One Year In

Shelby Steele has a nice accounting of the current chief executive nearly one year into his presidency:

I think that Mr. Obama is not just inexperienced; he is also hampered by a distinct inner emptiness—not an emptiness that comes from stupidity or a lack of ability but an emptiness that has been actually nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the political world.

The nature of this emptiness becomes clear in the contrast between him and Ronald Reagan. Reagan reached the White House through a great deal of what is called "individuating"—that is he took principled positions throughout his long career that jeopardized his popularity, and in so doing he came to know who he was as a man and what he truly believed.

He became Ronald Reagan through dissent, not conformity. And when he was finally elected president, it was because America at last wanted the vision that he had evolved over a lifetime of challenging conventional wisdom. By the time Reagan became president, he had fought his way to a remarkable certainty about who he was, what he believed, and where he wanted to lead the nation.

Mr. Obama's ascendancy to the presidency could not have been more different. There seems to have been very little individuation, no real argument with conventional wisdom, and no willingness to jeopardize popularity for principle. To the contrary, he has come forward in American politics by emptying himself of strong convictions, by rejecting principled stands as "ideological," and by promising to deliver us from the "tired" culture-war debates of the past. He aspires to be "post-ideological," "post-racial" and "post-partisan," which is to say that he defines himself by a series of "nots"—thus implying that being nothing is better than being something. He tries to make a politics out of emptiness itself.

No Laughing Matter

The beliefs of the left may be laugh out loud funny but you may have to laugh until it hurts.

Giving Thanks

From Andrew Cline at American Spectator:

The Obama juggernaut is fragmenting upon the jagged outcroppings of American popular resistance. Yes, his health care catastrophe might just pass Congress. Accounting gimmickry, rhetorical appeals to Americans' most decent moral impulses, and $300 million bribes will do that for even the worst legislation. But the signs are all pointing toward a monumental collapse in public support for the president and his party.

A Rasmussen Reports poll released Monday found that only 38 percent of Americans support the Democrats' health care reform plan. A solid majority of 56 percent opposed it.

A stridently liberal president, House speaker, and Senate majority leader governing a substantially conservative nation must tread lightly. Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are stomping -- with their fingers plugging their ears to keep out the screams of the opposition that comprises a majority of the country but a minority of Congress.

For giving them such an unexpectedly early opportunity to correct the mistake they made last fall, the American people -- especially conservatives -- ought to be thankful for this president. He is an unapologetically aggressive liberal. For the right, that's a good thing. It means there will be no blurring of the ideological lines in the next two elections.

protocol

Odd coincidence

The president attempts to marginalize Fox News by stating that they are not a news organization but rather, offer a perspective. Then he turns around and meets with msnbc on air personalities Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

You can't make this stuff up.

nexus of perversion

Haven't posted in a while as the material on hypocrisy, immorality, narcissism and delusion is nearly overwhelming. But given several recent events it's hard not to notice the wheels getting a little wobbly, if not outright falling off of the car that carries fellow travelers among the left, hollywood and the nobel committee.

First was the defense of the apparent indefensible. Roman Polanski spends 30 years in exile from the U.S. to avoid prosecution on charges of drugging, raping and sodomizing a 13 year old girl.

In defending their friend, the points made by his allies amounted to these:
(1) The crime wasn't that bad;
(2) it was bad, but it was so long ago that it no longer mattered;
(3) Polanski had suffered already: family members had died in concentration camps and his wife and unborn child were murdered;
(4) it might have mattered if it had been done by a lesser creative talent, but middle-class standards of law and of morals do not apply to artistes such as he.

Whoopi Goldberg, that pillar of moral clarity, exonerated Polanski as it wasn't "rape-rape" and thus not important. Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein said Polanski deserved to be cleared of all charges as he so deeply cared for "art and its place in the world." Tom Shales of the Washington Post in a sympathetic review of a sympathetic HBO documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired: "Polanski belongs to a rarefied subculture: celebrities hounded by the state."

Then comes David Letterman. Turns out he has had many sexual trysts with women who were in his employ. It was all bliss until one of Letterman's producers, with whom he was sharing a woman, decided to blackmail Letterman to the tune of $2 million. Though not an artiste on the scale of Polanski, Letterman was artist enough that he should still be allowed to lampoon political figures whose transgressions were no worse than his was, not to mention being free to slime other politicians with no transgressions whatever such as calling Sarah Palin "slutty" and joking that her 14-year-old daughter had been "knocked up." The Posts' Shales is there again to assuage as he grieved "One of the many sad things," was that now Letterman would be "lumped in with other sexually misbehaving celebrities, even though he stands head and heart above most of them." As Shales justifies, Palin deserves the derision as she's a "two bit politician". What a great heart.

The trifecta comes with the nobel prize committee awarding to Obama just nine months into his presidency. This being consistent with the nobel committee poking a stick in the eye of conservatives by awarding to such luminaries as Jimmy Carter (mid-East peace), Mohamed ElBaradei (anti-U.S. U.N. arms inspector), and Al Gore (global warming). Even many on the left see the absurdity of this most recent award with comments ranging from "While it is OK to give school children prizes for 'effort' .  .  . statesmen should probably be held to a higher standard" (Financial Times's Gideon Rachman) to "I like Barack Obama as much as the next liberal, but this is a farce," (Peter Beinart).

Sadly, the nobel committee, the defenders of Polanski and Letterman have no sense of irony, little probity and even less integrity.

reality sets in

Dems like Arafat on health care

When Yasser Arafat was alive, he was famous for telling Westerners he wanted peace in English, while telling his own people in Arabic to kill the Jews. Democrats are using the same tactic with the public option on health care. While insisting that if you like your current insurance you will be able to keep it, at the same time Barney Frank says:

I think if we get a good public option, it could lead to single payer and that's the best way to reach single payer. Saying you'll do nothing until you reach single payer is a sure way never to get it.

Silent Majority

Like a previous president in the late 60s and early 70s, the current president wants to govern on the strength of a silent majority, although with a slight variance. He wants the majority that opposes or questions his policies to stay silent.

Community organizing for me but not for thee.

random thoughts

Democrats have filibuster-proof majorities in both houses of congress and the presidency. Why seek some Republican concurrence to pass legislation that at least a substantial majority (if not a majority) of the American electorate find at least questionable if not downright repulsive? Most likely for political cover when things get ugly.

Power corrupts, and the corrupt inevitably are removed from office. Give either party control of the White House and both houses of Congress, and it's just a matter of time before they overreach, everything turns to poo and voters turn to the other side.

Will Democrats be able to find enough human shields to deflect criticism and hang onto a shred of political power? Quite likely, it's the American way.

Status quo in DC

" . . . the whole point of politics is to achieve prestige and power without merit.”
- P.J. O'Rourke

Difícil de creer?

From Jim Geraghty at NRO on the incredible testimony of the SCOTUS nominee:

· That her “wise Latina” argument was just a bad “rhetorical flourish” that accidently left listeners believing she disagreed with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, when she actually agreed with her.

· That the misperception of the “wise Latina” argument remained uncorrected through six separate uses of it.

· That Sotomayor genuinely has “no idea” why George Pavia, a senior partner in the law firm that hired her as a corporate litigator, would say, “I can guarantee she’ll be for abortion rights.”

· That she did not read the legal briefs filed by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund while she was on that organization’s board.

· That she genuinely does not have an opinion on whether citizens have a right to self-defense, and could not think of “a case where the Supreme Court has addressed that particular question,” despite the fact that the Heller case decided last year declared, “The inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right.”

· That she “actually agrees” with Justices Scalia and Thomas that judges have to be “very cautious” about using foreign law, despite a speech earlier this year in which she said, “Suggest[ing] to anyone that you can outlaw the use of foreign or international law is a sentiment that’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding.”

· That she really believes that “we don’t make policy choices in the court,” even though she said in a 2005 appearance at Duke University that the “Court of Appeals is where policy is made.”

· That she genuinely believes that “the process of judging is a process of keeping an open mind,” when she said in a 1999 speech that there is “no objective stance but only a series of perspectives. . . . Aspiration to impartiality is just that, an aspiration.”

· That she thinks the man who nominated her has a fundamentally flawed perspective on the role of judges, and that she will not “approach the issue of judging in the way the president does.”

Some citizens hold true to the idea that Supreme Court nominees should be judged on their qualifications, but that concept seems destined to become the mark of a bygone era.

A real fan?

Interview with the first fan. What a putz. Geez, if you're going to pander, at least get the name of the park correct.

John Hawkins : Five Criticisms of George Bush That Could Be Better Applied to Barack Obama - Townhall.com

John Hawkins : Five Criticisms of George Bush That Could Be Better Applied to Barack Obama - Townhall.com

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A long way from MLK

well, that's working

That's so 2 weeks ago

"we have chosen hope over fear."
-- B. Obama, Jan 20

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."
-- B. Obama, Feb. 4

Theme song

As the Clinton administration was big with the repetitive playing of "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac it's difficult to see the new president without hearing Living Colour's big hit from 1988.

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your god's name
I'm every person you need to be
I'm the Cult of Personality

One week in

From Peter Kirsanow at NRO

So . . . we're going to have a tax cheat in charge of the IRS, a man instrumental in the pardoning of terrorists as top terrorism watchdog, and a woman whose husband gets tens of millions from foreign governments in charge of implementing foreign policy.

Press reaction: Move along . . . nothing to see here.