Of Skulls and Podiums
Chris Rock tweeted shortly after the first Obama-Romney debate that “Obama is bringing Bin Laden’s skull & setting it on the podium for the next debate.” But Mitt Romney‘s speech attacking the president’s foreign policy serves notice that Osama’s skull may not be enough to keep him back; the criticism he delivered suggests he’s going to mix it up.
Andrew Sullivan, who only a few days ago was serenely confident in his champion, is so traumatized that he can barely stand to watch Obama climb back into the ring.
Look: I’m trying to rally some morale, but I’ve never seen a candidate this late in the game, so far ahead, just throw in the towel in the way Obama did last week – throw away almost every single advantage he had with voters and manage to enable his opponent to seem as if he cares about the middle class as much as Obama does. How do you erase that imprinted first image from public consciousness: a president incapable of making a single argument or even a halfway decent closing statement?
It’s a sight he’s trying to forget. But Sullivan’s always looking to throw away information. The image he ought to be trying fix in his mind shouldn’t be of Obama wilting under Romney’s humorous chafing but of Obama alone with Putin; of Obama alone with the Chinese premier; of Obama alone with representatives of America’s enemies and rivals without Jim Lehrer to help him out.
Some people haven’t forgotten the president’s meltdown though. He was in L.A. trying to convince big donors to keep backing him and vowing to “close the deal.” With a billion dollars of campaign money riding on him, Obama knows he’s going to disappoint a lot of people who aren’t used to being disappointed if he doesn’t come out swinging against Romney.
One complicating factor now weighing on his shoulders is whether to order drone strikes on the suspected perpetrators of the Benghazi attack. Eli Lake says “five administration officials tell The Daily Beast that the White House is now weighing whether to pursue those responsible through law enforcement or via military means like drone strikes or special operations.” In what has come to be the characteristic absurdity of his administration, the secret operation was being discussed in the New York Times.
The existence of the list was first reported this week by The New York Times. It was compiled with input from several U.S. intelligence agencies and is being constantly revised and edited as new information comes in to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. Some U.S. intelligence officials say there is enough detail to begin military operations to kill or capture 10 of the operatives tied to the planning of the attack.
Television has Reality TV. The Obama administration has Reality Secret Ops. The president’s dilemma is exquisite. If he doesn’t act now, the targets may scatter. If he acts now, he may hit the wrong people and start another crisis in the Middle East.
The delay from the White House could allow specific intelligence on the locations of suspects to whither on the vine if the suspects flee the country and evade detection, according to three U.S. intelligence officials working closely on the manhunt in Libya …
“There is always the risk of flight in a situation like this,” this official said. “But it’s probably worth doing right and waiting a bit and trying to get more intel on these guys. You have to worry about relationships. If you do the wrong thing, the ramifications could be serious.” The U.S. intelligence officer said the information on the 10 suspects was “good enough to authorize action if this was Pakistan or Afghanistan.”…
But there is no agreement between the U.S. and Libya to allow the kinds of drone strikes that have become common in the border provinces of Pakistan and lawless regions of Yemen.
Good thing the rebels in Libya don’t read the New York Times. Still, a legend built on a single deed is a fragile thing. There is no depth to it; no reserve of achievement that can be called upon in time of need. The veneer of fiction, once scratched, must instantly be japanned to cover the defect.
Here’s a thought. What Andrew Sullivan saw being pummeled in public last week was the real Obama not the one who is petulantly withholding his genius. The same incompetent he trusts to keep him safe; the very same one who is making the decision on Libya and the one he hopes will win an election to another four-year term. You know, the Billion Dollar Man. Maybe Chris Rock has got it all wrong. It’s not Osama’s skull that is in the president’s hands. It’s our skulls that are in his keeping. People knew that once, back when they remembered that being president was a deadly serious job.
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Quite right. A deadly serious job. And the election of Obama was an entirely unserious response to a critical moment in American history. Hopefully, that decision will be corrected next month.
Excellent piece. Salamat po!
Wretchard said “Television has Reality TV. The Obama administration has Reality Secret Ops. The President’s dilemma is exquisite. If he doesn’t act now the targets may scatter. If he acts now he may hit the wrong people and start another crisis in the Middle East.”
If I were these one of these “targets” I would hide in either of the two following places [1] inside Syria (because an attack there would spell “another crisis in the Middle East” in all caps) or [2] on the second page of any Google search results (because no one ever looks there).
If Obama comes out swinging, who is he going to swing at? And what will the swing be about? Attacking Romney anonymously through surrogates is like sucker punching. Launching a rhetorical fist at the real Romney could end in disaster when you have no idea how good he is (well you might now) and you’ve spent so much time exercising your self confidence at the expense of your self knowledge.
Simply pound on your chest without attacking, and you look like the gorilla version of an empty chair. The Andrew Sullivan’s of the world have no idea how empty the quiver is after listening to their own echo chamber for so long.
The world does not owe Andrew Sullivan peace of mind in his delusions. Sure as heck I don’t. Sullivan was wrong and it was publicly demonstrated. He complains that everyone else is to blame for his subsequent distress. Typical, even clichéd. Will the noun Obamavoter enter the dictionary?
“good enough to authorize action if this was Pakistan or Afghanistan.”…
What is the criteria used to make decisions in this administration? There is no single overarching standard. This is the make it up as you go along gang. This is not informed expediency so much as disorganized ad hocery. They are not even arguing over the implications of applying the examples in the Koran or Marxist Dialectics as they may have in a booth at Tom’s near Columbia or Jimmy’s in Chicago. It is more likely to depend on how Valerie Jarrett liked her breakfast that morning. Perversely that is a strength in dealing with domestic criticism, which is all they care about. It is hard for critics to form a consistent refutation of their policy. It is like trying to nail jello to the wall.
These people have already declared that they can kill any US citizen at any time and in any place. There is no standard that Obama is held to, not philosophical or constitutional or moral. The argument that he simply chooses between the legal and military tools, with each embedding standards procedures and restraints, is false. Is there anything that would stop Obama from declaring ex cathedra that Mitt Romney was a threat and killing him?
Barack Obama is like Colonel Kurtz, a man with “No restraint. No restraint at all.”
“How do you erase that imprinted first image from public consciousness: a president incapable of making a single argument or even a halfway decent closing statement?”
“… imprinted first image …” ???
What a SCHMUCK! Many of us have been clear about the hideous fraudster Obama since first laying eyes upon him. His fanatic base aren’t just blind about Obama – every time they blamed our disgust with Obama on raaaacism, they exhibited profound blindness of us too. Lately I’ve been trying to think of a way to make money off of the vast ocean of morons who believe in this vilest of presidents.
Looks like he intends to go nuclear on Romney-Drudge is reporting that Obama will sit for an interview on Nickelodeon and is using Big Bird in a commercial to scare the public about defunding PBS. Yeah, that’s a winning issue. PBS is not Public TV-it’s become government TV. The soft-spoken angry man, Bill moyers has made millions from our money. The more serious things get, the more unserious Obama acts.
These recent polls suggest to me a preference cascade-Romney’s gaining a share of the Obama numbers, not adding independents. Maybe Obama’s debate debacle was caused by his teams internal polling-he knows he’s toast.
All those crying and weeping over The One’s debate performance makes me — and I’m sure millions of others — laugh in dismay. We all knew that four years ago. *Of course* he’s an empty suit: a community organizer, state senator who votes “present” and a U.S. Senator who barely served half a term, *that’s* a man to be President?
Reminds me of the first Die Hard movie, with Bruce Willis leaning out a shattered window: “Welcome to the party pal!”
“People knew that once, back when they remembered that being President was a deadly serious job.”
But this is an age of celebrity. You know, Wretchard, you can make it all go away with a nice tattoo.
All Obama has to do is get an opportunity to sell a vision. A chance to do a little “hope and change” kind of thing. Obama is a front man and he can sell the sizzle much better than Romney.
But if Obama faces another debate where he has to explain how a steak house runs – he’s finished.
Now Obama can rouse the rabble with a good bombing somewhere. And I don’t believe Obama is above that sort of thing. Even if Obama kills some school children the media will protect him.
This country has had enough Obama – http://tinyurl.com/ccqawka
Just as Hugo won yesterday 0bama will win too! These next debates mean very little, if anything at all, according to the Talk’n heads and the historical data, I think this election is different (I certainly praying so), I think this election hinges more on the Undecided and “Vote Day” voters than the past two decades of voting did, so I hope Biden ends up putting both his feet in his mouth against Ryan and Romney makes 0bama his B1tch in this next debate. Slightly off topic, It sure seems to have quieted down a lot in Libya, Egypt, Pakistan and the Rest of the ME (and China/Japan) since it came out look’n like they might lose 0bama the election… We already know the Euroweenies want 0bama to win, they know Romney ain’t gonna bail them out when they collapse in the next six months. China knows 0bama will run if push comes to shove between them (China) and Japan or the Philippine’s, Muslim Brotherhood knows they lose all their cultivated inner circle of White House and State Department contacts and operatives if 0bama loses.
Osama’s skull may not be enough to keep him back
Cell phone videos are dangerous — Qaddafi and Saddam both died from them. They can also be used to resurrect people; think of both men celebrating Bengayzee with Osama as their guest… Hillary could be there too…
I don’t think it’s likely however, due to copyright issues.
the embassy attack team should hide in the embassy, that’s the one place we know isn’t being inspected.
The NYT all but opines that the only practical approach for bringing the 10 to justice is to put operatives on the ground and pay them the ol’ surprise visit. Anybody might expect it without reading the NYT but they could have improved the “intelligence” by putting names to the roster.
The best tactical cover would be to put the FBI with the Libyan authorities, feigning a law enforcement solution while vigorously pursuing a solution by other means. It would be a bit of a tweak to the nose of the Libyans but the FBI could help roll up the second tier combatants and make nice afterwards.
What do they expect from a superpower?
Is the media and polls now playing up Romney in hopes his voters and the undecided who would have voted for Romney will stay home (he’s doing so well he don’t need my vote scenario), while making 0bama’s zombie’s get depressed enough to get out their vote? The news is sure making the case for 0bama to wage a dog somewhere! Iran or Syria, maybe a strike at those bad guys in Libya… 0bama has several choices, I think it’s the bad guys in Libya and some kind of No Fly Zone in Syria, I think he leaves Iran alone, too many in his base are Jew Haters to risk pissing them off.
“Television has Reality TV. The Obama administration has Reality Secret Ops…”
More like Secret Oops!
All of this is just a dry run while the NSA is wiring up the Pentagon and the CIA to the White House. Obama playing golf? Yeah right. That’s his double. He’s in a C4i van playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Wonder what Obama was doing in his Columbia years? He was playing Wolfenstein 3D. The NYT’s and the State Departments are just fan sites.
BillR : “If Obama comes out swinging, who is he going to swing at? ”
That is Buraq’s real dilemma for the next debate. My first reaction is that Buraq he is going to swing at those who want to raise defense spending as Buraq alluded to in the first debate. But somehow, I don’t think that will work for Buraq this time. The cost cutting for the Benghazi Consulate security didn’t work out too well, which I’m sure the evil MItt will remind him.
The opposing world views on foreign policy might be likened as between those who believe peace is always negotiated – that is your interests can be and should be sold out to forestall an inevitable attack from some power mad enemy and those who believe that peace is enforced through strength – preferably obvious overwhelming strength.
The Obama Administration has been a good case study on what happens when you bow and scrape before your enemies and sell out your friends for some illusion that you have made peace. Hopefully the evil MItt can esplain that well.
No, I don’t expect Obama to have Osama’s skull on the lectern. I expect Big Bird to come out with Osama’s skull in his hand and say “alas, poor Osama, I knew him well.”
What I really worry about following a Romney wing is the vile attacks he will be subjected to in the media. Our Fourth Estate has turned into not just a propaganda arm of the Democrat party, but hate-mongerers when honest debate doesn’t work. The level of vituperation rained on GWBush is nothing compared to what a Romney presidency could expect. We’re in for some nasty times.
… and then Mitt pulls out a skull from behind the podium:
Alas poor Stevens, I knew him, Obamio, an ambassador of infinite jest.
Cut to the audience, Lady Clinton rubbing her hands:
Out, damned spot! out, I say! One; two: why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Obama needs to bone up on the Mitt is a liar meme. It’s all the left has and they haven’t been able to put any flesh on those bones. If I was Romney I’d have all of the Mitt’s a liar talking points covered with a steel trap that bites if Obama steps into that. What did Mitt lie about, global warming?
looks like 0bama and the NYT are warming us up for some manly war commander action right before the foreign policy debate. “Forget my past failures and lies, Mitt, lets talk about the drone strikes I ordered and personally flew today”
“The delay from the White House could allow specific intelligence on the locations of suspects to whither [SIC] on the vine…”
Now comes MALTHUS to “sic” the Grammar Police dog on the NYT:
Wither vs. whither
Wither is a verb meaning (1) to shrivel or (2) to cause to shrivel. It’s often used metaphorically, especially in the participial adjective withering, which means devastating or overwhelming. It’s also used in the phrasal verb wither away, which is more emphatic than wither, connoting death or disappearance.
Whither is an adverb and conjunction meaning to what place. Though the word has an archaic ring, it’s often used in phrases such as Whither capitalism? and Whither the Hippocratic Oath?, which mean, basically, where has [named thing] gone?, or what happened to [named thing]?, or even what will happen to [named thing]? We can’t explain why whither takes no verb in constructions like these. If you know where this comes from, please comment.
http://grammarist.com/usage/wither-whither/
As Instapundit is fond of saying, “The country is in the best of hands.” ;^)
The town hall format of the second debate will constrain attempts by Obama to be aggressive and confrontational. Just because he will be answering questions from the audience, any aggression will naturally look as if it is directed at the questioner and the audience, not at Romney.
Obama is certain to go off on rambling word tours and give long meaningless responses to simple questions. If Romney can give better, shorter answers than Obama that will annoy the thin skinned wonder and he may start pouting. An irritable pouting Obama is paydirt for Romney.
Obama’s only chance is to stack the audience and questioners with Big Bird clones. That way Obama’s lies would be protected by a crowd of tall tails.
If Obama attempts indirect aggression in his answers, for instance “my opponent will have a hard time with your question sir because in his campaign he has already given 15 different answers and not even he knows which one is true blah blah blah…” then he will look whiny and petulant.
If Romney plays this competently as a straight up adult he should come out just fine.
The typical paralysis of analysis has Obama’s Administration behind the 8-Ball (again). Had they enough foreign-policy chops to drop all the domestic political maneuvering, they would have done the military response within 48 hours, using the most persuasive (read noisy) method available. The targets would just need to be bad guys(Islamists), forget the police stuff. And as for the Consulate and safe house, destroy them remotely, perhaps with Naval gunfire. We broke a lot of stuff in Libya for them; we should have done some for us.
But we get dissembling and weakness.
“If he doesn’t act now the targets may scatter. If he acts now he may hit the wrong people and start another crisis in the Middle East.”
The Middle East has been in a permanent crisis my whole life (47 y.o.) I’d rather hit the wrong people than not act. Not acting signals weakness to Arabs, hitting the wrong people tells them that they better clean up their neighborhood or else they might get hit.
Rasmussen today has Romney taking the lead in all 11 “swing states.” I cannot fathom why any former Obama supporter who now prefers Romney would switch back to supporting the incumbent. If the’ve made a decision to leave the Obama camp, they ain’t coming back. Romney’s baseline keeps increasing and that’s bad news for a “man” with no record to defend nor a plan for the next four years.
Christ! Now even Sesame Street has turned on the dumbass:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/sesame_street_wants_sOrtPKI9Zrz2FgrligZJEP
“If you’ve lost Sesame Street…..” Well, you know the rest. Seems that the “kick a man when he’s down” phase has begun. Watch the fair-weather press follow suit to keep from being embarrased.
dlsada, # 26: “kick a man when he’s down” = preference cascade. It’s that moment when you realize all your neighbors also think privately that Obama is a failure. I think we’re seeing the beginning of that phenomenon.
rbj, #25: “The ME has been a permanent crisis all my life.” Alas, you might have said the same thing if you had been born 50 years earlier.
It is somewhat disheartening that both Donald Trump and Big Bird have managed to enter the national dialogue—in a televised presidential debate. A shameless, self-promoting shmuck and an 8-foot tall puppet from the splendidly multicultural Sesame Street. Everything’s A-OK.
This is a fine moment for the defenders of democracy, for here in a land of some 300 million persons, our future comes down to a choice between Mr. Rogers and Kermit the Prog.
I mean, just think about how this is all going to look in 50 years. There is a rot in America, and it goes much deeper than just Obama and the Left.
15. CharlesWhite
“Is the media and polls now playing up Romney in hopes his voters and the undecided who would have voted for Romney will stay home (he’s doing so well he don’t need my vote scenario), while making 0bama’s zombie’s get depressed enough to get out their vote?”
It IS a worry. However, I think Obama is too far gone for this to have an effect. In fact, I think the more Obama looks like he’ll lose, the more likely citizens will come out to vote for Romney-being on the winning side and all that.
18. F
“The level of vituperation rained on GWBush is nothing compared to what a Romney presidency could expect. We’re in for some nasty times.”
Take it to the bank. I am mildly encouraged, however, that a Romney Presidency will have a much more aggressive response machine than GWB did. Times may very well get nasty. OK. We’ll deal with it.
At least Andrew Sullivan is again creating entertainment value.
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ps – I’ve also started again getting those “you’re posting too fast” messages on other PJM pages, so far not on this one. And now when I get them, going back on the browser has lost my pending message. I have NO idea what they consider “too fast”, I’m guessing something like two messages per hour across all of PJM, and/or N per day, etc. Frankly it looks more like a technical malfunction with bad constants, to me. What ever happened to quality web design and execution? Well nothing, it was never a lot better.
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m @ 28: A shameless, self-promoting shmuck and an 8-foot tall puppet from the splendidly multicultural Sesame Street.
And also Donald Trump! [rimshot]
Just heard something stunning on the Niel Boortz Show.
In 2007 Obama went to New Orleans ands told them the Fed Govt was not helping them to recover from Katrina because they were black.
Obama pointed out that Congress had voted to set aside the Stafford Disaster Relief Act for Hurricane Andrew in Florida and for the 9/11/01 attack in New York but had refused to do so for New Orleans after Katrina. The Stafford Act specifies what a state must do in order to receive Federal disaster assistance. Setting aside those provisions means that the Fed Govt can provide aid despite a state’s failure to comply. Obama said that in the case of Florida and NY those were White areas and therefore were part of the American family, but that NO was a black city and was rejected as a result.
BUT in reality, a mere two weeks before Obama made his claim, the US Congress had indeed voted to set aside the Stafford Act so to support New Orleans post-Katrina recovery efforts.
80 US Senators had voted in favor of setting aside the act. 14 voted against.
And Obama was one of the 14 who voted against.
If Obama wants to haul out the Liar charge, there is some powerful ammo put there with which to fire back.
dlsada at 26:
Perhaps what’s happening is that a lot of people (doesn’t have to be a big percentage, really) who are conservative and/or otherwise Romney supporters, are answering pollsters’ telephone calls now.
A small amount of that, and a bit of the “jumping on the non-Obama bandwagon” of the precious Undecideds (who always tend to vote for the guy who looks like he’s winning), would do it. I mean, now that R.M.S. Obamatanic is not only no longer moving forward, but actually beginning to be down by the bow, all sorts of things look askew to a lot of mentally sleepy people who were otherwise “snug in their bunks”.
Let’s see if Joltin’ Joe throws up any signals tomorrow night. Since he’s obviously given up his faith, he can’t throw any Hail Marys.
PS Wouldn’t it be great if Fox News had Wretchard reading segments of his posts? (This one is just brutally-licous.) “We go now to our ‘Down-Under Commentary’ by Mr. Fernandez. What insights do you have for us tonight, sir?” (I know, I know, but still, cool, eh?)
An Préachán
6. Morton Doodslag
Lately I’ve been trying to think of a way to make money off of the vast ocean of morons who believe in this vilest of presidents.
Using the P.T. Barnum algorithm, and going with the statistic of 250-plus people born every minute, one only needs to extrapolate how many of them are suckers. Even a meager 10 percent (a very low estimate, I would say), that makes for a huge pool of targets.
One has to ask the question, what is it that democrat party and its supporters want, exactly? We know that they want food stamps, and an Affordable health care tax, and the penalty if you don’t buy the forced purchase of an insurance policy, etc. And more and more of it. Government programs. We know that pursuant to their objectives, the country will forge ahead to collapse and destruction. The president’s personal political philosophy is to preside over a weakened U.S. in decline, and his admonishtration and democrat party to facilitate that any way they can. They don’t make the case of how things will be better if there is more government, anymore, they don’t even try to make the guilt case on you if you don’t do their will. This part of their process was to make the opposition into a single example of the villain in their dystopian path. The president forfeited that task in debate (his underlings and the media performed that task previously). His promotion to executive office allowed them to flaunt their power, and now, the only thing they had in mind, as to what they want is, or was, was more power (as opposed to any renewed authority to do what would be best for the country). One must ask, why do their desires for more power reside in the political future of this one individual? When what is waiting are the manifold recriminations once he loses the race as to what or how he was or wasn’t the avatar of all those projections of what each individual who supported him conceived him to be.
30. Josh
Re speed limit for comments. I wonder if PJM is trying to even out the comments each blogger receives. Ensuring that every blogger gets exactly the same number of comments would be consistent with the “fairness doctrine” of the left. “Progessive Justice Media” anyone?
Something’s come adrift somewhere and you are probably right that it’s a constant somewhere in the code.
Has everyone seen this on the sidebar?
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/10/09/obama-thought-he-had-won-the-debate-until-aides-told-him-he-had-lost/
Obama Thought He had WON the Debate…Until Aides Told Him He had Lost!
Reads as very, very telling to me.
#27 F ~1400 years ago
Its a good thing the “targets” don’t read the NYT, or they would be scattered by now. Or, maybe 0bama, the smartest person in the history of the universe, is watching to see which 10 pepole now “scatter” – then “bingo, I got ‘em”.
I remember driving on 9-12-2001 while listening intently to the car radio. A (republican, IIRC) Senator who had just come out of a top secret briefing announced that we were tracking the suspect (bin laden) by his cell phone. And then, mirabile dictu, the phone went dead. The Senator was never prosecuted, as far as I know
@15: “Is the media and polls now playing up Romney in hopes his voters and the undecided who would have voted for Romney will stay home (he’s doing so well he don’t need my vote scenario), while making 0bama’s zombie’s get depressed enough to get out their vote?”
How many dead voters will remain in their graves rather than chance a voter fraud conviction if the election is lost?
“Support Obama, Big Bird and Affordable Tootsie Rolls”
Too many people underestimate what Obama – or his handlers – or the guy behind the screen are capable of doing in the few short days before the election. In my memory, I cannot remember an “October Surprise” that didn’t damage Republicans. Really, isn’t there any op out there on our side that can find “anything” bad that the Dems do? From that, I can only assume some quiet acquiescence on the part of Republicans. That’s chilling.
What’s more chilling is that the Democrats seem to plan one or two each cycle to ensure they can “Drop the bomb” on us each time. This isn’t even rope-a-doping – this demonstrates a Republican party willing to lose.
Now, it would be stupid to buy into our own euphoria about the last debate and not be ready to go to the mat – until our last dying breath – to defeat this enemy within. We all had better be on our toes, our best game, because there is absolutely nothing…absolutely nothing… this group of maggots will not attempt to keep the miscreant-in-chief in office…or…someone in his stead.
Will the black berets with clubs be out in your voting precinct to intimidate some voters? Have a plan as to what you or your group of friends can do. I don’t mean violent action, I mean calling the police, I mean having a large group of men to usher folk past any threatened danger if the police don’t or can’t show up. I mean having an observer at the polling place with a digital camera (with a telephoto capability) to email pictures or short movies to appropriate action agents or a command post that can take quick action in getting the word out. Volunteer at your church, VFW, social club, Rotary, or civic organization and assist folk in getting to the polling place.
Gird your loins for new and a frightening form of October surprise – one that normal Americans could not ever suppose, without deep brainstorming. What is the worst thing that you can conceive? Go beyond that. This country may no longer be the America we had always hoped. No one on the left four years ago could possibly conceive that Obama would be a one-term president. So, if he fails in the attempt this time, what is Plan B for the cabal supporting him?
Be ready for anything/ everything – up to the point of having to defend yourself against planned violence, but continue to pray for divine Providence and hope even, that we as a people, are worthy of it.
I watched a Ruby Ridge documentary last night and while Randy Weaver was clearly paranoid and delusional idiot about the government planning “to get him,” he created his own problems by selling illegal weapons to an ATF agent. But when the politics of law enforcement created a rabid need to take him and his family down, much of the government managers in charge bungled a surveillance op and then assumed, without getting all the facts, a “shoot on sight” ROE protocol. That turned the FBI snipers into agents that you would expect in Afghanistan or Iraq – not in Northern Idaho. Before the takedown succeeded, two family members were killed and two were wounded. It showed how a blown operation by the Marshal’s service and an overly aggressive assault profile for the politically posturing FBI, with bad intel and more seriously, UNCONSTITUTIONAL actions, can create their own evil.
I talked to about 6 total strangers this weekend and without asking them what was on their minds or initiating political issues, they each separately volunteered that whether Romney or Obama wins, they all felt a total unease with what is going on in the country. All felt that there were bad things coming – they could feel it in their gut and could taste it in the air. Whatever happens in the next 90 days, don’t break the law, and…as Sgt Esterhaus of Hill Street Blues used to say: ”Hey, let’s be careful out there.”
s @ 35: Ensuring that every blogger gets exactly the same number of comments would be consistent with the “fairness doctrine” of the left.
Y’know, I think you’re onto something there, and I wish I had some of it too.
How about a site that generates both blogs and discussion automatically? It’ll be bigger than Google.
sd @ 39: What is the worst thing that you can conceive?
The reality of the California electorate is already far beyond anything I’d ever dream of. Beyond that, wholesale vote count fraud is the most immediate semi-realistic fear. I don’t know if there’s a single candidate race on my ballot that matters, but there are a whole set of absurd budget and issue propositions. In other states where the presidential or other candidate votes are close, the back room seems to me to be the place to attack or defend.
From Twitter:
“Big Bird mentioned and Obama goes on a rampage. Stevens killed in Libya and Obama goes to Vegas.”
Josh @ 40 said:
“The reality of the California electorate is already far beyond anything I’d ever dream of. … I don’t know if there’s a single candidate race on my ballot that matters, but there are a whole set of absurd budget and issue propositions….”
I will vote for Romney but doing so is quixotic since it’s a foregone conclusion that Obama will win by a landslide in California. Oddly enough, Obama bumper stickers are still fairly rare. Californian politics has gone insane. Socialist democracy is failing in California as it failed in Greece, i.e. we will vote for anyone or anything as long as we get more free government cheese. The initiative process has failed with the voter being confronted with one screwball initiative after another. I will probably vote “No” on all of them. I think we are observing “thermal runaway” in Californian politics, i.e. socialism is killing us therefore we need more socialism.
BFTP #5:
The world does not owe Andrew Sullivan peace of mind in his delusions. Sure as heck I don’t. Sullivan was wrong and it was publicly demonstrated. He complains that everyone else is to blame for his subsequent distress. Typical, even clichéd. Will the noun Obamavoter enter the dictionary?
Be prepared for a lot of this, as is also evidenced by Althouse’s eruption last week. This dynamic is real and significant.
There are lots of people who voted for Obama last time who are simply, in an immature and not very manly fashion, looking for an out which will allow them to “save face” and not have to admit that they made an error. For a certain type of person, this is a really, really big deal. Remember that for the pseudo-intellectual NPR-listening left, having to admit error is the most terror-inducing and painful thing imaginable.
How else to explain Althouse basically saying that the center/right is “ugly” for daring to remind her with all those stupid facts and evidence that she was wrong to vote for Obama in ’08 and if we do it one more time she’ll vote for him again just to spite us for being meanies?
Lots of this out there, people.
How else to explain Sullivan going to whatever lengths and philosophical contortions he has to in order to preserve his narrative about Obama being the next Reagan, and ” I was never wrong about that and nothing can prove it, nyahh-nyahh!?”
Several pundits have talked about this already. A lot of “swing” voters who went Dem in 2008 are receptive to Romney under only one condition – that they do not have to admit that they were wrong four years ago. If you approach them saying, “Well, I can certainly understand why you voted for Obama in 2008, but Romney is the better man right now”, you allow the saving of face and the internal circular logic which allows these individuals to continue believing they are flawless creatures.
If you push them and try to make them accept that they were flawed, they will either vote for Obama out of spite or simply sit home.
Childish and petty, I know, but true nonetheless. My impulse is to not rub their faces in it just this once, much as I would like to and think they deserve it. I’d rather have a Romney victory than give the Althouse’s etc. of the world the humility blasts they so richly deserve and the schadenfreunde jolt I would so enjoy. Greater of two goods, and all that.
43. no mo uro
INSTINCT vs. CONDITIONING
Most of the people who are dear friends to me are “liberals,” as that term is defined these days. Yet they complain about affirmative action, Section 8 housing vouchers, self-esteem courses, grade inflation, lack of severe punishment for heinous crimes, etc. I call them “Liberal Buts”. This is because their complaints are always prefaced by, “I’m a LIBERAL, BUUUUUT . . .”
These complaints and reactions are a reflection of their instincts as rational human beings. As rational people they are also good with their finances, and otherwise disciplined, accomplished, effective people. So why do they perennially vote for the very entities that have brought about and continue to advance the very things the complain about? And why do they vote for the profligate and the looters? The answer is: Conditioning. It isn’t so much that they are enamored with whom they vote for, but they loathe, or are even terrified of “Republicans,” a catch-all term for “the Others” of left-liberal narrative. It’s literally a phobia, like a fear of spiders or high places.
That Romney is a Massachussetts Republican, that current seniors will continue to get the current version of Medicare ’til the day they die, that contraception and abortion will not be banned, that stem-cell research was never banned, and that the economy will most likely improve markedly under Romney doesn’t change their minds a wit.
5. Blast From the Past
They are not even arguing over the implications of applying the examples in the Koran or Marxist Dialectics as they may have in a booth at Tom’s near Columbia
………….
Hmmmm come to think of it, I was a regular at Tom’s during the 70′s and 80′s. Can’t recall what we talked about. I can vouchsafe that Obama’s mindset fits perfectly with that neighborhood. At Columbia’s poly sci dept you learn to say diplomatically whatever the party line happens to be. That suited O just fine.
Me? Not so much.
…………………………..
3. Starling
If I were these one of these “targets” I would hide in either of the two following places
………………
imho there are likely a lot of arms depot’s containing the Duck of Death’s arms–just across the border from Libya –in Egypt. One or more of those depots likely has the info pilfered from the US embassy in Benghazi. Likely the AQ guys who pulled off the raid are also hanging out at these arms depots.
I’d hide in Berkley.
Wretchard, I’ve been lurking since the old BC website days, and I always come, not just for your insight, but the insight of most of the the comments as well, now for the bad part.
I live in SoCal, and have some of the finest broadband on the planet, but for some reason, your Blog takes as much as 30 minutes(really)to load, and then I wait further to get past “more’.
I read Instapundit at all times and his page loads quick, as does most of the PJ media Empire, so WTF is wrong with your blog?
Too much traffic? Too popular? one would think that were the issue(or HOPE?)
I mailed the Admin about this but no reply, I hope it will be fixed, but I’ll always wait for the BC to load, the best place on the interwebs, cheers
Bob
The vice-president commiserates with the president on losing Chris Rock and Andrew Sullivan.
I tell you Joe, Obama said
They’ve got me feeling blue
So many states are turning red
I don’t know what to do
When friends like Chris Rock turn on us
And say Bin Laden’s skull
May not turn out to be a plus
Is something I must mull
Mull away, Joe Biden grinned
My take is we’re ahead
It’s all in how the tale is spinned
You killed Bin Laden dead
And single handed I might add
A throwdown to the mat
Enough to make Mitt Romney sad
We’ve got this stuff down pat
Sweet Andrew though, Obama sighed
Has let his courage flee
His faith in me has simply died
As far as I can see
If friends like these we cannot trust
To stand upright and tall
Then all our dreams will turn to dust
If we lose in the Fall
I know it looks grim right ‘bout now
But Joe, we must have faith
Or as sweet Andrew would allow
With Mitt we must keep paith
#47. Bob what browser are you using? if you are using firefox or chrome, try ctrl-shift-j to bring up the error console, clear it and then navigate to Belmont. Then when it slows, run ctrl-shift-j again and copy, paste and send me the error message at wretchardthecat@hotmail.com
#23 stevesmith
Yes it may be a town hall format. However, just as the moderators are all selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates which is made up pretty much exclusively of staffers of former Democratic presidents, and thus are all Leftists; we can be sure that the audience will be pre-screened to remove anyone to the Right of Trotsky. And they will be saved the difficulty of coming up with questions, because Obama For America will furnish them. Copies will be forwarded to Obama, of course, purely as a courtesy. I would not be surprised if there was some form of a high tech mini-teleprompter present. After all, they have to answer the complaints of the University of Wisconsin students, who wanted him to be able to use a teleprompter.
This is going to be a dirty fight, all the way up through the vote [if it happens], and the counting [see Stalin's comment on that], and the aftermath.
Subotai Bahadur
Re keeping the neighborhood clean to avoid being hit by mistake…in my fantasy, the president has a list of “usual suspects” and a 20-sided die. The suspects know that, if the US is attacked and the president doesn’t have a red handed culprit, the die will roll, and wherever it lands gets a bad sunburn.
What the “usual suspects” cannot know is how *many* times their names appear on the list
I may be wrong, but I have never seen an interview with Obama where he gave quick, concise, direct, and (more important) accurate answers to questions that were not either scripted or put on a teleprompter. In short, this guy stinks when he’s not on script. Even when he was attempting to answer questions on the two interviews with Bill O’Reilly, Obama was vague and long-winded in his answers. And let’s not even talk about Obama’s few press conferences. They were unbearable, especially since nobody in the press ever challenged him on anything. So I never really saw that this was a guy who was quick on his feet and a great debater. Never. I guess Romney just proved my point last week. Call me crazy, but I think Obama will do almost as poorly as the first debate. Obama will be better prepared this time around, but a poor debater is a poor debater, especially when you’re dealing with a guy who hasn’t had a decent debate in over four years.
– thought Arnold would make a good Eagle Republican (his term) governor back in 2003.
The last person I would want behind me is Andrew Sullivan.
I promise if I ever post again to put up something more substantive. The last thing I want is for the comments here to resemble the bilge at Zerohedge for example.
But I couldn’t resist…
Four years ago it was plain to any sentient person that Obama was an empty suit. Aside from being an adept teleprompter reader prone to soaring, vacuous platitudes, his CV was lacking in anything, ANYTHING substantial. He built nothing. He created nothing. Despite his vaunted intelligence, he contributed NOTHING of intellectual value while at Columbia or as editor of the Harvard law review. His time as an instructor at U. Chicago Law can best be described as a teaching assistant. As a US senator he voted present; essentially he showed up justify his paycheck. But, hey, the dude new how to play the game and prospered. He is not to blame for the schmucks on the Left that bought into his scam, suspenderd critical thinking and drank the Cool Aid. Considerable scorn should be directed at those members of the 4th Estate whose egos and preening self-regard promoted this charlatan president. If Chris Mathews had a scintilla of honor, he would offer an apology to his viewers and slouch of the set. Give the One another Nobel, an Oscar, and a Grammy and send him back to Chicago.
Obama and his Intelligence Agency (aka, New York Times) are contemplating striking the alleged perpetrators with drones, sometime soon before the elections, in order to demonstrate how “strong” they are in the face of terrorism.
This will show those squishy Romney fans how formidable Obama really is against radical Islam.
And in theaters soon: “The Most Feckless World Leader Ever”, starring Barrack Obama as himself.
I think your assessment is short-sited. Obama and his team from Chicago and Shanghai (http://www.therightscoop.com/watch-steve-bannon-peter-schweizer-on-why-they-say-the-obama-campaign-is-illegally-soliciting-foreign-donations/) with Obama bundler Robert Roche, a U.S. citizen living in Shanghai, China, is NOT incompetent. Our country would be far better off and safer if that were true. Unfortunately, they are VERY competent in getting their leftist agenda in place so whoever succeeds him will need YEARS to unwind it. Do you call it incompetent to nationalize two car companies without an eyelash being batted? Do you call it incompetent to take over health care and infringe on religious liberty? Do you call it incompetent to demoralize and downsize our military with the leftist Panetta working for whom? These are the marks of leftist competence. It’s just that we never had a traitor in office before. Better that you should think him incompetent since that puts you and the rest of the country off the scent…..
THE MOST EXPLOSIVE NEWS of this cycle is the illegal foreign donations for his campaign run from Shanghai. See Hot Air, National Review, Freepublic, mainewire, the Blaze and FOX.. NOW for proof on COMPETENCE: has ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS mentioned it? Ah hah……………
Cost per job “created” under stimulus $230,833.
3,545 green jobs “created” mainly through energy department loan guarantees.
Cost per job, $5,000,000, many of which (e.g. Solyndra, Abound Solar) have now gone belly up.
A Profile in Deception
One of the front page headlines in our local in our local paper today is:
“Iran Just 2-4 Months From Getting Bomb.”
I predict a wag the dog moment. And a lot more “I Got Osama” style chest beating.
Sorry to ask, who is this andrew sullivan?
People need to know the truth. everyone should read, THE COMING: A TRUE STORY OF HORROR at amazon.com. We are facing perilous times and most Americans have no idea what is coming. While this book is written as a work of fiction to keep the reader entertained (which it most certainly does) it is filled with amazing facts, and may well be our future.
Sullivan is concerned that the next administration won’t be as understanding of a foreign national who smokes pot on federal lands.
“One has to ask the question, what is it that democrat party and its supporters want, exactly?”
To live off your labor.
I suspect many career bureaucrats have turned on the Obama administration. Ambassador Stevens was one of theirs and his death could have easily been prevented. Death by 10,000 leaks is a nasty thing.
That’s not really Chris Rock.
during the Gulf Wars, heads of state and armies on the ground said they only needed to watch CNN to see what we were doing.
Now all the terrorists need to do is read NYT to find out what obama wants to do.
Perhaps NYT is standing in for Obama on the morning briefs.
We need a statesman and we get a liar, a cover up and 4 US CITIZENS MURDERED in attacks on our embassy, an act of war, that to obozo, our unpatriotic failure, economic dunce and chicago style thug politician, is just a bump in the road.
And borrowing from another poster.
We needed a bigger-than-life President – we got a Dope smoking, Coke snorting, Radical Left wing Chicago thug that has spend his life surrounded and tutored by American hater,s and Marxist!
We needed a well-grounded stable President – we got a certifiable narcissist.
We needed bold leadership – we got a teleprompter
We needed a seasoned hand – we got a hand in in our pockets
We needed a champion for American citizens… we got a champion for the invading horde of Illegal Aliens
We needed a skilled bridge builder – we got a class-warfare specialist and inciter-in-chief.
We needed practical, proven policies – we got socialist dogma and monumental waste
We needed an inspirational visionary – we got an ideologically blinded, left learning-impaired radical.
We needed a Constitutional champion – we got a domestic enemy of the Constitution.
We needed a restrained, respected and intimidating warrior – we got groveling, bowing, Barney Fife
We needed a patriot – we got G. D. America, G. D. America, G. D. America.
We needed someone to unshackle our economy – we got someone who is a friend to our enemies and an enemy to our businesses
We needed a president beyond color – we got a green president embracing every whim and myth ever spoken by the kook environmental fringe.
We needed mature, principled leadership – we got a petulant, lying, whining, blaming, sulking, accusing, excusing, lazy, man-child.
It is a national disgrace that someone this incompetent, racist, and a American hating Socialist could be elected to the office of the Presidency.
Follow Up to me at #50 replying to #23 stevesmith
Romney’s victory in Debate #1 is more impressive due to the way the debates are rigged. I mentioned the Commission for Presidential Debates. They also named the moderator for the Vice Presidential Debate, one ABC commentator Martha Raddatz.
It turns out that Buraq Hussein Obama was a personally invited wedding guest [pre-holding political office] of Raddatz when she married Julius Genachowski, whom Obama would later appoint to head the Federal Communications Commission. How conv-e-e-e-en-ient, since all broadcast licenses are under the purview of the FCC; including ABC’s
http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/10/abc-news-scrambles-to-cover-up-barack-obamas-attendance-at-vp-debate-moderators-wedding/#ixzz28v0jYjsD
Subotai Bahadur
ps. Just got the “posting comments too quickly slow down” warning. Since my last post was 17 hours ago, I can’t slow down much more.
68. Subotai Bahadur
I agree that the Democrats have their thumb on the scale for all the debates. I think this subversion of the debate process may matter less now because Romney, on purpose or by accident, has boxed in Obama.
I think Obama is in a box which limits his options. The box has the following walls:
Obama is now widely seen to be not a serious man.
Obama is now widely seen to be petulant and whiny.
Obama is now widely seen to be a dunderhead who can’t function without a loaded teleprompter.
Obama is now widely seen to be lazy.
Obama is now widely seen to be a liar.
Romney is now widely seen to be none of these things.
So if he tries to mock Romney with Big Bird type comments Obama will appear small. If he tries to make excuses or references the first debate in any way he will appear petulant and whiny. If he can’t speak coherently a big dunce sign will be hanging over his head. If he can’t stand up straight but hugs the podium, keeps looking down and tries to act “cool” then he will seem lazy. If he lies people will see the lie now.
Romney can box Obama in more tightly by continuing to show common dignity, intelligence, a command of the facts and a positive unthreatening coherence that addresses the priorities for America.
Of course BCers and the like recognized the manufactured Obama con man from the get go, but not enough people saw the real Obama to cramp his style. I think in the first debate enough people saw and understood the real Obama to limit the duplicity he can get away with from now on.
In my optimistic, one international border away view, Obama may still have a slight edge over Romney but the omens and scattered entrails do not favour Obama. Having stunned the Obamabots in the first debate, the second debate is an opportunity for Romney to make Obama stagger and at the same time shrink the box surrounding Obama.
Yes! Definitely, “Plan B!” Already unfolding before our very eyes.
Rahm Emmanuel laid the ground work for this in 2010 beginning with his stewardship of 2010 Census…a total gerrymandering effort. Complaints by several states of over/under counting persist til today.
Welfare handouts, increasing exponentially with TV and radio ads all across America. Double voting by “snow birds.” Those Americans having winter/summer residences, registered to vote in two states and having valid voter ID’s.
Fraudulent voter registrations and National Popular Vote Movement efforts to change states to a “winner-takes-all” format, side-stepping the Electoral College.
Absentee and early voting ballot “myteries” continue til this date. Voting machines without hardcopy audit trails. Phantom registrants.
And finally, the grandaddy of them all, 2012 electoral tabulations AND CERTIFICATION by a foreign, private company, on foreign soil, authorized to tabulate (electronically) all USA states ballots in – Barcelona, Spain.
Lastly, why Obama will lose:
Exactly! This theory of “segmentation” of all america’s electorate by Obama’s campaign was decried in a article by his Harvard Professor, mentor and political strategist in Obama’s successful 2007/08 run for office. Mr. Roberto Unger, published an article arguing against Mr. Obama’s re-election in 2012.
Mr. Unger’s reasons and why he broke with the “Obama Camp” was a more generalized “continental” strategy of all american electorate, instead of just regional “segmentation” (which has been seen to have collapsed like a poorly repaired flat tire).
Axelrod, Jarrett, Emmanuel and Holder’s action plan of excessive spending in certain key, battleground states with hard hitting negative ads aimed at “destroying” Romney were to be the key parts of “Obama camps” (and convention) future debates and final three weeks of “Obama Camp’s” re-election strategy.
The problem with this carefully concocted, carefully crafted, cockamamie strategy was …THE TRUTH!!!! It’s the economy, stupid.
Obama didn’t want the economy to be an issue. He wanted to take it to the “personality” level. Is there evidence of this??? Yes, a carefully laid, plan for Mr. Obama, of celebrities, TV shows, and gala appearances with all of Americas “illuminati” was a blitz program made for a rock star.
But, American’s wanted “TRUTH” not flim-flammery!
After Benghazi, Libya, the truth will out. God Bless America. Pray. Amen.
@43 no mo uro – I disagree. The President is the symptom of the Liberal disease. The problem is the cognitive dissonance of the Left. We have to rub their noses in their poop, to get them to learn to not poop on the rug.
If we do not, in a few years, like with Carter, this will all be forgotten or explained away, and we will get the next Liberal champion, the next HopeyChangey, and these chowderheads will get all in love again.
The problem is that we don’t confront them. We let them live in their fantasy world. We let them vote for these fantasies and inflict misery and suffering on the rest of us. We have to drag them kicking and screaming into reality, for all our sakes, not just theirs.
I live in England and have been a keen follower of American politics since I studied them at university. I couldn’t believe that a sensible country I so admired could vote for someone with a very concealed past and no experience, it was like watching mass hypnosis. Talking about Andrew Sullivan; I used to love his columns, even contributed to it, he was socially liberal and fiscally conservative, supported Bush in those far off days, I wonder if these early colums are still available? then he went on holiday and someone else came back! he supported Kerry and totally changed everything that had gone before, does anyone know what happened to him? just curious how someone could change totally in a couple of weeks.
Andrew Sullivan neglected to admit (to himself) and to state to the rest of us, that Obama’s ONLY EVER had TWO advantages: One, the “race card”, no longer draws. The second, MSM spinning for him whenever his own spin (aka lies) is not doing so well, and hiding the truth whenever it is. These two “advantages” magically disappeared when faced with a superior opponent, last Wednesday, or became applicable only after the fact.
The tuned-in voter-in-spe finally got a whiff of the REAL Bo, and was able to discover even without the help of “smelly-vision”, that he “stinks”. After that fact there was no amount of MSM-spin that would not come across as even MORE stinkingly ludicrous. Case closed, on the “narrative”. Let’s just hope that the “mob’s” fickleness doesn’t end up supporting the spinning of another. Which could happen. Caveat! RR’S goal should be to keep turning those “magical advantages” into disadvantages, right into the final hours of Nov. 6th.
Great posts prompt great comments, and the current observations are among the best I’ve read here @ The Belmont Club.
43. no mo uro’…Remember that for the pseudo-intellectual NPR-listening left, having to admit error is the most terror-inducing and painful thing imaginable.’
A few additional observations.
Obama remains an obsession bordering on delusion for folks like Andrew Sullivan for a number of reasons beyond being America’s first Black President.
I was watching C-Span a few weekends back and they had David Maraniss and Bob Woodward speaking back to back at the Washington DC National Book Fair. It provided an incredible contrast on how two similarly left-leaning national authors of note view Obama – Woodward unapologetically critical – and Maraniss so defensively and reflectively apologetic as to border on downright hagiography.
Maraniss is undeniably more in man-love with Obama than ever. He praises O-man not just as one of our greatest presidents, but, on par with Lincoln, Jefferson as well as everyone from Shel Silverstein, Bob Dylan, to Benjamin Spock for Chris sakes. But tellingly, he is very defensive that someone like Dinesh D’Souza could mine the vast resources his 6+ years of research provided when writing his Obama love note THE STORY, thereby tacitly using those resources to question who Obama is, where he came from and what he believes in. (Something Jon Alterman likewise complained about three years ago to D’Souza – the hour+long argument is in the C-Span archives and available on line – ONLY IN AMERICA!)
Like David Remnick – the first top-notch editor in the left intelligencia to come to Obama’s aid via the glowing Bio – Maraniss – prior to jumping into the limelight with his Bio on Clinton – was a writer of note, has also toiled as an editor – though not as far up the food chain as Remnick.
The point is – like real estate – it’s all about location.
Likewise, the oft repeated phrase – [Obama] is ‘undoubtedly the most intelligent man to ever walk into the White House’ came from the lips of a well known widely read presidential historian – who just happens to be widely recognized as leaning left as well – (certainly more outspoken about current politics than say David McCullough – from a generation of historians – pre-60’s – where it was considered a manner of professional ethics to remain determinedly neutral)…..Michael Beschloss.
Few things are as annoying as such faint revelations passing themselves off as shrewd observations. One, however, that is – is the disgusting suggestion that Obama is the lefts Ronald Reagan.
But that’s just one example of how bereft the left is of any real substance today; they have taken to trying to hijack the memory of a great conservative much beloved by Americans today precisely BECAUSE EVERYTHING HE ACCOMPLISHED AND STOOD FOR WHEN LEADING REPRESENTS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF A FRAUD LIKE BARACK OBAMA!
Part of why Andrew Sullivan can babble on about such tripe on a blog like the Daily Beast is that Obama is a man of the left whose pernicious strain of progressivism was adopted learned and honed in the Academic Wing of the modern Democrat Party.
And why, besides sidestepping congressional approval, Obama gave us more Czars than a thousand years of Russian rule~!
Even more so, not only did he rise to the pinnacle of grad-ass land as the 1st Black Editor of the Harvard Law Review, he did so in the midst of Reagan’s rule, and like a number of now accomplished liberals, saw the importance and political capital of camping out there for extended years.
AS Richard so aptly points out, it’s one of the reasons Romney so eviscerated this sitting president, to the delight of anyone of sound mind on the right. O-man is classic autodidact; always the smartest man in the room who never heard anything as sweet as the sound of his own voice.
To those of us on the right Obama is so bereft of any real accomplishment, something as plain as day, yet, to those on the left he is always part Martin Luther King, part FDR, and a dash of Carl Sandburg; ever wise & sagacious, every bit the Nobel Laureate, always just one brilliantly nuanced maneuver from winning any and every day.
And so they defend him, endlessly, manically…tragically.
This Man loved being an adjunct by all accounts; just enamored with the show, having found a place in the academic ‘order’ – one foot as a perpetual back-bencher in a State Legislature and the other at the front of the class telling adoring 19 & 20 yr olds what to think and do. He learned the affectations of both worlds. How to seduce. How to please.
But for all that learning and acting it was never possible to step onto the biggest of stages and hide that he lacked the most important and crucial skills, the skills that Reagan learned and honed over a lifetime.
Most importantly, from those halcyon days as a grad-ass in the mid-eighties right up until his first big run… (not Bobby Rush and the Congressional race – the race about race – where he established once and for all that he WAS BLACK ENOUGH) … but the first big run for the Senate, Obama carved out a pretty comfy life for himself (and started to HELP MICHELLE PROVIDE FOR THE FAMILY) – on the singular accomplishment of a autobi – DREAMS – much like (but in crucial ways totally different) than JFK.
Such comfort is really what progressives are really all about. Being as rich as Nancy Pelosi isn’t the point. BEING IN HER BLACKBERRY IS. That was what Obama missed most from his prior to presidential days – unfettered access to ….his BLACKBERRY!
People like David Maraniss and David Remnick – progressive establishment folks cemented in core of the circles Obama has travelled all his professional life – were not among those shocked to see Obama knock it out of the park politically speaking in 2004 at the DNC.
To the contrary. To these accomplished insiders Obama represents THE PERFECT ‘STORY’ – THE ‘BRIDGE’ BACK TO THE KIND OF PROGRESSIVE DOMINANCE ONCE ENJOYED BY THE FDR NEW DEAL CONSTUENCY POLITICS.
Until that is, Ronald Reagan ruined everything.
The problem is a problem not undocumented with both this president and for that matter, his entire generation. The problem of actually achieving something to get ahead! Actually earning the right to govern – FROM EVERY LVING AMERICAN GENERATION!
The problem where the ‘opportunity’ isn’t just handed to one on a silver platter! Certainly NOT A PROBLEM RONALD REAGAN EVERY HAD!
That, unlike JFK and his generation, & also not unlike the 40 years after his death and the disastrous Great Society shoved down the countries throat by LBJ in the name of racial equality, the culmination of progressivisms great accomplishments, which had everyone weeping in Grant Park in 2008, IS EVERY BIT WHAT CONSERVATIVES FROM WILLIAM F BUCKLY JR THEN TO CHARLES R. KESLER TODAY (You have to read his newest – you just MUST) FEARED SUCH A MONSTER COULD CREATE…..
Culminating of course in the current Affirmative Action President in the Peoples house today.
Oh, and did anyone mention he was a community organizer in his young adulthood?
Wonder if that had as much to do with his open affiliation with the tawdry and tattered remnants of Big Labor as his idealism? As if Labor hasn’t as much existed as an existential historical rumor in Academia as it has actually participated (or represented workers – more than say – Temp labor outfits) in the modern knowledge economy – a world economy that ruthlessly punishes crony capitalism (Japan anyone?) and demands productivity at all costs – while such a rumor in Academia is practically speaking non-existent in the private sector outside of a seminar?
What IS DIFFERENT is how I am sharing this right now, and, what allows Richard to make a decent living sharing his keen observations with all of us month in and month out. How Americans get and share information today.
From the first day Obama stepped into office his narrative was already being challenged – because of people like Andrew Breitbart and blogs like PJ Media. A factual account of his failed presidency, as well as a pieced together trail of what a charmed life this fellow Obama has lived.
Editors like Remnick and Maraniss wistfully remain delusional about Obama in part because they long for the good ol’ liberal days when powerful editors at places like the Wapo and the New Yorker ACTUALLY COULD KEEP PEOPLE LIKE RICHARD FROM SHARING HIS OPINIONS!
It helps inform why Remnick has commented that living in the upper East Side is a little like what he lived in Russia before winning his Pulitzer in ’96 or whenever.
And like back when Reagan was tearing down that wall. When the big three networks gave us what editors there thought we could handle. Our Berlin Wall. The MSM.
So in a very big way this election is likewise a referendum on just how far we have come with the blogosphere – since the MSM has unabashedly been the most one-sided ‘executive assistants’ for Obama’s re-election since arguably FDR ran a war-time campaign.
Will Obama win out? And will there be a new kind of ‘californication’ when it comes to a weakened and dispirited populous.
Or will they kick this fraud of a President back where he belongs, to Chicagoland, a venue more suitable to his imperious lectures and limited talents, advising a former chief of staff on a level he can possibly handle, rather than bumbling about the world stage, a stage befitting; a corrupt but great American city.
{Maybe just in time for Gus Van Sant to give him an apt cameo on Starz excellent drama BOSS}
And, thankfully, a venue where when he inevitably screws up and prescribes awful policy the damage is likewise limited.
Thanks again Richard for a great post.
The keywords here are, “The Republican’s don’t mind if they lose this election” that sums it up.
The democrats do mind if they lose the election and will win by any means necessary.
Perhaps there is in reality only one political party in this country and the Republican’s are there just to make things look legit Soviet style.
Maybe I’m just burned out on all the inconsistent bullshit being shoveled at me from polls, MSM reports and leaks.
Oh well my vote is for Romney/Ryan, I saw Obama for what he was four years ago.
PEOPLE!! If you need to have one reason to vote AGAINST Obama let it be this:
The Embassy in Libya requested Security Detail because of 9-11!! It was denied!!
My God!! The U.S. Ambassador and 3 others lost their lives because of this
cowardly and inept administration!! All who voted for Obama in 2008 should be
ashamed!! I DID NOT! Please! Vote this time with your conscience!
The incompetent President, Sec of State, CIA Director and 4 star Army and Marine generals.
Andrew Sullivan’s face is ugly. It kind of made me not want to come read this essay. But since Richard is so consistently excellent I came anyhow. But boy that photo is unappealing. Just ate dinner too.
Obama lost the debate for only one reason- he can’t fart without a teleprompter. He’s not smart enough to keep his story straight. Put another way, the Emperor has no clothes.
seriously…
all we need to find out is that kristen breitweiser was married to one of the four men killed in libya, and we we’ll have a ’9/11 commission, part two’.
the initial 9/11 comission was convened for the purpose of full disclosure, yet the facts squared with the story. we learned nothing. this time around, we are trying to hear the story for the first time.
at this point, I don’t think that obama supporters should want to see him reelected, given the inability to manage a glaring disaster. this stain doesn’t come out in the wash. a second term, and obama will be wearing a scarlet ‘b’. no one will ever take him to be credible on foreign policy again.
I find out today, that the state dept was in communication with the people in libya, as they were attacked, for SIX HOURS.
we have this little operation in the area, called the Sixth fleet. they are the ones tasked with defending our embassies, immediately.
eventually, we are going to find out that the situation was being ‘monitored’ but no assets were deployed. it isn’t like benghazi is on the coast, other than IT IS on the coast.
call the fleet admiral to testify. ask him what he knew, as it was happening.
obama should just resign. carter didn’t/couldn’t hide his failures. the hubris of this admin, that they could delay this story, for this long, is a complete humilation of the press.
special award of merit to jay carney. mike mccurry couldn’t keep a straight face when he had to deal with the wh press/ lewinsky scandal. Today, jay carney, was yucking it up, over four dead guys that the press was helping him bury in the backyard.
re: Libya not reading the papers. That’s true. And no rioter in the street ever had an opportunity to see the video made by the Copt (another persecuted minority that we seem to have abandoned to the savages).
However the mullahs in Tehran do. From Tom Donilan’s lips (to the NYT) to the mullahs ears.
re: experience. If you think Mr. O is challenged by his lack of any real world experience look up Donilon’s background. Contrast with every other national security advisor we’ve had. Might just as well have given a PR flack the job. Oops, they did. No wonder he can’t help himself. Sen. Feinstein did everything but call him out by name for these neverending leaks. If the House had any onions they’d put each of the senior officials under oath and ask them if they leaked classified information. Just that one question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_E._Donilon
Amazingly bad.
“In what has come to be the characteristic absurdity of his administration, the secret operation was being discussed in the New York Times.”
Ha, ha, ha, ha, … (infinite sequence of laughter). Continue the ridicule, this hopeless Little Boy President will soon be no more.
Great line.
Indeed. One supposes that the debate had such impact both because it showed Obama to be the empty suit… or, chair, but also that Romney is not the gaffe-prone devil that the Obama campaign (in which I include the media as in-kind contributors) has made him out to be. So, someone tuning into the campaign for the first time, or looking beyond what they get spoon-fed, saw both an Obama who is much less than advertised, and a Romney who is more.
What I find interesting, and have since the Cairo and Benghazi incidents, is how with only one or two exceptions (Kristen Powers comes to mind), no one who backs Obama is showing the slightest sign of reconsidering. I mean, come on, people. They are just impervious to factual information penetrating their emotional bubbles… and that is scary, a media and much of the country composed of people with no close attachment to reality or at least no ability to respond appropriately to external stimuli.
Our Ambassador is tortured and murdered along with three others, the State Department apparatchiki’s are in contact with them 6 hours while they are being attacked while our fleet was just off the coast, they had asked for additional protection and been denied and now through the fecklessness of the President and Hillary Clinton they are allowed to be murdered. It seems that there a lot of murders around this Administration, first “Fast and Furious” where over 250 Police Officers of both Mexico and the United States and untold hundreds of citizens were murdered with guns supplied by this Administrations minions at the DOJ’s- ATF. Now we have four more murdered and another cover up. How can it be that we ever had such as Obama as President, I stand in amazement of the fact that 55 million people voted for someone that they knew was inept for job, the only job in the United States that can get millions killed.
The liberals are all crying over Obama’s poor performance because for them it’s actually less painful to talk about. That way they don’t have to talk about and admit how good Romney did. For me, what I saw of Obama in the debate was actually the typical run of the mill Obama; it’s about what I’d normally expect of him. But what was surprising was how good Romney did. But I don’t believe your average liberal wants to admit that Romney did anything good or effective.
Let’s face it, this affirmative action experiment has been a miserable failure. But it’s not Obama’s fault. It’s the fault of millions of ignorant white folks who voted for him out of pure guilt. The suit was empty from the start and it still is. What the debate revealed was just how unchallenged this guy has been for the last 5 years by the media and his opponents. The real Obama was “uncovered” during his pummeling from Mitt, who was unafraid to challenge the most unvetted President in history. The funny part is that the Chris Matthews’ of the world actually believe that it wasn’t Mitt that debated last week! They were hoping to see the man that they defined to the world!