The Empty Sandwich
Glenn Thrush at Politico describes the inner turmoil of the Obama campaign based on notes for a book titled Obama’s Last Stand. Thrush says that unlike 2008, when there was an “eyes-on-the-prize strategic focus,” the 2012 effort has been afflicted “by a succession of political disagreements and personal rivalries that haunted the effort at the outset.”
What changed? Thrush offers a succession of vignettes which are really a description of symptoms. Nowhere does he identify the cause of the disease. But the symptoms themselves strongly hint at what ails the president’s effort.
Most of the “political disagreements” described in the article have to do with messaging — the way things are presented. For example, Joe Biden’s “gaffe” on gay marriage had nothing to do with substance, only with timing: “Biden’s misstep, also in May, in announcing his approval of gay marriage — which forced Obama to do the same before he intended — caused greater disharmony in the White House than was reported at the time.” Timing was the problem, not substance, in one of the most momentous policy initiatives of his presidency: gay marriage.
The disharmony resembled a chronic grabbing for the steering wheel — what Thrush calls “self-promotion” among aides. In a case of life imitating art, the inmates of the actual White House acted like the cast of a fictional White House where actors vied for speaking parts. When David Axelrod got the cue, he fluffed his moment in the limelight:
As Axelrod was greeted by pro-Romney hecklers chanting “Axel-Fraud,” Obama was in the West Wing watching with growing disgust as the event unfolded on cable news. The scene, he scoffed to a nearby aide, was an ill-conceived “spectacle.”
“We aren’t going to do that kind of thing again, are we?” he asked peevishly, not a question but an order. Obama has no qualms about throwing a punch, his close intimates say, but can’t stand looking foolish when he does.
The comparison between the Obama campaign and the movie making is disturbingly apt. Aides were carefully evaluated with respect to how they came across in talk shows and interviews, exactly as if they were in show business. There were prima donna rows. An argument between David Axelrod and Stephanie Cutter flared up because “Axelrod suspected Cutter of taking a network TV appearance he had been asked to do.”
“we are the people we’ve been waiting for”. actually, in hindsight, had an ominous meaning. The Left that Obama embodies was simply waiting for, and helping to bring about, enough dysfunction in the American system of governance so that they could move in, and do pretty much as they pleased.
Entropy lives.
In the meanwhile, an idiot named Tod Akin, poised to remove Claire McCaskill of Missouri and help the GOP capture the Senate, made some astoundingly ignorant, stupid remarks that are most unhelpful to the Republican campaign. Go ahead and Google this fool to see what I mean.
Reince Preibus and company really need to insist on overall campaign discipline. If any other GOP candidates hold such stupid beliefs about “women who are really raped can’t get pregnant” or other jerkwad crap, they better tell those dolts to shut the Hell up before they go on any news shows.
To me its amazing that Obama has so little to show for the past 4 years yet the election is still his to lose. I honestly believe that the country would be better of if Hillary would have been elected instead of Obama. At least she would have made a turn to the center like Bill and gotten re-elected. Obama is treating this election as if he has been mayor of Chicago for 20 years and all he has to do is get on the ballot.
“What changed?”
To use my favorite George Will quote (said about the Clinton Admin in 1993), “I disagree the the Administration is in disarray. This is what liberal government looks like.”
Nothing changed. SNAFU is SOP in some circles. The Third Reich looked like this, too.
Wretchard says: This obsession with imagery, cute phrasing and perception suggests that the real problem with the 2012 campaign is that it is all about nothing.
One image I’d love to see: Condi Rice inviting Sir Golfsalot to be her guest at Augusta National when the club opens in the fall.
http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/08/20/augusta-national-admits-first-2-female-members/
Obama has no qualms about throwing a punch, his close intimates say, but can’t stand looking foolish when he does.
Then he is in heap big trouble cuz he doesn’t even know how to throw a punch, he just does a little shadow-boxing and his posse applauds. Problem is nobody else is applauding, at this point. I don’t see his current campaign as much different from 2008, it’s human nature to have vicious infighting over the most trivial points. Romney’s acid-tinged rope-a-dope is working on him, is what it is, and Romney’s choice of Ryan seems to have really got under their skin.
The campaign organization that Thrush describes may be terminally self-referential; one that thinks it is about itself; that if David Axelrod’s mustache were a little more luxurient, or Joe Biden’s phraseology more fortunate, or the President’s delivery more forceful, then all would be well. It would not. There would still be no money and still no jobs.
And apparently nobody in Obambus’ inner circle, including Himself, has worried a nit about that since before the beginning. I still think Obambus threw himself in the 2008 mix simply planning to amuse himself and maybe build some credibility for 2012 or 2016 when he might even shoot for VP, and all the rest of what happened instead has been pure accident, Hildabeast being loathsome to a majority of Democrats, and McCain being elderly and confused to a majority of the general electorate. Hildabeast chased out other likely Democrats, only Obambus was foolish enough to continue, having such low expectations, and then there he suddenly was, standing alone, unprepared and as it turned out, utterly unqualified by experience, inclination, or even knowledge of what the job entailed, or even caring, he’d never much cared about any job in his life, never had to. Is this one different? We shall see.
Did he walk into a tough situation? Yessir. Did he realize that in 2008? I’m not sure he knew or cared. But he said himself he had four years to win or begone. Doesn’t really matter what the facts are, them’s the rulz. I really do doubt that McCain or anyone else could have had a significantly better result in four years. Some imaginary perfect candidate might have done better in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think, and have made a better decision to support the Arab (?!) Spring when it sprung in Iran. All the later ones, I dunno. But the economy? If all the best steps in the world (by my humble judgement) had been taken, they might have shown no benefit inside of the four-year horizon, there’s the rub.
But when the entire team tanks, the first thing that goes is the coach, that’s life, and it’s best if he’s gracious about it. Don’t expect that to happen here. Biden called Ryan to welcome him to the race. Wonder just how that went.
dr @ 3: an idiot named Tod Akin
Sigh.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/08/20/dems-campaign-arm-petitions-boehner-to-kick-rep-akin-off-science-committee/
I see their point, OTOH in a land where they fund Solyndra for $500m, I guess they just let anybody on these committees.
3. Don Rodrigo: Yes, that is the kind of remark that starves the room of oxygen. Nothing else he says will be remembered as readily. Most politicians have no humility, the key reason I despise most of them. They start thinking they really are smarter than everyone else, and as any regular reader of BC knows, this is not often true. The true mark of intelligence is knowing your limitations and hiring someone to counter them. That is what Romney should be saying to those accusing him of playing second fiddle to Ryan on fiscal policy. Romney should say, “As president the buck stops with me but that doesn’t mean I can’t team up with someone who enhances my abilities with his own.” And then maybe a quick jab back with, “I chose my vice president for his brains, my opponent can’t possibly make this claim.”
The shocking – and damning – thing here isn’t that timing was more important than substance, but that in the middle of an economic collapse with massive social dislocation looming and multiple unfunded liabilities about to hit – with the social model half the country has depended on about to expire forever – with the last 50 years of political effort by our European allies about to collapse – with the Middle East going through the most significant political changes since at least Nasser, with all that…
gay marriage is “one of the most momentous policy initiatives of his Presidency”?
It’s not style over substance, it’s style over style. Frivolity and decadence.
Hey, gay people, good news! You can get married! Bad news, the government is broke and had to jack up the marriage license fee to $20,000. Worse news, you’re both out of work and broke too, so you can’t afford the license. Huh, guess you can’t get married after all…
Josh (#7) I agree “McCain” would not have done much better and would have most likely made it possible for the Demoncrats to have kept the House! McCain would have Shackled and Muzzled Sarah, blowing any future chance Sarah would have had at being Prez. Sarah would have done a better job than 0bama or McCain but Sarah’s been painted in such bad light by the MSM and Liberal/Progressive elitist that Sarah probably has no future shot left unless the Tea Party really becomes a major Party, Personally I think Sarah has given up Political Life…
How much of where we are is the Wilder Effect, how much is the MSM Effect, and how much are the plain facts that nearly 50 percent of Americans pay no income taxes and 60 percent are hooked on the benefits they receive? 45-50 percent may be the new floor for general electorate support for a Democrat presidential candidate. Meaning, of course, that the GOP has to be darned near perfect in making their case. No Akins allowed.
“Timing was the problem, not substance.”
This is an equivalent thing, morally, of being sorry for being caught, not committing the offense.
So let me get this straight. McCain would have cancelled the XL pipeline, increased troops in Afghanistan, backed down on European missile defense, killed Khadaffi, declared Assad a reformer, took over GM, sued Arizona and New Mexico, authorized Fast and Furious, unilaterally defied congress on several occasions including granting amnesty through executive fiat? Yeah right.
“Personally I think Sarah has given up Political Life…”
No, Sarah moved to Arizona. When McCain retires at the end of his term, she will run for his seat and win. Unlike most Femes Sarah doesn’t appear to fear ageing.
Most men fear losing control, most women fear getting old. Remember the “pretty” thread?
Females depend mostly on their looks. More so then males. Sarah Will have a very good career in Congress. I expect her to be back in the POTUS mix in 2020 or later.
I would LOVE to be hidden in a stall while Her and Mrekel powder their noses.
Of course Merkel will have to survive her October surprise first.
October is when Greece’s short term loan comes due. They don’t have the money to pay. Germany says it will not lend them another Euro. If both sides hold their position, the EU shatters.
Mitt needs to get ahead of the curve and have a good logical reason why it’s the 0bumbler’s fault. Lost the ME and now he is losing Europe.
When a politician gets elected thru the clever arrangement of smoke and mirrors, You would have to be as stupid as a journalist to expect them to produce anything solid during their term.
Charlie don’t surf.
Personally, I have not been impressed with Niall Ferguson as an economist. Intelligent, good-looking & well-spoken, for sure. But there never seems to have been much “there” there in his writing. The one thing that Ferguson seems to have down pat is the art of left-wing politicking — leaping from Scottish obscurity to the top academic institution the UK has to offer, and then jumping to an even higher branch in the Ivy League, and somehow lining up the BBC series and the books and the big name girlfriends along the way.
Point is — if a player in left-wing fields like Ferguson sees no risk to himself in casting the first stone at Obama, then Obama really must be in a lot more trouble than his loyal LameStreamMedia is reporting. Maybe the king-makers who vaulted Barry S. to the Presidency are sending him a message?
AM (#13) No I don’t think McCain would have done those things, I think McCain wouldn’t do any better on the Economy and I think McCain would have worked very closely with Reid and Pelosi… Remember McCain is a RINO! he works better at getting Demoncrat agenda passed than Republican and don’t even go there on “Conservative” agenda… McCain bends to the MSM.
It is given that Obama is a terrible President and needs to be removed from office. Despite that, he is winning this election, refer to:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
Currently his job approval average is +0.7% (it’s unusual that it’s positive)
In Obama vs. Romney polls, Obama is winning by +2.8%
Based upon electoral college, Obama is crushing Romney at 237 vs. 191.
Do not be seduced by the echo chamber!
Obama’s popularity scales with the public’s perception of the economy. Unless the stock market takes a sudden turn for the worse, we will be cursed with Obama for 4 more years.
Echoing Don R #1, “we are the people we’ve been waiting for” has sort of a circular, zero feel to it. It encapsulates the substance-less logo of O. Nothingness surrounded by a veneer.
Eggplant – to paraphrase Herr Albert “It’s a thought that makes me hazy. Are we or are the others crazy?”
Hitler Finds Out Paul Ryan is the VP Pick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zTW6Ekqn-4
Eva Braun’s “comment” is priceless.
I think the narrative elected Obama. To paraphrase some words of LL3
“Over the past 20 years the special interest coalitions have progressively discredited the traditional idea that factions were a bad thing. That is now a quaint idea superseded by the notion that there is nothing special interest lobbying cannot solve. A compliant media has convinced the public that to every problem there is an agency and a rule for every purpose under heaven.
The media has learned to craft “compassion trap” stories in which heart-rending problems can be fixed by yet another government bureaucracy whose creation only the cruel could refuse to fund. A powerful coalition of the media and special interests has written the narrative of modern times. Together they have created a “ratchet” and the wheel winds only one way.
In consequence, learning how to manipulate the system became the key modern skill. Governance became a one sided contest between the part-time public and professional activists, who wanted to work the system to rule others and made it their full-time occupation. As the saying goes, “be at the table or be on the menu”. The consequence is that almost everyone who actually does something productive is on the menu for those who do nothing but redistribute the wealth.
“
Obama is a professional activist. That’s all he is.
The ratchet wheel of the modern narrative is what is keeps Obama high in the polls. Romney’s task is to break the ratchet wheel. That’s a hard thing to do.
10, 13, 16:
McCain could have made a significant difference by doing nothing. The worse-than-useless stimulus would have been much less than $800B, we wouldn’t have had Obamacare or the chronic threats of tax hikes, the GM bondholders wouldn’t have been robbed.
The Dems had the House, so divided government might have restrained spending.
Just having a president who didn’t attack businesses and hate capitalism would have helped. He wouldn’t have had to be a strong free-market advocate to improve on Obama.
By himself Romney would have neither the power nor perhaps even the inclination to break the ratchet. The whole system has been hermetically sealed off from reality until now. The economic crisis has shattered one of the window panes and the inmates of the castle feel a draft.
“Oh it’s just a draft”. But the crowd somehow senses something more menacing.
The reason Ryan has been received with such enthusiasm he is the vessel of hope. The outside chance we can react before its too late. The oxygen tank in the maw of Jaws which, could we hit it square with a Garand, might blow the shark to bits. Hope is often the flip side of despair. The deeper the hole you are in, the more lottery tickets you buy.
I don’t know whether Romney or Ryan can carry the ball past the line, but what is certain is this: the gale outside will not subside. It is driven by heat engine of reality. No matter how many times Obama calms down the frantic crowds the storm will not abate. The boat is in a typhoon and the captain it turns out, is not a sea dog at all. He’s just an actor playing a sailor.
Obama is an excellent front man. He can sell the “sizzle”. Problem is that he can’t deliver a meal. And Congress, during the Democrat super majority, was composed of less than bright bulbs (think Pelosi), and didn’t backfill Obama’s weaknesses.
Clinton was a really good front man too. But he had a fiscally conservative Congress (think Ginrich) that pushed him into spending cuts and welfare reform (although he had to be forced to sign it).
Obama was a cute experiment in America’s effort to rid itself of racism. But now we need some real leadership because we’ve got serious structural problems.
Obama is not the man for the job! – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4nvhAZ0vr0
#17 Eggplant
With all due respect, I think you are basing your conclusions on the wrong polling set. RCP’s “Average” has been being manipulated for years.
Never pay attention to a poll until you have looked at the “internals”
First look at the R-D-I breakdown. If it is not somewhere close to the election exit polls from the last general election [2010 in this case], it is crap.
Second look at who was surveyed.
Historically, “All Adults” or “Adults” polls skew Democrat around 10% over electoral reality.
“Registered Voters” skew Democrat around 5% over electoral reality.
“Likely Voters” are the most accurate. There still is a margin of error, but it is closer than anything else. Only Rasmussen is consistently using “Likely Voters” at this point.
And don’t let them distract you with arguments about cell phones -v- landlines. ALL major polling organizations use a mix of cell phones and landlines in any legitimate poll and say so in the internals, and have for the last few years in response to the changes in personal communications.
The media frequently use REAL CLEAR POLITICS’ Poll Average as a surrogate for the state of the race. And the Left and Journo-List 2.0 know this. Every week or so, a poll comes out that shows a sudden swing to Obama. And when you correct for the skews above, you find that it is an “outlier”. But we have enough regular “outliers” to indicate manipulation and in fact the average is skewed.
If you take out the “outliers”, and allow for the R-D-I bias and who is surveyed, things don’t look nearly as good for the Lightworker, assuming we have elections. The only one I kinda-sorta take at face value is Rassmussen’s rolling 3 day average. But I still look at the internals in case they have changed.
Subotai Bahadur
I’m hardly the first to make this point, but I can’t get over the quote that Romney “was no goddamned war hero.”
Our president, who never served in the military, holds Romney in contempt because he didn’t either?
Don’t get me wrong, I understand it, that just doesn’t make it any less infuriating. It’s the double-standard of people who think that just by being who they are and holding the views they do, they are doing something positive. The rest of us have to do something extra, go above and beyond the call of duty, just to pull even with them.
It’s a similar principle to that of the chickenhawk slur: You have no right to support a war unless you’ve been there and done that, but you can feel free to protest one from the safety of the ivory tower. You have to qualify to disagree with a liberal, much less to run against one.
You have an engineer’s mindset, assuming that government should have purpose, goals, ends, solve problems, like putting a man on the moon. Teleology died in the 60′s, man. Obama is very Zen. With his/our arrival has come/is coming the fulfillment of the promises and yearnings we have been waiting for (Obama’s royal ‘we’/himself. We can unite with this royal we as equals, though Obama by happenstance is ‘more equal’, to coin a phrase, as he happens to be at the top. Buddha didn’t ask to be Buddha, after all. ) In his campaign we hear several Buddha conscious voices that are trying to speak at the same time and need to take turns, is all. Western minds might call this narcissistic-personality-disorder. Some in the media have called Obama messianic without knowing why. Obama has Christ consciousness of the already arrived/yet to come kingdom of Teh Won. The election question then becomes, when the day’s events unfold real time, who do you want judging those events, according to whose belief system, or rather, transcendent awareness? With Obama’s can-don’t attitude, we can trust that things will be presented just as they should be/already are. It’s all good. The alternative is having some Americo-centric, Judeo-Christian moralizer who’s going to mess up the world stage by doing “something” rather than “nothing” in line with those provincial, backward beliefs, while disenfranchizing those at home. Better to lead from behind and subvert the power structures from the bottom up/top down of the power structure in real time/already is. Romney isn’t a political opponent, he’s the white devil, antichrist, the embodiment of false consciousness. Neo/Now/Teh Won calls to you/himself, “Neo, wake up, follow the white rabbit, and see the machine that is using you as a power source for its own machine-maintenance.” Western thought might call this projection. Others hear “Come, come to me my child” in James Earl Jones’ voice. For the auditor to test this proposition is for him to already fall back into false consciousness. The Obama campaign is to spread awareness, to help you to “let go of the ‘wonder why’ and give your heart a try” and step off the ledge. Santa Claus is coming to town. As a snake. The trick is to embrace the snake.
This is all gnostic mythology with faint echoes of Christianity to make the pill go down easier. Recall that liberals took to calling Christians Manichean a decade or so ago arguing sexual morality. Again, I call it projection. Then they stopped, probably when someone looked into the meaning of the word and realized they couldn’t win the argument. Obama couples in his imagination idealism (hope) in the betterment of mankind with faithless materialism (change) that requires the external world to be rearranged to his liking. It is his limiting factor. Alternately, to recognize that man has an immaterial spirit and intellect that in an absolute sense transcends the material order (made in God’s image, created light that participates in divine light) one can have more doors opened to it. Took Augustine quite some time to get there. I, mostly, have just read about it.
The ratchet wheel of the modern narrative is what is keeps Obama high in the polls. Romney’s task is to break the ratchet wheel. That’s a hard thing to do.
But once it breaks, look out! There’s a lot of deadweight held up by that ratchet, and it’ll come crashing down with a lot of mv-squared. One of the idiocies of the Left is that they’ve been so aggressive about turning the ratchet, and so reistant to relieving any of the pressure created be it, that when it goes, there’s not going to be any chance to stop the free-fall. Any previous levels of support are going to collapse under the impact.
dla @24 said:
“Obama was a cute experiment in America’s effort to rid itself of racism. But now we need some real leadership because we’ve got serious structural problems.”
If 20 years ago, a conservative black man had been elected Vice President, the US would have been immunized from a socialist demagogue like Obama. We conservatives should have seen this coming and are partially to blame.
Under Obama, the system is completely grid locked and will remain that way until after he is removed from office. The economic implosion of 2008 should have been dealt with promptly. Obama could have dealt with it but squandered all of his political capital on socialized medicine and other left wing issues. The Bernanke sucker’s rally propped up through money printing will crash eventually (Apple valued at $632 billion in funny money). If we do not have a strong President when that happens, we will be in very serious trouble (think James Buchanan, Jr. just before the Civil War).
Subotai Bahadur @ 25:
The Real Clear Politics average polls have an excellent track record.
It is still way too early to call this election. I am encouraged by R/R and especially like how they are thoroughly playing O/B right now. The fact that Obama cannot stand either of them is revealing of his character. He is essentially a narcissist and losing the spotlight and the crowds to others is driving him crazy. Even worse, he is allowing it to show.
with all this talk about ratchets, now is an appropriate time to check out this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgj8Cen4UtA
I disagree. 20 years ago (well, 21 actually) a conservative black man was appointed to the Supreme Court, and the social demagoguing got even worse. The racebait industry needed to run itself over the cliff.
”Obama has no qualms about throwing a punch, … ”
No, not really, because to really throw a punch you have to be able to take one and that doesn’t apply in this case.
And besides, he throws like a girl.
if the gop were smart — and they aren’t — they would start the meme that obama is afraid to debate ryan. keep hammering on obama’s cowardice to face ryan in an open exchange until even the msm has to report it.
Whomever: Ferguson is usually called a historian at Harvard, not an economist. And according to the Wiki Palin’s house in Scottsdale is not her permanent residence.
Eric: paragraphs please … please.
What a thin-skinned, shallow and petty man. His modus operandi is to create grudges out of the least of slights, then obsess on retribution. The only thing this narcissitic man has created is an narcissitic campaign organization.
I can’t wait till this poseur leaes the White House and loses his power to control-I foresee dozens of insider books that reveal exactly what the Obama administration was really like. It won’t be a pretty story.
e @ 27: Obama’s royal ‘we’/himself
Obambus famously doesn’t “we” himself, it’s all “I, I, me, me, mine”.
Oldsj (#22) said “The worse-than-useless stimulus would have been much less than $800B,” I believe your wrong on this, McCain remember suspended his “Campaigning” to rush back to Congress and helped “Pass” the stimulus… While the ever clever BH0 didn’t suspend anything. I did say McCain would do less, the reality is we will never know what McCain would have done other than by his track record of “reaching” across the aisle and helping Demoncrats pass legislation that was more to their liking than fiscally responsible or Conservative, John McCain is a RINO in most aspects, John McCain is an prime example of “Inside the Beltway” and Like I said McCain would have worked closely with Polesi and Reid and they would have been Spend, Spend, Spend, give entitlements after entitlements, might not have be as grand a scale as BH0 but then again it could have been!
cw @ 38: McCain remember suspended his “Campaigning” to rush back to Congress and helped “Pass” the stimulus.
That was TARP, strictly speaking not Porkulus, that came a year later.
I have no idea how McCain voted on Porkulus, but it seemed like a reasonable idea at the time and it wouldn’t shock me if he voted for that too.
The connection between TARP and Porkulus is interesting. The sheer size of TARP ($700B) was shocking at the time. IMO, the Democrats were emboldened by it to pass the $800B stimulus bill, much larger than any previous stimulus.
TARP was a loan, mostly paid back. The stimulus was a payout.
Charles, I agree McCain is a RINO. But any RINO would have been a great improvement. And in 2012, Romney’s faults are trivial compared to 4 more years of Obama.
The reason that I like the realclearpolitics average poll is the design margin that is built into it by the Democrat leaning outliers. Republican outliers also occur but less frequently than Democrat outliers. Because they are rolled into the average the bias towards the Democrats is muted but I think it does produce a small but consistent over estimate of Obama’s approval rating.
If Obama falls behind in the approve/disapprove ratings then he really is behind. Same thing with the Romney/Obama ratings. If Romney gets ahead in the realclearpolitics average then he really is ahead.
I think the direction and slope of the trend lines in these polls are accurate but the absolute numbers provide conservative estimates of Romney’s success. I prefer conservative estimates.
“The Real Clear Politics average polls have an excellent track record.”
Find your Pyle & White “Statistics” and remind me what it says about averaging polls. IIRC it something along the lines of adding oranges and apple to get pears. Or was that my Stats professor? Polls are ONLY useful for trend lines. That is in part because statistics is a way of using math to predict random behavior in nature. It doesn’t apply to humans because humans ARE NOT random. Pollsters avoid that fact because if it became common knowledge, they would need to find a real job. Pollsters busy at polls are to busy to hang out in bars and playgrounds, which is good. So there is a social purpose.
Polls a few days before elections are better, although elections are binary. The won will win or not. Mitt will lose if Berry wins, win if Berry loses. You could flip a coin and have the same chance of being right as the pollsters.
If it was a science, they would be able to tell us the EV count and the number of voters for each candidate. They can’t. So flip a coin and save a few bucks. No don’t. Hire a pollster and keep them away from playgrounds and out of bars. It is your duty to society.
Civilized society depends on polite fictions and white lies. Sometimes to get along you must pretend that 2+2=5. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.
Haji can’t shoot.
#26 JPS Obama is a war hero. have you forgotten when he and his assistant gunner SSgt. Reggie Love III personally led the mission into Pockistan to get OBL?
It just may be that they were indeed the very people that we’ve been waiting for…Only not quite in the way the they had calculated.
Wouldn’t it be just hilarious if the revolutionary silk-threaded chains of haughty incompetence, privilege-peddling, dependency-mongering, and self-referential overreaches of hubris which were woven by 0bama and his sanctimonious faction of institution-wrecking rent-seeking comrades, were the very means by which bitter-clinging Americans -who said chains were intended to bind forever- managed to subvert, re-task its momentum, and swing their way back from the precipice and toward the solid ground of Liberty?
Such are my dreams.
May we all live to celebrate the full course feast of sweet, savory schadenfreude as the heads of the do-good slave masters implode.
Thank you Josh (#39) for setting me straight and my apology “oldsj” for getting that wrong… I agree anyone and that includes the Hildabeast would have been better than this joker! I am just sick and tired of the Establishment RINOs getting the Nod (Bush W was not a establishment RINO like McCain, Dole and Bush SR) I am no Hardcore Libertarian, But I do believe there are too many Laws, Federal, State, County and Local in this land, Tax Laws favor the rich and big Business and Our Federal Government servants have to Good of a life both while serving and afterwards (Allot of State servants ain’t to far behind)!
If I were R and R, I would push Fast and Furious. Since Holder won’t release the documents, e-mails, etc. to refute our 2nd Amendment hunch, I say we are free to make that assumption and I say we run ads stating this ulterior motive as an absolute fact. Pounded with this they are left with two choices-release the stuff, which they can’t and won’t do or just whine about it.
”Polls are ONLY useful for trend lines. That is in part because statistics is a way of using math to predict random behavior in nature. It doesn’t apply to humans because humans ARE NOT random.”
Thank you so much for pointing that out. Statistics help answer the question, ”Is this result by chance or is there a non-random influence?” In an election there is presumed to be an influence, no assumption of randomness.
And, as is commonly said, a given poll is only a ‘snapshot’—repeated sequentially one can perhaps see a trend but the number of potential biases is huge and eliminating them extremely expensive.
Therefore averaging a bunch of polls will produce a tendency to gather around a central point, a number. But is it ”the truth” … ?
Let’s not get too cocky – but:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-campaign-was-trawling-warm-bodies-fill-half-empty-kick-rally_650295.html
“Obama Campaign Was ‘Trawling for Warm Bodies’ to Fill Half-Empty Kick-Off Rally”
“That doesn’t hold true for Romney. He was no goddamned war hero.”
Ghetto talk translation follows, “Yo, Who da f**K do you think you are? We’re all Bozos on this bus”
Romney/Ryan need a short catchy slogan that encapsulates their belief in a future better than the sordid present. May I suggest “Hope and Change?” Plaster it across America and laugh when the bums threaten to sue.
Even Obama’s sadsack late-hit cheap-hit “punches” against Akin’s stupid comments will be held against Obama, just for what they were. Sadsack, cheap, late-hits.
What a vile man with no class at all.
Obama didn’t LOSE the middle east, he drop-kicked it through the plate glass window, a 5-year-old trying out a soccer move with the family cat, to show off in front of his coach the next day.
Obama DID NOT casually wander into the presidential contest. You should know this if you’d seen him deliver his teleprompted shell-oquence at the previous Dem convention. He was a sensation. William Jefferson Clinton was wildly popular before Obama, but it was some sort of bad-boy charm that told the ladies (of a certain sort) he would show them a great time, and the men (with a vacuum where others have a soul) that they could be just as successful as HIM… Obama brought the illusion of class for Dems who’d cringed at the awkward bumbling of Kerry and Gore’s lisping attempts at talking ghetto.
Consider the eerie similarities between the mirrored meteoric rise of Clinton and that of Obama.
Clinton languished for well over a decade in the “third world” simulacrum that is Arkansas, and accomplished NOTHING to elevate its educational, economic, cultural, or political stature. Sure, he’d been a Rhodes Scholar and was a Yale Law graduate, but there are many hundreds of the former, and tens of thousands of the latter of those wandering about, and his performance essentially made mock of the expectations of those earlier laurels.
Obama, we are assured, impressed so many admissions officers along his path that he was welcomed into a series of increasingly rarified communities of scholars, and somehow stepped from each to the next without leaving a discernible trail of grades, papers, transcripts, published articles, or even rap sheets by which we might appreciate and praise his learned wisdom and Solomonic insight.
(Like the assertion made during the rein of Mr. Clinton that Hillary was one of the country’s TOP ONE HUNDRED ATTORNEYS… Please tell us: Who made up THAT list, what criteria are used, and WHAT THE HELL DID HILLARY EVER DO AS AN ATTORNEY?)
No, I maintain that both Clinton and Obama were identified early on by some secret cabal of kingmakers – identified as soul-less charmers, utterly without principle to betray, transparently self-obsessed and eagerly malleable. Clinton is governed by his pecker, but can occasionally find time to use an agile mind to reassure skeptics that he has some wit. Obama may be less carnally venal, but has the messianic bug that results from every important person in his life whispering endlessly in his ear of his genius and destiny.
Both of these 2-dimensional adolescents having been selected, have never tumbled to the notion they’d been groomed for a role as a marionette. But they were well and truly conned by masters of the art, and each seems to sincerely believe that he is God’s ANSWER to the AGES.
I have seen no evidence whatsoever of even vague competence in Obama. All that crap about his vaunted intelligence is nothing more than packaging. The guy couldn’t logic his way out of an elevator without the doors opening automatically.
As for his dismissal of Romney for lack of a military record, Obama has a big closet full of diapers he’s soiled while hiding under his desk, letting Valerie Jarrett do the flinty-eyed cost-benefit analyses of whether and when to spend American Lives and Treasure.
His personal courage wouldn’t light up the status LED on an extension cord.
Back in 2008 the hippies down the street had an Obama sign in their yard. After the November election they took it down. They put it back up on the night of December 24th with Christmas lights to welcome the new messiah.
In 1972 Nixon won one of the greatest landslides in presidential history. In 1976 a survey was taken asking people who they voted for in 1972. Almost no one could remember (or at least reported) having voted for him.
Psychologists who study memory call this retroactive interference. Social psychologist explains it with cognitive dissonance.
I wonder if my neighbors (or the majority of Americans who voted in 2008) will remember their religious adoration of the One.
So Barry Hussein Obama Soetoro descends the White House staircase in drag, like Norma Desmond in her last take, with Erich von Stroheim waiting at the foot of the steps with the movie cameras whirring, but their film magazines empty. . . .
That, I would pay to see.
“So they were turning after all; those cameras. Life, which can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream which she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her — ”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMTT0LW0M_Y
Another problem with statistics and statistical studies is that the confidence measure is often misunderstood. If you say that a specific hypothesis regarding a population is proved with a satistical confidence of 95%, people tend to take that as a probability of correctness, when actually it is a measure of how representative your sample is of the entire population. That is, your sample size and sampling methodology adequately samples the population 95% of the time, but is inadequate 5% of the time. to actually establish the hypothesis, you have to repeat the experiment using separately gathered samples enough times. Thus, there are hundreds of studies on whether prayer helps hospital patients recover, 95%of which say yes and 5% say no. The 5% are usually touted as “the truth” by the media, overlooking the fact that they are clearly part of the 5% that the confidence measure says took unrepresentative samples. (Of course, there are other issues, such as biased filtering of the sample, reporting bias, incorrect hypothesis formation, and flawed variable control: I.e. my belief is that the studies don’t measure the power of prayer, but the power of faith, and that’s not controllable nor measurable so as to “compensate” for it.)
EPA Mandates Use of Nonexistent Fuel Blend Posted by Daniel Horowitz (Diary) Wednesday, July 18th
http://www.redstate.com/dhorowitz3/2012/07/18/epa-mandates-use-of-nonexistent-fuel-blend/
@20 Roughcoat:
Small nit. The woman who makes the metrosexual comment is not Eva Braun, she is one of Hitler’s private secretaries, Traudl Junge. The woman she is comforting with the remark is Eva Braun.
Speaking of Biden gaffes, looks like he’s at it again. According to a report in the Daily Rash, the vice president gave a speech at a Dearborn mosque this afternoon dressed in a burqa. http://www.thedailyrash.com/joe-biden-speaks-at-michigan-mosque-wearing-a-burqa
I wish some smart person would analyze the impact, or lack thereof, of Michelle Obama, both on her doofus husband and his campaign, and on the policy decisions being made (and unmade) in the White House. As I watch Obama fumble his way towards November, I keep thinking there *must* be some puppet master steering him. And if not Michelle, then who *was* Daddy Gotbucks in the last election who bought Obama his prize with overseas money? And presumably is still waiting for a return on his / their investment.
There’s been much talk about Vice-President Joe Biden. Sarah Palin said, tongue-in-cheek, that Obama should replace Biden with Hillary. Of course, Palin, being a savvy politician, knows no such thing will happen. Hillary is a savvy pol herself and she knows more about America and the world than Obama knows about Chicago. Some Romney SuperPacs were equally gleeful, urging “Run, Biden, run”.
They all know that the bottom half of the Obama ticket is not the problem. It’s the top half. The only way Obama can win this election is by replacing himself with some other Dem worthy.
@5 – “To use my favorite George Will quote (said about the Clinton Admin in 1993), “I disagree the the Administration is in disarray. This is what liberal government looks like.””
I spent the first two and last two years of a two term liberal Democrat’s administration a level or two below the appointees and the middle four working for the Republican Legislature that opposed them on almost everything. At the political management level, the administration was a stunning mix of avarice, ruthlessness, and incompetence that most of the time made policy that was at best chaotic, and usually accomplished exactly nothing except keeping their butts in the big chairs and the higher pay grades. This is the typical liberal government that Will was describing. Comrade Obama’s Regime is somewhat different. Since Leftists are as they are, there is a good bit of the old-fashioned liberal chaos, but there are also some steely-eyed, disciplined communists in there that give the Regime some order that, say, Moonbeam’s traditionally liberal CA government could never have.
@58 – “then who *was* Daddy Gotbucks in the last election who bought Obama his prize with overseas money? And presumably is still waiting for a return on his / their investment.”
They’ve gotten a great return on their investment: a broke and dramtically weakened US is no longer able to act unilaterally as a World Power and the Caliphate is within a small step or two of being restored. Iran may well have that nuke already but they don’t want to start anything until the US election is settled. If Iran has nukes, the sunni states will make their peace and Islam has all its African and Asia territory restored and is poised to move on Europe. The return on investment has been that we’re back at 1500 or so with Islam posing a deadly threat to Western civilization.
The Greek columns are crumbling. The auditoriums are partially filled. The words loaded on the tel-e-prompter sound tinny. The news conferences are lessons in obfuscation. The election commercials tells us about Shamus the Dog, Romney’s a tax cheat, a felon, he’s mean and caused a guy’s wife to die from cancer. The Republicans have a war on women and don’t want to give them free birth control.
All claptrap and mostly meaningless. We’re drowning in $16 Trillion dollars of debt and O’Dismal has no plan. We have no jobs; no recovery. He has no budget. He can’t buy enouogh votes; nor steal enough. I cheer on $4.00 gasoline, just because it focuses people attention on something that irritates them to no end. Groceries prices are rising. He’s toast. Now do your part and donate to candidates, volunteer your time, and get your familiy and neighbors out to vote in November.
It all sounds damning but it could be just another planted distraction.
The problem with obama isn’t that he is vacuous or lacks substance, even though he is those things; the problem is that he is a true believer, and an arrogant, power-mad front-man for a movement that intends to destroy the foundations of the country, if not the country itself.
By getting people talking about the rivalries inside the the alinsky team, supermarket magazine style, it once again distracts from the tangible issues of the economy and the illegal power grabs.
Moreover, with multiple generations raised on soap operas, the marxists may calculate that a lot of people will prefer drama, especially drama that seems to swirl around that nice, charismatic barack obama, rather than a Ward Cleaver-like show that the country grew tired of about 50 years ago.
What else does Obamby have to do to demonstrate what a petulant, petty, incompetent, sniveling, little coward he really is?
Calling a “press conference” of his most loyal bootlickers to berate a candidate on what he said off the cuff; What a minute character Obama truly is.
As #36. “dlsada” says;
“….I foresee dozens of insider books that reveal exactly what the Obama administration was really like…..”
I can’t wait.
This fool will make some of his enemies rich yet.
And you know he’ll have to write one himself! (snort).
#23 Wretchard – to add, there was a lot of discussion that Romney was a milktoast, a Rino and a disappointment prior to appointing Paul Ryan. Ryan was in an excellent position to support Romney if he had stayed in the House as head of the Budget Committee. To get Ryan to run, Romney had to have convinced Ryan that he really would work to get this country back on track.
Perhaps abandoned children are condemned to spend the rest of their lives craving for attention, and singlemindedly cultivating personal charm to attract it, but never receiving enough of it to make up for the original betrayal. Over the years, this could well develop into an obsession with controling others, leaving no room for any kind of selfless constructive energy.
This seems consistent with the persistent whining, and the false messianic grandiloquence which the collectivist rhetorics have always depended on. We have seen how it can be unecessary to convey any substance to be elevated to a commanding position. Just say things with the right mix of feigned indignation about something which does not even need to be factual, the pretense of cosmic wisdom, and a vindictive delivery. Then the campaign money comes, and the enthusiastic votes will follow, in sufficient numbers. It worked once, so why not trying it again?
But how long can one keep this up while everyone around shows deference, the big airplane is ready to take off on short notice, and the golf course is always available on a whim? Has the now agitated instigator of the demolition derby become capable of demolishing himself? That may be a personal tragedy, but let’s remember that it could turn into a national tragedy if he is not taken away from the levers of power while we still can. Are we up to the task of disciplining a spoiled brat?
66. Professor Guvinoff;
In response to your last sentence; No.
The Secret Service would frown upon the President of the United States being spanked and sent to bed with no TV, video games, or tele-prompter.
Does the President still smoke?
I believe that America realizes that Obama is a child and that we need some adults to return the ship of state to a sane course. I therefore believe that Romney/Ryan will defeat Obama/Biden in a landslide.
What keeps me awake late at night, however, is the prospect of an Obama led Gotterdammerung ala Adolph Hitler in his last days. When, the One realizes he is no longer the One in the ungrateful public’s eyes, what measures will he and his conspirators take to impose their final vision of fundamental transformation upon us? Will we have martial law imposed to the dulcet tones of Obama reading from his teleprompter, “It is only temporary. It is for our own good…”? What will the various government agencies which have recently ordered massive quantities of ammunition do with that ammunition?
Will our long-lived republic be turned into a dictatorship sometime between November and January?
In short, I am simultaneously expectantly hopeful and, yet, horribly fearful about what the next few months may hold.
David Axelrod orders pre-emptive detention of anyone who doesn’t like or agree with him (and, of course, disagress with Obama).
to PM @ 68 :… maybe with connoisseurs like his former ”Choom Gang”
SF
#68. peter mohan
Well–yeah. The real question is:
WHAT is he smoking?
Funny that nobody yet has picked up on what, for me, was the most astonishing and revealing line in the whole e-book: Obama’s declaring that the reason he most needs to win another term is because he “does not want Romney stealing the credit from him when the economy rebounds.” This speaks volumes of the man’s delusion and totally disconnect from financial reality.
The USURPERS supporters can be categorized like this 13% of America’s voters are the Blacks of whom 96% voted for him in 2008 in an example of blatant RACISM, they support him still in the same RACIST proportions. Its what RACISTS do. You then have the 20-25% of America’s voters who are dyed in the wool Left Wing moonbats who are absolutely incapable of change. That leaves the 10-15% of the US voting population who are naive, gullible and Celebrity worshiping MORONS who will vote whichever way the Lame Stream EneMedia tells them and we all know who the Lame Stream EneMedia are slavishly devoted to don’t we.
So you can see that the state and intelligence, or rather lack of, displayed by the average American voter means that the USURPERS reelection is not just possible but is PROBABLE.
As a backstop the disgusting corrupt Racist Dems are going all out for the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT vote which AMNESTY will bring them and also of course doing everything in their power to ensure that committing VOTER FRAUD is made as easy as possible. Which is why the evil DOJ is fighting Voter Photo ID’s all over the Country.
BTW it is supremely RACIST on behalf of the DOJ and the Dems to PRESUME that BLACKS are too STUPID to be able to obtain PHOTO ID’s which is the only conclusion that their objections to it can possibly have .
This nation is wonderful beyond the dreams of all mankind’s sorry history. Its very existence is a miracle.
This singular fool in the White House, surrounded by theoreticians equally foolish, has shackled us to debt more that even Joe Biden can vocalize.
I wonder if the young people out there have any idea how they are being screwed by Obama.
This reminds me of what 4 more years with Obama will bring.
We are all passengers on this flight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srFZ7Jy3YIE&feature=related
Listen to the help the pilots get from ground maintenance. That would be Geithner.
I wonder what it will feel like when we roll inverted. I know we won’t hear a thing from the cockpit.
Something about loss of design margin.
In perfect fairness, you cannot logically expect committed ideologues to accept that their ideology, upon which all their policy prescriptions have been based, is the cause of their political problems. The Obamunists’ “sunk intellectual capital” is too massive, and too much a part of their common self-concept, for them to write it off; rather, they must persist in the belief that they’ve been right all along, and that the rest of us are too stupid (or evil) to accept that.
Watch out for that tendency when conservatives in power do something counterproductive (or outrightly stupid). What distinguishes us — or ought to, anyway — from the Left is that we attempt to treat with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be, and that we admit our mistakes and strive to do better.
(Apropos of nothing, Richard: “an organization that is striving — unsuccessfully — to convince itself that they are not has-beens.” — ? That sentence should have been constructed differently.)
Mr. Porretto: I wonder if you can admit that being a grammar nazi on an internationally recognized blogger’s post is a mistake? Puff yourself up much, do you?
On The Front Lines Rutherford Institute Defends Marine Arrested, Incarcerated in Psych Ward Detained Indefinitely for Posting Political Views, Song Lyrics to Facebook August 20, 2012
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/rutherford_institute_defends_marine_arrested_incarcerated_in_psych_ward_det
In 1991 Harvard Law School yearbook, Obama called for ‘mutual respect and tolerance’ [PHOTOS] Published: 7:00 PM 08/21/2012
http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/21/in-1991-harvard-yearbook-obama-called-for-mutual-respect-and-tolerance/
Øbama ’08 was a campaign about nothing. His presidency has been one about nothing. Maybe people are ready for something. He doesn’t need to worry, he’ll be set for life and we’ll be rid of him and his minions.
@ # 15. In what way is Niall Ferguson [ref. current Newsweek Cover Story] on the left wing. He wrote for The Telegraph and the London Times, he defends British colonialism, he thinks fighting Germany in WWI was a mistake for Britain, he thinks individuals rather than ideologies matter most in history. Doesn’t seem very left wing to me. I think Ferguson and Pat Buchannan might agree on many things.
What surprised me is that reliably liberal Newsweek would give him the cover story on his anti-Obama piece.
Scyth @ 51 – You make delightful methaphors.