posted March 13, 2009 12:16 PM            

In his campaign for the Presidency, candidate Barack Obama and his minions relied on several key messages:

I am for change (I am not George Bush);
I am the candidate who will break through the racial barrier and show how America (and yes, you the voter) can be part of this noble uplifting effort;
I am young and vigorous but also calm and composed (not like John McCain);
I am a gifted speaker who will inspire you.

Experience, and in particular executive experience, was not much discussed, since Obama had less of both than any candidate for President in history. And Obama also ran from his public voting record and history of associations (Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, Tony Rezko) that suggested he would be far more to the left than any President in history. Rather the message was that he would be bi-partisan, moderate, and post-racial.

We have now seen the President and his team in action, and the lack of executive experience seems to be a real drawback. The fiasco with British Prime Minister Brown's visit may reflect more than the President's fatigue after going through all those papers on his desk. The Administration's vetting process for high level positions was weak and many posts remain unfilled, especially at Treasury, arguably the most critical Cabinet Department at the moment.
Investors remain baffled as to how the Administration plans to address the banking industry. The President's prior voting record (the most liberal of any Senator's) seems to have been a reliable guide as to how far left the President wants to move the country (as Rahm Emanuel has said: a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and in fact offers an opportunity.) On the other hand, Obama remains unflappable, at least on camera.

In one area, Obama as the great communicator, a little bit of the glow is gone. For it turns out that while there is only one O in teleprompter, without this trusted device, we might not have the Big O in the White House (apologies to Oscar Robertson). It is now coming out (though not in the New York Times or Washington Post) two years too late, that underlying of the gifted public speaker iconography is a machine. Our President has a dependency, and it is not on tobacco products. The real "jones" is for a teleprompter.

No President is known to have used such a device at press conferences before, so that his staff could funnel facts and figures to him ("my, how encyclopedic he is with information!"). No President or Presidential candidate has ever been as inseparable from the device every time he makes a speech. Barack Obama's rhetorical gifts, which delivered chills up Chris Matthews' leg, and inspired Joe Klein to paroxysms of delight during his recent address to a joint session of Congress, appears to be the ability to "deliver" a speech, written by others and printed out for him to read. For a few months, what registered as newsworthy for the legions of Obama media flacks,was whether he would get to keep his cherished blackberry in the White House. But it was always, it seems, the teleprompter that really ruled.

In but seven short weeks, the aura of greatness (if not transcendence) has all but withered away from our new President, due to the continued and it appears, worsening economic and financial turmoil. The President can continue to start every sentence with we "inherited" this or that problem from the prior administration, or repeat the mantra of the "failed policies" of the last 8 years, but in 7 weeks since his Inauguration, the nation has shed well over a million jobs. Americans who lose their jobs, are less interested in a blame game and much more in solutions that work, and get them back to work. Similarly, stoking a populist zeal to strike back at the evil Wall Street financial crowd may serve for a period of time to divert attention from the success or failure of Obama's own programs, but if all the bailouts and stimuli don't succeed in reversing the economic decline, it is the present administration that will have to answer for its failures.

Since his election on November 4th, an event we were told that would inspire Americans with hope for change (better times), more than 2.5 million jobs have been lost. The President's words, whether read (almost all the time) or delivered extemporaneously (very rare) seem to have done nothing to inspire the confidence needed for businesses and consumers to change behavior and begin to stem the job losses. In fact it can be argued that by talking down the American economy for two years (even while it was still growing) and creating fear, Obama and other Democratic contenders for the Oval office, may have helped turn many Americans from free spenders to very cautious savers. That is not helping car sales, home sales, retail sales or business inventory levels. It is why GDP is shrinking so rapidly. But all that depressing talk undoubtedly helped get Obama elected and Democrats to expand their control of the House and Senate.

Economists consider Obama a dismal failure so far. They think even worse of his tax cheating Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, whose Department is so undermanned, it fails to answer the phone at times. Economists give far higher grades to the performance of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who if memory serves, was appointed by former President George W. Bush.

The stock market, which bets on futures, has dropped more than 15% in 50 days of the Obama administration (it is down 25% since his Election Day victory). The Obama administration's record of wealth destruction is far beyond that of any other President in his first 50 days. Forget the Lincoln and FDR comparisons. The market rallied nearly 80% in the first 7 weeks under FDR, and is down 16% (even counting Tuesday's big rally) in the first 50 days under President Obama. This is a comparison of inspiration versus desperation.

We have had a frenetic pace in the first months of the new administration. The Obama media machine has broadcast its success in early passage of the $800 billion "stimulus" bill, designed to create or save anywhere from 3 to 4 million jobs (depending on the particular day of the press release). That bill was rushed through Congress, ostensibly because every day lost, was a day when many more American jobs were shed. The reality, it turned out, was that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needed to catch a flight to Rome for a taxpayer-funded Congressional junket. The bill was then left unsigned by President Obama for 4 days, as he flew back for his own junket to Chicago, to shoot some hoops with friends, dine out with the wife, and watch the NBA All Star game.

The signing ceremony and initial release of funds actually waited until Obama could do the honors at a campaign style event in a swing state the next week. At the rate of job losses every day in February, the signing delay occurred while nearly 100,000 more American jobs were shed. So did the bill need to get passed all that quickly or not?

Could a bit more time have been taken, even if inconvenient for both the Speaker and the President, to produce a better bill in Congress -- one focused more on job creation, especially among those groups with high unemployment rates, and less on pet priorities of liberal interest groups, particularly those of teachers' unions, environmental groups, and those who favor more health care spending?

The same hypocrisy is associated with the President's (no ceremony for this one) signing of the $410 billion omnibus spending bill on Wednesday. The candidate who promised to scour the budget line by line to eliminate waste, decided that the 8,000 plus earmarks in the Omnibus bill were OK this time. (but maybe not next time). The Congressional appropriators, who raised spending in pretty much all areas from baseline plus 3% to baseline plus 8%, got a pass on that one too from President Obama. After all, what are a few tens of billions of new money to be spent (among friends), that the Treasury does not have?

The President's ten year budget proposals also scored far higher on hype and hypocrisy than reality. The supposed $2 trillion in "savings" come in two major area: tax increases, and counting as savings any reduction in spending in Iraq over the next ten years as compared to the higher spending level in that country in federal fiscal year 2008 ( the year of the surge). Does it make sense to assume a "surge" level of spending for ten years as a baseline?

The President's shills on Capitol Hill, Geithner and Budget Director Peter Orszag, defended this new budget math with a straight face, only further diminishing them as straight shooters of the new transparency. The projected budget deficit -- falling to "only" $500 billion a year in 2013, and only 3% of GDP in ten years, requires sizable tax increases not only on the affluent, but on energy producers and corporate users from the proposed cap and trade program (who would pass their higher costs on to all consumers), and on 4% per year growth in real GDP, a level not reached on a consistent basis for decades.

If the true deficit turns out to be a trillion dollars a year or much higher for years to come, who will buy all that new government paper: $150 billion a month in new debt for 2009, and $100 billion or more in net new debt each month in the next few years? Will China buy Treasury paper paying 2.8% for 10 years, or 3.5% for 30 years? These rates reflect investors' flight to "quality" (in their wholesale abandonment of stocks), and very relaxed monetary policy since the credit crisis began. Low interest rates are assumed to remain that way in Obama's ten year budget projections, but that too may be unrealistic.

There has been grumbling even among some Democrats that Obama is trying to do too much to soon, and that parts of his program (especially the enormous cap and trade tax) may destroy jobs that his stimulus plan tries to create.

As pointed out in an earlier article, Obama has a lot of political power at the moment, with big majorities in both the House and Senate, and is using it to steamroller through what he and the hard left of the Democratic Party have always wanted. Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, Maxine Waters, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders are having their day at the beach.

The President had another campaign style event in another swing state (Ohio) last week that is revealing. On a day when the new jobless numbers were released (651,000 jobs lost in February, unemployment up to 8.1%), Obama jetted off to take credit for saving the jobs of 27 Columbus, Ohio police recruits, whose pay (for only one year, it turns out) will come from stimulus funds. If the February pace holds, the economy would have shed almost 1,000 times as many jobs that day as were saved for the police recruits. Is it unfair to mention the carbon footprint of the President jetting to Ohio for this event to celebrate so small an achievement, or the cost of police protection by the local force, whose budget is so strained it needed stimulus money to pay the 27 new members of the force? The campaign event worked to help "win" the daily news cycle for Obama, and enable the ever friendly nightly new anchors to speak both of job losses (Bush's fault) , but also job gains (credit to Obama).

Making the locals pay for Obama public events, is of course, nothing new. In Chicago, the near $ 2 million bill for providing security for Obama's Election night party in Grant Park was never paid by the Obama campaign. A typical victory party in a hotel would have been far less demanding on and costly for the City of Chicago.

The sad reality is that if you are a narcissist in chief, and prefer campaigning to governing, you need to speak before large crowds all the time. Obama has promised to hit the road every week to meet the people of this great country. You can guess in which swing states he will find them. In July, as the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, Obama demanded an outdoor event while visiting Germany, and then spoke to 200,000 Germans, assuring them that his victory would mean the oceans would stop rising, and the earth would start healing. He decided to have his nomination acceptance speech outdoors in a football stadium in Denver, with 80,000 on hand, speaking in front of a backdrop of fake Roman columns. Add Grant Park on Election Night to the mega event list.

Oprah Winfrey, whose support for Obama last year might have been critical in his winning the nomination, helping move perhaps a million or more women voters in the primaries and caucuses away from Hillary Clinton and to Obama, was seen leaving the Denver event in August, almost unable to walk, overcome with emotion, and for once, speechless. Speechless will be one word that will never be used to describe our current President. Obama needs to talk, and for crowds to cheer him. As narcissist in chief, Obama, much like Bill Clinton, flourishes in the public setting with the adoring crowd cheering, laying out a stream of fluent prose that he is reading.

posted March 13, 2009 12:38 PM            

abraham lincoln had no executive experience either. the beginning of his term was marked by just the kind of criticism and lack of confidence expressed vis-a-vis obama above. he allowed himself to be led by those with more experience while he acclimatized himself and found his own footing. the rest (well all of it) is history. there are of course plenty more parallels to lincoln in obama. i am not judging lincoln in any way. but he did grow into his role in a crucial period in our history.

those "rallies in the market tuesday" would now have to read tues/weds/thurs and amount to about 600 of the lost 3000 points everyone was moaning about(20% recouped). whether they hold is something we can only see as it transpires. but already the above article is out of date.

things are changing fast not just here but around the world. will we improve things by predicting the worst? are people like the above author not doing exactly what they accuse obama of doing(scaremongering)? and what president given the political support in the houses that obama enjoys would not use that support to advantage?

we experienced similar financial crises in the 1850's, 1930's and also in the late 18th century. these are times of GREAT OPPORTUNITY for those who do not crumble but take advantage of the possibilities. most of the great fortunes inthis country, and indeed around the world, were created during just such times.

posted March 13, 2009 01:10 PM            

President Barack Obama: A Fraud You Can Believe In

The Advocate
By Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin
Friday, March 13, 2009

The hopes and prayers of the American people have finally been answered with the election of a new president: A fraud they can believe in.

Yes, and even as Barack Obama demonstrates he is a fraud, phony and hypocrite par excellence — who also happens to be in way over his head — the American people still believe in him. Yes, love is grand and his approval rating is still miraculously high. If the truth were known, that approval rating would be sinking lower than the stock market, home prices or the economy.

I doubted he was the Messiah, but now I’m not sure. When a president can be the greatest wealth destroyer in history and still maintain high approval ratings, maybe he does have supernatural powers. What’s more he is god-like. It is said God so loved the poor that he made many of them; Mr. Obama is almost outdoing God by turning so many into poor people.

As I surveyed the disaster that is the Obama administration, I was surprised by how many memorable statements of the past put the present and the president into such clear perspective. I have a weakness for books of quotations and I was re-reading that fascinating book by Robert Byrne titled, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said.

In it, I came across the quote that describes our recent American history so perfectly. Will Durst, a comedian, put it perfectly when he said, “Voters want a fraud they can believe in.”

There was abundant evidence Mr. Obama was a fraud, not a savior, in everything he’s done in life — from his early education to his days in the Illinois legislature then to his U.S. Senate days and finally as a successful candidate for president. If anyone would look at his record and associates they’d see he’s advocated infanticide in the Illinois State Senate, he’s never displayed a glimmer of bipartisanship and he came out of the slime and sewer that is Chicago machine politics. And his associates would prevent him from getting security clearance if he was applying for a government job, rather than being elected to one.

This column has documented Mr. Obama’s fraudulent positioning on the most important issues of our time. He talks of bipartisanship, but is totally partisan. He is against earmarks, but is about to sign a bill with more than 8,000 of them. He says he’s going over every spending bill line by line to eliminate waste and abuse. But then he passes the greatest spending and stimulus bill in history without even allowing time enough for Congress and the public to read it. He says he is going to keep lobbyists out of his administration, but then he packs almost as many lobbyists into his administration as tax cheats.

He says his administration will be transparent but then can’t even produce figures on the number of lobbyists that have received waivers to be in the administration.

He says almost all Americans will get a tax cut, but then proposes a carbon tax that will assure almost all Americans will get a tax increase. He promised to put the country on a pay-as-you-go basis, but he’s setting records for deficits, national debt, spending, destroying wealth and for spend-as-you-go politics.

The most recent and dramatic example of how the Obama rhetoric has nothing in common with the Obama reality involves the organized attack of his administration on radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Remember all of the Obama speeches about his rejection of the old politics and his commitment to stick to the major issues of our time. He promised to avoid diversions from the issues.

So what does the Obama administration do? It acts as if radio talk show host, Mr. Limbaugh, was the greatest issue of our time. This is orchestrated at the highest level of the administration.

It turns a sideshow into the main ring. This idiocy of the Obama administration was best captured by a cartoon a recent Weekly Standard. It shows the White House with a series of cartoon balloons asking and then answering the following questions:

“We must take care of the biggest threat to America.”

Question: “The economy?”

Answer: “No.”

Question: ”The banking crisis?”

Answer: “No.”

Question: “Terrorism?”

Answer: “No.”

Question: “Iranian nukes?”

Answer: “No.”

Question: “Then what?”

Answer: “Rush Limbaugh.”

The new politics of Mr. Obama is even pettier, lower and dirtier than the old politics. The only change Mr. Obama is ready to deliver is change for the worse, not the better.

He promised hope, but endlessly repeats the words crisis, catastrophe and continuously runs the economy into the ground. Someone counted the word “crisis” popping up 26 times in one of his short speeches. Perhaps it’s win-win for him, as the worst it gets, the more he can sell his socialistic, share-the-wealth, soak the rich programs. He agrees with his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, that you should never let a crisis go to waste.

If that’s not bad enough, the White House and Mr. Obama are now exhibiting signs of reckless incompetence and amateur-hour behavior that is even more threatening. Here’s a glaring example. President Obama recently announced we are losing the war in Afghanistan and, at the same time, announced we may try to negotiate with the more moderate wing of the Taliban.

You would think no one would be so naïve and inexperienced that they propose negotiation while proclaiming your own weakness. Mr. Obama, in approaching negotiation with the “moderate” wing of this terrorist group sounds more like he wants to negotiate an American surrender. The moderate Taliban, I would guess, would slit your throat rather than behead you.

This is the same kind of amateur-hour incompetence and insanity that led to the Obama proposal to negotiate without pre-condition with every genocidal terrorist and maniac such as the leaders in Iran and North Korea. It is the same kind of amateur-hour incompetence and insanity that led Mr. Obama to the moral equivalence between Russia’s invasion of Georgia and Georgia’s response. It is incredible that one president can demonstrate so much inexperience and incompetence on many issues in such a short time.

But the far reaches of the most pure incompetence were displayed by his handling of the bank/credit crisis. Economists and other experts agree the problem at the heart of the great financial meltdown and recession is the freezing up of credit. So the first priority should be a solution to the bank/credit crisis. Yet it seems to be the last priority and the most neglected of all White House tasks. While Mr. Obama flits around with proposals and works for universal health insurance, education reform and infrastructure redirection, the proposals and team to deal with the bank/credit crisis is immobilized or perhaps better described as in shambles.

The noted tax cheat, Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner, falls on his face every time he takes a step forward. He still doesn’t have his plan in place to fix the bank/credit crunch. Secretary Geithner, and the rest of the economic team, still don’t have a plan for rescuing the banks or otherwise solving the problem. Mr. Geithner still doesn’t have his key staff in place and, when I last checked, not a single one of the top 17 treasury officials to work under him were in place.

Mr. Obama says, like JFK, he has to handle multiple issues at the same time. Unfortunately, he seems to be unable to handle a single issue at one time. Mr. Obama says that FDR, Abraham Lincoln and JFK had to handle many issues at the same time. I can’t say I knew those three former presidents, but I can assure Mr. Obama he’s no Lincoln, FDR nor JFK; he’s not even close.

There is other, abundant evidence of incompetence. You have to wonder whether he is even vetting high-level appointments, as one after another, is exposed to be a tax cheat. Late-night comedians joke that we can eliminate the deficit just by getting Mr. Obama’s appointees to pay up their taxes.

This is not to mention his Commerce appointment, Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., who is under investigation and possible indictment for corruption.

If all that is not enough, we have the fiasco of fiascos — the appointment of Charles Freeman to be chairman of the National Intelligence Council, a key entity in setting America’s foreign policy, security and intelligence operations. It turns out he sounds like a Fifth Column agent for Saudi Arabia, Iran and China.

It turns out he was designated by a top intelligence official within the Obama administration and his appointment wasn’t even communicated to the White House. He wasn’t vetted by the White House, and apparently no one even bothered to ask him whether he is paying his taxes. It’s entirely possible President Obama has finally found an appointee who is not a tax cheat. Yes, he can.

As I was writing that last paragraph, Fox News broke a story that Mr. Freeman had withdrawn from this appointment. Maybe the next appointee to chair the National Intelligence Council should be vetted before being named.

There’s a glimmer of good news. Even some of Mr. Obama’s advisers and supporters are finally figuring out Mr. Obama doesn’t know what he is doing. For example, Warren Buffet, considered the nation’s greatest and richest investor, and an Obama adviser, now says Mr. Obama’s economic message is muddled and is undermining public confidence. Mr. Obama told CNBC, “And I think we’ve had, and it’s the nature of the political process somewhat, but we’ve had muddled messages and the American public does not know. They feel they don’t know what’s going on, and their reaction then is to absolutely pull back.”

Incidentally, Jack Welch, the former management genius at G.E., says Mr. Obama ought to focus on the economy and stop trying to handle all kinds of major issues all at once.

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, a specialist in presidential politics, agrees with Mr. Buffet. He says the public is confused and Mr. Obama may be unintentionally sending the message that the problem may be the public may not understand what they’re talking about on the banks. I’ve got news for Professor Sabato: The Obama people can’t figure out what they’re talking about either.

Reuters also reports Tony Fratto, a former spokesman for President George W. Bush, said it is not only a muddled message problem but a fact problem: “[T]he market is not getting clear information on what Treasury’s intentions are for the rest of this program.”

Even some of the bootlicking, Obama-worshipping mainstream media are losing confidence in him. For example, the San Francisco Chronicle has written Mr. Obama is embarrassing America. Even Howard Fineman, of Newsweek magazine, one of the publications that was running Obama covers almost weekly, now writes that Mr. Obama is losing the support of the establishment.

All these developments are finally eroding Mr. Obama’s approval ratings, which have now dropped from the 60s to 56, with the disapproval rating running 43 percent. If the public gets the full story of the performance of the Obama administration, I would think his approval rating should drop to the single digit range, if that high.

I should add one other point on the fraud that is Obama. His supporters like to bill him as the smartest man on the planet. But if he is so smart why is he unable to speak without the help of a teleprompter? He must have to go to bed with it. If you can’t speak extemporaneously after going through a campaign, you can’t be very bright.

I went through a primary campaign for the U.S. Senate, and by the time I was done I could deliver a campaign speech in my sleep, without notes and without a teleprompter. And I’m sure anyone who has been through a campaign will tell you the same thing. Mr. Obama is a strange exception.

There are even reports that the teleprompter is used to feed him facts and talking points to help him answer questions. There’s also a report the White House is working on a computer unit on the podium to feed him material during press conferences and other question-and-answer formats.

I’m afraid like the great Oz, the great Mr. Obama will soon be discovered to be the fraud that he is. The golden tongue orator can’t move his golden tongue without the aid of a script and a teleprompter.

There have been many false Messiahs in history, but isn’t this going a little too far? We’ve got to set a higher standard, even for false Messiahs.

posted March 13, 2009 01:55 PM            

i repeat, people thought a lot of the same things about lincoln, who by the way had no executive experience and floundered badly in his first weeks in office.

and i repeat stop whingeing and make something of it. and in the meantime perhaps you'd like to sample waterboarding and tell me again that it isn't torture.

posted March 13, 2009 04:40 PM            

The more you post, the more your leftist tendencies shine through. Leftists are forever attempting to shut others up but that won't work with me.

O'Bomber is exactly what I said he was from the beginning.

A constructed personality
An inexperienced empty suit lacking any executive experience.
A liar
A fraud
A Marxist Socialist
An economic dunce

Time and events have proved me right.

As for who calls O'Bomber "The One", that's O'Bomber himself.."WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=molWTfv8TYw&feature=related

As for who calls O'Bomber the "Messiah", that's Louis Farrakhan.

Farrakhan on Obama: 'The Messiah is absolutely speaking'
'Barack has captured the youth,' will bring about 'universal change'
Posted: October 09, 2008
8:03 pm Eastern

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, another powerful Chicago-based political figure associated with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and other long-time associates of Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama, is leaving no doubt about what he thinks of the leader in the campaign for the White House.

He says when Obama talks "the Messiah is absolutely speaking."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77539

posted March 13, 2009 04:51 PM            

whatever. i have never tried to control what you say. that would be a ridiculous waste of time. however thank you for the impetus to investigate some things i have not bothered with for a long time.

in your world, jwhop, you are of course absolutely right. how could it be any other way given your stance. that is why you perceive me as trying to shut you up! what a laugh! have fun when pluto squares that aries mars!! could there be a waterboard in your future? watch out because if your fantasies are true, it might just be YOU next time!!

posted March 13, 2009 05:34 PM            

quote:

---

i didn't care for bush but i managed to survive his presidency.

---

posted March 13, 2009 06:28 PM            

Oh, well said from the guy who accused Bush of lying to the public, slanting intelligence briefings, pressuring intelligence analysts, accused Bush of being a murderer...and all that's just off the top of my head because there were other accusations from you acoustic.

I have no intention of letting up on THE ONE, THE MESSIAH. Every O'Bomber lie and misstep will be cataloged..time permitting and it's clear that's going to take a lot of time.

That said, you won't find me lying about O'Bomber and there's no need to do so...unlike you acoustic and your support group who spewed lies all over this forum about Bush.

posted March 13, 2009 06:48 PM            

So first, O'Bomber snubs and embarrasses Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister and his wife who flew over to meet with O'Bomber...bearing gifts I might add. Brown and wife weren't even given a State dinner but O'Bomber and wife did manage to party with their friends in the White House later. Still later, O'Bomber claimed fatigue as an excuse...not doubt from all that partying.

O'Bomber gave Brown a DVD collection of movies he could have bought at Walmart for about 40 bucks.

Now, O'Bomber and his airhead staff can't even get the name of Brazil's leader right...and pushed the meeting date up...because of Saint Patrick's Day.

I think the gang who can't shoot straight, who now occupy the White House, aren't ready for prime time and need to polish their act.

March 13, 2009
How to lose friends and influence people, part II
Rosslyn Smith

The White House has another clumsy blunder on its hands. Is it time yet to declare Obama's personal diplomacy a disaster?

Brazil is an emerging economic power whose respected (and left-leaning) leader, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has been seen as a possible intermediary between the Obama administration and several other Latin American nations. Thus the meeting of Brazilian President Silva with President Obama was seen as being very important on several fronts. According to this items at CNSNEWS.com, however,
...the White House made several moves interpreted as snubs by the Brazilian media.

Silva aides said the trip was pushed forward from Tuesday because of the St. Patrick's Day holiday -- making Latin America once again look like an afterthought. Then, the White House announcement misspelled his name as "Luis Ignacio" and put "Lula" -- a nickname that decades ago became a legal part of the Brazilian leader's name -- in quotes.

The White House quickly corrected the mistake.

My first reaction was that I wasn't aware the name was to be spelled O'Bama. My second reaction was to once again be appalled at the attitude of the White House towards foreign heads of state. Once a celebration of Irish pride, St. Patrick's day has increasingly become an excuse for perpetual adolescents to over indulge in beer drinking. To use it as the reason to rearrange the schedule of a foreign leader boggles the mind.

And is there anyone in either the White House or the State Department who can do an Internet search on a foreign head of state? First they give DVDs to the almost blind British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, now they use the Spanish spelling for the Christian name of the leader of the largest Portuguese speaking nation.

posted March 13, 2009 07:11 PM            

It's only been 7 weeks since the man whose resume fits nicely on the back of a postage stamp became the most powerful human being in the universe. As Presidents go, Barack Obama has proven at least one thing true: change is like the flip of a coin. Change can bring the best of times; change can bring the worst of times. And anyone over the age of twelve ought to have known that. Instead, 52% of the American electorate has run around like a bunch of howling ninnies for the past year chanting like a horde of Jim Jones' followers, who can't get enough of the poison kool-aid.

So much for progressive enlightenment.

With an economy in shambles, slinking toward all-out depression a little further each day, the President doesn't know the difference between a popularity-based political tracking poll and the confidence meter of the stock market, which represents the actual savings and pension funds of millions and millions of ordinary Americans. Heck, the golden boy of campaign one-liners doesn't even know that P/E ratio stands for price/earnings, not profit/earnings.

If only he had once had a paper route instead of all those pick-up games with the hoops.

That famed transition team -- the team that was given greater inside access than ever in history by a more-than-gracious out-going President, is about to go down as the most incompetent bunch of nincompoops ever produced by a university system. Those fancy degrees are evidently not worth the paper upon which they're printed.

In a time of mounting economic peril, even as the transition team dithered, one would have thought that fully staffing the Department of the Treasury would have been top priority. Not for this bunch. Timothy tax-cheat-TurboTax-challenged Geithner is a one-man Treasury Department and is so out of touch that he spent precious minutes in front of a Congressional panel scolding our own gas and oil companies for damaging the environment, even as a record 31.8 million Americans sign up for food stamps.

Earth to Tim: You won't get the Country out of this mess by slamming the companies that hire us so we won't need to be on the dole.

Is there a single business enterprise in America that this administration doesn't hate with a death wish?

Some of those folks now lining up to get food stamps and the like probably worked in the domestic tourist industries that have taken a whack from President Obama. Every time the President slams a trip by so-and-so from such-and-such company, real people lose the jobs they would have had providing services to these executives.

Las Vegas isn't known for anything but catering to out-of-towner, is it?

Evidently, a teleprompter attached to each of one's hips does not guarantee even a single gaffe-free moment. For all the rhetorical hit jobs perpetrated against Governor Sarah Palin, this woman got up and delivered one of the best speeches of this entire campaign with teleprompter glitches and a set of notes scribbled on by several others, all without so much as breaking a nail or missing a beat. President Obama's motto: have 2 teleprompters, will travel.

So much for Mr. Erudite.

When it comes to the very few jobs with which our federal government is actually commissioned by the U.S. Constitution, this Administration is coming up on empty every single day. While this President calls committee meeting after committee meeting (he calls them summits) for more well-educated nincompoops to sit around and B.S. their way through our domestic problems, our foreign policy is looking like the Keystone Cops high on M&Ms.

Foreign policy is actually in the Constitution; health, education and welfare are not.

President Obama has evidently decided that Israel and Great Britain are quite dispensable allies, but the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, the Syrians and Hamas are going to be our new best friends.

Obama dispatches Madame Secretary Clinton to the Chinese to beg them not to stop supporting our debt, but not to worry about those prickly human rights issues because we're not going to fret over those millions and millions of human beings kept under the brutal boot of communism any more. China answers with a wink and a nod and announces they're upping military spending by 15%. Several days later the Chinese surrounded one of our unarmed naval vessels as personnel charted the ocean floor and demand we leave international waters.

On the flip side, President Obama stuns the British and American publics with the most flagrant snubs between our two peoples since the Revolutionary War. First, foregoing the customary joint press conference with the flags and ceremony. Then the obvious denial of even a nice lunch for the Brit. Then the cake-taker of bad manners, a tacky, cheap gift in exchange for the exquisitely tasteful gifts from the British people. Their press is agog from it and declaring that the U.S. will be sorry for this. When President Obama sent back the bust of Churchill, given right after the 9/11 attacks, without so much as a note of explanation, perhaps the Brits should have known something sinister was afoot in the Oval Office.

Back to our newfound friends, President Obama moved swiftly after the Israelis' attempt to destroy rocket-launching sites in Gaza to offer $900 million in assistance to the Palestinians -- read Hamas. And Secretary Clinton made sure to take note of the damage done by those nasty Israelis while she toured the West Bank, taking the opportunity to publicly scold Israel (our heretofore friend), causing Israeli leaders to sneer, "She's not the Hillary we knew." Hillary was barely out of the region before Iran test fired a new long range missile and made certain to notify the Israelis that the new missiles are fully capable of hitting Israel's nuclear facilities.

Now, when are we going to get to see all that "smart power"?

Not with the Russians, apparently. When Mrs. Clinton made her "smart power" debut there last week, she carried a gimmicky little gadget, resembling the Staples "Easy Button." Only Mrs. Clinton's perfectly cutesy-pie idea was to inscribe the Russian word for "reset" on the button. Instead our State Department academic wiz kids put the Russian word for "overcharge" on the little button, making mincemeat of Hillary's "smart power" before she even got out of the gate.

Meanwhile, the Russians guffawed at President Obama's offer to trade missile defense systems in Eastern Europe (he had already pre-announced his intention to scrap missile defense systems, remember?) for help with the Iranian nuclear "problem," saying "haggling" over such things is unproductive.

Shades of JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis are making my skin crawl.

The North Koreans are acting up a storm too, and blithely threatening South Korean civilian airliners, while they prepare to launch a far-reaching missile that they're calling a "satellite." As if that weren't enough, the North Koreans are also brazenly uttering war threats - not asking to come to the negotiating table where all the "smart power" folks are in charge now.

Not to worry, though, because as Gallup, Rasmussen and Zogby remind us every day, this President is still one popular, cool dude to the 52% who drank his kool-aid from the campaign trail -- plus a few Americans who probably didn't even vote but love to talk to pollsters on the tele. And as gloom and doom stalk every hardworking American, the Obamas party hardy, feasting on delicacies, toasting celebrities and stick us with the check.

Anyone in Obamaland ever hear of cognitive dissonance? Tar and feathers?

So, what will the campaign slogan of the other party be for 2012?

I'll have a whack at it.

Obama lied; hope died.

The Iranians got the A-bomb, the Russians got their jive back and the Chinese own everything.

Vote for the un-cool, work-experienced, good-without-a-teleprompter guy or gal who knows a friend from a foe and can add 2 + 2 and get 4 every single time.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/voters_obama_folly_coming_home.html

posted March 14, 2009 04:30 AM            

When Bush was under the microscope, it was "all's fair". Now, with Obama, it's not fair. Don't mock the president even when he says and or does something really stupid. Now the argument is "let's stick together".

posted March 14, 2009 06:25 AM            

Yes, yes, those of us who don't agree with taxing everyone into poverty aren't patriots. And those of us who don't think we should bailout criminals aren't patriots. I'm not a patriot because I don't think equality means poverty for all and that criminals should be rewarded.

Somehow, the current available arguments for the left are so hilariously far fetched as to be easily and entirely dismissed by any rational person. However, I'm not surprised that this would turn into something somehow critical of individuals here that you choose to blanket regardless of actual past behavior here when all I was talking about was criticism of Obama. And still, it's not surprising, all things past considered.

I will agree, however, that

quote:

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The Left gets to tell you that it essentially does what it wants, it defines things as it sees fit, and if you're unhappy with their course of action you're obviously unpatriotic and an enemy of the state.

---

posted March 14, 2009 12:03 PM            

second of all i put forward my view that whining doesn't make anything better, and this is a classic time of OPPORTUNITY - ask anyone in the Morgan family or others who made their fortunes in depressions - and suggested we would all be better off making the most of the situation. for this i am accused of trying to shut people up? on an online forum???

i am not trying to stop anyone saying what they think. first of all it's against my beliefs, and second of all, its a waste of time! however anyone who thinks waterboarding is not torture is beyond my comprehension and i find it hard to listen to their point of view.

perhaps it is MEA CULPA that i think there are more important things to do than trawl the internet/news media for articles that predict disaster. but this is the guy the american public voted for. as was bush. as i said, i didn't care for our FORMER president, but i did not lead any hate campaigns against him.

posted March 14, 2009 12:42 PM            

Now, there is a group who did attempt to spread terror in the United States and right on schedule...because leftists always side with America's enemies...leftists started singing the terrorist anthem, took up their propaganda and attempted to spread that propaganda in the United States. Of course, these leftists actions are the constitutional definition of "Treason"...as I have said and proved here numerous times.

Further, I've debunked the Bullshiiit that the police, or one of the alphabet agencies can stop anyone at any time for any reason. It's bullshiiit and violates the 4th Amendment provisions of "reasonable searches" and "probable cause".

There's a challenge to you to back up what you've already said about Bush. So far, you've punted as has every other person here who made wild, unprovable accusations about Bush...unprovable because they're not true. In other words, they're lies.

Your statement,
"so i say stop whingeing and make the most of it." is an attempt to shut me up about O'Bomber. As I told you, that's not going to happen.

Lastly, it's not Bush who attempted to form a "civilian security force...as well funded and trained as the US military"...in other words, a private army for O'Bomber, not sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution but rather a security force loyal to O'Bomber. Sieg Heil Comrade, your papers please.

posted March 14, 2009 02:18 PM            

quote:

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The difference would be that the left here umbrellas everyone, not just one or two people, that disagrees with them as a right-winger while there are many of us here who did no such thing as what you are trying to pass off on us. But that's to be expected considering the behavior here for so long.

---

Are you saying that you've not observed Jwhop over the years? Because he did that very thing repeatedly. I am still the centrist that I ever was, and you know I still get extremely annoyed when I see blanket statements about the Left that they avoid personal responsibility. Yet, anyone who seeks to balance Jwhop's skewed views of things is labelled all manner of Leftist terms.

quote:

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Yes, yes, those of us who don't agree with taxing everyone into poverty aren't patriots.

---

quote:

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However, I'm not surprised that this would turn into something somehow critical of individuals here that you choose to blanket regardless of actual past behavior here when all I was talking about was criticism of Obama. And still, it's not surprising, all things past considered.

---

Who did I blanket? I know you were talking about criticism of Obama. You seemed to be gleeful that you could now turn to the Democratic handbook for ways to annoy the party in power without realizing the opposite was true as well.

quote:

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Of course, these leftists actions are the constitutional definition of "Treason"...as I have said and proved here numerous times.

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You, my friend, have done no such thing. Treason is something a court decides. Not a partisan layperson.

quote:

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There's a challenge to you to back up what you've already said about Bush. So far, you've punted as has every other person here who made wild, unprovable accusations about Bush...unprovable because they're not true. In other words, they're lies.

---

Bullsh!t again. You've not saved Bush from every just accusation. You're deluding yourself as usual as katatonic must realize having picked up upon one of your losing arguments of the last years about waterboarding. (And why is it that you constantly try to pick fights you've already gone through over and over again? I'm guessing it's because you feel comfortable with the material, but only in your mind have you offerred an iota of help to the Bush administration. If you want to talk Bush some more, I would suggest you turn your attention to the senator from Vermont.)

quote:

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Lastly, it's not Bush who attempted to form a "civilian security force...as well funded and trained as the US military"...in other words, a private army for O'Bomber, not sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution but rather a security force loyal to O'Bomber. Sieg Heil Comrade, your papers please.

---

Lastly, Obama hasn't attempted to form a civilian security force, and you fashionably took that statement out of context as we discussed at the time.

posted March 14, 2009 03:04 PM            

when my daughter lived in a largely black neighbourhood (during the last administration) all i had to do to get interrogated was walk to my car from her apartment after midnight...i was white, see and therefore a drug suspect in that neighbourhood.

posted March 14, 2009 05:43 PM            

that is calling obama the "one" in what way?? "we" means you, me, him and all of us. last time i checked websters anyway.

touche Nosis, you got me. jwhop says he has proved the above incident does not happen because it's against the 4th amendment....but i am not trying to make points for my side and THAT is my point. we are all in this together and WE are the ones who must work it out. not obama, not bush, not the right, and not the left.

posted March 16, 2009 08:35 AM            

You are a leftist extremist, cut from the same bolt of cloth as the hyper-ventilators over at move on, daily kos, media matters and demoscat underground.

You've picked up almost all of their allegations against Bush...and the United States and posted them here...and every one was a total lie you could not defend or substantiate when you were called on them.

Now acoustic, if you'd like to take a stroll back through your history on this forum we can do that.

There are new members here now who don't know your history but your efforts to rehabilitate yourself as a "Centrist" aren't going to fly.

I actually got a chuckle out of one of your recent posts where you described Rahm Emanuel, O'Bomber's Chief of Staff as a "Centrist".

posted March 16, 2009 10:49 AM            

A curious feature of the most outspoken proponents of government redistribution of taxpayer money is that, often they are the stingiest among us when it comes to donating their own wealth to charity.

In her new book and column of March 12, Ann Coulter compares the charitable donations of Presidents Obama and Bush and VPs Biden and Cheney.

As a tipoff on how the comparison goes, remember that Obama's youngest half-brother lives in wretched poverty in a 65-sqare-foot shack in Nairobi. Like many liberals, the president cares deeply for the poor; so long as the poor are helped with taxpayer money. Even without any trickle-down assistance from his older brother, George Obama nevertheless proudly adorns his dilapidated hovel with a front-page newspaper photo of his wealthy relative who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (but I digress).

According to their tax returns [notes Coulter], in 2006 and 2007, the Obamas gave 5.8 percent and 6.1 percent of their income to charity. I guess Michelle Obama has to draw the line someplace with all this ‘giving back' stuff. The Bidens gave 0.15 percent and 0.31 percent of the income to charity.

Meanwhile, in 1991, 1992 and 1993, George W. Bush had incomes of $179,591, $212,313 and $610,772. His charitable contributions those years were $28,236, $31,914 and $31,292. During his presidency, Bush gave away more than 10 percent of his income each year.

For purposes of comparison, in 2005, Barack Obama made $1.7 million -- more than twice President Bush's 2005 income of $735,180 -- but they both gave about the same amount to charity.

That same year, the heartless Halliburton employee Vice President Dick Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity. The following year, in 2006, Bush gave more to charity than Obama on an income one-third smaller than Obama's.

(For those who reject everything that Ann Coulter says because she is a "flamethrower," I commend to you a book on the subject by Professor Arthur Brooks, aptly titled, "Who Really Cares?")

Studies have shown that giving away personal wealth to charitable causes doesn't help donors to get elected to government office. It turns out that promising to help the poor and middle class with tax money from the "wealthy" does, in fact, win elections. In an attempt to provide some "fairness doctrine" balance, there is a silver lining for President Obama in the comparisons: Compared to Joe Biden Obama is rather generous.

Obama's real source of generosity -- other people's money -- brings me to the president's plan to limit tax deductions on charitable giving.

Tampering with charitable giving is one of those inexplicable liberal policies against society's own interests. It's in the category with the brilliant policy of paying women monthly installments in taxpayer money after they have children out of wedlock -- which increases both illegitimacy (and all its aftereffects) and the taxpayers' exponential burden. Denying charitable deductions likewise creates a double negative: It discourages voluntary giving while increasing the individual's tax burden.

Considering that Americans are the most generous charitable givers in the world it makes absolutely no sense to discourage generosity and its benefits. That is, it makes no sense to a traditional American. Spreading the wealth or surplus around to the less fortunate works best when it's done voluntarily, for any number of reasons: Charitable giving eliminates waste and government bureaucracy; it can be accomplished at the local level, meeting immediate needs; it makes the community stronger; it provides satisfaction to the giver; and rather than creating a sense of entitlement in the receiver, it encourages recognition and responsibility.

Totalitarian government, however, cannot tolerate competition in meeting the needs of society. Government alone must spread the wealth around inasmuch as only Big Brother knows what people really need.

In his piece, "Obama's Ideological Father," Professor Herbert London shows that the parallels between the founder of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci, and President Obama are striking. Gramsci provided three reasons for why the Italians didn't welcome a Communist revolution in the early 20th century. "He found three explanations: Christianity, nationalism and charity."

Though the economy is providing him quite the opportunity, Obama nevertheless faces the same three obstacles in his quest to "fundamentally transform America."

In context of the topic of this piece, charity, London notes that:

Gramsci engaged in efforts to persuade Italians that the way, the only way, to express humanitarian concern for the poor or those left behind as the detritus of capitalism is through a government that can be benevolent and beneficent. For him, big government wasn't a temptation for tyranny but rather the adjudicator for life's unfairness.

Unfortunately, when government sets out to achieve social justice, religious institutions and charities become obsolete and people become wards of the state.

When traditional mores are in order and when families and communities are strong the need for government as savior dissipates. In fact, the capacity of a people to self-govern has always been the gravamen of American liberty. Back in the days when stigma attached to poor choices and when government did not bail out poor choices, fewer were made. And when they were made, families pulled together which made them and their communities stronger. Families, churches, synagogues and charities once did what government now does from Washington.

Times of uncertainty, fear, chaos, crisis, weakness and cultural breakdown provide transformative opportunities from which any despot that's worth his salt will not waste.

posted March 16, 2009 11:50 AM            

Accused the United States of oppressing/repressing Iraqi citizens...when Saddam Hussein was still sitting in his palaces and torturing, raping and murdering Iraqis.

Accused the people of the United States of oppressing/repressing Iraqi citizens...while Saddam was in full control in Iraq...and torturing, raping and murdering Iraqi citizens.

Accused the United States of neglect towards Iraqi citizens...while Saddam was in the process of torturing, raping and murdering them...because the US didn't package up a water treatment plant and ship it to Iraq.

Said members of al-Qaeda were brave for opening up on civilians with automatic weapons...because they were killing people they didn't even know. Supposedly, the mark of bravery consists of killing helpless, defenseless civilians...that you don't know.

Accused Bush of slanting intelligence data he got from the CIA and other US intelligence agencies.

Accused Bush of twisting the arms of intelligence analysts to shade their analysis to give Bush a reason to attack Iraq.

Accused Bush of lying in his State of the Union Address when he said Saddam has recently sought large quantities of Uranium from Africa.

Accused Bush of being a murderer.

Now acoustic, that's plenty to get any reasonable person started down the road to discovering your extremist views and remarks.