Archive for the ‘Obamamania’ Category

His Blank Slate IX

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Obama gave Himself a B+ on Oprah Winfrey’s show. To which I asked, along with all sane people, “Hey waitaminnit…it’s a little late for Him to still have time to pop up on the boob tube all weekend long isn’t it?” I mean, what happened to all those messes that had to be mopped up? That health care bill that has to be passed by the end of the year no matter what (for some reason)? He got tired of people telling Him He was holding the mop wrong, and went back on the teevee circuit?

Did He ever get off of it?

FrankJ has a report card of his own to hand to PrezBO. And it doesn’t have B+ on it anywhere, from what I can make out…

Being Able to Spend America’s Money in a Somewhat Rational Manner: F

Understand Basic Principle that Spending More Money Increases Debt: F

Not Bowing to Everyone: F

Hiring People for His Administration Who Aren’t Radical Freaks that No Sane Man Would Have Any Dealings With: F

Not Getting Head Stuck in a Bucket: F

Presenting Image of a President Who Knows What He’s Doing and Isn’t Just Randomly Flailing Around: F

Having Normal Looking Ears: F

Kinda goes downhill from there…

You know what I’d like to see. There are some people out there who voted for Mister Wonderful last year, and aren’t sorry. That percentage figure is somewhere in the forties right about now…what I want to know is, how many of them are not only not sorry — but don’t see any reason to be. The ones who are just as happy with Him as they were fourteen months ago, or even happier.

The ones who think the rest of us should only have been cheering more and more wildly and loudly as this year has progressed.

Because man, that has got to be some bedrock right there. Get the straightjackets out for that crowd. They’re-coming-to-take-me-away, haha, ho ho, hee hee, those nice young men in their clean white coats…

It’s likely to be frightening how high that is. One in five. Maybe higher.

Barack Hussein Bush

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Barack Hussein BushMan, I’ll bet the anti-war zealots are really pissed.

I’m talking about Barry’s Nobel speech. Blogger friend Buck sent me an offline, curious about my thoughts, noting that Sarah Palin liked it more-or-less just fine. (We are, newcomers can tell from the artwork, decidedly in her camp; our New Mexico friend sees something wrong with the safety net, and at this late hour is opting to remain in the burning building.) “Caribou Barbie” includes, it should be noted, a caveat in her positive remarks:

But while blowing a kiss, Palin also took a jab, suggesting Obama study the actions of his predecessor as he navigates two wars abroad. “By the way, I’d like to see President Obama follow more closely in the footsteps of George Bush and his passion for keeping the homeland safe,” she said.

So naturally Buck wanted to know my reaction. Well, I played a round of Obama Speech Bingo with it last night. I didn’t count the word “my” as a “me,” and mostly because of this, by the time I made it to the end we were seven squares away from a total blackout. Pretty good speech. Bingo here, bingo there, bingo everywhere…

And by the time we were done — as is subtly indicated by iOwnTheWorld (hat tip to American Digest), as well as by Tundra Princess, it reads an awful lot like something the Crawford Village Idiot would say. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

I wonder how this happens?

Well as a general rule, when a committed politician starts talking common sense it’s only because he’s been backed into a corner and is left with no other alternative. Michael Moore didn’t like Obama’s decision on Afghanistan…that logic used by the filmmaker is the logic used by an eight-year-old, wanting to get something and not getting it…”It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around.” Bit it signals big trouble for the O-man. A quote attributed apocryphally to LBJ is “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” If Obama’s losing Moore, He’s losing all the tie-dyed anti-war Haight-Ashbury crackpots.

Why is He backed into a corner? Because He’s got a real job now, one that demands real decisions. The unicorns will have to leave the Oval Office now, and head on out to the marshmallow sparkly pastures where they belong so real-world decisions can be made.

For those who don’t understand what I’m talking about, the President’s speech provides most of what’s missing. Palin, once again, is right: It truly is a good speech — if He means what He says.

More trouble for Sort-of-God: Blogger friend Rick brings us a report that more people than ever would prefer to go back and undo the 2008 revolution:

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama’s declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they’d rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that’s somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country’s difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited. The closeness in the Obama/Bush numbers also has implications for the 2010 elections. Using the Bush card may not be particularly effective for Democrats anymore…

BarracudaWhich means the whole “Obama will take us in the right direction again” was never anything more than a brain fart…a “I’m just tired of real-world decision-making”…an “I wanna vacation.” And since we live in a three-dimensional universe of cause-and-effect, the appeal of the dalliance has come-n-gone. Time to wake up. Time to do some real-world living.

Except in the meantime, during our slumber we seem to have sworn the sandman into our nation’s highest office. Oopsie.

Real life continues to play out like the finest Palin-in-2012 commercial money could possibly buy. The contest, still three years off, is being set up rather neatly and I think this is a healthy thing. Workhorses versus unicorns. Understanding and stating what needs to be done, versus dissembling and equivocating. A woman with all the right enemies versus a guy with all the wrong friends. Wife and mother, versus false prophet. A governor who left ’em wanting more, versus a President who’s gonna hang around three more years like a bad smell whether we want Him or not. “You betcha” versus “uh, uh, um, er, uh.”

Even Buck is seeing some redeeming qualities in the Barracuda:

Comment of the Day…
… over at Lex’s place, on the subject of Miss Alaska, her recent editorial in the WaPo, and Leftie reax to same:

OldT6Flyer
December 9th, 2009 at 3:19 pm · Reply

The best thing about Sarah Palin is the every time she speaks the reaction from the left is so over the top that any rational person has to say: “What could possibly be that interesting?” and proceeds to tune into the Sarah Palin channel which, even if she’s not totally your cup of tea, comes across as a reasonable sort, especially in comparison to her tormentors, who are found writhing in the corner, foaming at the mouth, and generally making asses of themselves. As a bonus the so called “women’s movement” groups get exposed as, not all that interested in promoting women at all seeing how their silence at the obvious attacks on a leading WOMAN go strangely unanswered.

So no matter what you might think of Sarah Palin you’ve just got to love the apoplexy she causes on the left. If she didn’t exist somebody would need to invent her for the cause.

Yup. What Ol’ T-6 Flyer said. It’s well-known in certain circles that I’m a Palin skeptic even though I haven’t posted a whole helluva lot on the subject here in the home space. Which is by way of saying I’ve engaged a lot on the subject of La Palin in comments on other folks’ blogs. I’ve yet to drink the Arctic Princess’ Kool-Aid and I truly believe it’s way too damned early to be talking about 2012 presidential candidates. But… two things: (a) I simply LOVE the way she makes the Lefties go completely bonkers and (b) I totally enjoy crossing swords with zealots of any persuasion. And who knows? I might jump on the Palin bandwagon if she keeps on making sense and causing coronaries on the Left. Especially the latter.

What’s it all mean? Nothing more or less than what I’ve been saying for years.

People — call this liberalism, or call it something else — live in “Candyland,” where no tough decisions are ever necessary, when they feel like they can afford to live there. When all their food is slaughtered or grown and harvested and cleaned and sanitized and inspected and shrink-wrapped and delivered to their doorsteps.

Someone still has to grow that food. Which means truck in some fertilizer, the necessity of which might not be appreciated by those who merely consume the food. Shoot some predators, poison some predators, round up the predator-bodies, plow, irrigate, clean and maintain the farming equipment, clean and maintain the equipment that cleans & maintains the farming equipment…

Just because our daily wants and needs are met without too much fuss & bother from us, doesn’t mean we live in a snow globe. Things have to get done in order to make our lofty, comfortable existence possible. It doesn’t matter one bit whether we understand this necessity or not.

Twits like Michael Moore are like images in paintings, passing judgment on the brush strokes being used to bring them into “existence.” It’s all fine and good that he’s got opinions about stuff. But your mere dependence on these things is not a qualification for you to speak about the necessity of doing them, or lack of necessity. It’s something of a disqualification, if anything. If your existence depends on things getting done, and you yourself can’t see past these links-in-the-chain so you understand how these things are important, it means you’re spoiled and you can’t be relied-on to take inventory of all the staples required for your day-to-day being.

Image Credit: Mike Ely.

Twilight of Honeymoon X

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Wow is it ever getting dark lately.

I notice something lately about these gaffes of Holy Man’s: They represent, for the most part, all there is to discuss about the administration. The policy debates have been pretty dull, after all. They go like this…Barry got an idea; if you’re one of the hardcore hope-and-change zealots you put out this phony-baloney pastiche of “Hmmm,” stroking your chin thoughtfully as we ponder how, let’s say as an example, cash-fer-clunkers is gonna work out over the long term.

The rest of us who live in the real world roll our eyes one more time. It isn’t even skepticism, it’s more of an “Omigaw, I hope this isn’t as expensive a blunder as that Swindle-us thing.”

But He only hauls out a new one of those every two or three months or so. The “Sort-of-God Doesn’t Know How to Behave Himself” theme reverberates every week, sometimes multiple times a week.

As I write this, the award ceremony is in full swing, and Barry is sitting in the audience with a monstrously smug look upon his face, reminding me more of one of the thug type football players just drafted with his chin up in the air. Football watchers know what I mean. Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem you can take Barry anywhere[.]

Barack Obama’s trip to Oslo to pick up his Nobel peace award is in danger of being overshadowed by a row over the cancellation of a series of events normally attended by the prizewinner.

Norwegians are incensed over what they view as his shabby response to the prize by cutting short his visit.

The White House has cancelled many of the events peace prize laureates traditionally submit to, including a dinner with the Norwegian Nobel committee, a press conference, a television interview, appearances at a children’s event promoting peace and a music concert, as well as a visit to an exhibition in his honour at the Nobel peace centre.

He has also turned down a lunch invitation from the King of Norway.

According to a poll published by the daily tabloid VG, 44% of Norwegians believe it was rude of Obama to cancel his scheduled lunch with King Harald, with only 34% saying they believe it was acceptable.

Good job, Chump! Pissing off yet another ally.

He’s like the Captain Marvel of democrat politicians. Bill Clinton’s respect for the American spirit; Al Gore’s exaggerated perception of one’s own achievements; Ted Kennedy’s raw, predatory narcissism; FDR’s bullshit vision of countries spending themselves out of recession; Jimmy Carter’s competence; and here, on display, we see Lyndon Johnson’s manners.

One cannot help but wonder how, behind closed doors, the committee sees this decision in hindsight. They’ve handed out this award to make political statements before, and they’ll do it again. Will their regret over this year’s humiliating events slow them down a little tiny bit from doing it? Do they even see the connection?

Over here, it’s quite surreal. It is rather like watching the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau try to figure out what to do, after inheriting a large estate or being elected to some high office. You know some “punchline” is coming, something that will make you giggle and groan — you don’t know how and you don’t know when. But you know it’s coming…again and again and again.

Sen. Tom Hayden: I’m Stripping the Obama Sticker Off My Car

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

Revealing, albeit not surprising:

Obama’s escalation in Afghanistan is the last in a string of disappointments. His flip-flopping acceptance of the military coup in Honduras has squandered the trust of Latin America. His Wall Street bailout leaves the poor, the unemployed, minorities, and college students on their own. And now comes the Afghanistan-Pakistan decision to escalate the stalemate, which risks his domestic agenda, his Democratic base, and possibly even his presidency.

The expediency of his decision was transparent. Satisfy the generals by sending 30,000 more troops. Satisfy the public and peace movement with a timeline for beginning withdrawals of those same troops, with no timeline for completing a withdrawal.

Obama’s timeline for the proposed Afghan military surge mirrors exactly the 18-month Petraeus timeline for the surge in Iraq.
:
This is not like the previous conflict with Bush and Cheney, who were easy to ridicule. Now this orphan of a war has a persuasive advocate, a formidable debater…

“Easy to ridicule.” There’s a window into the hard-left liberal mind.

In my list of Fifty Fucking Sick Things, items 10-13 deal with liberals directing a frothy rage toward women, blacks, Jews and homosexuals who happen to believe in something conservative — a special nastiness that will not ever be experienced by six-foot straight white guys keeping all twenty-one digits, like myself. President Obama, perhaps, is experiencing this from liberals like Sen Hayden.

Bush was a dimwit, Darth Cheney was evil.

Obama cannot be caricatured. So it’s time to haul out that special white-hot napalm. Hayden, to his credit, buttresses this dripping bile with something resembling a coherent argument; many other lefties don’t bother to go this distance, the bile is good enough.

Still and all, the recommendations are something, aren’t they? All theory, no practice. It’s been quite a while since you’ve heard a hardcore bay-area liberal say “they should do xxx, it was tried in yyy back in zzzz and it worked pretty well.” No precedence. All gonna-dooz. No have-dunz.

FrankJ’s one-liner is a more than apt response to Sen. Hayden’s proposal, methinks:

Hippies are for punching, not for getting foreign policy advice from.

They experience friction in their own lives when their theories butt up against reality. President Obama has done a wonderful job representing the interests of those theories, against reality. This week he represented the interests of reality against theory. He didn’t want to; He was backed into a corner. But regardless of that, now He’s asking the other side to do some compromising in the middle of the split-second fender-bender…the other vehicle is absorbing some of the impact…and this does not fit in well with their mindset. They aren’t accustomed to it.

So out come the sticker-scrapers.

Mine!

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

Cinematic wonderfulness.

Obama voters right there.

His Blank Slate VIII

Friday, December 4th, 2009

Actions, consequences. Cause, effect. Charisma gets you only so far in life.

Some caught on by Memorial Day. A few more figured it out by Labor Day. And now it’s up to a majority. Note that the link follows through to a CNN poll…that’s a little like you losing popularity points with your own mother. A majority has figured out that whether we live in an Obama world or not, it is not an Obama universe — no, it is a grown-up universe. Debt has to be paid back, every action brings and equal and opposite reaction, terrorists and foreign heads-of-state don’t care too much about your being magnanimous, and you cannot eat hopenchange for dinner or put it in your gas tank.

The result: Look at those oh-so-important poll numbers. They’re slip slidin’ away…

With a grateful hat tip to American Digest.

Obama Speech Bingo

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Gonna have it all printed out and ready to go, next time.

Barry’s Screwing Up, But Let’s Talk About Michelle’s Gown

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Interesting how “journalism” works overseas, isn’t it?

Traditional evening gowns vied with saris of vibrant colours last night at the first state dinner of the Obama White House.

The high-glitz event was held in honour of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, so Michelle Obama wore a strapless, gold and cream-coloured sheath dress with an overlay of silver and matching shawl.

Her outfit was designed by Indian-born Naeem Khan and made in India.

At the State Dining Room event earlier in the day, the First Lady wore a skirt by Rachel Roy, who is Indian.

Speaking ahead of the dinner, Mrs Obama described the trick to pulling off the event as sort of like being a swan – calm and serene above the water but ‘paddling like mad, going crazy underneath’

Spiegel Online has a different view of things, having opted to step back and take a broader view of what’s going on.

When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it’s not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.
:
The mood in Obama’s foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The “first Pacific president,” as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.
:
Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama’s currency isn’t as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington’s new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.

He’s bringing a wife-in-a-sparkly-gown to a gunfight. That line about “interests not emotions dominate” seems to sum up the situation. If you read that first linked story down further where it stops gushing over Michelle’s party-wear and gets into the details of what happened in the state room, you can make out this undertone: “Cut the crap Mister President, now what about my interests and where are your priorities?”

I don’t know what is a bigger concern: That His guests aren’t getting out of these meetings what they wanted to get out of ’em…or that they are. Either way, it’s a problem. Barry’s not tuned in. He’s stuck in campaign mode.

Opening It Up Across State Lines

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Hat tip to Zeta Woof.

Dana Milbank writes in the Washington Post:

It sounds tailor-made for a GOP ad:

Unemployment hits 9.4 percent. President Obama flies to France.

Joblessness reaches 9.7 percent. Obama jets off to Denmark.

The rate of those out of work soars to 10.2 percent. Obama packs his bags for Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea.

Faced with the worst domestic economy in decades, the president has responded — by setting a record for foreign travel. An Asian swing that began Thursday will bring his total this year to 20 countries in eight trips, according to CBS News’s Mark Knoller, official statistician of the White House press corps.

A few years ago Lee Iacocca wrote a book lamenting about the leaders, they’ve all gone somewhere, where are they? He heralded the publication of this book with some well-placed columns that bleated things like “Are you as honked off as I am? Where in the hell is the outrage?”

The old boy hasn’t got much to say lately, except to occasionally chirp out how wonderful and charismatic the current crew is and how much hope they are capable of inspiring. Yup, the solution to not-having-money might very well be to spend lots of money, if you make such a decision with enough flair and you’re sufficiently fun to watch while you’re making it.

Every now and then a left-winger will follow one of my smarmy comments on another blog to my home page…which takes them here…and the first thing they see is a mock-up of Sarah Palin in Supergirl hot pants. “Credibility GONE!!!” is the predictable condemnation…which I take as a compliment…gee, maybe tomorrow I can be Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World.

But these are precisely my thoughts about Lee Iacocca. Credibility gone. Where in the hell is the outrage? Was there any better time in the last twenty years to ask such a question than right now? Dana Milbank says current events are almost a ready-made GOP commercial. This has been going on all year. Every single month of reality is a perfect Palin-in-2012 commercial, free of charge.

Gee, we all might be jobless. Certainly we should all be worried about it. What to do? Pass a law that throws our asses in jail if we don’t buy health insurance. What wonderful logic! How hopeful! That’s like saying, the building is on fire so what we need is a stiffer penalty for not using the handrail when you’re using the stairs.

Always make the most of every single crisis; do nothing to prevent the crises from happening, ever. And the response to every single crisis that comes along is a few more rules.

Keeping It Real

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Gerard Van der Leun homes in, like a heat-seeking missile whose daddy was a bloodhound, on where exactly The Holy One is now. That “basically god” fellow and those who worship Him:

And yet, if we are to believe the polls, the Obama love endures in many even as the pain grows. The tryst that was consummated in the soft and moonlit honeymoon suite in January now seems more and more like a long dark night in Michelle’s Dungeon with no safeword. Incomprehensible as it may seem to any neutral observer many Democrats continue to believe, in the face of stark facts daily seen, that Obama is indeed their friend. It has to be tiring because this fantasy — now entirely a product of the imagination — requires that greater and greater energy is expended on the part of the believer in “Keeping it real.”

How can they continue even as the whip comes down? They have no choice. Those that believe Obama is their friend find it necessary to believe. Why is Obama the imaginary friend necessary to them? Because, regardless of their age, all Obama acolytes and most Democrats are children. They need to believe in Obama like Virginia needs to believe in Santa Claus, and like a beaten woman needs to believe her man really loves her. These are immature attitudes but in the USA of the 21st century “immature” is what we do. It’s the one sector of manufacturing in which we still lead the world.

His Blank Slate VII

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

What a wonderful stockpile of advantages President Obama enjoys as He does whatever it is you want to call what He’s doing: governing…leading…inspiring…ruling over. It would be awfully tough for Him to out-and-out violate a campaign promise, even if He tried to. Pledges did get made, and lip-service did get paid. But He was elected on a platform of personal wonderfulness, and when you’re a wonderful person you don’t really need to concern yourself too much with the things you do.

And if the results of your reigning are none to flattering, of course there’s always a ready-made excuse:

The Post-Gracious President
Whenever he must make a difficult decision, Mr. Obama complains it’s Bush’s fault.

:
On Afghanistan, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff went on CNN’s “State of the Union” earlier this month to discuss the presidential decision on Afghanistan that everyone is waiting for. “It’s clear that basically we had a war for eight years that was going on, that’s adrift,” said Rahm Emanuel. “That we’re beginning at scratch, and just from the starting point, after eight years.” Translation: If we screw up Afghanistan, blame Mr. Bush.

The other came from Mr. Obama himself, speaking at various Democratic fund-raisers last week. “I don’t mind cleaning up the mess that some other folks made,” the president said. “That’s what I signed up to do. But while I’m there mopping the floor, I don’t want somebody standing there saying, ‘You’re not mopping fast enough.'”

This is a frequent Obama complaint. The logic is clear if curious: While it’s OK to blame Mr. Bush for spending too much, it’s not OK to point out that Mr. Obama is already well on track to spend much more.

I’ve seen other Presidents do this, and I’ll see other Presidents do it again I’m sure. This is a politician’s dream: Can’t lose, except when you do, and even then you don’t.

But it’s a new one on me to see this behavior from one who goes on and on, so often, and so enduringly and so endearingly, with the word “responsibility.” Next to “I,” “Me,” “Let Me Be Clear” and “Uh,” I think the R-word comes in next on the ranking.

Maybe President Obama would recover some of His approval rating if He were to personally show us what some of it looked like.

Memo For File CI

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

James Taranto does the most capable job yet of summarizing how badly the “indecision on Afghanistan” situation has deteriorated:

“The United States cannot wait for problems surrounding the legitimacy of the Afghan government to be resolved before making a decision on troops, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said,” Reuters reports from aboard a U.S. military aircraft:

Gates did not say when he expected U.S. President Barack Obama to decide on whether to increase troops, a decision complicated by rising casualties and fading public support for the stalled, eight-year-old war.

But he pointed out that further high-level deliberations would need to wait for the return of cabinet members from foreign travels through part of next week.

“It’s just a matter now of getting the time with the president when we can sort through these options and then tee them up for him to make a decision,” Gates said.

But Agence France-Presse reports the president hasn’t yet chosen whether to choose not to decide:

President Barack Obama has not yet determined whether he will make a decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan before the November 7 election runoff, a US official said Tuesday.

“The UN, NATO, the US stand ready to assist the Afghans in conducting the second round,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

“Whether or not the president makes a decision before that I don’t think has been determined.

“I have continued to say a decision will be made in the coming weeks as the president goes through an examination of our policy,” he added.

It really bolsters your confidence in the president’s ability to achieve victory in what he used to call a war of necessity, doesn’t it?

But we suppose it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and snark. Barack Obama is president of the United States, and he is juggling all kinds of urgent responsibilities. Such as this one, reported by the New York Times:

Mr. Obama will fly to New York on Tuesday for a lavish Democratic Party fund-raising dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel for about 200 big donors. Each donor is paying the legal maximum of $30,400 and is allowed to take a date.

And hey, if you don’t like it, grab a damn mop! As Obama said just last week at…uh, another lavish Democratic Party fund-raiser.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports from Washington that “frustrations and anxiety are on the rise within the military” as the president dithers over Afghanistan:

A retired general who served in Iraq said that the military had listened, “perhaps naïvely,” to Mr. Obama’s campaign promises that the Afghan war was critical.”What’s changed, and are we having the rug pulled out from under us?” he asked. Like many of those interviewed for this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals from the military’s civilian leadership and the White House.

Shouldn’t it be the enemy that fears reprisals?

During the presidential campaign, Obama’s opponents mocked him for frequently voting “present” on difficult questions that came before the Illinois Senate. This is even worse. The commander in chief is absent without leave.

Speaking just for myself, I must agree the CinC’s absence bothers me quite a lot; but I’m even more bothered by the lack of conceptual policy direction in that absence.

Well, He is our President, so His problem here is really ours. And this one is one we’ve had since long before He came along. But Obama has exacerbated the situation somewhat, and to me this represents the most glaring indictment against His leadership style.

To figure out what I mean by that, imagine yourself driving a car down a freeway. Speeding up and slowing down demands that you apply some judgment; moving the steering wheel to the left or right demands a little bit more. For the engine to actually detonate the gasoline and turn the crankshaft, requies none at all. There is a trade-off at work with all these things: A strong process demands little judgment to take place, a weaker one requires a strong leader.

Look to software development for a superlative illustration. During development there is testing, and during the testing there is a human finding out what’s going on and using that data to make a decision about the next test. Once the development is done, the decision-making has been hardened, goldenized, and packaged into what becomes the product. The human component has been removed, because a capability has been incrementally built up to replace the human component. The product is a strong process that is now completely on auto-pilot. It has been fully defined.

Obama’s style of leadership is the antithesis of this, and demonstrates once again the perils of personality politics. We had an election not quite so much about what policies would be put in place, but rather about which one among the candidates was the most wonderful fella. And…insert the obligatory paragraphs about what a swell guy Barry is. But there’s a price to be paid for all that charisma-or-whatever. In the absence of a decision from Him, there is a vacuum that is something of a spectacle in the extent of its emptiness. What I really mean here is illustrated by the rhetorical question: “If Obama won’t announce His decision anytime soon, then what is He at least likely to do?” It’s like predicting which way a football will bounce. If you had a heart attack at the wheel of your car and perished on the spot, the car would still possess some momentum. If your death spasm didn’t involve a violent jerking of the wheel, the car would likely continue in something of a straight line before veering off the road. But that’s not the case here. We really don’t know what’s going to happen.

I speak somewhat beyond the extent of my knowledge. Perhaps, behind closed doors, there are whispers about what The Great One finds to be an appealing direction and what among the various strategies He finds most abhorrent. But it’s likely that if this was the case, there’d be some way to find out about it. All I really know is this: Obama is as much a politician as any of the others, and now is the time for Him to read some polls. He is bridging a schism within His party that is not helpful to Him in any way. It is a fracture between the “Blame America First!” crowd that He would just as soon we all ignore, and pretend it doesn’t exist; and those other leftists who really do want the nation to continue surviving so they can continue to make it into something that clashes more horrendously with its original design than they realize.

To the last of those, you have to add the numbers of those who aren’t quite so liberal but voted for Obama just because He isn’t George W. Bush. Those who bought into the Soros-funded fairy tale that our military operations were suffering under a layer of weak and disinterested leadership, and perhaps The Holy One would be the fix for what ailed us. Yeah…that’s probably not looking like quite such a swell idea right about now. Had aliens abducted George W. Bush, it would be fairly obvious what general direction our military policies in those theaters would take. (And that’s presuming our acting President Dick Cheney was indecisive and in need of some direction, which is laughable whether you love ‘im or hate ‘im…but we’ll go ahead and presume it for the sake of our hypothetical.) What, on the other hand, is to take place right now if our Wonderful Leader Barack Obama is abducted by those same aliens? This is my indictment against our current administration, and the true extent of the horror involved is evident only to those who can think on it awhile. The lack of direction is far greater than we should allow. There is absolutely none. Our current leadership is so wonderful and perfect, that the process itself has withered on the vine. There is no process at all.

For our direction, we look to whatever twitch happens to pop in between those two big floppy ears of His.

Cassy is linking to a column by Richard Cohen, who evidently is being blackmailed, called “Perfection may be President Obama’s biggest flaw.” There we go again. Forget for a moment about what a laughable self-parody this media suck-up is…and think for those moments about the actual damage involved in failing to put together a process because of the lack of need for one, resulting from the extreme heights to which Dear Leader’s wonderfulness ascends. It’s all fine & good we have some direction on all those other issues on which The Great One has spoken…and indeed there’s no shortage of those. Afghanistan aside, Holy Man seems to have an opinion on just about everything.

But nobody knows what’s about to happen in Afghanistan. Ever since Jeremiah Wright got thrown under the bus and we were given our Holy Directives not to think about that bigot anymore…nobody really seems to have a clue about the sources of Obama’s amazing insight. Every time President Obama bothers to source them, it seems they all point back to — Him. “I just think…” is standard prologue to just about every little decision made, or value system expressed, large or small.

Strong leader. Weak process. If He’s gone, or dead, or abducted, or incapacitated — or, once in awhile, it emerges that He really isn’t that strong of a leader, gasp! — there’s no direction or momentum accumulated whatsoever. Nothing can move.

Now add to that, the other charge…that Cohen, along with slobbering people like him, live in a desperate denial of exactly what attributes make their idol so appealing to them. For if they were ever to face that, they would face what exactly it is that they have become…and it would be like the Gorgon Medusa looking in a mirror. As I said over at her place,

The Morgan Freeberg rule of leftist idolatry:

Middle-of-the-road people, and conservatives, would much rather have Sarah Palin watch their kids or grandkids over an entire weekend, than Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi or the late Ted Kennedy;

Liberals, too, would rather have Palin watch their kids&grandkids over an entire weekend than Obama/Pelosi/Kennedy…
:
We aren’t really in disagreement about what qualities these people have. Not when we bet important things on those ideas…like the welfare of our families. What we disagree about are which qualities are important in the people who occupy our most influential and important offices. To conservatives it’s all about integrity and strength [of] character. To liberals it’s all about the ability to sell things against the interests of the person who buys them; the ability to compellingly portray things as the opposite of what they truly are. Leftists want our “leaders” to have exactly the aptitudes they would recoil in horror at seeing developed in their own children. They want their/our leaders to lie to us, as competently as is possible.

This was not always the case. Jimmy Carter was hired in to a job that, it turned out, demanded talents in which he was decidedly lacking…because although he was perceived as a milquetoast and a weakling, at least he was a somewhat nice guy. It was post-Watergate. Ever single made-for-teevee movie villain was middle-aged, with thinning hair, big fluffy eyebrows, and a nice tailored three-piece suit. Heroes, on the other hand, wore plaid shirts unbuttoned down to the belly-button, and jeans with leggings that flared down to the size of bicycle tires by the time they reached the ankles. Formality, it was thought — especially cold, corporate, bureaucratic formality — was a sign of treachery, and we wanted to avoid treachery.

That was wrong-headed, but far superior to what we have going on now. Now, a good leader is someone who can sell things. And we’re not terribly concerned about the ability to sell true things…that’s a job that completes somewhere around the same spot where it begins, isn’t it? No, Bill Clinton was most popular among his fans when he started a debate about the meaning of the word “is.” When, with crafty lawyerly double-talk, he led his own impeachment trial to a conclusion that was distant from where common sense would have taken it. That was the real draw. The demonstrated ability to convert something into the opposite of what it really was. Had he truly deserved to be acquitted, his base wouldn’t have been nearly as impressed. Had he really not had sexual relations with that woman Ms. Lewinsky, he wouldn’t have drawn nearly so much reverence and awe. Behold the unmasked, naked, and altogether unappealing appeal of the modern liberal superstar: It is the power to deceive. It is directly contrary to those attributes responsible parents, of all ideological flavorings, seek to instill in our children.

And so now we have Obama, who is so wonderful that Richard Cohen says such a level of perfection is a problem. Gee, maybe that’s what’s causing global warming! Well, what makes Barack Obama so wonderful? This is what turns the Gorgon Cohen into stone if & when he should ever gaze into Perseus’ polished shield: We are enamored of those soothing nasal dulcet tones coming from PresBO not so much when He expresses truth, as when he bends it — alters it from what it was previously. There are damn few campaign promises to fulfill, and what ones He did make, nobody expects Him to fulfill them anyway. He can sell things contrary to the interests of those who buy them, He can explain everything as the opposite of what it really is, He can argue with dictionaries, He can tell us socialized medicine is what’s needed to fix our ailing economy, He can even tell us the solution to a suffocating level of debt is to take out more debt. He can tell us hot is cold, wet is dry, up is down and — dare I say it — black is white. Which brings me to that other thing: Anybody who dares argue with Him is a racist.

Every single situation He puts His hands on, is like warm putty in them. He is encumbered by nothing. Every slate his marker meets, starts out blank. And, because He is such a skilled politician, it stays that way.

Here, I plagiarize shamelessly from something I heard on Season One of Yes, Minister: “He’s the kind of fellow who can follow you into a revolving door, and come out first.”

So it’s fair to conclude, is it not, that something must be terribly amiss for a leader who enjoys such an array of rare advantages, to struggle for such a time making a decision about something. Hey Barry — if there are none among your constituents that hate America, and I’d be a racist for even daring to think so…what’s the hold-up?

Get Out of the Way and Grab a Mop?

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

Yeah there’s a problem with being stuck in perpetual campaign mode. You’re never quite sure what you want your opposition to do…and at times it can lead to awkward juxtapositions.

Like this one:

Hat tip to Hot Air, by way of Another Black Conservative who makes it real simple: Stop pissin’ on the floor! Hat tip for that one to Legal Insurrection.

Something tells me a more apt analogy has something to do with digging a hole.

Twilight of Honeymoon IX

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

We’re less than a year after that halcyon election, and it would seem its centerpiece has officially become a piece of retro. Interesting times, huh?

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama’s job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. That’s down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president — and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Lesson: When people are oh so sure about something because “everybody” else is oh so sure about it…they aren’t. Confident people don’t decide things that way.

Pundit and Pundette, who got it from Gateway Pundit.

The Barack Obama American Flag

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Or is that simply “The Obama Flag”? I notice the stars that represent the states, and presumably the sovereign authority they have to govern themselves, are GONE. Why stop at the stars?

Get yours today.

You know He won the Nobel Peace Prize, don’t you?

Popular Support of Obama’s Narcissism

Monday, September 28th, 2009

I’m slightly reworking the title Dr. Melissa Clouthier gave this one because I’d like to explore some things she just touched, kind of pick it up where she left it.

Michael Gerson Sums Up Obama’s Narcissism

Wow:

On several occasions, Obama attacked American conduct in simplistic caricatures a European diplomat might employ or applaud. He accused America of acing “unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others” — a slander against every American ally who has made sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan. He argued that, “America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy” — which is hardly a challenge for the Obama administration, which has yet to make a priority of promoting democracy or human rights anywhere in the world.

The world, of course, has its problems, too. It has accepted “misperceptions and misinformation.” It can be guilty of a “reflexive anti-Americanism.” “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone.” Translation: I know you adore me because I am better than America’s flawed past. But don’t just stand there loving me, do something.

And, wow again:

Twice in his United Nations speech, Obama dares to quote Franklin Roosevelt. I have read quite a bit of Roosevelt’s rhetoric. It is impossible to imagine him, under any circumstances, unfairly criticizing his own country in an international forum in order to make himself look better in comparison. He would have considered such a rhetorical strategy shameful — as indeed it is.

At the United Nations, Obama set out to denigrate American goodness so he can become our rescuer. The speech had nothing to do with the confident style of Democratic rhetoric found in Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy. It insulted that tradition. And no one is likely ever to quote the speech — except to deride it.

Here’s my take, though. President Obama is no different from candidate Obama. What did you moderates out there think he meant when he said that he would rise the tides and save the planet and BE the change you can believe in? Why do you think President Obama wanted to “remake America”?

I’ll answer it for you: Because he felt that America is fundamentally flawed. Because he believes HE is the fix. Pretty simple. And he’s no different today than he was a year ago. it’s just rather startling to hear the President of the United States apologize for his own country inherent badness and say that his inherent goodness is the cure.

Arrogant and narcissistic? Yep. But he had a lot of useful idiots help him get elected. His America-hating speechifying is nothing new. Some people are just hearing for the first time.

I’m not looking forward to a whole bunch of forehead-smacking as untold millions of American voters realize the mistake they’ve made and resolve to do better. Maybe the folks who voted for Obama in order to protest the Bush deficits — wow, that seems like so long ago, doesn’t it? — will do some of that. But even they won’t be stooping so low as to admit to an error. They’ll simply take the position that there was no better alternative, that McCain was “McSame”…it must be true, all those Saturday Night Live skits said so.

Nor do I think there is any grand prevailing viewpoint behind the idea that Obama is the fix. Modern Americans live far too comfortably to be overly concerned about “fixes”; our enthusiasm tends to be riveted on identifying the problem, and forcing an artificial patina of unanimity in acknowledging the problem is there. Quick, pop-quiz, someone tell me what our “fix” is for global warming. What’s the “fix” for a child with learning disabilities. Details, I want details! But I will not be getting details. No plan, no work-breakdown-structure, no steps, no methods of validation that any plan is working. Just a bunch of bullying rhetoric that such-and-such a child definitely has Aspergers and the planet is definitely heating up.

Obama is in a precarious situation here, and although many among his supporters fail to realize it, I’m pretty sure He Himself gets it. If the election were to be held today, He just might win…better-than-even-odds He would…He is awfully “cool,” and although it’s become embarrassing that His solution to every problem is yet another “wonderful” speech, He is certainly good at giving those. But if the election were to be held today, the vote upon which He would depend — utterly and completely — is the “ego” vote. The “It must be the right thing to do now, because it sure as hell was the right thing to do in ’08” vote. The not-ready-to-admit-a-mistake vote.

Which means the “This-Year’s-Hot-New-Trend” vote is deader than Charlemagne. Nothing remains of it, no headstone, no carcass to be exhumed because its grave is unmarked.

But this “Ego” vote is strong. People don’t like to admit their mistakes; and they can go a very long time displaying their interest in undeniable-truths…which, it is worth noting, would fail to capture such exuberant support of the truths really were undeniable. They can go a long ways without expressing any interest whatsoever in fleshing out any step-by-step plans for fixing the problems they say they want fixed so badly. And so, take it to the bank, come 2012 we will be hearing from all over the place that “This-or-that was so much worse when Bush left office, than it is now” and “It will be taking Him a long time to clean up that mess Bush made” and “Bush screwed the pooch so Obama needs eight years to take care of it properly.”

Support will be falling off. But very quietly. The next contest, and the next one after that, will be decided by turnout. Very few people will be admitting outright that they supported His Holiness last year, and have decided to stop supporting Him.

Best-case scenario is that Obama comes to be like the trashy tabloid you see in the supermarket: Nobody will admit to buying it, and yet, millions of people somewhere must be doing exactly that. Next-best-case scenario? That the defectors from the Obama camp fit into the tabloid metaphor that way. Nobody will admit to leaving the Church of Holy Barack; but we’ll have some elections proving millions of people must’ve done that very thing.

But I completely agree with Melissa about Obama’s campaigning. If anyone does want to express some discomfort over our President’s amazing narcissism, and they’re so lacking in self-restraint they are actually heard to mutter some words to that effect — they can bite it. It simply isn’t reasonable to show surprise here. Obama is governing, more or less, the way He campaigned. At least to such a minimal extent that He fleshed out what His plans were, while He was campaigning…which wasn’t much. You certainly would have a hard time making the case that He broke too many campaign promises.

Particularly in matters dealing with support or lack thereof, for the country He was campaigning to govern…or rule over…whatever. You thought Obama would give patriotic speeches on the world stage about America’s wonderful contributions to civilization and world peace? You thought He’d say something so that people in Switzerland and Sweden and Nigeria and Afghanistan and Russia and Indonesia would say to themselves “Wow, America is really great”? Really? You expected that? Based on what?

Why Did Mommy and Daddy Vote for Obama?

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

As long as we are on the subject of “What kind of apology could we be given, at this point, that would suffice”…

FrankJ just found out about a book. He hasn’t bought it or done anything else to catch a glimpse of what’s written on the pages beneath the covers, but that did not stop him from speculating.

WHY DID MOMMY AND DADDY VOTE FOR OBAMA?

* They are easily distracted by shiny things.

* Because they’re not “mommy and daddy”, they’re “mommy and mommy”.

* Let’s just say it’s a bad idea to use your time waiting in line at the voting booth to snort coke.

* They wanted someone who reflected their values of shallowness and not being particularly fond of America.

* He had a ‘D’ next to his name.

* Because Daddy threatened to beat mommy otherwise.

* Because they want to make sure they have a right to end any future children and not have to answer more stupid questions.

* Let’s just say that mommy and daddy’s last IQ test was inconclusive because they chewed on it.

* The only other choice was McCain.

* Because of something bad you did!

Twilight of Honeymoon VIII

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Ewww…as accustomed as we are by now to His Most Exaltedness’ downward slide, it’s still kind of a slap seeing His wonderful speechmaking sliced and diced by — the Associated Press?? Who in the world do they think He is, some midwestern-accented tundra dimwit housewife or something? This just isn’t supposed to happen!

But happen it did. There’s just no getting around it, Mister Wonderful told some whoppers.

OBAMA: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period.”

THE FACTS: …The long-term prognosis for costs of the health care legislation has not been good.

OBAMA: “Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.”

THE FACTS: …The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the health care bill written by House Democrats and said that by 2016 some 3 million people who now have employer-based care would lose it…

OBAMA: “Don’t pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut. … That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.”

THE FACTS: Obama and congressional Democrats want to pay for their health care plans in part by reducing Medicare payments to providers by more than $500 billion over 10 years…

From Gateway Pundit, which found a few more howlers the AP missed. Hat tip to Linkiest — where, as an aside, The Blog That Nobody Reads is the blog-of-the-day.

D’JEver Notice? XXXIX

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

If you wanted to “reform” America’s medical system out of a genuine concern for the welfare of the people being treated, you would care a great deal about the content of whatever legislation is being passed, and not care too much about the timeline.

If you wanted to “reform” America’s medical system in order to change the way America works, to change its monetary system, to fundamentally alter how people exchange goods and services, to shatter its structure, to demolish the marketplace, to transform the country into just another filthy socialist mudpuddle, but you didn’t care too much about the welfare of the people being treated, your priorities would be the exact reverse. You’d care a lot about the timeline but you wouldn’t care too much about the content of the legislation. It would just be the “camel’s nose” to you. Break the ice first, put the “right people” in charge, then get things working exactly the way you want later.

The American Medical Association seems to be much more concerned about timeline than about content:

The same day as President Barack Obama’s healthcare address before a joint session of Congress, the American Medical Association on Wednesday urged lawmakers to pass a reform bill this year. The group had declared support for the administration as early as May, but its letter still gives Obama’s agenda a much-needed lift ahead of a crucial speech.

“You have an historic opportunity to improve the health and well-being of the American public,” the AMA wrote. “On behalf of America’s physicians and their patients, we strongly urge you to reach agreement this year.”

The group said legislation should have essential elements, including provisions that ensure “health care decisions are made by patients and their physicians, not by insurance companies or government officials,” eliminate policies for pre-existing conditions, and reform medical liability as well as insurance claims processing requirements to reduce costs.

It made no mention of a public option but said reform should “expand choice of affordable coverage.” The group previously expressed qualified support for a public option plan, specifically the one passed by the House Energy Committee that allows doctors to negotiate payment rates, thereby “guarantee[ing] voluntary physician participation.”

This seems to dovetail with the President’s sense of priorities as well:

President Obama plans to argue Wednesday night in a high-stakes address to Congress that the country’s health care system is at a “breaking point,” as he urges lawmakers to stop “bickering” and pass comprehensive reform.

“The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action,” Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery before a joint session of Congress. “Now is the time to deliver on health care.”

Obama is stressing his resolve to bring lawmakers together and clear away hurdles to passing an overhaul package.

“I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” Obama said in the prepared remarks, released in excerpts.

James Taranto had a swell time dredging up some humor out of this situation today:

Are you as excited as we are? Can you feel the electricity in the air? Tonight’s the big night! President Obama is giving an address to a joint session of Congress, in an effort to rally support for . . . well, we’re not sure what exactly.

The Hill quotes “a Democratic leadership aide who sat in on an administration briefing Tuesday” and who “said that while Obama will offer support Wednesday for a public option, the president will not insist on it”:

“He’s going to say it’s the best tool for reducing costs,” the aide said. “I think he’s going to be a bit noncommittal.”

The Associated Press reports that the president himself told ABC’s “Good Morning America”: “We do intend to get something done this year.” Politico puts it this way:

Obama will give a STRONG ENDORSEMENT to a public option–or government health-insurance plan–as a route to choice and competition, using phrases similar to his Labor Day speech in Cincinnati. But aides are sticking to their longtime plan: He will NOT draw a line in the sand, and will NOT say that a bill wouldn’t be real reform without it. Obama thinks it would be hard to get to true choice and competition without a public option or a fallback to a public option (the so-called trigger, which would kick in based on the insurance market). But his remarks will leave WIGGLE ROOM FOR HORSETRADING as the bill moves through Congress.

So he’s making a STRONG ENDORSEMENT, albeit a noncommittal one that leaves WIGGLE ROOM FOR HORSETRADING, because he intends to get “something” done.

Remember during the campaign when Obama’s critics faulted him for having voted “present” so often as a legislator? In retrospect, it’s clear that this line of attack was totally unfair. Voting “present” was bold and decisive leadership compared with this.

My, he had fun writing that.

I have a proposal. A proposal for the nation, for the legislators who represent it, for the Republicans who aren’t running it.

Let’s make real sure this gets done right. Let’s do what we should have done with the bailouts. Let’s wait. If that means nothing happens this year, there’s always next year.

Whoever gets angry and upset about that, probably doesn’t have the interests of the country at heart, or of the people who live in the country who occasionally get sick.

And whoever that is, fuck ’em. Fuck ’em right in the ear. Let ’em get as mad as they want.

I’m only calling for what our incumbent representatives should be demanding anyway. It should be intuitively obvious to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, that this is a good opportunity for someone to get fired. We, the citizens, obviously care about this. A lot. Our representatives, obviously, don’t know too much about what it is we want. Certainly not as much as they thought they did. They need to take time to learn. We need to take time to be heard.

So let’s wait. This thing needs some definition. And I’m not saying that to help Republicans or hurt democrats — it’s just plain TRUE.

Besides, last time I heard “status quo is unacceptable, better to do something than nothing” was that damn stimulus. The time before that, it was those damn auto bailouts. The time before that, it was the damn S&Ls. Not a single one of those has turned out terribly well. Come to think of it, not a single one of them have worked out as well as doin’ nothin’. All three did more harm than good.

So let’s apply the lesson we learned. God knows we paid enough money for it.

What We Need, is All Obama, All the Time

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

I don’t know where Van der Leun gets this artwork, I really don’t. Wish I did. I’d like to have a large tee shirt made of the above. No caption, no comment. Just let the viewers make of it what they will.

Our blogger friend is having some fun resorting to sarcasm (I think), having determined it is the only method available to deal with a certain mindset, said mindset currently writing under the name of Phil Plait. If Gerard is not being sarcastic, perhaps then he could explain the mindset to me because I’m completely freaking lost as I try to follow it.

It goes like this: The one thing we need, is to hear what President Obama has to say.

Seems perfectly reasonable, until you stop to ponder the fundamentals upon which it rests, namely:

The one thing we’re missing, is that we have not yet availed ourselves of an opportunity to hear what Obama has to say.

Which means…

After an unprecedented two-year-long presidential campaign, during which an unprecedented 700 million dollars was spent getting messages to us about what Barack Obama thought about things, after the assemblage of the winningest campaign team in all of United States electoral history, and with an equally unprecedented accumulation of “tech-savvy” computer talent and a boss-man just so loaded with charisma that birds sing and unicorns hump when He walks by, two autobiographies from a guy who hadn’t really done much of anything when He wrote them, “hardball” moderators getting tingles up their legs when He speaks, and then after He’s elected, about the only thing He’s managed to do in eight months besides spend record-setting amounts of borrowed money is to give speech after speech after speech after speech after speech — it’s almost like He doesn’t know how to do anything else, ya know? — you know why we still suck so much? The number one reason? The one thing that, if fixed, would set everything all straight? The one thing that would defeat the Sith and bring balance to The Force?

We gotta give Barry a fair hearing. He hasn’t had one just yet.

If you think I had fun jotting that one down (I did, actually, thanks for asking), wait’ll you see Gerard’s turn at bat. At the sarcasm-bat. I think. That’s a sign that a master is at work ever there was one — I honestly can’t tell.

Phil, I imagine, would still say that the sanctity of the Presidency trumps all unless your first name begins with a G.

But even if that is not the case, I think those that oppose the president speaking to the children have gotten it all wrong. (Yes, I have changed my position on this.) Upon reflecting on Phil’s position and others here as well, I have changed my mind.

I have come to realize that what is deeply wrong with this country is that so far we have not heard and seen enough of President Obama.

I now think we need to see more. Much more. We need to have a morning message from the President every day on all cable news channel. Indeed, we need to have it broadcast on all TV channels, especially ESPN and other places where citizens dodge their need to know the truth. We need to see his message in the lead in to Good Morning America and Fox and Friends both without fear or favoritism.

Weather Channel too.

We need to have Barack Obama’s message, whatever it might be on whatever day, delivered to all of us on the front page of whatever newspaper we are still reading.

We need to have it as the lead-in to NPR’s Morning Edition. We need to have his message replace the bumper music at the top of Rush Limbaugh’s show.

In short, we cannot have enough of listening to the President tell us what he’s thinking and what the right way to think about what he’s thinking is.

We need to hear his words and see his face every day. Every single day.

I am in ernest about this. I will even pay higher taxes to make this so. We need, in the most urgent and important way, to see and him him All. The. Time.

I hope the address to Congress and a grateful nation is only the beginning of this program of all Obama all the time.

Here’s a non-partisan wish I think we can all support…or we all should be able to support it. Can’t wait to drop it into a conversation in which nobody knows what my politics are.

I hope your chosen deities see fit to endow President Obama with the wisdom to enact some policies that work so amazingly well, it doesn’t matter how much exposure He gets.

Because watching that Adams-apple bob up and down in a liberals’ throat while his face turns red, is fun.

One thing that might be less fun — especially if you live at 1600 Pennsylvania and your initials are B.O. — would be to read Victor Davis Hanson’s ideas on the dilemma. The dilemma defined above. How come it is, that having had a greater opportunity to get His word-in-edgewise than arguably any homo sapiens that has ever walked the ground, ever, living or dead, within recorded history or before…Barry still requires another shot at it? How come the godlike Svengali who has so much to teach all the rest of us about communication skills and getting messages across, just can’t seem to get ‘er done when it counts?

When Obama said he would be fiscally prudent, we got near $2 trillion deficits. When he said the debt would grow to $7 trillion over his tenure, you should nearly double that estimate. When he said Bush shredded the Constitution, he adopted most of the Bush plan from rendition to tribunals. When he said that he wished to move on, we got investigations of the CIA and the previous administration. When he said we’d have all combat brigades out by March 2008, we knew we could not. When he said anything about health care — it would save money, would not alter private plans, would not go to illegal aliens, etc — we already assumed all that was mendacious. When he says anything, we know now that it is either not true or will not be true or at best will only be partially true.

Character matters?? Oh no! Sounds like something boring your parents might’ve said!

Well, hopefully Hanson is wrong. Hopefully Mister Wonderful doesn’t have to start telling the truth…and He is just one speech away from achieving this message-communicating excellence which is supposed to come so naturally to Him, with His gifts and talent and all. And then, once we get our heads pulled out of our butts and finally absorb what Mister-Amazing-Communicator-Guy has been trying to tell us for three years now…life…will be amazing…and wonderful…

Any day now.

Or, VDH might have a point. Respect, genuine respect, the kind of respect that comes from trust — means something. It means something now, because it always did. Quantity is powerless to make up for quality. Oh dear, what a scary thought.

Mister Wonderful Gets a Lecture from Jack Webb

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Hat tip: IMAO.

Stopping the “Pledge” Echo

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Blogger friend Buck has just caught wind of the “I Pledge” video, and he’s not too fond of the smell.

Well, the video itself is just the leafy part of the weed. The root of it has to do with this absurd notion that, under the right set of rules and under some Really Swell Guys elected and appointed as our leaders, we suddenly become a better people. Our friend in New Mexico didn’t ask for any advice here, but I think I’ve got an idea or two about how to stop an echo when you run into this…this…let’s call it “used food.”

First, forget the damn video. Remember, leafy part of weed, root part of weed. You’re much more likely to run into other manifestations of this errant mindset. Maybe not quite so much now as you were last winter, but here and there you can still encounter the starry-eyed Obama fan. Even as they recover from their stupor they can still be heard to utter a few words of nonsense about “being led” by someone who will “inspire us to do better.”

Here is how you stop that echo.

Agree. Agree with every single word. After all, all they’re saying is that people should try to be the best they can be; you’re only disagreeing about the gimmick used. So let them drone on about all the things they can do, kind of nudge them away from the “trim down my carbon footprint,” and toward things that make sense like “be a better parent,” “write to my teevee network to put on more wholesome and educational shows when kids get home from school,” et al.

And then you lay the smack down.

Just get that number-eleven between your eyebrows, frown just ever so slightly, as if you’re thinking really hard about something; if you have a beard, maybe run your fingers through it ever so thoughtfully. And then interject that bit of wisdom “Hey, you know, these things are so wonderful we can probably put some thought into doing them no matter who happens to be President, right?”

It’s just freakin’ glorious. Fun to do, and fun to watch.

As an added benefit, if they choose to find a way to argue with you on this point — they’ll fail on all counts. They won’t find a way to do it, and they’ll give away the fact that they’re trying to. Which, in turn, tells you something very useful about the real motivations of your “opponent”…whether he really does want to do good things, or whether he has something else in mind. And that’s always a good thing to know early on.

White House Rescinds Call for Help

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Aw darn

President Obama’s plan to inspire the nation’s schoolchildren with a video address next week erupted into controversy Wednesday, forcing the White House to pull out its eraser and rewrite a government recommendation that teachers nationwide assign students a paper on how to “help the president.”

Presidential aides acknowledged the White House helped the U.S. Education Department craft the proposal, which immediately was met by fierce criticism from Republicans and conservative organizations who accused Mr. Obama of trying to politicize the education system.

White House aides said the language was an honest misunderstanding in what was supposed to be a inspirational, pro-education message to America’s youths.

I had come up with five ways to have a lot of fun with this. The idea of my little darling applying his own creative-writing exercise to this, and handing in gems like the following, made me positively giddy. Now, I’m afraid, it is not to be:

1. I could send President Obama an e-mail about anything I’ve heard that might seem a little “fishy”;
2. I could find him another “spiritual leader” who’s a flaming bigoted asshole, just like that other guy he can’t talk to anymore;
3. I could give him a few lessons in how to be humble, it seems that might do him some good and he really doesn’t know how at the moment;
4. I could take flying lessons, hop in a plane, and fly it real low over Manhattan scaring the piss out of everyone;
5. I could find out the names of some people who haven’t been paying their taxes, so he can nominate them to cabinet positions.

Oh well. Life goes on.

How Can You Help Barack Obama?

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

I Made a New Word XXXII

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

Garofalogic (intang. n.)

A picture is worth a zillion words, so let’s go with a picture on this one…

Hat tip: Rick.

And if we really had to go with words, the words would be something like…

…I like X. If you don’t like X, that gives me license to spin tall tales about you and what you’re all about, pull ’em completely out of my butt, with little or no evidence, believe them uncritically, spread ’em around, and if anyone shows the slightest bit of hesitation believing my slander about you then I’ll do the same thing to them.

Come to think of it, I’ve been aware of Jimmy Carter’s existence for a very long time by now. Since he’s never had a single kind word to utter for Israel with regard to their long-standing conflict with Palestinian terrorists, Garofalogic would say Carter is an antisemite. Which, in that case, might actually make a lot more sense than slapping the “racist” label on anyone who’s the slightest bit disappointed in His Worshipfulness, as the dim hateful and unfunny comedienne has been known to do.

Hmmm…that’s a good one, isn’t it. Looking forward to using it.

Politics of Charisma, Reminiscent of the Third World

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Johns Hopkins University prof conducts an autopsy in WSJ on the bloated putrid corpse that is the Obama Presidency. Conclusion: It was stricken by a terminal but subtle disease, which spread like wildfire throughout the host, even though that host was the very picture of health.

Obama’s Summer of Discontent
The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long.

:
The man was elected amid economic distress. Faith in the country’s institutions, perhaps in the free-enterprise system itself, had given way. Mr. Obama had ridden that distress. His politics of charisma was reminiscent of the Third World. A leader steps forth, better yet someone with no discernible trail, someone hard to pin down to a specific political program, and the crowd could read into him what it wished, what it needed.
:
The Obama devotees were the victims of their own belief in political magic. The devotees could not make up their minds. In a newly minted U.S. senator from Illinois, they saw the embodiment of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.
:
Now that realism about Mr. Obama has begun to sink in, these iconic figures of history had best be left alone. They can’t rescue the Obama presidency. Their magic can’t be his. Mr. Obama isn’t Lincoln with a BlackBerry. Those great personages are made by history, in the course of history, and not by the spinners or the smitten talking heads.

In one of the revealing moments of the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama rightly observed that the Reagan presidency was a transformational presidency in a way Clinton’s wasn’t. And by that Reagan precedent, that Reagan standard, the faults of the Obama presidency are laid bare…At no time had Ronald Reagan believed that the American covenant had failed, that America should apologize for itself in the world beyond its shores. There was no narcissism in Reagan. It was stirring that the man who headed into the sunset of his life would bid his country farewell by reminding it that its best days were yet to come.

In contrast, there is joylessness in Mr. Obama. He is a scold, the “Yes we can!” mantra is shallow, and at any rate, it is about the coming to power of a man, and a political class, invested in its own sense of smarts and wisdom, and its right to alter the social contract of the land.

Whether you still hold hope for the Obama administration or not, whether you think these criticisms are valid or not — it is a rather scathing indictment that Obama’s flaws are defined most starkly, in August, when He is contrasted against the historical figures He thought would be making Him look good back in January. Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, Reagan.

But Lincoln’s task was to restore the union. Lincoln believed in the union.

FDR performed poorly with regard to the Great Depression; he did not believe in capitalism. FDR is the only one of the four to whom Obama is a worthy successor. But FDR also steered the country through a war, and FDR wanted us to win that war.

Kennedy confronted Kruschev — and did a mediocre-to-poor job of it. But he wanted to win.

Reagan believed in victory over the “Evil Empire,” down to the marrow of his bones. And he made it happen.

Obama is going to fix the economy?

That’s a little bit like having a mechanic fix your car, when the mechanic’s been a lifelong advocate of hitchhiking and public transportation. Obama cannot be great, at least in the respect of reviving our troubled economy, because His heart isn’t in it.

It isn’t because He’s a communist. There is some of that…but the real weight to His unsuitability for this task, is that He is first and foremost a politician. Every single failure, every single disappointment, every single setback — in His world, these things are opportunities. And so, on some virtual Mount Rushmore full of the faces of Presidents whom we wanted to succeed at something, and subsequently delivered, His face will not be going there. It simply cannot happen. Because as wonderful of a salesman as He is, He doesn’t know how to sell anything to people who are fulfilled. His sales pitch only works on people who are suffering, so it is against His programming to end suffering in people He sees as His core constituency. Their suffering cannot ever dissipate, it can never diminish, because that is an indispensable part of His arsenal.

What Happened to Candidate Obama?

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

The very symbol of calm, reasoned, insightful, broad-minded, and — hah! — humble pontifications on world affairs…something seems to have become distorted over the last seven months or so. Jennifer Rubin seems to have an idea or two about what might have gone wrong.

Obama’s candidacy was defined (to the exasperation of conservatives) by idealism, appeals to bipartisanship, and competency. He is now short on all three — which explains why his support among voters and especially independents (who were susceptible to pledges to end old-style politics) has plummeted.

As for the idealism, no president has sunk so far so fast. Candidate Obama chastised Washington as a place where good ideas died. He summoned young voters with high-minded slogans and Kennedy-esque rhetoric. Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush were mere politicians; he was the leader of a whole new era in politics.

Now? Opponents of health care are stooges, evil-mongers, and villains. Citizen activists are to be reported to the authorities for spreading misinformation or ridiculed. The candidate with the superior temperament has devolved into a peevish president exasperated that mere citizens would question his wisdom or stand in his way.

The Fifth Light

Friday, August 14th, 2009

I come from a strange, faraway planet…the third one from its sun, a place known as “Earth” popuulated by humanoid people who have red blood in their veins. Perhaps because of my strange otherwordly origins I have some strange thoughts in my head, like these…

I know certain things because a whole lot of people are repeating them over and over again, and I know other things because because I’ve figured ’em out…or I’ve heard them from specific places, sources I trust. Or I’ve seen something happen with my own two eyes. Being an earthling who has red blood in his veins, I keep all these things separate — I do not toss them all in one big ol’ burlap sack together and shake ’em around. I try to keep track of what I really know, versus what I kinda-sorta “know.” Yes, that’s a strange habit, I know, rather like alphabetizing your spice rack. Maybe it could even be called obsessive-compulsive.

Anyway — a thought occurs to me about this whole “Obama Birth Certificate” thing. Like most people who’ve given the matter some thought, I am satisfied that our current President was born in the United States, specifically Hawaii. I am unsettled not quite so much by what I believe with regard to this…but why I believe it.

It isn’t that I’ve seen something, or learned of the existence of something, that seals the deal for me. (Although it should be said I find the birth announcements pretty convincing.)

No, the keystone piece of evidence that really seals the deal for me, is this: There are just bunches and bunches of ding-a-lings out there ready, willing, able and eager to call me a big fat stupid doo-doo-head idiot if I don’t believe Obama was born in Hawaii. Or if I even show the slightest bit of hesitation in accepting it, for whatever reason. That’s how I “know.” It isn’t because of that second-hand copy that’s supposed to settle the matter and make Him a legal President.

Argument by cudgel. By peer pressure.

What is worthy of note, I think, is not quite so much the birth certificate angle. For there, I may very well be thinking this stuff out the wrong way, but I’m reasonably confident I came to the correct conclusion by whatever means.

A thought occurs to me…since I’m an earthling who thinks like an earthling, with red blood in his veins.

This is the method by which I know everything I know about President Barack H. Obama. Every little thing. Except for the fact that He has a huge following, He’s as tall as I am or perhaps an inch taller, He weighs less than I do, and His skin is darker than mine.

Brilliant speaker? I don’t really know that.

Intellectual? I’ve heard people say so. Don’t know it.

Curious, anxious to learn more about things? I’ve been listening for Him to say He knows something because of something…rather than just thinking a certain thing because a thought popped into His head and He, or one of His handlers, thinks it would sound good for Him to say it out loud. After two years of listening to speeches He puts out constantly, so far it looks like everything He knows is exactly that. Thoughts that popped into His head. If He had a basis for any of these ideas, it would appear that He is afraid to tell us what His inspirations & sources are.

He’s concerned about the environment? I don’t know that.

Cares about people who make less money than He does? Don’t know it.

Is He a Christian? Again — a whole lot of people are ready to crucify me on some virtual cyberspace “blogger cross” if I show any receptivity to the idea that He might be a Muslim…and the peer-pressure message from that is quite clear. I am to regard Him as a devout Christian. But do I know He’s a Christian? Do I know He knows terribly much about Christianity? The answer is no. I don’t know that about Barack Obama; I don’t know that much about what He does & doesn’t know. You could approach me with proof tomorrow that He is, in fact, a secular humanist or a Buddhist. I might feel a twinge of “well golly,” but that’s all. I wouldn’t be overly surprised.

Expert on constitutional law? I know He’s held a professorship here…that sounds pretty impressive. But this whole flag@whitehouse.gov thing is such a newbie mistake, isn’t it? Like something a tinpot dictator from a banana republic would do after he took this place over. Assuming such a thing could happen here. Obama seems to be foreign to the spirit of our Constitution…there’s no evidence that He has more than a nodding acquaintance to the letter of it…so no. I don’t know that He’s terribly well versed on our nation’s founding document. I “know” it in the sense that a bunch of loud people want me to think so. But I don’t know it in any sense beyond that.

He can coordinate things? He can empathize with people, know what they’re feeling before they do? The whole buzz-bombing of Manhattan poses a problem or two for that one, does it not?

He knows how to fix the nation’s problems? He’s tried a lot of things so far; lost in all the sanctimonious speechmaking is the fact that none of them have worked just yet.

He’s a brilliant speechmaker? I’m pretty convinced He knows how to read from a teleprompter; for a President, He is unusually dependent on having it around all of the time. And His occasional performances without the benefit of one, are uh, er, ah, uh, less than impressive.

There’s Just Something About Him? Puh-leeze. That doesn’t even mean anything.

He’s repairing our country’s image around the world? This one ought to be provable by now; He’s been in office for seven months. Who, on this big wide globe, hated our guts on January 20 of this year and just loves us all to pieces now? Name just one country. Name one person. One’s all I need. Dazzle me.

He’s smarter than most of us? He’s smarter than, for example, that idiot dimbulb Sarah Palin? Yeah, I just don’t know. For those of us who don’t stay up on this stuff every hour of every day…did you know she just kicked His ass? You’re just so well informed, I’m sure you already heard.

Other than the above-mentioned points about His most basic bodily statistics and His skin color…I think just about every single thing I “know” about Barack Obama, I know because people stand by ready to inflict some kind of punishment on me if I believe something different. Reminds me of the Star Trek episode about the fifth light.

Every little Obama “fact” worth knowing, that anybody anywhere “knows,” it seems, is a fifth light.

This is a rather curious state of affairs for such a charismatic gentleman in His late forties who’s supposed to leave such deep and positive impressions on people. Isn’t it? Shouldn’t there be just a little bit more hard information about Him? Isn’t it reasonable to expect it?

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

End Game

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Mark Steyn takes stock of the formerly rabid Obama fan base, such as it is…an eclectic mix of the ones frantically scraping the “Obama Biden” stickers off their bumpers, and their counterparts who are leaving ’em affixed…

The New York Times’ David Brooks stuck it out longer than most: Only a few backs, he was giddy with excitement over the President’s “education” “reforms” (whatever they were). But now he says we’re in “the early stages of the liberal suicide march”. For a famously moderate moderate, Mr Brooks seems to have gone from irrational optimism over the Democrats’ victory to irrational optimism over the Democrats’ impending downfall without the intervening stage of rational pessimism.

The end-game is very obvious. If you expand the bureaucratic class and you expand the dependent class, you can put together a permanent electoral majority.

The Barack Obama Experiment

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Melissa Clouthier wants to know what people think of this…

I suppose time will tell.

Me, I like the concept. In spite of all the “hope,” lightly laced with an undertone of pugnacious bullying, Obama’s installment into the Presidency wasn’t a “that fixes things once & for all” but a “let’s see how this goes.” The appalling lack of vision regarding what exactly the result was supposed to be, does very little to change this. The word “hope” is supposed to entail some kind of vision toward the near or distant future, a vision involving a status that is somewhat positive. Which means — I think all would have to agree at this point — something different from what we’ve seen for the last two hundred days.

We still have a lot of hold-outs out there insisting The Man has not yet been given enough time. Their argument, whether they realize it or not, is one that says we shouldn’t expect beneficial results just yet. And of course the obvious question it raises is what is the Launch Date. C’mon, just give us a ball park…

But they won’t. Deep into 2012, the catchphrase is going to be that George W. Bush messed things up so badly that it takes two terms to fix it all…and this should’ve been obvious to everyone from the get-go.

For a savior possessing messianic healing qualities, Obama is surprisingly dependent on bromides, cliches and bumper sticker slogans designed to vanquish any & all performance expectations. It’s like watching Christ try to make loaves and fishes, fail at it, and then blame His predecessor for messing things up so badly and nobody should be imposing such unrealistic expectations on Him. Well dude — the loaves and fishes we already do have, are disappearing. When things aren’t even staying static, they’re getting worse, there comes a point where your Divinity and Exaltedness and Glory have to at least be put into question if not doubted entirely. That isn’t even politics, that’s just common sense. It applies to deities just like it applies to anything else.