The Right-Wing Complaint of 2008
In 2008, the following was the general right-wing argument against Obama’s candidacy:
a) The self-professed “uniter” Obama had, in truth, little record of uniting disparate groups. From community organizing to politics, his preferred modus operandi was rather to praise moderation, but politick more as a radical, and sometimes go after opponents as unreasonable or illiberal. Thus the most partisan voting senator in the Congress, who talked grandly of “working across the aisle,” also urged supporters to “get in their faces” and “take a gun to a knife fight.” Acorn, Project Vote, and SEIU were not ecumenical organizations.
b) Obama knew very little about foreign affairs, or perhaps even raw human nature as it plays out in power politics abroad. At times, he seemed naive about the singular role of the U.S. in the world, especially his sense that problems with Iran, the Middle East, Venezuela, Russia, and others were somehow predicated on American arrogance and unilateralism (and neither predating nor postdating George Bush) — to be remedied by Obama’s post-racial, post-national diplomacy.
c) In truth, Obama, for all his rhetorical skills and soft-spoken charisma, had little experience in the private sector outside of politics, academia, foundations, and subsidized organizing. Consequently, he did not seem to understand the nature of profit and loss, payrolls, how businesses worked and planned, or much of anything in the private sector.
d) Obama at times seemed to lack common sense, and perhaps even common knowledge. He appeared confused about everything from the number of U.S. states to the idea that air pressure and “tune-ups” might substitute for new oil exploration. He seemed assured when reading a teleprompted script, and yet lost much of his eloquence when it came to repartee and question and answer.
e) Obama saw race as essential to his persona and his success, rarely incidental. Collate the writings and rantings of his triad of pastors and friends — Rev. Wright, Rev. Pfleger, and Rev. Meeks — and one sees a common theme of racism (sometimes overt), anti-Semitism, and class warfare. It was considered irrelevant to remind voters in 2008 that Michelle Obama had alleged that the U.S. was a downright mean country, or that she had confessed to never heretofore being very proud of her country until it gave consideration to her husband as a presidential candidate — though both sentiments would seem rare for a potential first lady.
f) Obama, it was also felt, counted on a sense of entitlement. His admissions to Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard were alleged not to have been based on the usual competitive test scores or grades — and such charges were not refuted, but considered ancient history. As Harvard Law Review editor, he seemed to assume, quite rightly, that he did not have to publish an article. As a University of Chicago Law School lecturer he also rightly assumed that Chicago — and later Harvard as well — would, if he had wished, granted him tenure, again, despite nonexistent publication. Sen. Clinton argued, without much refutation, that as a state legislator Obama had both authored very little legislation and voted present on any vote that might be considered problematic for a higher political office — a charge that later disappointed supporters would come to echo, along with admissions of prior inexperience on Obama’s apart.
g) Obama, like many on the elite left, had an ambiguous attitude about affluence and its dividends. The more, as a community organizer, he had railed about bankers and unfairness, the more he had enjoyed a mini-mansion and dealt with the soon-to-be criminal Tony Rezko. The current Wall Street protests take their cue not just from presidential anger at “millionaires and billionaires,” but also from the idea that affluent young people are exempt from their own rhetorical charges.
Yet in 2008, to suggest “spread the wealth” meant anything important was to be either racist or a rank partisan. But Obama in 2001 in a Chicago public radio interview could not have been clearer about the need for government to redistribute income and his unhappiness that the Constitution seemed to prohibit that. Here is a telling excerpt in all its half-baked Foucauldian vocabulary:
But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in the society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. … I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.
Again, to refer to all of the above in 2008 was considered not so much unfair as improper.
The Proving Ground
Then came the election, and a perfect storm of events. The general unhappiness with Bush over deficits and Iraq, the recession that had started in December 2007, the absence of any incumbent vice president or president in the race for the first time since 1952, an unusually unenergetic McCain campaign, and a nakedly partisan media — all that by early September still had not given Obama the lead. But the mid-September 2008 financial crash did. And so what in the last fifty years was usually considered improbable — the election of a northern Democratic liberal — soon seemed foreordained.
VDH, I may be jamming your frequency…I wrote something like this earlier.
Once again, I find myself pondering whether we are asking the right questions at all.
I really like Herman Cain. In fact, in many ways I believe that Herman Cain is precisely what Barack Obama pretended to be and what the independents and moderates voted for in the last election.
He IS a post-racial candidate. He IS a healer. He IS someone who does not see red states and blue states. He IS someone who put childish things behind him and plowed forward to make something of himself.
He IS smart, successful, …people actually remember him going to class at his college and his social security card is issued in a state where he has actually once resided.
His instinct his entire life was to bridge any divide between “black America” and “white America”…between Main Street and Wall Street, between Christian and Jew, between problem and solution.
These…are the very things that Obama said he was…and the propaganda machine refuse to vet. We found out the hard way, the un-vetted candidate was nearly the polar opposite. He is a race warrior, class warrior, ethnic warrior, religious warrior… and sometimes agitator.
He is a Jeremiah Wright inspired, Bill Ayers mentored, George Soros backed, Cooper Union heralded, Rashid Khalidi counseled, Midwest Academy prepped…radical-in-chief.
Herman Cain is the putative “do over” vote…getting the guy that Obama pretended to be…this time with transcripts, passports, social security cards and birth certificate in order.
Obama worked as a minor leaguer in Illinois Senate voting present and barely registering as a freshman US Senator. NO background in foreign affairs, NO grasp of math, business or economics, NO real law practice background to speak of. He had LESS resume’ than Cain on every aspect of the Presidency. The distortion media has simultaneously glossed over and inflated every element of a really thin gruel of “accomplishments”.
Obama is not short on “awards”, “prizes”, “gifts”, …he has been handed much. He has earned little.
Obama doesn’t do…doing. Obama does talking. When you get right down to it…Obama is not a doer of pretty much anything. He is the guy who gets handed a lofty title and he pontificates, evangelizes, BS’s, about it, takes credit for any success and builds a blame machine for every failure. He takes no responsibility…in both uses of the word…ever. He shirks responsibility and shifts responsibility and fakes responsibility.
Obama never “owns” a problem…only credit. Greek columns and halos and land, titles, fetes and kudos he collects like so many Cracker Jack trinkets.
This is a guy who is in Who’s Who and ought to be in Who’s He?
Cain is actually the guy the independents and moderates thought they were voting for the last time.
The difference is…the BIG difference, is the propaganda machine will pull every dirty trick to cover for Obama, promote Obama, fail to vet Obama, fail to investigate Obama’s scandals…and they will rake Herman Cain over the coals.
The 999 plan is flawed…but it isn’t as flawed as the attempted seizure and overthrow of our free market economy. Let Paul Ryan and Mitch Daniels take a crack at massaging it, clean it up and repackage it…and it can be presented differently.
If Robert Gates would take the VP slot…I would support a Cain/Gates ticket with everything I’ve got.
No, I do not believe Herman Cain is the perfect candidate. But I do believe he is the guy people actually wanted last time. He IS the one they were waiting for. Build the right team around him…sharpen the message…and he wins. I’m starting to believe that.
We have to rally around somebody. Because the Occupy Scenario should alert us to this truth…a loss this time could be devastating. Radicals are spoiling for a fight to keep control over this land of ours.
We really need to start asking the right questions. Such as:
Ask not what your country can do for you…ask what your country can do to you.
I like Herman Cain very much, but (don’t take misunderstand this) Cain could be the Republican’s Obama.
Both are good speakers (Cain is way better). Both are inexperienced. And that lack of experience is the key, key thing.
If Cain wins, he will go to DC with a mandate and political capital. But he will have few friends and contacts. And a lobbyist base of entrenched interests against the 9-9-9 plan.
It will be messy.
And no – and I mean zero – experience in military affairs and foreign affairs is a receipe for disaster.
That’s why I’m praying for a Romney-Cain ticket. The Jobs and Recovery Team.
Powerlineblog.com is a favorite of mine. One of the authors noted that Repubicans prefer someone who has been through the mill before and has learned.
Mitt has learned and he has greatly improved.
Today, Cain is getting blasted for his electric fence comment in TN. He said he was joking. The tape would confirm the joke. NYT has a story on its blog saying that he was *not* joking and no one laughed.
This kind of a mistake – made worse by a coverup or lie – only stresses how inexperienced Cain is. And the worst aspect of it is that it hurts his credibility on a serious issue that has to be fixed.
When Cain takes a serious problem and proposes a crazy solution, then it marginalizes him with independents.
But he then had a great idea on MTP: deputize the states to enforce federal law and start deporting people. That’s what the federal government did during Prohibition.
We don’t need to deport all 11 million. Once one or two million get deported, then the rest will self-deport. It’s happening in Alabama already.
The fatal flaw in 9-9-9 is that the sales portion would require a constitutional amendment. Even if Cain made it to the White House, no way 38 states ratify the sales (or VAT, if you want to call it that) tax. Snot gunna happen.
Don’t worry. 9 9 9 couldn’t pass in a million years. It won’t even be brought in front of Congress in any form…just as none of the other tax schemes dreamed up by the fantasists on the right have ever been given a vote.
No politician who has ever successfully run for office would ever propose or vote to raise taxes on 60 to 80% of the country, while drastically lowering taxes on the wealthiest 20%. It’s political suicide, although there is a 5% fringe of the country that loves the concept…particularly those who figure their tax bill will be lowered. On another thread, there is a guy who says he makes $85K a year, and calculates he will come out ok…so he’s for it!! I’m not suggesting people vote their own self interest or anything. Make your own judgeent about that.
Even little Obama isn’t politcally naive enough to propose a scheme like that. Cain will probably be telling the NY Times soon that he was just joking when he put the Republican-party-killing plan on his web-site.
And be careful with the constitutional amendment stuff. I’ve been assured with 100% certainty by an expert commenter on PJM that 9 9 9 is rock solidly constitutional.
That’s why it’s no drawback to electing Cain. What we get out of it is a flat tax.
Count me in as part of the alleged 5% fringe. I’m tired of paying the way for others. Even if Cain doesn’t know it all, he’s gotta be smart enough to hire the right advisors.
Yes, it is a bit of a stretch, he COULD be a Republican Jimmah Cahter if things don’t go well.
I’m willing to take the chance on him instead of a RINO picked by the MSM.
Cain is exactly what our country needs, an honest, hard working man vs the dishonest, lazy one we now have. We need to fight the lies with truth. Keep showing O’s citizen army for what they are. No matter what, ABO is the message. And let’s make sure we rid all of DC of the radicals.
What’s great about the flat-tax proposals:
1. Everybody feels the tax, and feels it all the time. It makes it hard to raise the tax rates then.
2. The costs of compliance are almost eliminated. That alone represents a tremendous source of savings.
3. In principle it is unjust for laws to be too complex even for supposed experts to understand them. The tax code would be shredded.
4. No longer could the tax code be used as a substitute for legislation aimed at promoting the common good — or, more typically, for punishing and rewarding. Taxes should be raised to fund the legitimate objects of government. They should not be raised as a means of altering behavior.
well, if cain gets elected and 9-9-9 runs into trouble, maybe we end up with just hyper-flat personal and corporate taxes, maybe 12-12. cain’s mandate would be revolutionary tax simplification, i think he can find majorities in congress for that.
as for the rest of cain, he could succeed should the government become radically smaller. let’s help cain succeed.
Obama has increased government spending by $1 trillion annually. Obamacare is a crazy new entitlement that will end up costing another $1 trillion annually. Our national debt is equivalent to Greece’s. We have kicked our two best allies in the balls.
Why on earth would anybody support a candidate whose plan to correct the country’s problems is to shuffle the tax burden around.
Cain plan is equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. In addition to being the least qualified person to ever become a serious candidate for presidency in the US, his judgement is abysmal.
Proreason….
Are you saying you want Romney or the Boy from Texas?
Cause they are no better than the Jack wad we have in the white house right now just for different reasons.
In my view at least Cain has actually RUN and turned around a few businesses, and that means he has lived in the REAL world. The rest of the a s s hats have not.
The only other choice is Ron Paul I like him but the big O would be able to beat him and we cant let this administration have an other 4 years !
Gingrich, but Romney would certainly a smarter pick than Cain.
This is a 307 million person country with the most powerful military of all time. Cain’s seems to be a nice guy who was successful running pizza parlors and seems to be conservative, except when he isn’t. After looking at the huge problems the country faces, his “solution” is to raise taxes on 84% of the country and cut taxes in half (or more) on the richest people.
He freely admits that his plan is tax neutral, so somehow, magically, even though no more or less taxes are collected, the economy will skyrocket by 10%, which he has said several times. That’s some kinda magic. But, lots of people seem to want to believe him. Personally, I think he would destroy conservatism for 50 years.
9-9-9 would not require a constitutional amendment. the Federal government can tax retail transactions. Ever buy cigarettes or whiskey? They are subject to direct Federal taxation.
The real problem with 9-9-9 is that it is really 9-18.7, with the big number on retail sales. The 9 % business tax is really a VAT (value added tax, a hidden multilevel sales tax imposed in Europe), the sales tax would be charged on top of that.
An example — Ten dollars worth of goods. The business tax would increase their price to $10.90. The 9% sales tax on the $10.90 would be $0.97. The amount a consumer would pay on $10 worth of goods would be, $11.87. That represents $1.87 tax on $10 worth of goods, and 18.7% tax rate.
I doubt that most folks would be happy about that even if their income taxes went down.
Unfortunately, all too many Americans, even those of the bare majority who do pay federal income taxes, don’t really internalize how much they pay in federal income tax. People just adjust their budget and lifestyle to their take-home pay and think something good has happened when they get some paltry refund from their withheld taxes. I’ve had the damnedest time getting it through my kids’ heads that getting a big refund isn’t a good thing; they’ve just been loaning the government money, money they can’t really spare, at no interest.
Ever buy cigarettes or whiskey?
**Or gas, or electricity, or phone service, or airling tickets, or any number of things.
Your numbers are off. The business tax is a tax on profits, not a tax on revenues. So that $10.90 would most likely be $10.09 as most products have a 10% or lower profit margin. Keeping in mind that busiensses currently already pay taxes (just unevenly) the overall impact on prices would be negligible.
Also, a tax that raises the prices of consumer goods, rather than lowering income, would be a good thing because it would stimulate savings and investment, rather than overconsumption.
Walter’s view of the business tax as another layer of sales tax would be true if the business income tax did not end up lower as a result.The re-packaging of the entire array of taxes that actually end up impacting product pricing is not entirely clear in the 9-9-9 scenario. Without seeing the entire array of taxes that affect cost, analyzing the impact of the proposed tax system on Federal revenue, Federal debt, business stimulation, retail total cost,is not possible.
you ignored the corp tax savings of 30% most of which would reduce prices in a competitive industry.
VAT = a tax levied at all levels of production, including the final sale.
SALES TAX = a tax levied against the final user (purchaser) of a product and/or service.
So, does Cain’s 9-9-9 include a SALES TAX, or a VALUE ADDED TAX?
And, a sales tax is an EXCISE TAX, and is therefore Constitutional, and not requiring a Constitutional Amendment.
Personally, I would be a lot happier if the Federal Govt were financed solely by a Sales Tax, and that the 16th-A were repealed – along with a few other aspects of early 20th-century Progressive nonsense. Which brings me back to a proposal I first encountered in the ’80′s, where the author (whose name escapes me) advocated that all government be financed by three forms of taxation, each unique to that level of government:
Federal – The Sales Tax;
State – The Income Tax;
Local – The Property Tax.
Perhaps the time has come?
Cain could be effective as the Chief Executive Officer of the Executive Branch and probably a sufficient foreign policy and military leader. Legislative giant like Lyndon Johnson? Not so much.
Cain could also be a spokesman for Main Street and bring Main Street sensibilities inside the Beltway. Whether his “bright light” could push the agenda forward would depend on the make-up of Congress.
A truly conservative economic policy is within reach from all the Republican candidates.
Cain is the departure from “business as usual” and a clear voice of the contrast in philosophical approaches Conservatives have from Obama and the Leftists.
Why do we need a Constitutional Amendment to enact a sales tax? A sales tax isn’t a direct tax, so it isn’t prohibited by Article I Section 9. Sure, we might want to pass the Balanced Budget Amendment to keep tax rates in check going forward, but that has nothing to do with 9-9-9 itself.
Mitt Romney is a truly vile man.
He is Obama behind a GOP mask.
He brought in Romneycare, which became the template for Obamacare.
As a businessman, he exported US jobs overseas.
If he is on the ticket, we emigrate.
I don’t like Mass health care either, but he was a gov of a state and that is exactly who we want to handle these matters – don’t we say 50 (or 57 if your talking about arab states) laboratories? He is nothing like obama.
And to you I say BYE! So please leave before the vote cause we don’t need any more like you voting for the devil in office!
nobama, no I don’t want any state to be an incubator of socialism, in fact I think the Constitution forbids it.
Don’t let the door hit ya where the dog bit ya.
If Romney is the candidate I will not leave the country, but I will not vote for him. He’s not an improvement over Obama, he is more of the same thing, but with an R instead of a D.
If he is elected, I predict his “repeal” of Obamacare will look a lot like an attempt to fix it.
He will advance gun control if possible and not support it’s retreat.
His gestures towards AGW will hurt the economy, he will not tell the EPA to shut up and sit on it’s thumbs instead of killing jobs.
Bailouts will continue as the “elite” in the country demand. Romney’s not one for rocking the boat. That’s why proRomney thinks he safe.
Instead it’s why Romney’s a disaster proreason is trying to help happen.
Mitt Romney is a truly vile man.
You mean this Mitt Romney?
1389AD said “Mitt Romney is a truly vile man.
He is Obama behind a GOP mask.
He brought in Romneycare, which became the template for Obamacare.
As a businessman, he exported US jobs overseas.
If he is on the ticket, we emigrate.”
EXACTLY! The man is a GOP version of a PROGRESSIVE and that makes him the same as Obama and his “crew”. He sent this State even further down the Socialist hole than it was headed with “Masshealth” and for some reason this is not discussed in the MSM at all?
“Both are good speakers (Cain is way better). Both are inexperienced. And that lack of experience is the key, key thing.”
Yes, but the fundamental difference between the two is that Cain has experienced many mistakes during his life – and learned from them, came out the other end a better man for it. He has the capacity to adapt. His entire career practically shouts this fact.
Has anyone ever seen Obama take full responsibility for any error, learn a hard lesson, and be the better for it?
That’s a hard enough thing to do if you’re honest with yourself, and possess a modicum of sense and intelligence, moral fiber and willpower. How difficult then is it when you’re a poster-child for accolades given for no work performed, waffling on the blame in any given thing, acting and living like a petulant child grown up?
No, the two are quite different people. I would trust placing the fate of our nation into Cain’s hands. I wouldn’t trust Obama to locate his own ass with a map, a flashlight, and a native guide…
What do you mean by ‘inexperienced’ in reference to Mr. Cain?
What do you consider as ‘experience’?
What is ‘Foreign affairs’?
How is Romney’s lack of military service more qualified than Cain’s?
Where did Romney get his fortune? His Father.
Where did Cain get his fortune? He earned it. Thinking on his feet.
Actually, Romney did not inherit his wealth. He earned it in the private sector. I do not dispute he had advantages — and having George Romney as his father certainly helped. If he is the nominee he wouldn’t be an ideal candidate — but he certainly would be an improvement over the incumbent.
How would he be an improvement over president downgrade?
He worked for the Department of Navy with ballistics, so to say he has no experience with the military is too much.
Wake up before it’ds too late. Romney is Obama lite. He is not moderate, he’s leftist. He is a flip flopping cameleon. He has paid posters all over the blogs trying to make him soud even the slightest bit conservative. He is a newer more polished version of Bob Dole, John McCain and yes…his loser father. (NO MORE RINOs) If you doubt my logic, ask any Republican (except RINO Scott Brown) from Massachusetts
There is no possible path to victory for Romney in the general election.
Obama’s Machine will be an order of magnitude nastier than it was in 2008 — and have you forgotten the voter registration fraud, ballot fraud, illegal campaign contributions, lies and slanders, intimidation, cheating and vandalism of 2008?
Because of the cheating/fraud, the Republican will have to win by a REAL margin of 20% in order to show an “official” margin of 5%. GOP turnout will have to be phenomenal to make this happen. Republicans will need volunteers in record-breaking numbers, with unprecedented degrees of commitment.
But who is it that makes Get Out the Vote efforts happen? Who is it that walks the precincts and makes the phone calls and signs up voters and passes out leaflets? THE BASE.
In case no one’s noticed, the base HATES Romney.
Romney would be the McCain Disaster writ large.
Cain is inexperienced? As what? A professional politician? Good for Cain. Singlehandedly, Herman Cain has pushed a Really Big Issue (tax-reform) to the forefront. In living memory, which Presidential candidate has ever done sucha thing? (New Deal and Great Society legislation don’t count because Roosevelt & Johnson were Executive Democrats dealing with a Congressional majority of subordinate Democrats. Obamacare does not count because that whole affair is an illegal travesty.) So since when have we heard of any Presidential candidate making a big issue a genuinely Big Campaign Issue? Not since Herman Cain. Period.
Thanks cfbleachers. Excellent analysis and outline.
Obama has not only no experience in economics, legal issues, governance, policy and program development, but also, no capacity to understand them or curiosity to explore them. He’s one thing only: a campaigner, someone who lives entirely in Words. Words, words, and more words. Words that are totally alienated from reality and whose meaning is only to manipulate you into submitting to His Will.
Cain is doing well because he’s a realist; his words refer to reality. I’d go for a Romney-Cain ticket. I hesitate about Romney because of his slickness but, he’s skilled at Washington’s levels, has a strong economic background, as does Cain, and is a collaborator and integrator. The two of them would form a great team.
http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/15/this_is_herman_cains_foreign_policy
Cain is somewhat weak on foreign policy. I’m curious what Drezner had to say about Obama who was ten times as weak. And Obama isn’t right minded like Cain.
One other quick, and indisputable point about Cain.
He had only fractional support just a few weeks ago. He only began to pick up steam when other candidates stumbled or dropped out. Perry joined and quickly put his foot in his mouth. Bachman put her foot in her mouth as well. Palin dropped out.
Yet, we now have quite a number of people who are DIEHARD Cain supporters. Interesting. They don’t know much about his plan, which is a tax scheme that doesn’t raise or lower tax revenues, it just makes poor people pay something and rich people pay less. That’s about it. They don’t know much about his background. Even Sean Hannity, who says he has known him for 10 years, wasn’t aware of his background with cancer. I’ll wager that most diehard Cain supporters don’t know how many times he has been married or how many kids he has or hasn’t had, nor that he lost the only election he ever ran in with only 26% of the vote.
Cain’s support arises from three factors. 1) People don’t like Romney because he is a politician from a blue state and hence supported blue-state initiatives because thay were the politically expedient thing to do. In other words, Romney is a politician with a track record that Limbaugh and Levin don’t approve of. 2) The second factor is white guilt. Conservative like having a conservative black candidate. 3) Cain has a confident speaking style. He has made more flubs than any of the other candidates, but they don’t seem to matter to his nouveau diehard supporters. “It isn’t what he says, it’s how he says it.”, as somebody once said about somebody else.
Those are three of the five factors that allowed Obama to beat Clinton in 2008 (the 4th factor was Obama shockingly turned out to be better at lying and cheating than Clinton was, and the 5th was the 24x7x365 support of the msm). Other than willingness to eschew ethics completely, the main difference between Cain’s rise and Obama’s is that Obama was given a free ride for the remainder of the campaign. Maybe Cain will as well. Anybody willing to bet about that? Personally, I’m willing to bet that the msm will be extremely kind to Mr. Cain until the Republican candidate is selected. After that, not so much.
Well, that’s true of any Republican candidate.
Whoever gets nominated can’t count on friendly coverage.
What they can count on, is an endless string of allegations fed to the media by Obama’s opposition research team.
You are right in some ways, but overlook some other things.
Do we know how many marriages he has had? No. We do know he has a track-record of success. Is Cain an ingenue in politics? Yes. His foreign policy is nonsense, jumbled. I accept that. Cain accepts that. I’d worry if he thought he knew foreign affairs, when he clearly doesn’t, like Obama did. It doesn’t make me happy, though. I expect he’ll approach it with some care, once in office. Cain is not inexperienced. He is politically inexperienced.
I think the reason you are seeing such “die-hard” support now, is because the filing deadline has passed, and the field is set. One has to choose a horse in this race. One looks at the negatives, and decide which ones you can live with.
The naked ambition and political opportunism of so many others makes me a bit sick. Personally, I think Santorum is the best man in the race, although he lacks exec experience, but he has the wrong message for these times. He doesn’t get it, so he has no chance. Paul is looney at times, a zealot. They are all 2nd-tier candidates. I just want someone who knows it and will, “first, do no harm”. 2020 will look very different. We just have to get there from here. President Cain will just have to be enough.
No. I just don’t see it. Now that Gov. Palin has backed out. The choice is between Govs. Perry and Romney. Barring a bolt out of the blue. That being so, winning the Senate and chastening as many rinos as possible will be the order of the day.
“Do we know how many marriages he has had?”
30 seconds of Wikipedia, and you’d know he’s been married to one woman, the mother of his children, for over 40 years.
For some reason, I expected VDH readers to be less passive about acquiring information than the vast majority of the electorate. Huh.
I’m not a die-hard Cain supporter. And yet I know that he has been married once, with two kids.
I also know he’d be a trillion times better than Obama. Also – I like him. Don’t discount the likability factor.
I like him a lot. And it’s not any freaking “white guilt” factor. I just like the man. I’ve seen him speak in person. Is it okay if I like him, even though I’m white?
That sounds to me quite a bit like Janeane Garofolo or whoeverthefolo she is: “The fact that they like him is proof they’re racist.” Except you are suggesting that the fact that people like him is (at least for a large portion of people) “proof that they’re full of white guilt.”
How about just – the guy is likable? Can a person just be likable or not likable, or do we always have to look at his color, first and then our own, and if our own is different from his, then liking or not liking are illegitimate? I.e., must be either guilt or racism instead?
I don’t think so. I like Herman Cain a lot, and it’s entirely because I just do. He’s very likable.
There are 300 million American’s more qualified than Obama. Do you have a point?
Of the 9 Republican CANDIDATES, Cain is, by far, the least qualified to run the country. It isn’t even close.
And he is the least electable candidate as well. Electability doesn’t have anything to do with conservative orthodoxy. People will not vote to raise their own taxes, and no American President, other than military leaders, has ever been elected with no governing experience. Despite what you think, Cain comes across as a conservative idealogue (and a wild man to boot); moreso than any other candidate. Cain would be lucky to get 40% of the vote, and would only get that high because of disgust with Obama. Watch what the administration has to say about Cain and his crazy 9 9 9 “soak the poor” tax plan. Nothing. They haven’t made a single comment, and they won’t because they are rubbing their hands in glee. They couldn’t in their wildest dreams have invented a plan that sets Obama up better for reelection. Pretty soon, the msm will be maneuvering Cain into saying something stupid about Social Security as well.
I worry about all those things, Proreason. I don’t disagree with you on a lot of them.
I said I wasn’t a rabid pro-Cain person.
I’m just saying, I LIKE him. You really can’t analyze that on some sort of race level.
I’d be happy to have him for president. We do get to disagree there, you know.
Cain’s support arises from three factors. 1) People don’t like Romney because he is a politician from a blue state and hence supported blue-state initiatives because thay were the politically expedient thing to do. In other words, Romney is a politician with a track record that Limbaugh and Levin don’t approve of.
No. Romney’s a true believer in state run and supplied healthcare. His promise to repeal Obamacare is a pander he doesn’t believe in.
He believes in gun control by local and the national governments, although the constitution forbids it.
He believes there is an elite which should govern, and he’ll bail out their bankers as required. He will not reform either government expenditures or funds raising substantially.
You imagine that is why he is a safe candidate. It is why he is a disaster. Business as usual cannot continue, and Romney represents nothing if not business as usual.
“2) The second factor is white guilt. Conservative like having a conservative black candidate.”
ROTFLMAO. I don’t think most of us give a d–n what color his skin is. To the extent it’s an electoral plus, great.
“3) Cain has a confident speaking style. He has made more flubs than any of the other candidates, but they don’t seem to matter to his nouveau diehard supporters.”
He’s educable. Romney’s dyed in the wool RINO, unimprovable. His whole career is one flub after another.
I’m one independent who will never vote for Romney. He is a classical case of the political chameleon who’ll say or do whatever it takes to get the office. We already have one of those, and I’d like to try something different, myself. I like Cain, and he’s honest enough to admit when he’s ignorant on an issue- when do you see that in Washington? Even more, he owes NOTHING to the RINO establishment in the Capitol, and that’s a big plus, too. And I’ll be he doesn’t bow to foreign despots, either!
If that is your attitude, Hussein will continue to wreck the country for another four years.
As for me, I join the Instapundit in pledging that I will vote for a syphilitic camel, rather than allow Hussein to be re-elected.
Mr. Cain has a beautiful wife, to whom he has been married for 44 years. He also has two lovely grown children, a boy and a girl. He actually lived the American Dream. Work hard and succeed, not hardly work and take all you can get!
Forgive me for criticizing this
In fact, in many ways I believe that Herman Cain is precisely what Barack Obama pretended to be and what the independents and moderates voted for in the last election.
but from what I appear to be witnessing, it is that Herman Cain used his hands to lift himself up in life whereas Obama used his hands to appeal for handouts.
Wrong! Cain is not a “Do-over” vote! How I hate that type of thinking. Look, if we did a sort of blind-taste-test and only heard computerized voices of the candidates answers to debate questions, Herman would win hands down because he is providing ideas and answers that are practical. Other than Newt, the others seem stuck in some campaign paradigm that is like watching “Ground Hog Day”, over and over again.
In fact, everyone criticizes his economic plan but everyone knows the system is broken but won’t take “BOLD” action to fix anything. I think Cain as president with Newt as VP, supported with a strong Cabinet for foreign policy, etc. could overcome anything that Barry has yet to deal with effectively. Why? Because Herman Cain is willing to learn and admits he does not know all, unlike the current WH resident. The man talks common sense and oozes action. And his past is an open book, unlike someone else we know, er, I mean think we know.
I have a quiet and long-standing personal rule – Watch and listen carefully to what people joke about and ridicule. It speaks volumes. I knew Barry as a fake from day 1.
PJM, I, too, recognized him for what he was from the first minute I laid eyes on him. I just never could get my mind around the fact that everybody else couldn’t see what I saw.
Me neither, and I still can’t.
They did not want to see it. Also, there are some who amazingly still do not know that O’s words in no way match his deeds. He has no problem using words to deceive.
Hey what is that thingie on his nose, is it a wart or a mole?
Your current litany of Obama history serves us all, as usual, since those who forget history are doomed —
And, then you have to go and say that “The skeptics of 2008 proved prescient; those who demonized them, should be embarrassed.”
It’s impossible for leftists, these days, at least since Slick Willie, to be “embarrassed”.
Shame is not available as a mode of being for people like Obama and his ilk, since they take themselves to be infallible. Amorality will act as it IS.
Isn’t it rich that the “Hope and CHANGE” candidate, Obama, is so rigidly programmed in his radical ways that HE can’t seem to CHANGE how he plays president, even as failure after failure arise, due to his acts?
As he lurches to his base of hard left supporters, the nation is getting the exponentially growing exposure of the naked truth about him and his “tribe”—
They are Shiva, or the Destroyer, aspect of reality in nugatory action—enjoy it, America!
Clarification is GOOD!
Great post. Every observation is correct. “Shame is not available as a mode of being…” So true. And the irony of a “change” candidate who is incapable of change is indeed cosmic. It is also interesting that you mentioned Shiva, the Destroyer. I am not a biblical literalist, but as I was reading Prof. Hanson’s excellent analysis, I was thinking that what is unfolding lends itself to other levels of analysis. For instance… I think that the people at the very top, the George Soros’ and the Bill Ayers’ want death and mayhem above all else. What I mean is that they do seek power, absolute power, but it is primarily in order so that they may destroy whatever they gaze upon. It is almost as if the Satanic prophecies of old are coming true. That is to say that a force of will, a will that is pure evil, is seeking to birth itself and assume power over the Earth.
It is different from previous monolithic forces that have afflicted mankind in a few ways. For one thing it is highly premeditated. Though diffused throughout society, it is not really organic, but rather the product of a long-standing, conscious effort to impose a new social, political and economic order on the world. Yet it is leaderless. That is to say that there is no great charismatic, conquering leader that has openly swayed the population to follow him. No Alexander, no Mohammed, no Napoleon, no Lenin… (In this context, Obama is a mere simulacrum). Rather it seeks to insinuate itself through stealth, lies and seduction; rather like the Serpent.
It is Totalitarian in that it seeks control of the “commanding heights” of the world’s production
and distribution. It wants to control what the individual can consume, and how the individual can communicate. It wants to be the arbiter of what is true and what is a lie. It even wants to control our beliefs and our dreams. Any force that pursues these ends does not love mankind, rather it hates mankind, and seeks to deny the thing that makes us unique: the ability to choose.
It’s appetites are bottomless and unending. It corrupts everything it touches, turns men against men, sows fear and poverty, ignorance and violence.
Above all else it seeks the destruction of the United States, because that is the biggest obstacle in its path preventing it from fully manifesting, and plunging mankind into a fathomless abyss. Europe is almost lost. China and Russia are already in the monster’s grip. The Islamic world is battling demons of its own, Africa and Latin America are up for grabs…
So yes, clarification IS good. Good and Evil seem to be squaring off against each once more, we really do seem to be entering a battle of Light vs. The darkness. The darkness of global, totalitarian rule by a corrupt, amoral elite. And Obama is the avatar of that darkness.
Thanks, doc, for reminding us who the enemy is, even if, in your charming way, you coyly soft-peddle the malignant reign of Obama.
Let’s be a bit more blunt.
His cabal has usurped two centuries of the greatest, most moral, most wealth-creating, most human-rights loving country that has ever existed. We have been “transformed” from a hard-working, optimistic, broad-shouldered, life-loving cultural melting pot into a dependent, depressed, can’t do, life fearing mix of warring constituencies. In 3 years.
The country that fought a monumental war to free its own slaves is reduced to turning as many of its own citizens into serfs in 3 years as has ever happened in history. The country that fought off a Great Depression and in an instant developed a war machine that defeated the two next greatest armies in history in 4 years is reduced to lobbing missiles at 2-bit tin-horn dictators, which we call “kinetic action” in a grotesque parody of national interest. The country that held together from 1946 to 1989 fighting a multiple front hot/cold/lukewarm war against a Communist menace from multiple enemy countries bows down to two generation removed goat herders, in order to beg for pennies off on the price of oil, while sitting on, but refusing to drill for, the greatest fossil fuel resources on the planet.
And now, after just three years of this horror, Obama alone is the person who stands in the way of restoring sanity to this great country. Yet his legacy eats at us even as we approach digging his bullet out of our bodies. For some unbelievable reason, we bicker about whether one of eight presidential candidates is more pure than the others, and shout at each other that we will allow the Marxist in Chief to remain in place if our own preferred purist doesn’t emerge victorious with the honor of facing the Menace, assuming we haven’t damaged him enough to allow little lenin to retain his throne.
Obama is the most dangerous person on earth since Mao died. The paramount goal has to be to defeat him.
Amen
Amen, especially to the last paragraph.
Disagree he’s the only block to “returning us to the path”.
He’s backed by at least 200 million mouth breathing serfs bred by three generations of perfidious teachers.
Of course you are right. I was trying to point out that the Tea Party has set in motion the mechanisms to reverse the tide and that Obama can stop it if he is reelected.
As you say, it will take much more than a big victory in 2012 to really reverse the tide, because so many americans have been co-opted already by the marxists.
“we bicker about whether one of eight presidential candidates is more pure than the others, and shout at each other that we will allow the Marxist in Chief to remain in place if our own preferred purist doesn’t emerge victorious with the honor of facing the Menace, assuming we haven’t damaged him enough to allow little lenin to retain his throne.”
Indeed. It’s as if the malignant narcicissm that is the essence of Obama has rubbed off just a bit. It’s as if some among us have adopted his divisive, petulant temprament.
We badly need someone who is the polar opposite to lead us. Someone who is positive, motivating, uniting. Cain shows these qualities. So what if he is a bit of a “diamond in the rough.”
It has been a lot more than three years. The communists had a firm grip on the literary and academic elite by the ’20s. Remember, “We have seen the future and it works?” By the ’30s they owned academia and much of the media and entertainment. By the ’40s they had a pretty firm grip on the federal and several state governments. They had a setback in the late ’40s with Taft-Hartley reining in their primary source of money and muscle, the unions and with the anti-communism of Eisenhower and Kennedy. They they sprung to full action with the civil rights movement, largely communist led, and the anti-draft/anti-war movements, almost entirely communist led. With the end of the draft and passage of civil rights legislation combined with the co-opting of many “civil rights leaders,” they lost their impetus and in large measure adopted the Gramsci strategy of controlling the institutions. With the shrinking manufacturing economy, the unions were no longer of much use to them except some of the legacy CIO unions such as UAW (autos) and IAM (aerospace/defense) so they went after the public employee unions. If you want to know what happened to the SDS of the ’60s look at the staff and apparachnik level of the big public employee unions in the ’80s and ’90s. By the ’90s they had most unionized public employees and the Democrat Party with Clinton, who never has adequately explained his sojourn in the Soviet Bloc. The Clintons, and she is the real radical, would have been more “transformative” then BHO, but the Country wasn’t ready for them and they overplayed their had with HillaryCare. So, they reloaded, got some allies in international finance, trotted out their Red Diaper Baby, and in November ’08 staged a coup d’etat. And, frankly, as much as I enjoy these discussion of an election that while portentious should come off as routinely as all the American elections before it, I cannot make myself totally comfortable that there will be an election in November ’12, or if there is one and the Left is defeated that they will accept the result. And by “accept” I don’t mean just complain about a “stolen” election like they did with Bush/Gore, I mean actively, violently if necessary, resist an unfavorable outcome.
Yes. I was speaking in shorthand. It’s been a long march through American institutions. They probably got ahead of themselves with Obama and regret it, since his election quickly woke up parts of the country that had been soundly sleeping.
I also agree that 2012 won’t be a routine election. If we get a presidential candidate who can win (they no longer need the Congress), they will pervert the process, either by pumping up their typical LieCheatSteal methods or wagging the dog with one or more artificially induced crises. If the Republican candidate appears to be a clear winner, they will start a war or create a massive new economic crisis. In my view, that is a given since they have already done it in 2008.
How much worse could the economy get, and as for wars hasn’t this already happened with Libya or now Uganda. No those things do not matter, it is the unemployment rate and foreclosures that will happen in the next election.
The jobs plan is just words…how does someone who has never held a real job create one? They do not and that is why Obama will lose, all that the republicans need to do is emphasis that fact.
Cain can and Obama cain’t!
Thank you proreason. I am going to cut and paste your post (with attribution) to my son, a college senior studying Int. Relations. He was fortunate to have heard Dr. Hanson speak on his campus last year. Said, “that guy was great.”
And you don’t seem to understand that we have one shot to fix this. If we elect a liberal or a lukewarm conservative, IT’S OVER, THE REPUBLIC IS DEAD. Arguing over electability is pointless because if we can’t win with a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who will REVERSE Obama’s actions and hack and slash our government, WE LOSE. President Romney means WE LOSE. We have to go for broke, because if we have to wait 8 or 12 more years to elect a conservative, we are done. Stop looking for a path to retreat, because it doesn’t exist! If we hold anything back, it’s over! Let’s go with the most orthodox conservative we can muster, and present America with a choice: freedom or fascism.
And last I checked, Obama was counting on the IRS to enforce Obamacare, so near as I can tell, anything that weakens the IRS is a good thing.
They should be embarrassed? Ha! Meanwhile, over at Daily Kos where I lurk a lot and troll a little, the Disillusioned Masses are daily complaining about Obama’s betrayal. Mr. Hanson hit on three points that they lament constantly: that Obama is elitist, politically naive, and insincere. Another complaint that he didn’t hit is that he has kicked his constituencies in the teeth — the GLBT movement, environmentalists, pacifists, and the anti-business crowd to name a few.
And are they embarrassed? Do any of them ever say, “Dang, the Rethuglicans were right about him.” Heheheheh. For a while, every time I saw one of those threads about the disappointment of Obama I would post this quote from Charles Krauthammer: The palpable apprehension is that the anointed is a stranger – a deeply engaging, elegant, brilliant stranger with whom the Democrats had a torrid affair. Having slowly woken up, they see the ring and wonder who exactly they married last night. — August 2008
I got banned.
Yes, except it was only conservatives who saw thru Obama, but 18 million Hillary supporters, who were called every dirty name in the book by the mainstream media.
Amen, Sister. Some of my white liberal feminist friends are still not speaking to me because I supported Hillary over The Won. I learned a lot about the Democratic Party in 2008 and how far they were willing to go to prop BHO up and resist efforts to vet him. He’s an unmitigated disaster–for the country and his party–and his performance in the debates should have been enough to disqualify him. In the final analysis, will the real bigots be the people who held him to a lower standard?
How very democratic of them to ban you.
“I got banned.”
Oh, those “open-minded,” “big-hearted” libbies showing their true colors again. I had to laugh some years ago at the admonition posted over at the Democratic Underground website to the effect that conservatives were not welcome to join. I don’t know whether or not it’s still there. At least they were open about their disdain for contrasting POVs.
I hope you manage somehow to get back into the Kos.
“except to the extent of gradually unifying around opposition to Obama, who now polls around 40% approval and is heading to Bush levels in three rather than seven years.”
Keep in mind that it was Seven Years of CONSTANT Drumbeat from the MSM as to how horrible things were under Bush regardless of what people could see with their own eyes vs. Three Years of “All is Right with the World” from those same MSM types trying to prop up this Disaster he calls a presidency.
Who are you going to believe?
The MSM or your own lyin’ eyes?
From my “list of lines I wish John Wayne had said”:
“Well, from where I stand all I can say is for all you warmed over smart-alecks who sit around and complain about things and how bad the leadership is; How’s it feel when it really happens? Or are you so completely stupid as well as blind to not realize that you’ve been had? Stings a bit doesn’t it? The truth always does when it takes this long.”
Well, it would’ve sounded great if the Duke had said it. But I could also imagine Hank Fonda having a go at it or perhaps Robert Mitchum. All could deliver a thoughtful zinger with the correct tone for maximum impact. Those were the days.
I am not as intimately familiar with the Peloponnsian Wars as many in this company; which lack probably marks me as part of the slow class in this group. But the implications of what you say seem clear to me.
Even if we defeat the current regime, electorally or otherwise; they are going to claim [and maybe even believe] that they have a moral, political, and coercive right to rule over us and punish us for our defiance. If we accept this, if we give it any credence at all, we deserve what will come. No mercy can accompany a Patriot victory, nor tolerance and forgiveness of what has transpired in the past and what they would do to us in the future; if we allow them the least means of doing so. We know them by what they have claimed in the past, and what they have actually done.
I am more familiar with English history; and one of my heroes of the period of the English Civil Wars is James Graham; 5th Earl and 1st Marquis Montrose, the King’s Lord Lieutenant in Scotland. Aside from being one of the greatest generals of his age [his victory at Tippermuir when outnumbered 5-1 by forces armed with cannon and firearms against his swords and bows is a classic]; he was both a True Covenanter and yet the King’s most loyal supporter. For while he upheld the religious rights of the people over Royally compelled subservience to quasi-Papist doctrine [and all that defiance implied]; he realized that the nobles leading the Scottish Covenant were more dedicated to dismembering and looting Scotland than anything else. The King was the only counterweight to what would happen to the Scots if the nobles won.
Your post reminds me somehow of Montrose’s personal banner carried in battle. A mountain lion leaping from one crag to another. With the motto below of “Nil Medium” … No Middle Ground. If we are to survive as a free people, there can be no middle ground, no compromise with the Enemy.
Subotai Bahadur
I am even less familiar with English history, yet I seem to recall that pretenders were swiftly beheaded over there.
The exact opposite of Romney. Romney is middle ground. Swampy, pestilential.
1. The smartest guy in the room, has to hide his college records. What does that tell you about him?
2. He hides just about any scrap of information about his past, including his employment records while his allies jetted up to Wasilla to pore through Palin’s email’s. Mr. transparent is very opaque.
3. People in their 40′s make terrible presidents. Confirmed with Obummer.
4.Mr. Hope N Change has become Mr. Dispair.
5. Obummer’s association with radicals is showing in all his policies. The healthcare, Dodd Frank and the stimulus bill all accomplish this goal. The
people didn’t pay attention to his Joe the Plumber moment about spreading the wealth. Now he’s spreading your prosperity.
6. Mr. Peace Prize has us involved in plenty of wars: Pakistan & Yemen via drones. Libya with his bombing missions. And now Uganda with “advisers”. And just where is Code Pink these days? Why aren’t they demonstrating?
7. And you know what is about the most disturbing thing about Obummer? He simply has no compassion for the people he has put through all this misery.
Don’t pay attention to the man behind the green curtain…
“People in their 40′s make terrible presidents.”
Not all of them.
Theodore Roosevelt became President at age 42.
His likeness ended up on Mount Rushmore.
I never could figure out why. His historical importance is not commensurate to that of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.
Washington and Jefferson deserved to be there.
Lincoln and TR, not so much.
But then, I’m a Constitutionalist.
I was referring only to Lincoln’s historical importance. His unconstitutional methods of governance are another story. FDR, for instance, was of great historical importance, but I deny he was the great man our clerics who call themselves teacher call him.
I was referring only to Lincoln’s historical importance. His unconstitutional methods of governance are another story. FDR, for instance, was of great historical importance, but I deny he was the force for good our clerics who call themselves teachers assert he was.
I find the hagiography of Presidents disgusting in a constitutional republic based on the protection of the People’s individual rights. We should remove all presidents from our coinage and replace them with the allegorical representations of Liberty and the Republican Eagle that graced it up until 1909,with the introduction of the Lincoln Cent.
History has made its judgment.
After a century of such judgment, you would need to amass a huge amount of evidence to refute that judgment.
If you have that much, you should either write a book or a Ph.D. dissertation.
History has made its judgement. Who’s that? Gutzon Borglum?
Only individuals make judgements; majority opinion is not necessarily good judgement.
Apart from him hiding his grades, apparently there is a motion in Congress to keep his grades forever secret after he leaves office, he and his wife surrendered their licenses to practice law in Illinois.
Now this really stumps me.
After watching Bill lose his in a fight over the “I did not have s….” lie to the nation I am intrigued as to what would provoke such an act from the “Editor” of the Harvard Law Review.
There actually is a technical legal reason for the Obama’s surrendering their law licenses. Michelle surrendered her’s when she went to work in one of Bill Ayers foundations, it meant that she no longer had to pay licensing fees, or pay for continuing education. The more cynical of us, might wonder why those fees weren’t picked up by the foundation, or whether her duties at foundation would have been in conflict with her duties as an “officer of the court”. At that time the laws in Illinois, required that it (the license) be suspended by the court, hence the rumor that her license was revoked under court order, for malfeasance. Barak Obama “retired”, again he avoids the fees and requirements for continuing education, as well as any duties or responsibilities as an “officer of the courts”.
Neither Bill or Hillary Clinton gave up their law licenses. Later, Bill lost his for perjury in the Monica case, I believe. Officers of the Court are presumed to be held to higher standards then the average citizen. Perhaps in a rare moment of self awareness both Obamas realized that neither could comply with higher standards of personal, ethical, and professional conduct.
I believe also that he has sealed all his presidential records so we can’t even peruse them, but we have ween the results of his policies and those of his appointments to cabinet and czars and regulatory agencies… it is an absolute disaster from caint to can!
Dennis Green’s famous assessment of the Chicago Bears sums up what Obama’s critics knew in 2008:
“They are who we thought they were.”
Video to help make the point. BTW, the media crowned Obama’s a$$. And McCain let him off the hook.
I just hope against all hope within my truest heart of hearts that America can survive this very harsh lesson.
If America falls, the world is doomed.
Obama is everything his history and experience indicated he would be in 2008. This epic failure is the result his supporters in the media and on the Left berated and branded us “raaaacists” for even considering as possible to come forth from their demigod. We have been proven right and they, dead wrong. They should receive a black eye for their miserable miscalculation for as long as his failure continues to haunt the nation.
I’ve got a niece in Vegas, an avowed liberal. We got an e-mail about her joining the Occupy Vegas demonstration. See, here is what is wrong with these people. If you are gonna occupy anything in Vegas, occupy the Bellagio, the Venetian, the Mirage etc. You see, you can’t teach a fool a darn thing.
Maybe not quite so foolish. Those casinos are Private Property. With Private Security, that doesn’t have to ‘Play Nice’ with the occupiers. And maybe most importantly out of the view of the media. No sir, smart little radicals stay in public areas. And deal with Public Servants under the watchful eye of the media.
The European Occupiers aren’t limiting themselves to public property. They are doing a lot of smash and grab. Only our society is so civil that it goes out of its way not react to anarchy. Its funny that this country spawned such an international phenomena. Its part of the Post Modern World where anything can go viral. It shows you that if you don’t nip something in the bud, the bud will turn around and nip you. It sort of reminds me of Hitler’s burning of the Reichstag which was the excuse he used to attack and destroy his opposition. It looks eerily familiar.
Not so “civil” anymore. Read Mary Grabar’s story on the Atlanta occupiers.
When they tried to invade Emory University Midtown Hospital’s grounds, the security guards warned them they were trespassing on private property. They kept coming, drumming and raising a chant of “Private property is public property”.
They spent over an hour blocking EMT squad and ambulance access to the hospital. Their “complaint”? That Emory U was buying the homeless shelter across the street. No intention of closing it; EU was just going to be running it, in cooperation with the hospital.
Apparently this was just more “private enterprise” than the occupiers could stomach. Therefore, blockading the hospital- thereby putting patients’ lives at risk- seemed like a good idea to them.
As John W. Campbell said in a 1965 “Analog” editorial, a mob is a dangerous weapon, and those who seek to destroy our civilization are well-versed in its use.
clear ether
eon
They’ve got good teachers: The puppetmeister availed himself of the opportunity in 1944 to learn how to take occupancy of other people’s property.
The interesting thing is that Obama’s left-wing supporters at Daily KOS and the other lefty hangouts had hoped and expected that all of Obama’s rhetoric about unifying the country was just thrown in to attract middle-class voters. They said so in diaries and comments on diaries. And they hoped that once elected, Obama would ditch all that soothing rhetoric and be the rabid fighting partisan they always hoped for.
Divisive as Obama has been, the Left has been greatly disappointed that he wasn’t even more divisive. (“Why hasn’t Obama tried Dick Cheney for war crimes yet?” “We thought all that talk about trying to reach common ground was just thrown in to get votes!”)
These young lefties have displayed considerable cynicism about how much Obama had to lie to win the election, which contrasts with all that idealistic talk of “hope and change.” But you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, you know the routine.
Obama will go to jail if he loses the election. Unlike Clinton, who spread graft around, not just to Republican office-holders but to key interest groups (oil/gas, manufacturers, housing, real estate, Wall Street) Obama has done the reverse, he has made everyone save GE and Buffett far poorer.
Machiavelli advised it is better to kill a man than simply make him poor, because a man will forgive the murder of his parents sooner than being made poor. Most CEOs have compensation in stock and stock options, real estate folks are down, 401Ks are down, the market volatility is horrendous.
Obama faces with Solyndra and Fast/Furious what Clinton did not with Whitewater: jail. Not just for him but for Axelrod, for Jarrett, for Holder, and likely Michelle Obama. Recall Whitewater got no one killed, Fast and Furious got a serving Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry murdered. All to create a push for gun controls and bans.
Thus Obama having made many enemies, and few friends, never thinking he would lose the House (and maybe even the Senate) faces jail if he loses the election. His plan?
IMHO, Alberto Fujimori. Not perhaps the A plan, or B plan, or even C plan. But undoubtedly the D plan. Plan D from Barack Obama! There has been a concerted effort to lay the groundwork. Declare some emergency. Get five votes from the Supremes. The JCS will go along (useless time-servers and yes that DEFINITELY includes Petraeus who is a political boot-licker). So too the media. Don’t forget the President can now by decree kill any American citizen by secret finding anywhere, including in the US. He’s got the Occupy folks and union thugs and New Black Panthers ready as well, to bust heads. One man, one vote, one time.
Probably not.
Governors control the national guard. The regular military is sworn to protect the constitution of the united states, and to obey all lawful orders. Far more likely would be to have the military ensure timely elections and a smooth transition of power if needed. The last thing that the left wants is a few national guardsmen in every polling place to ensure a peaceful election, and provided ballot security.
I suspect that the ONE sees riots in the streets as a mobilizer for the left to get historic non-voters to turn out and vote for their handouts. He has a problem there as well. This is not a single national election decided by the overall popular vote, it is 50 elections in 50 states. His demographics are skewed, if he succeeds in mobilizing all the former non-voters (doubtful at best) he’ll overwhelmingly win between 200 and 230 electoral votes and lose anyway.
Prepare for an ugly 14 months, possibly a dangerous 14 months, but in January 2013 power will transition out of Obama’s hands.
He won’t go to prison. He won’t be charged. He’ll grant himself and his administration blanket pardons for all crimes discovered and undiscovered and leave us to pay for his retirement. Even if he doesn’t, no president is going to allow the criminal inditement and trial of an unimpeached predecessor, that would harm the power of the office beyond measure.
A criminal president cannot pardon himself before or after the fact!
A pardon to yourself is insane as you are a criminal try going to any courthouse and state that I pardon myself and see where that gets you, other than a big horse laugh!
Obmama is now a one and done and in the circular file of awful and in this case corrupt presidents, it was a good try while it lasted but it is over now FOR GOOD!
No, but he could resign on January 19, 2013 and have Biden pardon him. No one seems to have implicated Biden in anything illegal, so he has nothing to lose except face, and if he plans on retiring in obscurity, I doubt he much cares if people hate him for it. He’ll get to be President for a day, save Obama’s ass, and then retire.
I’ve been predicting O. will resign in mid-2012. That would make 42 months in office, which is biblically significant, and jibes with a narrative that an anti-pope reigns 7 years (Mr. Ratzinger was promoted in 2005).
Despite all of this, I don’t think it’s divine….. It’s only an act.
“The skeptics of 2008 proved prescient; those who demonized them should be embarrassed. And we should remember that candidates, of both parties, will govern mostly as they campaign. Slips are not indiscretions, but often will prove in hindsight windows of the soul.”
And so many people today are shocked, shocked mind you, that this inexperienced fraud is a total disaster. Well, it does prove the point that experience in government DOES count for something. Our economy is terrible, our debt is a disaster, and the results of all this spending have been horrific. The world is also on the edge of exploding. We have one chance to stop all of this, and that is in November of 2012. If we don’t do it, this country, and everything it ever stood for, is finished. It could be the most important election in the past 100 years.
“proves that experience in government does count for something.”
Well, that lets Cain out.
Sorry, Sir, some of us weren’t skeptics; we knew exactly what he was and what he planned. I spent a career dealing with public employee unions. I had a copy of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals on my and every member of my staff’s desks in the mid-90s. The communists took over the public employee unions in the late ’80s, early ’90s. By the mid-90′s they’d used their control of the public employee unions to take over the AFL-CIO. Once they had the AFL-CIO, the Democrat Party’s cash cow, they had the Democrat Party by the mid-’00s. Then they trotted out the Red Diaper Baby they’d been grooming.
The first time I laid eyes on him with his ’04, was it, Convention speech, I said to myself, “I know you; you’re the one they think they can dress up and fool the massess.” I hate to have been so right.
You are so intellectually deficient! Do you read more than Fox News and slogans? Quit being so mentally lazy and make an honest effort to determine the facts. Any moron can shout out nonsense! The old “fear game”!!
New, everything Art said could easily be footnoted and proven as fact. Perhaps you, my dear, are the one being used by some very dangerous radical, lying leftists.
Oh, how I know it; I have “intellectual dysfunction.” I just never could get my consciousness raised and it REALLY was an impediment to getting laid in college. Then I learned to fake it. Hippie chicks gave Stop, Drop, and Roll all new meaning so I could rap Marx with the best of them if it would get me in that sugar doughnut.
“The first time I laid eyes on him with his ’04, was it, Convention speech, I said to myself, ‘I know you; you’re the one they think they can dress up and fool the massess.’ I hate to have been so right.”
Bingo. Exactly my sentiments, and I mean precisely. Obama’s the protege of Alinskyites, who dresses up nice and looks snappy and unthreatening to the middle class. And yes, I saw it in 2004.
Sorry, that “Anonymous” comment was from me. Sigh. I’d comment more here if you didn’t have to type in your info every time you do it.
One of the lasting injuries Ebola has made is the stupid idea that people without political experience will make bad Presidents.
The people with political experience created all the problems we have. They made government bigger and more tyrannical. Never look to them to fix it.
The only people who can shrink the Federal Government are outsiders, people with little or no experience in Federal Office. They must be radicals and ready to cut off the Federal parasite.
Do not make the mistake of thinking someone like Romney is the anti-dote to Ebola. Romney is toxic too.
Do not learn the wrong lesson from Ebola. His lack of official experience was not and is not the problem; the fact he is a Marxist is the problem.
A less-marxist Republican President will do us no good at all.
We need a radical anti-Marxist President, or WAF.
Buck, you write “We have been proven right and they, dead wrong. They should receive a black eye for their miserable miscalculation for as long as his failure continues to haunt the nation.”
Check with some of your liberal friends and I fear that you will find that they haven’t one ounce of feeling that they have been proven dead wrong. In the liberal’s mind you are wrong, possibly even stupid, for even suggesting that they have been “proven” wrong. Nothing is wrong. They will vote for him once again with even greater determination than before. It is less a problem to end the career of the liberal politician than it is to destroy the mindset of the liberal that supports such fools. That’s the essential part of the ultimate victory equation that I feel ain’t gonna happen.
Saw a brand new bumper sticker on a car at the gym last week:
“It’s Working. You’re Welcome. Obama 2012″
So, Yooper, you are of course right.
Depends on how you define liberal. You are correct about the hard core left, they will vote for him again even though they see him as a compromiser. If we include self-described liberals, there are a large number who see his election as a mistake and will not be voting for him in 2012, regardless of the Republican nominee who they will not be voting for either.
We are going to see the most impressive set of negative coattails in history.
Paraphrasing someone that I read recently: The Country will survive electing a President like Obama, but it may not survive having an electorate that elected him. Too true!
Yep.
According to the Gallup poll, some 78% of self-described liberals still support Obama’s re-election.
– proposes to lead the OWS crusade parade. And if persons get killed, will the court press let him slink away?
Dr. VDH write about Obama: “Obama knew very little about foreign affairs, or perhaps even raw human nature as it plays out in power politics abroad.” That can be said about a certain contender for the Republican nomination. Initials: HC.
Dr. VDH omitted one more thing about Obama that was just as telling: His association with terrorists Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn.
Finally, as a follow-up to Yooper @18: My neighbor next door who decried to me Palin’s inexperience but had no trouble voting for the woefully inexperienced O, and is now defending him to me. When I listen to my neighbor (who BTW is an economist and should know better) I hear the columnists of the NYT, in particular Paul Krugman (as in, the stimulus was not big enough). My answer has been, show me the counterfactual. I’m still waiting. Yooper’s statement, which follows, regarding such people is dead-on: ‘In the liberal’s mind you are wrong, possibly even stupid, for even suggesting that they have been “proven” wrong. Nothing is wrong. They will vote for him once again with even greater determination than before.’
Having been a quality manager in a manufacturing company for some years I’m OK with being demonized for pointing out that some idiot is wrong about something. Happened at least once a month. They aren’t going to apologize. They aren’t smart enough to know they are wrong. I called Barry the Kid the Ivy League Huey Long way before George Will did. Most of my liberal friends didn’t know who the Kingfish was. Schoen and Rasmussen don’t know who killed him and they got paid to write a book.
What will media trolls do next year when the Obama campaign goes gutter dirty? Will they see this as just part of the price that has to be paid to get him reelected? 2012 could turn out to be a very difficult year for the lib media.
VDH – great article. I’ve emailed it off to many of my friends and family members. Every time you write an article in this vein we see a different facet of Obama we haven’t seen or thought of before. I appreciate your writing style – concise and to the point. Makes sense even to liberals if they care to open their minds just a little – the hypocrisy of the left is staggering. Ignoring Obama’s many faults is like ignoring a thumb you just smashed with a hammer. It ain’t easy.
I sent the link to my nephew I’ve labeled ‘Parrot’. You know the type – “Bush lied people died”.
Obama seems to be embracing the ’99%’ idea from the Wall Street occupiers. Seems like a man grasping at straws.
Does he really think those 99%ers will put wind in his sails? He’ll need to lay the Bank & Wall Street problems/corruption at the feet of the Republicans – something I doubt he can do without a compliant press and they seem more reluctant to carry his water lately. All anyone has to do is look at where Obozo gets his campaign money.
“99 percent” is just a stupid piece of propaganda. The one percent are apparently evil Americans who hate their countrymen and love money… who’s going to say they are part of that one percent? It’s meant to appeal to people with half a brain, so of course, Obama has taken it up because that’s how he rolls.
You’re assuming that they are using real math. They’re using Obamanomics, just like the math that gives us 57 states. Based on that . . . I’m a proud part of the remaining 15%!
Obama embraces the OWS people / movement because they are the same type of anarchists that he appealed to as an ACORN community organizer.
Proreason, re: “And now, after just three years of this horror, Obama alone is the person who stands in the way of restoring sanity to this great country.”
Sir, thank you for a passionate and well-stated post. No one alive today in this great nation of ours hates Obama more than I do. I literally loath the man. However, we should be so lucky that the damage done to this country could be laid at the feet of one man. It isn’t that simple. He couldn’t have done what he has done without the help of many people, let alone made it into the Oval Office. No, cleaning up the mess in this nation involves far more than simply getting rid of one man… sad to say. Incidentally, I am of the opinion that Obama has never been a legal president constitutionally, and is oin office illegitimately and illegally. I also believe that he has committed numerous felonies since taking office. The best single analysis of the Obama debacle I have yet seen is that of Larry Sellin, Ph.D. (LTC, USA ret.), who writes for Canada Free Press. He has done an outstanding series of articles over the last six months that delve into each and every chapter of this sorry saga.
Again, to restate my point, restoring America’s greatness is a bigger job than just showing the crooked Mr. Obama the door. He is a symptom, not the underlying cause, of what ails us. In the America of our forebearers, a charlitan like Obama couldn’t have been elected dogcatcher, let alone made it into national political prominence as he has.
I loath and hate Affirmative Action/ I loath and hate black redistribution theologys’white guilt made me vote for obama’ /I loath and hate alyinsky/clower-pivens /I loath and hate the contiunal denegration of our great country. Yes we can go on and on about the upsurper. Vote the Bastard out.
Thanks for the kind words and thanks for the tip on the author. I’ll check him out.
Dr. Hanson:
Although some folks jus keep on trying, no one documents and presents recent political history and facts better than you. With this post and early comments, it appears that some eyes are beginning to open up to things that exist in the real world. ETAB and proreason are examples. To them I say, about time gentlemen, better late than never, welcome aboard.
Now on with the business of ridding the nation and the world of the Marxist.
It won’t be easy because the Fox News, Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch machine is now working overtime to breath life back into the corpse of one Governor Perry who is really nothing more than a creature of the Bush dynasty. The patient should not and might not recover, thus the push for the candidacy of Herman Cain as next in line to play the Romney Stopper bit part.
The Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Lars Larson, Billy Cunningham gaggle of talkers, like communists, will not go quietly into that goodnight. To them it’s access and personal welfare above reason and common sense regarding what’s best for the nation. Anyone but Romney is their message.
All of the above aligned with some other very powerful forces might stop Mitt Romney but the price could very well be the reelection of Barack Obama and the death of a nation.
An interesting note from today’s edition of the Fox News Sunday show was the presence of Jeff Zeleny, columnist for the New York Times, apparently a replacement for the now discredited David Brooks, a phoney pretend conservative along with the daughter of George W. Bush of Texas’s Vice President. That of course would be Lynn Cheney, and then of course there was Bill Cristyl. Guess what they all had in common. Unanimous support for Rick Perry and or Herman Cain. None for Mitt Romney. How could that be? Remember the name of the man who signs the checks, Rupert Murdoch, Globalist and Puppet Master In Chief.
These are serious times folks, if you leap, do it with eyes wide open and you’ll have a better chance to survive the fall.
Those people you mention that are trying to wag the dog have vested interests that do not align with most Americans. We are beset on all sides. Corruption is rampant and nobody seems to see it. Or maybe they just don’t care.
I’m getting that way myself.
At the moment, I’m considering Romney and Gingrich. I think Romney is more electable but like Gingrich’s brand of conservatism better. Neither is perfect in any way, but I would feel comfortable with either as President. I liked Perry for a while, but he made too many mistakes too quickly for my taste. I dodn’t think any of the others is even close to being electable.
I love Rush and like Levin, but am afraid they are advancing their own self interests at the expense of the country’s. It may also be that they have simply brainwashed themselves into thinking that they are always right and what they correctly pushed from the late 80′s through 2008 is also the right thing to push in 2012. Since I don’t have an audience to cater to, and since I don’t believe in static systems, I sadly disagree with a couple of guys who are as close to heros as I have.
Hannity is a different case. I think he has been remarkably objective in his pursuit of the best candidate. He might be for Cain, but if he is, it is hard to tell. He has won some more respect from me, since he hasn’t been catering to the widest eyed people in his audience. He is doing a service to the country, unlike the other two at the moment.
In case anyone is interested and doesn’t get my point about the talkers: Rush and Levin always insist that electability doesn’t matter, that the best candidate is simply the most conservative one (as defined by Rush and Levin, of course). From the late 80′s to 2008, I agree. But 2012 is different. The country is at the precipice. Obama HAS to be defeated. And the plain truth is that the most conservative candidates are not electable. We saw the mistake with Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnel and others. We have to learn from those mistakes. Rush and Levin are locked into their thought process, which, btw, aligns with their own self interests. As citizens, we should do our own thinking. I agree with William Buckley who said that he supported the most conservative candidate who could win. My thinking is that we have to beat Obama, and that means that the most conservative candidate is the wrong choice in 2012. In later years, the Rush / Levin method will probably be correct again.
I like Herman Cain too, but he is simply too far to the right to ever prevail in a general election against an incumbent president, even one as clueless as the one we have now.
Mitt Romney is, far & away, the GOP’s strongest candidate. For one thing, he is center/right on the political spectrum, which is where the most votes are. But in addition to that, he is probably the most qualified candidate for the office of the presidency in the last 20 years. He’s a businessman, not a lawyer, and he understands the economy and the financial markets. Furthermore, he’s a supurb organizer and manager and he has exceled in turning around troubled situations. This is EXACTLY the skill set that’s needed in the White House today!
With apologies to the late emperor Caligula, I misquote his immortal words: “O, that the Democratic Party had but one neck! O, that the main-stream media had but one neck!” Folks, Caligula had a point. If Obama, the Dems, the reptiles are merely discredited and beaten, they will come back to bite us again, as they bit us with JFK,JEC, WJC. Rattlesnakes and rabid dogs cannot ever be allowed to bite. Their victims usually die. It’s survival, folks.
History should come to know Obama as “The Accidental President”. He came to national attention as the fresh Illinois Senator who gave a rousing speech. He grew up in Hawaii, he lived in Illinois because Michelle is from there, and knew nothing of downstate; his global warming positions would necessarily cause thousands of Illinois coal jobs to disappear. His oratory skill (when reading) fooled so many. George Soros poured vast amounts of money into getting him nominated and elected. So many young people voted for him because of the coolness factor of his being black. Coolness has nothing to do with experience.
The historical accident is that he never should have become a Senator. He was a do-nothing state legislature who got the job due to his wife’s connections in Chicago. He was going to lose big time to Jack Ryan for the open senate seat. But a few weeks before the election, Ryan withdrew due to a scandal over his divorce from actress Jeri Ryan. The inexperienced Obama was suddenly unopposed! Commentator Alan Keyes threw his name in the hat in Ryan’s place, but it was way too late. Keyes had no way of mounting a campaign in just a few weeks.
Anyone who looked past his inspiring speeches knew that Obama was incompetent in any way that would matter to the presidency.
I think that one of the most interesting things about the entire election was that liberals and the media tossed around this phrase “Community organizer” without ever explaining what it meant. There were no stories about what a community organizer does. There was no examination of the philosophy of a community organizer; what the purpose of a community organizer is; what the methods of a community organizer are.
Of course they couldn’t do that, because a “community organizer” is really just a relabelling of what used to be called a communist agitator. Someone whose job it is to go into stable, functional working class communities and destroy them. Tear them apart and make them ripe for conversion to communism.
Now the mundane truth of the matter is that Barack Obama is still a community organizer. He’s just doing it at a national level.
Even now, with the country in desperate need of leadership, he tries to pit 99% of the population aganst a demonized 1%. Not because that is what’s best for the country, but because that’s what he’s trained and equipped to do. He has a communist tool set and skill set, and he’s busily applying what he knows and has to the problem at hand, which is that some Americans earn more than others.
America hasn’t really experienced this in a long time. One of the most common lies of my youth, in the 80s, was that it didn’t matter who we elected, because both parties were exactly the same. It wasn’t true then, but it was a plausible lie then. It is no longer a plausible lie, and Barack Obama is no longer a plausible liar.
he isn’t ready and he never will be. The flaw is in the electoral process. He has zero job skills for any managerial responsibility. He also dislikes America. This is what we elect? Shame shame. He is the real live Manchurian candidate.
David Horowitz in his autobiography Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey very persuasively demonstrated that communists started the Vietnam war protests which then acquired a life of its own.
I see a parallel today. President Obama cannot run for president in 2012 on his record. So he has to demonize the Republican party; specifically he must draw attention away from the federal government’s part in the 2008 financial crisis which was so well explained in the Wednesday, October 12 Wall Street Journal article by Peter Wallison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
My hunch is Bill Ayres, someone he knows or someone like him has had a hand in starting the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and then stood back to enjoy the fun.
The left is looking for ways to capitalize on the demonstrations; it is just starting.
Zbigniew Brzezinski today on Morning Joe, commenting about Occupy Wall Street, said the media should identify those who are part of the one percent, not to demonize them he said, but of course that is exactly the point.
Donny Deutsch also on Morning Joe the other day said Occupy Wall Street “needs Kent State like imagery.” He said he didn’t want a replay of Kent State but why else would he have used those words. His comments are easily found on the internet.
This is what the presidential campaign will be all about; if the demonstrations catch fire as did the Vietnam war protests, it is going to get very ugly.
What Brzezinski and others ignore (perhaps at their peril) is that the forces unleashed by intellectual elite armchair revolutionaries often turn and bite them too. Many leaders of the French Revolution soon found themselves without a head.
Once the mob is set free, it becomes unpredictable since it is basically irrational. It won’t be contained by fine arguments and passionate appeals. It quickly devolves to the lowest common denominator which is brute violence. Brzezinski’s or Bloomberg’s or Michael Moore’s mansions are just as likely to be gutted and torched as the next fat-cat capitalist political-crony profiteer. Some people never learn…
Of course those at the very top have prepared bolt-holes well stocked with delicacies and imported liqeurs. They are already set-up to profit from the chaos and war they seek to unleash.
You missed a point, a key point, on why we argued against Obama in 2008: what was/is he hiding? All of Obama’s basic key records, from birth certificate to college transcripts to medical records are still hidden. Why? What is he hiding?
At every turn, Perry should put his record along side a blank sheet with the caption, “Here’s mine; what is he hiding?”
The media found a rock that was painted over in 1983 on Perry’s family deer lease; the media can’t find one person who knew Obama as an undergraduate. Now that the magic has worn off the One, we should still be asking the key question; what is he still hiding?
As early as February 2008 I was(as were many) writing about these very issues. As a former Hillary supporter, turned PUMA, turned non-Dem voting Independent, a transition I made by finally paying attention to the Democratic party, and how they operate, I paid close attention to all of his faults and short comings.
The more I looked into him, the more I knew he would be exactly the type of President he has turned out to be.
I was calling him out for his race baiting, his flip flopping, his BS spin of his voting record, and experience, his lies about Wright, the media bias surrounding him, his pandering to specific groups, i.e. religious, and gay, his hypocrisy on taking money from big Corps, and lobbyists, the nastiness of his supporters, his arrogance, his gaffes, his bizarre speeches around the world, his comments to Canada about NAFTA, and more.
The media and the Democratic party threw Hillary under the bus to support and elect an empty suit because of the color of his skin. For the idea of him. Experience or character be damned.
He ripped the Dem party apart, and now he is ripping the country apart.
And now the Republican party is busy finding it’s next John McCain with the assistance of MSM and cohorts. In addition BHO is searching for a necessary 911 type crisis to make himself indispensible in 2012. Dr. VDH presents the facts but the facts never prevented the foolish from making the wrong choices. In 3 short years the sad facts have become obvious but the Obama dependent, mindless, lock-step followers grow in numbers like a cancer. The “cure” is to awaken the passive Americans who fail to show up at the voting booth. But VDH trys. Thanks.
KRC,
All this discussion of who can best defeat the One is superflous. It’s the Senate and the House that’re important. If O wins, however that may happen, we’re slaves in revolt. No matter which Republican wins, the reset can only be accomplished by Congress. Recognize and support the efforts of the TEA Party caucus, that slate of newbies elected in 2010, as what we need much more of.
Everything meaningful is local. It becomes ever more obvious that the initial skirmishes/conflicts will be unionized public service employees, supported by their private sector brotherhood of unions, against those who pay them. (See WI) So our most effective strategy is to un-elect EVERY politician [R] & [D] who accepts union contributions, and/or supports union activity. All of’em.
We will need a majority in the majority Party to even begin the work. Clearly the [R] leadereship needs massive overhaul. Conservatives somehow gained by only going $5 TRILLION more in debt?????
Only superior numbers of new conservative faces in the next State Legislatures and in Congress can be leveraged to reverse course. Massive repeal of lots of laws/regs/rules is essential. Not just O’care; but hundreds maybe thousands of Presidential dictums, edicts, findings. Just discovering what they’ve done will take months of stringent scrutiny. Maybe the FOIA process can be acclerated.
Deregulation initiates destruction of rent-seeking. Starting with crap like making the kids pay a fee/fine to license their lemonade stand. And, a rule through DeptCommerce that contracts over a certain amount require the contractor be a union shop (???). And rulings by the NLRB prohibiting Boeing from opening a plant anywhere else that’s a right-to-work state. Closing National Parks, vs bidding out minimum maintenance contracts to the private sector?
We need to get real. We’re dealing with a ravenous monster. The monster lives in the governing infrastructure, all levels. And, in the arts and education and news/analysis segments as well. They’re all interconnected in realtime.
Even the first steps toward rescue (stop digging) must evoke screams from hundreds of thousands of angry, newly unemployed gov’t workers, who have 2 things in common: a) few have any marketable skill, especially in today’s workplace, and b) they can be orchestrated/incited by the Left. They’ll “occupy” – best case.
Absent threats, intimidation, work slowdowns, strikes, sabotage and violence, unions have no leverage in any contract negotiation with anyone interested in saving taxpayer money. It’s blackmail – RICO worth activity.
Only by unleashing American industriousness can we hope to get 25M citizens back to work and grow the economy. Close the border to illegals. Commit US to becoming the LOW COST provider of global energy over the next 10 years. Remove the corporate taxes on manufacturing, mining, drilling, refining, et al. Vacuum back all those offshore profit centers.
Do you think the internet remains ubiquitous worldwide, in the event of widespread financial collapse?
/rant
Unfortunately, most of the folks who voted for Obama are the kind of folks who adamantly refuse to admit a mistake. It seems to question their judgement is to question their intelligence and, given that those brilliant lefties never admit that virtually all of their programs have failed, I believe that a large percentage of them will vote for the failure that is Obama in 2012. Hopefully, enough independents will cross over and vote for the GOP candidate and we will be through with Obama forever. Whoever the GOP candidate is had better be ready for the nastiest campaign ever because Obama’s war chest is not going to be spent touting his great record in office. Personally, I hope Cain is on the top of the ticket.
Since obama was just a tool used by more sinister individuals to accomplish the destruction of the Republic, is it not possibe the right could use Cain as a tool to accomplish the salvation of our Republic? Otherwise, our choices are the lesser of two evils.
Agreed. But if it turns out to be Romney or Perry, so be it. The MSM can promote their chosen candidate for the Pubs all they want, but in the end it is up to the American people to decide whom they should vote for. Regardless though, anyone running against Obama is the proverbial “lesser of two evils.” That is such a no-brainer.
O was Not editor of the Harvard Law Review. He was its president–not a position of intellect; rather, one of popularity.
If the DEMS are smart, they would would put pressure on Obama to step aside and replace him with Hillary. I am afraid 0bama will declare some kind of emergency, which will install him Dear Leader for life. The DEMS are dumb not to see that, arent they afraid for thei children and grand children?
Obamas’ a great precedent! Your a bigget and a rasist!
Have mercy. I sincerely hope you’re mocking liberals. If not, bless your illiterate little heart . . .
Communists; Plain and simple.
The protesters of OWS are Obama’s people, and he’s claiming and appealing to them.
Obama nor Michelle, never cared for America enough to find out WHAT America really was about. They never liked America or it’s government, and only intended to exploit it and handicap it from the beginning.
Michelle and Barrack have exposed their inner most hatred for America, and a large portion of the electorate have let it pass without comment. Those that did comment, have been branded racist for pointing out racist comments and attitudes.
And thanks to Barrack, racism is getting worse because of his own racist actions and convictions. How plainly do they have to state their hatred for America and its heritage before you start to take notice?
This too, was prophesied by many.
Clearly, a dominant Democrat Congress won the battle for the White House, not Barrack. He just rode the wave of fomented hatred toward Bush, and the obvious fear of anyone who would attempt to challenge him.
If it isn’t clear to everyone by now, that these communists will say and do anything to promote their communist agenda, even if they contradict themselves in the same sentence?
Thank you Dr. Hanson, for detailing the obvious agenda of these Bolsheviks, and giving credit to the many who spoke and wrote about this potential disaster.
But, even the most authoritative candidate for the GOP nomination, still does not exude the experience necessary for a complete recovery from this devastating regimes reign.
And I’m sure you are very aware, Dr. Hanson; More battles are inevitable.
here we go again. knocking down a proposal we do not understand.
listen !
all manufactured goods, by the time they reach the store, have a cost which includes the “embedded taxes” of everyone along the way who had to pay a tax. from the supplier of raw materials to the fashioner, to the deliverer, and the sales broker, and the shipper, and so on. these have been calculated to be as much as 22% on average across the board. this is the premise of the “Fair Tax” which has been proposed previously.
If all those taxes no longer exist, the rush to lower prices and control the market will be phenomenal. the competition will be wild.
what you now pay one dollar for will cost you only 78 cents, plus a 9 % tax of only 7 cents, for a total of 85 cents. helluva lot less than $1.09
additionally, folks below the poverty level will get an exemption. the tax is only on new items, and there may even be an exemption for staples like bread and eggs and milk; and best of all, the hidden economy of drug lords, cash only folks and others who try to hide their income but live well, will suddenly be paying taxes for the palatial homes, the fancy cars, and yes, even the corporate jets, if they buy them new. If they claim they are used, then a paper trail will cause someone to pay the tax along the line. millions, if not billions, in taxes, will suddenly appear.
and, best of all, if you earn big bucks and put it in the bank or market, or anyplace where you do not spend it, including a jar in the back yard, you do not pay taxes above the 9 %, which will still be paid after deductions.
if states choose to have additional taxes, you can choose to move to a state that doesn’t.
so what is the problem?
stop knocking new ideas before you understand them.
we have enough negative in this country today.
both success and failure can be self-fulfilling prophecies. the choice is yours.
If the Fair Tax is so brilliant and obvious, why isn’t the country rushing to it? Shouldn’t it sell itself?
good question.
1. folks are afraid of change.
2. Congress can’t give favors and raise re-election funds if there are no needs for tax breaks.
and
3. as I explained above. folks do not understand it.
As far as selling itself, maybe it is a strong reason for Mr. Cain’s popularity.
actually, I cannot give you a date, but I have heard it was presented a few years ago and missed by just a few votes.
so maybe its time has come.
2. Congress can’t give favors and raise re-election funds if there are no needs for tax breaks.
Mark Twain said (I paraphrase) that Congress is America’s only native criminal class. So your point 2 is nothing
new.
Funny how the left points to Canada for public health care (which is not working and extremely expensive) but we have a Goods & Services Tax of 5% – was 6% until we got a conservative government. The point being that it elimated all the debt and created a slush fund. HOWEVER, they did not elimate the previous taxes and now we just all pay way more. It is a very viable program with a population the size of the US. It is not on natural food products (boxed, instant, candy, etc. is subject to). It is not on anything used (unless sold by a business again). Lots of private trade (Kijiji/Craigslist) is increasing. Everyone pays and the larger the purchase, the more money the government takes. Not on rent or mortgages, etc. Worth a “fair” media looking into instead of making fun of. His 9% probably makes up for the federal taxes more than our 5%. Does raise copious amounts of money.
Cain knows deep in his heart that 999 has no chance in hell for any kind of consideration. But behind all that, he is nothing but a shrewd marketing guy. He has been well trained by his corporate billionaire ‘masters’ and ‘handlers’ to float this idea of 999 just to get ahead in polls and to win the nomination. I hope he will fade away in time and he will. The country doesn’t need another nut at this time.
It has been demonstrated quite well during the past three years that the naysayers, who argued in 2008 that Barack Obama had presented no sufficient evidence of his qualifications for the office of President of the United States, were and are correct. Alas, that is now all too evident. President Obama should be hanging his head in shame. Instead, he is now on what will be a year long campaign to demonize his opponents, spreading hatred and division, pandering to any lawless group, preaching hostility, condemning anyone or any group which does not bow to him. How does Mr. Obama’s conduct differ in substance from that of any dictator, now in office, or who held high office elsewhere in the world during the past century? If he succeeds, we may as well tear up the United States Consititution. The republican form of government which it created will no longer exist. Instead there will be a de facto dictatorship!
The real question is, if Obama is that weak and inexperienced, how is it that he passed Lily Ledbetter, CHIP extension, stimulus, health care reform, Wall Street reform, DADT repeal, food safety modernization, patent reform, and many others over the GOP’s objections? In short, how could he be the most effective Democratic President since FDR? In his first term? If we use logic here, that makes the GOP the weakest political party in modern history. Even worse, they still don’t have a viable candidate that can beat an Obama with a 69% disapproval rating. What’s even worse is that Congressional Republicans have an even higher disapproval rating than Obama (which is saying alot). But I’m begging the question. None of that is actually true. The truth is Obama is an incredibly effective politician, perhaps the most savvy political operator since Teddy Roosevelt. The fact that the GOP and their operatives are still trying to argue how inexperienced he is just goes to show the GOP is in a terrible place. They know they have no candidate. They know they have no platform. The only thing they know they have is a box of insults and they’re throwing all of them against the wall just to see what sticks. Don’t believe me? You don’t have to. Just remember this post come November 2012. And then remember there was at least one person that tried to warn you.
You just made a better speech than Obama ever did.
Steve, I’m a democrat, ok? I agree that Obama got a lot done during his first two years. This was a time when he had overwhelming Democratic support in the House and Senate.
Yet, he cannot work with a Republican Congress. Worse, is that he often gives in to their demands. What we need now is a Democratic president who will understand that Republicans are not interested in “uniting” this country. We need a Democratic president who will stand up to the GOP, tell them they are wrong, and they can go to hell…all on television.
Americans love a fighter, or at the very least, most Americans respect a fighter. Obama is a fair weather president. And the political weather isn’t going to calm down anytime soon. He needs to announce that he won’t run again, and let the Democrats pick a fighter.
STEVE & AUSTIN JIM;
You poor gullible fools.
Putin is coming back, and he’s one helluva fighter. He must be your hero. Why don’t you join him?
Can I assist you in any way?
Frankly, mushy little useful idiot, no thinking Republican/conservative is the least bit working with an avowed communist who is dedicated to “fundamentally transforming” our Country. We aren’t interested in working with people who are stupid enough to have blindly followed him and supported his junta. We’ve learned from dealing with leftist that the only time they want you to reach out is if your hand is too far away for them to bite it. When the communists had control of the Congress and the WH we sure as Hell didn’t see and “working with” notions, now did we? When we do restore a legitimate government, there will be a terrible reckoning.
I found a story of some interest, and thought I would share with others here. Fake signatures may mean Obama didn’t actually qualify in Indiana Would ’08 May ballot have been different?
http://www.southbendtribune.com/sbt-fake-signatur…
It is the media that gave us this abomination. Make no mistake about it. The same media that goes thru Sarah Palin’s garbage and e-mails and digs up rocks on a current candidate’s property – in order to discredit them. This is not mere laziness or incompetence. This is active, partisan lying and manipulation on behalf of one party – the Democrat Party. This is worse than anything Pravda ever did in the darkest days of the Soviet Union. Worse, because Pravda reporters told their lies under threat of death or imprisonment in the gulag. America’s propagandists do it cheerfully and willingly, all in the service of the Democratic (aka American Communist) Party. Never forget this, and if a day of reckoning comes, make sure it can never happen again.
“But Obama in 2001 in a Chicago public radio interview could not have been clearer about the need for government to redistribute income and his unhappiness that the Constitution seemed to prohibit that.”
—————
Mr. Hanson needs to go back and reread the quote. What Obama was saying was not that the Constitution seemed to prohibit income/wealth redistribution; what Obama was saying was that the Constitution did not require it. Thus, attempting to achieve such goals through the Courts was the wrong tactic. They could only be achieved through legislative action.
@ Karl from Chicago: Mr. Hanson is absolutely correct in his assertion. Obama complained that the Warren Court had not broken free from the restrictions placed on the Supreme Court by the founders (i.e. Obama wanted the Warren Court to act in an unconstitutional manner using power it did not possess.). Why? Because the Constitution DOES prohibit income redistribution the way Obama wants to do it. Obama is exactly what those of us who paid attention (turned off CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, etc.) and listened to him speak knew what he would be. Remember him referring to his grandmother who reared him when his own mother couldn’t be bothered as a “typical white person”? I do. This man has utter contempt for the United States and since his assumption of power, has done everything possible to destroy the social contract. When Republicans refused to go along, he acted like a petulant child having a tantrum. When the Dems held power, there was no talk of compromise. Shoe’s on the other foot and that’s now unacceptable? No, he must be stopped and next November, God willing, he will be.
For people looking for inspiration in these dark days, I offer the second verse of England’s unofficial anthem Jerusalem (“God Save the Queen” is the Royal Anthem):
Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land
Use every peaceful means at your disposal to spead the word, to mobilize the passive, to energize the wavering, to expose the posers and empower the honest and hardworking.
2012 is not just going to be won in the White House, but all the downline elections need to be contested and won as well, right down to the local dogcatcher’s office. The “Progressives” need to be driven from public office. The newly elected need to cut the funding from “Progressive” institutions, corporations, NGO’s and any other place where they might use public money to spread their influence. Employers should carefully examine resumes, Facebook and other sources to find and eliminate “progressives” from their work places.
Even if Barrack Obama wins a second term, the dismantling of the Progressive project can still be carried out by people like us. Progressiveism has been financially discredited by the debt crisis, morally discredited by the destruction of the family and may soon be legally discredited by conservative courts asserting the primacy of the US Constitution’s 10th amendment. Victory may be closer than anyone thinks, if we but try…
To VDH: looks like there’s a typo in phrase “Israel, Cyprus, Taiwan, North Korea, and the former Soviet republics are more volatile, not less.” The intend is to South Korea, rather than North.
My sincere thanks to the author and to all the posters here. One of the best political articles I have ever read; informative, accurate. And I do not say that only because I agree, although I do agree. And I read over half the posts, which I rarely am willing to do. Same comments on you excellent fellow posters. I am going to bookmark this site on my visit daily list.
On the general topic, I voted for Obama, as I thought he was smarter than the other guy in addressing looming catastrophe. Wrong was I. Sorry, I won’t do it again.
On Cain, I like him too. And I’d prefer a Flat tax or a Fair Tax; in fact any tax whatsoever no matter who got to pay it, as long as it left out the behavior modification and the Fascist attitude. AND I believe that a candidate who proposes something like this, so far in a way that has gathered him support, MIGHT get it done, and certainly would try and at least come close. FURTHER such a candidate might well (as Mr. Cain says he would) address the destructive aspects of our military spending, our worthless money, our unpredictable laws, our decayed and unpaid-for and union-strangled infrastructure, and our cherished but insolvent safety net.
I talked about Mr. Cain with my best friend tonight. I am an old white guy, she is an old black woman; both of us got shot at and nearly killed, repeatedly, fighting for Civil Rights right here in the USA, except what she did is the subject of Mississippi Burning; no one will make a famous movie about my contribution, nor should they; all I did was to lay my life on the line for others of God’s Children. She won the darn battle for us all.
I told her I was thinking about registering as a Republican. My state is an early Caucus state; I am a retired elected official, also business owner for that matter; I could have an impact. For Mr. Cain. She urged me to do it.
And you know if I thought it would help him succeed in getting elected and as President; I would offer to walk into the gunfire, for Mr. Cain. I LOVE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and I really hope all of you will give some thought to joining me in supporting Mr. Cain. A Choice; not an Echo; and not a Fraud.
Mr. Hanson, while I agree with the premise that Obama was not ready to be president, I disagree with some of your points, notably on foreign policy.
Before going on, please note that I’m on the left. Saying that, I like Obama’s foreign policy for the most part. What I don’t like is still being in Afghanistan. The military has taken care of most of the al-quaeda, and that is why we went in. I would love to see a stable government arise, but I don’t thing that is going to happen.
Yet, I think Obama is right on with Libya and the rest of the Middle East. America still has the most powerful military in the world and used in the right way, can be extremely effective. So with Libya, Kaddafy (sp) is out, the war took one a few months, and no American lives were lost. I don’t know how much we spent on the venture, but it isn’t a trillion dollars like the money used for Iraq and Afghanistan.
As for Russia, I don’t think a Republican president can be anymore effective.
As far as Obama campaigned as an “uniter”, he was wrong. More importantly, us Democratic voters were wrong in believing this. Since GW Bush became president, the radical right of the Republican party had never demostrated one second of interest in working with the opposition. And that not only goes with Democrats in this country, but those overseas allies who disagree with that administration and the Republicans. The Republicans in charge don’t want compromise. They want a war and total annihilation of the opposition.
Again, I don’t blame Obama. He presented this idea of working together and us Democrats were naive and bought it.
Obama’s problem is that he isn’t a good politician and he isn’t a good communicator. During the campaigns, I thought he would be able to communicate to the American people effectively. He can’t and that is probably the most disappointing surprise for me.
He lost credibility with many democrats. When he draws a line in the sand and claims the Bush tax cuts must go, or taking a hard stand in the budget, and then backs down, that hurts his credibility among his supporters. And to the Republican (who are mostly bullies) they see that the guy won’t fight.
A better and perhaps a more experience politician can pick the right fights, back down at the right times, and sell why he/she is doing the constituents.
Silly, stupid child, you are what Comrade Lenin described as a “useful idiot.” Unfortunately, the government schools have finally produced enough people who’ve reached a medieval level of ignorance and superstition to elect an open, practicing, avowed communist to the Presidency. Comrade Obama is a Red Diaper Baby, raised to play some role for the communist party. Funny how most of his history, the parts we’re allowed to know, took place in Seattle and Hawaii, two places owned by Harry Bridges’ Longshoremen. Harry was last seen standing on the balcony of the Kremlin for the May Day Parade. You fools bought him, your women were practically throwing their panties at the stage for him.
Unlike many on the right, I don’t consider him ineffective or incompetent. He’s an accomplished apparachnik, an Alinsky disciple; that would be the American version of a Trotskyite. You remember Comrade Trotsky, don’t you? He was too radical for the much more bureaucratic Comrade Lenin, so Lenin had the NKVD put an ice axe in his head in Mexico. People like Comrade Obama and people like me are headed for a serious disagreement. People like you will be collateral damage.
This article proves exactly one thing: the author decided how he’d feel about Obama presidency back in 2008.
And you’ve proved him wrong, how?
Everything I predicted in 2008 has come true.
http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/welcome-to-obamanation/
Everything.
And the incredible part is that none of it is hindsight. It was all there for anyone to see, wasn’t it?
The 2008 election was one of the greatest cases of mass delusion since the Children’s Crusade.
Had any of these voters been 17th century Dutchmen they would have bought tulip futures.
Romney has the advantage in political experience, and has also previously run a national presidential campaign. His success in the debates demonstrates the value of that experience. He has both the money and the organization to win early primaries. But he is not a completely reliable political conservative. With a Tea Party congress, that would not be a problem, since he will pragmatically go along with their agenda, but if he ever faced another dem or RHINO congress, he might turn into another McCain or Bush.
Cain is likeable, a far more reliable conservative, and has good ideas. He definitely lacks political experience, but may have a capacity to learn. He has national popularity, but has he raised enough money, or built up the necessary local campaign organizations to win the early primaries?
At this point I am not committing to either, but can live with either if they are nominated. Either one is miles ahead of Obama. For now I am going to wait and see how Cain does in subsequent speeches, interviews, debates, and primaries. If he has weaknesses, they will be revealed. If he survives these tests, her will be a proven strong candidate.
Yes. VDH has put it all together. It was all predictable, if one would only have looked at the man and his history through anything but the rosiest of glasses. Perhaps worse than all this is the fact that even now 40+% still approve. One wonders what it will take, or are we that close to the proverbial tipping point where there are enough on the government take; dependent on government; or profiting from government action that the 40% is irreducible.
…. Obama had little experience in the private sector outside of politics, academia, foundations, and subsidized organizing and consequently didn’t understand the nature of profit and loss, payrolls, how businesses worked and planned — or much of anything.
…. like many on the elite left, though, he had an ambiguous attitude about affluence and its dividends. The more, as a street-agitating rabble rouser, he had railed about bankers and unfairness, the more he had enjoyed a corrupt personal banker, a mini-mansion and had dealt with fellow criminal Tony Rezko ….
And even in that relationship giving the world a clear picture of his Keynesian modus operendi, as he and his vulgar bogan spouse arrived at election day 2008, having lived years on graft and maxed-out credit cards and with their ill-gotten mini “mansion” almost Three Quarters of A Million Dollars under water from the pretend-”equity” loans taken against its ever-higher Frank/Dodd/Cli’ton/Gorelick/Raynes/Obama-manipulated “valuation.”
This is:
One
Bad
Ass
Mother,
America!
I suspected that Mr Obama was a political phony and an empty suit shortly after he began his run for the presidency. I listened and parsed his thoughts. He spoke in cliches, truisms, and obviousities and somethimes, howlers. Added weight arose from the spirit in the air that he was well educated and widely read; assertions that were not revealed in his rhetoric-revelations that subtly permeate the words of those who are. That didn’t mean that Mr Obama wasn’t but should have suggested the question: How could one tell. The clincher, however, came at his and his campaigns reactions to Mr Clinton’s remark about the presidential primary in SC and black candidates, Mrs Clinton’s remarks on Mr Johnson’s being the prime and critical mover in the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and, perhaps most revealing, running Mrs Ferraro out of politics when she alluded to the ordinary unlikelihood of Mr Obama’s successes as a candidate. Mr Obama acted well within the field of politics, American and Chicago ward-heeler varieties included. His actions belied his being presented as a leader, a man of charity, insight, unity, humility, grace, and reasonably political integrity. My opinions, if apt, were that he was “an empty suit”. I listened to his acceptance speech on my car radio. The journalists’ description of the scene instantly brought to mind images of the Nurnbert Ring in 1937. If a true comment on his his arrogance, it has been borne out.
Addendum to my comment as Anonymous (Nurnberg Ring), etc. Mr Obama’s travels around Europe and his commentary evoked a reaction that should have been much more widely apparent. The European leaders were laughing at him-at him, not the United States, which even when clumbsy, is still an elephant not to be ignored. Mr Obama might have gained a great deal of gravitas in aid of his future actions had he refused the Nobel Prize. He needn’t have insulted by discussing its impropriety but the tests not yet passed making such an award appropriate.
Meanwhile, I believe there’s a stunning omission in the analysis of what’s become, “The Arab Spring”, for which Mr Obama would take considerable credit, if able. I’ve heard no reference by any our journalist-entertainers to spring being long past and find ourselves in summer and before the crops can be “laid by”. The spring began when Iraqi and Afghani braved bombs and bullets to vote. I would not find it surprising were most Arabs to be silent, to not have thought of it, or to deny it, affirmatively. They may even be correct. What they could not rationally deny is the courage of their fellow Arabs and cultural brothers in voting in relatively free elections in relatively functional democracies. Acknowledged or not, they had and have a duty to refute the mindless allegations of many commentors across the political spectrum that the Arabic world is congenitally unable to function democratically and, further, have no desire to be free, or even understand the concept, and, implicitly, some sort of lesser version of mankind. Whatever the genuine calculus of those observations of mine what alternative hope for a peaceful world between the Islamic Arabic Cultures and the West. There is an anecdotal occurance of interest. Carl Rove’s memoir recounts a conversation he had, shortly before leaving the WH, w/a senior Palestinian aid who told him that the most significant development in efforts at democracy in the Arabic world were Mr Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Ghaddafi was not the first tyrant to be removed w/significant or substantial help however ineptly at times. The only press allusion I happened to note-admittedly perhaps not the only one-was during the early phase of revolt in Tunis which referenced Mr Obama’s speech in Cairo. A reference possibly appropriate, even accurate, but that I found patently rediculous.
Addendum to my comment as Anonymous (Nurnberg Ring), etc. Mr Obama’s travels around Europe and his commentary evoked a reaction that should have been much more widely apparent. The European leaders were laughing at him-at him, in secret; not at the United States, which even when clumbsy, is still an elephant not to be ignored. The obvious ignorance of Mr Obama could not have been unsuspected by European leaders who, even when wrong-headed, bring a great deal of depth to international affairs.
Mr Obama might have gained a great deal of gravitas in aid of his future actions had he refused the Nobel Prize. He needn’t have insulted by discussing its impropriety but the tests not yet passed making such an award appropriate.
Meanwhile, I believe there’s a stunning omission in the analysis of what’s become, “The Arab Spring”, for which Mr Obama would take considerable credit, if able. I’ve heard no reference by any our journalist-entertainers to spring being long past and find ourselves in summer and before the crops can be “laid by”. The spring began when Iraqi and Afghani braved bombs and bullets to vote. I would not find it surprising were most Arabs to be silent, to not have thought of it, or to deny it, affirmatively. They may even be correct. What they could not rationally deny is the courage of their fellow Arabs and cultural brothers in voting in relatively free elections in relatively functional democracies. Acknowledged or not, they had and have a duty to refute the mindless allegations of many commentors across the political spectrum that the Arabic world is congenitally unable to function democratically and, further, have no desire to be free, or even understand the concept, and, implicitly, some sort of lesser version of mankind. Whatever the genuine calculus of those observations of mine what alternative hope for a peaceful world between the Islamic Arabic Cultures and the West. There is an anecdotal occurance of interest. Carl Rove’s memoir recounts a conversation he had, shortly before leaving the WH, w/a senior Palestinian aid who told him that the most significant development in efforts at democracy in the Arabic world were Mr Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Ghaddafi was not the first tyrant to be removed w/significant or substantial help however ineptly at times. The only press allusion I happened to note-admittedly perhaps not the only one-was during the early phase of revolt in Tunis which referenced Mr Obama’s speech in Cairo. A reference possibly appropriate, even accurate, but that I found patently rediculous.
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