Like all dopey ideas, the State of the Union is dealt the most devastating damage when it is taken seriously. Rather like a beached whale suffocating under its own weight — its rib cage simply wasn’t designed to withstand the force.
This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can’t possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama’s new spending ambitions.
Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and “the wealthiest 2%.” Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That’s about 7% of all returns; the data aren’t broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% — about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 — paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.
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A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That’s less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010.
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The bottom line is that Mr. Obama is selling the country on a 2% illusion. Unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire can’t possibly pay for his agenda. Taxes on the not-so-rich will need to rise as well.
Call me nutty, but this has just the whiff of inspiration for a rather cagey sort of optimism. President Obama, clearly, has meant very little of all the things He has said up until now. Changing America, it would seem, is about the only thing His rhetoric has had in common with His deeds. If He’s just promised to spend money on all these programs He obviously can’t afford, with His track record that’s pretty much the same as not having promised anything at all.
Again: The fault does not rest with President Obama. The fault lies with the rest of us. It’s a non-partisan position that we shouldn’t pass on debt to the next generation, but it’s a blisteringly partisan position to take that we should write to our congressmen or to the White House telling ’em to stop spending so much goddamned money.
No such dichotomy can be embraced by a sane mind. But that’s the mindset of our culture right now. So what’s this little dance people are going through, pretending to be trying to make sane decisions? Who do they think they’re kiddin’?
On the subject of President Obama turning fearmongering into an art form — this is a great time to take some notes on how gargantuan numbers of people are swindled into dumbass things. True, you can see these methods at work any ol’ time just by sitting in a committee meeting, or watching someone buy a used car.
But we get an especially clear vantage point when the democrat party has a lock on the government, a situation that has not existed since 1994.
Hey, if you had a solar eclipse every fifteen or sixteen years you’d still be taking pictures, right?
So I’m keeping a running list of what I’ve seen President Obama do to make dumb ideas look like smart ones. Note, very few of these items have anything to do with democrats or Republicans. In fact, they have very little to do with looting the public treasury. Rather, they make use of flaws we all have in our programming, flaws that make it harder for us to think logically.
You could take this as a timeless list of How To Make Large Numbers Of Some Reasonable People Do Dumb Things, Without Taking Any Responsibility For Telling Them To Do Any Of It.
1. Every tactic you use, should exploit the gap between the flawed human genome, and logic — the one most people aren’t willing to admit is there;
2. Socially stigmatize whatever is the opposite of what you want done;
3. Switch moderation and extremism with each other, by using the words “always” and “never” to describe any alternatives to your idea;
4. Make a big show out of conceding points that don’t really mean anything;
5. Talk a great deal about everybody “coming together to do this” without describing “this”;
6. Talk a whole lot about sixth-grade-math, while ignoring third-grade rules of logic;
7. Find out what people want that they do not have, and find a way to connect it, however nonsensically, to what you’re asking them to do;
8. Accuse your audience of something, taking special care that they aren’t guilty of whatever it is, so they have something to prove;
9. Inject a Snidely Whiplash into the situation, even if it doesn’t really have one;
10. Most important of all, inject a victim into it as well. Who-rightfully-owns-what decision, is the first thing people forget when there’s a victim.
And I would say with the SotU Tuesday night, the one item I saw kick into high gear was #6. That meme, repeated over and over again, about “ninety-five percent of taxpayers” seeing their taxes go down…
…I am simply amazed that all this time has passed on by, and not one single time within the pool of knowledge that has come to my attention (I think I’d have found it by now) has anybody nailed The Annointed One down on whether His use of 95% is intended to be figurative or literal. It’s more than reasonable to interpret it as figurative. How many times have you said to yourself “I need to pitch that thing, it takes up lots of space and when I need it, 95% of the time I end up using something else“? It’s a popular phrase. It means, not all, but might-as-well-be all. And that would fit in with Our Holy Savior’s intended meaning just fine. He’s going to ratchet up taxes on some people who don’t really count.
So throw some numbers out there, is what #6 means. Throw out numbers, make people feel like they’re making good use of that middle-school education in mathematics — and forget about whether the numbers make any sense. When people see you’ve given them the “respect” involved in throwing fractions and decimals at them, they won’t bother to check up on whether your figures make sense or not. They won’t even stop to think if you’re trying to say “not all but might as well be all,” or whether you really do mean nineteen-out-of-twenty.
Sometimes, you watch people, and you wonder how it is we ever got out of caves. Actually, a lot of the time. Think about it: Resolving our problems without passing on debt to the next generation, is truly a bipartisan concern. Telling Saint Obama to stop spending so much goddamn money, is not. Doesn’t that pretty much sum up the problem?
There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children. And that is the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay.
— President Barack Obama, during the State of the Union Address, after promising a litany of February-Christmas goodies that would have embarrassed Clinton, Carter, LBJ and maybe even FDR.
Update 2/26/09: Welcome, Instapundit and Lucianne readers. Take off your coats, pull up some chairs, and stay awhile.
Yeah good one, Buck. Like you wouldn’t give up some teeth to see her sworn in right about now. In hot pants, Supergirl cape and go-go boots. Hey…for the next three years, ten months and three weeks, that last part is about as likely to happen as the former part…a fella might as well dream.
Well, Californians know how to be snarky too. So I sent him a link to Cassy’s place. In which a feminist is demanding her rightful status, not as a flesh-burning, head-chopping brutal dictator, but rather as a more modest generically-unpleasant female person. A rhymes-with-rich.
As if we’ve had some kind of shortage of those.
Speaking of delusions of supply-and-demand, I hear PrezBO is going to descend from his cloud tonight to tell us the best way to balance the budget is to spend money we don’t have like crazy. Oh yeah, Obambi! That’s exactly the way my household does it! Phone’s about to be shut off and there’s a cardboard thingy from the power company on my doorknob…only one thing to do…run up the charge cards on a whole lotta crap!
That doesn’t seem to make an awful lot of sense, does it?
And yet…there our elected representatives go…the ones whom, I’m told, are so much smarter than the rest of us. Doing that very thing.
You figure this shit out, drop me a line explaining it. Okay? I’ll be snoozing away, dreaming about a certain Governor of Alaska being sworn in, in some kind of getup that would make Stacey Keibler blush.
Just fiddling around with my poor-man’s Photoshop tools…again…
That goes for the opposition, too. You own both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, Barry. Knock off that compromising…nobody wants you to do it anyway, tighty righties or lefty-loosies…just do stuff. Do all the things that you know are swell ideas.
Own the next four years. Make ’em yours. We know you’ve got the balls for it.
I’m very proud to announce the establishment of a new government agency called the Monetary Uniformity Group. This agency will put people to work performing a simple but effective task: Americans who are currently [mimes scare quotes] “earning” too much money will be relieved of all excess cash — by force only if necessary — after which it will be gathered up, bundled into thick, heavy bales, and thrown into a wood chipper.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking, but please keep in mind that this plan is flexible. It could be some sort of industrial shredder instead. Or the money might be incinerated with flamethrowers, or weighed down with lead and dropped into the deepest part of the ocean. There are any number of options. The whole idea is to get that money moving away from people who don’t deserve it.
To put it in terms someone like you might be able to understand: Look at your neighbor. Is it fair that he has a nicer car than you? A bigger TV? A younger, more physically fit wife or girlfriend? Well, then, let’s see how he likes it when I grab his wallet and throw it in the wood chipper.
[Smiling, Obama mimes taking a wallet from someone’s pocket with his thumb and forefinger, tossing it over his shoulder, and cringing slightly at the imaginary roar of the machine.]
Just picture that. Doesn’t it feel good? A minute ago he thought he was soooo great, and now he’s all mad because he doesn’t have his iddle-widdle wallet. Look at him, he’s actually crying. Got something to say, Richie Rich? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Only by following this plan can we restore America to the greatness it has yet to achieve. Remember: You deserve better, which means everybody else deserves worse.
Thank you.
Good satire resembles real life. I’m afraid this bears more than just a passing similarity. And just remember, Obamatons, this does nothing to break a campaign promise. There were very few made. You weren’t that insistent on finding out what Chosen One was gonna do. All that mega-awesomeness to be celebrated.
Melanie Sill, Sacramento Bee Editor, has a column out this morning saying it is “Time to look at newspaper roles and woes.” I lightly skimmed over it, but it would appear there is no point in the column in which she attempts to blame the “newspaper woes” on the Bush Administration. I must say, the title really grabbed me. I could’ve sworn it was just last month we had an inauguration ceremony, and if it was time to do anything, it was time to celebrate the end of all problems and the dawn of a new age of sweetness & light. Here it is five weeks later, and it’s time to look at problems again. Wha’ happened?
Why newspapers are hurting, I’m going to leave unexamined. After all, she did. Also, it seems the entire management layer at The Bee, and at other newspapers, is leaving it to outsiders to declare what the newspapers should do in order to save themselves. That was the point of her column, to announce “The Conversation,” which can be found at www.sacbee.com/conversation.
The trend continues. No one, so far as I know, is blaming failing newspapers on the Bush Administration. No one, so far as I know, is saying Obama’s gonna fix ’em. Not unless you want to count this Connecticut newspaper-bailout-guy.
So my question is this.
If George W. Bush caused just about all of our problems…but not quite…and Barack Obama can fix just about all of our problems, but not quite…
Can Obama fix problems that George Bush didn’t create?
Kind of a “If God is all-powerful, can He create a rock so big that even He cannot lift it?” sorta thing.
Although I would give SOME credit to balanced reporting in the article, one line stood out when I read it: “… and the general public all in support …” This comment board is proof that this is not so. Very common in global warming articles, being told that we all support action, being told that all scientists agree, that there is a concensus, that the debate is over. All fabrications. Ed mentioned the global cooling hoax in his post. I’m in possession of several articles from that period, and they include the phrases “all scientists agree”, “an avalanche of evidence”, and other fictional remarks. I hope it’s not too late for our naive and impressionable society.
To revisit this other question, about why newspapers are in trouble: LOTS of reasons! But one that shouldn’t be discounted, I believe, is that they are poisoning their own food supply. Their fantasy-game that Iraq was a “quagmire,” well past the point where it clearly wasn’t one, is a testament to their “If It Bleeds, It Leads” mindset that will be embarrassingly preserved for generations in journalistic history.
They’re forced to do that because they cover up other news we want to know — by pretending we’re more unified than we really are.
If you’re a left-leaning libby, you think I’m a knuckle-dragging neanderthal posting garbage on his tighty-righty blog, about to destroy the planet by encouraging people to own guns, go to Hooters, believe in God and emit that terrible, terrible carbon. I, in turn, think you got your Replacement Jesus in the White House and far from being satisfied, you’ll never be happy no matter what.
Each of us is interested in what the other one is doing. We’re divided and will probably continue to be so for generations.
Newspapers could report on that. But instead, as folsomboy points out (by the way, take my word for it, I’m not him) — every popular idea, no matter how fanciful, no matter how extravagant and ramshackle, has to be presented as if “everyone” agrees on it.
If you believe in that…you’re forced to ask yourself, why should I buy a newspaper?
This is more than just lazy reporting. It’s bad business.
President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package.
In his remarks, every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom. As he tells it, today’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression. Without his Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he says, the economy will fall back into that abyss and may never recover.
This fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics. It is bad history because our current economic woes don’t come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate. Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That’s a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost — fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.
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Mr. Obama’s analogies to the Great Depression are not only historically inaccurate, they’re also dangerous. Repeated warnings from the White House about a coming economic apocalypse aren’t likely to raise consumer and investor expectations for the future. In fact, they have contributed to the continuing decline in consumer confidence that is restraining a spending pickup. Beyond that, fearmongering can trigger a political stampede to embrace a “recovery” package that delivers a lot less than it promises. A more cool-headed assessment of the economy’s woes might produce better policies.
I wonder if the spirit of pessimism that enshrouds us after a typical “Hope and Change” Obama speech, isn’t quite so much pure emotional depression, or pure economic analysis, but more a reasoned pondering of the history of executives taking charge of things.
After all, bosses typically pull victory from the jaws of defeat when they take ownership of a given situation. If they spend all their time blaming their predecessors for every little hiccup, they usually preside over disaster.
In the pantheon of hopeful guys, this new President doesn’t seem to have an awful lot to do with hope. And when I hear this new President speak, what I usually hear is a lot of blame. It’s not the rhetoric that comes from a boss who is about to preside over victory. It’s the kind of stuff you hear from a ship’s captain who has made damn sure his name is on the safest lifeboat.
Few pieces of political “wisdom” are more tediously recycled than a well-retailed bon mot of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Asked what he feared most in the months ahead, he gave an amused Edwardian response: “Events, dear boy, events.” In other words, you can plan all you want, but next month, next year some guy off the radar screen will launch a war, or there’ll be an earthquake, or … something. Governments get thrown off course by “events.”
It requires a perverse kind of genius for the 44th president not to have waited for a single “event” to throw him off course. Instead, he threw himself off…the monthly magazines still gazing out from their newsstands with their glossy inaugural covers of a smiling Barack and Michelle waltzing on the audacity of hope seem like musty historical artifacts from a lost age. The ship didn’t need to hit an iceberg; it stalled halfway down the slipway. This is still the phase before “events” come into play, when an incoming president has nothing to get in the way of his judgment and executive competence.
Update: You know, I think what follows just about sums it up in a way even the “Obama’s gonna put gas in my car” lady could get it. If I can grind away at it, reduce it to bumper-sticker size while still keeping the analogy intact, maybe I’ll put it on something.
Sheriff #43 took down a bad guy. He shot ‘im dead, and when they picked up the bad guy’s gun we found out there weren’t any bullets in it.
Sheriff #44 says he can’t do any sheriff-ing until we move the bank to the sheriff’s office…but it seems he doesn’t know how to ride a horse.
Seems a peculiar brand of change to be requesting, let alone demanding; but what do I know, I got outvoted.
Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse.
Things went bad under Hoover, then FDR took over and made them much worse, while blaming things on his predecessor…
Things went bad under Nixon/Ford, then Carter took over and made them much worse, while blaming things on his predecessor…
Things went bad under George W. Bush, then Obama took over. He’s blaming anything & everything bad, on FaPoBuAd, the Failed Policies of the Bush Administration.
The collection of outspoken folks who think things are about to get better — or will simply stay the same, not getting any worse — is limited to paid spokesmen, punch-drunk newspaper editors, democrat-party hucksters, drunks and druggies who haven’t woken up from January 20 just yet, and nameless-faceless speechwriters. Everyone else is in agreement with Yoda…including history herself.
The one thing that made by far the biggest impression on me about the joyful, tragic, thigh-slapping ya-gotta-be-kiddin’-me tale of Henrietta Hughes, is the list of comments under the story at Fort Myers News-Press (hat tip: Boortz). It’s just like Wikipedia — half a quart of relevant information for those willing to study the article itself, plus a five-gallon bucket of it if you’re willing to simply click through to the “Talk Page.” Henrietta’s a plant. Obviously. It’s a little silly that there’s any debate about it. And President Obama saw to it she got everything she wanted…since she was on camera, and he’s a bleeding-heart lib. Then he made sure he got the publicity for it. So far, everyone’s doing what they can be expected to do.
Well, you’re not likely to meet Henrietta Hughes or Barack Obama. What is useful, is to study the behavior of everyday folks. These are the people with whom you have to share a subway ride, or a freeway, or an office building. And this is a fascinating window into the souls of all of us.
Do select the option to read the oldest posts first. Pretty please. See what I see? For the first page and a half, no critical thinking whatsoever — none. Oh joy! She got a house! And she’ll live happily ever after!
This is how people think. It’s the “doughnut rule”: Once someone’s picked out the first glazed, or maple bar, it’s fair game. You can measure the consumption in pastries-per-minute. But until that first one’s been picked out, the box just sits, and sits, and sits. No one wants to go first.
That’s the way with noticing, by President Obama’s behavior, that it’s nearly impossible for Ms. Hughes not to be a plant. And, that if everything’s on the up-and-up, her problems are just beginning because of the taxes that have to be paid on her new home. And — gosh, it’d be nice to have some more details about what happened here, like how she got into this rally, what her 37-year-old son’s situation is, how things got to this point, and that really ugly one…what are all the other homeless people supposed to do, just wait in line for The Divine One to descend from heaven somewhere near them?
This is why I want you to read oldest-first. See the doughnut-rule in action. One or two dozen glittery comments from folks who’ll just let the naked Emperor parade right on by. By the third page, people have been given license to type in exactly what’s unsettling about this, what’s giving them second thoughts.
But the intellectual lightweights continue to lash out.
I think my favorite was AuPouvoir:
2:55:07 PM
I would like to know what else Mrs. Hughes needs, and how I might get it to her.
3:40:56 PM Replying to wickedlyscarlett:
I am so tired of these gimme gimme gimme types of people. Gimme a break!! They’re leaches!
You need to sit back and reflect.. there but for the grace of God, go YOU!
3:41:47 PM Replying to grannym1:
I am glad she is getting help, but SHE WAS PLANTED IN THE AUDIENCE. Someone knew of this problem and pulled strinsg so “Obama of the White Momma” would look good. This woman is no
better off then my grandson who can not get disabbilty or health insurance, unable to work, needs a hip repacement more whiney stuff. etc. So excuse me but poltics are just that. Obama of the White Momma, need more that this showy stuff. So get behind me Satan and lets help the economey instead of showing off !
You should be ashamed of yourself. I don’t even know you, and I’m ashamed of you.
You see the pattern I’m seeing?
You have the goo-gooders — and you have the every-man-for-himself s.o.b.’s. You have feel-good emotions — and you have logic and reason.
The goo-gooders do not deal in logic & reason at all. Many among their ranks will admit this readily. Who cares about what causes what, and what is the effect of what, when Ms. Hughes’ story just makes you feel so gosh darn good? Others will put up some kind of phony masquerade pretending that they are, in fact, dealing with logic…or a superior base of knowledge, anyway. We all are, after all, just a paycheck away from living in a car just like Henrietta Hughes, are we not? So you s.o.b.’s need to just think ahead, and anticipate where you’ll end up someday. Henrietta Hughes is you!
Now the s.o.b.’s work with a mixture of logic and emotion. Logic as in: Eh, Obama can’t give anybody a damn thing without taking it away from someone else. If massive blessings are about to rain down on someone due to the blessings flowing from the Substitute Jesus, there will have to be an equivalent plundering from someone else.
Here, we run into a basic fact about people and the way they behave. Parents, telling their children how people work, out of politeness leave this out…along with lots of other things. In fact, it’s right there on the list of Things I Know Now About People That I Wasn’t Told When I Was a Child — Item 16:
People who are overly concerned about their emotions, don’t want anyone else to be overly concerned with thinking.
So you see, this is why AuPouvoir is ashamed of someone she doesn’t even know. She’s overly concerned with her emotions, she doesn’t want grannyml to be concerned with thinking…even if it’s thinking about others who are worse-off than Henrietta Hughes, and/or are perhaps more deserving of assistance from others. This really has very little to do, and probably nothing to do, with helping others worse-off. It’s about a cheap and easy way to “prove” you’re a decent person.
If this reads like I’m picking on AuPouvoir and people like her, I’ve only just begun. There really is no appeal in cheap-and-easy ways to prove you’re a decent person…if, deep down, you already think of yourself that way. In fact, if you’re truly concerned about lightening the load of others, the very last thing you’re going to do is upload a post to the blog of the Fort Myers News-Press saying you’d “like to know what else Mrs. Hughes needs” so you can get it to her. If this was your concern, you wouldn’t even need to have it pointed out that gosh, maybe there are some other folks just as badly off as Ms. Hughes who haven’t managed to attract the publicity. You wouldn’t need to have that pointed out to you. You’d already know.
But the real scolding comes for the every-man-for-himself s.o.b.’s who deign to show their emotions. See, the goo-gooders are unhappy when the s.o.b.’s vocalize their thoughts; but they’re really, really unhappy when the s.o.b.’s vocalize their emotions. That, right there, is encroaching on the goo-gooders’ turf. It’s a turf thing; definitely a turf-thing. To the dedicated goo-gooder, emotions have one purpose and one purpose only, and that’s to showcase to each other what incredibly decent people we are. And goo-gooder is the only way any humans should ever be. All those other ones should just dry up and blow away.
They want a complete monopoly on emotions. They get to have their emotions — you aren’t allowed to have yours. Not unless you join them.
These are not stable people. For a number of reasons. For one thing, if they got exactly what they wanted, they’d be miserable. There wouldn’t be any humans left except goo-gooders…emotional goo-gooders…constantly communicating their emotions about how much they want to help poor people. Which would just stiffen the competition. They’d have to talk & type that much faster, to maintain their “King of the Mountain” status in wanting to get more help to Henrietta Hughes. It isn’t about helping Ms. Hughes, or talking about helping Ms. Hughes. It’s all about relativity. It’s a competition. A race. As in, ha ha, I’m better than you, I want to help Henrietta Hughes more than you do.
The other thing is, they want anyone not like them, to go away. Not to lose arguments…but to disappear. That is always a sign of instability. But as a general rule, every-man-for-himself s.o.b.’s are more productive than goo-gooders. People tend to get bitter about having things taken away from them, when they had plans insofar as what they were going to do with those things.
So the goo-gooders can’t really afford for the s.o.b.’s to go away, because someone has to be fleeced in order to fund their plans to get houses to people like Henrietta Hughes. They want something that, because of their own ambitions, they can’t have.
I suppose I could’ve left these thoughts un-typed. If President Obama’s chosen strategy is to put people like Ms. Hughes in his audiences as plants, I could’ve pointed this out any ol’ time. Indeed, I do think this is the Holy President’s Grand Strategy, and I do think there will be many, many more occasions to comment on it later on.
But when I do, I’ll make a point of observing not so much how He behaves, and how His audience-plant-of-the-month behaves…but how others behave. There won’t be a lot of variation to it. The doughnut-rule will apply, and Item #16 will apply too. So, too, will Thing I Know #266:
People will flock, like moths to flame, to a way of showcasing some inner decency that is costless and doesn’t really mean anything.
It amounted to a do-over for tax-cheat and guy-who-runs-the-I.R.S. Timothy Geithner.
For Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner as much as for the troubled government program to bail out the financial system, Tuesday amounted to a do-over.
Initial reviews for the man and his plan were not good, however. Stock markets slid through the day, perhaps spurred downward by withering punditry on the business-news cable channels faulting Mr. Geithner for not providing more details, particularly on stemming home foreclosures. Senators of both parties lodged similar complaints at a hearing.
“I haven’t heard yet how we’re going to solve this problem,” Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, told the Treasury secretary more than three hours into the Senate Banking Committee hearing.
With a formal speech, live television interviews and then his Senate appearance, Mr. Geithner announced the Obama administration’s overhaul of the Bush administration’s bank bailout program, which had proved largely ineffective at getting credit flowing again.
I have a really thin paperback on my bookshelf. It’s called “Government plans to meddle in the economy, that worked.” It’s up there, sandwiched among “Republicans who survived scandals,” “democrats who didn’t” and “Movies made from video games that don’t suck.”
Seriously. As I just said last night, I’m flabbergasted at how quickly this whole party is over. “Party,” not as in political party, but that huge cocktails-and-LSD bash that was The Annointed One’s inaugural festivities. Where’s all that hopey-changey goodness? I wish I was happy about all this failure as the Obamatons keep saying I/we are. I’m not. I’m about as happy as I am when I’m watching one of those scary movies, and the girl’s walking backwards after the lights have gone out, muttering “Bobby is that you? It’s not funny anymore”…and doing drugs…and fornicatin’…pretty much breaking all the rules. And you have the scary music going on, and she hears a noise but it turns out to be the cat…and then she runs into the REAL KILLER and gets her head lopped off. Yeah, just like that. “*Sigh* Couldn’t have seen that one coming.” How quickly we reach the turning point, is surprising. That we did — not so much.
That killer rush of hopey-changey goodness, that is.
The headline isn’t what grabbed me. It was the fact that the FARK thread already had 27 comments, even though it had been red-lit, which is a little unusual. (So if you want to read it, you have to purchase a TOTALFARK membership.)
Oh, and just so you don’t have to ask…yes, there are some Obama defenders in there. And their argument is…Y-A-W-N…if you don’t agree with them about everything, you’re an idiot.
Which is the same argument six-year-olds use when they’re really, really ticked off.
Just you remember though, the one thing you cannot accuse The Annointed One of having done, is breaking a campaign promise. He made very few of those.
Well…I’m sure things will work out much better from here-on-out. Presidential administrations very often straighten-out and fly-right after stumbling out of the gate. It happens frequently. Frequently. Let me think…lemme think…
I’ll get back to you on that.
On the other hand, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen one cartoon sum up such a big mess, with just the right mix of biting humor and poignancy. Adam Zyglis, Buffalo News.
I thought it was interesting a few minutes ago when I noticed my local paper’s editorial section has four cartoons — all four of them are dedicated to a common theme. That these “Wall Street executives” are receiving huge bonuses and compensation for their experience, and it’s just a big crock.
One sympathizes. Who among us hasn’t worked for a large company, and seen his own division placed under the tutelage of a “seagull manager.” Who among us cannot recall one or several seagull managers brought in from the wreckage of some previous failure, often compensated to ludicrous extremes both in the past & present. Who among us cannot recall the resulting plummet in morale. Yes, experience can be overblown; in fact, the purported effort to compensate “appropriately” for experience, can be a half-hearted effort to camouflage something that could be called, with more than a hint of accuracy, bribery.
What is of interest to me, is Mr. Geithner’s fiasco. It’s just in our rear-view mirror, not too much distance between where that is, and where we are. We just went through it. For those who have been living in a cave, Mr. Geithner had thousands of dollars of unsettled tax issues, bearing the imprint of the weakest excuse there ever was — “I forgot.” The position to which he was nominated, is our nation’s top tax dude. And he was confirmed. Why? Because in times like these, we need his experience.
This is merely the latest example of the oldest rule in Washington: “Do as I say, not as I do.”
So is there anything at all that we could call the Geithner rule, something that takes the news and hardens it into precedent, allowing at least some of us a measure of forgiveness for our own innocent mistakes?
I think so, but you’ll have to bear with me. It goes like this:
Mr. Geithner got a pass on his tax problems because we really, really like him. So he gets a highly individualized form of amnesty. Sort of a personalized “olly olly oxen free.”
Also, we really, really need him. It’s almost like what Princess Leia said in Star Wars: “You’re my only hope.”
So if there’s a Geithner rule, it is extremely narrow. I believe that we should call it the olly olly oxen free, Obi-Wan Kenobi amnesty. If you are the nation’s only hope, you might qualify.
Here’s a simple test: Is your name Timothy F. Geithner? No?
See you at the audit.
Yeah, I think the rule is just a tad different. It has to do with experience. It’s a precious commodity if you work in government, especially if your job is to take money away from people who earned it. Not so much if you work in business and are tasked with making things happen that actually produce the wealth that the government will be taking away.
With its experienced people running the collection proceedings, and what-not.
Do you realize the utter devastation this mindset encounters if it is opened to just a tiny bit of challenge? Let’s try it: Once in awhile, here and there, a businessman will be experienced and his experience will really count for something — compensated or not. Money will then roll in, which means Geithner’s IRS will come knocking. To take that money. The continuing operations of the government will be counting on it, since experienced people like Geithner will be moving the money around, not actually producing it, which is an entirely different thing.
The experienced people running our government will therefore be tasked with “appreciating” the experience of others…for the purpose of confliscating the money that resulted from that experience. Not for the purpose of compensating it appropriately. Only they, with their experience moving money around, may be compensated for their experience — which, in turn, is useless if there’s no money to be confiscated or moved around.
In fact, they’re about to use their experience to limit the compensation that may be made for experience in the private sector. Yeah, right now that limit is to apply only to firms that accept bailout money. If it passes. But that’s for now.
Bottom line: We’re still in the process of figuring out if there’s really a bunch of “hope in the air” after this changing-of-the-guard last month. Perhaps the status quo is much better now than it was previously. Perhaps it does make sense in the final analysis. Maybe the folks running the show really know what they’re doing. But if that’s the case, experience counts for — something extreme. All, or nothing. One or zero. No fractions allowed.
And it counts if you work in government, which produces nothing, and doesn’t count at all in business — where we absolutely, positively, must expect things to improve if the economy is ever gonna get turned around.
One wonders what these maybe-experienced, maybe-not business people are doing to create that money if whatever experience they have, doesn’t matter for squat. The mind boggles. If your scheme is to fly into Vegas and play the tables, you have to have experience to do that, right? If it involves just doing some kind of rain-dance and hoping it’ll rain dollars and quarters, I would think experience would count there, too. So what is it we think these people do? Just grow hundred dollar bills, like an old man growing hair in his nose & ears?
Fellow Right Wing News contributor Melissa Clouthier is unimpressed with one of Barack Obama’s classic mistakes — exhibiting a classic telltale sign of bosses who don’t really understand what they’re doing, The Enlightened One is surrounding Himself with people unlikely to challenge whatever ideas of His might need challenging. That’s exactly what George Lucas did when he invented Jar Jar Binks.
[Obama] has surrounded himself with bland yes-men at every turn. First, it was Biden as Vice President. The latest is Tom Daschle at Health and Human Services. Mickey Kaus says:
Mickey’s Assignment Desk: Wherein lies the greatness of Tom Daschle? Just asking! … P.S. He’s always seemed to me the model of the modern Senate Majority Leader–i.e., the 50+ prima donnas that make up a majority don’t want a strong leader who might crowd their games, so they wind up with a Daschle, an amiable man who will not challenge them. …12:11 P.M.
So not only is President Obama acting immature, he’s surrounding himself with people who won’t challenge his wrong thinking and acting. That’s just great.
President Barack Obama is not acting like the leader of the free world. He’s acting like a kid who snuck into the White House and is playing pretend behind the big desk. Time to pinch yourself, President Obama, you’re really there and your words, actions and attitude matters.
Matter.
So anyhow, I just had to share my thoughts, because that’s just the kind of guy I am. And I’ve seen, perhaps, more management-mistakes made than the average bear. At least enough to make it a little tougher than usual to bite my tongue. And I’ve not been one to rise to that challenge anyway, why start now?
…I was giving the laymens’ reference material (Wiki) on Type-A and Type-B personalities a closer look, and I found the conventional wisdom made more sense than I had previously thought. I think most people misunderstand it. Type-A’s are generally not “secure” — the opposite is the case. Their grandiose displays of pomposity mask their internalized feelings of inadequacy. They are the guy driving the enormous or expensive set o’wheels, poorly endowed within the trousers.
One of the symptoms of a poor management style, is to fill all the subordinate layers of management with Type-A’s: All opinions expressed most quickly and most forcefully, must be most correct. Another classic symptom is to fill all the subordinate layers with Type-B’s because you yourself are Type-A. I think the latter of those two most accurately describe[s] the situation in our new executive branch.
Obama’s a better President than George W. Bush, because his limo is much bigger.
Asked if she wanted to drive it, [Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano,] the former Arizona governor replied: “You know, I haven’t driven for almost seven years.”
Bush’s limo appeared quite delicate next to the mean-looking Obama-mobile which had a scary front grill that looked like a plate of steel fangs and huge tires that could frighten potholes.
And forget about a spare tire, the trunk looks like it could fit another car in it if the limo gets a flat.
A second monster limo is in production and will be added to the presidential fleet when it’s ready. Guess it will be called “The Beast II”
Elsewhere in the news, Sen. Boxer is putting forward a great big bunch of “global warming principles“. For all Americans to follow. And by “all Americans” I mean you and me…not Boxer and Obama. Of course. They’re too good. Not like us.
Boxer chairs the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the starting point for global-warming legislation in the Senate. (A fellow Californian, Rep. Harry Waxman, chairs the House committee that will simultaneously launch its own global-warming push.) Her announcement today gave no details on emission-reduction targets or a host of other issues closely watched by business and environmental groups.
But it made several broad promises, in keeping with Boxer’s pledge for a less complicated bill than the cap-and-trade push that failed in the Senate last year. Among them:
* To reduce emissions “to levels guided by science to avoid dangerous global warming” and to set targets that are “certain and enforceable,” as well as adjustable.
* To maintain state and local anti-warming efforts.
* To utilize a market-based system — that means cap-and-trade, as opposed to a carbon tax, which some economists favor to reduce emissions.
* To use proceeds from the sales of emissions permits for a variety of uses, including: support for consumers, governments, businesses and workers (presumably to help offset higher energy prices under the system); investments in alternative energy; preserving wildlife and ecosystems threatened by warming; and money for developing nations to help them respond to warming.
* To ensure a “level global playing field … so that countries contribute their fair share to the international effort to combat global warming.”
Those left-wing politicians get more and more awesome every single day! Who knows what other rules they’ll be passing against us tomorrow, that they also won’t have to follow themselves.
One thing confuses me though.
Does their awesomeness create this two-layer set of rules, one for them and one for everybody else? Or is this “Do As I Say Not As I Do,” the thing that inspires their awesomeness? Or is it all just a big mystery, and their awesomeness all just falls into that big sloppy file folder marked “There’s Just Something About Him (Them)”?
There are two kinds of people in the electorate: 1. People who remember how horrible the Jimmy Carter years were. 2. People who are about to find out.
I never really said it was a day-brightener.
Maybe things will go differently this time around. There do seem to be substantially more people, nowadays, who understand it really is all up to them, and that the government really isn’t going to do too much besides shuffle money around and make new rules — which tends to screw things up more than straighten ’em out.
Ashton Kutcher, once his and wife Demi Moore’s celebrity-paychecks have been deposited and they have their mobs of adoring fans, would like to be left alone.
Even though Kutcher has become the unofficial poster celebrity for Twitter, he decided to take to MySpace for his “brief retort to the critics”—after all, tweets are limited to a mere 140 characters each, and he has plenty to say.
Kutcher addresses many of the recent attacks against him…Among the highlights:
Kutcher admits it was probably wrong to air his complaints via the Web about his neighbor’s early-morning construction work, but argues he should be allowed to sleep in peace and quiet. “Yes I live a very fortunate life and for that I am very greatful [sic],” he writes. “I do however work for a living. I have a family that I support and a company that I run daily. And I cherish the 4 to 6 hours that I sleep a day.”
:
As for his new love of twittering, he insists he and wife Demi Moore hope it helps them better connect with their fans. “We have dedicated ourselves to building a coalition to abolish 21st century slavery and are smart enough to know that we can’t do it alone,” he explained. “But truth be told we are having fun connecting with people and if we are to be defamed for doing so, so be it.”
This is my third post about Ashton Kutcher and his big blow-up at the construction folks; perhaps my obsession is due to the weirdness of the juxtaposition between everyday “owl feces cougar placenta jack bone dick!” Ashton, and the “I Pledge” Ashton.
Let’s be fair to Ashton; we are all Ashton Kutcher.
Or at least, all the folks who voted for Obama wanting to bring about this “hope and change.” There’s a little bit of Ashton Kutcher in each of ’em.
The thing that shines through here, about which it seems nobody wants to talk really, is that it’s really hard to keep your perspective on things like voting for strangers you’ll never actually meet, and seeing a dividend come out of that in your everyday life. Barack Obama can’t stop construction workers from waking up Ashton Kutcher earlier than Ashton wants to be woken up, any more than Obama can find some qualified nominees whose taxes are in order. But who cares? The American political scene has a systolic and a diastolic. When the current-year is divisible by four, people care. When it isn’t, they don’t. They forget all about the pledges they took to be better people, “meet my neighbors,” “find out their name,” “give ’em a smile”…and start tweeting on Twitter about owl feces jaguar dick, or what-not.
As for the twenty-first century slavery, I have no idea what he’s talking about there. (I checked his page and he doesn’t elaborate.) I would think the first step to abolishing it would be defining it.
Could he be talking about members of Congress who impose tax rules on the rest of us, and then ignore their own rules?
Well, that’s the lesson here. Those know-it-alls from last year who were so sure Obama was the answer to all the nation’s problems, don’t really care. They’re just a bunch of Ashtons. And deep down, I think they all understand they weren’t really making a logically effective or beneficial decision, quite so much as participating in a social event; wanting to “Be A Part Of This Thing.” During the odd-numbered years they really don’t give two shits one way or t’other.
That should be of intense interest to the rest of us. It ought to captivate our attention enough for us to remember the next time we walk into a voting booth, because during the odd-numbered years, people in power are still making decisions. Even when the people who voted for them, have forgotten all about the whole thing and are busy tweeting away and cussing out construction workers.
At some point, this nomination has to be more trouble than it’s worth. After all, no one will buy the notion that Daschle’s “uniquely qualified” for the HHS position as some did with Geithner at Treasury. The HHS position is a payback for Daschle’s support in the primaries, and Obama has a perfect excuse now to dump Daschle regardless of loyalty. By keeping his tax problems secret, he’s proven rather untrustworthy.
And that gets to the heart of why the Senate should have rejected Geithner and why they should refuse to confirm Daschle. It’s a matter of trust. Neither man shows a compelling reason why they should have the public’s trust placed in them. Both men will run vast bureaucracies and enforcement mechanisms, Geithner especially. The public has the right to demand people with proven accountability, not people who blame their accountants — or their accounting programs.
Unfortunately, the public hasn’t demanded it, in part because the press has been willing to portray these as “glitches”. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) noted the double standard of the press in covering the Obama administration and its obvious ethical issues, and wondered if a Bush nominee with even one-tenth the tax issues of Daschle would have gotten such supportive coverage. If Daschle had been Republican, we would have seen screaming headlines pointing out how out of touch the free limo service would be for a nation struggling with economic crisis, and how Bush did nothing but appoint fat cat lobbyists to positions of power. The silence along those lines with Daschle and Obama speaks loudly.
It’s a brand new hopey-changey world, but that means more than what some folks think it means, especially with regard to double standards.
Before people were getting sworn in to these awesomely-powerful positions in our government, all this talk about double standards was kind of…funny. Maybe noteworthy, if you were a tighty-righty. In some cases, perhaps, more than a little bit whiny.
Now, it’s a warning siren, as serious as any fire alarm or air raid horn.
You need to be paying attention, no matter where your political beliefs are. This is a double standard that benefits people in charge, who are facing no opposition on anything, anywhere. Yes, perhaps Geithner was worse, and it’s too late to stop him. But it really says something about Obama — if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt in the Jeremiah Wright matter, and make up your mind he was somehow “fooled” into what that nut was all about — that here the Chosen One is, a couple weeks into His first term, and here He is getting “fooled” all over again.
Seriously, how do you explain this? As Messianic geniuses go, this guy seems to get fooled an awful lot. If you really buy that, it must be like watching Wiley Coyote chase that roadrunner…safe on the head…rocket-roller-skates into the cliff…train coming out of the painted-on tunnel…meep meep.
Or, you could simply entertain the notion that perhaps He isn’t really being fooled. Dude is from Chicago, after all. Something to think about.
His Holiness’ loyal followers are ticked off at Him, because He signed an executive order that appears to preserve the legitimacy of renditions, a controversial procedure in which scumbags are shipped off from countries that prohibit torture, whatever that is, to other countries that do not.
The CIA’s secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.
But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes — for taking suspected terrorists off the street.
You catch that last bit?
Counter-terrorism efforts are contending with an ever-diminishing inventory of “mechanisms” they can use to take “terrorists off the street.” Pre-Obama, the problem has become so incapacitating that shipping the scumbags off to other countries is now “the main remaining mechanism.”
But the big news here, is that the banner is correct. Liberals are never quite happy with the status quo. You put ’em in charge of freakin’ everything…and oh dear, we’re still not quite good people just yet. Need another revolution.
And the profound irony is that it’s all about making us decent. But to most people, including quite a few Obama voters, allowing a terrorist attack to go ahead and make a smoking crater out of an American city filled with old people, women and children, just so you can go on the next day and brag about what an exquisitely-refined set of faux-European human-rights “values” you have — doesn’t make you decent.
Lest we forget, former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt called President Bush “a miserable failure” in a presidential debate on September 4, 2003.
This witticism was taken up by Michael Moore and other leftwing internet scamps, who did their best to make sure that any Google search for the phrase “miserable failure” would return a link to President Bush’s official White House biography as its top result.
But now that Mr. Obama’s official biography now resides on that same page, the Solons at Google have decided this is unacceptable.
Detecting new “Googlebombs” Saturday, January 24, 2009
Posted by Matt Cutts, Software Engineer
Though the spirit of change may be in the air in Washington, some things apparently stay the same. Yes, the old online prank called “Googlebombing” returned for a brief while recently, when Google searches for the words words [failure] and [cheerful achievement] returned President Obama’s biography as the top result.
You may remember this issue from a few years ago, when the query [miserable failure] led to the biography of President Bush. For some reason, all those links pointing to the Bush bio were redirected to Obama’s. Some people have asked in the past whether these results are a sign of political bias on Google’s part, and we’ve explained that this isn’t the case.
Rather than edit these prank results by hand, we developed an algorithm a few years ago to detect Googlebombs. We tend not to run it all the time, because it takes some computing power to process our entire web index and because true Googlebombs are quite rare (we joke around the Googleplex that more articles have been written about Googlebombs than there are actual examples of Googlebombs).
After we became aware of this latest Googlebomb, we re-ran our algorithm and it detected the Googlebomb for [cheerful achievement] as well as for [failure]. As a result, those search queries now return discussion about the Googlebombs rather than the original pages that were returned. [emphasis duplicated from Sweetness & Light post]
Huh. Well, to be fair, this one should go into the ever-thickening “Change Obama Is Really Making And Just By Being His Statuesquely Righteous Awesome Self” file folder. Hope! Change!
Maybe I should mend my ways and start writing letterspraying.
I’m gonna go watch me Bruce Almighty one more time to give myself some more ideas of what to put in my next letter to He Who Has Ended Googlebombing. I can do without the seven fingers and my girlfriend already has huge tits, but I like that thing with moving all the cars out of the way so I can zip on down the street in my Saleen S7 whenever I want.
If ya can’t lick ’em, join ’em.
Feel free to leave me some more ideas for my letter in the comments below.
I couldn’t watch the swearing-in ceremony last night. The spectacle was so disgusting I just turned off the television.
This was the mastermind behind the last bailout plan and TARP .. the “Troubled Asset Relief Program.” Yeah, that’s working real well, isn’t it? Yup, there was Timothy Geithner, tax cheat extraordinaire, being sworn in as the Secretary of the Treasury. This, my friends, is change we can believe in.
Geithner can thank his lucky stars that he’s a Democrat. There is just no way in the world that he would ever have been confirmed had he been a Republican. The media and the Democrats would have been on him like a crow on a June bug. We have an economic crisis, so we’re told that its just fine if we have a willful tax cheat running the department that includes the Internal Revenue Service.
Now … let’s get on with the nationalization of the banks.
I love this administration already. This is a President i can believe in. It is the coolest President of my life time. By the way, i am too young to see what Reagan, and Bush Presidents looked like.
President Obama is cool like cat, smart as whip and current as Silicon Valley nerds.
Indeed, a Change i can believe in. I can’t wait till he put the whole government business online.
Yeah, a YouTube channel just for that poor alien down in Area 51 so we know exactly how he’s being poked, prodded and waterboarded, right before He Who Walks On Water makes ’em let the little fella go. And by the way I know nothing about any other Presidents, but this is the coolest one there’s ever been anyway.
I saw this design on a tee shirt advertisement somewhere, and I’ve been looking and looking for it ever since. Still no go. Google is not built for searching for specific images. The tee shirt might’ve even been yanked down. I don’t want to steal a great idea like this, but it would be an even bigger crime to let it go to waste.
And we’re gonna need it. Big time.
Let all who doubt this will come in handy, feast their eyes on what John Hawkins found on YouTube. View only on an empty stomach.
It’s your favorite movie stars! And they’re going to do…a whole bunch of great, wonderful things…that they could’ve been doing anytime in the last eight years.
But they can only cure diseases and end hunger when a democrat is running the show.
Boys and girls, that is today’s lesson in how to make others look like a wild-eyed, overly-zealous, partisan hack — when it’s really you.
Well, I pledge to remain consistent. I bitched about George Bush’s policies when I disagreed with them. And I’m going to continue with my…whatchamacallit…”real patriotic dissent” or what-not, with the new guy.
Consistency. Let’s see the other folks pledge some of that.
Update: Via Gerard, a great argument from Victor Davis Hanson, writing in Pajamas Media “Works and Days” on why we might go inconsistent in the other direction.
It’s enough to send the Microsoft Word grammar-checker into an apoplectic fit. But it makes a great point. Worth a think or three —
If you are a civil libertarian, if you are in the ACLU or a law professor, or a liberal in good standing who swore that George Bush from Texas, with strut and twang and mangled vocabulary, destroyed your liberties with FISA, with the Patriot Act, and with Iraq, then please extend that outrage to Barack Obama, for whom all such shredding of the Constitution suddenly has become merely complex and problematic rather than fascistic. Please list, cite, name just one instance from 2002-8 in which you lost your freedom, or you were censored on the library internet, or you were followed around by the FBI, or your letter to the editor earned a wiretap, or even one instance of the loss of any freedom under Bush—and if so, just one example of how the election of Obama has once again restored your lost liberty. Nothing in the abstract, please—something concrete, an example both real and personal. [emphasis mine]
Ah…gosh, it really doesn’t look like it. But it could very well be. So long as it’s noted that the idea wasn’t originally mine, as inspired as it is, I’m happy.
And I’m looking forward to adding that shirt to my collection. All those other tee shirts I have imploring people not to vote for liberals — they seem a tad bit dated now.
The phrase “In Times Like These” is repeated over and over and over again. Invariably, it’s placed in front of a proposal that, in another setting, would make no sense at all. And still doesn’t. It’s only discussed in vague, highly generalized terms…right after that magical phrase, “In Times Like These.” We have to “stick together,” “in times like these.”
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND, defending his decision to join all his fellow democrats in voting to recommend tax cheat Timothy Geithner to become Treasury Secretary — running, among other things, the IRS in the new hopey-changey administration:
One committee member, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., a former tax commissioner, said in normal times, Geithner’s failure to pay his taxes would have led Conrad to oppose the nomination.
“But these are not normal times,” Conrad said. He said the economy’s not “out of the woods” and touted Geithner’s extensive experience at a time when the country needs a treasury secretary imminently.
These are not normal times. These are whacky times. These are such strange times, that I have to vote to dump a bucket of gasoline on this burning house, that’s just how bad the house is aflame. Wet is dry, up is down, stupid is smart, kids are wise and experienced, and darn it we just gotta have a tax commissioner who could’ve settled his bills with the IRS any time, and chose to finally get ‘er done when Obama was about to nominate him. That actually makes perfect sense, when it otherwise would not, because these are the times that try mens’…brains.
Why not just come out and say it?
In times like these, we need a monarchy. We need paupers and peers. We need two sets of rules, one for the upper-crusters and one for the riff-raff.
This “nation of laws, not of men” stuff is a luxury we can no longer afford, right?
We need one. The comin’-together has gone beyond what’s helpful, and yes I really, really mean that. I’ve been told for the last eight years that the 43rd President was stigmatizing dissent, and now that he’s gone just three days his predecessor’s administration is “quashing” dissent more completely and more effectively than Bush could’ve ever dreamed.
Trouble is, life is motion — eliminate motion, you have to eliminate life. If we’re all sitting around waiting for the Godlike Being at 1600 Pennsylvania to come up with the ideas, there’s no point for any of the rest of us to be here. Deep down, we all know this is true whether we want to admit it or not.
But we aren’t being given the information needed to argue about anything.
So what do we argue about? Here’s a great idea from Buck.
…there was a recurrent theme in the posts the milbloggers I read put up yesterday, and that thought is… “Mr. Obama is MY president, regardless of whether I voted for him or not.” The attitude is both recognizable and understandable to anyone who’s ever served, mainly because the president is also the Big Boss when you wear the uniform. As such, respect for the Commander-in-Chief isn’t just desirable… it’s mandatory… and that respect is something that is instilled in every person who wears the uniform from Day One.
I’m beginning to think Universal Service isn’t such a bad idea, after all. But then again, some people just can’t be taught manners… which includes respect… no matter how hard you try. And don’t feed me any ifs, ands, or buts about someone, anyone, who serves in a position of authority not deserving your respect. I’ve worked for a whole helluva lot of people in my life I didn’t like, including a couple of CinCs, but I damned sure respected their position and authority. It’s all part of being an adult, yanno?
Do we want Obama to fail?
That question deserves much better elaboration before it can be answered. The job is a large, important, complex one. The President is Commander-in-Chief. He is also Propagandist-in-Chief. Obama has the responsibility to see to it the country can weather the latest storm. He will also do his darndest to make sure we have a new generation of people who think it’s good to “spread the wealth around.” The first of those is the continuing survival of the nation; the second of those is toxic to the continuing survival of the nation.
It is therefore self-contradictory to hope Obama succeeds at everything.
My prayer?
That his fuck-ups be confined to the trivial things that don’t matter. And that the citizens take full advantage of this four-year opportunity for learning.
Victor Davis Hanson sums up this week nicely. Hat tip to Rick.
As Obama begins to govern and as the public sees that he simply borrowed Bush’s foreign policy rhetoric, jazzed it up with his cadences and pauses, and then took either Bushites or Democratic centrists and called them hope and change…and as the gaffes begin…the fawning media will begin to look embarrassed, then ridiculous, and finally completely bankrupt. They offered no audit of Obama, no tough treatment, no honest examination of his flips, no balance in their treatment of Bush, and they will soon pay a terrible price for that derelection and worse, as the public sees them as the state megaphones that they have so sadly become.
The running family joke is that each morning, as I pull the complimentary newspaper into the hotel room and read the headline on Page A1 above-the-fold, it’s always the same: “He’s Still Awesome!” But there really isn’t too much joke to it. Truly newsworthy events? Just one: He signed something about closing down Gitmo in a year.
The rest of it is just fluff. All of it. New era, Michelle’s gown, hope is in the air, so much work to do, He confronts a crisis.
It has been a long-held tenet within the leftist schools-of-thought that a truly independent and free press is vital to the liberty of those who consider themselves to be living within a free society. This is one of the more respectable leftist axioms (it certainly beats the snot out of — When you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody).
Well, if that’s true then we just lost our liberty.
If I simply traveled back in time a year or two with video footage and archived newsclippings of this nonsense, the people back then would consider it to be humor. And not good humor. The left-wingers back then would pronounce it to be parody, unacceptable parody, ridiculous parody, “beyond the pale.” It would never happen, they’d intone.
We aren’t big on the SNUL (“Sorry No Updates Lately”) here at The Blog That Nobody Reads. However, some of the reasons for our light blogging lately are worthy of comment.
First, we’re on vacation. It’s not that we’re being militant about our relaxation, far from it. Folks who’ve been on vacation will know what I’m talking about; the hours have a way of just going somewhere, y’know?
But the other reason is a bit more important, we think. Millions of others see cause for hope, where we see cause for dread. The sense of urgency we feel in posting the latest thought is much greater, on those other occasions on which others see dread and we’re the ones seeing the hope. Hope is a far greater help than hindrance. You folks are feeling all hopey about your hopey-changey-goodness — far be it from us to urinate upon your parade.
However, along those lines…it’s worthy of pointing out once again. Responsible hope is a product of thought and not feeling. That goes for responsible dread, too. What we have here is a situation in which feeling inevitably leads to hope, and thought inevitably leads to dread.
Let’s comment specifically on some of the news bits. There aren’t very many of them this week, in fact, I think this list will be easier to make now than it ever will be again in my lifetime.
Millions Feel Hope: Yeah, because they were told to. Let’s ‘fess up: The news writer who jots down something that is entirely unrelated to You-Know-Who will become a pariah in the journalism community (something that shouldn’t exist in the first place); we will hear nothing about starving people in Burma, drought in Chad, earthquakes in India. A meteor could be thirty hours away from Earth, with apocalyptic consequences for us — and we’d never know. Let’s get candid about something else: If a news guy does jot down something about Whats-His-Face, and it isn’t flattering, that guy will be “on the outs” as well. Every single newspaper looks like the most-popular-kid’s yearbook at graduation time. Hugs! Kisses! That’s news now; may it rest in peace.
Government Will Become Transparent: Could be a good thing. But it doesn’t start-and-stop with transparent government. It’s intended to reduce the tactics and methods available for keeping the nation safe. To provide income for lawyers. Injunctions, suits, writs, et al, about to rise exponentially. That is the point.
The “Angry Black Man” Theme Being Put Out To Pasture: Yes, here, I’ll say something nice about Barack Obama and His Holy Event of being crowned as our new Holy Emperor. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes…A-freakin’-men. Young men of all races, stop pretending you’re Tupac Shakur or Notorious B.I.G. when you’re not Tupac, you didn’t know Tupac, you don’t know anyone who really is like Tupac, and nobody wants you to end up that way. Look people in the eye, stand up straight, say please and thank-you — and if your feet are size eighteen, people will see that without you fanning them out when you sit down like some urban peacock. Stop strutting. Offer those around you some identity (since you’re so desperately in search of one) that has something to do with something besides rage — your President can do it, you can do it. This is a great contribution The Annointed One has made to our culture, and we should make the most of it.
Curious, Introspective, As Contrasted With His Predecessor: I’ve been showered for two years with quotes from speeches, Dreams of My Father, Audacity Of Hope, et al. I’ve yet to hear of a single thing Barack Obama knows about anything culminating from some tidbit of information some person, named or unnamed, gave him. To the best I can find out, He simply “knows” stuff and “thinks” stuff. Is there some anecdotal evidence to the contrary? There is much being written about Him this week, and I have yet to see any of it. It comes down to this: I don’t really know this is a guy who can be told anything He isn’t already prepared to hear.
Information Revolution: With all due respect, don’t be such a silly ass. Obama as an electoral phenomenon, as I’ve been pointing out for the better part of a year, is the antithesis of specificity. How does even the laziest mindset reconcile this? Details flying around in the air, thick and fast, during the Bush Presidency…Katrina…Waterboarding…Weapons of Mass Destruction…North Korea…380+ ppm of carbon in the atmosphere. Suddenly, now that we’ve got a new guy in, it’s all just good feelings — NO hard data anywhere. But we’re supposed to believe facts are being grappled-with now, and weren’t before? How ya figger? Seriously? The only answer I can produce, is that these are grown-up children doing the talking. They want the facts confronted and used for responsible decision-making, but they want them confronted and used by someone else — some “daddy” somewhere — keeping all that hard work away from them. Proxy thinking. We’re being told what to think, by people who are accustomed to dutifully thinking what they’re told to think by yet others.
Michelle Wore (Fill-in-the-Blank): Gag. The sidebar that mentions this should be a sidebar and nothing more, the size of a book of postage stamps. The stories that mentioned this about Laura Bush, if I recall, were the size of a large cup of coffee lying on its side. These stories about Michelle’s dresses cover multiple pages. I don’t really know what her husband is going to do about Guantanamo, or global warming, or what his position is on bailouts, or the Fairness Doctrine, and neither do you. I’m told people shouldn’t be blogging because they don’t have the credentials to prove they’ll be doing journalism right. Is it too much to ask that we see some of that so we know what it looks like? I ask for specifics, I get a link to The Holy One’s web site. Web sites are the dream communicative medium of the public figure who wishes to avoid specific commitments; they can be changed overnight, in an hour, in the blink of an eye. And Obama has a history of such deceipt. The history He does not have, is one of telling us specifically what He’s going to do, in such a way that He’ll be compelled to stick to what He says through thick & thin.
How (Obama/Michelle/Some Movie Starlet) Spent (His/Her/Its) Day, Hour-By-Hour: The demand for this kind of information must exist. It must be keen enough to supplant any demand for other more worthwhile bits of information, that have been evicted from these pages to make room. If you think that isn’t a problem of some kind, you’re nuts. This is why the bitching bloggers are doing their bitching. Yes, they have nothing to bitch about; that much is true. That’s why they’re/we’re bitching. And it’s worthwhile bitching, because things should not be this way.
So Busy, So Much To Do, He Confronts Long List, Confronting a Crisis, Lots of Work, et al: If I hear or read it one more freakin’ time…so help me…SO HELP me…
The one thing that made by far the biggest impression on me about the joyful, tragic, thigh-slapping ya-gotta-be-kiddin’-me tale of Henrietta Hughes, is the list of comments under 
The experienced people running our government will therefore be tasked with “appreciating” the experience of others…for the purpose of confliscating the money that resulted from that experience. Not for the purpose of compensating it appropriately. Only they, with their experience moving money around, may be compensated for their experience — which, in turn, is useless if there’s no money to be confiscated or moved around.
Asked if she wanted to drive it, [Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano,] the former Arizona governor replied: “You know, I haven’t driven for almost seven years.”
Time to get out the banner again.
