The following fact isbecomingapparent: Using information gained from waterboarded Gitmo prisoners, our president ordered Navy SEALS to to invade a foreign country, engage in a firefight at a private residence, and shoot an unarmed man.
Had I taken the most right-wing genes from Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Blackbeard, and Darth Vader, and created a child who I then forced to attend Hillsdale, I would have still been slightly surprised when Winston McThathereagan ordered this assassination. That an Alinskyite Marxist community organizer did it? Priceless.
It makes me giddy to think about the sinking feeling the “We-are-the-change-we’ve-been-waiting-for” crowd will feel in their guts as the reality of the situation sinks in. In 2007 and 2008, they poured their hearts and souls into getting Hopey McChange elected president. And after the attempts at socialized medicine, cap and trade, turning the Supreme Court into a bunch of living constitution types, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, this – THIS - will be without a doubt the single most popular thing he ever does.
One of the practices of President Bush I found most offensive was his use of Signing Statements. Its not that he was the first president to use them, rather it was the way he used them. He routinely used them to “interpret” the laws passed by congress in ways that would let him circumvent the intentions of the law. At the time I found this extremely offensive, and anyone who placed any value in The Constitution should have felt the same. The main argument I used against Conservatives on this issue was: Well would you defend this practice if used by a Democrat?
In a statement issued Friday night, President Obama took issue with some provisions in the budget bill – and in one case simply says he will not abide by it.
Last week the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans were involved in intense negotiations over not only the size of the budget for the remainder of the FY2011 budget, and spending cuts within that budget, but also several GOP “riders,” or policy provisions attached to the bill.
One rider – Section 2262 — de-funds certain White House adviser positions – or “czars.” The president in his signing statement declares that he will not abide by it.
So Bush Republicans: what do you think of Signing Statements now?
Its good to see Andrew finally holding Barry’s feetto thefire over his laughable budget. Even more shocking – he actually praised a Republican for a change (his knee jerk stance since 2008 has been Obama Good/Republicans Bad.) It’s about time. Its not like Obama’s fiscal fraudulencehasn’tbeen ondisplaybefore.
I’m forced to ask Andrew: What the hell did you expect when you threw your support behind such an obvious liberal politician?
Few authors have grappled with Big Questions™ via deliciously salacious material better than Sophocles. Want to get people talking about conflicts between secular & religious obligations, fate, and civic virtue? Tease them with incest, patricide, live burial, and self-mutilation.
The West Was Written blogger has an interesting analysis of the civic virtue angle as presented in Antigone:
Once the confetti is swept up, the real test of governing begins. This is when King Creon’s admonishment [to be skeptical of our leaders' self-advertisements] becomes important. WE MUST WATCH OUR RULERS – and this is daunting because there are so very many of them these days. Where to begin? Begin with the understanding that this duty is not exciting. That it requires sacrifice and boring conversations on multiple occasions with people your delicate feelings would rather avoid…
Why all of that watching? Politicians never EVER say what they really mean. It takes multiple times listening to their speeches and interviews (or better yet being in the room with one by going to boring government meetings) to really get a sense of what they’re actually saying.
The conflict between what’s important and what’s exciting is clearest in politics. It’s why the Cordoba House mosque attracts more attention than the Financial Reform Bill, and why Sarah Palin has more than 2,000,000 followers on Facebook, while Paul Ryan has fewer than 6,000. Government’s most important functions are rarely sexy, which is why it’s necessary to keep a close, weary eye on it and the people who run it.
But we should apply our skepticism means as well as the proper goals and purpose of government. Keeping politicians and bureaucrats honest is essential to liberty, but only if we are equally vigilant about keeping them on task. Read the rest of this entry »
Crap like this from Democrats would be a lot more persuasive if the president from their party didn’t spend decades being buddy-buddy with an actual domestic terrorist.
Anytime a Democrat accuses Tea Partiers of terrorism, any reporter worth his salt should ask the following: “In light of your concerns about domestic anti-government terrorism, would you now criticize Barrack Obama for maintaining a lengthy relationship with admitted domestic anti-government terrorist Bill Ayers?” Or perhas simply, “What, other than competence, was the difference between the president’s friend Bill Ayers and executed terrorist Tim McVeigh?”
Perhaps as a follow-up, “I can cite to three proven instances of violence by Democrat activists against Tea Partiers; can you cite me three proven instances of violence by Tea Partiers against their political enemies?” “I can cite a proven instance where Democrat activists went to a Tea Party and beat up a black guy while shouting racial epithets at him; can you cite a proven instance where Tea Partiers have done the same?”
Unfortunately, reporters would rather keep being stenographers for politicians who say stupid crap rather than asking questions about the stupid crap politicians say.
A few weeks ago, I pointed out that the only complaint Marc Thiessen is capable of offering about Bush-Era detention and interrogation policy is that they should have done exactly what they did, only with more awesome.
It’s an infuriating self-criticism for two reasons. First, it’s simply not plausible that — given the tremendous strains and pressures of the months and years immediately following 9/11 — that they didn’t make some serious error in judgment that they subsequently realize was mistaken. Second, it’s the kind of self-criticism whose only function is self-compliment; their only mistake, Theissen argues, was fail to realize how incredibly — how awesomely! – right they were from the beginning.
Theissen, however, is not alone in this attitude. Having suffered set-back after set-back, defeat after defeat, and rejection after rejection, President Obama unveiled a new health care reform bill earlier today. By all accounts, it differs from both the Senate and the House bills in one important, essential way: it’s more awesome.
NB: Aparently, Marc Thiessen has written a best-selling, insightful, and reasonably-priced book on the subject that answers all conceivable questions in thorough detail and clear prose. How interesting! Whatashamehedoesn’tpromoteitmoreoften.
The Democrats’ slow, painful realization that the 2008 election had nothing — nothing! — to do with their ideas and policies has been particularly amusing to watch. As Apollo has noted, President Obama has shown an utter inability to turn people’s affection for him into anything substantive.
John Derbyshire put forward a plausible theory for this phenomenon a few months ago on RadioDerb:
It seems to me that there are certain people to whom, for unfathomable reasons, things happen. We all know, for example, that you can be accident-prone. Barack Obama possesses one of these ineffable attributes. Instead of being accident-prone, he’s award-prone. I mean, he has some indefinable quality that makes people want to reward him. Look at his career: Fulbright Scholarship, President of the Harvard Law Review, Senate seat, convention keynote address, nomination, Presidency — and at each step, if you asked someone why Obama was more deserving than A, B, or C, you’d get a puzzled silence. Obama’s just a guy people want to give things to.Why this is so, is just one of those mysteries about human nature. There are seriously stupid people who get rich; there are beautiful women who can’t get dates; there are people who smoke, drink, and cook every meal in lard, yet who live to be 120; there are gifted writers who are witty, talented, and handsome, full of brilliant insights, who have to eke out a paltry living on obscure conservative websites … It’s all part of the general unfairness built into the world.
Having suffered through the Tea Parties, town halls, two gubernatorial losses, and Scott Brown’s victory,* Congress seems to be on the verge getting this. The big man, however? Not so much:
[Representative Marion Berry, D-LA] recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.
“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.” [snip]
Obama’s the celebrity everyone likes, but won’t buy anything from. Let’s hope he keeps selling.
* Brown’s victory is a pure Rorschach Test: nobody knows anything for sure, but everyone has a theory, which happens to exactly coincide with their own prejudices. (For what it’s worth, I think it was anger at the sleaziness Massachusetts democratic machine, but — again — I’m predisposed toward that). I will say this, though: Brown wasn’t shy about his opposition to Obamacare.
Does this bear any resemblance whatsoever to the promises our president made during the campaign, or the way that some David Brooksy-types assured us he would govern?
Or is this the Chicago-style politics we ignorant knuckledraggers on the extreme right predicted?
Just something to consider when thinking about who to believe in the future.
Next time somebody tells me how wonderful and sincere our president is, I’m going to point him to this:
On the meeting’s being dubbed the “Beer Summit,” Obama said, “It’s a clever term, but this is not a summit, guys. This is three folks having a drink at the end of the day, and hopefully giving people an opportunity to listen to each other, and that’s really all it is.
“This is not a university seminar. It is not a summit. It’s an attempt to have some personal interaction when an issue has become so hyped and so symbolic that you lose sight of just the fact that these are people involved,” he said.
He said he would be surprised if the media makes the meeting out to be more important than his meeting Thursday with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, president of the Philippines, but “the press has surprised me before.”
The Fed’s capping executive pay at $1,ooo,ooo through the tax code in the 1980s lead to current incentive based executive compensation via stock options. Now, Comrade Barry wants to further limit executive pay.
The last time they tried this feel good communist crap we got the system that is now, according to them, broken. Who wants to bet that whatever crazy scheme they come up with now will be just as bad, if not worse?
What happens when people can’t get what they think they are worth? They move to place where they can. If Barry and Barney want to destroy American business and decimate the job market they are on the right track.
Look I’m not one to say that Obama hates America, or that he would willingly collude with our enemies. Then he goes and says shit like this.
Obama says Iran’s energy concerns legitimate
By NANCY ZUCKERBROD
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 9:24 AM
LONDON — President Barack Obama suggested thatIranmay have some right to nuclear energy _ provided it proves by the end of the year that its aspirations are peaceful.
In a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday, he also restated plans to pursue direct diplomacy with Tehran to encourage it set aside any ambitions for nuclear weapons it might harbor.
First off, Iran sits on a giant fracking sea of oil, so any “energy concerns” they may have can probably be allieviated by, oh I dunno, OIL. Second, even if he believes this to be true you do not announce it on the fracking BBC! All this will do is embolden Iran and give them more ammunition at the negotiating table. If the enlightened one believes they have the right to nuclear power then it must be true.
In a world where a former coke head smiles at jokes about others’ drug problems, you’d think more people would point out that the former coke head was, well, a former coke head. Yet I think it’s still considered downright rude to refer to Obama’s drug history.
It is, of course, completely unsurprising that Obama smiled and laughed through such a thoroughly offensive and unfunny series of jokes. By now we’ve grown quite accustomed to mainstream people on the left saying unconscionable things without being called on it; Obama has been part of this culture for decades. I picture him having a similar smile on his face during Jeremiah Wright’s jokes. Sykes, like Wright, has a valid point!
Apollo posted this at 10:41 AM HKT on Sunday, May 10th, 2009 as That's Not Change!
