America is now a campus, and Obama is our Dean
This is the strangest presidency I have seen in my lifetime. President Obama gives soaring lectures on civility, but still continues his old campaign invective (“get in their face,” “bring a gun to a knife fight,” etc.) with new attacks on particular senators, Rush Limbaugh, and entire classes of people—surgeons, insurers, Wall Street, those at Fox News, tea-partiers, etc.
And like the campaign, he still talks of bipartisanship (remember, he was the most partisan politician in the Senate), but has rammed through health care without a single Republican vote. His entire agenda—federal take-overs of businesses, near two-trillion-dollar deficits, health care, amnesty, and cap and trade—does not earn a majority in the polls. Indeed, the same surveys reveal him to be the most polarizing president in memory.
His base was hyper-critical of deficit spending under Bush, the war on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan, and government involvement with Wall Street. But suddenly even the most vocal of the left have gone silent as Obama’s felonies have trumped Bush’s misdemeanors on every count.
All this reminds me of the LaLa land of academia. Let me explain.
That Was Then, This is Now
Last week, Obama was at it again. He blasted the oil companies and his own government for lax regulation in the Gulf, apparently convinced that no one in the media would consider his last 16 months of governance in any way responsible for, well, federal governance. (I don’t have strong views on the degree of culpability a president has for lax federal agencies amid disasters, only that I learned from the media between 2004-8 that a president must accept a great deal of blame after most catastrophes [at least Katrina was nature- rather than human- induced].)
Obama also trashed, inter alia, Halliburton for the spill, as he had done on other matters ritually in the campaign (“I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all,” “The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton will be over when I’m in the White House”). Obama seemed to assume that few cared that his administration just gave Halliburton a $568 million no-bid contract.
Standards for Thee, But Not …
When a Senator Obama a while back weighed in on the ill-fated Harriet Miers, he quite logically predicated his skepticism on a dearth of publications (though I found that embarrassing at the time since Senator/Law Professor Obama was essentially without a record of scholarly work), and an absence of judicial experience—both legitimate concerns. So, of course, are we now to expect Obama to talk up his recent Supreme Court nominee Ms. Kagan, and ignore her relative lack of scholarly experience without a judicial past (sort of like being secretary of education without having taught anything)? Does the president, who as a senator voted to deny a court seat to Alito and Roberts, think Kagan is better qualified than either, and, if so, on what grounds—more scholarship, more judicial experience, a more diverse upbringing, intangible criteria like once recruiting Barack Obama?
I once wondered during the campaign whether such serial contradictions in the Obama narrative ever mattered. During his denials of ever hearing Rev. Wright engage in the pastor’s trademark hate speech, I recalled Obama’s 2004 interview with the Sun-Times when he was running for the Senate and wanted to boast of his religious fides. When asked, “Do you still attend Trinity?” Obama snapped right back, “Yep. Every week. 11 o’clock service.” Every week, but mysteriously not one in which Wright did his customary race-bashing?
Dr. Hanson, Your post mentions the strange world, utopia really, that a socialist such as Obama lives in. It reminds me of the same world preached on broadcast video. I conclude clerical and political tyranny has returned in full bloom. Both kinds of tyranny require strange-fire belief in a world that isn’t, wasn’t and never will be. Our misguided preachers, teachers and politicos urge us sheeple to believe in reality distortion schemes always, but never the often hard and sometimes good reality. The answer so elusive I believe to be as close as the nose on our face. The answer is the intelligence and courage to believe in the Greek/Jewish/Gothic-Christian wisdom of the ages: Western Enlightenment is forewarning against known evils of man and man’s institutions: Self-assertion, greed, power-crazy and anti-intelligence. The answer, again, is the opposite: Real intelligence, that knows and believes in being forewarned, forearmed (mentally, spiritually, physically) and therefore: self-restrained by mutual compact: thus free!
Our Worst Enemy: Intelligence!
By Robert Winkler Burke
Of inthatdayteachings.com
Copyright 5/4/10
They come to us to learn to think,
They come to us to learn to drink,
We preach,
We teach,
Yea, bravery!
They think they learn to think,
They think they learn to drink,
We trick ’em,
We sic ‘em,
Yea, knavery!
But then they listen long to talk radio,
They wonder what it is that we know,
Demagoguery,
Self-flattery,
Nay, savory!
They eventually: gain in intelligence,
They leave, but we don’t care since,
Newfound sheeple,
Fill our steeple,
Yea, battery!
So, we continue on in unbroken endless loop,
No matter how many find we’re full of poop,
Our eyes see all,
And that is all,
Yea, slavery!
your song seems a bit off topic. the explanation is that NObama is a “true believer” in Socialism.
Read Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals, NObama actually taught Alinsky in his guest lectures. Rules for Radicals is on the reading list for NObama’s supporters including the SEIU and AFT unions.
Rules for Radicals will suddenly give you at least one big ah ha moment.
When looking at poetry, figure out who is speaking. In this case, try Obame, our professor, moralist, preacher and, of course, true believer in socialism. The point of the poem is that self-asserting loud-mouths justify their lies by the fact that so many lesser intellects… believe! Thus: our present clerical and political and educational and media-mobocracy mystic tyranny. So, poems help us to think things out.
I think it all falls for him when someone finally reveals his long form birth certificate and under what countries passport he traveled to Pakistan under in 1981. Then it spirals down for him from there.
It took almost 40 years to find out who Deep Throat was. It may take just as long if ever to learn everything we want to know about his past.
There never was a “deep throat”. Woodward was and is an ex-Navy intel asset / CIA Mockingbird stooge and the whole takedown of Nixon was nothing more than one more would-be dictator given his marching orders by the CIA.
No, there was a “Deep Throat” and his name was Mark Felt. He was the #2 man in the FBI and he was angered that Nixon had passed over him to replaced Hoover. Felt got his revenge by using Woodward and Bernstein.
I read that Deep Throat was upper level FBI agent named W. Mark Felt who was giving tips to Woodward and was in cahoots with the newspaper publisher. He confessed shortly before he died.
You’re all wrong. Deep Throat was… Linda Lovelace! Oh, you meant the other Deep Throat, sorry.
I think you’re right. I believe that Nixon was taken down for various reasons by insiders, and that the bungling of Watergate was bizarre and amateurish despite the involvement of multiple CIA operatives. They either messed it up on purpose or ‘someone else’ gave them away. Woodward was brought in to highlight Bush’s failures in Iraq, and to make him back away from real confrontation with Islam.
Ya know, Nixon had to see Deep Throat five times before he could get it down Pat. (rimshot)
Thank you, thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week.
Outstanding!
Anything is possible when you don’t know what you are doing !
With his 501-(c) brethren writing the legislation to nationalize private business and union pensions; all the weekend golf rounds, midnight White House parties, daily Air Force One touch-speak-and go’s in Democrat strongholds throughout the 57 states (his words); and, the Noble Peace prize won within the month of his election, why wouldn’t our historic first Islamic apostate President not claim he has yet to start governing?
When do career politicians who owe their celebrity to taking credit for others’ work and placing blame on us for the failure of their laws, rules, and regulations ever ask themselves: What would an honest man do?
When is it expected in a career in academia for the classroom experts to use their time to grow into adulthood (apart from those rarities who have managed a farm or business)?
We could live along side with those in Lala land until the time they have usurped so much power to redistribute wealth, that they have found a way to tax the air we breathe.
Get a government job. Or, never leave school. Especially, join a union for a defined benefits pension paid by someone else. What could go wrong?
“We could live along side with those in Lala land until the time they have usurped so much power to redistribute wealth, that they have found a way to tax the air we breathe.”
If Cap and Trade gets passed – the air we exhale will be taxed – close enough in my book.
“We could live along side with those in Lala land until the time they have usurped so much power to redistribute wealth, that they have found a way to tax the air we breathe.”
They already have found a way to tax the air we breathe: It’s called cap and trade, the biggest scam ever to be perpetrated on the people of the world, especially the people of the wealthy, industrialized nations.
Barack Obama is poorly educated man—but unfortunately many Americans strongly disagree with me. His presidency is of “historical importance” and the People magazine types adore him and his cute daughters and adorable dog. That’s the cold harsh reality of the matter. I predicted some time ago that Obama’s poll numbers might not fall below 40%. Sadly, it appears that I was right. Likely voters disagree with his polices—but also seemingly don’t blame him. Obama is truly a Teflon president. He is a very nasty individual. Obama has much in common with vengeful politicians like Richard Nixon and LBJ. And yet, countless Americans believe him to be a nice guy. The odds are against him being reelected. Still, you cannot count him out.
No, Obama is not a teflon coated president. Obama doesn’t have any mud on him because the Obama worshipping media hasn’t thrown any. Once his disasters become apparent for all to see I suspect even the so-called “mainstream” media will turn on him if they want to salvage any credibility at all.
I am forced to disagree. Many journalists will be out of work within a few years. They want to prepare their resumes for the left-wing non-profits and other similar opportunities. Directly criticizing Obama is perceived as an employment kiss of death. Credibility is nice and dandy—but it might not put money in one’s bank account.
How can a person carrying the burden of a really vicious history of discrimination that goes back hundreds of years not love seeing an alleged black man in the Oval Office? Understandably then, Obama is guaranteed 80-90% support from those who perceive a shared background, even though Obama’s non-American half is more Arab than Black, and when he wasn’t being raised in White America, he was being raised in Arab Indonesia. But still, with that kind of minority support, he can’t sink below 45% or so. So when you don’t have to do anything to get that kind of support, generally you don’t. If he sleep-walked through his academic years like Ted Kennedy, then he probably sees no risk to doing the same while in the White House. No moving parts. Nothing to rust. But a strong, opponent with a clear message, and sensitive to the contradictions inherent in the empty suit facing him, can beat him soundly in a one on one contest.
I agree. I always shake my head at those who think Obama is the smartest man they know. I guess they don’t know many smart people. Oh, yeah, that’s right they went to public schools of indoctrination.
As always, doc, a great piece.
I just hope those GOP’ers with an eye on the 2012 presidential race have kept a copy of your blog entries. They make great ammo for refuting the many lies and obfuscations being rammed down the public throat. If your salient talking points are used in the debates, Obama’s goose will be cooked. Of course, he’ll just lie and say it’s all Bush’s fault.
Dr. Hanson:
Interesting analysis of the pathology of the world of academia. May I extend the analysis a bit outside the ivy covered gates?
Our European allies (of a sort) have been able to get away with being fiscal and defense children because Uncle Sam has been large and powerful enough to serve as the world’s responsible adult for decades. It has been quite remarkable to watch the brighter of the European children beginning to see that their long time lack of responsibility in managing their financial and defense affairs has been, well, irresponsible. And their chagrin has been intensified of late by a number of disturbing signs such as the actual economic collapse of Greece and the coming economic collapse of most of the socialist democracies. Of course, the demands of angry and militant immigrants who drain national treasuries while they, through violence, force their adopted nations to assimilate to them, also give the brighter Europeans pause. But what is really worrying these folks, few as they currently are, is what is happening in and to America.
These elite, moral, hip Europeans rejoiced at the coronation of Barack Obama, a man they recognized as one of their own. Yet even then, the smarter among them knew, even if they dared not say it, that the world could not afford for America to be just like them. Imagine their horror as Obama has tried to force America, kicking and screaming, down the socialist path. It’s not so much fun spitting on America when you realize that spit might rebound into your face. What if Europe must once more rely upon America for salvation, and America’s leadership isn’t inclined to intervene to restrain legitimate revolutionary movements rightfully expressing their just grievances against the European oppressors? What if America would like to help, but just can’t afford it, its obligations to its only remaining army of unionized public employees taking precedence? What happens when the last bastion of the rich in the world who will allow themselves to be taxed into oblivion (the Saudis surely won’t) that their ill-gotten gains may be distributed to those more worthy have been taxed into oblivion and there are no more rich no more? What happens when America has become just a larger and even less efficient socialist pseudo-democracy?
That’s right Europe! It’s the new, improved, socially just, kinder, gentler, no we can’t, hopeless and changeless socialist worker’s paradise America! Brought to you by Barack Obama and the Democrat Party! The ancient Chinese could recognize a curse when they saw one. The Dems are getting what they hoped for and we’re all living in ridiculously interesting times.
One of the many dangers before us is that any rational politician standing on the precipice, peering into the abyss, glimpsing the innumerable ways in which America and the world could very well go to hell in a handbasket in an instant would not be doing what Obama is doing, domestically or in foreign affairs. His Middle Eastern Policy? Pull out and urinate on Israel for daring to build homes for its people. Military strategy? Announce exactly when we’ll be leaving, prosecute our warriors whenever possible, and borrowing a page for the Clinton playbook, lob some missiles at bad guys. Yes, we’re more accurate now, and we are using less expensive munitions, but it’s the same non-strategy. Our entitlements are about to go bankrupt and destroy the economy? Ignore them, enact the largest new entitlement in history, lie about its cost, and try to enact more and more regulations and bureaucracies that will hasten our economic doom even more quickly. People are starting to notice? Warm up the teleprompters, urinate on their heads and convince them it’s raining hope and change.
What is truly frighting is that Obama and his frat boy and girl advisors are privy to intelligence information that would likely force the appalled villagers to storm the castle, torches and pitchforks frantically waving, if they only knew. As dim as Obama and AG Holder are, what must they know that might force Holder to suggest weakening one of the holy grails of the left, the Miranda decision? Or even more frightening, are they just so dim it seems like a good idea to, at any cost, try terrorists in civilian, criminal courts regardless of the effect on our security?
Ah, to be a European these days, watching the looming train wreck that is American leadership, standing on the caboose, and Cassandra-like, weakly whispering to the conductor as the train streaks for the broken bridge already crumbling into the bottomless gorge of buyer’s remorse (did I just mixed metaphor myself to death?) “Uh, Sir? Uh, Mr. Obama? The bridge…”
As a “European” (Irish) I could not agree with you more. I was quite amazed by the candidature of John Kerry and the less said about John Edwards the better, but I was truly appalled by the election of an ignorant idealogue like Obama. Try as I might, I could not unearth any accomplishments of any worth. You have to actually experience ‘universal healthcare’ to know how bad and how wasteful it is. He clearly has no understanding of economics–even of the Keynesean type. Europe needs a conservative revolution and you are absolutely right that we conservatives find what is happening in the US is sad and frightening. If you think your ‘lamestream’ media in the US is bad, try Europe.
A superb comment. The first rule of interpretation of bureaucratic and political actions is to focus on what has been left out. What is missing from all the arm waiving and speechifying of Mr. Obama and his allies is any indication that they have their eyes on the real problems. As Mark Levin said, Barack Obama is precisely the wrong man to be president now. His upbringing, education, associates, and mediocre, radical professional activities ill prepared him to operate in an environment where traditional considerations of national security. Quite the contrary, Mr. Obama’s primary focus appears to be repentance, retribution, redistribution, and revolution.
The mortal threat posed by Islam (or rather the problems caused by your flaccid opposition to it), skyrocketing spending, and dependence of foreigner are studiously ignored. On the contrary, AGW is a baseless concern but reduction of mankind’s minuscule contribution to global carbon under cap and tax proposals is high on the Obama list. The southern border is daily violated by hundreds of alien invaders who will tax our public resources and compete head to head with U.S. citizens for jobs in a recession but the Obama response is to ignore its responsibility for the open border and instead focus on the problem of “racial” profiling. This is like the scene in Catch 22 where Yosarian (I think) witnesses a GI murder another GI by throwing him out the window. The MPs noisily race up the stairs and burst in to arrest . . . Yosarian — for being AWOL.
I suspect there are a great many dark and moldy secrets in the run up to and after the inauguration of President Obama. The most heavily guarded secret of all will surely turn out to be that the president spends four hours a day in the Oval Office playing Flight Simulator. What alternative explanation could there be?
where traditional considerations of national security inhere.
Heh. I’m chuckled as I read this column. As a fully fledged member of academia, I remember well discussions with colleagues during the ’08 campaign. More than a few recognized a kindred spirit in Obama. “And, this is a good thing…in a politician?” I would ask, often to be greeted with a look of puzzlement or incredulity: These being the same people who would complain bitterly in a following conversation over this or that aspect of the reigning academic/administrative orthodoxy. But, flattery is a powerful aphrodisiac. Victor, you ought to know that a great many academics are mental and emotional gymnasts of the first order. And, Dean? My goodness, had he chosen the path of academic administration, I’ve no doubt he would have climbed to the top as easily as he has scaled the political heights.
And, Dean? My goodness, had he chosen the path of academic administration, …
He would have been proposed for SCOTUS?
Nice follow up, Cynic.
I note, however, that the Instapundit makes a good point about what Deans, and those further up the chain, are loath to do. It’s just that I believe Obama’s charisma, which is undeniably seductive to academics I know, would shield to degree unavailable to others, and that he would have been smart enough to trim his sails as his rather careful presentation of himself and his goals prior to becoming POTUS demonstrates.
Like you say about the wayward high school, professor, do we laugh or cry about Obama?
The liberals are asking us to give Obama time. We agree – and think
25 to life would be appropriate. Jay Leno
Q: Have you heard about McDonald’s’ new Obama Value Meal?
A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it. Conan O’Brian
Q: What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon?
A: A fund raiser. Jay Leno
Q: What’s the difference between Obama’s cabinet and a penitentiary?
A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers and threats to
society. The other is for housing prisoners. David Letterman
Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat in the middle of the
ocean and it started to sink, who would be saved?
A. America. Jimmy Fallon
Q: What’s the difference between Obama and his dog, Bo?
A: Bo has papers. Jimmy Kimmel
So very true – The Jeremiah Wright business was merely the most egregious of the process you’ve described, but it blew me away in its naked Orwellian-ness – Obama on the one hand, pledging his solidarity and regular, faithful attendance at “Pastor” Wright’s church, and on the other hand his sudden “Discovery” that the church was not the one he “once knew”, followed by the perfunctory announcement that he would no longer be attending. Yahoo news dutifully proclaimed “Wright unlikely to hurt Obama: Analysis”, with its Pravda-level brazenness.
Now we are treated to the same old, same old – sometime recently, good ol’ Yahoo news had another such item: “Oil spill not Obama’s Katrina” – it would be amusing, if it didn’t expose such a horrible sickness within our news media, who still somehow manage to think of themselves as brave speakers of truth to power.
Now that their preferred person is in office, a news outlet can simply decide that a given issue has a certain outcome, and proclaim it as such – and the strategy seems to suit Obama just fine, at his provost-in-chief position that you’ve detailed so well.
I miss the college environment even less than ever.
Wow. Speechless, again.
I just finished the father of us all. History matters.
Thank you VDH.
Pete
Great VDH, as usual. Bottom line, our president is a pathological liar and has been for a long time. Unfortunately, parts of the governance machine are buying it or covering it up. It’s going to be a long hard slog out of this mess.
#6′s comments are right on – the USA made a pact after WWII – we would provide for Europe’s defense if they would stop fighting. Those resources that otherwise would have gone for defense were then plowed into the socialist states’ promise of support for all of its citizens. I still remember my high school history teacher saying “Guns or Butter!” Well butter it was for the Europeans – with a pittance/token towards the NATO defense ante. Most NATO countries don’t even meet that ante requirement. However, as the USA starts to realize they need to raid the ants’ larders to move towards the socialist state – and re-allocating what funds are available towards a more supportive socialistic state, the consequences to Europe become grim. And just when you have Iran and other nations of that ilk starting to flex their muscles (oh, and gosh, the Europeans also have ‘business’ relationships with them for oil and other sundry items). Add in the old enemy, Russia, throwing gasoline on the fire, and things don’t look so rosy. A missile from Iran will affect Europe much more than the USA…….yes, interesting times indeed. Well, sad and/or scary times is probably more appropos.
This essay brilliantly exposes the aftershocks, the price being paid, by voting for a President whose only claim to fame was having attended the Ivies-his half black/half white, exotic background notwithstanding. Never mind how he got admitted to the once ‘hallowed’ halls of the Ivies, either through affirmative action or some other hidden hands, all that mattered was that he became one of the ‘chosen’. Hmm.
The fact of the matter is that he was sold as an intellectual and an agent for change-an irresistible combination for the truly clueless.Therefore, why should anyone be surprised that ‘Dean Obama’ stacked his administration, including his countless ‘czars’, with clone-like graduates of the intellectually hyped type. Men and women who spent most of their careers in think tanks, never having to accomplish any tangible results, only expected to ponder, pontificate and wonder how special their thoughts are to others.
While academics-or those who pose as such-have a value in our society, one would be hard pressed to find ONE good reason why any of them should serve as the leader of the free world!
Obama,(as well as his missus) from the highest of high perches, treats the citizens as if they are mental midgets, duly incapable of making ANY decisions on their own. Hence, he and his gaggle of fellow dean-types feel it is their inalienable right to dictate medical care, social mores, BMI percentages and general way of being.
Lest anyone think that the above is just because Obama and gang have the greater good in mind, thus helping a less mentally well endowed public in their day to day decisions, think again. At the forefront of all their hubris is ONE goal-power and more power.
IF I were still living in the US I would be afraid, very afraid. The fact that I am now living in the crosshairs of an explosive Middle East, yet fear Obama’s designs for the US public, should tell the readers alot.
As smart is Doctor Hanson in his analysis as to why Obama plods on, that is also how dumb anyone one under 35 is to fail to understand that
Obama is playing them for huge all day suckers.
As smart as Doctor Hanson is (not, “in”)
Well,they don’t call him Barokeydoke Hubris Obozo for nothing.
By “they” I assume you mean “some people.”
Sheer BRILLIANCE Skesikz! Now it’s all beginning to fall into place for me… thank you!
Obama is a kook. The guy has multi personalities in the sense that he does not know who he is. He is grasping to find himself. He was abandoned by his Father, adopted by an Indonesian, lived in a strange land, raised by his grandparents, and mentored by Marxists including his Mother. He took his father’s last name, Obama, then changed it to his adopted father’s name Soetoro, then changed it again to this Mother’s maiden name, Dunham. Obama Americanized his first name from Barrack to Barry. That’s not a stretch.
He went to college as Barry Dunham, to Pakistan as Barrack Soetoro, and to Harvard as
Barrack Obama. Obama settles on the name and personality that fits the situation and allows him use it to his maximum advantage. In 1990, a Barry Dunham could have become a president, in the way a Barrack Obama could not. In 2008, a Barry Dunham is a senator at best. It’s too Colin Powell. Barrack Obama is presidential. Barrack Obama would not have gotten you into a prep school in Hawaii. Barry Dunham gets you in without questions. Barry Dunham gets you into Occidential. Barrack Obama gets you into Columbia and Harvard.
The personalities of Obama allows his to play to each particular crowd. He has so many stories to tell. To Muslims, Obama is Barrack Hussein Obama, who spent time in Indonesian Madrases. To Whites, Obama is Barry Dunham of white maternal heritage.
To Blacks, he’s Barry Obama – African American. To elites, he’s Barrack Obama, an enigma, a Post American phenomenon that does not fit nicely on census forms.
If we could be so lucky to be like a chameleon and change our name and our background to fit the needs of those who want us to be what they want to see.
He calls himself an American and a constitutional scholar but knows little of both and appreciates neither very much. He wants to transform America, but from what? He knows little of himself and less of this great country. Or like a con man, he’s playing us all for fools.
Obama is a strange dude.
Remember November and Change in 2012
Yes. Mr. Obama is a strange person. But there is a special place in Hell for him. The 8th Circle of Hell is only one above the innermost. This is reserved for: fraudsters, panderers, seducers, flatterers, sorcerers, liars, false prophets, thieves.
We all know he is an empty suit.
According to Harry Reid, Comrade Zero has claimed that he has “a gift.” That gift being a lack of conscience.
“” … the quadrupling of Predator attacks … “”
Follow the money.
Then president, Ronald Wilson Reagan’s, Cold-War ending destruction of the Military-Industrial Complex (the machination by way of which “Democrats” and their cronies, from several generations of the execrable war-profiteering Kennedy Crime Family through the Hammer-Gore, Kohn-Kerry and Lyndon Baines Johnson Gangs, have enriched themselves) is the main reason the inner circles of the vast criminal enterprises that prefer we call them by their street name, the Democratic” potty, so hate Mr Reagan.
And now their Complex’s factories are firing again. As are their Predator drones.
Follow the money.
Very good, doc. This sort of hypocrisy goes back to the Vietnam War. It’s only now we are faced with the prospect that it’s going to cost more than lives and treasure. David Thomson’s remark about poll numbers is true to a point. His support among the Left went up when ObamaCare was passed, but the continuing job slide (we’ve already been told the U-3 will be up past 10% soon), as well as his incompetence in other matter dear to the Left (oil spill, etc.), will begin to weigh on him.
The Chicago Way only works if it is Corruption That Works. Once the snow isn’t cleared and the trash picked up, even the faithful will get restless.
Obama is neither foolish nor making any mistakes. He is not making any “mistakes” nor are his policies failing. He is not a “pathological” liar. He lies with reason, and with specific aims at any given moment. Neither he, nor his groupies in academia have ever bought even a gram of the garbage they religiously dish out. These people are not deluded. They know exactly what they want. They figued out at least 40 years ago how to get it. And they have been dilligently working at it ever since. And their aims and goals are simply evil. They, in general, and Obama in particular, have America (and the world), exactly where they’ve wanted. It is not even a conspiracy, anymore than multiple cracks in a huge dam ‘conspire’ to bring down the dam. Each of those cracks have an evil design. And the same design—to bring down the dam. Is it any wonder they feel so good about themselves when they are among each-others company and start screaming in unison as soon as they see the dam repair crew approaching? At any rate, america, you are dealing with an onslaught of seasoned criminal minds whose only purpose is to destroy everything good in this last hope of humanity on earth. And Obama and his administration along with the ruling elite in the Congress are the final charge of that evil, and they are winning. To assure ourselves that “we will take back our country in Nov 2012″ is delusional at best.
Even if normal regular elections are held in NOV 2012 (which is very doubtful from the actions and tone of the enemy), we can get veto proof majority in Congress. There simply aren;t enough seats up for grabs. And we have seen (EPA, FCC, Finance Reform Board), what obama can’t get the congress to legislate, he will get his agencies to simply decree. So america has no hope of ever winning this last battle through usual procedural means. Among other things, it is precisely these normal procedural means that the enemy has cast his first bombs on.
Our struggle right now is like trying to save a drowning horse by horse-power where there is no other horse in sight. If you want to rescue this horse, you HAVE to use other means. You can not say, “hey we are Horse-powered society, and it is beneath us to use anything but horse-power to save the drowning horse.”
So, how about we stop kidding ourselves and DO something about this menace, rather than point out its evils and bask in our coming glory of NOV 2010? The way events are shaping up, there is a huge possibility that there won’t be any election to speak of.
I agree with your conclusion that they know exactly what they are doing. But I disagree this is not irreversible. Just has it has taken the left since the early 1900s to transform America to more socialist policies, it will take a number of years to swing the pendulum back as long as we have free elections and the people elect principled representatives. I think there is wave building. The Tea Party movement is a manifestation of this. Also, this economic crisis is hitting all over the socialized West. There are protests in the streets of Greece and Italy. The French and Germans are calling on their politicians to save them. Only in America are we protesting to our government and calling on it to get the heck out of our lives. Quite opposite as compared to the rest of the world. So I am cautiously optimistic that over time we reverse this course.
I concur with your analysis and its implicit criticism of the circumspection of at least the largest part of Dr. Hanson’s exposition (I believe he finally ends the circumspection in the final sentence and wish his exposition had started from that point, oh well).
However your summary and exhortation lack specificity, especially the exhortation. This trouble me, not only because exhorting someone to “DO” something without suggesting what they should do breaks the root rule of life (“What you talk about, do. That you cannot do, do not talk about.), but also because it implies that your analysis is attenuated or even faulty (a root rule of the phenomenology of epistemology is that a question does not exist until its answer is known).
Let me, if you will, suggest a course of action (COA): speak the truth. Dr. Hanson’s final sentence, wherein he ends up as I prefer he had started, points to the COA, something he himself attempts as best he can to do, and with persistence and assiduity. Speak the truth. If you don’t know it yet, be silent. When you have sufficient certainty that you know it, say it.
Say it where? Wherever you are. Say it how? With whatever means are at your disposal that make the articulation relaxing for both speaker and auditor. In other words, be the truth you speak. Truth is relaxation. This will carry the day. Dharma supports those who support Dharma.
Finally, a word out: Professor Reynolds says that no Dean would, in effect, run their school into red ink. Well, the President and Dean of my Ivy League Protestant Seminary were using endowment to pay operating expenses before, during and after my years studying there. The results rermain evident 45 years on. Professor Reynolds has less detachment from perversities of academe than does Professor Hanson.
The plan, if executed, I fear was to avoid a 2012 election if term limit extensions couldn’t be achieved. The website that existed shortly after the election has disappeared…that promoted said extensions solely for Obama. I guess one shouldn’t telegraph their intentions too widely (and to those unsympathetic with the cause)
Then again, I could just be paranoid.
“there is a huge possibility that there won’t be any election to speak of.” This worries me much…esp for the 2012 elections and IF it starts to look bad for the Big O….my guess is they WILL find a way to hold off elections…
All the czars are end arounds of congress/senate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If they cancel elections, it’s war. We have neither legal nor moral obligation to obey a government that refuses to stand for reelection and remains in office beyond its elected term. I pray it does not come to that, but we will go to civil war if they cancel the elections.
(Note to self: Stock up another 1,000 rds…)
Dear American Eagle:
I’m afraid I must disagree with you, at least in part. Obama and his supporters do indeed know what they are doing in trying to build a permanent, socialist majority fed by ever growing ranks of entitlement-addicted drones incapable of thinking for and taking care of themselves. In trying to amass total governmental power by taking it from the people and the private sector in any way possible, they are surely single-minded and demonstrate a kind of feral cunning, a marxist amorality dangerous if allowed to progress too far.
However, they are certainly fools as well. Their policies in economics, agriculture, foreign diplomacy, national defense, you name it, indicate at best a juvenile naivete, and at worst, a willful ignorance of history and the consequences of their actions. They seem to actually believe that good intentions will suffice on the world stage and promises of green jobs will produce money. Note Rahm Emmanuel, one of the crudest political operatives ever to soil the White House recently convening meetings with American Jewish leaders to make amends for the administration’s lunatic policy toward Israel by telling them that the administration “messed up the messaging.” These are people so far out of their depth, and so incapable of recognizing or admitting it, we’ll be fortunate if all they do is bankrupt us.
Mike – I do enjoy your comments. Lucid, pithy and right on the mark.
Campus and college be damned; both are the last thing on Obama’s mind now. Obama is an abuser and master manipulator that uses an endless flood of garbage against other people.
From the moment that he recognized that there is a difference between black and white, Obama has relied on the social advantages of the color of his skin to get him whatever he wanted and take him wherever he wanted to go.
Obama understands that his skin color is infinite ammunition that protects him. It allows him to deflect closer examination about everything while at the same time letting him get away with accusing and blaming any and everyone else in the world in order to stop the spot light of truth from revealing his own massive incompetence.
Obama is arrogant, boisterous, loud, overbearing and obnoxious. He does whatever it takes to make himself the center of attention wherever he goes.
As President Obama sees himself in the position of being so powerful that no one can challenge his authority or question what he is doing.
He is quick to anger, cannot take any criticism and he is extremely vindictive. All of this combines to make Obama an explosive and volatile man that will do whatever it takes to remain in power.
He is without any doubt the worst president this country has ever had and probably ever will have. The betrayal of his own race is beyond civil comprehension. But, because of his skin color the liberal Democrats elected him and now not one of them has the courage, the guts or the stomach it takes to call the man what he is.
The truth about Obama will be revealed by his absence. When he is gone people will see Obama for what he really is. But, they will seldom, if ever speak about it because that would mean that they have to admit to themselves their own ignorance and stupidity by electing Obama in the first place.
America is not in the mood to play school with Obama anymore. The pace of the world will quickly turn Obama into a small, unimportant spec of dust in the past.
So is it..
“… the Affirmative Action prize of all time.”
I was reading Weasel Zippers and found a comment that accurately encapsulates my belief regarding Obama’s election.
Obama is way out of his depth, having snagged the Affirmative Action prize of all time.
The last election was about repudiating Bush while providing the voter with the good feeling that he or she was voting for a non-threatening “black man.” It was a mix of emotions, but part of that mix was moral preening, showing how enlightened you were by voting for the affirmative action candidate. Of course the MFM helped by airbrushing the lack of resume, accomplishment, experience and the long line of shadowy characters that trailed in Obama’s wake.
Weasel Zippers notes that
2,000 US Actors, Prominent Liberals Accuse Obama of “War Crimes,” Says He’s “Worse Than Bush” For Authorizing Assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki…
What’s done is done. Sometimes the only way some people learn is my making mistakes. This was a huge one. How’s that HopeN’Change working out for you?
It is becoming increasingly clear that the persistence of the leaking oil in the Gulf is directly due to a timid decisionmaking process by government officials. The government midset, the box they cannot think ouside, is containment. They have deployed millions of feet of containment booms. They have approved drilling offset wells. They reluctantly have approved a series of tests on dispersants. They approved attempts to seal off the riser underwater starting at the third leak at the far end and progressively working toward the blowout preventer.
What they have not done is approve an intervention in the wellhead below the blowout preventer. In military terms they have not approved an attack on the well’s center of gravity. The simple act of injecting one barge load of beach sand in a water slurry (dry sand has a specific gravity that is less than wet sand. Any gardener knows you water a newly planted garden bed to compact the soil) into the well, which would stop the leak. We know this because the well was held in check when it was filled with drilling mud, which has a lower specific gravity than wet sand. The closing of the well should be the holy grail of the operation, but has not even been attempted.
The fear of failure and desire to evade responsibility by blaming others have crippled the operation.
All of that is Obama’s fault, he is the CEO of the government and the government is totally in charge.
Elena Kagan’s nomination is just the latest instance of Obama’s compulsive and ideological decrepitude, a decrepitude necessary to turning the country into a slave state, in which all the serfs “hail the chief” in their rags — or suffer penalties. If only he were a real vampire and could be stopped with a stake in his heart. However, he is fashioning his own stake and virtually handing it to the American electorate. One can only hope that come November and 2012 there are enough liberty-loving Americans left (not La Raza “Americans” or Muslims, both groups intent on “re-conquering” the country) to use it at the polls. Make no mistake: He is out to destroy the country. Kagan, who would secure a lifetime position on the Court, is just one more device Obama is using to ensure that his destructive legacy is perpetuated after he is gone and is raising funds to build his own presidential library of infamy.
I wonder if that library will be in Hawaii – Chicago – or maybe Kenya.
K.T. It might be in Kenya. Busy-body and obesity-fighter Michelle let the cat out of the bag recently by referring to Kenya as Obama’s homeland. Or was it Indonesia? Doesn’t matter. Presidential libraries are usually built and funded with lucre wrung from taxpayers, although Clinton got a hefty donation from the Arabs. Bush, too, I think.
Footnote “11. I.I.2 …Thucydides was not a religious man, but his inclusion of earthquake, pestilence, and tidal wave[and volcanic clouds and oil spills?] as part of the upheaval lent dramatic effect to his tale of a self-induced Armageddon. At least he was aware that in times of terrible war[and terrible political struggle?] people would loosely associate a host of natural misfortunes in some way with the human struggle at hand.”
VDH, “A WAR LIKE NO OTHER”
Just saying, as the expression goes.
America “has real jobs that are not lifelong sinecures.”
BS! ALL academic jobs, ALL government jobs, ALL union jobs, ALL . . . etc.,
are lifelong sinecures. And with Minimum Wage blocking entrance into apprenticeships, younger Americans no longer have “summer jobs”.
That all means it’s not up for discussion any longer: reversal can’t happen.
So we’re toast.
“All academic jobs”…
Not quite true. I understand your anger, but not all academic jobs fit the description of being lifetime sinecures.
I am a “full-time part-time” college teacher. My “contracts” are renewed semester to semester, contingent on enrollment.
What we need to do it get rid of tenure, for all except the top rank of researchers and true scholars.
I am a “full-time part-time” college teacher. My “contracts” are renewed semester to semester, contingent on enrollment.
That’s my situation as well. And even the full-time profs at my (two-year) school don’t have tenure; that only happens at universities in my state. So no, pelaut, not all academic jobs are set-for-life affairs.
Go work for a living!
Pelaut, in what way is teaching not working for a living?
Your angry tone was answered in a polite way but you persist. Why is that?
No, what it means is that young people will revolt against the system because they will get sick and tired of paying for a system that simultaneously prevents them from making money. Push the young people too far, and they start saying, “Kill everyone over X years old.” Society will be able to survive this, but not without massive upheaval and bloodshed. We also can’t possibly predict the outcome, other than that there will be an outcome.
This quote by Eliot is in Thomas Sowell’s book critically examining ‘intellectuals’.
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it; or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
The above quote is suited to Obama, the pathological narcissist, as well as those of the Obama Gang, that set of ‘intellectuals’ divorced from reality who live within what we must judge as a ‘virtual’ rather than a ‘real’ world.
That is, Obama lives in a virtual world not simply because he is an ‘academic’ or ‘intellectual’, for his laziness and shallowness of thought suggests that he moved into this class of people only as a shelter from reality. Obama lives in this virtual world because, as a pathological narcissist, he must shelter himself, he must feel that he controls his experiences of reality. The only way to do this is to reject the power, the independent authority of the real world. Deny its hard facts, deny the influence of others, deny any authority other than His own.
As Sowell writes:”The utterly un-self-critical attitude of many intellectuals has survived many demonstrably vast, and even grotesque, contrasts between their notions and the realities of the world. For example … [intellectuals] were throughout the 1930s holding up the Soviet Union as a favorable contrast to American capitalism, at a time when people were literally starving to death by the millions … and many others were being shipped off to slave labor camps.”
So we see that Obama and His Gang deny the reality of Islamic terrorism by moving to the virtual world of words, where terrorism does not exist. Problems disappear when they are called ‘man-caused disasters’ or ‘overseas contingency operations’ or ‘lone extremist’.
In the Obama Virtual World, you can declare with a straight face that the ‘stimulus saved millions of jobs’ when the Real World denies even one such saved job. The Obama Virtual World will sell a health care system that ‘costs nothing’ while the Real World asks, repeatedly, how such a thing can occur. The Obama Virtual World, when confronted with the evidence that health care will cost trillions, is now silent.
The Obama Gang can declare that illegal immigration doesn’t exist. After all, the Obama Virtual World focuses only on the culpability and sins of American citizens (white citizens and Republicans). The Obama Gang therefore considers that what exists, namely the hostility to illegals, is ‘racism’ – while the Real World asks what to do about the half million illegals in Arizona, the drug wars, the kidnappings, the murders, the enormous cost to the taxpayer of supporting those 12 million who pay no taxes but use all our services.
The Obama Virtual World utterly ignores Iran’s very real nuclear weapons capacities, ignores the demonstrations for democracy and instead, sets up monthly ‘deadlines-for-compliance-or-else’ …which deadlines keep getting ignored month by month. meanwhile Iran and the Muslim world have moved in to dominate the UN, set up alliances with other power-hungry socialist states, such as Venezuala and Russia, and edge out the West and the US in global issues.
The Obama Virtual World, inhabited by ‘intellectuals’ who live entirely in a world of words and thoughts untouched by real life facts and data, is strongly opposed to this real world. That’s why Obama has refused to do any open question press sessions for almost one year, unheard of in a democratic government – and a laugh in the face of his campaign promise of ‘openeness’ and ‘accountability’.
Obama can’t handle criticism and he can’t handle requests for hard data; he can’t handle the external world knocking on his fictional world. He always lies about data and facts – neither of which have any reality to him.
It is vital to note that for Obama, the real world of facts and data does not exist. All that exists is the virtual world of ideas and words. Therefore, Obama can make one claim to one audience one day, and say the opposite to another audience the next day. For Obama, both assertions are valid, because reality exists only within His Words, and only at the time he speaks.
That’s why he becomes enraged with anyone – be it the press or the blogs or…who holds him to account, who insist that His Words actually link to and bond with reality. Obama refuses such a connection of Himself to reality. He is, psychologically, threatened by reality and has, since his ‘annointment’, moved further and further from reality into the haven of a realm that is totally fictional. His handlers ensure that he is isolated from direct interaction with questioners; that he is surrounded, as in a campaign, by sycophants and idolaters.
The Obama Gang’s campaign against any and all who provide facts and criticize the Gang’s existence in the fallacious Virtual World is constant. Whether it’s attacks against FOX, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, or the Tea Parties (which Obama calls disparagingly ‘teabaggers’) or Town Halls, or admonitions to students not to take blogs, the internet etc seriously….this Obama and Gang are opposed to the freedom of citizens to think and act for themselves.
Remember Obama’s insistence that the Senate pass the Stimulus without reading it. And Hodder’s rejection of the Arizona legislature, without reading its ten pages? This Obama Gang rejects the people, who live in the real world, and governs only within their virtual world.
The virtual world is one based on fiction and on emotionalism; therefore, I’m going to suggest that the Obama Gang will create a fictional crisis or two, during the next months, to divert attention from the real world – to emotionally, like a sink hole, trap the electorate into voting ‘for Obama’.
Excellent comment. Insightful – and I hope you don’t mind me adding it to my personal repertoire.
I do believe you are right about the virtual crisis – in fact, that virtual crisis may have already started in Arizona with Obama and Co. playing it as racism and a wedge to further division.
Though most Americans agree with the governor of Arizona, you’ll note the loudest voices are coming from the Left – not that they give a hoot about the welfare of illegals, mind you. No, this is a hammer to use to mislead the dumb masses; the same dumb masses that carried Obama to victory in 2008.
And I get the distinct impression the Left has been at least somewhat success in their charges these last two weeks, from the predictable media, to boycotts, to Hollywood, to even sporting events marketing tools like Los Suns and useful idiots like Steve Nash.
The moment during the Democratic primary when I realized how willing DeanBO was willing to say anything was his story of how his parents met at the Selma March. Even more concerning, Ted Kennedy and Caroline Schlossberg never changed their expressions, just kept on smiling beside him. No one in the press asked him about it. Call me crazy, if I told a story about my parents first meeting when I was about 4, there might be some follow up questions.
Does he spin tales because he can or because he has something to hide? I find it hard to believe that our enemies don’t have copies of everything he has refused to release and are watching signs of dramatic aging. Watching and waiting….
The stinking hypocrisy never mattered because the LSM wanted him. They loved him, they adored him, they worshipped him. They got eroused by the crease in his pants and got tingles down their legs. They lost their objectivity forever. They failed to analyze him and press him when all the evidence was there. All of it- the socialism, the collectivism, the deceit, the narcissism- it was omnipresent and anyone who wanted to see it could see it.
This is the most inept and agenda-minded administration I have ever seem. Bush could have passed Social Security reform without Democrats but refused to do it without bipartisan support. Obama could give a damn what anyone says.
How will this all end? I’ll offer you my scenario for what it’s worth.
The Soviet Union was built on flawed theories, promoted by politically approved speech, and maintained by coercion. Sound familiar? Yet the system could not survive a test with reality. The edifice of soviet socialism was built on a foundation of lies and doomed to fail. It was only a matter of time.
Consider Cap and Trade legislation as just one example of what happens when official policy attempts to evade reality. If enacted (or more likely enforced by executive fiat), the program will be the equivalent of Stalin’s decree to collectivize the Russian peasantry. The results will be similar. We’ll see vast hardship inflicted on the people while more power is transferred to the ruling elite. This should provide us conclusive proof (as if any more were needed) that our current rulers are garden variety totalitarians.
The Greek financial crisis might be a blessing in disguise. It’s a clear signal that the socialist train has reached the end of the line. The difference is that the American people have dug in their heels to save the last coach from going off a cliff. Will we survive?
There will be difficult days ahead. We’ll suffer economic hardship if not outright ruin. Social unrest on the Greek model will spread to our cities. The 2010 elections will result in governmental paralysis, perhaps even a constitutional crisis. It’s going to get ugly before the pendulum swings. And yet America will survive better than most.
We have natural resources in abundance and vast tracts of arable land. Our industrial base and technological infrastructure remain intact. And above all, we have the native talent and good sense of the American people. It’s a potent combination. We live in interesting times. Prepare yourselves.
I’m printing your comment. I will share it with others. You urge preparation for the worst while allowing that the crisis is survivable. I need to believe that your prediction is the right one – that all is not lost. I can move forward with this.
“soviet socialism was . . . doomed to fail. It was only a matter of time.”
Polyanna! Ronald Reagen spent them under the defense table, otherwise they would have gone on until they’d eaten every country in the world like PacMan ate his vitamins, and only then would they have failed.
It lasted 70 hellish years for 23 million murdered Kulaks who wouldn’t collectivize, for 18 million starved Ukranians, for 20 million dead soldiers, for 70 million murdered by copycat Mao, on and on and on and on.
To repeat the leftist garbage that it failed or would have failed on its own is to dishonor all those millions, and to validate the mad claims of our own Marxists.
“soviet socialism was . . . doomed to fail. It was only a matter of time.”
Yeah. Seventy effing years!
You dishonor the 23 million Kulaks murdered for not collectivizing, the 18 million Ukranians starved on the streets, the 20 million slaughtered soldiers, the uncounted millions of murdered Poles, Lets, Ets, Cheks, etc., etc., and the copycat murders of 70 million Chinese by Mao.
Ronald Reagen stopped the Soviets by spending them under the defense table. Otherwise they would have gone on eating smaller countries for their nourishment like PacMan eats vitamin pills until they owned the earth, and only THEN would they fail without fresh aliment.
DO NOT validate the leftist mantra that the “Soviet statists just didn’t plan as well as we can”.
One could better understand the Obama social phenomenon if one starts to seek answers to the enduring power of extremely primitive – yet “street smart” – Communist demagogues like Fidel, Hugo and the now deceased E. European (Russian) Bolshevik leaders and now Hussein O.
How come that after terribly abusing their people, imposing terror and deprivation still a large group of followers adore these low class thugs?
How come that they were capable not only to rule for generations – even to establish a family dynasty – while spawning and regurgitating childish, irrational and uneducated nonsensical phrases?
Americans abhor the European style notion of “Class society” and prefer to reinvent new dictions to describe the same thing with different words like “minority” “blue collar” “Ivy League educated” etc.
To sum up, we are experiencing the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” financed by the Red Capitalists like Soros, Pritzker, and the Socialist International in alliance with the Muslims.
Obama is the selected product of these cosmic events which are ended in Europe but they have reached the American shores only now.
Mark Stein was off when he wrote: “America alone” thesis.
America goes down first and Europeans chased away their “Proletarian” leaders mostly by force.
Americans are nice people; – they vote and lose and the Dear Leader wins.
My response to article can be summed up by these six humorous cartoons at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/category/truthfulness/ .
My favorites are the “iLIED” and the bottom cartoon showing how he differs from George Washington. If you haven’t seen these yet–I think they’ll make you laugh (or perhaps cry, since this guy is actually our President).
This page and it’s comments in general lead me to wonder what planet you have been living upon. Having served the nation for the past 42 years and having knowledge of facts, both first hand and from actual intelligence, it would seem that you are listening to talking points as reality. I might respectfully suggest that in my experience the republican administrations have been far more liberal in their interpretation of the constitution and statute law than those democrats who have ruled. What would you think of a president who ordered the murder of his predecessor? and what would you think of a president who paid for the Kobar Towers attack and supplied the weapons to carry it out? If you do the research you may find that Obama has not had the power or the resources to yet become the danger you assess him to be based on your current level of knowledge. That is NOT to say he wont get there given time and opportunity. I suggest you stop listening to the daily babble and follow the money trail if you want to know the who and why of your situation and the blame doesn’t lie with Obama. Yet!
Um, yeah. Whatever. Go back home now, and take your meds.
Well I would think that such a president is a traitor, and be incredibly eager to learn more about the details of such treason.
However since LBJ most certainly did not “order” the assassination of JFK, and since (I forget who the president was, Reagan?) did not order American SERVICEMEN to be killed in the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, I will not need to accept your suppositions.
So you were, it seems to me, a “truther” before there even was the word, “truther?” Am I correct? If so, you should claim your position as the founding father of that movement!
So to get it straight, in other words, you do not “merely” believe that 9/11 was conducted and planned by either, or a combination of
1) the US Government
2) the Israelis
3) those evil American Jews (never completely loyal to their country of residence as we all know
… but that these various other catastrophes were similarly “planed” by a star-chamber-like conspiracy.
My only real question then is why does a gentleman such as yourself read a blog such as this. We’re basically Conservatives, Neo-Cons, perhaps “independents” and the typical smattering of Libertarians.
Now some of us may be understandably suspicious of Obama’s complete lack of papers — starting with the so-called “long form” of his birth certificate, but presidents ordering the assassination of other presidents is not an idea that will fly well here my friend. I suggest a White-Power type blog for a more sympathetic ear, if you can stand all the other “verbiage” that they put out — and I say that as an implied compliment! Since by the very nature of your well-styled prose, you are obviously a man of some education, and the White-Power types typically do not have a similar background).
Perhaps the “alien abduction” blogs would be a reasonable fit as they are often populated with fairly educated (but of course, completely wacko — no, I’m not bring up Waco… please!) individuals. But there again, you constrain your fantasy to the Earth itself — which, again, is a compliment showing that you do not engage in “out of this world” nonsense.
There simply must be a group of like-minded gentlemen out there for you to socialize with and trade theories. I wish you luck in finding them because here, you will only either be ignored, or be told to “take your meds” as the poster above me mentioned. Why put yourself in such a position to suffer such abuse. I urge you to go gently into that good night and find your conspiratorial kinsmen!
This is the strangest presidency I have seen in my lifetime
Which has to make you, what, not much more than a year old? And if America is now a campus, and Obama is our Dean, then by similar analogy, for 8 years America was a carnival, Bush the unscrupulous carny operator, and the American public the rubes.
Please… attacking this highly educated, erudite, and truly brilliant historian and author with ad hominem slurs will get you nowhere with us (or VDH), I’m afraid.
Just pointing out that the entire article is utterly nonsensical, especially within any context. Now I know that right wingers hate context about as much as they do research, but still….the economy is on the mend, al-Qaeda on the run, and the US’s image on the rise. I sometimes wonder if Bush’s most enduring legacy will be from all the folks who voted for him, especially the 2nd time around, and who now bitterly won’t ever admit to how they were played for complete and utter fools, and instead try to childishly put down Obama in the worst, most cynical, dopiest ways imaginable.
To give you crediblity we would have to believe that your credentials as an academic, a judge of human character, and as a journalist are more credible than VDH himself or many of us. That’s not easy to believe by what you write.
It doesn’t seem like you know many facts. You just seem angry at those you disagree with. But it’s good you come back. You can learn.
Gosh, “utterly nonsensical, especially within any context”! VDH’s career is over now. Who knew he was such a lightweight?
You seem to think that those of us who voted for Bush did so with a waif-like belief in his sagacity and fidelity to 180-proof conservatism. How about, “He was the lesser of two evils”? That pretty much summarizes my voting strategy except for when I got to vote for Ronald Reagan.
Bush’s $400 billion dollar deficit sure seems pretty good compared to $1.6 trillion and counting. Not to mention that Mr. Bush genuinely had the interests of the country in mind, as opposed to Pres. Obama who can’t even bring himself to salute when the national anthem is played and seems to want transform the country into something that he thinks needs a v. large “civilian defense force to create and maintain. Now there’s something we can relax about. What could be more American than that?! Right there in Art. I Sect. 8. A national security force.
Our constitutional law professor/president.
If you think this economy is on the mend, you truly are with the circus. Explain to me how multi-trillion dollar deficits when we are already on the hook for $12 trillion in national debt, $5 trillion in Freddie/Fannie bad mortgages, and $60 trillion in unfunded liabilities can possibly end well.
Al-Qaida on the run…perhaps it was the policies of eight years of Bush, who as flawed as he was, understood that we are up against an enemy with whom there is no peace-making (if you disagree, tell me exactly where the middle ground is between us and their desire to see the Western world either completely submissive to radical Islam or utterly destroyed). If Obama has done anything right in his first year it has been to continue those policies (although I suspect he does only begrudgingly and out of political necessity).
U.S. image on the rise? At the cost of increased unemployment, acceleration of national debt, and the continued backstopping of companies engaged in mass fraud? All so Europe can get the warm fuzzies when they see Obama’s mug on CNN?
You’re reaching to find anything good about this administration. At least us Bush supporters could admit when he screwed up (TARP I, Medicare Part D, NCLB, not putting a bullet in each of the heads of “enemy combatants” instead of Club Gitmo, general lack of will to reduce government spending). Obama’s broken campaign promises are becoming a daily occurrence…when will you be shaken out of your “Hope and Change” haze?
Then again, it is well known that you have no knowledge of, or connection to reality.
Always like what you write Vic, but you are over-recycling your proofs: “bring a gun” etc and please quit the usage of weird to label the man. Bazza is more of a “oh gosh you mean we have to crack their heads!?” kind of guy than an ardent “bugger ‘em lets make an omelette” type of the neauvoempowered. He is a good bloke. Just innocent and not as self-aware as he would like to think. Trick is how can he be made to see that he too is motivated by power and prestige? And what a trick hey? Hells Bells?
“There are consequences when rhetoric does not match reality. ”
And so you’ve inadvertently landed on the core issue of our demise . . . the self-righteous claims of hypocrisy by others. Here, watch, i can do it, too:
“Stay the course . . . stay the curse . . . stay the course . . . I’ve never said stay the course.” or “I’ve never considered myself to be a maverick.” . . . or selling guns to people on no-fly lists . . . and so on.
Pick an issue . . . state’s rights . . . the filibuster . . . ear marks . . . privacy . . . activist judges . . . Miranda . . . family values . . . entitlement programs . . . in our culture it doesn’t matter what I’ve actually done, it only matters what I can accuse you of doing.
With politicians, twas ever thus, but the media landscape is now a place where all people choose to display their piety with equal vigor and guilt. No one is interested in the truth, and so we continue our inexorable slide into the muck.
Until we can get past this zero-sum dunk tank we call American discourse, life will only continue to deteriorate . . . more hypocrisy, more whining, more victimhood . . . Is it really news that Elena Kagen played softball? Ot that John Roberts didn’t get married until he was 41? They’re both gay. So what?
We’re all headed down the chute, folks, and it’s not because of Obama, who I believe is actually trying to reverse the damage caused by the greed economy of the last 50 years. We’re destroying ourselves.
And you should stop.
Say what?
I’ve always resisted posting anything to you on the sensible grounds of “don’t feed the trolls.” However this screed seems to require a response.
Does the institution that you are in allow you access to computers and the internet? I can only assume that whatever treatment program that you are in allows blogging as some part of a creative therapy regimen. This last message could only have been the result of some poor Tourette’s victim or bi-polar sufferer who is still not quite receiving the proper medications. I hope that you eventually recover and gain your release back into society. If this does happen remember that it is critical to follow your medication schedule.
You state the joke once and you move on. That’s how it works. You don’t beat it into the ground. That’s one. Two, my post was as reasonable and even-handed as any you will see on this site. Something in there you disagree with? Spit it out.
OK, here’s one. You do a pronoun switch at the end which I found interesting. You said:
We’re all headed down the chute, folks, and it’s not because of Obama, who I believe is actually trying to reverse the damage caused by the greed economy of the last 50 years. We’re destroying ourselves.
And you should stop
Taking everything you said at face value (which I presume is what you want), why is it that if “we” are all destroying ourselves with the behavior you cite, that it is only us (“you”) who “should [be] stop[ing]?”
Or was that merely a “slip of the pen” — which, I grant you, is a mistake we can all make at times? (I’m trying to be reasonable, in case that hasn’t yet sunk in).
Nice call on that. Typical “progressive” sentiment expressed here. It’s always someone else who has to change their pernicious ways.
No slip. It was intentional. Not malicious, but intentional. You see, it points out the irreducible hypocrisy of our divided state . . . no matter how reasoned and fair a position may be, no matter how heartfelt our commitment to collaboration is at the front end, progress will ultimately demand compromise. And as far as I can see, nobody is willing to give up anything. Where politicians are concerned, it goes like this, “We can be bipartisan as long as you do everything I say.”
Plus, it was a joke.
Thamks very much for the clarification. It was so obvious that I missed it. Your posts are SUPPOSED to be jokes. The total lack of anything resembling humor, insight or self-deprecation made that point difficult to see. Remember my tip about the medication.
If you believe that he’s trying to do good, then you must believe him to be the biggest idiot to ever occupy the White House, because not only is he making nothing better, he has made things a lot worse and never once second guessed his actions or his plans.
Have you finally given up all pretense of rationality?
“We’re all headed down the chute, folks, and it’s not because of Obama, who I believe is actually trying to reverse the damage caused by the greed economy of the last 50 years. We’re destroying ourselves.”
We’ve been headed towards the brick wall for many decades now. Some leaders have stepped on the gas; Wilson with his signing of the Federal Reserve charter, FDR with his Keynes-on-steroids policies, Nixon with his repudiation of the gold standard, LBJ with his signing of the Medicare monstrosity (and yes, Bush with his ill-advised and unfunded Medicare addition). Others have tapped the brakes (JFK and Reagan with tax cuts). None have truly stopped the car and reversed course. Washington will burn to the ground before it embraces austerity, but not before the elites have looted the Treasury and settled into their nice, cozy, non-extradition country homes.
Obama is clearly in the first group, except his solution is not only to accelerate into the brick wall, but to set the seats on fire before we hit it. He may well intend to do what you’re saying (although his definition of reversing greed is more than likely the abolition of wealth which he incorrectly equates with greed), but he certainly will not succeed in doing anything but speeding up the demise of our economy.
That being said, I have to question his motives when the very entities that contribute to our current economic predicament are typically the most generous supporters to his campaign. He is not the shining knight you think he is. At best he is a willing dupe, at worst a Marxist-lite who will “good intention” us into economic hell.
“We’re all headed down the chute, folks, and it’s not because of Obama, who I believe is actually trying to reverse the damage caused by the greed economy of the last 50 years. We’re destroying ourselves.”
We’ve been headed towards the brick wall for many decades now. Some leaders have stepped on the gas; Wilson with his signing of the Federal Reserve charter, FDR with his Keynes-on-steroids policies, Nixon with his repudiation of the gold standard, LBJ with his signing of the Medicare monstrosity (and yes, Bush with his ill-advised and unfunded Medicare addition). Others have tapped the brakes (JFK and Reagan with tax cuts). None have truly stopped the car and reversed course. Washington will burn to the ground before it embraces austerity, but not before the elites have looted the Treasury and settled into their nice, cozy, non-extradition country homes.
Obama is clearly in the first group, except his solution is not only to accelerate into the brick wall, but to set the seats on fire before we hit it. He may well intend to do what you’re saying (although his definition of reversing greed is more than likely the abolition of wealth which he incorrectly equates with greed), but he certainly will not succeed in doing anything but speeding up the demise of our economy.
That being said, I have to question his motives when the very entities that contribute to our current economic predicament are typically the most generous supporters to his campaign. He is not the shining knight you think he is. At best he is a willing dupe, at worst a Marxist-lite who will “good intention” us into economic hell.
Prof. Hanson:
Having spent a few years living in the academic/liberal enclave of Chapel Hill, North Carolina (home to UNC-Chapel Hill, where I was attending law school), I think you’ve nailed it. The more I learned about Obama in the early stages of his campaign, the more he reminded me of the long-term residents of Chapel Hill: liberal, elitist (though unconsciously or subconsciously so), wealthy (at least relative to the average North Carolinian) and fundamentally disconnected from the entrepreneurial risk-taking that is required to create jobs and wealth (because, though they oftentimes forget this, their livelihoods are almost entirely underwritten by the NC and US taxpayers). These folks generally made for fine neighbors–they’re well-educated, generally civic-minded and their kids help make the local public schools seem like they’re doing a good job–but, for the aforementioned reasons, I wouldn’t want them running the government.
In the months after Obama’s election I was saying to my liberal friends that America had just elected a President of the Sophomore Class, and my only question was would he really grow up and become President of the United States.
It has been worse than my worst nightmare.
I do not blame Obama. What he is, what he was, where he is coming from, what he will try to do – knowns and givens at this point. He’s President Barack Chavez.
I blame the 66m Americans who voted for him. That was an act of gross irresponsibility and cavalier narcisism (mostly) from the generation that was given more good gifts and opportunities (we boomers) than any generation in the history of the universe – and that is in the nature of a rock solid fact.
I am then, embarrassed and mortified that this puerile generation never grew up, never stopped crying in the most bratish way, and never really appreciated what they were given what they had, and what they are now throwing away.
Shame on every Obama voter. I can hardly look at one or talk to one anymore, certainly not about politics.
Given the way he openly attacks and insults anyone who disagrees with him, it’s pretty obvious that Obama does not consider himself to be the president of all Americans, but only of those who agree with him.
Dr. Hanson: Thanks for pointing out the greatest moral deficiency of our lifetime;
“Where does this disregard for the truth arise? On the most superficial level, of course, Obama realizes that the media is obsequious and sanctions almost anything he does.” =The media is full of liars. “He knows that his base was always interested in power, not principle (has anyone seen any war protests the last few weeks against Afghanistan or Iraq, or Guantanamo, or the quadrupling of Predator attacks? Or for that matter, are there anti-Obama Hispanic protests over the increased crackdown on employers and greater deportations than during the Bush era?)”. = His base is full of liars. So in conclusion: Obama knows that everyone who supports him is a liar just like he is. Thank you for pointing all of this out in such a clear headed manner. And who said truth doesn’t matter? We will all experience the great need to find and live in the truth very shortly. For some this will be a tragedy as they will see their world evoporate before their tear filled eyes. For those who love the truth it will be vindication for maintaining an attitude of vigilant defense. May God bless you, your raisins and everything else you do.
Our historic first (or is it second?) black president is also an elitist lightweight boob. I have seen his arrogant type in academics and in industry. The elitist position goes like this: “You little people might think you have some good ideas, but let me assure you that you don’t. If you ever had a good idea, I would have already thought of it!”
This attitude is prevalent among liberals, and one of the many, many reasons that arguing with a progressive is like debating a stump.
“…the very common combination of a superiority complex with arrested development, and inhibitions on almost all forms of intelligent curiosity.” – G.K. Chesterton
This is Obama, ALL Dems (voters included), Academia, etc. All Dems, voters and pols, are immature, ungrateful brats. ALL of them, and there are no exceptions to speak of. Such things can happen. Hitler and Mussolini and every tyrant there ever was had majorities. It shows that most Americans do not deserve this great country of ours.
Obama would be a joke – a man of no talent, limtied intelligence, no experience and no real abilities except for bullying – if he was not the most dangerous and destructive single person in American history.
It is 50/50 at best whether America survives him. Even if he gets voted out, we are still stuck with the people who voted for him in the forst place. They are the real problem. They are decadence and decay in the veryday normal life.
Even Joe Biden knew that Obama was an empty suit: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Of course he probably thought he was complementing him.
The real villain is the media. It ignores the Obama screwups that would have been lead fodder for the nightly news just a few years ago. For example, if an Attorney General in the Bush administration had performed like Holder did last week, it would have been rammed down our throats something like Bush’s handling of Katrina.
To further Hanson’s point, the media is the tenured professor in this college. And we’re just stupid freshmen wondering why we got a poor grade for asking about the deficit, immigration or who parked the explosive-filled SUV in Times Square.
There an “l” missing in “public financing” BTW
The old world is over forever. America has fallen over the edge. Obama is the product of almost a hundreds years of progressive / Marxist infiltration and destruction from within. The “media” are not “biased”, they are conscious agents of Psychological Warfare. Several generations of American children, especially our entire ruling elite who attended College, have been indoctrinated into having an essentially Marxist world view, even if they don’t consciously realize it. Delusion upon delusion…capitalism is evil…America is bad…the Founders were rich white slave owners…whites should feel guilty…all blacks are victims…lie after lie plowed the field, the minds of America’s children…who are now grown up and have responded exactly how they were meant to respond…the election of Obama is the flower of the whole process. Americans have been carefully molded emotionally and intellectually for the election of a lying pathological Marxist. Obama was picked for his ideological purity and his ability to flat out lie. In his book, he describes how he and his black friends learned to be able to turn their rage on and off at will…how to smile and “talk to the white people” when they wanted. Obama does indeed know how to “talk to the white people”.
The mainstream Republicans are acting dumb as posts and have been deeply asleep at the switch.
Obama is a revolutionary Marxist and the only way to defeat a revolution is with a counter revolution. Just “voting them out” in November is a pipe dream of those ignorant at just how deep the enemy is infiltrated. America is almost finished…done…kaput…dead. With the deliberate flooding of the population with third world peoples who will vote democrat / marxist in order to get more free stuff, America’s future can be measured, like a terminal cancer patient, in months or a few years. No joke, no exaggeration.
Being revolutionary Marxists means they have a plan to deal with the “counter revolution”. Remember Bill Ayers, who back in the 1970′s discussed with the other Weather Underground leaders that 25 million Americans would have to be killed in order to consolidate the revolution? No joke.
They have a plan to deal with November. Amnesty, massive voter fraud, Felon voters, an enormous propaganda barrage from the “brown shirt media” who beat down any opposition in the streets, with isolation and ridicule, just as Saul Alinsky counseled.
America’s overseas enemies are closing in, practically shouting with glee… Iran, North Korea, Syria, China Russia..all working together to finish us off. They see us as totally crippled and blinded. They will strike soon and initiate what they think is the final battle. With the cut off of much of our oil and forward deployed nukes going off…our immediate future is War, Depression, Chaos, Civil War…those are the good scenarios. If Iran or a proxy does what they have been working on feverishly…an EMP attack…then it really is over. Most Americans would be dead of starvation within 6 or 7 months…China would most likely occupy the western half of the country once the population is thinned out…Mexico would reclaim the southwest…
Wake up America!! Do your research!! All the facts are there, connect the dots…prepare for the worst…pray for the best.
God help us and our children.
I share the same analysis, but I disagree with your prognosis of the final result.
Once the subversives make one OPEN move out of legality, they don’t know what will happen.
This is what has made ALL the subversives fail (on the long term) all over the world.
They open the cauldron of history, thinking that they KNOW…but they don’t know.
They don’t know God, therefore they don’t know the human being, they don’t know Freedom, and more importantly they don’t know POWER (Gebura, see Isaiah, 30:15).
We certainly face a deadly danger, but the subversives have only a plan to destroy and no way to know the way ahead.
Prayer will help us.
Let us pray, and praise the Lord.
I agree with you that the Dems will use massive voter fraud, intimidation, violence, and outright and outrageous lies spread by their Ministry of Truth (the drive-by Marxist media) to steal the 2010 elections.
However, in their hubris they forget two things:
1) They will see tanks and APCs rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue if they do.
2) When red state America secedes, they will take most of the military with them.
“America is now a campus, and Obama is our Dean”
That brings back old memories, of Faber College (“Knowledge is Good”), and of Dean Wormer.
Or like being secretary of the Treasury without having carried out certain legally required interactions with the Treasury, for which oversights us ordinary mortals would pay fines and face jail times?
At least the pro-big oil “drill baby drill” Palin wing has suddenly lost their tongues. And the “oops .. doh” silence is welcome. Americans that have refused to listen to smart people and chose to listen to those in bed with the oil companies are directly to blame for what has happened, not those that warned about this scenario for the past decade, or more. As with some other issues, the President got this one right and hopefully, this time, the country will listen. “spill baby spill” The environment, like war and health should never have become partisan in the first place.
Nice article, thanks.
Drill, baby, drill. This spill is no big deal in the grand scheme of things. It is a nuisance, like a hurricane or an earthquake. Yes, it’s a problem that we have to deal with, and we are dealing with it. By no means should we even consider NOT increasing the amount we drill.
Tell me, if we opened up every oil field you want to drill in, what percent of our oil needs would that provide?
Don’t know, doesn’t matter. We need jobs and revenue right now, so anything we can drill is better than not drilling.
Let me help. Right now we get about 64% of our oil from other countries. The biggest is Canada. if we opened up the oceans for drilling , we’d knock that figure down to about 61%. Add ANWR and you get another percent or so. But hey, if all you care about is jobs, let’s hire a bunch of people to sell heroin to Alzheimer’s patients who wander away from nursing homes.
What, is that a bad thing? . . . Don’t know, doesn’t matter. We need jobs and revenue right now. (Might want to pick a different topic.)
i’ll help. We import about 65% of our oil. the biggest supplier is Canada. If we open up the oceans and ANWR to boot, we get to about 61%. Will there be jobs created? A few. Will there be jobs destroyed? A few, along with a few deaths. (Even though, according to Hannity during the last presidential campaign, drilling is “absolutely safe” now.)
so, we can’t drill our way out, and we can’t kill our way out. What to do? What. to. do?
You’re short by over an order of magnitude. Even if you weren’t, so what?
“Tell me, if we opened up every oil field you want to drill in, what percent of our oil needs would that provide?”
———————–
Who knows? Here’s a better question. How many jobs would that scenario create? Your question is a talking point. My question suggests an option for economic stability on a personal level, as well as relieving some pressure, as miniscule as it may seem, on the stranglehold that OPEC and the worlds oil dictators have on America’s fuel and petroleum needs. Your strawman doesn’t work for me, skeeziks!
Who knows, fireyourgubs? Well, clearly I know. Now you do, too. Consider it a gift.
A better answer is this…does it matter how much oil we have domestically? How about we stop the government interference on oil exploration and allow the free market to decide if acquiring it is cost-effective? Perhaps we could have avoided the disasters caused by deep-oil drilling if we had not allowed millions of acres of worthless tundra to lay untapped?
And he’s right, we need jobs now. The actions of this administration has not and will not create them, and in fact discourages job creation in the private sector (where, you know…actual wealth is created). Revenue…not so much if you’re referring to government revenue. That particular beast needs to be starved. The sooner the better.
More than we are getting now. Which is all they need to provide.
Wait, is Obama in bed or not in bed with BP? Because didn’t I read that he received something like over 70,000 dollars from them in contributions? How much did Palin get from oil and gas? Do a little poking around, why don’t you? Maybe, you find something that turns your head around?
Try a quote, “During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.”
Why do you suppose that is? Are the people at BP a bunch of morons or something? Don’t they know Obama is their enemy? Hey, it could be, Poor Citizen, these are rhetorical questions, but my guess is that you do not have enough information to really condemn Sarah Palin, do you? Why don’t you LEAVE HER ALONE !
Hey, and to the credit of Obama’s conniving strategy his people will tell you that he apparently made sure not to take money from oil during his presidential bid. It was only from the past 20 years that he took money from them ! No problem, right? He probably had an environmentalist change of heart.
Also, do you think it is wise to condemn a whole industry based on the failings of one, two, or even three companies? Isn’t it true that everyone benefits from oil and gas production?
Drill baby Drill.
Never stopped saying it.
Why do you believe the occassional accident is enough to convince people that they should freeze in the dark every winter?
Your article gets right to the main shortcoming of Obama. His complete and total dishonesty. I’ve long had the impression that he’s one of those types of people who has convinced himself that telling the truth is simply not an essential ingredient of morality. In fact, given his background in Alinsky-like organizing, it is much more likely that in order to fulfill his numerous righteous deeds honesty is just a silly time waster. He likely fancies himself a bigger man by having the guts to just leave the facts at the door and force the American people to take that healthy dose of humble pie they don’t realize they need so much.
The mystery of Babylon is revealed. The Prophet or his model has arisen. The Lord is showing beyond question what man is. The greatest nation, piled high with EVERY blessing brought down by it’s own concupiscence by it final princes.
We watched dumb as the rot spread in every member. No antiseptic was applied. No alarm was raised. Obama is our reward. We who, finally, can see … must spend our last days as a witness to the mystified, the lost. Though we have lost the earth we may still gain heaven. As may others if we will do our duty.
If we are allotting blame, mine goes to that company of the like-minded, the MSM. (Who still thinks it’s “mainstream,” by the way?). Through laziness, incompetence or a wink of the eye to one another, the voting public was denied crucial information about the background of Barrack Obama. A Democratic politician in a one-party state says he has seen the birth certificate and we can all take his word for it that it is legitimate. The people who still persist in seeing it are ridiculed — a key Alinsky tactic — as “birthers.” Obama attended Occidental College on a scholarship reserved for foreign-born students. We don’t know what his grades were at Columbia — if he excelled we would — but someone with juice called Harvard Law School and he was admitted. (Was it the future Supreme Court justice who got that call, the woman whose thesis was a paean of praise to socialism?). He was editor at Harvard Law but produced no work of scholarly or other consequence and his successor said he was hardly ever seen. His mother and grandparents were radicals, he was for a time “mentored” by a black radical poet and pedophile. It seems he had a gay interlude. None of this was known to voters. Minister Farrakan is on a new YouTube video saying Obama “was selected before he was elected.” You can almost see him wink at the interviewer. So as stupid as those 66 million voters were, they are not entirely to blame. The wool was pulled over their eyes with the help of the media.
How right you are!
It’s a puzzle to me how many otherwise enlightened pundits deride those who insist Obama release those documents for public scrutiny, yet have no problem with his refusal to do so.
Hunc habet morbum, ut arbitror.
The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.” — Author Unknown
The ‘symptom’ you refer to is stupidity – and there is no cure. The better part of the 66M voters who voted for Obama were spoon-fed information about him by the MSM. Many of them are stupid – some are/were simply ignorant. Fortunately there is a cure for ignorance but the individual needs to apply individual willpower and get educated. Most of my friends whom had voted for Obama now see the error of that vote and are quite regretful. These past 2 years have been an education for me – I know who’s ignorant and who is stupid among my friends and family.
The Obama debacle was a manefestation of mass stupidity yes, but don’t forget blind ideology, liberal special interest groups, a monolithic black vote, and a good chunk of the white guilt vote. And a slobbering fawning media promoted this most supreme of ass-clowns as the second coming of Jesus Christ. If the MSM had done its job and vetted this man with no real paper trail other than what his ghost writer was told to say about him in his two books about himself, maybe we wouldn’t be stuck with the little marxist creep.
Bingo.
Obama is only the symptom of a deeper problem – the people who voted for him.
Those people are not real Americans. They are not serious people. They are not even grown ups.
They are children, and we are living in a Lord of the Flies world. Anerica is in late-stage decadence and decay.
It is not just the media who cover for Obama. Where is Greenpeace, WWF, etc. in the face of one of the worse environmental disasters of the new century? Why aren’t environmental groups asking about the effect and impact of the dispersants that were/are being sprayed to reduce the visible effects of the spill? The government has allowed these chemicals to be sprayed on the oil slick, but no one has asked what impact that might have on the environment. Perhaps the impact is benign, but the absence of questions in the press or from environmental lobbies makes me think the answer is not good for democrats.
This convoluted, deceptive (including self-deception) world of the Left is the reason why I was so heartened to read this recent speech by Gen. David Petraeus:
http://www.aei.org/speech/100142
To me this speech reveals a number of things:
1- It clearly placed him in the Conservative camp.
2- It revealed a Conservative who, besides being a seasoned and successful leader in very high stakes circumstances, is comfortable in the realm of ideas, and can give clear reasons why he believes what he believes.
3- It revealed a man (reading between the lines) who understood how ideology (a common set of beliefs and a common attitude towards the future) was the key to the health of a nation. How those beliefs could be undermined, and how they could be strengthened. And again, he has practical experience resolving these large-scale ideological conflicts.
4- A man who is comfortable with lots of authority, and who could use power wisely. But who also knows and respects the limits of his authority.
5- A man who knows how to take complex problems and break them into discrete, manageable parts, and apply the relevant metric and analytic tools to those parts.
6- A man who is ‘people-centric’. Who understands that we are solving human problems FOR humans. Not using humans to solve problems for politicians.
If a guy like him (or a combo like Patraeus-Palin) gets elected in 2012, we will have bought ourselves 4 years to survive. But in the long run, we will continue to slide into the collectivist-jihadist maw unless the culture as a whole gets a big shake-up. As I said, the education system has to be flushed out, the media has to be chastened, etc. For that, a kind of cultural civil war has to get underway in which clear-thinkers stand up and oppose the ideologues – with arguments and ideas, as well as policies that work!
What have you done to defeat a Democrat today?
Like so many academics, Obama becomes petulant when crossed, and like them as well, he “deigns” to know very little out of his field (from Cinco de Mayo to the liberation of Auschwitz), and only a little more in it.
You do realize, VDH, that the same exact logic also applies to you? The further afield you get from military history, the more you discard thinking and knowledge in favor of rote repetitions of partisan talking points.
Example(s) please?
I stumbled upon this website. Some salient points regarding intellectual consistency. Why is it those not in power are the only ones who care? (serious question)
No groupthink here – no sir! I’ll move along.
Because those who care choose to Life over Power,
except when disaster threatens; See ‘Cincinnatus’.
Be prepared for ACORN-style election fraud of every possible kind — false voter registrations, fake ballots, etc., you name it — on an unprecedented massive scale, and a slew of contested vote counts and recounts in their wake, come the November 2010 elections.
Saw this on a post br Jay Norlinger over at the Corner on NRO. Seems to fit:
“Do you ever get the idea that our government is a bunch of left-wing undergraduates come to power?” (I think I had in mind Elspeth Rostow’s statement during the Kennedy administration: “You’re just a bunch of junior officers come to power.”) One man wrote, “I think we need a new term to describe the Obama team’s approach to international affairs: Bong Hit Diplomacy. Just a suggestion . . .”
This is no garden variety scumbag, he is president of the United States (and will likely be there at least through 2012), and he has substantial majorities in both houses of Congress (at least through 2010). If you have read his inner thoughts, and read between the lines (whether or not he actually wrote the book), he hates whites and wishes them great harm. In addition, he hates this country and wishes it great harm. He has and will cause it great, if not irreversible, harm. That is his intent. He is not some nice fellow you can have drinks with and think that is the end of the dust-up. He is a nasty piece of work, and his actions are clearly in one direction (i.e., forget his words as VDH correctly points out that they are, for all intents and purposes, lies).
In addition, Robert (#40) is correct. Even if people who have now woken up reverse some of this in November, the trend is demographic driven (and we have a whole generation that has been deeply and disturbingly been brainwashed to believe black is white, up is down, etc., …). The only way to realistically reverse what has happened is to dramatically change immigration, otherwise the descent to third world status will continue with some bumps along the way down.
In summary, his lying is clear, but the reasons for his initial election should chill true patriots to the bone.
Don’t forget the OUTRAGE that Bush “lied” in his “Sixteen Words” vis-a-vis Saddam sending agents to Niger for uranium yellowcake (which was actually true). What followed was “Misleader-In-Chief” and “Bush Lied, Kids Died” and “Lying Liars and the lies They Tell” (a book by Al Franken) and so forth. All of that was certainly compelled by the Impeachment for Perjury of Bill Clinton (over “Just a b***job”), and, quite evidently, as pointed out, had nothing to do with the principle of telling the truth.
Quite simply, the Left lies.
Obama is first and foremost, a fraud and a liar. It was obvious during the campaign and his true stripes show more and more as time goes on. He seems to think that we are subjects, not citizens, who do not have the right to dissent. He shows no love for his country, no patriotism and would not be the guy you would want next to you in a foxhole. We may have thought Clinton’s character was a little shaky, but compared to Obama, he was a saint.
“I have no idea other than I think at some point Obama’s untruths, hypocrisies, and contradictions will, in their totality, finally remind the voter that he is a citizen and not a student.”
Too few people will grow up and realize that Obama is a fraud. Many will remain in student mode: ingesting the left-liberal pablum spouted by Obama and crew, remaining irresponsible and dependent, and gliding through life like its a Mickey Mouse course requiring only attendance to pass. Thus, despite lies, hypocrisy, idiotic policies, massive deficit spending, and a worsening economy, Obama the Promiser of Everything will win reelection in 2112. We may survive a second term, but the outlook is bleak.
The President does not see himself as the head of the Executive Department of the
United States as specified in the Constitution. He sees himself as some sort of
demi-god whose position is always correct. Those who disagree with him are
lacking in patriotism; lacking in good judgment, and lacking in honesty. Hence in
his mind he is always right. What he said yesterday is forgotten and no
longer pertinent because what he said yesterday was convenient and useful
yesterday and only yesterday. He is on a perpetual campaign to remake the United
States into what he thinks it should be. And what he thinks the United States
should be is a dictatorship in which anyone who disagrees with him is corrupt,
foolish, inept or stupid, or maybe all of them in one.
So much for “Hope and Change”.
you seem to forget that NObama is a “true believer” in Socialism.
NObama taught Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals in lectures, and it is on the reading list for NObama’s supporters including the SEIU and AFT unions.
If you would read said Rules for Radicals your disbelieve would suddenly have at least one big ah ha moment.
As I have said ever since he first appeared on the scene, Obama is an old-fashioned, hardline marxist-leninist. Obama demagoguery is tried and tested. Nothing he does is new or surprising. He is playing public opinion and the mass media with techniques developed and described by Joseph Goebbels, Saul Alinsky and others. They still work depressingly well. One reason they work is that socialism has become a taboo topic and polite political debate has been narrowed to conservatism versus liberalism. Conservatives have 40% support at the most, so they lose by default. By calling Obama a liberal, they hand him a free pass to do pretty much anything he wants. The only way to stop Obama is to change the terms of the debate to liberty versus socialism/fascism.
There is nothing strange or unexpected about Obama. He is an old-fashioned hardline m a r x i s t – l e n i n i s t who uses tried and tested demagogic techniques that turn out to be depressingly effective. He gets away with it partly because clueless conservatives have declared the word s o c i a l i s m taboo (apparently banned on this site as well…) and insist on calling him a liberal. And then they come up with all these weird, far-fetched explanations why Obama does what he does – he’s a professor, it’s Chicago politics, he’s from Kenya, he’s incompetent, he’s a puppet of international bankers, blah blah blah.
I have a political science degree from the University of Amsterdam, with a major in American Studies, was a volunteer on the 1996 Clinton/Gore campaign, but pointing out the obvious – Obama is a c o m m u n i s t – gets me banned on sites from Fox News to Hot Air to PajamasMedia.
What the hell is wrong with you people?!
in a word : denial
You must understand Peter, Communist takeovers are foreign to our experience. Didn’t they tell you? “It can’t happen here.”
Thus its taking a while to get a clear bead on things. But we’re getting there. Slowly but surely.
Gee, Professor Hanson, this wouldn’t be a case of Ivy-League envy by an ex-CSU Fresno prof, would it?
Sad.
I super wanted Hillary instead. When you consider the choice was either Obama or McCain… I had serious doubts when I voted for pres. I have even more doubts now. I super hope that Kagan isn’t put on the Supreme Court. There has to be balance and more academics isn’t it. But for a final comment, there are times I wonder if Obama is using the Chavez book of Government Leadership/Tyranny. Sometimes do you listen and watch Snoop Dogie Dog and think, geez, he reminds me of Obama? Obama the pimp?
thanks for this. thats the thing, is anyone keeping score. with the amount of treacherous deceptions from this man to date i could sink a battleship, but they coma and go for the media and most in an instant
a full record (like a history that heretofore does not exist) should be kept to remind what an absolute fraud.
to think the leader of the free world is an undeclared muslim… shocking, like Holder who cant say the words. cannot last for long..
There’s a park near my house whose bicycle/walking path empties out onto a residential street. One of the houses use to have an All Troops Home Now lawn sign. I’ve spoken to the woman who lives there. Typical lefty. Anti-business bumper stickers all over the back of her New Beetle (mustn’t drive a Detroit product even if she lives in the Detroit ‘burbs). Thinks Israel is a “settler state”. Retired public school teacher, never worked in the private sector. Has never created wealth and thinks socialism works just fine.
The anti-war sign disappeared sometime after Jan. 20, 2009, even though Obama has increased troop strength in Afghanistan.
Obama has nothing to fear from his base. They’re true believers. Maybe some hard lefties might complain, but for the most part Obama acolytes, including those in the press, think he can do no wrong.
better hurry up and talk now, btw, as soon we’ll have only WHtv
act now because America definitely wont last under obama
“But suddenly even the most vocal of the left have gone silent as Obama’s felonies have trumped Bush’s misdemeanors on every count.”
This has been noticeable for months now. Years of vicious attacks on GW Bush yet Obama has made little material change to Bush foreign policy. Nothing, nada, no comment from Sharpton, Wright, Jackson, etc. It’s strictly partisan politics as usual sliced and diced in all sorts of predictable ways.
I’m Sure Dean Kagan is an extremely bright and capable individual, but how about someone who grew up on a farm? Someone who worked in a coal mine or on an oil rig? Someone who raised children and even taught them in grade school? Someone who drove a truck to pay their way through law school in Iowa, Georgia or Montana? Why is the Supreme Court is made up almost exclusively with Harvard and Yale elite, people with nothing at all in common with the vast majority of the people with whom they judge?
What difference does it make if they have anything in common with those they serve? You sound you expect empathy. EMPATHY for god’s sake. What’s wrong with you, man?
Empathy… yeah like that bleeding heart liberal Sandra Day O’Conner.
The City of Detroit is going to tare down Mitt Romney’s boyhood home. http://mittromneycentral.com/2010/05/14/mitt-romneys-boyhood-home-scheduled-to-be-demolished-by-end-of-september/ What a mess!
Obama is our first (and last, I hope) Affirmative Action President. He was elected not on his merits, but on the basis of his race. Advanced to the highest office in the land and the hardest job in the world by a population caught up in mass cult-worship combined with an unhealthy dose of race-guilt. Affirmative Action may work (sort of) in the liberal fairyland of our university campuses, but this catastrophic lack of substantive merit, skill, knowledge, experience, wisdom and leadership has greatly accelerated our race to the bottom. God help us.
“But suddenly even the most vocal of the left have gone silent as Obama’s felonies have trumped Bush’s misdemeanors on every count.”
I’m in sympathy with your general argument, but give credit where due. Here’s a post on Firedoglake, a pretty influential lefty blog, ripping into Obama over his dealings with BP and handling of the spill (found via Instapundit): http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/47660
In the comments, they’re openly talking impeachment.
As a citizen of Australia and seeing your country,I implore you not to despair for you will win. The only thing you must avoid is a Pyrrhic Victory, for you must and realize progressives only win Pyrrhic Victories.
“The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one more such victory would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the loss they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war.”
Obama is championing for initiatives that do not work, never worked and have failed misserably in the past. Look at Greece for example. The lack of executive, legislative ,command and business experience is taking its toll in this young president.
He is governing as a professor and a street agitator, not as Commander in Chief.
No slip. Not malicious, but intentional. Irony. Satire, A joke.
Blame the miseducated voters for this fiasco and consider how much enlightenment needs to take place to turn this mess around.
I noticed a recent statement that said the government was spending money like a drunken sailor. As a former drunken sailor I must object,,, I quit spending when I ran out of MY money.
We must simple declare the END of the 60′s experiement. The phoney, arrested developement, boomers brought us to this low point. We should declare an end to the Democratic Party’s philosophy–the bunk class, gender, race crap, diversity is God crap, patrinizing all minorities while morally preening yourself, anti Americanism, anti military, anti police, anti white, anti male, etc etc and everything else VDH talks about.,
Every Republican, Conservative, Tea Partier, etc should, cconstantly repeat over and over about the demise of these people (kind of like VDH does weekly, but even more blatent). We know they are transparent now, they can’t hide anymore. Let declare there death. Talk of them as if they are irrelevant, over, gone. Publically declare them as children and moral perverts (think Mahoney and Pelosi). We have all the arguments and examples of their hypocracy, stupidity and more.
Its over, they are done, they are dust. they will all lose the next and next and next elections.
Lets try it. If we beleive it might starting
From this moment …right….NOW. GO.
Is it BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) or is it Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
This is the question – why aren’t psychiatrists brought in for treating the Nig-nog In Chief?
What is your explanation?
Marxism-Leninism is originated and lived on for decades in Eastern Europe where I once lived and was compelled to learn its creed and suffered the wrath of the executioners…
All over the world Communist takeover was bloody and turned into civil wars; – be it in Russia, China, Hungary, to wit, everywhere. And the destruction of people and countries followed only to never recover.
America is the first nation which elected Marxism to replace America that once we loved and were proud of: the majority embraced this obsolete ideology with exuberant joy, swooning in tears.
We are no longer American citizens but white, old, angry racists trash – obligated to serve the Messiah who is
“Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He’s sort of GOD.” (Newsweek).
So, what you say?
That the Democrats made a BIG mistake when they chose to follow the Communists and Corporate-statists among them. A Faustian bargain one might say…
Check out Obama’s comments on the death of Daniel Pearl:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8HNG6Z9LbA&feature=player_embedded
I’d say Professor Hanson is being generous in calling this presidency “strange.”
Madam X there isn’t a nickles worth of difference between hillary and Obama…she wrote her thesis on Alinsky, he taught Alinsky tactics.
Does what Hillary wrote in a theses decades ago matter?
All of the deficit spending is due to Bush policies, specifically the wars and the billions of dollars donated to halliburton to assist in those wars (without success). As yet, there has not been much extra money spent and the health care bill is still operating on a surplus. So, you will have to cook some more books to come up with that arguement wouldn’t you say? The econmomy has yet to recover, but at least it was saved from the brink….so there is no arguement there either. However, speaking of wars, I wonder where we are going myself…