Why Barack Obama Is not a Modern-Day Theodore Roosevelt!
The faux populist Obama is at it again. Yesterday, trying to echo Theodore Roosevelt’s famous talk in Osawatomie, Kansas, in 1910 — when the former president laid out his call for a “New Nationalism.” Barack Obama said yesterday: “This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share and when everyone plays by the same rules.” Assuming the stance of an anti-Wall Street crusader, the president, who made a deal with Big Pharma on the drug issue and the Big Insurance Firms to gain their support for ObamaCare, pandered to the OWS crowd and tried to echo their cries about the injustice to the 99 percent of the people oppressed by Wall Street.
As A.G. Sulzberger put it in the New York Times:
Infusing his speech with the moralistic language that has emerged in the Occupy protests around the nation, Mr. Obama warned that growing income inequality meant that the United States was undermining its middle class and, “gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can make it if you try.”
Channeling TR, President Obama, as the Wall Street Journal reported, “cited health-insurance companies, mortgage lenders and financial firms. For too many Americans, he said, hard work no longer pays off, while those ‘at the very top’ have grown wealthier than ever before. The president has periodically bashed Wall Street before, but Tuesday’s speech was more sweeping and went beyond any one industry to say that the middle class as a whole was being left behind in part due to corporate greed and wrongdoing.” As most people know, the president has been the best friend of the insurance companies, financial firms, and the mortgage lenders, who, following liberal policies, proceeded to engage in sub-prime loans to those who could not afford them.
We understand why Obama is taking this stance. Having stood by the wayside after bailing out the banks and the auto companies, and letting the economy worsen, the president found his base wavering in their enthusiasm for him, and he desperately needs their support and their legwork for his 2012 campaign. Talking Left while cooperating with the very titans he attacks is the only move he has left. So he now attacks “breathtaking greed” and uses the OWS slogans as his own; much as LBJ did with the civil rights movement when he talked to Congress and ended his speech with the words “we shall overcome.”
But LBJ did introduce a civil rights bill, while Obama is all hat and no cattle. Of course, Obama said his concern was with “the nation’s welfare,” and that he was not engaging in “class warfare.” The TR 1910 speech, to which he referred many times, according to the Times reporter, “touched on many of the same themes — often in similar language — like concentration of wealth and the need for government to ensure a level playing field. Central to progress, Mr. Roosevelt said, was the conflict between ‘the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess.’” Leaving it with these quotes, it certainly sounds to those not so familiar with TR that Obama was indeed carrying on TR’s old cause.
But a more substantive look at what Roosevelt really argued belies his argument. As Ben Soskis correctly notes at TNR.com, “there was another stratum of meaning in TR’s speech at Osawatomie — a more conservative one that has received less attention.” Roosevelt, he points out, “did not mean for his speech … to be a statement of radical beliefs. He had initially hoped that by championing progressive principles, he could take control of the potentially irresponsible insurgent forces within the GOP and orchestrate a reconciliation with the party’s more conservative wing. In fact, in the address itself, he did not merely define himself as a crusader against special interests; he also signaled his resistance to the excesses of radicalism as well.”
Indeed, he continues: “A few days later, Roosevelt published another version of the speech, more conciliatory toward the forces of concentrated wealth, that he wrote himself.” Condemning the violence engaged in by John Brown [the speech was a memorial to Brown and a park named for him in honor of an 1856 battle Brown waged in Osawatomie) and making it clear that Brown’s contemporary successors were the socialists, Roosevelt wrote that Brown’s “notion that the evils of slavery could be cured by a slave insurrection was a delusion analogous to the delusions of those who expect to cure the evils of plutocracy by arousing the baser passions of workingmen against the rich in an endeavor at violent industrial revolution.”
Excellent essay by Radosh comparing the historic T.R. with his utter distortion by POTUS. I revised a prior essay taking account of Obama’s bizarre notion of “class” as a ladder (in his 12-6-11 speech). His hatred of “the money power” is not only classically Jeffersonian and populist, but he had the nerve to cite a “billionaire” who pays 1% taxes (see “Jewish” avarice and un-Christian hatred of charity), as if such a person exists, or that his ilk is typical. The antisemitism in this speech is poorly disguised. The link to my essay is here: http://clarespark.com/2010/09/11/is-wall-street-slaughtering-the-middle-class/.
“The antisemitism in this speech is poorly disguised.”
Not only is the anti-Semitism disguised, it’s also nonexistent. In fact, loony charges like this by right wingnuts (including RR’s agreement with Libertyship that Obama is a socialist) will help ensure that the Jewish vote stays overwhelmingly in the Democratic column.
You mean like the fact if people and businesses don’t have the Obamacare they go to jail and the fact he is slowly *Keywords* slowly killing the coal industry putting many families out of work when we need to not be depending on other nations for what we have right under our feet?
What about ignoring the millions of CO2 that is being put out in China in record levels and the lack of human rights in the working industry there? Not to mention unsafe factories like Fox Con that makes parts for your pretty IPOD and other Apple Inc products.
Okay.
Or how about the record amounts of ammunition being bought for the US Military and Department of Homeland Security and all those spy planes?
And how about the fact CNN and other news are being controlled to tell you what they want you to hear?
Progressives like to hijack words, like “progressive” and make that word unfit for any other application. Progressive thinking now means the spread of socialist ideology rather than making any form of progress. The opposite is implied in the term so that the opposition must be regressive and not conservative.
TR wanted to make the U.S. a world power, Obama, not so much.
Another aspect of TR that is busily being eroded is “conservation” which made it way from TR’s national parks to a massive federal land grab. If Obama wants to truely emulate TR after his presidency, then Obama would go to Africa and shoot 435 lions as did TR.
Thanks for another excellent essay.
BTW: While driving across the North Central Great Plains on I-90 enroute to Rochester, Minnesota, a couple weeks ago both my wife and I noticed that the cars that passed us weren’t sporting any Obama bumper stickers. Not a single Obama sticker in nearly 1000 miles of interstate driving. Am curious if anyone else has noticed a similar trend and what it might portend?
Maybe there’s no campaign happening?
Did you see any clinton stickers? How about stickers supporting GWB?
I live in Maryland and unfortunately the appearance of Obama stickers is still a daily experience. Maryland has more government employees per capita then any other state and believe me they haven’t forgotten that they need that job.
Likely many were destroyed in the Cash for Clunkers program.
They may be back when the time comes.
Does “Cash for Clunkers” apply to a man-boy?
Now Now. Don’t be sexist or the politically correct police may come a knocking on you’re door. Actually forget the knocking. They’ll just demand entry without a warrant as that’s what the mainstream Liberals want.
I am getting a little sick and tired of socialists like Obama trying with whip out Teddy Roosevelt every time they want to escalate the class warfare issue here in the United States. I am also tired of people like Glenn Beck dumping on Teddy Roosevelt, claiming that he was the root evil of the Progressive movement in this country, and therefore should be hated as one should hate Lenin or Stalin. All of these people are wrong, wrong, and WRONG, because they are judging an early 20th Century politician by holding him up to 21st Century standards.
Life for the average working man was NOT that hot in 1900, or even in 1910 for that matter. When Teddy Roosevelt came into office, you probably had almost the purest form of democracy in our Republic, with huge businesses creating an industrial revolution in this nation but with almost NO federal oversight or intervention. Therefore, huge business tycoons like the Morgans, or the Vanderbilts, or the Carnegies could pretty much treat labor any way they wanted to and run their businesses any way they wanted to, so long as they made a huge profit in the process. Sounds good to Beck and his followers, but in reality it was a living hell for the average working man or woman in 1900 or 1910.
I have just started reading Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” and that novel gives you a bird’s eye view of what life was like working as an average person in Chicago’s meatpacking industry at the turn of the century. The working AND health conditions were so scandalous that Teddy Roosevelt demanded an official investigation, which eventually led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Laws, laws that stopped people from eating tainted or even poisonous food. Now, to Glenn Beck and his followers, was this a huge Federal intrusion into big business, or was it a sensible law that saved a lot of lives?
Many of the Tycoons, like J.P. Morgan, created giant “trusts” or cartels that almost destroyed our free-market system and literally placed whole businesses in the hands of one or two people. Roosevelt broke up these trusts. Now was he abusing his power, or was this a good thing for free enterprise in this nation, giving more opportunities to more companies that were not part of these trusts?
Roosevelt was also the first president to even think about conservation. The buffalo was almost extinct from over hunting and coal companies were destroying large tracts of land throughout the country. So was Roosevelt’s desire to preserve our land a sinister statist land grab, or a desire to preserve our land for future generations of our nation?
America at the turn of the century had some severe problems for the common worker, and people were actually living in a time when workers were taking radicals like Eugene V. Debs seriously. We had just come out of depression (or Panic) from the early 1990s where people in some parts of the country literally starved to death because there was no government welfare system at the time to at least feed them. And with no labor laws to have to deal with, large companies (especially the coal companies) could treat workers any way they wanted to and the conditions they had to work under were horrible, especially for children. So who spoke out for these people? Who would fight their fight against company owners who didn’t care if they lived or died on the job so long as they made a profit?
Teddy Roosevelt did. He was the first politician to give their anger and their dispair a voice. And he was the first president to take their plight seriously. This was a new concept at the turn of the century and one that prevented even greater labor riots from taking place than the ones that did.
Roosevelt certainly was not perfect. He even had some strange ideas (like the ones on racial purity). Granted, at times he seemed like a blatant racist. But no one should take any of his accomplishments away from him at a time when nobody was paying much attention to the plight of the average worker. He may have been a progressive, but at least he tried to improve the working conditions for millions of Americans at a time when we really, really, needed it.
Let me add that I’m as conservative as they come. The people reading my comments on this blog will know that. But I’m tired of people like Beck slamming Teddy Roosevelt and people like Obama trying to twist what Roosevelt did to fit their socialist ends. Teddy Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents and nobody should judge this icon of the early 20th century by the far-left standards of the 21st century.
OK, anybody can start yelling at me if they want to, but I know I’m right. Look it up if you want to.
I usually don’t deal with comments because I have little time to do that. But I want to thank Libertyship46- whomever he is- for his insightful remarks, and note that I agree with him completely. We no longer live in the early 20th Century, and as he points out, conditions were different back then than they are now. As historians like James Weinstein and Gabriel Kolko- two historians of the Left- pointed out decades ago, progressive reform like the Pure Food and Drug Act, Workmen’s Compensation and the like were supported by large corporations, who wanted social reform to provide stability, prevent labor unrest, and stabilize the system.
So again, Kudos, Liberthyship46!
The owners and managers of the large corporations were also thrilled that these new laws and regulations effectively destroyed many of their smaller competitors. Crony capitalism inevitably damages small to mid size businesses. Top business executives love Progressive politicians of both parties. Today most of their political contributions go to Barack Obama and the Democrats. Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Herbert Hoovers, and all the Democratic Party leaders in the last 80 years have advocated on behalf of crony capitalism—even if they lack the ability to realize it.
That phenomenon is called “regulatory capture”.
And don’t forget, guys, before our right-wing Supreme Court declared corporations people, TR said (in 1910), “There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.”
I have read the Citizen’s United decision, and nowhere in it can I find a declaration by the Supreme Court that “corporations are people”, nor lists this poppycock as their basis for overturning the campaign finance law. It is abundantly clear, however, that the Court found the McCain/Feingold law infringed upon the freedom of speech, which, btw, contains no qualification that the speaker be a “person”. Take your baseless left-wing propaganda to some other site, Patriot, where the readers are gullible enough to believe your nonsense.
” Take your baseless left-wing propaganda to some other site, Patriot, where the readers are gullible enough to believe your nonsense.”
Tsk, tsk, such nasty talk. “Left-wing propaganda”? I was quoting TR directly. Oh, well, I guess a true-to-form wingnut like you labels everything as such that you don’t agree with.
I don’t have a problem not letting corporations have a say “as a person” as long as unions also don’t have a say “as a person”. As it was prior to this ruling, unions were the only players to have this kind of power. Now the field is leveled. Either both have that status or neither; but not one and not the other.
Great comments Libertyship! Enjoyed the article and your comments…
Just thought I’d throw in that we didn’t really have a middle class until after WWII
The Depression had pretty much wiped it out. There has always been a middle income group, just not named “Middle Class.”
Libertyship46 -
You very accurately describe the plight of the average American worker during the time of Theodore Roosevelt (he hated being called Teddy by anyone who wasnt family), or Colonel Roosevelt as he most prefered. But I dont think you quite get Theodore Roosevelt’s ideology (though I dont even know if Thoedore Roosevelt understood what he believed). Theodore Roosevelt believed in equality and fairness, industriousness (in both work and family size), and in general Anglo-Saxon-Dutch values. Theodore Roosevelt wasnt “racist”, more “culturalist”. Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to invite a Black man (Booker T Washington) to the White House as a guest of the state (which incited white racists). Roosevelt kept a personal corrispondance with Booker T Washington and (I believe it was) Holt Collier, a poor Black man who couldnt read or write (but had friends read to him and write his replies), among dozens of other various people. Roosevelt felt that the American society was the best, and those that were much like it (England, Germany, and some of the Latin-American), but it didnt matter if you were Black, Hispanic, or Asian. Sometimes his oft fiery rhetoric he would make statements that today would be viewed as “extremist” or “racist”. But that is sometimes the problem with trying to apply todays view-points to the past (or past situations, like work conditions, to todays life). I enjoyed Edmond Morris’ three books on Theodore Roosevelt – The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, and The Colonel. They are expansive (500+ pages each), well researched, detailed, and descriptive.
Thought these two might be enjoyed-
http://www.ajhs.org/scholarship/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=235
http://www.fau.edu/library/brody36.htm
“He did not favor an attack on the so-called “greed” and profits of the wealthy, which he believed they had earned, and long as it worked for the benefit of the community as a whole.”
Who decides what benefits the “community as a whole”? What right do have to their money. Moreover, the wealthy who earned their wealth are constantly investing in various businesses either directly or indirectly. Teddy Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover failed to take their utopian theories to their logical conclusion. They wanted to be merely a little bit pregnant. These two Progressive Republican presidents foolishly opened the door to the excesses of the Democratic Party.
July 4 1776 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – John Hancock signs the Declaration of Independence.
December 6 2011 – Osawatomie, Kansas – Barack Obama makes the Declaration of Dependence
Good one and probably should be engraved in stone as an aside to the worst President of the United States of America, along with that the first President ever to have the credit rating rating due to his unscrupulous spending for projects that accomplished negative returns on investment and massive unemployment along with near zero GDP growth, along with any negative economic indicator.
Do not mention horrible foreign policy and running of any conflict or war or as he refers to it a kinetic action (Libya) yep he is a real Teddy (Bear) isn’t he.
The only thing I hope he does like Teddy Roosevelt is to decline to run for re-election! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
P.S. The “Panic” I referred to was in the 1890s, NOT the 1990s. That was a typo. We really could use a edit function on this blog.
They did have such a feature a year or so ago but only in certain articles, as well as automatic avatars but all that seems to be gone, it seems to me that after submitting your comment you had about 2 or 3 minutes to edit your typos I kinda wonder what happened with that!
The current POTUS could be compared with A E Newman, but with the tooth. Mr. Obama couldnever be compared to a Statesman.
Now he should be more like Moe Howard the leader of wheat became known as The Three Stooges http://www.threestooges.com/bios/
Obama is using class warfare to demonize the rich all the while saying the income gap is growing using the CBOs numbers that only include data up to 2007. Since that time the gap has narrowed. See the following wall Street Journal article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204630904577062661910819078.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Dems have been preparing for a run against Romney and fomenting this class warfare to oppose them (they have to have something to run on). Romney was born into wealth and ran a company that bought companies and either fixed them or sold them (putting people out of work) for a profit. This is why they desperately want him to be the nominee. Romney will not be able to stand up against this class warfare they are trying to split the country with.
“I took Panama and let Congress debate about”
~Theodore Roosevelt~
By contrast,for the last 3 years,whenever Congress was debating something,Barokeydoke usually took a vacation
I’d like to point out here that Barack 0bama never once, until he became President, had a job in which it made any difference whether he showed up for work or not. Even Jimmy Carter came up through the US Navy Nuclear Power Program under Hyman Rickover, who was no one’s idea of an easy man to work under, so we know that at one point in his life he was competent at something. We still don’t know that about 0bama.
Sorry, but Jimmy Carter got discharged before finishing the program. He never went to sea in a sub. His father died and he got out of the Navy to run the peanut farm.
“Obama is all hat and no cattle.”
An apt description. All he has left in his quiver is engendering class warfare in pursuit of being allowed a continuance of his personal fiefdom, aka the Presidency of the United States.
Talking Left while cooperating with the very titans he attacks is the only move he has left.
If Obama cared about anything at all besides himself and his egomaniacal ideology, he’d resign right now.
As for the desperate speechifying in Osawatomie, it’s just his latest attempt to hang on the coattails of some other President & justify himself. He has been through quite a few earlier Presidents, looking for some footing, some identification with what has come before.
There is no precedent for this President.
Another apt Texas expression:
“Don’t piss on my boots and tell me it’s raining.”
“If Obama cared about anything at all besides himself and his egomaniacal ideology, he’d resign right now.” Truer words have never been spoken, but
Obummer’s behavior is simply the narcissistic obsessive maniac who begs to
be praised. And, he threatens all who do not bow down to his overarching
supreme brain.
#4 Libertyship46: you and I don’t often agree; we have differing views of what it means to be conservative in these times. Having said that, I applaud your summary about TR. He indeed was one of the country’s greatest presidents. There is good reason that he is one of the 4 on Mt. Rushmore.
I agree that Glenn Beck and some of his fellow travelers have it wrong about regulation. What’s needed is not over-regulation or excess regulation; but rather smart regulation.
#2 Jed: what massive federal land grab are you referencing?
For one, under the Hertiage Act, Clinton “set aside” 5 million acres for non-use and roadless. Since TR we have had the Forest Service and BLM controlling many millions of acres under the guise of protection, which limits grazing, mining,drilling,and logging. TR started the park system and later presidents contributed mightly to claiming federal land within state’s boundaries. Find a map of federal lands in the US and see that it is disproportion to the west.
My feelings exactly. Well put, though Toosevlt has his flaws.
I love this stuff. Thanks for a good article. On our current Mr. President, I have never in my life waited ever so long so that I could cast my vote. Every painstaking day goes ever so slowly by. My family no longer has any form of television, and I prefer to receive my news via internet and radio.
Call me a loon or a dreamer but I’m ready to try Ron Paul. He actually gets people like me who are unwilling to negotiate with those who kill the unborn. Not freakazoid violent, just unwilling to negotiate that one. He gets that and has a healthy dose of financial sense to go with it. Pound for pound he can also give Gingrich a history lesson, which I hope more people will see as Iowa gets closer. I’m not falling for the smoke and mirrors next November. btw, saw the John Adams miniseries from HBO and loved it. Maybe we could get back to having a few good men run for the office of Commander in Chief, just… maybe
“On the world stage, Roosevelt’s policies were characterized by his slogan, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. Roosevelt was the force behind the completion of the Panama Canal, sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to demonstrate American power, and negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize.[5] Roosevelt was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in any field.”
Obviously, there are many dissimilarities between Obama and Roosevelt. And yes, things were very different back in his day. To compare those protesting on the steps of City Hall in NYC to the ipod crowd at OWS is a false comparison.
No one I know denies the growing divide between the wealthy and Middle Class. No one denies tuition has gone up 300% in the last few decades. No one denies that crony capitalism and the primacy of shareholders has gotten out of hand. However, the rational solutions to fixing our mess before it becomes irreversible is being clouded over by a class warfare pitch which is also a cover for the administrations rather lame economic corrections.
One thing that bothered me about the Roosevelt unvealing was Obama’s stating his mom was very optimistic about America. In fact, she was glad to leave the Mid West and after her time on the West coast thrilled with the more subversive teachers departed for Hawaii and eventually traveled the world rather than to live in the country she was so thrilled about. Not sure anyone caught that…….
Yep, Obama isn’t TR. Neither is he Washington, Jefferson or Lincoln. But compared to the bozos vying for the GOP nomination, he’s right up there with the Mt. Rushmore crowd.
PS – Since Romney can’t even handle a Fox interview (“This isn’t going well!), it looks like it might be Gingrich. And since, according to the man himself, he’s prone to do nasty things when in the grip of excessive patriotic zeal, we’d all better watch out!
But Gingrich can look Obama in the eye and tell him what he is. Romney will pander and try to “look more presidential”. This is not going to work. Obama is going into gutter politics and playing nice, a la McCain, will not beat the street-fighting, rabble-rousing, community agitating Obama.
“But Gingrich can look Obama in the eye and tell him what he is.”
After lambasting Clinton for having sex with an aide while he himself was doing the same thing, and after saying with a straight face that he wasn’t a lobbyist and that Freddie gave him 1.6 mil for sharing his knowledge of history, I wonder how Newt can look himself in the eye.
“Obama is all hat and no cattle.”
When comparing BO to TR, I think what you meant to say was “Obama is all Bull and no Moose”.
That one had me literally laughing out loud. “All Bull and No Moose.” Love it.
Obama gassed: “This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share and when everyone plays by the same rules.” Yes. No. And Yes.
Yes, America was based (and we hope that it is still based) on the right of the individual to choose his own path, and to succeed or fail thereon by his own efforts, and by God’s will — which is not to say that we turn away from our fellows, sometimes our loved ones, who fail in their dreams, but that we put the rights of individuals above all else, and that includes the right of individuals to fail trying, or to fail simply by the kismet of one’s fate. Obama and his ilk want to take the whole “trying” thing out of the equation, and in doing so they would rob us of our personal dignity, and our instinct to make the most out of the life we are given — one that is given by a source far greater than the Federal Government, I might add. So, in short, we already have the “fair shot” as our birthright, vouchsafed to us by our forebears and all who have fought and struggled before us, as Americans. We do not need Barry to give that to us. We have it already, and we have had it for as long as our nation has existed.
No, NOT when “everybody does their fair share” — that is NOT in our founding documents and the reason why is that it makes no human sense whatsoever. That is, it makes no sense if one believes in the concept of free will. In the real world, some individuals do more of their “fair share” while others do less, and that is a permanent feature of mankind. Government can do nothing to change that, but it sure as hell can make things worse for all of us in that regard. Some people care, others do not, and all the degrees in between. There is no absolute fairness in human affairs and there never, ever will be. And Obama knows that. He cares nothing of fairness. His only purpose in stuffing this phrase in is to instill a sense of “unfairness” within a populace that enjoys more freedoms and opportunities to live the life of their dreams than any other that has ever occupied this planet. We already have the best of all possible worlds: freedom of opportunity. To hell with fairness. There is no fairness in this world, but by the grace of God.
And, yes, we ALREADY understand, and have long understood, that we must all play by the same rules. HENCE, America is a nation of LAWS. The problem with leftist Alyinskyites like Obama is that it is not the rule of law as it exists that he/they would have us live by (c.f., U.S. immigration law), but rather the rule of law that they are currently cooking up for us — a brand new set of laws based upon a “living” liberal-progressive Constitution that ordains whatever the hell they want it to ordain.
This one sentence, that “This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share and when everyone plays by the same rules” distills perfectly the lies and manipulations that define the Obama presidency.
“Fairness” is the key word here — and Obama has been pounding on consistently. It is a word that is rich in positive connotations. But in the hands of a liar and a demagogue it is a word of enslavement.
…. As for comparing BHO to TR, can anyone actually imagine Barry charging up San Juan Hill at the fore of his Rough Riders? It is to laugh. Obama is a soft, pencil-necked metrosexual — Colonel Roosevelt he is not.
“Fairness” is the key word here — and Obama has been pounding on consistently. It is a word that is rich in positive connotations. But in the hands of a liar and a demagogue it is a word of enslavement.
The key words underlying attempts to wrap the power-mongering, soul-killing agenda in soft, fuzzy cotton are “fairness” and “justice”. Justice pops up everywhere, climate justice, even food justice.
A picture painted with a brush that deceives.
There is nothing just in any of this cabal’s plans for America.
At some point, Americans have to stop looking for rational sense in this attack on the country and acknowledge exactly what is moving through their backyards on those slow trains in the dead of night, heading for the concentration camps.
FROM THE NEW ABE LINCOLN TO THE NEW TR
After failing to be the new Abe Lincoln (the great uniter), the new JFK (the irresistible charmer), the new FDR (the optimistic inspirer), and the new Bill Clinton (the moderate triangulator) Obama now wants to be the new Teddy Roosevelt (the patriotic, America first nationalist)? Can you imagine this moral weakling leading the charge up San Juan Hill, or hunting lions in the wilds of Africa or negotiating a peace between Russia and Japan(Obama lacks negotiating skills)? Teddy Roosevelt is Obama’s last desperate ploy to seem greater than he is, more presidential than he is, more truly and patriotically American than he is and deceive his way to a second disastrous term.
The more I watch the pathetic policies of Barack Hussein Obama fail to either restart the economy or even pacify his rather radical base, the more I wonder just how did such a boob get to this position. As we all know he is a creation of those behind him who are pulling the strings and ordering the speeches that he reads from his teleprompter. But my question is really deeper than that, it is how did George Soros,the public sector unions, and the rest of the Democratic array of leftists fall for this guy to lead the country into a socialist utopia. Well, of course there is the reality that most of the so called Democrats are really just crooks looking to loot the US Treasury and this empty suit appears to have been very successful in allowing that to happen. And most of the really radical Alynskites who launched Obama’s rocket like career from Chicago activist to US President, must have been impressed by what Joe Biden summed up as a clean, black fellow who speaks articulately. Frankly, that is about all I see now. And since every other phrase out of him is a bold faced lie, I don’t really think too many of the great unwashed citizenry are too interested in listening much longer.
I too have the ‘hand to forehead response’ when seeing this boob read his speeches and swiveling his head Mussolini-like though more robotic.
Obama got to this position because in 2007-2008 he ran as an antiwar candidate, and that’s what the peacenik Dem base wanted. They couldn’t forgive Hillary for voting in favor of the Iraq War.
Still despite everything, the polls taken after the 2008 GOP convention showed that McCain still had a 50-50 chance of being Obama (and the Dems were starting to get nervous).
But in September 2008, the financial markets collapsed on Bush’s watch (just 3 months after he had assured the G-8 nations that the U.S. had “turned the corner” on the economy). McCain seemed flummoxed as to what should be done about it. And the voters walked away from the GOP after that.
Hope that helped.
But in September 2008, the financial markets collapsed on Bush’s watch (just 3 months after he had assured the G-8 nations that the U.S. had “turned the corner” on the economy).
Given the outrageous encouragement of government related entities (Fannie & Freddie at the helm) to make bad loans and the banks and mortgage companies profiting from the corruption, bundling worthless mortgages and selling them around the world, the predictable housing collapse was well timed for the rise of The One™.
A cynic would say that was intentional.
Btw, since you GOPers are so obsessed by voter fraud, you might be interested in this:
http://www.theroot.com/views/black-voters-told-relax-don-t-vote
PS – I have to post this here, since I’m blocked on the rest of PJM. You gotta credit RR, he’s open to all comers!
Maybe they block you, because you post off-topic, hmm? Do you not understand that this site is not a place for you to pursue your own agenda, that it is not okay for you to try to hijack the conversation. How would you like it if I went to one of your favorite let-wing sites, and tried to change the subject, so that I could air the “truth” about Democrats, even if what I were saying were actually the truth?
You do it, because you are self-righteous. You think you are above the rules, because you are ‘right’ (which is what self-righteous means).
The owners of this site set the agenda, the discussion. If you do not like it, just go somewhere else. I certainly do not waste my time trying to post on HuffPo. I am sure I would get banned very quickly. They do not tolerate strong Conservative voices there.
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Just for the record, I followed your link. The guy who did this was not a Republican. He was a professional political operative who had worked both sides of the aisle. He did not stand for anything but winning by whatever means, fair or foul.
It was not a racist deal. It was pure demographics. The district was heavily liberal, because blacks are mostly liberal. It was not about skin color, but voting habits. The political operative does not care about skin color. He cares only about winning. Skin color as a voting block is just another factor in his bloodless equation. It is not personal. He was just working the numbers, because that is what political operatives do.
They are not ideologues or racist or anything else. They do not stand for anything except winning. They will happily work for either side. It is what they do for a living. They cannot afford to exclude half of the employers. In your bias, you overlook this very basic fact of life. You read something into it that was not there.
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So, you have had a response. Are you happy now? Now, please stop posting here, if you cannot play by the rules.
“The guy who did this was not a Republican. He was a professional political operative who had worked both sides of the aisle. He did not stand for anything but winning by whatever means, fair or foul.”
Nope. He’s a Republican, with a long history in Republican politics. But you’re right – he’d do anything to win, “fair or foul.” But what’s the difference? GOPers have a long, still continuing history of suppressing the vote.
“Maybe they block you, because you post off-topic, hmm?”
Sorry, wrong again, Marc. Most of my responses were blocked after I responded to an anti-Islamic (NOT anti-Islamic radical) slur by Roger Simon. I wrote something to the effect of, “It’s particularly despicable for a Jew to malign another religion.”
“How would you like it if I went to one of your favorite let-wing sites, and tried to change the subject….”
I’d love it! Anything you posted, on or off-topic, would only confirm what a bunch of schmegeggies you wingnuts are.
#17 Dr. Frank -
NO! I could NOT see President Obama doing a San Juan Hill charge or other TR kind of stuff.
SARAH PALIN on the other hand I COULD.
Ha! You got that right. Too bad she didn’t stay in. She could have strolled into the nomination.
She may be back at some point in the future.
A populist does not go around the country seeking campaign gifts i/a/o $35,800 per person or couple from millionaires and billionaires. A populist would cite the first half of Federalist No. 57 as a basis for political reform relevant to 21st century America. Indeed, a populist would proudly affirm that our founding legacy remains as relevant to 21st century America as to 18th century America. I regret that people who consider themselves conservatives do not see points of reforming observations in the OWS movement that are not at all discordant with Tea Party concerns. In any event, I am a populist; I believe I can recognize the populist spirit. Borrowing, with variation, a well-known observation at a vice presidential debate, some years ago, let me assure you, President Obama is no populist. BUT — how many establishment conservatives would shrink in horrow from a candidate who endorsed populism, in general, and Madison’s counsel in Federalist No. 57, in particular?
With all due respect, Mr. Radosh, the statement that Theodore Roosevelt would not object to the Citizens United decision allowing unlimited political spending by corporations is wrong. In the New Nationalism speech he stated:
“There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains…
We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.”
There is no middle ground here. TR clearly stated that he wanted laws passed to ban corporations using their funds to promote political objectives, so Mr. Radosh, your statement is incorrect. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
I stand corrected, and have changed my text to indicate that, with credit to your alert.
“Assuming the stance of an anti-Wall Street crusader, the president, who made a deal with Big Pharma on the drug issue….”
Ah, yes, we all know how GOPers would never make deals with Big Pharma – except, of course, when W gave us the budget-busting Medicare Part 4 in a bill that forbade Medicare to negotiate with the drug companies
From Wikipedia:
“Former Congressman Billy Tauzin, R-La., who steered the bill through the House, retired soon after and took a $2 million a year job as president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the main industry lobbying group.”
A far better model for Obama than a dead white male is a living, current, head of government. A “brother in arms” with a “Dream From The Father”, who gained his hold on the nation he “leads” with much the same manouevres as Obama of the Chicago School of Politics.
With similar psychological, political baggage and supporters/army as Obama and his Csars/Tsars. Take a look and compare his practices since getting power how many decades ago? – and his chance to practice whatever mechanisms drive him with those of Obama. AND the effects of his hold on the nation to which he was given the HOPE to CHANGE to fulfill his “dream”.
Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, erstwhile head, along with Libya, of the Human Rights Council of that paragon of rectitude, competence and compassion the UN.
The UN to which American politicians apply for decision affecting American citizens/taxpayers. Who underwrite in both money and blood Extra-national bodies accountable to Americans ONLY through interested politicians. Politicians in agreeing to membership in the UN CEDED American INDEPENDENCE,economic and political/defense, the foundation of the nation, to extra-nationals accountable to Americans ONLY indirectly through self-interested politicians. Do Americans care?
The most ardent of Ron Paul’s followers think the US government is too big when it has more people than the secret number Ron Paul has written on his magic anti-alien hemp underpants.
FDR actually took credit for a lot of things Hoover started.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hoover/hooverbio.htm
Here is an excerpt.
Hoover had hoped to govern in the progressive tradition of Theodore Roosevelt; he devoted the first eight months of his presidency to a variety of social, economic, and environmental reforms. However, following the stock market “crash” of October 1929, the president became increasingly preoccupied with the collapse of the American economy. In response to the crisis, Hoover established several new agencies and also funded public works projects in the hope of stimulating the economy and getting the nation back to work.
End Quote.
The Stock Market Crash was actually just a bad recession but many of the wealthy folks panicked and rushed the banks making it worse then it really was and our Depression happened when Hoovers Mr Fix It policies were failing.
Speculators panicked and stopped lending shares and the reason why FDR was popular was like Obama he was a good speaker and could sway the crowd with whatever he wanted.
If FDR and Obama wanted people to believe Santa Clause would come if a deal was signed these Presidents had the right personality to get them to believe……until Santa Clause didn’t show up then these Presidents would start making bogus excuses and fake apologizes.
In the 30s FDR took things a step further and bailed out a lot of businesses that were going under instead of letting the free market take care of itself.
Most of the time the reason why businesses close is because of bad management in the higher ups that eventually effects customers and like in 2008 so called Crisis the governments offered bailouts instead of just letting the people take care of themselves.
Remember Cash For Clunkers program and how well that turned out for our economy?
Does Anybody find it funny that Europe’s Great Depression only lasted a few years dropping very sharp but then rose steadily ending it by the mid 30s.