American Solutions General Chairman Newt Gingrich recently wrote an article in the Washington Post that has annoyed a few people, including it seems, President Obama.
In this article, Gingrich repeats an earlier assertion that President Obama is "the most radical president in American history" and describes with several examples how the governing team of Obama-Pelosi-Reid operates as a "secular socialist machine."
It appears that describing Obama administration policies as "socialist" is more than President Obama and his defenders can stand. They seek to marginalize any serious discussion of whether President Obama is indeed attempting to impose socialist programs on American society.
Consider President Obama's remarks this past weekend at the University of Michigan:
The... way to keep our democracy healthy is to maintain a basic level of civility in our public debate.... Throwing around phrases like "socialist" and "Soviet-style takeover;" "fascist" and "right-wing nut" may grab headlines, but it also has the effect of comparing our government, or our political opponents, to authoritarian, and even murderous regimes.
... The problem is that this kind of vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation. It prevents learning - since after all, why should we listen to a "fascist" or "socialist" or "right-wing nut?" It makes it nearly impossible for people who have legitimate but bridgeable differences to sit down at the same table and hash things out. It robs us of a rational and serious debate that we need to have about the very real and very big challenges facing this nation.
The President would have us believe that using the term "socialist" undermines democratic deliberation and robs us of rational and serious debate about the challenges facing our country.
We disagree completely and believe that assessing Obama administration policies as socialist or not serves a very useful purpose. We believe that people can learn a lot about socialism when examining many of the Obama administration policies.
Here a few examples:
The recently passed healthcare bill is a government takeover by regulation of approximately one-sixth of the economy. It will raise taxes by almost $1 trillion dollars over the next ten years and insurance premiums and associated healthcare costs will likely continue to go up each year. President Obama supports an economy wide cap and trade system, which he believes will strengthen job creation. Opponents believe that a cap and trade system will kill jobs and lead to government control of the entire U.S. economy, or, in other words, a socialist means of government control and of taxing and redistributing wealth to politically favored constituencies.
A free market economy is about rewarding companies that produce high quality products at a competitive cost and allowing them to fail when they are unable to deliver value at a price consumers are willing to pay. A socialist approach is for the government to bail out companies with taxpayer dollars and then manage them, even though we already have an established bankruptcy process in this country for the orderly reorganization of failing companies. President Obama chose the socialist approach when he bailed out General Motors and Chrysler. During the 2008 presidential campaign Barack Obama said "When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody". This world view is socialist in perspective, especially when you consider the spreader of the wealth is the federal government. Well it's time to get ready for some more wealth being spread around because the Obama Administration is talking about introducing an entirely new form of taxation to the U.S. It's called the Value -Added Tax (VAT), and it functions as a national sales tax on materials and goods at the production level, which will be passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices on everything that is purchased. These are a few of many examples in which President Obama's administration has or is trying to increase the size and power of the federal government in a manner that justifies the term socialist.
We believe the American people can decide for themselves whether certain terms reflect their understanding of reality. At American Solutions, we will continue to use the terms we believe accurately reflect the direction of this Administration.
Over the coming months in this election year we expect a vibrant national debate about the direction of this administration and what words most accurately define it.
Along the way, we will be providing you with updates on the actions of the "Secular-Socialist Machine" and asking for your feedback and help in stopping it.
Sincerely,
Vince Haley Vice President for Policy American Solutions
From an email I received. [QUOTE]American Solutions General Chairman Newt Gingrich recently wrote an article in the Washington Post that has annoyed a few people, including it seems, President Obama.
In this article, Gingrich repeats an earlier assertion that President Obama is "the most radical president in American history" and describes with several examples how the governing team of Obama-Pelosi-Reid operates as a "secular socialist machine."
It appears that describing Obama administration policies as "socialist" is more than President Obama and his defenders can stand. They seek to marginalize any serious discussion of whether President Obama is indeed attempting to impose socialist programs on American society.
Consider President Obama's remarks this past weekend at the University of Michigan:
The... way to keep our democracy healthy is to maintain a basic level of civility in our public debate.... Throwing around phrases like "socialist" and "Soviet-style takeover;" "fascist" and "right-wing nut" may grab headlines, but it also has the effect of comparing our government, or our political opponents, to authoritarian, and even murderous regimes.
... The problem is that this kind of vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation. It prevents learning - since after all, why should we listen to a "fascist" or "socialist" or "right-wing nut?" It makes it nearly impossible for people who have legitimate but bridgeable differences to sit down at the same table and hash things out. It robs us of a rational and serious debate that we need to have about the very real and very big challenges facing this nation.
The President would have us believe that using the term "socialist" undermines democratic deliberation and robs us of rational and serious debate about the challenges facing our country.
We disagree completely and believe that assessing Obama administration policies as socialist or not serves a very useful purpose. We believe that people can learn a lot about socialism when examining many of the Obama administration policies.
Here a few examples:
The recently passed healthcare bill is a government takeover by regulation of approximately one-sixth of the economy. It will raise taxes by almost $1 trillion dollars over the next ten years and insurance premiums and associated healthcare costs will likely continue to go up each year. President Obama supports an economy wide cap and trade system, which he believes will strengthen job creation. Opponents believe that a cap and trade system will kill jobs and lead to government control of the entire U.S. economy, or, in other words, a socialist means of government control and of taxing and redistributing wealth to politically favored constituencies.
A free market economy is about rewarding companies that produce high quality products at a competitive cost and allowing them to fail when they are unable to deliver value at a price consumers are willing to pay. A socialist approach is for the government to bail out companies with taxpayer dollars and then manage them, even though we already have an established bankruptcy process in this country for the orderly reorganization of failing companies. President Obama chose the socialist approach when he bailed out General Motors and Chrysler. During the 2008 presidential campaign Barack Obama said "When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody". This world view is socialist in perspective, especially when you consider the spreader of the wealth is the federal government. Well it's time to get ready for some more wealth being spread around because the Obama Administration is talking about introducing an entirely new form of taxation to the U.S. It's called the Value -Added Tax (VAT), and it functions as a national sales tax on materials and goods at the production level, which will be passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices on everything that is purchased. These are a few of many examples in which President Obama's administration has or is trying to increase the size and power of the federal government in a manner that justifies the term socialist.
We believe the American people can decide for themselves whether certain terms reflect their understanding of reality. At American Solutions, we will continue to use the terms we believe accurately reflect the direction of this Administration.
Over the coming months in this election year we expect a vibrant national debate about the direction of this administration and what words most accurately define it.
Along the way, we will be providing you with updates on the actions of the "Secular-Socialist Machine" and asking for your feedback and help in stopping it.
Sincerely,
Vince Haley Vice President for Policy American Solutions
[/QUOTE]
So then are you OK with the term "right wing nut" also?
George Bush, Queen Elizabeth, and Vladimir Putin all die and go to hell.
While there, they spy a red phone and ask what the phone is for. The devil tells them it is for calling back to Earth.
Putin asks to call Russia and talks for 5 minutes. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is a million dollars, so Putin writes him a check.
Next Queen Elizabeth calls England and talks for 30 minutes. When she is finished the devil informs her that the cost is 6 million dollars, so she writes him a check.
Finally George Bush gets his turn and talks for 4 hours. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is $5.00.
When Putin hears this he goes ballistic and asks the devil why Bush got to call the USA so cheaply.
The devil smiles and replies: "Since Obama took over, the country has gone to hell, so it's a local call.
So then are you OK with the term "right wing nut" also?
How the heck did you come to that conclusion? Terms like "socialist" are appropriate when the government enacts socialist policies. It's not name-calling, it's not rhetoric, it's calling it what it is. "Right wing nut" isn't.
Hello yes change is here now. The new Dollar coin (change) has no mention of "in God we trust" were are our values now, is this really the change people voted for. Im not a super christian person, but if in a foxhole and getting shot at Im praying.
"IN GOD WE TRUST" is enscribed on the outer edge (rim) of the new dollar coins.
President Barack Obama — who came to power with the help of government employee unions across the nation and has lavished on them hundreds of billions in stimulus funds to keep them on federal, state and local payrolls with no strings attached — is moving to cut spending on salaries for military personnel.
Drudge has an interesting little snippet concerning President Obama’s recent speech before the graduating class at West Point. It is a short headline about what was cut from Obama’s speech, a cut that really says a lot about the arrogance of team Obama as well as his utter lack of spontaneity and sincerity and his slavish reliance on the teleprompter.
Here’s the little snippet on Drudge:
Tepid applause from cadets: Cuts ‘That’s a lot of cheering’ line from prepared remarks…
So let’s let this straight. Obama actually had written into his speech ahead of time that there was to be “a lot of cheering”? This man who campaigned against the work of these soldiers to be, this man from a party that has called these soldiers murderers, criminals, dullards, and dangerous, these folks were expected to give this president “a lot of cheering”? Obama really expected a lot of cheering from folks he and his party hate so much?
There’s a break from sanity in the Obama White House, for sure.
But not only was it arrogant of Obama to expect “a lot of cheering” from people he hates and has treated like dirt, that it was actually written into the speech at all shows that he can’t even come up with a spontaneous line without the teleprompters telling him to say it.
Finally the fact that he had to cut it and forgo saying it because there simply wasn’t “a lot of cheering” says that these soldiers to be aren’t as stupid as the left imagines they are. These young men and women clearly understood that Barack Obama and his party are not friends to our armed forces. They applauded dutifully for their commander-in-chief, but they were not enthusiastic. Fully the correct response.
So, if what Drudge reported is true (and there is a chance it isn’t, granted) this little factoid says an awful lot about this Carter redux we have in office today. And none of it is good.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18 (see trends).
Following passage of health care, enthusiasm for the president among Democrats soared. Today, however, just 49% of Democrats Strongly Approve of Obama’s performance. That’s down from a high of 65%. It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary aberration or the beginning of a lasting change. Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters nationwide favor repeal of the health care law. That’s the highest level of support for repeal yet measured.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.
Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Fifty-four percent (55%) disapprove. The Rasmussen Reports Media Meter shows that media coverage of the President has been 51% positive over the past week.
Just 27% are even somewhat confident that Congress knows what it’s doing when addressing that nation’s economic challenges. That figure includes only 6% who are Very Confident that Congress knows what it’s doing.
Please know: I am Black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a Black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a Black president to love the ideal of America .
I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America , all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America .
Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million Blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that Blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them.
I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University 's Kennedy School of Government.
I would have to believe that "fairness" is equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that a man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest.. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.
Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead - and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.
So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a Black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over - and Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a Black person.
So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a Black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to - Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine - what little there is left - for the chance to feel good.
There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.
BP-Gate: 34 Days and Obama Still Lets Oil Giant Run Show Sunday, 23 May 2010 06:47 PM
VENICE, La/HOUSTON – The U.S. government threatened to remove BP from efforts to seal a blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn't do enough to stop the leak, though it acknowledged only the company and the oil industry have the know-how to halt the deepwater spill.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Sunday Washington is frustrated and angry that BP Plc missed "deadline after deadline" in its efforts to seal the well more than a month after an oil rig explosion triggered the disaster.
"I am angry and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this oil from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading. We are 33 days into this effort and deadline after deadline has been missed," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said after visiting BP's U.S. headquarters in Houston.
"If we find they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately," he told reporters as the administration maintained its hard line.
Meanwhile, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal says the state is not waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Associated Press reported.
Jindal's defiant comments Sunday came as oil pushed at least 12 miles into the heart of Louisiana's marshes. Two major pelican rookeries are now awash in crude.
Jindal made his remarks on a boat at the edge of one of the pelican nesting grounds. He and officials from several coastal parishes say the berms would close the door on the oil still pouring from a deepwater gusher about 50 miles off the coast.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is studying the environmental impacts from the emergency barrier proposal. The Corps didn't immediately respond to e-mails and telephone messages.
Salazar's strongly worded comments followed President Barack Obama's on Saturday, when he blamed the spill on "a breakdown of responsibility" at BP. The unfolding disaster has become a top priority on Obama's crowded domestic agenda.
The chief of the Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, acknowledged on Sunday that the government is forced to rely on BP and the private oil sector to try to plug the gusher. At the same time, BP said the containment method it was attempting on the ocean floor was capturing much less of the leaking oil than three days ago.
Company engineers were readying other short-term solutions, the next one expected to start late on Tuesday. But BP Managing Director Bob Dudley said there was "no certainty" of success at the unprecedented depths at which they were being tried -- one mile down in the Gulf of Mexico.
More than a month after a rig explosion triggered what Obama has described as an environmental disaster and "BP's mess," oil is still spewing virtually unchecked from BP's ruptured Macondo seabed well.
TRUST
At a time of mounting U.S. government and public criticism of the company and its executives over the catastrophic spill, Allen said he trusted BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, who has made comments downplaying its size and environmental impact.
Sheets of heavy oil have washed ashore in Louisiana's fragile marshlands and lesser "oil debris" has also reached the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama in what is seen as an ecological and economic calamity for the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Given the lack of a solution so far and the doubts over BP, Allen was asked on CNN's "State of the Union" why the U.S. federal government did not completely take over the spill containment operation from the London-based firm.
"What makes this an unprecedented anomalous event is access to the discharge site is controlled by the technology that was used for the drilling, which is owned by the private sector," Allen said. "They have the eyes and ears that are down there. They are necessarily the modality by which this is going to get solved," he added.
Asked too about the apparent growing U.S. lack of confidence in BP CEO Hayward, Allen said: "I trust Tony Hayward. When I talk to him, I get an answer".
BP has deployed a long suction tube down to the larger of two leaks from the well, but a BP spokesman said on Sunday this captured only 1,360 barrels per day of oil over the 24 hours to midnight Saturday. The flow has been declining from the 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 liters) per day the company had said the tube was siphoning off three days ago.
BP engineers are now preparing a "top kill," pumping heavy fluids into the well to try to shut it off, an operation to begin late Tuesday or early Wednesday, Dudley told CNN.
Many scientists believe the Gulf spill has already eclipsed the 11 million gallons (41 million liters) spilled by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Alaska. They warn the spreading oil could increasingly be caught in a powerful ocean current that could take it to the Florida Keys, Cuba and the U.S. East Coast.
PRAYERS TO GOD
Churchgoers in Louisiana coastal parishes affected by the spill prayed for God's help. "You (God) can clear that oil up, because that oil was down there thousands of years before it came up in the Gulf. So you know what to do with it, dear God," retired oyster fisherman Herbert Guidry prayed in the New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church in Houma.
Analysts say growing ecological and economic damage from the spill could become a political liability for Obama before November congressional elections.
While also promising to hold Washington accountable for proper oversight of the industry, Obama ramped up pressure on companies linked to the spill: BP, Halliburton and Transocean Ltd. He believed a "breakdown of responsibility" between them led to the disaster.
BP stocks have taken a beating in the markets in the month since the well blowout and rig explosion that killed 11 workers and touched off the spill. Its share price shed another 4 percent on Friday in London, extending recent sharp losses.
Here's another article.
quote
Palin: Obama in Bed With Big Oil Sunday, 23 May 2010 04:54 PM By: Sean Lengell
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took aim at President Obama's handling of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, suggesting on Sunday that campaign contributions oil companies made to the president may have slowed the administration's response to the crisis.
"I don't know why the question isn't asked … if there's any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico," Mrs. Palin said on "Fox News Sunday."
The 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate also questioned whether the "mainstream media" were hesitant to report on the millions of campaign dollars doled out to Mr. Obama and other Democrats by BP PLC, which operated the ill-fated oil platform that exploded off the coast of Louisiana last month.
Mrs. Palin suggested that had the spill occurred under the watch of President George W. Bush or another Republican administration, she said, "then you know the mainstream media would be all over his case, in terms of asking questions why the administration didn't get in there."
Despite the Gulf spill, Mrs. Palin, who as Alaska's governor pushed for drilling in portions of the state's interior, said she still supports domestic drilling.
"I am a big supporter of domestic extraction of the resources that we are so reliant on, versus relying on foreign sources of energy … regimes that can use energy as a weapon and have less stringent environmental standards than we have," she said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Sunday defended the administration's response to the spill, saying on CBS' "Face the Nation" that it was "doing everything in our power morning, noon and night to make sure that we contain what is happening."
Mr. Gibbs also mocked Mrs. Palin, saying he didn't think she "was paying a whole lot of attention" during the 2008 campaign.
"I'm almost sure that the oil companies don't consider the Obama administration a huge ally. We proposed a windfall-profits tax," he said. "My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what's going on."
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Mr. Obama has received more than $77,000 from BP — more than any other candidate among the $3.5 million it has donated over the last 20 years.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Sunday that the state is not waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Mr. Jindal made the defiant comments as oil pushed at least 12 miles into the heart of Louisiana's marshes. Two major pelican rookeries are now awash in crude. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is studying the environmental impact of the governor's emergency barrier proposal.
Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Sunday that the federal government will remove BP from the operation to cap the leak if it decides the company is not performing as it should.
"I am angry, and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this oil from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading," Mr. Salazar told reporters after visiting BP's U.S. headquarters in Houston, according to the Reuters news agency.
"We are 33 days into this effort and deadline after deadline has been missed" on containment efforts, he added.
This article is based in part on wire service reports.
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 05-24-2010).]
Already under increasing fire for his handling of an oil spill that many experts now say will be the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, President Barack Obama is riling conservatives and veterans with his decision to skip the traditional Memorial Day ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery.
Instead, he will vacation in Chicago.
The decision not only has angered conservative pundits such as Glenn Beck but also has riled military families and others who expect the president to follow tradition on the day reserved for honoring the sacrifice of America’s soldiers.
On Jacksonville.com, run by the Florida Times-Union newspaper, a blogger who identified himself as a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy blasted Obama for being missing in action.
“He is not only MIA for Memorial Day,” wrote Luke Memminger, identified as a professional pilot. “The economy is faltering. The stock market is ready to enter a worldwide dive. North Korea is precipitating a war with South Korea that will involve us. Iran will destabilize the Mideast by developing a Nuclear weapon soon.
“The coastline of Louisiana is being contaminated through inaction and inept leadership from the government,” he continued. “A mosque will be dedicated at Ground Zero on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 massacre. We still have military deployed and fighting in two war zones.
“Where is Obama? Chicago,” Memminger wrote. “Where are those brave men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for Freedom and Liberty? Arlington Cemetary.”
Traditionally on Memorial Day, the president lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington. But Obama plans to speak at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Chicago instead.
Vice President Joe Biden intends to take the president's place at the Arlington Cemetery.
Obama will convene a press conference on Thursday at which he is expected to announce stringent new offshore oil regulations, as political pressure mounts amid the gulf disaster.
Obama will take questions from reporters in the East Room of the White House, an official said. The media appearance will take place a day before the president's next visit to the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, The Associated Press reported.
The White House has insisted it has done all it can to mitigate the spread of the massive oil slick, which is beginning to clog the southern U.S. coast.
Officials will watch closely on Wednesday as BP makes a fresh attempt to plug the gushing oil well, more than a month after an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon Rig that set off an environmental catastrophe.
At KSLA News 12, which covers a region including parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, Web posters also were angry at Obama’s decision to skip Arlington.
“I am a black woman, and I feel this is so wrong for the president to do,” one commented. “There is no excuse not to do this. This country already doesn't do enough to help or take care of people who serve in the military and this is just an additional slap in the face. The United States is more than capable of taking better care of those who serve and who have served.
“It's not all President Obama's fault about not taking care of veterans, this has been going on for years in this country,” the poster continued. “Yet you still have men and women who continue to serve, bless them all.”
Beck blasted Obama over skipping the wreath laying, saying he is "sick and tired of people believing the lie" that Obama "has respect for the soldiers."
“Obama is skipping out on a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington Cemetery because he'll be in Chicago on vacation, I'm sorry, I don't ever, ever question the president's vacation,” Beck said Tuesday on his nationally syndicated radio show. “I didn't under Bush, I didn't under Clinton, I don't under Obama . . .
“I have no problem with the man taking a vacation. But I am sick and tired — sick and tired — of people believing the lie that this administration has respect for the police or has respect for the soldiers of our country. I'm tired of it."
"Obama skipping the Tomb of the Unknowns this weekend for Chicago is offensive," added Erick Erickson, a conservative commentator for the RedState blog and CNN. In a Twitter post he wrote, “Obama skipping the Tomb of the Unknowns this weekend for Chicago is offensive. Chicago can wait. The Commander-in-Chief has a job to do."
Erickson did acknowledge that a president's missing a wreath laying is not unprecedented. But in the most recent examples in modern times, President Ronald Reagan was involved in a contentious economic summit in 1983, and George H.W. Bush was on the campaign trail in 1992. He instead spoke at an American Legion event.
“Barack Obama wants to go on vacation — the second vacation he has had since oil began spilling out of the gulf,” Erickson noted. “That’s okay though because the oil spilling is George W. Bush’s fault, just like all the new dead soldiers are George Bush’s fault, too. Why should he care?
“The problem for Barack Obama is simple,” Erickson continued. “The troops don’t like him no matter how much the White House propaganda machine tries to gin up staged pictures of Obama voting soldiers fawning all over him. But see the tepid response from cadets at West Point or talk privately with lots of soldiers and sailors and you get something else — they fundamentally do not respect their commander in chief.
“There was no question they respected and loved Ronald Reagan. Same with George H.W. Bush, the last veteran of World War II to serve as president.”
If President Barack Obama thought having a private lunch with Republican senators would ease partisan tensions in Congress, he grabbed the wrong recipe.
The president walked into a remarkably contentious 80-minute session Tuesday in which GOP senators accused him of duplicity, audacity and unbending partisanship. Lawmakers said the testy exchange left legislative logjams intact, and one GOP leader said nothing is likely to change before the November elections.
Obama's sharpest accuser was Bob Corker of Tennessee, a first-term senator who feels the administration undermined his efforts to craft a bipartisan financial regulation bill.
"I told him I thought there was a degree of audacity in him even showing up today after what happened with financial regulation," Corker told reporters, with perhaps a dig at Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope."
"I just wanted him to tell me how, when he wakes up in the morning, comes over to a luncheon like ours today, how does he reconcile that duplicity?"
Four people who were in the room said Obama bristled and defended his administration's handling of negotiations. On the way out, Corker said, Obama approached him and both men repeated their main points.
"I told him there was a tremendous disconnect from his words and the actions of his administration," Corker said.
White House spokesman Bill Burton, who attended the session in the Capitol, said the exchange "was actually pretty civil."
The senators applauded Obama, who had requested the luncheon, when he entered and left the room. Obama told reporters as he departed, "It was a good, frank discussion about a whole range of issues."
Some Republicans were less kind.
"He needs to take a Valium before he comes in and talks to Republicans," Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., told reporters. "He's pretty thin-skinned."
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said he addressed Obama, "trying to demand overdue action" on the giant oil spill damaging Gulf coast states. He said got "no specific response" except Obama's pledge to have an authoritative White House official call him within hours.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Obama's 2008 presidential opponent, said he pressed the president on immigration issues. McCain said he told Obama "we need to secure the border first" before taking other steps. "The president didn't agree," he said.
Later, McCain said his views were unchanged by Obama's decision to send an additional 1,200 National Guard troops to boost security along the U.S.-Mexico border.
At the lunch, McCain said he defended his state's pending immigration law, which Obama says could lead to discrimination. It directs police, when questioning people about possible law violations, to ask about their immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally.
At the luncheon, McCain said, "I pointed out that members of his administration who have not read the law have mischaracterized the law — a very egregious act on their part."
Burton said Obama told McCain that he has read the Arizona law himself, and his concerns remain.
After the luncheon, no one suggested the two parties were even a smidgen closer to resolving differences over energy, immigration and other issues that Obama has said he wants to act on this year.
"We simply have a large difference of opinion that's not likely to be settled until November about taxes, spending and the debt," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.
Senators said the November elections — all 435 House seats, 36 Senate seats and another three dozen governors' seats are up for grabs — were not overtly mentioned. But they were an unmistakable backdrop.
Republicans hope for big gains, maybe even control of the House. They are banking on voter resentment of Obama initiatives such as the new health care law, and many see little point in cooperating with Obama and Democratic lawmakers at this point.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., complained to Obama about the partisan genesis of the health care law, enacted without a single Republican vote in Congress. Administration aides repeatedly have said GOP input was welcome, but none within reason turned up.
It's hard to know if Obama genuinely thought his luncheon visit would melt some of the partisan iciness. Several Republican senators and aides in the room said he seemed to be going through the motions, not making real efforts at consensus.
"What's really important is not so much the symbolism of bipartisanship as it is the action of bipartisanship," Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters later.
Citing the scant or zero Republican support for the health care law, financial regulation bill and last year's financial stimulus, Thune said, "What we haven't seen is sort of the matchup between the rhetoric and the actions to follow through."
As the Senate wrapped up its business Tuesday, Obama was flying to California to headline a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer, one of Congress' most liberal members and a top GOP target this fall.
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 05-27-2010).]
If the press wasn't in Obama's pocket, and he had to endure all the absurd vitriol that was aimed at Bush, he's fold like a house of cards. If the press ever decides to get their heads out of their asses, and take him to task for his shortcomings, lies, and the socialist takeover he's engineering, watch out.
Testy Obama Insists He's Calling Shots on Spill Thursday, 27 May 2010 02:19 PM
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama defensively and sometimes testily insisted on Thursday that his administration, not oil giant BP, was calling the shots in responding to the worst oil spill in the nation's history.
"I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure this thing is shut down," Obama declared at a news conference in the East Room of the White House. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill dominated the hour-long session.
He called the spill, now in its sixth week, an "unprecedented disaster" and blasted a "scandalously close relationship" between Big Oil and government regulators.
Obama announced new steps to deal with the aftermath of the spill, including continuing a moratorium on drilling permits for six months. He also said he was suspending planned exploration drilling off the coasts of Alaska and Virginia and on 33 wells under way in the Gulf of Mexico.
The president's direct language on being in charge of the spill, which he repeated several times, marked a change in emphasis from earlier administration assertions that, while the government was overseeing the operation, BP had the expertise and equipment to make the decisions on how to stop the flow.
Taking control carried its own political risks for Obama, because any failure to stop the gusher would then belong to the president. But Obama could suffer politically if his administration was seen as falling short of staying on top of the problem or not working hard to find a solution.
"The American people should know that from the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort," Obama said. He was reacting to criticism that his administration had been slow to act and had left BP in charge of plugging the leak.
Obama said many critics failed to realize "this has been our highest priority."
"My job right now is just to make sure everybody in the Gulf understands: This is what I wake up to in the morning, and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about. The spill."
As he spoke, oil BP worked furiously to pump mud-like drilling fluid into the blown-out well.
It was an untested procedure to plug the blown-out oil well. It seemed to be working, officials said Thursday, even as new estimates showed the spill has surpassed the Exxon Valdez in Alaska as the worst in U.S. history.
quote
Only 16 Percent Approve of Handling of BP Crisis Thursday, 27 May 2010 04:36 PM
Positive opinion about the federal government's handling of a British Petroleum (BP) Gulf of Mexico oil spill is down 13 points from two weeks ago, dropping from 29% to 16%, a new Zogby Interactive survey finds.
Currently, 16% rate the federal government's response to the spill as excellent or good. The same question in a May 7-10 Zogby Interactive survey found a total of 29% giving a positive rating. Opinion of British Petroleum's handling of the spill is also down from the previous poll, going from positive ratings of 25% then to just 15% now.
The Zogby Interactive survey of 2,085 adults was conducted from May 25-27, 2010, and has a margin of error of +/-2.2%.
The survey also asked respondents which of the following descriptions best matched their opinion about the spill's impact:
58% say the spill is, "A disaster that will cause long-term environmental and economic damage."
28% say it, "Is a problem that will cause some short-term environmental and economic damage on the Gulf Coast."
11% say, "The potential damage caused by the spill is being exaggerated."
There are significant partisan differences, with 83% of Democrats calling the spill a "disaster," compared to 32% of Republicans and 51% of independents.
Another question from both surveys referred to a statement from the Obama Administration that one of its primary roles is, "Keeping the boot on the neck of BP." The number of those who agree with that statement dropped from 42% on May 10 to 33% now.
Despite the spill, the percentage of adults who agree that, "Offshore drilling is still a safe, reliable and cost-efficient method of producing oil," remains unchanged from May 10 at 58%. Agreement that expansion of offshore drilling will lead to increased environmental problems is also unchanged at 51%.
In the opening days of the Obama administration, there was this idea floating around that Obama was the new FDR.
A new president arrives with a “New Deal” in the midst of a great economic crisis. He later leads the nation in a great war against fascism.
As we see the Obama administration unraveling before our eyes, we know one thing for sure: Obama isn’t an FDR. And he isn’t a JFK or even a Reagan, after whom he said he would model his “transformative” change presidency.
He may, sadly, turn out to be worse than Jimmy Carter. It is sad because, when the American people need a president to assert strong, positive leadership at home and abroad, Obama is failing us.
On Thursday, the president held his first press conference in over 300 days — nearly 10 months since his last one. FDR would be turning over in his grave. FDR regaled in his informal fireside chats, not to mention his frequent press bull sessions — right in the Oval Office.
At his rare press conference, President Obama informed us, 36 days since the BP spill began, that he is in charge, that he has been in charge since the spill began, and that he takes full responsibility for what has happened.
Isn’t it a tad bit late to do this?
A new Zogby poll released Thursday shows that just 16 percent of the country believes that the federal government has handled the spill crisis well.
At the press conference, Obama appeared somewhat apologetic for the problems so far.
Some already have begun applauding him for his acknowledgements of his mistakes since the BP disaster began.
“In case you were wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility," Obama said. "It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down."
Watching it brought to mind President Kennedy’s public mea culpa over the Bay of the Pigs fiasco.
But there is a big difference between JFK's handling of that matter and Obama’s apology.
After the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy immediately took responsibility. He didn’t wait for more than a month while aides and press operatives tried to spin the blame.
And unlike Obama’s crisis, Kennedy inherited the Bay of Pigs operation, whose planning was largely completed before he became president.
The BP crisis is wholly owned and operated by Barack Obama.
And his handling of the disaster, even just the public relations stemming from it, has been woeful.
What we are witnessing is harsh reality bumping up against President Obama’s façade and shattering the glass — a glass image created by oratory, image and an adoring press.
The BP matter is emblematic of a much broader leadership problem the president has.
We see this problem surfacing in the brewing Sestak matter.
Joe Sestak alleged last summer that the White House offered him a job if he would not run for Senate.
For almost a year, the White House has refused to explain this serious allegation.
The best Obama could tell the press Thursday was this: "There will be an official response shortly on the Sestak issue, which I hope will answer your questions," Obama said, adding: "You will get it from my administration.
"So — and it will be coming out, when I say shortly, I mean shortly. I don't mean weeks or months. I can assure the public that nothing improper took place. But as I said, there will be a response shortly on that issue."
Shortly?
All of this should not come as a real surprise.
Before Obama became president, his running mate, Joe Biden, warned that the new president would be tested.
Here’s what Biden said: “Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here, if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
Biden was wrong on the timing, but prophetic on the point.
Our president has been tested by al-Qaida, which apparently has tried to pull off two major terror attacks in the past year alone, first with the Detroit plane incident and recently in Times Square.
Both failed only because of the incompetence of the terrorists. And in both cases, the president reacted weakly, treating these incidents as legal matters and the terrorists as just criminals deserving of legal rights.
Obama also was tested after the Fort Hood incident, again treating this case as a criminal matter. His chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Eric Holder, won’t even say that these terrorist incidents could be linked to “radical Islam.”
Since Obama has taken office, he has been tested consistently by the Iranian regime, which flouted free elections to keep its radical president in power. Once again, Obama was timid and delayed in his response to this outrage.
And his administration has looked silly as Iran has refused continually to comply with international demands that it stop its nuclear weapons program. Obama has failed another test, this time from Iran’s rogue ally North Korea.
Since North Korea’s brazen act of war with its torpedo attack on a South Korean vessel, President Obama has appeared feeble.
This is no time for such weakness coming from the leader of the free world.
My God, Joe Biden was right. We elected a 47-year-old senator who has no real-world experience, and he is being tested by our enemies. They are seeing his true mettle.
When Obama died, George Washington met him at the Pearly Gates. He slapped him across the face and yelled, "How dare you try to destroy the nation I helped conceive?" Patrick Henry approached, punched him in the nose and shouted, "You wanted to end our liberties but you failed." James Madison followed, kicked him in the groin and said, "This is why I allowed our government to provide for the common defense!" Thomas Jefferson was next, beat Obama with a long cane and snarled, "It was evil men like you who inspired me to write the Declaration of Independence." The beatings and thrashings continued as George Mason, James Monroe and 66 other early Americans unleashed their anger on the radical, socialist, leader.
As Obama lay bleeding and in pain, an Angel appeared. Obama wept and said, "This is not what you promised me."
The Angel replied, "I told you there would be 72 VIRGINIANS waiting for you in Heaven. What did you think I said"....."You really need to listen when someone is trying to tell you something!"
Obama’s Handling of Gaza Flotilla Crisis Called a ‘Disgrace’
The Obama administration reached “a new low” in dealing with Israel’s interception of a flotilla of ships seeking to deliver aid to Hamas-run Gaza, according to an op-ed piece in National Review.
Israel, which is blockading Gaza to prevent weapons smuggling, boarded six ships in international waters on May 31 to determine if the pro-Palestinian activists aboard were carrying weapons to Gaza. Gunfire erupted reportedly as Israeli commandos came under attack on a Turkish vessel.
But President Obama “has blessed the [activists’] project with success,” writes syndicated columnist Mona Charen in an article appearing on National Review’s website.
He signaled his support, according to Charen, “by declaring through Secretary of State Clinton that the blockade of Gaza is ‘unsustainable and unacceptable’; joining the United Nations Security Council in condemning “those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and many wounded’; and having a White House official tell the Washington Post that there is now a ‘general sense in the administration that it’s time to change our Gaza policy.’”
The convoy of ships set sail for Gaza from waters off the coast of Cyprus on May 30.
The administration let it be known that it had warned Israel to use restraint against the flotilla, “while issuing no warning to Turkey about supplying the convoy,” writes Charen.
She points to Obama’s failure to speak out in support of Iranian protesters who demonstrated against rigged elections, and his backing of a Hugo Chavez ally ousted from the presidency in Honduras, but adds:
“This week is a new low. Under Obama’s leadership, the United States has capitulated to terror tactics and the despicable temptation to blame Israel.
“America has always been the one country in the world that reliably countered the bullying and grotesque double standard much of the world applies to Israel. Obama has now joined the jackals. What a disgrace.”
That is right . . I will say it again . . . THANK GOD FOR OBAMA!
He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine - Driving a stake thru the Heart of Hillary's Presidential aspirations--something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you!
He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty - No more Kennedys trolling Washington, looking for booze and women who need rides home. American women and freedom are safer tonight!
He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes! Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit Byron Dorgan - had never lost a race - quit Harry Reid - bid for re-election doesn't look good These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed! By the end of 2010 dozens more will be! In December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise. In the last two election cycles they had picked up 14 Senate seats and 52 House seats. The press was touting the death of conservatism and the Republican Party. In one year Obama put a stop to all of this and will probably give the House, if not the Senate, back to the Republicans. Obama was named Gun Salesman of the Decade. He also has helped the ammunition industry so much that the factories are operating 24-7 trying to keep up with the demand.
He has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are. Every generation seems to need to relearn the lesson of why they should never actually put liberals in charge. He is bringing home the lesson very well! Liberals tax, borrow and spend - check Liberals won't bring themselves to protect America - check Liberals want to take over the economy - check Liberals think they know what is best for everyone - check Liberals aren't happy till they are running YOUR life - check
He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan. In one year he rejuvenated the conservative movement and brought out to the streets millions of freedom loving Americans. Name one other time in your life that you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America!
In all honesty one year ago I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. Not of the economy, but of the direction our country was going. I thought Americans had forgotten what this country was all about. My neighbors, friends, strangers proved to me that my lack of confidence in the greatness and wisdom of the American people was flat out wrong.
When the American People wake up, no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them! Obama woke up these great Americans. And again I want to thank him for that. Thank you Obama!
So, Lets Recap "2009".........what a year! WOW!!! 1. The American people inaugurate a half-Arab president with a total of 142 days experience as a US Senator from the most politically corrupt state (city) in Americawhose governors have been ousted from office. The President's first official act is to order the close of Gitmo and make sure terrorist’s civil rights are not violated. (Honest mistake?)
2. The U.S. Congress rushes to confirm a black Attorney General, Eric Holder, whose law firm we later find out represents seventeen Gitmo Terrorists. (An honest mistake?)
3. The CIA Boss appointee, Leon Panetta, has absolutely no experience.
4. We got the second most corrupt American woman (Pelosi is #1) as Secretary of State; bought and paid for.
5 We got a Tax Cheat for Treasury Secretary who did not properly file his own taxes for 12 years.
6. A Commerce Secretary nominee who withdrew due to corruption charges.
7. A Tax cheat nominee for Chief Performance Officer who withdrew under charges.
8. A Labor Secretary nominee who withdrew under charges of unethical conduct.
9. A Secretary HHS nominee (Daschle) who withdrew under charges of cheating on his taxes.
10. Multiple appointments of former lobbyists after an absolute campaign statement that no lobbyists would be appointed.
All this occurred just during the first three weeks . . . . But who's counting?
America is being run by the modern-day Three Stooges; Barry, Nancy and Harry and they are still trying to define stimulus . . . "it's spending"!
The congress passes the $800,000,000,000 (that's $800 billion) pork-loaded spending bill where the government gives you a smidgen of your tax dollars ($13 per week), making you feel so good about yourself [stimulated], that you want to run out to Wal-Mart and buy a new Chinese-made HDTV!
Only with the Liberals . . . . Pray for our country. Here's the good news though - Obama took Air Force One to Denver to sign the stimulus package, wasting as much as 10,000 gallons of fuel OR 24 JOBS FOR ONE YEAR.
Obama went to Copenhagen to persuade the International Olympic Committee to choose Chicago as the host city, and he failed. Obama went to Copenhagen to support global warming, and he failed. Obama went to New Jersey to promote the Democratic candidate for governor, and he failed. Obama went to Virginia to promote the Democratic candidate for governor, and he failed. Obama went to Massachusetts to promote the Democratic candidate for senator, and he failed.
Speaking of praying, Obama has now been president for a full year and yet he & wife (first lady) Michelle, the Christian family they claim to be, have not attended church since the inauguration.
Obama is the 1st president in history who did not attend any Christmas religious observance.
And finally, he is the 1st president to remain on vacation after a terrorist attack.
In these times I'll keep my God, my freedom, my gun and my money. Anyone that supports this insanity can keep "THE CHANGE."
Just Facts...............................yet I'm sure those on the left will say this is no big deal!!!!!!!
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 06-06-2010).]
In mid-February 2008, fresh from winning a bunch of Super Tuesday primaries, Barack Obama granted an interview to "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Croft. "When you sit down and you look at [your] resume," Croft said to Obama, "there's no executive experience, and in fact, correct if I'm wrong, the only thing that you've actually run was the Harvard Law Review." "Well, I've run my Senate office, and I've run this campaign," Obama said. Seven months later, after receiving the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama talked with CNN's Anderson Cooper. At the time, the news was dominated by Hurricane Gustav, which was headed toward New Orleans and threatening to become a Katrina-like disaster. "Some of your Republican critics have said you don't have the experience to handle a situation like this," Cooper said to Obama. "They in fact have said that Governor Palin has more executive experience. ..." "Governor Palin's town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees," Obama answered. "We have got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. So, I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute, I think, has been made clear over the last couple of years." Obama ignored Palin's experience as governor of Alaska, which was considerably bigger than the Obama campaign. But his point was clear: If you're worried about my lack of my executive experience, look at my campaign. Running a first-rate campaign, Obama and his supporters argued, showed that Obama could run the federal government, even at its most testing moments. He could set goals, demand accountability, and, perhaps most importantly, bend the sprawling federal bureaucracy to his will. Fast forward to 2010. The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is gushing out of control. The Obama administration is at first slow to see the seriousness of the accident. Then, as the crisis becomes clear, the federal bureaucracy becomes entangled in itself trying to deal with the problem. "At least a dozen federal agencies have taken part in the spill response," the New York Times reports, "making decision-making slow, conflicted and confused, as they sought to apply numerous federal statutes." For example, it took the Department of Homeland Security more than a week to classify the spill as an event calling for the highest level of federal action. And when state officials in Louisiana tried over and over to win federal permission to build sand barriers to protect fragile coastal wetlands from the oil, they got nowhere. "For three weeks, as the giant slick crept closer to shore," the Times reports, "officials from the White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental Protection Agency debated the best approach." The bureaucracy wasn't bending to anyone's will. The direction from the top was not clear. And accountability? So far, the only head that has rolled during the Gulf crisis has been that of Minerals Management Service chief Elizabeth Birnbaum. But during a May 27 news conference, Obama admitted he didn't even know whether she had resigned or been fired. "I found out about it this morning, so I don't yet know the circumstances," the president said. "And [Interior Secretary] Ken Salazar's been in testimony on the Hill." Obama's answer revealed that he hadn't fired Birnbaum, and he couldn't reach a member of his Cabinet who was a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue. Given all that, perhaps candidates in future presidential races will think twice before arguing that running their campaign counts as executive experience. A few days before Obama won the White House, Bill Clinton joined him for a late-night rally in Kissimmee, Fla. Clinton, who became president after 12 years as a governor, told the crowd not to worry about Obama's lack of executive background. Given the brilliance of Obama's campaign, Clinton said -- and here the former president uncharacteristically mangled his words a bit -- a President Obama would be "the chief executor of good intentions as president." Chief executor of good intentions? Perhaps that's what Obama is now. But with oil gushing into the Gulf, that's just not good enough.
PRINCETON, NJ – President Obama’s job approval rating among Hispanics has dropped by 20 percent since January, according to a new Gallup poll analysis, suggesting many are angered by his handling of the immigration issue.
The media widely portrayed President Bush and his key appointees as a bunch of dummies. Yet reviewing the Obama administration’s record, you have to wonder who is the dummy.
Since Obama took office:
Eric Holder Jr., his attorney general, said he opposes Arizona’s illegal immigration legislation but has not read the new law. Janet Napolitano, his secretary of Homeland Security, said she also opposes the immigration law but has not read it. Holder said he decided to reopen the question of prosecuting CIA interrogators without having read the memos by Justice Department career prosecutors who analyzed the cases and concluded that no criminal violations occurred. Obama decided to close the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay without having any idea where the prisoners would go. Holder decided to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in U.S. District Court in New York without asking the police or the FBI whether that would jeopardize the safety of New Yorkers. While admitting he did not know “all the facts,” Obama said Cambridge police acted “stupidly” when Sgt. James Crowley, a white police officer, arrested Henry Louis Gates, a black Harvard professor who was being obstreperous when Crowley was investigating a report of a possible break-in. Holder testified that he believes the CIA’s enhanced interrogation methods such as waterboarding constitute “torture,” but he said he had not read classified reports that describe what those techniques entail. Neither Obama nor his cabinet officers are dummies, but if Bush or one of his appointees had been involved in any of these decisions without knowing the facts, the press would have pursued the story as relentlessly as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein pursued the Watergate scandal.
From the way he walked to the way he talked, Bush was the butt of constant derision by the press. Every action he took to protect America was portrayed as a sinister plot.
Bush’s pronunciation of “nuclear” was cause for constant tittering in the media. In fact, pronouncing the word NOO-kyoo-ler is a Southern rendering similar to Jimmy Carter’s NOOK-ee-yuh. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists the way Bush pronounced nuclear as an alternate, even including that version in an audio clip on its website.
But the media were instrumental in getting Obama elected, and when he and his appointees seem to have no idea what they are talking about, they give them a pass.
From The London Daily Telegraph On Foreign Relations "Let me be clear: I'm not normally in favour of boycotts, and I love the American people. I holiday in their country regularly, and hate the tedious snobby sneers against the United States. But the American people chose to elect an idiot who seems hell bent on insulting their allies, and something must be done to stop Obama's reckless foreign policy, before he does the dirty on his allies on every issue." --London Daily Telegraph editor -- Alex Singleton, April 11.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the most poorly kept secrets in Washington is President Obama's animosity toward Great Britain, presumably because of what he regards as its sins while ruling Kenya (1895-1963).
One of Barack Hussein Obama's first acts as president was to return to Britain a bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office since 9/11. He followed this up by denying Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on his first state visit, the usual joint press conference with flags.
The president was "too tired" to grant the leader of America's closest ally a proper welcome, his aides told British journalists.
Mr. Obama followed this up with cheesy gifts for Mr. Brown and the Queen. Columnist Ian Martin described his behavior as "rudeness personified." There was more rudeness in store for Mr. Brown at the opening session of the United Nations in September. "The prime minister was forced to dash through the kitchens of the UN in New York to secure five minutes of face time with President Obama after five requests for a sit down meeting were rejected by the White House," said London Telegraph columnist David Hughes. Mr. Obama's "churlishness is unforgivable," Mr. Hughes said.
The administration went beyond snubs and slights last week when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed the demand of Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, a Hugo Chavez ally, for mediation of Argentina's specious claim to the Falkland Islands, a British dependency since 1833. The people who live in the Falklands, who speak English, want nothing to do with Argentina. When, in 1982, an earlier Argentine dictatorship tried to seize the Falklands by force, the British -- with strong support from President Ronald Reagan -- expelled them.
"It is truly shocking that Barack Obama has decided to disregard our shared history," wrote Telegraph columnist Toby Young. "Does Britain's friendship really mean so little to him?" One could ask, does the friendship of anyone in the entire world mean anything to him?
"I recently asked several senior administration officials, separately, to name a foreign leader with whom Barack Obama has forged a strong personal relationship during his first year in office," wrote Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, on Monday. "A lot of hemming and hawing ensued." One official named French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but his contempt for Mr. Obama is an open secret. Another named German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But, said Mr. Diehl, "Merkel too has been conspicuously cool toward Obama."
Mr. Obama certainly doesn't care about the Poles and Czechs, whom he has betrayed on missile defense. Honduras and Israel also can attest that he's been an unreliable ally and an unfaithful friend. Ironically, our relations with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have never been worse. Russia has offered nothing in exchange for Mr. Obama's abandonment of missile defense. Russia and China won't support serious sanctions on Iran. Syria's support for terrorism has not diminished despite efforts to normalize diplomatic relations. The reclusive military dictatorship that runs Burma has responded to our efforts at "engagement" by deepening its ties to North Korea.
And the Chinese make little effort to disguise their contempt for him.
For the first time in a long time, the President of the United States is actually distrusted by its' allies and not in the least feared by its' adversaries. Nor is Mr. Obama now respected by the majority of Americans. Understandably focused on the dismal economy and Mr. Obama's relentless efforts to nationalize and socialize health care, Americans apparently have yet to notice his dismal performance and lack of respect in the world community.
Gallup: Obama Approval Plunges Among Hispanics http://www.newsmax.com/Insi...al&promo_code=A083-1 PRINCETON, NJ – President Obama’s job approval rating among Hispanics has dropped by 20 percent since January, according to a new Gallup poll analysis, suggesting many are angered by his handling of the immigration issue.
Eh, that's only because he hasn't legalized all immigrants already.
So what is the matter with Obama? Conservatives have been asking this question for some time. I've written a number of articles trying to solve the mystery.
Even some liberals are starting to wonder. James Carville railed about Obama's blasé attitude after the catastrophic oil spill. The New York Times' Maureen Dowd revamped Obama's "Yes We Can" motto into "Will We Ever?"
The liberal women of the TV show "The View" have expressed sympathy for Michelle Obama's living with a man so out of touch. Peggy Noonan, hardly a vehement Obama foe, recently pronounced him disconnected.
Obama's odd mannerisms intrigue a psychotherapist like me. He also presents a serious diagnostic challenge.
For one, Obama's teleprompter and the men behind the Blackberry keep him well-scripted. We know so little about the facts of his life.
But it's more than just a lack of information. Obama himself is a strange bird. He doesn't fit easily into any diagnostic category.
Many people attribute Obama's oddness to his narcissism. True, Obama has a gargantuan ego, and he is notoriously thin-skinned.
Yet a personality disorder like narcissism does not explain Obama's strangeness: his giggling while being asked about the economy; his continuing a shout-out rather than announcing the Ft. Hood shootings; or his vacations, golfing, partying and fundraising during the calamitous oil spill.
Take also Obama's declaring on the "Today Show" that he wants to know whose ass to kick. Consummate narcissists would never stoop to this vulgar display of adolescent machismo.
Obama is flat when passion is needed; he's aggressive when savvy is required. What's most worrisome is that Obama doesn't even realize that his behavior is inappropriate.
So if it's not just simple narcissism, what is wrong with Obama? Since I've never evaluated him, I can't say for sure. But I can hazard some educated guesses.
If I saw a client as disconnected as him, the first thing I would wonder: Is something wrong with his brain? And I'd consider the following theoretical diagnostic possibilities.
--Physical problems: There are a multitude of physiological conditions that can cause people to act strangely. For instance: head injuries, endocrine disturbances, epilepsy, and toxic chemical exposure.
It makes me wonder: Did Obama ever have a head injury? His stepfather in Indonesia was purportedly an alcoholic abuser. Was Obama subject to any physical abuse?
-- Drugs and alcohol: Damage to the brain from drugs and alcohol can also cause significant cognitive impairments. Obama once said that there were 57 states -- and didn't correct himself. Memory problems can be caused by both illicit and prescription drug use.
Obama admits to a history of drug use in his youth. Did his usage cause some damage? Does Obama still use?
--Asperger's Syndrome: Also known as high-functioning autism, Asperger's causes deficits in social skills. A person with Asperger's can't read social cues. Consequently, he can be insensitive and hurtful without even knowing it.
Could Obama have Asperger's? He might have some mild traits, but certainly not the full-blown disorder. In contrast to Obama, those with Asperger's get fixated on some behavior, like programming computers. Obama lacks this kind of passion and zeal.
--Mental Illness: Obama's family tree is replete with the unbalanced. His maternal great-grandmother committed suicide. His grandfather, Stanley Dunham, was particularly unhinged: He was expelled from high school for punching his principal; named his daughter Stanley because he wanted a boy; and exposed young Barry to not just drunken trash talk, but unrestricted visits with alleged pedophile Frank Marshall Davis (who might or might not be Obama's biological father). Barack Sr. was an abusive, alcoholic bigamist. Since mental illness runs in the family, does Obama have any signs? Yes and no. No, he is not a schizophrenic babbling about Martians. But there are red flags for some other conditions.
While Obama doesn't appear to hallucinate, he seems to have delusions. His believing he has a Messiah-like special gift smacks of grandiose delusions. His externalizing all blame to conservatives, George W. Bush, or the "racist" bogeyman hints at persecutory delusions.
Along with a delusional disorder, Obama may fit for a mild psychotic disorder called schizotypal disorder. It may explain some of Obama's oddness.
People with schizotypal disorder hold bizarre beliefs, are suspicious and paranoid, and have inappropriate and constricted affect. They have few close friends and are socially awkward. A schizotypal is someone like your strange cousin Becky who is addicted to astrology, believes she is psychic, and is the oddball at social gatherings.
Schizotypal Disorder does ring some bells vis-à-vis Obama. One way the diagnosis doesn't fit, however, is that schizotypals are generally harmless, odd ducks. Not so with Obama.
--Trauma: My gut tells me that Obama was seriously traumatized in childhood. His mother disregarded his basic needs, dragged him all over the place, and ultimately abandoned him.
But I think there may be something even more insidious in his family background. While I can't prove it, the degree of Obama's disconnect reminds me of my sexually abused clients.
With serious sexual abuse, the brain chemistry may change. The child dissociates -- that is, disconnects from his being -- in order to cope. Many adult survivors still dissociate, from occasional trances to the most extreme cases of multiple personality disorder.
Apparently, young Barry was left in the care of Communist Frank Marshall Davis, who admitted to molesting a 13-year-old girl. As a teenager, Obama wrote a disturbing poem, "Pop," that evoked images of sexual abuse -- for instance, describing dual amber stains on both his and "Pop's" shorts.
Would trauma explain Obama's disconnect? In many ways, yes. A damaged and unattached child may develop a "false self." To compensate for the enormous deficits in identity and attachment, the child invents his own personality. For Obama, it may have been as a special, gifted person.
Let's return now to my original question: What is wrong with Obama? My guess is a great deal. The answer is complex and likely includes some combination of the above.
Along with the brain issues are personality disorders: narcissism, paranoia, passive-aggressiveness. There's even the possibility of the most destructive character defect of all, an antisocial personality. Untreated abuse can foster antisocial traits, especially among boys.
If my assessment is accurate, what does this mean?
It means that liberals need to wake up and spit out the Kool-Aid...and that conservatives should put aside differences, band together, and elect as many Republicans as possible.
Because Obama will not change. He will not learn from his mistakes. He will not grow and mature from on-the-job experience. In fact, over time, Obama will likely become a more ferocious version of who he is today.
Why? Because this is a damaged person. Obama's fate was sealed years ago growing up in his strange and poisonous family. Later on, his empty vessel was filled with the hateful bile of men like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers.
Obama will not evolve; he will not rise to the occasion; he will not become the man he was meant to be. This is for one reason and one reason alone:
Mrs. First Lady, explain to me again about our president's home country of Kenya? I am fascinated. Or his muslim roots? That is scary stuff right there, it is!
An article from American Thinker by Geoffrey P. Hunt
Anatomy of a Failing Presidency
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China.
But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.
But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?
No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, and Reagan.
But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and woefully small minded for the size of the task--all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.
In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us -- financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job.
Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."
Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.
Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.
"The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people's money." - Margaret Thatcher
"When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both." - James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." – Tacitus
"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own." - Unknown
The Obama administration was "asleep at the switch" and failed to monitor offshore drilling activities properly, then responded ineffectively as the scope of the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico emerged, California GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina charged in an exclusive interview.
“I am stunned that we have visuals all of the time where it kind of looks like nothing is going on,” Fiorina told Newsmax. “You know, the last couple of pictures I have seen of President Obama walking along the beach looking at tar balls, it doesn’t look like a beehive of activity to me and I think those images are really troubling.”
President Obama's address to the nation Tuesday night detailed the administration's response to the growing plume of oil fouling the Gulf.
Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, is seeking to unseat Democrat incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer.
In an exclusive Newsmax interview, Fiorina questioned the effectiveness of the administration's clean-up response.
“It is the federal government’s responsibility to protect the shoreline and in this regard I think that the government has not demonstrated a lot of competence,” Fiorina said. “When we find out that there are 26 separate federal agencies involved in this, you know that’s not working well.
“You know that you have a series of bureaucracies that are not coordinating. When we hear that equipment that could be used to clean up the spill is sitting in warehouses the federal government isn’t doing an efficient and effective job. We have local officials begging for assistance and not getting it,” Fiorina said.
Tuesday afternoon, the administration was forced yet again to recalculate the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf.
Last week, the leak was estimated at 20,000 to 40,000 barrels a day, although officials acknowledged at the time they were working with outdated information.
Tuesday, the administration upped that estimate to 35,000 to 60,000 barrels daily. At the high end, that would mean 2.52 million of gallons of crude are bleeding into the Gulf each day.
The oil spill is at least seven times greater than the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska, and is generally acknowledged as the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
Crude oil from the destroyed BP oil rig Deep Horizon continued to wash up on beaches and sensitive wetlands Tuesday, crippling lucrative fishing and tourism-related industries.
Polls strongly suggest voters agree with Fiorina's assessment.
On Tuesday, an Associated Press-GfK poll showed that 52 percent of Americans disapprove of Obama's management of the oil spill — up 15 percent from one month ago.
On both sides of the political aisle, pressure and criticism are mounting. Public officials from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida have called for greater relief from after-effects of spill.
Commentators say Obama may have reached a critical turning point in his presidency.
Critics contend the tour and Tuesday's speech, Obama's first from the Oval Office, are designed to reverse the falling poll numbers while laying the groundwork for a renewed push to pass clean-energy legislation through the Senate.
Republican leaders complained Tuesday afternoon that the president is trying to use the oil spill as a pretext to push cap-and-trade energy legislation. They also called for him to end the moratorium on deep-water drilling.
"This job killing ban on drilling is causing more problems right now than the oil [spill] long term because it's threatening over 40,000 jobs," Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., said, according to Politico.com. "It's starting to already have reverberating, crippling effects to our economy and it doesn’t do anything to cap the well and to actually address the problems of the oil coming onto our shore."
Aside from the devastating oil spill, the biggest political danger sign for Obama's handlers is the recent ABC News/Washington Post poll that found most Americans believe the federal government’s response to the Gulf oil spill is worse than its response to Hurricane Katrina.
The criticism is bipartisan, too. Fifty-six percent of Democrats and 81 percent of Republicans give Team Obama negative ratings on the issue. The more worrisome consideration for Democrats heading into the midterm elections, however, is that 74 percent of crucial independent voters say the Obama administration is doing a poor job.
Fiorina added that the backlash against the administration is well deserved.
A staunch critic of bloated government bureaucracy, the former corporate executive says BP and the other companies involved in the disaster should be held accountable for negligence or inaction that contributed to the accident.
But she also blames government regulators who failed to properly oversee the rig and enforce safety controls and standards.
“It now turns out that [the U.S. Minerals Management Service], the regulators, wasn’t doing their job, was asleep at the switch, and was in bed with the industry literally,” Fiorina said. “There are lots of problems here and we got to get to the bottom of all of them. BP is at fault. The regulators are at fault. And the government isn’t being effective enough in its response.”
Fiorina, a multimillionaire who received wide exposure as a chief surrogate for the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., cruised to victory in last week’s GOP primary. She defeated a tea party conservative and a moderate republican challenger.
She now has her sights set on beating the three-term Democrat incumbent Boxer.
"He'll sit here," President Harry Truman said of future president Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, "and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen. Poor Ike -- it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating."
President Barack Obama, in an Oval Office speech about the disastrous Gulf oil spill, described the federal effort to cap, contain, clean up and restore. He demanded that BP set up a fund to compensate those hurt by the spill -- setting aside whether he possesses the legal authority to require it. He assured us, as tens of thousands of gallons of oil belch out of the hole each day, he intends to hold people...accountable! No mention of the 48-hour deadline -- now come and gone -- that he gave BP to, well, do more.
Poor President Obama -- this isn't a bit like community organizing. He must find it very frustrating.
Obama campaigned by promising to use government to hope and change America, Americans and the world. He offered an end to "partisan politics," where we break from the "past eight years" of (fill in the blank). Eisenhower spoke of the industrial-military complex -- the incestuous relationship between government and military contractors. Defense contractors want to sell weapons and systems. They hire lobbyists to influence policymakers, to attempt to convince them of the need for the procurement and to get government to contract them to build it. Similarly, oil companies try to influence, control and co-opt regulatory agencies like the Minerals Management Service. Apparently, this is news to the President.
Obama, the former asbestos remover, rejects the Founding Fathers' vision -- codified in the Constitution -- of a federal government limited to and restricted by its enumerated powers. Under Obama's vision, the ability of government to transform lives is limited only by our imagination.
Clean, renewable energy? "Invest" tax dollars. Affordable healthcare for all who want it? ObamaCare -- with the promise of better care for less money. College education for all? Government takeover of the student loan program with the promise of quality education at controlled costs.
Obamatons blame the spill on "eight years of deregulation under Bush." If Bush "deregulated" oil drilling, why has Obama threatened to prosecute BP for its alleged criminal failure to follow the regulations that Bush supposedly eliminated? If Bush's deregulation caused the spill, how did BP get permission to drill this well two months into the Obama administration -- and less than one month after submitting its application?
Pass a law. Start a program. "Invest." Regulate. Subsidize.
After 9/11, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security, a new Cabinet-level department. In 2005, it created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Recent reports from the inspector general of the Justice Department and the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism conclude that the country remains scarily unprepared to stop and respond to another terror attack.
Government set up the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to reduce workplace deaths. They did, indeed, decline. But they were steadily declining for decades before OSHA, and the pace did not accelerate. The CEO of BP, when Obama finally gets around to meeting with him, will likely say, "It isn't good business to kill 11 workers by drilling a well that trashes the ecology, causes tens of billions of dollars in damages, and puts the survival of the company in jeopardy."
Several leftist pundits, in their post-speech analysis, provided comic relief. No specific plan! No timetable! Too much meritocracy! No real power! No command and control!
The same critics now find themselves trapped. They buried President George W. Bush following Hurricane Katrina. They ignored the failure of the first responders and the local and state Democrats to follow existing plans. They called Bush inept, incompetent, even racist: If only Bush had been more intelligent, more adept, more eloquent, tragedy would have been avoided or at least minimized. They cut him no slack for dealing with, as here, something big, awful and unexpected.
Here is the inconvenient truth. The more government regulates, the greater the incentive of the regulated to influence the rules. Economists call this "regulatory recapture." Technology constantly evolves. Government has neither the expertise nor the agility to keep up. The answer is fewer rules, not more -- with the clear understanding that those who drill shall be completely responsible for screw-ups.
If those who make mistakes suffer the consequences of their actions, they will make fewer of them. And the same mistakes likely will not be made again. Still, expect the unexpected. We live in an imperfect world. But Obama's all-wise, all-knowing, all-caring government is perfectly poised to make things worse.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 (see trends).
These results are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, more than two-thirds of the interviews for today’s update were conducted after the president’s speech to the nation. Tomorrow’s update will be the first based entirely upon interviews conducted after the speech.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.
Overall, 41% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. That’s the lowest level of approval yet recorded for this president. Fifty-eight percent (58%) now disapprove.
To the left, the oil spill is not an index of presidential competence or an issue in the political sphere. It is a daily gushing of poison into the Earth's waters as a direct result of the president's failure to stop it.
They blame BP. But they already hate oil companies. And they blame Obama, too. And they are coming to dislike him.
When Obama attempts to recoup this damage to his political base by pushing new legislation on the environment or by resurrecting his cap-and-trade legislation or by bringing criminal charges against BP or by setting up a liability fund for the spill's victims, it does not solve his political problem.
With each day, 60,000 barrels gush into the Gulf, Obama's equivalent of the body count in Iraq that caused the left to loathe George W. Bush. Rhetoric or programs or visits to the Gulf or posturing won't assuage the negatives. Only plugging the hole in the bottom of the ocean can do it.
The right and center of American politics turned off Obama over healthcare. And now the left is leaving him over the oil spill.
Why can't Obama plug the hole?
Because he has no administrative experience. I often saw Bill Clinton, as governor and as president, call in experts and ask the tough questions when he faced a new disaster. In Arkansas, it was tornadoes or floods or fires. In Washington, it was Oklahoma City.
But, each time, Clinton thoroughly familiarized himself with all the technical issues. He took a bath in the science and substance of the hazard and became as knowledgeable as those who had spent a lifetime studying it. So he knew what questions to ask.
Any CEO or COO or manager has similar experience. But a community organizer, law professor, state senator, U.S. senator, and president doesn't have the requisite experience. He doesn't know not to trust his own bureaucracy. He hasn't been burned enough to realize that he needs to intervene to waive restrictions, set aside regulations, and open up the process to new solutions.
Obama is like JFK during the Bay of Pigs. He doesn't know how to avoid being betrayed by his own bureaucracy and the industry it's supposed to regulate.
Why did he not waive the Jones Act (he still hasn't) to allow foreign vessels to ply our waters to clean up the spill? Not because he was against it. He couldn't have been against so obvious a course as waiving it. It was likely because nobody told him about it and he never knew to ask.
Why did he let the bureaucracy use only U.S. contractors to dredge the Gulf and build the berms that Louisiana wanted? Why did he spurn the offer of Dutch assistance (half the country has been dredged from the sea and is below sea level)? Not because he wanted the jobs to go to Americans. That would have been an insane consideration in the face of this crisis. It is probably because he never realized that our capacity for dredging needed augmentation. Because he never asked.
To the right and the center, these failings show that Obama is in over his head. But to the left, which bleeds for each drop of water in the Gulf and cries over every turtle or shrimp or sea bird, it is an unpardonable sin.
It is the nature of things that presidential mistakes metastasize into presidential character flaws. Bush's inaction over Katrina comes across as insensitivity. Now Obama's incompetence and inexperience are causing liberals to see him as arrogant, aloof, removed, conceited, suspicious of outside advice, and even lazy.
Long after the oil has stopped spilling, these supposed character defects will haunt the president, just as Carter's reputation of timidity and inability lasted long after the Iran hostages came home. These defects will last until 2012 and beyond.
