nonsense. At the rate it's growing, the Great Stonewall of Obama may soon be the second largest manmade object visible from outer space. 

"While many construction workers across the country remain idle, Team Obama's attorneys have been laboring overtime to erect impenetrable information blockades around three festering scandals: Solyndra, LightSquared, and Fast and Furious. 

"This much is clear: The 'most transparent administration ever' is hyper-allergic to sunlight and subpoenas."

"The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to unveil a report Wednesday on what it knows about Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and the early word is that it contains a few bombshells. But let's not overstate its significance. There's no scarcity of reliable information about Iran's nuclear programs, licit and illicit. The only question is whether the report will do much to end the current scarcity of Western will to do something meaningful to check them."

"If President Obama ever expected the economy to improve significantly before the 2012 election, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke buried that hope last week. 

"The Fed’s grim forecasts of what the Obama economy will look like throughout next year were bleaker than its modest earlier estimates. High unemployment will persist throughout 2012, along with sharply slower economic growth rates. ...

"This is a great and prosperous country with a long and proud history of overcoming economic adversity. It can do so again under the right policies. Mr. Obama’s policies are not working and are never going to work."

"Is there something about the word ‘green’ that makes people go weak in the head? 

"Rivaled only by the ‘get tough on Netanyahu’ fiasco and the Gunwalker scandal, the ‘Green Jobs’ meltdown is the most comprehensive and conspicuous policy failure of the Obama administration to date.  What three months ago was widely hailed by the establishment press as a sign of the futurism and forward-thinking of the Obama Administration now, post-Solyndra, is increasingly seen for the bone headed blunder it was.  ..."

"The federal government has lost another 72 million of your tax dollars. Here we go again. 

"The feds have gambled with your money again, and they've lost it again; this time with a company called Beacon Power. You've probably never heard of this company. Candidly, before the announcement of its bankruptcy filing this week, neither had I. Just as you probably had never heard of Solyndra before its bankruptcy, neither had I. But your government has heard of both. 

"Solyndra and Beacon received loans the government guaranteed -- $535 million and $72 million respectively. In each case, your tax dollars were spent when these companies borrowed money they couldn't return. In each case, federal bureaucrats used your money to pay back loans investors gave to these failing companies because the bureaucrats want to wean us off of oil and onto so-called green energy, and because the government was friends with the investors. In each case, the investment the federal government made in these firms was risky and was lost."

"In the world of sexual-harassment law, the accusations are bad enough. You’re guilty until proven innocent. The law is skewed toward the plaintiffs -- it’s hard to get even the silliest charges tossed out, and even then it often costs upward of six figures to do so. ... 

"Even what constitutes 'sexual harassment' has crossed from common sense into farce. In the 1970s, my mother was a lawyer who faced the real thing as one of the very few women in a testosterone-fueled district attorney’s office. Today, women are at or near parity with men in most every field, and are even ahead of them among entrants to the professions.  

"Yet where sexual-harassment law once protected women from being forced to be the playthings of crude lechers, it’s been transformed to enforcing a prim puritanism that drains the humor and humanity from the workplace. People are afraid to make an innocent joke or compliment a co-worker’s appearance for fear of crossing some unspoken line that will bring down the wrath of the human-resources department."

"In various cities across the country, mobs of mostly young, mostly incoherent, often noisy and sometimes violent demonstrators are making themselves a major nuisance. 

"Meanwhile, many in the media are practically gushing over these 'protesters,' and giving them the free publicity they crave for themselves and their cause -- whatever that is, beyond venting their emotions on television. 

"Members of the mobs apparently believe that other people, who are working while they are out trashing the streets, should be forced to subsidize their college education -- and apparently the President of the United States thinks so too. 

"But if these loud mouths' inability to put together a coherent line of thought is any indication of their education, the taxpayers should demand their money back for having that money wasted on them for years in the public schools."