Dana Milbank describes the one of the saddest fates that can befall any politician: irrelevancy. Milbank notes:
Presidential addresses to Congress are often dramatic moments. This one felt like a sideshow. Usually, the press gallery is standing-room-only; this time, only 26 of 90 seats were claimed by the deadline. Usually, some members arrive in the chamber hours early to score a center-aisle seat; 90 minutes before Thursday’s speech, only one Democrat was so situated.
But if there is a fate worse than irrelevancy it is derision. Milbank noticed that each time Obama reached the intended climax of his peroration some members of the audience sniggered, even members of his own party, instead of being moved or inspired. It was as if something had gone horribly wrong with a movie script, with people laughing each time a zombie appeared in a horror movie. Milbank writes:
“You should pass this jobs plan right away!” Obama exhorted. Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) chuckled.
“Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary — an outrage he has asked us to fix,” Obama went on. Widespread laughter broke out on the GOP side of the aisle.
“This isn’t political grandstanding,” Obama said. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) guffawed. …
“We’ve identified over 500 [regulatory] reforms, which will save billions of dollars,” the president claimed. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) giggled.
It was, in a way, more insulting than Joe Wilson’s “you lie” eruption during a previous presidential address to Congress. The lawmakers weren’t particularly hostile toward the president — they just regarded the increasingly unpopular Obama as irrelevant. And the inclination not to take the 43-percent president seriously wasn’t entirely limited to the Republicans.
But you can see why. The key element of successful comedy is the mismatch, as when some element in the scene clashes with all the rest it. Laurel and Hardy, Mutt and Jeff, Obama and Jobs. Ha-ha-ha. The sense of both dismissal and amusement was encapsulated in Herman Cain’s reaction to the speech: “We waited 30 months for this?”
Yep. But it’s not entirely a laughing matter, especially for President Obama. Only a thin line divides comedy from tragedy. Mel Brooks once observed that “tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” By some strange coincidence Joseph Stalin is said to have uttered almost the same thing. “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” That Stalin didn’t actually say it is less important than the fact that most people think he would. Stalin was that kind of guy. And comedy and tragedy are related in that kind of way. Most individuals feel like crying when they lose their job; but when a guy gets up in front of Congress and offers to do the same to millions, now that’s funny.
Twins
But if there is one political condition even worse than being derided, it is becoming pitiable. There is something pathetic about watching a beaten man pretend he can continue, like the boxer who has to be turned by his corner to face in the right direction because he no longer knows where the center of the ring is. Yet there is a kind of dignity in it.
However the audience’s sympathy for the beaten man usually hinges on the actor’s self-awareness. We feel a sympathy for Pagliaccio the clown because he understands his plight, and faces it; but probably less for Amy Winehouse’s former husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, who has taken a wrecking ball to those around him and thinks it’s somebody else’s fault. If the President were to say “la Commedia è finita!”, he would rise to a greater dignity than Fielder-Civil, now serving a jail sentence for attempting a robbery with a fake gun, who could only say about the woman he led into a life of drugs that “I’m sorry love was not enough”.
Yep. And the first stimulus wasn’t enough either.
Yet the tragedy also consists in this. The joke is ultimately on America. The standup comedy routine in front of Congress is ultimately a judgment of the political process that put it there; and if only 26 of 90 members of the press showed up to take their seats in the gallery, there’s no hiding the fact that most of them signed up to hear the script in 2008 — before they got the punchline. Now there is nothing to do but wait it out; America will limp on to November 2012 essentially without a functioning Presidency, and the international ship of state will tack rudderless as it enters upon dangerous seas.
Barack Youngman: ”Now take my jobs plan . . . please!!!!”—”What was that serious proposal I saw you with last night?” ”That was no serious proposal, that was my jobs plan.”
Oh, ho, ho, ho . . . yuk, yuk, yuk . . . stop!! You’re killing me!! (wait a minute, that ain’t funny).
W: brilliant. A bit discouraging but hope begins in recognizing things as they are and what must be done. As you say, we need to see clearly that the White House is vacant –intellectually, morally– and will remain so for (at least) the next 14-plus months. This is very dangerous but that’s how it is.
One could draw parallels to other kinds of vacancy. The extreme low pressure found at the center of a hurricane. That pressure gradient drives the hellishly destructive winds; but they are elsewhere. The eye is quiet. If it were a mind, it would be blank, incapable of learning anything.
Are narcissists always like this? Does massive self-absorption always produce such dull, small people?
“America will limp on to November 2012 essentially without a functioning Presidency, and the international ship of state will tack rudderless as it enters upon dangerous seas.”
I fear this will only lead to an iceberg.
Also, I think a corollary to “Nature abhors a vacuum” can be “Human nature will take advantage of a power vacuum”. Who will be the Soviet Union? Who will be Afghanistan?
Pity and derision. The beginning of the end.
But seriously, this sort of shoots Michele’s cred as his supremo-handler into bitty pieces. She was obviously in a foul mood, but never-the-less “present” – which means the choice was probably not hers to make. Interesting but silent conjecture follows concerning that conundrum. Maybe all is not well in Chi-Camelot?
So this is how America’s first affirmative action presidency will end? With the press who allowed him to lie himself into office not bothering to clean up their act now that they can no longer pretend he’s qualified? I mean come on: Obama says his administration has “identified 500 reforms that will save billions” and no one asks Jay Carney “when were those reforms identified and why were they not implemented then?” This is, after all, not the first time Obama has claimed his administration has identified money-saving reforms, yet nothing seems to come of the claim. It has become more ludicrous than crying “wolf!”
It would be sad to watch this spectacle were it not for the hubris that preceded it. Now it’s no longer sad, only distressing that we have to wait 2 more years to watch this melodrama play out. Somebody, please put this administration out of its misery and out of office.
I heard Mark Steyn carrying on about the Milbank article (calling the author “she”) today, trying to differentiate between a chuckle, a giggle, and a guffaw, but also saying that Obama screaming about passing a bill that has yet to be written, using money that has yet to be found, approaches a certain point, that point after which the absurdity is such that the government cannot stand.
There *are* some fair ideas in the bill – it is such a laundry basket, it’d be surprising if everyone couldn’t find *something* to like in it. And something to loathe. The total lack of political skill involved in standing up and orating about such things, without FIRST building a consensus among the leadership of both parties at the very least, is reasons for some serious pause.
But Obama is what he is, I am much more dismayed at the obtuseness of the Dana Milbanks of the world and their enablers, not to mention the staff functions internal to the White House that no doubt contributed to this travesty.
But in a way it’s good.
We cannot, should not, be looking to the White House to fix all things. And I daresay at this point, few people indeed are looking to this White House to fix much of anything. Thank you, Mr. Obama, for being such a dweeb. Now go home.
But is President Perry going to do any better with things, if Pelosi is reelected and if heaven forfend Reid is still majority leader in the Senate?
More to the point, can candidate Perry set the narrative for the undecided voters so that he becomes President Perry? Cuz if it were up to the electorate in California, I’m sure they would prefer to make things worse not better, judging from the local results in 2010.
–
This idea of letting someone on unemployment work for eight weeks at minimal cost to the employer? Apparently isn’t working worth beans in Georgia where it has been tried, according to the WSJ today. Employers still bitching that they can’t find anyone qualified and apparently can’t qualify them even with an eight-week freebie. Have to wonder about that.
The Greek column kid has become the god of comedy, bringing down the House (so to speak):
Something familiar,
Something peculiar,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!
Something appealing,
Something appalling,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!
Nothing with kings, nothing with crowns;
Bring on the lovers, liars and clowns!
Old situations,
New complications,
Nothing portentous or polite;
Tragedy tomorrow,
Comedy tonight!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gbdO2XJqJE
Oh, and for everyone who speaks of “14 more months,” that’s only until the election. The change in administration is 16 months away. And an enormous amount of damage can be inflicted on our nation in a short time, especially by a lame duck who hates the country.
W and PJD #3:“’America will limp on to November 2012 essentially without a functioning Presidency, and the international ship of state will tack rudderless as it enters upon dangerous seas.’
“I fear this will only lead to an iceberg.
Also, I think a corollary to “Nature abhors a vacuum” can be “Human nature will take advantage of a power vacuum”. Who will be the Soviet Union? Who will be Afghanistan?’”
As Spengler said: “When the cat’s away, the mice kill each other.” It’s gonna be a long year.
I think Mike Shedlock (quoting David A Bego) has the pResident’s strategy nailed:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/09/devil-at-my-doorstep-obama-buys-votes.html
It’s all about tapping the power of Big Labor and its ability to tax workers (in the form of Union Dues.)
When a bill that has yet to be written, using money that has yet to be found,
is produced, and the rise of The Oceans been stopped,
so will all this quibbling.
You just wait!
But Obama is what he is, I am much more dismayed at the obtuseness of the Dana Milbanks of the world and their enablers, not to mention the staff functions internal to the White House that no doubt contributed to this travesty.
In the very early days of kings, the monarch was supposed to do all the smiting himself. But nowadays, the measure of a senior executive’s competence is his ability to pick and manage a winning team. If you are right in saying that this fiasco was the best thing the White House staff could come up with, then we ought not to be complaining about the clown. We ought to be objecting to the entire circus.
But they’re related and they feed on each other. Who picked the circus? The head clown. And who writes the head clown’s material? The other jokers. Well things are going to get pretty zany real soon. Because if they are so incompetent in this matter so near and dear to their hearts, what can you expect from the same team in the matter of national defense, foreign policy and financial management? If things still haven’t fallen apart, maybe it’s only because they haven’t gotten around to “improving” it just yet.
There have been a lot of complaints about the President’s affection for the golf course. I regard it as proof that God is still looking after the United States of America. I think many on the Left once believed that Obama was smart but a little lazy. That would have worked if Obama had been competent and had the right ideas. But now it turns out he may not be; as Field Marshal Moltke once said, the worst combination is a person who is both energetic and mistaken. The full quote is:
Perry/Palin 2012! (Palin/Perry 2012?)
What happened was this.
Obama called for the Democratically controlled congress to come up with a Stimulus package. Just create it and he would sign it. And they rolled him. Anyone who has been in DC for as much as 6 months with his eyes open knows that every time they call for a special appropriation to meet some emergency, everyone dutifully offers up the stuff they could never get funded anyway and the gets told “Oh come on, you guys, don’t hand me that crap!” But they did that for Obama’s stimulus package and the Dem Congressional leadership bought it and Obama bought it.
Then the same thing happened with Obamacare. It had everybody’s stupid crap loaded in it. He got rolled again.
Now everybody has Obama’s range, azimuth, and elevation. He’s a sitting duck. Like that old SNL skit, tell him that a steel bar chilled to 30 below zero tastes like chocolate and he licks it, even though they had to call the fire department to pry him loose the last two times he licked it.
And so he comes up with what he claims is the Real And Importantly Vital Bill That Will Rescue the Economy. And the response is “Chill down the steel bar boys; here we go again.”
Charles Krauthammer: Obama Abused the Majesty of a Joint Address of Congress
Palin: Obama ‘Plays Us All for Fools’
Funny how the day after an Obama speech the media always finds some unrelated reason the markets dropped.
Obama needs 11 networks to draw 31.4M viewers on jobs speech. Packers-Saints draws 27.2M on NBC alone
Rachel Maddow calls Obama ‘boy king’ (he’s losing the Lefty talking heads).
Best way this plays out: Boehner/ Cantor/ Ryan write their own bill (including drill here/ drill now provisions) which contains enough of what Obama asked for that he can claim he is getting most of what he wants. Reid amends it (does anyone expect that Obama actually has a bill that Congress must pass?) with porkulus plus union giveaways, but the House refuses to support the changes and gets a decent bill that may actually turn things around. Obama signs it. The Donks are royally pissed. Al Gore files in New Hampshire. Everyone else gets unicorns and rainbows.
The worst? I don’t want to think about it.
Teresita, you doubt the genius of Barack Obama? His prescience is such that he schedules his major speeches the day before bad news will crash the markets. His brilliant oratory mitigates what would otherwise be catastrophic market crashes.
THE OLD ONES ARE THE GOOD ONES
“I know a girl in Maine.”
“Bangor?”
“No, I never touched her.”
Yes, the old ones are the good ones
FDR December 8
Kennedy telling Congress
To the moon, and here’s the date
There were giants in the hall then
Reagan, Truman name but two
What we have now with Obama
Can be summed up with pee-yew
Oh he still has his adherents
Union thugs and CBC
Who still think he is the bees knees
And forever thus will be
But the rest of us know better
He’s a joke now on himself
From stage right the hook is coming
And he’ll soon be on the shelf
He can dance all that he wants to
He can smile and tell some jokes
But his time on stage is over
From now on he’s just Joe Doaks
Rodney Dangerfield as President? At least the real Rodney knew it was schtick. President Dangerfield believes his own press.
The President’s teflon is wearing off. Hardly any comics have turned their talents toward the President but that’s about to change. Sensing weakness one will soon risk mocking him. With the Left’s increasing disillusionment push back will be minimal. Seeing this others will join in. One, two, three and then the deluge. When the teflon goes everything sticks.
This change in perception will support Ace of Spades argument that “Obama Is the Left’s Chicxulub” (http://minx.cc/?post=320370). Failure will either be tagged to the President or to the philosophy. For the faithful abandoning a “false prophet” will be preferred to repudiating the faith. The pragmatic will blame both not wanting to walk this path again.
If (more likely, when) the President loses we’ll see the Left indulge in wholesale regret, recrimination and scapegoating. They pushed all-in with what they thought was a monster hand and came up short.
Paraphrasing Rodney, “Once when the President was lost he saw a policeman and asked him to help me find his supporters. The President said to him, “Do you think I’ll ever find them?” He said, “I don’t know kid. There are so many places they can hide.”
Freedom means free to make mistakes. And be responsible for them.
Collectively, the country has committed a catastrophic mistake. Now we pay.
Incompetent would have been bad enough.
Too bad this man ran with the intent, and with a plan, to bring the republic down.
Now.We.PAY.
W:: ”However the audience’s sympathy for the beaten man usually hinges on the actor’s self-awareness. We feel a sympathy for Pagliaccio the clown because he understands his plight, and faces it ”
”Yet the tragedy also consists in this. The joke is ultimately on America”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/russloar/6128702879/
maybe OT !
(from: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4829)
SF
Walt—
“I know a girl in Maine.”
“Bangor?”
“No, I never touched her.”
In the ’60s we had a Redd Foxx ”party album”, a bunch of hilarious dirty jokes that now seem tame but had some wonderful one-liners, eg:
”Tell me, darlin’, are you free tonight?”
”No, but I’m reasonable.”
Not the time to get complacent, folks. 14 months is a helluva long time.
A pilot, God a pilot
For the helm is left awry
And the best sailors in the ship
Lie there among the dead
Sidney Lanier
The Ship of Earth
Obama has been comedy right from the start of his campaign. Straight out of Monty Python I give you:
- healing planets and shrinking oceans
- a speech in Berlin addressing the “people of the world”; non of whom could vote in the U.S. election
- 57 states and a 2000 year old U.S. constitution
- a styrofoam Greek temple; dedicated to the Greek Goddess of Packaging Material
- a campaign symbol resembling a bodily orifice
- a fake Presidential seal
- Joe Biden
and on and on. Once elected, the comedy became even more ridiculous and it’s too painful to revisit. The lesson is that when a politician has a campaign that is a running joke, then said politician is also a joke.
The good thing is that the American electorate will take seriously the next Presidential election. They won’t treat it like an episode of “Wheel of Fortune” as they did in 2008. Yes America might be drifting but even adrift it’s a mighty ship. The western world just has to keep a stiff upper lip until 2012. After that we all need the serious adult America to return to the world stage.
“They were called the glass Pasha’s of the Caliph, for they could not bend and shattered when they fell.”
Since this was a President elected by the “Dancing with the Stars” vote, it’s no wonder that they would eventually lose interest.
Related, who in his cabinet would have even rated a consideration for any of Reagan’s cabinets? Panetta and Hill are the only two that I can think of. The weakness of his cabinet officials is the strongest correlation of all imho to the Carter administration.
This speech, and the punchline, reminds me of Norm MacDonald and the famous Moth joke. Old school comedy!
here he is, telling it to Conan O’Brien.
I’m telling you, this has a whole lot in common with Obama’s speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GWJC7tlYck
- dedicated to the Unknown Greek Goddess
what have we got here -hmmm – let’s check –
– ethos – the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. nope
- logos – principle of order and knowledge.- nope
- pathos- ” ‘pathetic’ – yep
woe is US
To be a tragic hero you must start out as a great or at least good man but with a fatal flaw. Nixon was a tragic hero. Warren Harding was a comic hero. Jimmy Carter, Herbert Hoover? Neither were great men but they were genuinely good men with good hearts trying to do good as the understood it but both tragic failures. Bill Clinton – neither good nor great. A supremely lucky man who came to power at a perfect moment. The Soviets fallen, the economy purring, and the USA in a position to cut defense spending. He was a competent politician and administrator but so thoroughly flawed as a human being that he will forever be a comic character.
So where does Barry Obomber fit in? neither great nor particularly good. In fact downright incompetent if indeed his failings are not deliberate. America has already stopped listening to him and he has apparently surrounded himself with the most incompetent political hacks ever to hallow the halls of the White House. For pure ineptitude the take the cake. Most of them wouldn’t be hired b a Pike county Animal Warden to run his campaign for dog catcher. Very hard to see how he comes back from where he is at today. He has had the worst couple of months of any president I have ever seen.
Despite the MSM’s admonitions to all us filthy little peasants to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, more and more people are realizing that the Wizard of Hopey Changey is a fraud, and no amount of teleprompters can resurrect the illusion once it is broken.
And the deeper the Good Ship Obama sinks, the greater the exodus of rats swimming to escape it shall be. And who but the rats were manning it to begin with?
Sort of like the last days of the Carter presidency.
This is a very dangerous state of affairs.
The President still has awesome and fearful powers. A man with no political future will lose nothing by exercising those powers to suit himself without restraint. He has no respect he must keep or maintain so why not do the foolish and the self-possessed?
The raid on Gibson, the willful evasion of bankruptcy laws as with GM, the award of billions of dollars on tactical basis, political prosecutions galore – it is coming.
I’ve picked up a book on the English Civil War. As Charles I loses, the more he abuses.
Such is the way of the world.
Beware.
“We ought to be objecting to the entire circus.” –Wretchard
I would describe it as a traveling medicine show designed to fleece the taxpayer and entrench 0bama and his cronies.
Doug makes a good point. The whole 0bamacare/stimulus 1 was a “cram-down” to ensure nobody would know what was actually happening – Speed, diversion and deception make a good con-job work.
F is correct on his two posts but the second one is most important: “…for everyone who speaks of “14 more months,” that’s only until the election. The change in administration is 16 months away. And an enormous amount of damage can be inflicted on our nation in a short time…”
Exactly, executive orders, the infamous mechanical singing pen, and presidential pardons can do tremendous damage. 0bama will not go easily. With his union thugs and racial warfare things could get ugly. 0bama is not out – until he is out.
That is why I recommend keeping your powder dry, selling into rallies and getting into cash and gold (for cash: a basket of currencies in case 0bama’s Zero Interest Rate policy causes the US dollar to implode).
See if this line, describing Charles I, fits Obama:
“Like other mildly stupid people, he gave no thought to what would happen if his plans went awry and the bold action failed. He only saw the dazzling sun of success.”
- The English Civil War” by Diane Purkiss
Anyone remember Eugene McCarthy? If this is a bad as described, Obummer is going to get a primary challenge, and he will not get to the general. Since having Barry at the head of the Democrat ticket is going to lead to slaughter, there would be much partisan support for a challenge once the dam breaks.
#33. Whitehall –
I do wonder and fear what the Narcissist in Chief may do as an act of revenge if it becomes apparent that he will lose an election for a second term. It would not surprise me if he takes the attitude that the country that spurns him is utterly worthy of destruction for its failure to worship him.
And he does have the power, and will have the power for a time after he looses the election, to accomplish just that. Am I misjudging him? I hope so but I fear that I am not.
The saddest thing about this debacle is that race relations in the United States have been set back a couple of generations. The affirmative action chickens are coming home to roost.
A couple years ago my place of employment gained a ladder inspection program, courtesy of a government edict.
As government mandates go, this one is trivial. Yet it astounds me. My employer trusts me (and others, of course) to operate several hundred million dollars worth of machinery without extensive supervision, yet the government doesn’t trust me enough to think I can step on a ladder without detailed instructions on how to know if it is safe.
Something is badly wrong there. Once the United States put men on the moon, and the government allowed us to inspect our ladders as we saw fit. Now, the US is paying Russia for access to space, and the government frets about the stupid flyoverland monkeys who will fall off teh ladders absent instructions from the bureaucracy.
That there are problems American governance is not an original insight, to put it mildly. But people are still checking the boxes on the OSHA-approved ladder inspection form, among other tasks.
But for how long? It’s one thing to do what the government instructs when that government is competent and successful. It’s another to do so when that government is a feckless, bankrupt joke led by a fool. At some point the people will stop laughing and get mad.
We’ll see. At about the time we got our ladder inspection program the Middle East looked pretty stable. It wasn’t. That show is still playing out. I have a feeling ours is about to open. We’ll see if we get a comedy or a tragedy, alas.
I can’t imagine a serious primary challenge to Obummer. Who? Why? How? McCarthy had an issue, he had a record of personal integrity, and he had a filthy-rich backer when that was still allowed. How did we end up with Obummer in the first place? Total lack of candidates in the party. The whole party is psychotic to a degree I think must be unmatched in world history since the Nazis (did I just violate Godwin’s Law?). They’ve already rejected Hillary’s Evita act. Al Gore thinks he farts cold, clear air. John Kerry thinks he’s Don Quixote. My own state has two old, Jewish women as senatresses who might have had some virtues twenty years ago, but in the last decade have spent most of their time hanging upside down in a cave somewhere and are seldom seen by mortal men, nor is it a good omen when it happens. So who’s going to run? Maxine Waters? Henry Waxmoustache, my own rep (who at least seems to have become curious about Solyndra, bless him). Anthony Weiner, perhaps, has time to organize a campaign. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, perhaps, there’s a leading voice and major brainbox. So, what if Obama is “As good as it gets”?
Not that the Republicans did any better in 2008, though perhaps they have somewhat more to offer in the current pack, if not enough to get very excited about.
Youse guys get too worked up. All a President does is provide direction. So teh won taking a time out just means America doesn’t go anywhere.
Not that big a deal. It’s not like millions of Mexicans will invade us. It’s not like the economy will collapse and unemployement shoot past 20% and the DOW drop under 8.
Geeze, you’d think the UN was demanding the right to vote in American election from the way youse guys carry on. Don’t worry, be happy. This is the new normal. Learn to enjoy it. OR ELSE!
Sort of like the last days of the Carter presidency. – dla
Ah, but unfortunately, 12 months too early. Carter wasn’t aware he was toast until late October.
Hopefully, Obama will be satisfied to simply play golf for the next 12 months. Even more, hopefully the “bad guys” of the world will be content to take the same holiday.
History is not on our side in this.
“We’ll Never Get Over It, Nor Should We”
Peggy Noonan has a new article over at the Wall Street Journal entitled as above. Of course, I should have known that she meant 911 just judgin’ by the time, but other thoughts came to me immediately.
I thought it might be her reaction to the President’s speech last night, because her “We’ll Never Get Over It, Nor Should We” is something, by now, that she certainly ought to feel at her gushy support (and probably her vote) for tHe Won, some three years ago.
Her support of the President took down my respect for her judgment and the quality of her opinions so quickly it reminded me of the axiomatic: “One Aww Sh*t erases 1,000 attaboys.”
Yeah, and the funny part, was that she wasn’t even talkin’ about her fawning support of the President-to-be. I’m wondering today if there wasn’t a little Freudian slip buried up in there.
#40 Josh
All good points, and sobering. It’s ironic “projection” by the Democrat’s and MSM (same difference) when they claim that the GOP Presidential candidates are midgets, i.e. that the weakness of the GOP field makes 2012 a cake walk for the ONE.
In fact, there are no more “wise heads” in the Democrat Party anymore. There is no one of any respected stature. There is no Democrat national leader with any credibility whatsoever. When Hillary Clinton, who made her political bones laying on her back in Bill Clinton’s bed, is spoke of as their rescue beacon to Obama’s failed Presidency, it makes clear how deeply flawed is the entire Democrat party.
In 1968, after the “wise heads” paid the visit, LBJ announced he would not run for re-election. Who in the Democrat party could possibly fill that role today? Would Obama resign if the entire Congressional Black Caucus pushed him to resign, laughable as that notion might seem? Teddy is gone. All the “centrists”, “Southern Democrats”, and “Reagan Democrats” are extinct. Remember that Al Gore was once considered one of the brighter, Southern Democrat lights of the party; now’s he a thorough laughing stock.
Obama is not simply “in trouble”. The entire Democrat Party is in trouble – dead for a generation at least. No matter how they try to hang America’s woe’s on Cheney or “W”. Bush, on the “rich fat cats”, on the “TeaBaggers”, none of it will play any more. The MSM is demonstrably corrupt; there is not a single “leading journalist” in the entire industry that American’s will believe. The entire Democrat party is listing heavily to one side, taking on water from stem-to-stern, with Obama the primary agent of sloshing free communication, causing damage with every wave he causes.
“One and done”, and the Democrats cannot escape the vortex as the S.S. Obama sinks.
Xennedy 39,
Years ago a friend told me that if you are feeling malicious about your employer don’t bother calling the IRS, the company has lawyers to deal with that. Instead make an anonymous call to OSHA and report that you think you saw an uncertified ladder. They might as well shut the business down on the spot.
An Internet survey has revealed that 32% of the American people (I just made that up) are still expecting some adult, think Dick Cheney, to walk into the TV set masquerading as the White House and turn on the lights. Of course an Internet Poll also revealed that 197% of the American people think the switch will be pulled by Ron Paul.
When Obama Girl started dancing and Obama cavorted on Ellen Degeneris’ show the Republicans should not have patronized the emotional tantrum that Obama rode in on. They should have thundered “How dare you?” Tolerating and indulging the immaturity that protected Obama, people were afraid to confront it because any criticism resulted in a charge of raaaacism, gave the GOP a false odor. That is what enabled Obama to get in. If challenged the Democrats would have had to explicitly state their threat and boast that they had stolen and indoctrinated the young. That could have begun the reaction earlier. No one likes to be publicly identified as a dupe. The GOP could have and should have challenged the debasement and abuse of the young and done so to the vast middle. They could have played the “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” clip from Cabaret until the copyright holders threatened to sue. Instead they used such episodes only to mobilize their base but deliberately avoided challenging Obama’s immature supporters.
We can only wish the administration abandoned ship. My expectation is that terrible things will happen both domestically and internationally over the next year and a half. Most of us will muddle through. The greatest damage will be in the black community. They have a long walk home.
A Master Politician knows when to use ridicule to deflate their opponent. Winston Churchill raised it to an Art. Once during a rival’s speech he began silently searching his pockets slowly at first and then more and more frantically until the poor speaker, who was being completely ignored by that time, stopped. Churchill then apologized and produced the trivial object he was seeking.
People should laugh at anyone wearing an Obama ball-cap or t-shirt but they may not do so in the expectation that many of those still wearing them are unstable and confrontational.
41. stoicheion
No, but the time IS here when the guys in the silos get the warning and the codes and they might not be certain we are being attacked.
That is the kind of hesitation at critical decision points when not following orders might save the country or destroy it. Not following orders – that’s unthin kable! So it is, but never in my 26 years in the service – even during the Carter Presidency – did I ever have a similar lack of confidence in our institutions, as I do today.
Fantasy? Perhaps, but it is an example of a danger/confusion that has no good outcome. In that situation, if not played right, the National Command Authority loses what seems so hard to find today in many institutions what we previously could count upon as axiomatic: The Truth.
Just remember who Obama sleeps with each night – someone whom, just because he was going to be president, was finally “proud” of her country. Wow, finally? Getting “thrown out” of office is going to be a very ugly experience for Mrs. Obama. Heck, she’ll have to leave that garden that the Forest Service built for her.
Yes, it’s a dangerous time. Nobody will oppose 0bama on the dem’s side. His ego is too big to allow that. He will go down hard.
0bama could scorch the earth in his last 16 months. He could use Clinton style dirty tricks (motto: “always take a gun to a knife fight”).
He could unleash more Gibson style governmental seizures of property. He will certainly use the race card. And, most likely he will use union violence.
Lastly, he could engineer some sort of national “emergency” such as a war hoping the voters will not want to “change horses” during a critical period.
I say keep your powder dry and get into cash and gold. It going to be a nasty situation until he is gone.
Union member attacks media:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wFHBGGvuQhA
Black panthers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU
I haven’t listened to an Obama speech in probably over a year. Yesterday, I heard excerpts of his most recent on the radio. His tone at times sounded desperate, just one notch down from hysteria. It was unsettling.
My theory: O is more concerned with being a celebrity than he is with being president. His place in history is assured as the “First Black President”, and he’s probably the most famous person in the world just now.
Everything being equal, he’d probably like a second term just so he can fly around on AF1 and enjoy the other perks that come with being the “Most Powerful Man on Earth”, but if he loses, things still look pretty good for him as long as the world doesn’t blow up.
Once he’s out, he can play golf and give speeches to adoring crowds without being asked about his plans for the economy, or anything else. Pure recreation and adulation, fits him to a tee. Sure, he may be slightly discredited for a while, but he’ll be rehabilitated by the media over time. The theme will be very familiar to all: W left him a pile, he tried but the racist GOP blocked him at every turn, etc.etc.
I hope I’m right, since if true it’s unlikely he’d try a scorched earth policy that would destroy his own plans. There’s not much that’s appealing about being a world class celebrity if you can’t find a good golf course or other celebrities to pal around with.
O won’t be primaried. The DEM establishment may not be grounded in reality, but even they are smart enough to know they don’t have a chance without monolithic black support. They’re also invested in the FB President thing, and would consider it unthinkable that they would primary the FBP.
They’re in a bind, and they know it. That’s why you’re seeing the first inkling of doubt in the leftist press. They’re desperate for O to step up, and at the same time coming to the conclusion that he doesn’t have that ability.
The only way O is not the nominee is if he steps down, and that’s not likely. If he just refuses to run, that quitter tag will be pretty hard to erase. If he cites illness, he’ll be the man who couldn’t take it. Nah, rather run and lose as the man who was defeated by racism. That is more his style, I think.
I’ve warned the BC commentariat about this before and every day seems to make it a better Dem bet. Obama right now is a punchline and he’s getting worse by the day. If he continues to the end of his term the Dem prospects in the general election will be about as good as those of the Pequod after Moby-Dick smashed it. Obama, like Tashtego, will take the party down with him as the last thing he does. 2010 will look like a robust Dem victory by comparison.
However, what can the Dems do? If they primary him then they lose the black vote for certain, which also leads to a stunning, historically huge electoral defeat. The political calculus for the Dems at this point is extremely ugly. There aren’t any good, or even marginally bad, answers. There is only one way they avoid a total disaster in 2012, and here it is: Obama’s assassination.
If Obama were to be assassinated and it could be made to look as if white reactionaries did it, all the straying flocks would quickly come back to the Dems. Obama’s incompetence would be immediately forgotten. He would then and forever be The Martyr Who Sacrificed His Life For the Downtrodden. The media would look to treat the widow and children just like they did Jackie O and her children and the Republicans would be demonized beyond anything we’ve ever seen.
If you doubt that, read some contemporary papers about the general national regard for John Kennedy in October 1963. He was considered a marginally good President who had a very large number of detractors, most of whom had good arguments against him. If he had lived his reelection was by no means certain. Once he was dead, his administration quickly metamorphosed into the folktale Camelot and has been considered so by many ever since, numerous efforts to recall the actual truth notwithstanding. Johnson’s landslide on the back of JFK’s death was the opening act to many of the policies that have damaged us so badly as a nation.
Remember the opponent’s character. The Democrats are incredibly vicious, cruel, and ruthless. Lying is second nature to them. They are TWANLOC and will stop at nothing to prevent a Republican from winning the 2012 election. They are absolutely certain the end they wish to achieve justifies any means they need to use to accomplish it. They also know the old playbook very well. If Obama’s death would help them retain power, they wouldn’t hesitate in the slightest even if it ripped the country apart. Indeed, they would probably consider that a feature, not a bug, as it would allow them to seize even more power through “emergency” measures.
Once more, if you believe in prayer, pray that Obama stays in rude good health until the day he permanently leaves the White House.
Whitehall @ 35:
Like you, I think there are parallels with English history. I see that the current situation is very similar to the reign of James ll, the son of Charles l. He was a closet Catholic (= Socialist) in a Protestant (=capitalist) country who alienated both the Royalist and Puritan factions because of his insistence on overriding parliament and emulating statist France. Eventually, the leaders of the country united to oust him by inviting William (of Orange, a Protestant) and Mary (daughter of James ll) to take the throne. The result was the Glorious Revolution of 1688. No king after that had divine rights or thought he could bypass parliament.
I believe something very similar will happen to Obama and the Democrats. After 2012, Congress will begin to take back the power it has allowed to be eroded by bureaucracies and agencies and the presidency will diminish in power and reach. Oh, and James ll was stupid and vain, too.
So if the $800 billion ‘stimulus’ didn’t work in 2009, a $450 billion half-measure will work in 2011?
Eternal optimist, snake oil salesman or deluded fool?
The pathetic David Brooks deserves a job at MSNBC sitting next to the Reverend Al Sharpton:
“Thursday night the president gave one of the most forceful and compelling domestic policy speeches of his presidency.”
Yes, David, he yelled louder than usual, and he repeated
“Pass this (non-existent) Bill!”
endlessly.
Has the man never embarassed himself?
The MSM will never recover from this presidency. They are toast.
David Brooks is the guy who never realizes it was the tyrant he supported who ordered him sent to the ovens. “If only I could get word to him…”
O’utta Breath: “‘My hope and faith are already on life support’”
…-
H/T: “19. DonB71inWA”
“Paraphrasing Rodney, “Once when the President was lost he saw a policeman and asked him to help me find his supporters. The President said to him, “Do you think I’ll ever find them?” He said, “I don’t know kid. There are so many places they can hide.””
…-
“Velma Hart: ‘My hope and faith are already on life support’”
“Mr President, we need you to lead. But what difference will it make if no one will even try to follow you? I am just so tired of it all.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/09/president-obama-jobs-speech-panel
#51 – Mac – interesting thoughts but (from an insanely conspiratorial Dem POV) your idea would *not* do anything to “save” the Dem Party since Obama somehow managed the trick of picking a VP that is always going to be a bigger joke than Obama is. Maybe it was always meant as an insurance policy, I don’t know, but it serves as one.
As far as the trick of framing someone else for a crime – just look at how Gunwalker has turned out. Here’s ineptness, defined! Just like the Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Strait, every plan they try to carry out turns into a joke! In Gunwalker, they try to plant guns to increase support for gun control laws (apparently) and all they do instead is totally discredit the ATF and the DOJ. And it gets worse for them daily, with no upside, as info trickles out. Now they have to try to cover it up, which is crime upon crime, but is also pointless, since any coverup is doomed once even a few people start to talk.
And boy, are they talking. Just wait.
That’s the problem with any involved conspiracy; it takes really competent and intelligent people to pull one off, and even then it’s hard. When you try to hatch one from within a Confederacy of Dunces, the results are always comically catastrophic. (for the conspirators)
No, the Dems have put themselves in the position where there is absolutely *nothing* they can do to save themselves now; they went all in on a bad bet and now they can only stand on the deck and watch the Shipwreck of their Hopes.
It’s fascinating to note that this appears to be happening to the Left worldwide; PM Gillard is in much the same position as Obama is, in Australia, possibly worse; and Ignatieff already rode the Canadian liberal party down to electoral irrelevance with the same kind of myopic pigheadedness.
This is how parties, and movements, die. People will come up with all kinds of convoluted plans for “salvation” – none will work, few will even be tried. The bizarre nature of the plans themselves is as good an indicator as any of how truly hopeless the situation actually is for them.
Democrats have to learn to accept that they truly do have no hope whatsoever. Then they can begin to move on. In fact, I predict that we will all be able to watch them walk through the classic steps – I think most of them have only recently passed through stage 1, and are now at stage 2.
1) Denial
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4) Depression
5) Acceptance
the sooner they make it through the steps, the happier they will be. Of course many will end up stuck at stages 2 and 4 for the rest of their lives, which is quite sad, really.
“…only 26 of 90 members of the press showed up to take their seats in the gallery”
Don’t under estimate how many NFL fans might be in the press. These days it pays better too.
Most Americans are terrified by what they see around them in the world in the form of unmitigated violence. The Arab spring could be the rise of the Arab patriot or more likely, the formation of something more ominous like an Arab Soviet Union realigning the greater eastern hemisphere to something resembling Mordor. But more so, it is the prospect of mob violence and the breakdown of the rule of law that worries Americans the most, even more so than a stagnant economy and high unemployment, yea, probably because of these factors.
So, in our recent past, who have we seen exhibit this mob rule mentality here in America? Well, unions and racial minorities and Obama represent the perfect storm of combining both of these. In the back of the American psyche, there is the fear of an LA riot style race war, one that grows until it is unstoppable because it is fueled by Maxine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus, the SEIU and Jimmy Hoffa Jr. Obama has thrown down the gauntlet, and as G.W. Bush once famously said, to paraphrase; “you are either with us or you are with the terrorists”. Now even the vice president has made it clear that the terrorists are the Tea Party, that loose affiliation of Middle America, and they are ready to do their dirty deeds to maintain power. Disorder will suit their purposes as will martial law because it will deny the average citizen the field and hurdle the nation deeper into crisis, one that only a strong central government can fix.
So, in short, Obama is not popular because he scares the crap out of everyone. Those laughs are not driven by mirth; they are nervous chuckles born by the humor watching those awaiting their turn on the gallows. The ship of state is at its greatest peril than any time since the civil war and the seas are confused. One rogue wave and it will flounder for the last time.
A few threads back, I feared that Buraq might just go after the TBTF and become instantly relevant.
This was his moment to go big, I mean -cut the strings to his puppet masters – and really go big. But no, the TBTF can rest easy. No such thing happened. The FHFA lawsuit looks more and more like a whitewash resolution where the TBTF will not only survive but gain from. We yesterday just got word that SEC will settle with F &F . http://TheBearEconomy.com/2011/09/09/freddie-and-fannie-get-a-slap-on-wrist-lets-hope-not/.
No muss, no fuss. A slap on the wrist with no admittance of guilt. It didn’t make the news even on Zerohedge, much less the Mainstream Media. I’m sure the Aristocracy think it will make a nice template for TBTF.
The Democratic Party is composed of a variety of people who would be power players.
There are the opportunists who will adjust to whatever positions will keep them in power.
There are the hereditary Democrats who are just not engaged in thinking – they just ARE Democrats.
There are the ideologues who will kill and plunder to make their heaven on earth.
As the progressive message loses electoral power, the opportunists will adjust to some new vision that will keep them competitive with conservative message of the GOP. Some will flip Republican and become RINOs.
The important way to avoid a civil war is to allow an escape hatch for the opportunists and the pragmatists. For the ideologues, don’t allow them to create some religious war. Don’t corner the rats and don’t underestimate them!
Just watch, Reid and Pelosi will have rebellion within their ranks. These two may go down with the Obama ship but more likely they will be forced out of leadership.
On the contrary, I think the way has finally been cleared to move forward again. Sure, there was a step back involved, but I think it was necessary to highlight the underlying racism of the Reparations-and-Excuses plantation the Left had led us to. It was a situation that would explode someday. Sooner or later we’ll have to abandon Affirmative Action and begin holding all our citizens to some standards of decency regardless of skin color. Most of those standards will need to be enforced by civic (i.e. non-governmental) organizations, but those organizations can’t do it until there’s an end to the EEOC, disparate impact laws, and various discrimination lawsuits. #45 Blast From the Past hit this nail on the head when he said ”Tolerating and indulging the immaturity that protected Obama, people were afraid to confront it because any criticism resulted in a charge of raaaacism, gave the GOP a false odor” We’ve tolerated and indulged far too much over the last 40 years, and we need to stop. Basically, we have to get over White Guilt so it can’t be used by race hustlers and centralizers (it has been one of their most potent excuses for Federalizing power). The overt racism shown by so many Black Americans towards Obama should help us put a fork in White Guilt and get back to treating people as individuals rather than members of a group.
Group-centric politics tends towards centralization because power comes from raw membership numbers –“we need more members of our group, so let’s join with our Brethren across the border and fight for (insert spoils program here).” The win goes to whoever centralizes their group organization first. But politics centered around individuals tends towards decentralization because power comes from convincing individuals of your position, and the more individuals involved, the harder it is to convince them. Easier to sell your ideas to three thousand members of a local community than 300 million people across the country.
BFTP is also correct when he says Black Americans will have a long walk home.
Tcobb
You’re not misjudging Obama (except perhaps that he might be too lazy to actually get around to any mischief – he’ll no doubt want to get in all the Presidential Golfing Vacations he can once he realizes his time in office is limited). However, we should remember that Obama can’t actually do very much himself. He can issue orders and sign all the papers he wants, but aside from Pardons (where he can probably work the most mischief for the least effort), he needs other people to actually wreak the havoc, and almost all of those people are members of bureaucracies that can throw lots of sand in the gears of any grand exit strategies the Obamanauts might come up with.
Most of the people who have to actually carry out the orders will think they have futures to worry about, and will be reluctant to jeopardize them. Our best defense against any mischief is to make loud noises about prosecutions and accountability. The Congressional investigation into Gunwalker and the Gibson raid are good in that regard, and Congressional Republicans (and the Presidential candidates) should hint that “just following orders” won’t cut it as an excuse for the agents and Civil Service personnel involved. Threats of investigations will focus the mischief makers on destroying the evidence between November and January, rather than creating more evidence against themselves. Plus they will find everything they try to do slow going with the lifer bureaucrats desperately trying to avoid wrecking their careers on behalf of outgoing bosses (who probably haven’t made many friends anyway, considering the typical leftist attitude towards underlings).
#33 WhitehallM
This is a very dangerous state of affairs.
The President still has awesome and fearful powers. A man with no political future will lose nothing by exercising those powers to suit himself without restraint. He has no respect he must keep or maintain so why not do the foolish and the self-possessed?
The raid on Gibson, the willful evasion of bankruptcy laws as with GM, the award of billions of dollars on tactical basis, political prosecutions galore – it is coming.
I’ve picked up a book on the English Civil War. As Charles I loses, the more he abuses.
Americans tend to focus on our Civil War as the template for domestic warfare. That was a largely a territorially based conflict, with clear demarcations of where each side was based. You have hit on something that needs to be considered. In the English Civil War, while there were regions which favored one side or the other; the was no such clear demarcation and control switched back and forth. That is closer to the template that we actually face, but there are additional factors in play. TWANLOC are intermixed with Patriots in much of the country.
I expect that we are going to see widespread violence before and after the putative date of the 2012 election regardless of winner; with analogs to Weimar Germany where private armies [politically based from both sides of the spectrum in that case] fought in the streets and by terrorist means, and possibly with some similarities to the former Yugoslavia. Already we see that the regime has formed and supports TWANLOC gangs based on race [NBPP and the Mexican drug cartels being armed by the administration] and politics [SEIU thugs and the Teamsters declaring that they are Obama's army and will kill the TEA Party ... in Obama's approving presence] which are above and immune from the normal process of the law. The dynamic will not remain one-sided. In addition to the other cautions from BC-ers, I would note that in such times of troubles the individual or individual family will not be able to protect themselves alone. A trusted core group of like minded individuals will be necessary to survive.
#40 Josh
Godwin’s Law does not forbid discussion of anything to do with Nazi’s, just hysterical invocations of the NSDAP without basis. History does not repeat itself, but human stupidity and the repressive tactics associated with it do. History, assuming someone is around outside of a MiniTru to write it, will decide the validity of the comparison. Remembering that the natural state of most of mankind for all but the last couple of centuries has been poverty and tyranny; should make observers look on those who would rule over us with a suspicious and jaundiced eye as the normative state. And be ready at need to defend the liberties we still have.
Subotai Bahadur
I’ve heard various suggest Obama will lead a splendid and comfortable life once he’s tossed out next Nov. (God willing). I wonder tho– who will pay a million to hear him speak? About… what? Sure, he’ll get some board seat/s. But Clinton-type money? I can’t think of anyone who would want to be in the same room with the guy after this experience. Failure carries a pernicious odor– and he’ll forever have a cloud over him. Carter, for awhile, was a decent ex-president… building houses and such– till he got hard left and anti-semitic. I can’t think of any Republican ex-president who wanted to or needed to hold out the tin cup for corporate dough. Obama will be a young man– other than sell his memoirs– which libraries will be required to buy and no one else– what will he do? He’ll be a laughingstock. I suspect there will be an enormous weight of depression hanging around his shoulders– clinical depression that will cripple him emotionally. Rarely have we seen such a public crash and burn of a high profile personality. Rather than a Clinton-like ex-presidency global celeb or a reticent gentlemen like W, I bet we’ll see a Dukakis-type exile– a professorship in some school where no one will be forced to deal with him except the curious.
Ex-pat in Oz @ 65 said:
“I’ve heard various suggest Obama will lead a splendid and comfortable life once he’s tossed out next Nov. (God willing). I wonder tho– who will pay a million to hear him speak?”
Lots of moonbats will pay plenty to listen to Grima Wormtongue. Obama’s future is assured as a public speaker.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area which is moonbat central. I was one of the few guys in the Bay Area who did NOT have an Obama 2008 bumper sticker on his car. However now, most of those bumper stickers have been scraped off. I would dare say that I’ve seen more partially scraped off Obama 2008 bumper stickers than brand new Obama 2012 versions. Even here in moonbat central, the Chosen One is having problems.
Ex-pat, Where in Oz do you live? I’m a former expatriate (lived in Brisbane for 7 years). Australia is a great place to live but it’s hard to find employment there.
The biggest problem the Big Zero will face in his post-POTUS era will be that all the coddling institutions that normally pick up the tab for an out-to-pasture Leftist are facing massive financial collapse. It’s not entirely clear that there will be spare professorships-in-exile to be had, nor much walking-around money for a Community Organizer Emeritus.
It’s apparent in his article that Millbank still doesn’t realize that Obama is the joke. Why shouldn’t people giggle and smile?
Regarding union violence, this just took place in Washington state:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/09/meet-the-democratic-party-up-close-and-personal.php
After Mr. O’s treatment of the Supreme Court at the SOTU, what little sympathy I have by default for every person occupying that office evaporated.
I’m glad to see at least one member held up a placard as he talked (“drilling equals jobs”). Pity they didn’t have more. I could have made up 50 of which he’d likely stumbled across one every 10 seconds or so (especially if I had a chance to practice with the members – including “thinking in their seats as if they were on their feet” making combinations of signs). Maybe Ms. O. would have been moved to slap somebody. Certainly would have made the campaign commercial a little more competitive with the pre-game show. (Granted, the MSM are pretty practiced at this game when they coach audience members in ‘pubican settings.. gander, meet goose.)
Subotai,
The deeper I get into my English Civil War book the more analogs I find with the present day.
Indeed, many families were rent by the war with the fathers loyal to the king and sons supporting Parliament. The break wasn’t always that way, of course.
As to violence, we need to remember that the government will take sides, claiming they represent order. That’s why painting the Tea Party as extremists has been so important.
I was in the UK and had an interesting discussion with some business people on a train. I asked their impression and they thought the Tea Party were extremists too but when pressed, couldn’t describe just what extreme positions were being advanced.
That’s the MSM at work for ya.
All you doomsayers please stop. The times are not without their perils, yes. But what perils there are pale in many respects to those in the past. We don’t have a foreign army arriving on our shores and marching to our captial to burn it (War of 1812); we aren’t going to be a house asundered, brother vs brother and hundreds of thousands lying dead on the battlefields (Civil War); the economy for how bad it is still does not have bread lines and mass migrations underway like in the Great Depression (yes, we could get there); there isn’t an advanced industrial nation with one of the world’s finest militaries on a mission of conquest (Nazi Germany), one that we will have to use all our efforts and resources to beat back. The challenges before us are great but we Americans and our allies have face them before and triumphed.
My father is a avid diver and I spent my youth growing up in the ocean. The one lesson that my father pounded into my brother and myself was if you got in trouble in the sea if you kept your head you’d survive; lose it and you die. We may be adrift in a sea of turmoil but if we keep our heads we will survive.
Hey Eggplant– been here since 2000– came on a 457 visa via a multinational. We were on East Coast and the timing was right. We’ve since got our permanent residency/citizenship but it was a flukey thing we just took advantage of to start with. We’re in Northern Beaches outside Sydney (Pittwater to be specific). We love it here– I watch sailboats and ferries from my home office!
It is tough (especially since the GFC when everything was tightened up)– but I know plenty of young poms and euros who manage to find a place here too. If we had been even 5 years older, I doubt we’d have been able to swing it tho.
Tarnsman@72: All you doomsayers please stop.
This country survived Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War. We’ll get through this weak-kneed sister of history.
It’s just going to be painful watching the “ruling elites” justify their high-powered educations and their MENSA intellects.
Yonder yawns a chasm
with your name on it
Let’s give him the oars to get there
Some of these initiatives will be difficult
like gallstones,
so lets do the work of governemt
and pass those things
right now!
“This country survived Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War. We’ll get through this weak-kneed sister of history.”
This is why the ratbags get so far. Each time they win it gets a lot harder to put the Genie back in the bottle.