Obama Gets Spanked

Image via Wikipedia

Jay Tea wrote the following piece that was posted over at Wizbang.


In the recent dust-up concerning President Obama’s planned address to Congress next week, two things show through clearly:

A) Obama is an arrogant prick.

B) Obama is way, way, way out of his depth.

Let’s look at how it all played out. Obama left for vacation, announcing that he would return with his jobs plan. Not to be confused with the jobs plan he said he’d have last year, but a brand-new one. On his return, he decided that the only way that would do his brilliance justice was before a joint session of Congress.

This let Obama do what he thinks he does best: give a big speech. In that speech, Obama would present himself as the mature, responsible adult lecturing the kiddies and magically entice them, through the sheer power of his oratorical brilliance, sway them to buy into what he was selling.

The timing of the speech was also classic Obama. He chose the night of the Republican Presidential Debate at the Reagan Library, scheduled months in advance. This would serve several purpose. It would draw public attention from those vying to be his rival next year. It would put three of the candidates — Representatives Bachmann, McCotter, and Paul — in the position of fulfilling their duties as Representatives or participating in the debate. And it would give the impression that Obama is the master of the federal government, including Congress.

Well, Congress itself believes differently. It believes that it is a co-equal branch of the federal government, and the president is only welcome there by invitation. And they have the Constitution and a couple hundred years of tradition on their side. They — especially the House, headed up by Republicans and whose chamber would be used for the address — saw right through the transparent ploy.

And here is where I have to give Speaker Boehner his due. The man showed remarkable political acumen. Instead of telling Obama to go pound sand (preferably on a golf course), he replied in a way that could not possibly be construed as political gamesmanship: “Wednesday’s bad for us. We’ll just be coming back from Labor Day, and there won’t be time for our required business and the mandatory security sweep of the building that the Secret Service insists upon. How about Thursday night?”

In one swell foop, Boehner utterly shredded Obama’s ploy. No longer would Obama be pre-empting the long-scheduled debate. By citing logistics, he avoided looking like it was a crass political response to a crass political move. That also avoided the issue of the speech simply time-shifting around the debate, preventing Obama’s speechifying either dominating the debate or him using it to quickly rebut anything that might have come up in it. Finally, it put Obama’s speech up against not the Republican debate, but the kickoff of the NFL season.

This incident perfectly encapsulates three aspects of Obama’s character:

1) He is always in perpetual campaign mode. There is absolutely no reason for him to present his program in a joint address, except for the visuals: it makes him look (in his eyes) presidential, giving his speech to the poor, benighted Congress (which he wasted no time in bashing immediately after gaining their consent for the address) who so need his wisdom and maturity.

2) All of Obama’s problems can be solved with him giving a speech. He seems to think — like a lot of liberals — that he can magically win over his opponents if he just finds the right combination of magic words. That if he just explains things right, he’ll overcome all resistance. He is constitutionally incapable of acknowledging that his adversaries just might be as smart (or smarter) than he is, that they might have actual principles, and those principles — not ignorance — just might be the cause of their opposition.

3) Obama, whenever possible, will resort to the classic “dick move.” For example, remember the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this year? Traditionally, it’s a chance for the press corps to take shots at the president, and the president gets to cut loose a little and show hey, he’s human, too. This year, though, Donald Trump was attending. So instead of Obama being the main target, Trump was — even by Obama. And unlike in the past, where the president gets to get in the last word, Trump was denied the chance to say or do anything but sit there and take all the shots, and smile all through it. Classic Dick Move.

When Obama was giving a speech on the debt ceiling issue, he invited several key members of Congress to attend — including Congressman Paul Ryan. He even made sure Ryan was sitting front and center, probably expecting a gesture of bipartisanship. Instead, Obama singled out Ryan’s plan for scorn and derision, while Ryan had to sit there and pretend it was just fine with him. Classic Dick Move.

When President Obama gave his 2010 State of the Union Address, he chose to single out the Supreme Court for some very pointed criticism — and, in the process, deliberately misstated the facts of the case in question. (The man is a former Constitutional Law lecturer, and allegedly a highly intelligent Constitutional scholar. Don’t tell me he got the facts of Citizens United wrong by accident.) The Supreme Court is there to show solidarity with their other branches, and their respect for their co-equals — not to get crapped on. Justice Alito, stunned at this breach of protocol, was caught muttering “that’s not true,” and was promptly deluged with criticism for stating a truth. Note that most of the justices chose to skip this year’s address. Classic Dick Move.

When Obama was giving a speech in Holland, Michigan, his staff made a point of inviting Congressman Pete Hoekstra to the event. This is also traditional; even though Hoekstra is a Republican, it’s a courtesy when visiting a district to have the Representative there, and to say something nice about them. Instead, Obama’s staff put him in the front row so he could enjoy Obama slamming him in his speech. Classic Dick Move.

With all that in mind, is it any wonder that President George W. Bush — who has quietly withstood being Obama’s scapegoat for everything and anything — politely declined Obama’s invitation to attend the Ground Zero ceremony observing the 10th anniversary of 9/11? Just imagine what Obama would say at that occasion, knowing that Bush wouldn’t be free to react in the least?

Here are the rules to remember when dealing with President Obama:

1) He is always in campaign mode.

2) He always thinks he’s the smartest man in the room.

3) He is always in political mode.

4) He will almost always go for the Classic Dick Move.

5) His idea of “bipartisanship” is “shut up and agree with me, you ignorant jerks.”

Boehner’s move is already being assailed on the left as “blatantly political” and “petty” and “arrogant” and talking about how he got Obama to back down. What is not being said — but should be noted — that Boehner countered a blatantly policital move in a way that defused the tension and showed who was the mature, intelligent adult in this confrontation.

Now, if Boehner really wanted to hit back at Obama in a way that would show just who the Master of the House is (hint: Boehner is the Speaker of the House), he’d arrange for some “technical difficulties” for Obama’s Teleprompter next Thursday night.

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The Man With No Plan

Got this one from The Other McCain.

“President Snippy Pants,” as William Teach calls him, evidently believes what America needs is more lectures from him:


While accusing the House GOP of wasting time by, y’know, passing legislation, our Lecturer-in-Chief uses his weekly address to issue yet another iteration of Democrat Party talking points:

Republicans in the House of Representatives just spent precious days trying to pass a plan that a majority of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate had already said they wouldn’t vote for. It’s a plan that wouldn’t solve our fiscal problems, but would force us to re-live this crisis in just a few short months. It would hold our economy captive to Washington politics once again. If anything, the past few weeks have demonstrated that’s unacceptable. Any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan. It must have the support of both parties that were sent here to represent the American people — not just one faction of one party. Now all of us — including Republicans in the House of Representatives — need to demonstrate the same kind of responsibility that the American people show every day. The time for putting party first is over.

One hesitates to spend “precious days” (or even precious minutes) risking this, as the hypocritical falseness of Obama’s rhetoric really ought to be self-evident.

Let us first have done with Obama’s bogus insinuation that he represents the credible voice of “responsibility.” He hasn’t put forward any detailed plan of his own. Instead of providing a budget, he gave a speech — April 13 at George Washington University — in which he dishonestly used the phrase “my budget,” and rolled out the focus-group-tested phrase “balanced approach” (i.e., code for “tax increases”).

In his GWU speech, the president recycled the old-and-busted partisan talking-point that ObamaCare “will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion” (laughably false), and then infamously asserted that his “balanced approach” would “achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years.”

I say he “infamously” made this assertion, because it stands as a historic milestone in the annals of deceptive political rhetoric.

The first thing to notice is that Obama employed the Large Number Trick, whereby politicians throw out a sum of millions, billions or trillions knowing full well that the average listener will be so awed – “Four trillion dollars! Wow!” — that rational thought ceases. But when our current annual deficit is $1.4 trillion, and the president projects that out over 12 years ($16.8 trillion by simple multiplication), a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation shows he’s actually proposing about a 24% reduction in the deficit, so that the 2024 budget deficit would still be $1.07 trillion.

Beyond the president’s deft use of the Large Number Trick in his April 13 GWU speech, there is the obvious problem of a “plan” (or an “approach” which Obama dares to call “my budget”) that presumes to know the state of economic and political affairs in 2024.

This is what we might call the Future Projection Trick: Make your budget calculations based on some distant point in the future and propose draconian cuts in the latter years of that multi-year span. This permits you to claim to have saved taxpayers a lot of money while not actually cutting much of anything in the near term. And of course, those projected future draconian cuts never actually happen, because future congressmen and future presidents don’t consider themselves bound by their predecessors’ promises.

Even if Obama gets re-elected next year, the 2017 budget would be the last over which he had any influence, so his future-projected deficit cuts in 2018, 2019, et cetera, are even more utterly worthless than every other promise he’s ever made.

Yet the final and most important thing about Obama’s “budget” (or “plan,” or “approach,” or whatever you want to call what he outlined April 13 in his only explicit attempt to address the debt-ceiling issue) is that it was so lacking in specificity that it couldn’t be scored by the Congressional Budget Office.

Here once again we see Obama employing a rhetorical trick — the Virtue of Vagueness — in a phony attempt to claim that he is serious about the budget problem. He employs the “bully pulpit” to present himself as responsible (he used “responsibility” or “responsibilities” 10 times in his April 13 speech), the spokesman for an America that “is generous and compassionate,” and yet utterly fails to provide the kind of numbers that will permit a green-eyeshade accounting of whether he has actually done what he wants listeners to believe he has done, i.e., reduce the deficit.

While I’m not sure whether an “approach” is supposed to be subject to an accountant’s scrutiny, an actual budget must be. (My “approach” to making money from this blog is to rattle the tip jar and try to hustle up some lucrative Amazon sales, but this Underpants Gnome business model would never pass muster with the CBO.) What Obama avoided through his Virtue of Vagueness Trick was having to say, for example, what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration budget would be in 2014, or how much would be spent to fund the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in 2015.

Obama’s “approach” is arithmetically nebulous for the very reason that he doesn’t want to have to explain or defend any actual budget reductions. An actual budget must be specific as to the amount of funding allotted to each department, each division, each agency, each program, and this Obama was unwilling or unable to do, so his big “bully pulpit” proposal on April 13 wasn’t something for which the accountants and economists at the CBO could produce a score.

How much money would Obama’s approach save? We don’t know!

And this, I suggest, can only be a matter of cold political calculation.

From the very outset of the debate over the debt-ceiling, Obama was playing a game: Make the House Republicans spell out in a CBO-scored budget proposal exactly what they were planning to cut. Then claim that, by doing so, they were rejecting the “balanced approach” of the “generous and compassionate” president.

The House GOP’s legislation would, by necessity, include specific numbers for agency budget reductions, which could then be employed as campaign attack-ad fodder next year, frightening the ignorant “swing voters” and gullible “soccer moms” with scary-talk about greedy Republicans who want to slash funds for the Bureau of Generosity and eliminate altogether the Department of Compassion.

The president’s not-so-secret-weapon in this political attack strategy is, of course, Harry Reid’s Democrat majority in the Senate which predictably rejected anything that John Boehner could actually push through the House. Thus, Obama’s partisan attack machine not only gets the specific budget numbers with which to smear Republicans as heartless villains in next year’s campaign, but also affords the president an opportunity to claim — as he did today — that this entire ginned-up crisis is due to the ideological fanaticism and partisan opportunism  of those dangerous right-wing GOP extremists.

As usual with Obama, the truth is the exact opposite of whatever he says. He is the one seeking partisan advantage and being irresponsible. It is not the House Republicans but the Senate Democrats who have acted the part of ideologues and obstructionists. And the only question now is whether President Snippy Pants will get away with this transparent trickery.

Obama predictably relies on deceptive sophistry to advance his self-serving agenda. His address today is entitled “Compromise on Behalf of the American People,” which more honestly could be called “Compromise on Behalf of My Re-Election Campaign.” And he might very well get away with it unless Republicans unite and speak with one voice to explain to voters exactly what the president is doing.

Call him out on his phony political gamesmanship, his dishonest partisan rhetoric and his unspeakable hypocrisy in claiming to be “responsible” while abdicating his own responsibility.

Welcome to Jimmy Carter’s 2nd Term

Cover of Jimmy CarterThis is a great article over at The Washington Times by Charlie Hurt.


It has taken three decades, but Americans are finally living through Jimmy Carter’s second term.


Now we’ve got Jimmy Jr. barking at us from the White House about eating our peas and ripping off our Band-Aid. He might not even let us have our Social Security checks.


These are just the latest in a long line of nagging lectures. Already, we have been taught how we should sneeze into the crook of our arm. We need to drive less. And we need to caulk up those drafty houses of ours.


What ever happened to the soaring rhetoric and big bold ideas President Obama promised us in that historic election of his?


Is this what he meant by a new kind of politics? If so, no thanks. Oh, and it is not new. Jimmy already dragged us through all this once and we just barely survived it.


Read the rest of the article here: Welcome to Jimmy Carter’s 2nd Term

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Speaking from Both Sides of His Mouth

Image by SS&SS via FlickrFound this interesting article at American Spectator:

An Obsession With Corporate Jets

By Andrew Cline on 6.30.11 @ 6:09AM

Who knew that straw men could fly jets?

To justify his destructive economic policies over the past two years, President Obama has set fields full of straw men aflame. Not surprisingly, the economy continues to struggle. Burning political props, it turns out, doesn't create jobs. Alas, the president has not noticed.

During his press conference yesterday, the president presented his newest straw man: the tax-escaping corporate jet owner. The tax-escaping corporate jet owner is such a bad person that President Obama mentioned him six times during his press conference. He portrayed these people as "millionaires and billionaires" whose big tax breaks stand in the way of Washington adequately funding college scholarships and child safety programs.

"I've said to some of the Republican leaders, 'You go talk to your constituents -- the Republican constituents -- and ask them," Obama said, "are they willing to compromise their kids' safety so that some corporate jet owner continues to get a tax break? And I'm pretty sure what the answer would be."

But how are corporate jets preventing Washington from keeping children safe?

Overdrawn at the Ideas ATM

Image via WikipediaBy Iain Murray on 6.17.11 @ 6:08AM at The American Spectator

President Obama recently blamed today's high unemployment on… automation. Yes, you heard at right. He singled out automatic teller machines (ATMs), which he said have eliminated many human bank teller jobs. Blaming an invention for job losses is a display of economic ignorance worthy of the Luddites. Not only are Obama's comments wrong at a factual level, they display a complete lack of basic knowledge about the means of human progress. For a self-styled "progressive" to make this mistake displays how bankrupt that ideology is.

For a start, President Obama is wrong as a matter of fact. From 1985 to 2002, U.S. banks added some 300,000 ATMs around the country, but also added 42,000 bank teller jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted in 2010 that a further 40,000 or so teller jobs would be added by 2018 -- presumably not as the result of mass removal of ATMs. ATMs allow banks to employ tellers in more useful services than simply counting and distributing money, as well as serve customers during late night hours when it is not feasible to keep branches open.

Automation doesn't destroy jobs. It frees us from mundane tasks so that we can do other, more complex -- and more rewarding -- tasks. The washing machine didn't put housewives out of work; -- it enabled them to have careers. The industrial revolution allowed people to leave the fields and enter factories, where, despite popular conceptions of "satanic mills," they could earn far better livelihoods. As the great economist Joseph Schumpeter noted, the genius of the free market and the automation is that it "does not typically consist of providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort."

This, incidentally, is why affordable energy is important. We burn fossil fuels to provide energy so that men and women do not have to supply their labor directly. As Thomas Edison remarked, "I am ashamed at the number of things around my house and shops that are done by animals -- human beings, I mean -- and ought to be done by a motor without any sense of fatigue or pain. Hereafter a motor must do all the chores."

The progressives' failure to appreciate the value of automation is at its most apparent in their greatest invention -- bureaucracy. At a time when, by my calculations, a quarter of the American labor force works either directly or indirectly for government, the administration appears intent on increasing that number. As more and more pages of new rules are added to the Federal Register (a record 81,000 of them last year), more and more people must be employed, not by the government, but by businesses to comply with the new rules.

So far from freeing humanity from fatigue and drudgery, which is the story of automation, "progressive" policies have only added to the burden. Lip service to more "efficient" government does not obviate the fact that people have to read, interpret, and understand the regulations in the first place, under penalty of law. The more new rules accumulate, the harder this task becomes.

It is no wonder that the stimulus failed, if the President so misunderstands the way the world works. In Los Angeles, two city departments received between them $111 million from the stimulus but "saved or created" a mere combined total of 55 jobs. Such is the cost of bureaucracy.

Automation is a product of innovation, which is America's genius, and has proved essential to making our lives better. When the President denounces it as a bad thing, we may be in economic trouble, indeed.

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How To Win Friends And Influence Liberals

A year ago, this photo was posted on Facebook with the caption
 "The first ever Weiner Caption Contest.
I can't offer a prize but if you write the best caption,
I'll call you and tell you and I'll announce it here."

June 9, 2011 by Ben Crystal at Personal Liberty Digest

Hey there, Democrats. It’s your pal, Ben. I want you to know I feel just awful about the way Representative Anthony Weiner not only lied about his misadventures on Twitter, but used your devotion against you. Weiner turned out every Democratic double-talking trick from Ted Kennedy to Bill Clinton in an effort to hide his dalliances with dozens of women who he’s fairly certain were not still in junior high school. And most of you bought it. When Weiner claimed he was the real victim, you demanded justice. When Weiner told you he was hacked, you changed your passwords. When Weiner said it was a conservative conspiracy, you put on your tinfoil hats.

Let me use an old-neighborhood euphemism Weiner would recognize: Not for nothin’  — you got played.

But I’m not here to gloat. I have liberal friends who are beside themselves over Weiner’s amateur photography project. Liberals are fond of suggesting that conservatives are cruel. So I’m going to do something Weiner does only if you are female, hot and at least 18 (although he’s evidently flexible on proof of that last one): invite you to join us in the conservative ranks.

Think about it. This whole liberal thing isn’t working out all that well for you. President Barack Obama is as capable of dispensing his Presidential duties as I am of starting in place of Eli Manning next season. I’m fairly certain there’s a short in Vice President Joe Biden’s wiring. And now, your House of Representatives rising star has done a swan dive into the creepy end of the Internet.

Your party’s ideas are sillier than a little-watched cable network offering Lawrence O’Donnell an hour-long program. Obamacare seemed great, didn’t it? Resurrect Hillarycare and ram it down the nation’s throat. Too bad that pesky Constitution keeps getting in the way. Are you sure these are the guys with whom you want to share a political foxhole?

Join the conservative movement. Imagine the joy of not having to be so damned indignant all the time. You never have to watch MSNBC and pretend you didn’t notice Ed Schultz has a severe personality disorder. You never have to listen to NPR and its parade of people who obviously talk with their eyes closed. No more pretending you’re not appalled when Obama tells you to cut back while his wife cavorts around some five-star resort in a dress that cost five figures.

If you’re a conservative, you can tell elected representatives who annoy you to “get stuffed.” When our guys disappoint us, we dump them faster than Larry Craig can tap his foot. We only begrudgingly showed up for Senator John McCain, and even then only because we liked Sarah Palin — and the alternative was worse than being forced to watch four years of Chris Matthews sneering like a crack-addled movie villain.

And you will be well protected. As long as you’re not a felon or Dailykos.com-stupid, we will encourage you to get a firearm. Let me amend that. I’ve seen how some of you throw a football. We will handle the weapons. Most of us own them, and we can shoot straight. Plus, most of the military is on our side — and soldiers really can shoot straight.

And conservative food is better. You’ve sworn off animal flesh because you heard California Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown likes vegetarians. I’m sure that vegan diet is really, really healthy, but have you smelled Moonbeam? Step into Smith and Wollensky the next time you get a chance and tell me you’re sticking with your… er… what is that, a dirt sandwich?

But wait, there’s more! Nothing against home brewers, but imagine a pint of something that doesn’t involve ¼ inch of beer-flavored mud at the bottom of the glass. And making that “wine” must be fun. I have two fingers of single malt that says you would prefer a wingback chair, some old amber liquor over ice and an Ashton 8-9-8. That’s right: We get to smoke, too. And our smoke doesn’t always involve the fear of Drug Enforcement Administration assault teams. And a growing number of us think the DEA should concern itself with substances that involve worse outcomes than buying out the local Papa John’s.

No more kowtowing to tin-pot dictators and Islamofascist psychopaths. No more shovel-ready projects. No more racist Attorneys General. No more class warfare as a substitute for meaningful tax policy. No more dues to support union thugs. No more protecting foreign-oil godfathers. No more bald-faced hypocrisy.

At the very least, our women are all older than 18.

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Why Barack Obama may be heading for electoral disaster in 2012 – Telegraph Blogs

Image by DonkeyHotey via FlickrOn a recent visit to London I was struck by how much faith many British politicians, journalists and political advisers have in Barack Obama being re-elected in 2012. In the aftermath of the hugely successful Special Forces operation that took out Osama Bin Laden and a modest spike in the polls for the president, the conventional wisdom among political elites in Britain is overwhelmingly that Obama will win another four years in the Oval Office. Add to this a widespread perception of continuing disarray in the Republican race, as well as a State Visit to London that had the chattering classes worshipping at the feet of the US president, and you can easily see why Obama’s prospects look a lot rosier from across the Atlantic.

But back in the United States, the reality looks a lot different. Many political leaders in Britain fail to understand the degree to which the American people are deeply unhappy with their president’s poor handling of the economy. Nor have they grasped the epic scale of the defeat suffered by the president in the November mid-terms, and the emphatic rejection by a clear majority of Americans of the Big Government Obama agenda.

Just seven months ago, the United States was swept by a conservative revolution that fundamentally transformed the political landscape on Capitol Hill, and gravely weakened the ability of the president to pass legislation. This revolution is not in retreat but gaining ground, led by charismatic figures such as Paul Ryan, the Reaganite chairman of the House Budget Committee, entrusted with reining in out of control government spending. And as a Gallup poll showed, America is unquestionably a conservative country ideologically, but one that is ironically led by the most left-wing president in the nation’s history.

Ultimately, the 2012 presidential election will be decided by the state of the economy, and new data released this week makes grim reading for the White House. In fact you cannot watch a US financial news network at the moment, from Bloomberg to CNBC to Fox Business, without a great deal of pessimism about the dire condition of the world’s biggest economy. 66 percent of Americans now worry the federal government will run out of money in the face of towering public debts.

To say this has been an extremely bad week for the Obama administration on the economic front would be a serious understatement. As The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, home prices in the United States have sunk to their lowest levels since 2002, falling 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2011. At the same time, employment growth is stalling, with only 38,000 Americans added to the workforce in May, the smallest increase since September. This compares with 179,000 jobs added in April. There has also been a steep slowdown in the manufacturing sector, and a downturn in the stock market on the back of weak economic news.

Bill Clinton’s labour secretary Robert Reich summed up the grim mood in a hard-hitting op-ed in The Financial Times, which took aim at both the administration and Congress:

The US economy was supposed to be in bloom by late spring, but it is hardly growing at all. Expectations for second-quarter growth are not much better than the measly 1.8 per cent annualised rate of the first quarter. That is not nearly fast enough to reduce America’s ferociously high level of unemployment… Meanwhile, housing prices continue to fall. They are now 33 per cent below their 2006 peak. That is a bigger drop than recorded in the Great Depression. Homes are the largest single asset of the American middle class, so as housing prices drop many Americans feel poorer. All of this is contributing to a general gloominess. Not surprisingly, consumer confidence is also down.

Unsurprisingly, the polls are again looking problematic for the president. The latest Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll shows just 25 percent of Americans strongly approving of Obama’s performance, with 36 percent strongly disapproving, for a Presidential Approval Index rating of minus 11 points. In a projected match up between Obama and a Republican opponent, the president now trails by two points according to Rasmussen – 43 to 45.  The RealClear Politics poll of polls shows just over a third of Americans (34.5 percent) agreeing that the country is heading in the right direction, with nearly three fifths (56.8 percent) believing it is heading down the wrong track. That negative figure rises toa staggering 66 percent of likely voters in a new Rasmussen survey,including 41 percent of Democrats.

There is no feel good factor in America at the moment. But there is a great deal of uncertainty, nervousness, even fear over the future of the world’s only superpower. This is hardly a solid foundation for a presidential victory for the incumbent. Even though we don’t know yet who he will be up against, Barack Obama could well go into 2012 as the underdog rather than the favourite he is frequently portrayed as. On balance we’re likely to see a very close race 17 months from now. But there is also the distinct possibility of an electoral rout of the president if the economy goes further south. “Hope and change” might have played well in 2008, but it is a message that will likely ring hollow in November 2012, with an American public that is deeply disillusioned with the direction Obama is taking the country.

Why Barack Obama may be heading for electoral disaster in 2012 – Telegraph Blogs

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The Morphing of Obama

Obama ran against Bush, but now governs like him

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

Silver-tongued, not tongue-tied. A team player on the world stage, not a lone cowboy. A man who'd put a stop to reckless Bush policies at home and abroad. In short, Barack Obama represented Change.

Well, that was then. Now, on one major policy after another, President Barack Obama seems to be morphing into George W. Bush.

On the nation's finances, the man who once ripped Bush as a failed leader for seeking to raise the nation's debt ceiling now wants to do it himself.

On terrorism, he criticized Bush for sending suspected terrorists to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and denying them access to U.S. civilian courts. Now he says he'll do the same.

On taxes, he called the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy wrong, and lately began calling again to end them. But in December he signed a deal with Republicans to extend them for two years, and recently he called the entire tax cut package good for the country.

And on war, as a candidate he said that the president didn't have authority to unilaterally attack a country that didn't pose an imminent threat to the U.S., and even then the president should always seek the informed consent of Congress. Last month, without a vote in Congress, he attacked Libya, which didn't threaten the U.S.

Big differences remain between Obama and Bush, to be sure. His two nominees to the Supreme Court differ vastly from Bush's picks. Obama does want to end the tax cuts for the wealthy. He also pushed through a massive overhaul of the nation's health insurance system.

Telling it like it is.

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe Mendacity of Barack Obama
By Steve McCann


Over my 45+ years in the business community, both domestic and international, I have dealt with an overwhelming variety of people of all races and political philosophies.  Men and women who were thoroughly honest and many who had no concept of honor and integrity.  Among them were those who would do or say anything to achieve their ends and do so with a straight face and an air of self-confidence that would deceive the most gullible.  It is only through painful experience that one is finally able to develop an antenna to quickly weed out those charlatans.

While I have always been wary of and have written about his dishonesty, after the speech the president delivered the 13^th of April regarding the federal budget, one that was chock full of lies, deceit, and crass fear-mongering, it must be said that Barack Obama is the most dishonest, deceitful, and mendacious person in a position of power I have ever witnessed.

That performance was the culmination of four years of outright lies and narcissism that have been largely ignored by the media, including some in the conservative press and political class who are loath to call Mr. Obama what he is in the bluntest of terms: a liar and a fraud.  That he relies on his skin color to intimidate, either outright or by insinuation, those who oppose his radical agenda only adds to his audacity.  It is apparent that he has gotten away with his character flaws his entire life, aided and abetted by the sycophants around him, thus he is who he is and cannot change.

The question becomes is he a compulsive liar or a sociopath?  By definition:

A sociopath is typically defined as someone who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others.  A sociopath is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused -- it is done to get one's way).  Sociopaths have little regard or respect for the rights and feelings of others.  Sociopaths are often charming and charismatic, but they use their talented social skills in manipulative and self-centered ways.

A compulsive liar:

A compulsive liar is defined as someone who lies out of habit.  Lying is their normal and reflexive way of responding to questions.  Compulsive liars bend the truth about everything, large and small.  For a compulsive liar, telling the truth is very awkward and uncomfortable while lying feels right.  Compulsive lying is usually developed in early childhood, due to being placed in an environment where lying was necessary.

I came to the United States as a survivor of the Second World War.  I spent my early years alone on the streets of a totally destroyed city somewhere in central Europe.  In order to survive I had to steal food where I could and lie in order to survive.  I spent a good part of my life, even after coming to America and being adopted, battling those inbred impulses.  It was a never-ending struggle with successes and failures, but I was able to finally defeat those demons. 

What I say about Barack Obama I do not do lightly, but because I fear greatly for this country and can, not only from personal experience but in my dealing with others, recognize those failings in a person whose only interest is himself and his inbred radical ideology, which as its lynchpin desires to transform the country into a quasi-totalitarian state by any means possible.

In the United States there is great deference paid to the occupant of the White House.  Justifiably so, as that person is not only the chief operating officer of the country but also the head of state representing the nation around the globe.  The president's actions and demeanor set the tone for not only the political class but the country as a whole.  Over the centuries there have many exceptional but also a few inept men to hold the office of President.

Today so much power is now vested in the Office of President of the United States that honor and integrity must be a hallmark of a president's character.  It is not with Barack Obama; he may well be the most dishonest and disingenuous occupant of the Oval Office in history, and will do more damage to the nation than all his predecessors combined.

His failings can no longer be excused by this historical deference or timidity fostered by race, with the euphemisms of spin, obfuscation, fabrication, or politics being used to avoid the truth.  Obama is extremely adept at exploiting the celebrity culture that has overwhelmed the society as well as the erosion of the education system that has created a generation or more of citizens unaware of their history, culture as well as historical ethical standards based on Judeo-Christian teaching.

While the future of the country depends on dramatically altering the economic and governing landscape, it cannot do so unless the opposition politicians and average citizens forcefully challenge and respond to the lies and machinations of Barack Obama and his allies without fear of what may be said about them or to them.  As for me, I have already experienced far worse than anything that could be said or done to me.  My only concern is for the welfare of my fellow citizens and the noblest experiment in the history of mankind: the United States.

A Take on Obama's Speech from the Wall Street Journal

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The Presidential Divider

Obama's toxic speech and even worse plan for deficits and debt.

Did someone move the 2012 election to June 1? We ask because President Obama's extraordinary response to Paul Ryan's budget yesterday—with its blistering partisanship and multiple distortions—was the kind Presidents usually outsource to some junior lieutenant. Mr. Obama's fundamentally political document would have been unusual even for a Vice President in the fervor of a campaign.

The immediate political goal was to inoculate the White House from criticism that it is not serious about the fiscal crisis, after ignoring its own deficit commission last year and tossing off a $3.73 trillion budget in February that increased spending amid a record deficit of $1.65 trillion. Mr. Obama was chased to George Washington University yesterday because Mr. Ryan and the Republicans outflanked him on fiscal discipline and are now setting the national political agenda.

Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan's plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. "Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America," he said, supposedly pitting "children with autism or Down's syndrome" against "every millionaire and billionaire in our society." The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.

Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which "starts," he said, "by being honest about what's causing our deficit." The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.

Read the rest of the article here.

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