GUTTING THE MILITARY - AT 8:53 A.M. ET:  The late, and legendarily theatrical Republican leader, Senator Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois, used to say, "A billion here, a billion there.  Soon you're talking about real money."  With all the huge checks written by the Obamans recently, we forget that some in government have been asked to cut their budgets.  And, of course, with this crowd, that means the military.  Congressional Quarterly reports:

The military will need to come up with $60 billion in savings over the next five years to pay for new priorities to be set by the Defense secretary, a top Pentagon official said Tuesday.

The order from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is based on an assumption that there will be no real growth in defense budgets over the next five years, a radical departure for a department whose budgets have increased more than 80 percent since 2001...

...One of the driving factors so far in the evaluation is the prospect that defense budgets largely will be static in fiscal 2011 through fiscal 2015, said David Ochmanek, deputy assistant secretary of defense for force transformation and resources.

Michael Goldfarb, at The Weekly Standard, comments:

Zero growth for our troops. Zero growth for the defense of our country. And all the while, ballooning deficits to pay for health care, stimulus spending, car companies, and a $20 million dollar vacation home on Martha's Vineyard. Republicans are busy fending off ObamaCare (and having some success), but I suspect that when the dust settles on all Obama's domestic initiatives, and assuming there is at least some marginal economic recovery over the next 18 months, this gutting of our nation's military may well be the most fertile ground for Republicans in the midterm election -- and in 2012.

COMMENT:  And you can be sure that liberals in Congress, led by the California and Massachusetts delegations, would like to cut further. 

Obama ran from the center, and is governing from the left.  Public opinion polls show that Americans are starting to notice.  But only skillful political work can translate public unease into results at the polls.  Republicans have a historic tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  The 2010 midterm elections are 15 months away.

July 29, 2009