In addition to Eli Lake’s Washington Times piece, the Chas Freeman story hits Fox. Do we think the White House has heard of the issue yet?

Chris Matthews is fed up with business as usual and isn’t very patient with his guests who are making excuses. Honest. (Does his laugh sound like Hillary’s cackle, by the way?)

The House GOP and the NRA have tied the Democrats up in knots over the DC voting rights bill. Do Democrats want gun control so badly that they’d sacrificed a cherished political objective? In the end, I suspect not.

And speaking of clever, the GOP House leader offers votes in support of a veto of the omnibus spending bill. (And  then kicks the White House in the shins for running a “political sideshow.”)

Michael Gerson discovers that Obama is radical on domestic policy and that his budget “is a weakening of the theoretical basis for capitalism — that free individuals are generally more rational and efficient in making investment decisions than are government planners.” And, yes, he’s out to “crush conservatives.”

Eric Cantor objects to the notion that the stock market is a “tracking poll.” Well, in one regard, it is — if a candidate sank 60% it’d be a signal to get out of the race. And his spokesman is just getting warmed up with a call for the White House to ”join us in our bipartisan national conversation about job creation, stimulating small business and middle class tax relief” and an invitation to “apologize to the American people for supporting these tactics and get back to work.” That’s not happening, but the White House may need to scramble for the high ground.

So much for the strategy of playing nice with the president. Really, the opposition party has no choice but to oppose when the issue is so fundamental (e.g. free market capitalism).

Communist China is more friendly toward capital than Obama? Yup. No capital gains tax there.

You know those fawning little bios which the MSM runs? Well sometimes you learn the strangest things: “[UN Ambassador Susan] Rice is married to Canadian journalist Ian Cameron, executive producer of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” Wait. The EP of a top Sunday show is married to a top Obama official? Shouldn’t this be disclosed on air, at least when they are discussing foreign policy?

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe’s Global Crossing deal is surfacing in the local media. Now might not be the best time to run for office as a millionaire who got in on a great deal because of political ties and got out before the little people lost everything. But McAuliffe says it’s really no big deal.

While we’re busy dismantling free market capitalism, we should consider what it has brought us. “To what do we owe this significant 80% reduction in the time cost of household goods over time? It’s all part of the miracle of the market economy.”

Meanwhile, Jon Corzine is in a heap of trouble in New Jersey.

The Brits must miss the Bush era — when they were shown respect. Somehow our closest ally didn’t make it on to the “improve international relations” to-do list. Maybe if they started threatening Israel and insulting us in public the administration would give them more attention. That’s how it works, right?

Tony Blankley tells us: “Obama lied; the economy died.”

The administration’s actions to raise fuel standards and allow California to increase environmental standards are working at cross-purposes with the effort to rescue the car companies, or at the very least making that task “more expensive and more complex.” Which, in a nutshell, is why the government shouldn’t run car companies — or other companies for that matter.

The Obama team may give up on limiting charitable and home mortgage deductability.