memeorandum: Where Is Obama's ‘Center’? (Mark Steyn/National Review)

10:45 PM ET, September 12, 2009

Top Items:

Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama's spending in ‘tea-party’ demonstration — Up to two million people marched to the U.S. Capitol today, carrying signs with slogans such as “Obamacare makes me sick” as they protested the president's health care plan and what they say is out-of-control spending.

Discussion: Instapundit, Don Surber, Pajamas Media, Stop The ACLU, Big Government, Associated Press, Pundit & Pundette, Confederate Yankee, Wizbang, The Rhetorican, Gateway Pundit, Chicago Boyz and Blue Crab Boulevard

Michelle Malkin:

Celebrating the 9/12 rallies; Turnout estimated at 2 million; Update: How many? — Scroll for updates... Twitpic via Brooks Bayne — Twitpic via Prisminc — I can't make it to Washington DC today for the national 9/12 march, but I'm with all the marchers in spirit.

Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:

Thousands Rally in Capital to Protest Big Government — WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of protesters from around the country marched to the Capitol on Saturday to demonstrate against the White House and Congress for what they say is an ever-expanding intrusion of government.

Discussion: Reason, The Hill, JammieWearingFool, Right Wing Nut House, Townhall.com, RBO, The BRAD BLOG, Political Byline, The Reaction, The Page, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, skippy the bush kangaroo, And So it Goes in Shreveport and Wake up America

Stephen Green / Pajamas Media:

They Will Be Heard [UPDATED PRETTY CONSTANTLY] — I'M BEGGING YOU — PLAYING IT DOWN — Here's the WaPo lede: … Tens of thousands? Technically accurate, but... CABBING IT HOME — Calling from a taxi on the way back home, Stacy McCain said:

Discussion: Atlas Shrugs, Nice Deb, capitalist coffee, American Power, The Other McCain, Weasel Zippers, The Sundries Shack, GayPatriot and Instapundit

Washington Post:

Anti-Government Protests Draws Tens of Thousands to D.C. — Tens of thousands of conservative protesters crowded outside the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, a massive demonstration aimed at stopping what organizers called the over-expansion of the federal government under the Obama administration.

Discussion: theblogprof, Talking Points Memo, The Corner on National …, AMERICAblog News and The Hill

Kevin Drum / MoJo Blog Posts:

Quote of the Day — From Sen. Jim DeMint, commenting on the demonstrators in Washington DC carrying signs that call Nancy Pelosi a Nazi and Barack Obama a communist: … Uh huh. That really means a lot coming from a guy like DeMint. — But what I'm really curious about is the guy in this photo with the Nancy Pelosi sign.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Matthew Yglesias, Washington Monthly and Don Surber

Think Progress:

Radical, Racist Signs Featured At 9/12 March — This morning on ABC's Good Morning America, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) embraced the protesters at today's 9/12 March in Washington, DC, saying that he was “glad they're here to take back their country.” He characterized the attendees as nonpartisan …

Russell Goldman / ABCNEWS:

Thousands March to US Capitol to Protest Spending — Thousands of conservative protesters from across the country converged on the Capitol Saturday morning to demonstrate against President Obama's proposed health care agenda and voicing opposition to big government, what they say is over-the-top spending.

Discussion: CNN, Associated Press, Hot Air, The Politico, Sadly, No!, Taylor Marsh and Verum Serum

Glenn Reynolds / Instapundit:

Mary Katharine Ham emails this pic from the Newseum balcony in DC. — And Stephen Green is posting reports from the ground.

Discussion: Blue Crab Boulevard and Pajamas Media

Alan Colmes' Liberaland:
The GOP Corporate Push Behind The 9/12 Teabaggers

Discussion: The Washington Independent, Think Progress, CNN and At-Largely

Kenneth P. Vogel / The Politico:
A march today, but is it a movement?

Discussion: The Huffington Post, TPMCafe, Wake up America, Scared Monkeys and George's Bottom Line

Wall Street Journal: Conservatives Gather in Capital

Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:

Tea Party Patriotism — I wouldn't want to tell you that the majority of the people I saw at this morning's tea party were such hard-core patriots that they felt the need to walk around waving flags of treason and slavery: — Still it did strike me as noteworthy that your basic tea party crowd …

Discussion: The Reality-Based Community

Looking at the Left:

Conservative Woodstock Rocks the Capital — Patriotic anti-big-government taxpayers blast through the 2 million protester mark. — September 12, 2009, Washington, D.C. — ABC News reports that two million Americans flooded D.C. in what people in the crowd were calling “a conservative Woodstock” …

Discussion: Don Surber, Bob McCarty Writes, Atlas Shrugs and The Rhetorican

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

Is the Right's attack on Obama's legitimacy new or unprecedented? — (updated below - Update II) — Several people objected in comments, emails and other places to my argument yesterday that what Rep. Joe Wilson did — though dumb and juvenile — was hardly some grave threat to the Republic …

Discussion: DISSENTING JUSTICE, The Sideshow, Balloon Juice, Corrente and The Atlantic Politics Channel

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:

Source: Wilson breaks $1 million — A source on Rep. Joe Wilson's campaign says his fundraising has broken $1 million — and surpassed that of his Democratic rival, Rob Miller — since his outburst of “You lie!” during President Obama's address to Congress Wednesday.

Discussion: Flopping Aces, Blue Crab Boulevard, Crooks and Liars, Sunlight Foundation and Capitol Briefing

Carl Hulse / New York Times:
Heckler's Behavior May Bring Action in House

Discussion: PoliBlog, Althouse, Stop The ACLU, Riehl World View, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Prescriptions

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:

Seen on 9/12: ‘Bury Obamacare with Kennedy’ — A passer-by forwards this image of a printed sign being distributed at the conservative rally at 13th and Pennsylvania in Washington today. — post comment | … Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1) — One thing you never mistake the birthers for is classy...

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Matthew Yglesias and The Raw Story

Amanda Terkel / Think Progress: Sign at 9/12 march: ‘Bury Obamacare with Kennedy.’

Newsdesk / Clout St:

Christopher Kelly, key figure in Blagojevich corruption probe, is dead — Posted by Jeff Coen, Jeremy Gorner, Kim Janssen at 3:10 p.m.; last updated at 7:49 p.m. — Christopher Kelly, a key figure in the federal corruption probe into former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, is dead.

Discussion: TalkLeft

Joe Nocera / New York Times:

Lehman Had to Die So Global Finance Could Live — What if they'd saved Lehman Brothers? — What if, a year ago this weekend, the government and the banking industry had somehow found a way to keep Lehman from filing for bankruptcy? How might that have changed the course of the financial crisis?

Discussion: Marginal Revolution

Alex Berenson / New York Times:
A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall St.

Discussion: AMERICAblog News, Hullabaloo, the talking dog and The Confluence

Mark Steyn / National Review:

Where Is Obama's ‘Center’? — So why can't the silver-tongued post-partisan healer seal the deal on this health-care business? Surely it should be the work of moments for the greatest orator in American history to whip up a little medicinal Gettysburg, a touch of Henry V-in-the-Agincourt-casualty- tent, and put this thing away.

Discussion: Hot Air

Mark Hemingway / The Corner on National Review Online:

NRO at the 912 March — By: Mark Hemingway — As a journalist who wears his cynicism like a badge of honor, to say that today's tea party protest wildly exceeded my expectations would be an understatement. I've yet to see a reliable estimate of the crowd size and the cops seemed bound …

Discussion: Power Line, Salon, Neptunus Lex and The Rhetorican

CNN:

DNC paints Pawlenty as liar — WASHINGTON (CNN)- Ahead of President Obama's visit to Minneapolis Saturday, the Democratic National Committee is out with a new attack ad painting Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty as a politician attempting to appeal to the “extremists” in the Republican party.

Discussion: The Political Carnival, The Hill and TPMDC