Arkansas Rep Marion Berry has announced he won't be seeking reelection in what used to be John McCain's House seat.

Before Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts, there simply weren't enough open House races for Republicans to contemplate retaking the majority in that body. Berry is the first post-Brown announcement, but probably not the last, and that opens up at least a numerical possibility that the majority party could change.

Ironically, there are still more Republican members retiring that Democrats--14 to 12, yet historically there is no correlation between retirements (open seats) and party changes, which have far more to do with the political climate--which for Democrats is bad---very, very, very bad.

Berry had some parting words for President Obama, as reported by Jane Fullerton for ADG.

Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.

“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.” [snip]

“I began to preach last January that we had already seen this movie and we didn’t want to see it again because we know how it comes out,” said Arkansas’ 1st District congressman, who worked in the Clinton administration before being elected to the House in 1996... "I just began to have flashbacks to 1993 and ’94. No one that was here in ’94, or at the day after the election felt like. It certainly wasn’t a good feeling.”

Shocked that Barack appears to be an ego-maniac? A lot of people tried to tell us during the primaries and the election, but the state media just fire-walled it. How many 44 year old men have written two autobiographies, much less one? Especially considering he has no discernible personal accomplishments to his name other than being elected to office?