Obama’s Mandela Moment
Anatomy of an Obama moment
In a news-obsessed culture, sometimes the media simply ignores profound stories, such as the cause of the almost inexplicable — and quite brilliantly constructed — recovery of Obama’s poll ratings.
Just a few weeks ago, the negative impressions of President Obama’s performance, in most of the polls, outranked the favorable, and by anywhere from 3-6 points. All the buzz was of Jimmy Carter redux, and the November historic sweep, with even more to come in 2012. Now? Suddenly, Obama is enjoying about a 3-6 point positive edge (5.6 in the aggregate RealClearPolitics latest posting). That’s a dramatic reversal of some 6-12 points in just a few weeks.
Silence?
Why no in-depth exegesis of that astounding development?
Obama’s recovery was not merely a result of the media-created blitz of December about “momentum,” “recovery,” and “triangulation” after the acceptance of the Bush-era tax rates, the approval of the START treaty, and the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” That bump was only about 1-2 points, and by mid-January Obama still suffered higher negatives than positives.
So are things getting that much better?
So was the upswing due to falling energy prices? Nope — gas and heating costs are skyrocketing, and in part due to new federal restrictions on leasing of oil and gas coupled with an anemic dollar.
Good news on the deficit? Hardly. We’re on schedule to pile up more trillion-dollar-plus annual deficits, as Obama’s own departing economic gurus like Summers, Romer, and Orszag are strangely now warning us of the long-term consequences of their own flawed policies.
Foreign affairs breakthroughs? No again: Putin is still roguish and gleeful about taking us to the cleaners. Ditto looming crises with Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea. The Middle East is a tinderbox. Mexico is a failed state. We have no China policy and are merely passive-aggressive. The world is far scarier than in January 2009.
Obama’s moment
Instead, the current rise is exclusively a direct result of three interrelated phenomena: 1) the tragic January 8, 2011, Tucson shootings; 2) the hysterical left-wing scapegoating of everyone from the Tea Party to Sarah Palin for the violence; and 3) the sudden emergence of a sober and judicious Mandela-like Obama, quite admirably calling for calm on all sides — while suggesting simultaneously that the horrific killings had no connection with the right wing, but also that the horrific killings offer an appropriate moment to reconsider all political zealotry in general.
In the ensuing ten days, Obama’s polls and approval have skyrocketed.
However politically brilliant all of this was, it remains in some sense quite morbid, in a creepy sort of never-waste-a-tragedy sense. The reaction to the killings almost instantly blotted out information about and concern for the dead and maimed. Yet in this entire confusing media circus, questions simply were not only not answered, but in fact never raised.
The inexplicable
In logical terms, how are we to use a moment to reexamine political speech when the moment was explicitly declared not to be connected with political speech at all?
How can a president subtly distance himself from the macabre and revolting behavior of his left-wing base while simultaneously editorializing on unhinged invective in general (e.g., without an embarrassing extreme, there is no occasion to call for moderation from others)?
Why did five days of presidential silence follow the shootings (so unlike instant editorializing about the Mutallab and Hasan incidents), when the likes of Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Andrew Sullivan, Sheriff Dupnik, and the New York Times rushed in to scavenge political capital amid the carnage? All that might have been bridled with a brief word or two from the White House, a brief Sister Souljah moment admonition to the New York Times to cool it for a while. We know that would have worked, because the Times within hours after the successful Obama speech was calling to cool what it had helped arouse, apparently realizing that its demonization and its refutation of demonization hand-in-glove were politically useful.
And why not some therapeutic confessional of past (and in many cases quite recent) presidential culpability (e.g., the president’s own metaphorical use of knives, guns, enemies, punishing, kicking ass, relegation to backseat, get angry, getting in their face, hostage takers, trigger fingers, tearing up)?
Answers
OK, I think you readers are already way ahead of me in the answers to these questions.
In the present polarized climate, the most astute way to suggest that the right wing has created a climate of hate is to remind Americans, following a grotesquely violent event that has been milked by the left, that conventional efforts to capitalize on fears are inappropriate. That reminded me of Obama’s brilliant 2004 Democratic convention speech (e.g., “It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: ‘E pluribus unum,’ out of many, one. Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.”), in which he called for an end of blue/red-state hatred amid the general landscape of the entire Bush/Hitler frenzy which he never mentioned.
Whatever one thought of hate speech in those days, one must confess it was mostly directed at Bush from the left-wing base of the Democratic Party (cf. the Nazi/brownshirt slurs of a Glenn, Gore, Byrd, Soros, etc.). Yet nothing in Obama own past career (e.g., his Chicago organizing, his attendance at the hate-filled Trinity United Church, his suing to remove rivals from the Illinois state race, etc.) or his then current and subsequent behavior (e.g., the mysterious dirty-tricks leaking of sealed divorce records about his primary and general election Illinois senatorial rivals, the most partisan voting record in the entire Senate, the demagoguing of the entire Bush national security protocols as Constitution shredding that he was soon to embrace or expand as president) supported such eloquence. “No more red state/blue state polarity” did not presage a subsequent word of warning about novels and films dealing with an imagined assassination of George W. Bush.
Finger-in-the-wind
And why the uncharacteristic wait to weigh in as polarization peaked? I think the answer is elementary. One, Obama had been burned by his tendency to go hard left in his past off-the-cuff sermonizing. In a nanosecond blaming the “stupidly” acting police for detaining Professor Gates, or immediately worrying more about reactions to the Islamist Hasan than the actual extremist violence of the Islamist Hasan, was politically disastrous and he learned from that.
Two, it was politically brilliant to let the left fully vent for five days. That way they would not be furious that they had been muzzled, and the interval would allow ample time for finger-in-the-wind testing of the national reaction to their deplorable rhetoric. When Obama did at last come forward, the left was both satiated and discredited. And in brilliant morally equivalent fashion, the stage was set to channel growing popular repulsion at the Krugmans of the world into popular repulsion at both the Krugmans and those that they libeled. A sacrificial Paul Krugman could not have wished for more — as, for example, Palin’s favorables plummeted.
That was then, this is now
Obama did not cite his own prior polarizing speeches (not just the martial metaphors but the sleazy caricatures of limb-lopping doctors, fat-cat bankers, Vegas-jetting rich people, back seating Republicans, ice-cream parlor abducting Arizonans, and Republican enemies to be punished as veritable racists) because he knew that, in fact, on occasion such stiletto jabs drew blood. In this regard, contrary to popular opinion, I think Obama’s 11th-hour polarizing November blitz really did save some Democratic seats by galvanizing the base in the manner that, say, a Harry Reid was mysteriously reelected by “turnout.”
Edged rhetoric surely worked against Hillary Clinton when the wife of the first “black” president was reduced to a veritable racist. And it worked in 2007-8 against an incumbent Bush whose sober post-9/11 implementation of tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, Predators, preventative detention, wiretaps, and intercepts was reduced by Obama to a near fascist takeover of the country — until they were all adapted by a President Obmaa himself. To this day, stung Bushites still offer up massive aid to Africa, prescription drug benefits, No Child Left Behind, and deficit spending on social programs to prove they were not the bloodthirsty Draculas who set up the gulag at Guantanamo and unleashed the children-destroying Predator drones.
The way ahead
We all know what is coming in 2012 — the most well-financed, Wall Street-subsidized, vitriolic camping in modern memory, in which Obama’s rivals will be metaphorically reduced to caricatures of racist, selfish, and cruel nativists. The 2011 Tucson speech will have about as much resonance with Obama’s impending campaign style as the 2004 oration affected his 2004-9 political behavior.
Rhetoric in the new age of tolerance
And finally, why not an iota of presidential follow-up when in nanoseconds Obama’s own progressive supporters returned to form and took up the old successful hate tropes? Rep. Cohen (D-TN) was soon comparing conservative opponents to Nazis in their Goebbels-like propaganda that likewise would, we were to believe, result in a Holocaust-like denial of basic human compassion. Columnists in Slate were back to the old Jonathan Chait-style (“I hate George Bush. There, I said it”) of declaring their unabashed loathing for political opponents (“Why I Loathe my Connecticut Senator”). All that was left was the reemergence from his Atlanta peace center of a smiling Jimmy Carter, quoting scripture as he might yet again remind us that the elder Bush was “effeminate,” Vice President Cheney was a “militant,” the younger Bush was the “worst” president, and Israel is an “apartheid” state.
Pit bulls from Mars
All these contortions reminded me of a neighbor next to our orchard who raised pit bulls. I have recalled the saga before (there were numerous and differing incidents throughout an entire year), but will so again. Without any supervision, the snappers ran in and out of the plum and nectarine orchard and had me terrified both of their teeth and their master who unleashed them. Finally I could hardly irrigate. But when, with loaded pump 12 gauge, I went over to complain of the danger (the proverbial final straw was my young son trapped in the truck bed by snapping dogs), I was met by the dog owner’s sudden impassioned speeches of how much he deplored the snarling, the snapping, and the biting of his prodigy and, indeed, how much he hated all such rogue dogs in general and the unfortunate reaction that they incurred such as my own need for defensive arms — without ever citing why I had gone over there in the first place or offering any assurance that the snarling, snapping, and biting would ever cease. (It was as if the dogs had landed from Mars to attack me but were nonetheless provident in reminding both of us of the need for calm.)
Can’t we all just get along?
One could almost surmise that without a foaming hateful base both to draw blood from an opponent while offending the common decency, there can be no more Mandela moments of national healing — and no healing Mandelas to offer them.
VDH
You are onto the game. Those who have inflated the poll numbers and comprise the “spike” upwards, are not.
Obama is a man who goes into the confessional to confess YOUR sins. Not his. His Act of Contrition…is all act, no contrition.
The leftists who do the dirty work are never quite reprimanded as much as they are put back on the leash. The feral snarling and snapping at all non-leftists comes in handy.
“Rising above” all this by the main handler, keeps his hands clean and offers more than just plausible deniability. It offers a chance to appear noble and even-handed.
A calculating effort to “soothe” those you mean to destroy.
Lapdog pit bulls will be doing all the dirty work from now until November 2012. Licking Obama’s feet and tearing the flesh of all non-leftists…shredding the truth to pieces.
The good news for those who do not wish to be conned into even further depths of socialism by fraud, deceit and treachery…there is not a consensus one candidate for the feral lapdogs to attack. (they train on Sarah Palin in the meantime). The feral, frothing rage is dispersed among all things non-leftist.
The bad news is, there is no consensus candidate to articulate and focus this horrid, despicable game for the public eye. The return message is diffused and largely ignored.
America is suffering.
We have deadly internal disease. Rampant, unchecked leftism…and all its excesses. The antidote is truth…and the supply is being poisoned.
Your extension of VDH’s pit bull metaphor was brilliant.
Your last sentence has me wringing my hands in helpless rage.
Well said CF – that last sentence sent a chill up my spine. So true.
No, Sir!
The antidote to “Rampant, unchecked leftism…” is ARTICULATION!
We need a conservative spokesperson who can articulate the antithesis of collectivism in simple, direct and prioritized stipulation that even the Elois of the American public can understand.
Watch any talking head show and you’ll see the so-called Libertarian or Conservative or Right spokespersons fumble the ball and, a la Georgie Porgie Bushie, leave outrageous lies lay until they shine like truth.
A big ditto to cfbleacher’s comments.
The first few comments are missing the message of VDH’s compilation of events in the Obama administration. He is pointing to the power of the “unity” them in the Democratic propaganda offensive. I agree entirely with the emphasis he put on the Tucson massacre speech, with its emphasis of healing and not turning on each other. I wrote a similar blog here: http://clarespark.com/2011/01/15/healing-trauma-mystery/, that emphasizes the permanence of trauma and the refusal to consider mental health issues in the society at large.
Bravo to VDH for his discretion in choosing the turning point in Obama’s poll numbers.
Sorry for typo. I meant to write unity “theme”, not “them”. One can’t say too much about VDH’s skillful identification of this theme that accounts, in my view too, for the upward bump in numbers (that along with the questionable move “to the center”). It was one of the major factors in electing Obama in 2008. Every aspirant to high office strives to recreate an idealized family, whereas Americans have always had deep divisions, whether these be sectional, ethnic, religious, or warring economic programs. Neither political party is internally unified, but as creatures with a strong irrational component to our natures, we resist such “healing” measures only with a dogged connection to reality.
cfbleachers: Nice! Obama’s pit bulls are drooling! Olbermann is now free from his MSNBC leash and will probably act as a free-range, rabid Marxist.
The Obama “civility” is pure bunk, devoured by the so-called “moderates” and “independents” whose compass swings wildly every time it passes near any political rhetoric.
The USA will survive the Prince of Fools, but it may not get by the ignorant fools who elected him their prince.
I don’t believe the polls for a minute. I’ve been called by pollsters and the questions are worded so they get the answers they want.
In this 2009 video (after the NEA story) renowned artist Marc Rubin destroyed his presidential portrait of Obama with great irony and humor. Its called “Catharsis” and well worth watching.
http://www.marcrubin.com/obama.ivnu
The USA does have a disease – manufactured crises courtesy of the Left – all out in the open where people don’t want to see.
If you remember that all of the ‘panics’ or ‘crises’ are manufactured, they’re much easier to spot.
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
“cfbleacher’s comments”
Oh my goodness. Talk about like minded people! Says it all and should be forwarded to email contacts every where. Great comment and expresses my sentiments perfectly. Wake up America, which has been my mantra since BillHill were elected.
VDH, I resist being a “fanboy” of anyone, yet find it hardest to resist when reading your blog. Of course, I want to know the rest of the story about how you tersely replied to your neighbor, shotgun over shoulder Hondo-style, that you’d easily rid both him and yourself of this now “mutual” annoyance. To jawbone, be patient, and trade rhetorical nuances with Obama is very much similar to and as counterproductive as doing so with the Iranians and other pig-headed self-agrandizers. Pure populist force, if it can be gathered, seems the most likely way to unseat Obama.
Minor hijack in the discussion-
You know, I actually feel sorry for the dogs (there’s nothing else I can comment on, since VDH said it all). That owner was criminally negligent (I think). I’ve known many dog owners with pit bulls, and when properly raised and socialized, they are fantastic, loving dogs, their un-docked tails being more dangerous than their teeth (I’ve been bruised by a happily wagging tail). Like any dog breed created for defense (think of rotweillers, pinchers, etc), they need to be properly raised, but that’s part of being a responsible dog owner. I hate the villification of the breed based on samples produced by negligent, if not outright criminal (dog-fight breeders) owners.
“To jawbone, be patient, and trade rhetorical nuances with Obama is very much similar to and as counterproductive as doing so with the Iranians… ”
This point is very important. Bringing the reasonable Republicans forward to calmly engage Obowmore in a pleansant back and forth will result in another John McCain campaign… a noble defeat, but a still a defeat. The noble defeat is something Republicans seem emotionally satisfied with, as long as they get to play the Washingon game.
We need a champion who (1) is capable of putting together damaging punches and combinations (Sarah Palin) and (2) emotionally desires to win (Sarah Palin) and (3) will not pull punches due to Obowmore’s ‘historical nature.’ (Sarah Palin)
Whether or not this person (Sarah Palin) runs might less important than having her up front, in the fray, elbows flying out, driving down the lane, scoring basket after basket one-on-one against President Ego.
I have wondered whenever someone remarks on the fact that Obama is thin-skinned to a fault, if he is not actually thin skinned to a fatal flaw. As Krauthammer remarked, the moderate speech, the new “pro-business” babble and new personnel the “pivot to the center” are all just a pose. Ultimately there is no adjustment to policy or genuine changes to how he views the “white wealthy”.
This second honeymoon period cannot last without real improvements to the economy that produce jobs. It is not enough for the stock market to climb or large companies to have record profits. That is what happened in 2010 with almost no effect on unemployment. I don’t believe status quo tax rates, especially when other taxes related to the Health Control are rising, are enough to offset the damage done by out of control regulations. The HC and Financial Regulation bills plus the EPA over reach are three regulatory bridges too far. As they crush the recovery, who does Obama deflect the blame on, Bush? How long can he this truly small soul maintain this farce before he lashes out?
Just another avatar. That’s all. We all seem to wearing the special glasses to see this guy as three dimensional, as in the silly movie of that name, when what we are seeing is the Mimetic Presidency. He says what he needs to say when he needs to say it. I anticipated a very good speech at the Tucson memorial (why didn’t we get one at Fort Hood?). Listening to Obama I do not detect any real sincerity or passion behind the words. I feel I am listening to a finely tuned aria but one that is divorced from real flesh and blood.
Well said!
So, again, I question Roger Simon’s apparently defeatest attitude @ “Get Ready for an Obama Victory in 2012”.
There’s far more to all this than meets the eye—at least for those of us who aren’t Obama camp followers. (I’d really like to know what’s going on with Mr. Simon.)
What’s going on with Simon is that he’s been through this wringer before in the 60s through the 80s, and he knows how easy it is to trick the American public with emotion.
Actions speak louder than words. Have there been any Policy changes since Obama’s “Moderate, Centerist” speech?
Didn’t think so. Carry on.
“why didn’t we get one at Fort Hood?”
That’s what I was thinking. And then Republican Rep. Peter King comes up with “no guns within 1000 feet of judges and congressmen legislation – they are more than we are, they are superior, they are our masters. Only Ron Paul seems to blast the establishment – from both sides.
Obama handled this situation in Tucson with the old adage, “Never let a good tragedy go by without exploiting it.” Of which, he did in an excellent way. The conservatives of this country are reacting like a woman who’s been raped explaining, “But, he didn’t tie me up or drug me.” The fact being that the rape still occurred. Obama is still Obama and just as dangerous as before.
IT ALL DEPENDS WHO DID THE POLL..HE’S NOTHING BUT A ‘BULL SHITTER”
I agree.
Unfortunately in the 24/7 news cycle, all changes in the political climate have to be UNDERSTOOD! Sometimes there is just no political climate. We have had an election, in which Obama’s forces have been soundly defeated. We have had a tragic event in Arizona and many Americans are ashamed that these evens occur in their nation. Obama did make an eloquent speech, and most people don’t listen that carefully to the nuance in his words. Many are turned off from politics and we all know that the next major election is almost two years away. So many will respond to a poll with indifference. Yet there are still a number of immutable facts. First, Obama is still Obama and will reveal himself again when the political imbroglio begins anew as the new Congress flexes its muscle. Second, the economy is still doing poorly, and with the Administration’s idiot regulations, it will not do much better in the near future. Finally, we will have $4.00 per gallon gas. “Drill baby, drill” will resonate throughout the land. Even the corrupt Obama media cannot overcome this reality. And then, “the future shall unfold as as it should”.
“We have had a tragic event in Arizona and many Americans are ashamed that these events occur in their nation.”
Like the shame an abused child feels. He/she has just been raped by an uncle, yet the person who should be intensely shameful has no shame at all. So, in recognition of the need for shame upon such an event, the child supplies the shame that the perpetrator does not have.
We really cannot let this last round of slander go unaddressed. We have to realize at last that the Left will never have any shame, and they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Force and strength is all they will ever understand, we have to abandon hope that they will develop any decency.
Note well their calls to “civility.” They know just where to attack our soft underbelly, our devotion to decency. No, “uncivil” is he new “racist.” Cries of racist has lost its mojo, and, being backed into a corner by now, the Left is countering with “uncivil.” Don’t be fooled by this.
We should support Sarah Palin specifically in a defamation suit, and anyone else who has been outright defamed and slandered. Of course, the Left will spin it, but they will also suffer damage and think twice about doing it again.
We have to stand up at last and not be cowed, first by being slandered, and then by the label “uncivil.”
Hanson’s essays are always deft and insightful. However, lest we forget: gasoline prices, given this Administration’s obtuse policy positions on drilling, are very likely to rise–unlike “right wing rhetoric,” which may rise or fall, but which in either case is largely irrelevant to most things, as is “left wing rhetoric.” When gasoline is selling for somewhere between $4.50 to $5.00 per gallon in early 2012, we shall see what the people then have to say about who should be elected. Patience, conservatives; patience.
Oh, I need someone to constantly be reminding me that there’s nothing sinister about American politics, especially Chicago politics; please, keep remind me that all is peaches, clean and tidy.
BTW, Hu visited Chicago, following his DC stay; any guesses why?
Okay,okay,I’ll be the patsy that says it.Get ready.
“TO GET ORDERS FROM SOROS”.
There,I said it.OK
I can hear them saying….”not that old line again”.
Then answer me this,Is that black man up there really smart enough to think all of this up,or have you noticed that when in thongs or getters or flip flops,he fumbles the words.When they are written for him and put on a sheet of paper,then he is most articulate.
THINK about it.
your pitbull paragraph says it all
regards VDH
Brilliant! Really, really brilliant! I hope that Obama’s opponents can learn from what you have written. If they do, they can beat him. However, the brilliance of this piece goes far beyond what you have written. Your ability to gain a thoughtful distance from the fray and your courage to present something that penetrates so deeply into our national psyche speak for abilities that go far beyond your writing. At this time, there is no question that you are the most important commentator on the American political scene. I look forward to your work over the next two years.
Regardless of the extent to which the pools about Obama’s alleged political “recovery” have been inflated, falsified and skewed, there is no doubt that the large chunk of the American population has allowed itself to be fooled like a bunch of excited children waiting for Christmas present.
It is an indication of America’s moral degradation and intellectual implosion.
It is fair to say that the situation on this field here in my own EUNUCHALIA is even worse.
In that case it is possible that no matter how politically skilled, honest, genial, professional Conservative candidate for POTUS could be, he or SHE has no chances of winning against Obama.
The state of the American collective mind seems to resemble (at least to some degree) the situation in pre 1933 Germany, where NO SANE political figure, no political genius could win against Hitler.
Of course, we have to remeber in mind that the GOP’s leadership and many other “conservative” or rather quasi-political political figures bear much of the responsibility for Obama’s surge in the pools on one side and the alleged “slump” of Palin’s populartiy on the other.
From the very beginning Romney, Huckabee, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Krauthammer and so many others chose to remain silent in the face of the insane, scurillous, barbaric TSUNAMI OF HATE launched by the American Left against the Tea Party and Sarah Palin in particular.
Then all of them indulged themselves in immediate orgy of sallivation over Obama’s “concilliatory” speech while at the same time throwing more or less derogatory and condescending
jabs at Palin.
That Palin back-stabbing spectacle was the most shameful and revolting moment in the American politics I can remember.
There is no doubt that the GOP’s leadership is determined to block Palin from even entering the primary.
Ther is also an even bigger danger. If Palin manages to win, they are willing to ally themselves with Obama and allow him to win the next ellection thus ensuring the end of Palin’s political career.
It is obvious that they will blame her for losing as they tried to blame her for losing the 2008 contest.
This sinister and treasonous strategy of RINO’s and of some members of GOP’s leadership is becoming increasingly clear.
Why otherwise would they spit on the very person who has almost singlehandedly rescued the Republican Party from abyss, while at the same time indulging themselves in Obama’s a**e licking?
I don’t believe for a minute that they think that Obama’s speech was sincere. If they don’t, and we know that they don’t, what then are their motives?
Every word is true.
Not only do we have a fifth column consisting of marxists bent on destroying the country, we have a fifth column of ruling class conservatives bent on destoying the people who want to defeat the marxists.
It’s beyond stunning.
Sometimes I think they are fools. Other times I think they are as machiavellian as little lenin. Whatever the reason, they are shameless, and becoming as big a threat as the manchurian guy.
War and the edge of revolutonary politics (which is where I believe that America is sitting right now) is never pretty or tidy. Unfortunately history tends to present things more distinctly and clearly than they actually were at the time so we get an incorrect picture and when looking back for some sort of reference to our current affairs it all looks unfamiliar. E.g. On the surface (if one goes by the mainline history books) during WWII Great Britain were the Good Guys and fighting the good fight to a man all under the spell and wonderful leadership of one of the greatest men in English History, a whole society standing tall against collectivism and tyranny.
All well, in general. Except after reading many letters and essays from the time as a whole during that period the general feeling amongst the politically aware was that Communism or Fascism were inevitable (even if the UK wasn’t conquered), and even in the face of imminent invasion the Government wouldn’t dare arm the people en-mass due to real fear of a Communist uprising from within!
Add to that many of the “Blimps” and elites and politicians quietly throwing their hat in with the Fascists and Communists and working against England in order to preempt what they saw as inevitable defeat. This all happening while the nation was on the brink of a full invasion and all out war.
So there’s always lots of people working against Liberty. Orwell sadly was correct when he wrote 1984 and looking at “the UK” now, since 1945 it’s rushed headlong into the worst kind of socialism: “scientific socialism”.
I’ll say this though, somehow for the Anglo west it’s always worked out in the end even with so many working against it (Providence used to be the common explanation for our strange resistance to the rabble rousing that plagued other nations). If, for the sake of argument, that was the case – some sort of providence looking out for us, our complete erasure and now derision of such a concept in the last 30 years will certainly have put an end to any such favour.
I also agree, every word is true. I use the treatment of Sarah Palin by people on the right as a touchstone as to their real loyalties to the Conservative cause and all those mentioned and others have become quite suspect for a long time now.
Karl Rove should be highlighted at near the top of that list.
And let there be no doubt it isn’t because they are ill advised or dense, this is a glimpse of the GOP Establishment’s Machiavellian hatred for those they claim to want to lead.
It isn’t often we get to see the mask slip, so watch carefully and make notes as you knit. With apologies for the stained analogy to Madame DeFarge.
Bogdan from Australia @ 11
Thank you for your thoroughgoing, telling comments re the Republican hatchet job on Sarah Palin. I posted a similar thought in Tatler yesterday, that such Republican detractors of Sarah Palin as Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer, Jennifer Rubin, John Podhoretz, Newt Gingrich – the list, alas, is long – would rather see Obama elected president for four more years than suffer Sarah Palin in that office.
Here’s a defense of Palin’s much derided, but apt use of the term “blood libel.”
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0111/robinson011911.php3
The author is exactly right, and I would add, it’s important to understand that the blood libel against Sarah Palin shares the same motives concomitant with the traditional blood libel against Jews: to incite hatred and violence against her by false accusations. That many Republicans may be oblivious to this, or worse, know but ignore it, and so fail to stand up as one for her and denounce such a vicious lie, would mean they’re either stupid, or cowardly, and either way, as likely as Obama is to bow or knuckle under to America’s enemies in these dangerous times.
Those keen to question the political wisdom of her remarks, or her competence, or character, would do better to reflect on Sarah Palin’s courage, and strength in calling out a blood libel against her for the sordid, reprehensible act that it is. Such courage and strength shows true character, competence, and wisdom, both political and personal, as plain as day, for all to see.
Ahhhh No Victor. Nearly the entire increase in Obama’s polling numbers come from the fact that pollsters are now polling adults instead of registered voters and are skewing the polls by having DEMs outnumber GOP in the polls by 8-10 points despite NO election in modern history, including 2006 and 2008, saw such a large partisan gap.
I am troubled that so many “smart” conservatives so easily fall for the polling, especially this far from the election. Polls are easily manipulated and are used to create not report public opinion. VDH should be savy enough to see this.
Do you have any links or pointers to places that describe this shift in polling tactics in greater detail? I’d certainly be interested in this as I’d imagine that it must be major news in polling organizations…(?) At the very least can you tell us from where you heard or read this?
Thanks in advance!
– FF
We can’t allow ourselves to credit the polling groups when we agree with them and discredit them when they do not. It is in their own interest to expose cheating (and they have).
The ‘good cop’, ‘bad cop’ technique is an easy one and works a lot.
It just makes you wonder about all of those independents that seem to sway with the reports from the MSM. Hopefully, as each day goes by, more people will wake up and see that they’ve been had on the Tucson bounce.
I just hope this presidential campaign that somebody will call Obama to account if he unlawfully removes the ‘name’, ‘address’, ‘etc.’ requirements from the MC, VISA, etc. donation fields on his re-election site.
Obama was never going to admonish the rabid leftists who immediately began attacking the right – and in particular Sarah Palin – for the shooting in Tuscon. These are his ‘Brown Shirted’ Troops. While they remain handy they won’t be muzzled. That may change in 2012 as we approach the elections. If anything he is encouraging them by such lame admonishments as we heard in the Tuscon memorial speech. Something that seemed more like the kick-off of Campaign 2012 than anything approaching a memorial.
Was I the only one that picked up on the line about ‘they don’t think like us’? Up to that point I thought I was finally listening to a president that represented me too – sad to say he blew it with that line. Very partisan of him in what should not have been in any way partisan. I didn’t hear one pundit that picked up on that.
Spot on, but not explicit enough.
The scam was planned in meticulous detail, and as Rush immediately said, sitting in a desk drawer somewhere (probably the White House).
It is the most contemptable political hit job in memory. It slimes the dead victims, the beautiful congress woman, conservatives, honorable dissent and the country itself. Beneath contempt. Worse than Clinton’s behavior with Lewinsky, by far.
If Republicans don’t start calling the marxist criminal out on his schemes, and explicitly state what he is doing, the country is done. Bill O’Reilly, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, every other Republican presidential contender besides Sarah Palin, I’m talking about YOU. Your failure to call this criminal out in the future will leave blood on YOUR hands. Are you more concerned about your ratings, you sinecures, your acceptance by the Beltway, or the future of the only force for good in the world? At this point, the answer is unfortunately clear.
I agree.
it is a recurring issue with me as well …those with a voice need to speak out. VDH has that voice. no one wants to be that voice. they are afraid to be blunt to be truthful, they don’t know if they are willing to pay the price it may exact.
Rush? Now there’s an objective observer. It is his JOB to be outraged at Obama and entertain us at the same time.
I agree; Limbaugh is a “professional againster”. Just as Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky are the worst enemies of the Palestinian Arabs, Limbaugh is no friend to Republicans. Republicans can’t afford to win Limbaugh’s arguments.
If the Republicans don’t distance themselves from and marginalize Limbaugh as an event to sell commercial products he is rather than a dedicated intellectual like William F. Buckley, the Reps will be wounded undo death in 2012.
Limbaugh is an egoistic opportunist like Olbermann, any money port in a storm. Olbermann would wear a “X” baseball cap backwards and sing minstrel songs if he had a fat enough contract and so would Limbaugh. I don’t see Buckley doing “Ice, Ice, Baby”.
I miss Buckley; I don’t like watching Beck doing a political version of “Mad Money”. I have an attention span that wouldn’t like watching Buckley press buttons that make “Aaooogah!” sounds or donkeys braying.
Listen to Jim Cramer if you want to lose money and listen to Soupy Sales if you want to lose an election.
Sorry to read this from someone I previously considered a thoughtful commenter. I suspect I was not reading closely enough, or else you were disguising your true colors.
First, Rush is certainly not a professional againster. He is for liberty, the constitution, everyday Americans and the greatest country ever formed.
Second, you seem to hold it against Mr. Limbaugh that he is an entertainer as well as a thought leader. This is troubling because it reveals a deep disdain of one of the cornerstones of freedom, free enterprise. Would you rather that conservative voices hide in closets and live on beans, or is it that you side with the left, which seeks to restrict freedom of speech to only leftists?
Third, comparing Rush Limbaugh to Olberman isn’t possible for a conservative. It simply isn’t possible.
Fourth, by agreeing with the most odious troll currently sliming PJM, you put yourself in the same category as the left sliming conservatives after Tucson.
Despite the Buckley references, James May has revealed himself as a most curious “conservative”. It would have been possible to position yourself as someone who disagrees with Rush’s style without slandering him five times. You chose to heap scorn on one of, if not the most, respected conservative voices. Most curious indeed.
But of course, you are free to say anything you wish, and I’m sure that you won’t miss me in your audience, as I won’t be paying attention any longer to what you have to say.
Bill Buckley thought highly of Rush Limbaugh.
I have no true colors to hide. Anyone who is paid to espouse a political view so ardently as does Limbaugh is suspect. This is not to hold it against anyone, just to view them with a weather eye as most of our commentary on politics is done by people who are paid to do so and also paid to choose a side; they deserve to be paid and I owe it to myself to be wary.
They choose sides because few people are interested in a dispassionate political view, either of current or historical events. If Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein weren’t polemicist’s, no one would be much interested in their dry recitations of history which to me would be infinitely preferable to their blather.
I suspect Limbaugh has no interest in liberty, the Constitution or his listeners. I side with neither the Left or the Right; both have had their psychotic episodes. The Republicans who wasted time and treasure on trying to impeach Clinton were no Americans but partisan pedants who went after a lie of a lie and Ken Star a tool willing to be used. Today it is liberals on the Left who are the great danger – in times past it was Nixon, my most hated President.
I am not a Conservative so pointing out that Olbermann and Limbaugh are both idiots is no problem for me. I do not align myself with terms like Libertarians, Progressives, the Left or Conservatives. Such us versus them thinking restricts freedom of thought, posits a line of philosophy to be always correct and has a Roswell-like juvenile tone about it I find abhorrent not to mention a herd mentality that resembles the bleating of a sheep.
To me this is the exact opposite of what I think of when I think of an eccentric American who holds his own views no matter where they take him which is the great strength of America and has been the crucial difference between us and the Old World and the source of our exceptionalism; we don’t think better than others but we think in a different way than others, devoid of Old World considerations of class or propriety.
As an American, I would no more think of kissing the Queen of England’s hand than I would kissing a dogs ass. If it’s not my idea, my free decision, it’s no idea and no decision in truth. It is this quality of improvisation and audacity which has mystified Europe for 100 or 200 years as Americans take a good idea where they find it and damn the provenance. Europeans still can’t figure out why decadent dead end kid yahoos in cultural short pants had to go “over there” liberate concentration camps and generally rescue the morons in WW II and replace their oom pah pah bands with John Coltrane.
But now we have our own royalty as witness the arrests of perfectly innocent reporters video taping politicians at the Dem Convention of 2008 – who are these people? What about mugging photographers during the BP affair?
Agreeing with this “trolls” particular line of thought in no way paints me with a broad brush concerning Tuscon. It IS Limbaugh’s job to dislike President Obama at all times. You think he will be 50/50 maybe? Ridiculous. He can’t sell ad time doing that or himself.
As for slandering Limbaugh, that would be a difficult task since he is his own worst enemy in this regard. I am well aware that Limbaugh is respected by certain Conservatives but none in my opinion has half a brain who does so; Limbaugh is nothing more than a con man and a huckster – a Broderick Crawford character in at least a couple of movies I can think of. If Limbaugh and Maddow ever got together you might end up with a whole brain and something like the truth.
You are right. O’Reilly is clueless. Krauthammer walks the fence. I’ve read summaries of Krauthammer’s talks to closed groups and he’s very clear behind closed doors about the dangers of Obama and the Left. However, in his articles and on the All-Star panel on Bret Baier’s Special Report, he’s milquetoast and very careful about what he says. Glenn Beck is the only one who has the courage to talk about what is really going on.
Bill O’Reilly, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, leaning, leaning,
leaning, soon go boom and fall over. Especiall the Kraut. Absolutley facinating to watch these mouthpieces slowly, ever so slowly turn Toward The Left. Turned off the newstube permanently
and am a little bit calmer. There are no more heroes people.
The poll numbers are junk, and Obama is not Mandela. Mandela was the “untouchable” Black political leader “free” of ugly corruption and patronage (courtesy of Robben Island imprisonment for decades) in a Black majority nation.
Obama is a Black President in a White Majority nation, judged basically by one thing: “wins.” Just ask first Black coaches Mike Singletary, or Denny Green, or Perry Fewell, or Tyrone Willingham, or Karl Dorrell. First Black coaches at their programs/teams, fired for not producing winning seasons.
Obama will rise or fall, get re-elected or bounced, based on producing “wins” for Joe Average: more cash in his pocket or bank account each month compared to four years ago. Along with sentiment (wages rising or stagnant, prices rising or falling, jobs increasing or stagnant/declining).
All the speeches, Media blitzes, lectures, foaming at the mouth Palin-hate, etc. won’t mean a damn thing if gas is over $4 a gallon, food prices continue to rise, jobs continue to be stagnant or lost, unemployment is above 8% (and about 16% real terms), and clothes largely unaffordable.
Obama now HAS TO DELIVER. Deliver as he’s never had to in his life. Voting present, giving big speeches, having the Media run air cover for him, won’t matter. He has to make people’s lives better.
The President has considerable regulatory power to make the economy good or bad: environmental regulations to protect the environment (at the cost of jobs) or vice versa. Health care legislation and execution that provides health care for another 30 million, or job creation. Health care reform to cover illegal aliens (most of the 30 million without health insurance) at the cost of rising premiums (over 56% in California for some insurers) or not. Financial regulation generating large increases in checking account fees, or not. Military spending on F-22 Raptor production employing 135,000 people or not.
At the end of the day, people will evaluate Obama based on his record. What he produced. His “wins” not being the first Black President (which was fine for a day in 2009, but no substitute for “wins.”) Two months from now no one will care about Gabrielle Giffords or even remember, any more than other shootings or tragedies are remembered. Quick, recall the names of the dead at Columbine. Or the Border Patrol Agent shot by coyotes in Arizona around the same time as Giffords was shot.
People DO CARE (a lot) about how much they have in the bank each month, after paying for gas, and groceries, and energy, and clothing. They care about the security of their job. They care about their real incomes rising or falling. They care about being able to get married and start a family, or not. They care about being able to live in a nice part of town, or a dump. They care about being able to afford a new car, or having to buy a used junker.
The President like a Head Coach has so much administrative/regulatory control he is judged by how much “wins” he produces, and those that don’t produce get fired. Even if they are the first Black coach at a program, or the First Black President.
The GOP lead House will see to it that all these “it’s the economy stupid” things are accomplished by 2012. Part of the deal.
please do not forget why Mandela was in prison.
he is no hero to me.
General,
I was born and raised in the South, old enough (barely) to remember the tail-end of segregation. I now work in South Africa.
While I never supported Mandela’s politics (he endorsed communism, as you correctly imply, I believe), his resistance to Apartheid was just, even if he did come from the wing of the ANC that called for violence against the Apartheid regime. What he fought against was so extreme and evil that violence, in my opinion, was justified. While horrible in its own right, segregation in the American South was but a candle next to a roaring fire when compared to Apartheid.
Politics aside, Mandela was a hero and deserves his iconic status.
so I don’t need to tell you what a sh!thole south africa is becoming.
I was not per se referring to his communist tendencies but that he went to jail for terrorism. He killed people ..white people and black people.
I am sure you can find references to his lovely wife’s enjoyment of “necklacing” people ..often these were black people who just happened to not be marxists. Mandela never distianced himself from those comments or actions.
please understand I am not in any way defending apartheid. That was a very bad thing. That also does not give the communists legitimacy, something you are giving to them. They the ANC killed a lot more black people then did apartheid.
And now that the ANC have held power for a significant number of years you can see that the country is disintegrating. If you wish to know how it will end look north to zimbabwe. south africa is less then one generation away.
enjoy.
General P. Malaise
Mandel’s Africa. Death, destruction, mayhem, heinous crimes. The soil of S.Africa is fertilized by the blood of human beings.
Africa is a lost continent once again. This does not keep the whole world from throwing tons of money into it’s bottomless pit.
Mandela a hero, I don’t think so. Don’t forget wife Winnie.
It’s all the communist way. As Caroline K. says “don’cha know”.
Like the rest of the world that has been indoctrinated by the Marxist Anti Apartheid Movement you are unable to distinguish between what Apartheid and the civil war that tore South Africa apart for the 30 years following the declaration of the “Armed Struggle” by the Marxist backed ANC. Mandela was personally responsible for sending “liberation” cadres to bomb civilian targets such as shopping malls and pubs, and slaughtering worshippers in their church.
To give you an idea as to how the saintly Mandela compared to the evil Apartheid aparatus, from the Truth and Reconciliation Committee reports, during 40 years of Apartheid (and including the run up to the 1994 elections) 20 000 people died as a result of political action – only 8 000 were killed by the government security forces, the rest were killed by the “liberation” forces in horrific ways such as “necklacing” to ensure that the majority were to scared to oppose them. This number does not include all the exiles that the ANC tortured and killed in their “camps” in Angola, Zambia and Tanzania.
Agree with Whiskey, Obama is no Mandela. And never will be.
The Dems learned some important things in their exploitation of the recent tragedy. No matter how far they go to smear Republicans, the Repubs will a) not defend their own, and b) not insist the Dems defend their vicious lies and denounce the liars.
Why did the ‘prompterPresident care about this tragedy and not Ft. Hood? Political calculation determines every reaction? Or because the military is more a “Republican thing” those lives matter less?
Obama even gets a pass for waiting five days to respond. Ridiculous.
The poll numbers aren’t the main problem. They are more of a symptom.
The problem is that too many conservatives / republicans / rinos are playing the game they were good at in the 20th century.
The marxists have a different rule book, and our guys not only don’t even know it, they fall for the cons every single time.
If we don’t find some leaders who are not blind fools, we might as well fold the hand.
VDH is a good start but he isn’t running for anything, and he doesn’t appear on TV five nights a week.
Sarah Palin’s the leader you’re looking for.
Dear Victor,
As an old and deeply religious person, who strongly believes in allah and his paedophile prophet, I would venture to say that all this, the carnage in Arizona and the subsequent explosion in Barack Hussein’s popularity were no accident: allah had preordaned all that, as he has a reason for everything that happens, the paramount reason here being his supreme earthling subject’s (Barack Hussein the messiah, that is) popularity, job approval and re-election prospects.
As for your neighbor’s pitbulls, allah must have had a reason for that too, you obviously not being a good muslim comes to mind, but it could be some other, deeper one, which escapes me at the moment.
Cheers
Dear Peedeterminism,
I’ve never heard such a line of bullsh*t in my life. Here is what is predetermined, the world will get tired of all this moslem bs an react very violently toward it. The ensuing blood bath will make the crusades look like a vacation in the desert. It will be a well deserved retribution for the centuries of aragance and bloodshed caused by your religion.
pees on you
Andy, I think that you missed the sarcasm in the above post. Did you not read the “pedophile prophet” line?
Take it easy Gump; it was meant as satire that obviously escaped you. May peace (not piss) be with you.
Hey Pre…the giva away was “…the pedophile…”
BS will sway some in 2012, but the economy will surge voters. $5.00 gas? Heating & electrical? Ask carter-the-clown how that worked for him. The hostages were just icing.
There’s only one poll that counts.
We had a Prime Minister up here in Canada who stated that, “The only one who knows what to do with a pole, is a dog”.
like the one last november.
Poles are useless. Votes are crucial.
yes ..the poll I was referring to …was the vote in november
…and my take is that matthew was referring to the election ..just not the one in november past where the people of the USA said they don’t want the marxist sh!t
The events of the last two weeks have proved to me that Americans are easily duped and the Republican strategy of being nice and reasonable will get them nowhere. Not one Republican leadership hopeful was prepared to stand up and tell Obama to put an end to the Palin blood libel. They thought it would only hurt her. They were wrong. To allow that kind of vicious smear to go unanswered hurts all of us.
After a week of watching her being unfairly attacked (by his guests and the media) fake conservative Joe Scarborough announced that Palin’s political career was finished. If the political career of someone with the character of Sarah Palin can be destroyed by a blood libel, then it is not just Sarah Palin who is finished.
Obama congratulates Dupnik for a job well done. The Undocumented President is a hypocrite. And a phony of the first rank.
http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/01/ap-praises-hateful-radical-dupnik-links-shooting-rampage-to-arizonas-shameful-politics/
The poll numbers cannot be trusted because the ‘news media’ is nothing more than a gang of professional liars who spew forth propaganda. Obama would not have been elected without these cretins and they are determined to keep him in office now. The so-called media has become an enemy of the American people and has joined forces with Obama to cause the maximal amount of damage possible to this nation and its people. All of them should be thrown out of the country. Obama’s speeches mean nothing because he cares not one whit about any White person in the United States.
“The poll numbers cannot be trusted because the ‘news media’ is nothing more than a gang of professional liars who spew forth propaganda.”
I’ve always had and continue to have a bad case of severe skepticism when it comes to significant shifts of feelings in polls. Ask yourself, do you know anyone who evinced dislike for Obama for a over a year but who now, after the memorial pep rally, all of a sudden is a big fan of his. Have any of you changed your minds about how good a job Obama is doing as Pres.? If they poll 1200 people and 8% of them have changed their minds, that’s 96 people. How could this be?
“As John Diefenbaker once punned, “polls” are of interest only to dogs”.
Good work VDH. I like all dogs including Pitbulls if not raised, used and abused by lunitics. Obama certainly doesn’t need a Pitbull but more appropriately needs a Sheepdog. He is and knows, after all, that he is leading a nation of sheep to the proverbial slaughter. This should have been your reason #4 that caused his poll numbers to spike. I know, however, this is hard for you to acknowledge in print. He will be elected again in 2012. Take a look at his opposition. To all who contributed to the up polls -Baaaaaaaaa…
Professor, the, ‘jump in Obama’s approval ratings’ are circumspect at best. Honestly, I as I know many others were repulsed by Obama’s stump speech painted over, rearranged as a ‘eulogy’.
As for Obama’s 2004 DNC speech, then early 20-something speechwriter Favreau met Obama behind stage prior to the speech, adding pointers to then 44 year-old Obama’s speech. The man’s an empty-suited man, who as you mentioned, political will and ‘decision making’ is first tested by which way the political wind blows. When he wasn’t voting ‘Present’ that is.
Classless, clueless and dangerous acts of our CiC.
Lastly, American’s I.Q. averages have been dropping frighteningly low for some time now. I always think of the scene from the movie, ‘Forrest Gump’ where the Principal of Forrest’s school displays a crude graph of ‘average I.Q>’ and Forrest’s lacking I.Q. in comparison.. Forrest’s I.Q. is today’s average!
Now grantee, it is a movie. Nonetheless, scientific journals (reputable ones, not SciAm and the like) have noted this decline.
Idiocracy indeed..
Unfortunately, it’s no longer a movie.
Obama is taking guidance from Spin Master Wm. Daly–a bit more subtle than Rahmbo. But their true natures will out. Again and again.
You guys are going to have a hard time over the next two years, as the economy picks up. It’s going to be interesting to watch so many people actually be frustrated by improving economic conditions. ;-)
You mean when the newly elected congress puts the reigns on spending and aids in a recovery? Yeah I’m sure YOU will be happy with that so Obama can take credit for that. Sadly for the Dem’s the American people are begining to stir from their stupor.
Of course it’ll have nothing to do with the new Republican house will it? It’ll magically be “all Obama” and the last two years of Democratic super majorities, along with Obamas “boot on the neck” of business and an economy in the gutter will all be forgotten in the mind of the mindless.
Matthew, what’s frightening about your comment is you DO realize that if there’s ANY economic turnaround in the near future, it will be due to a Republican-led Congress and a Democratic-led Senate having their hands tied due to their obvious failures as the majority in a mere 4 years.. right?
Then again, if the economy doesn’t pick up (unless ObamaScare gets repealed and replaced, home sales improve better than the 13 year low in which they reside presently, much needed lowering of annual budget while scrapping billions of entitlement, overlapping programs etc.,) – whereas Obama is unwilling to compromise, you will pull the Liberal knee jerk response and blame said Republicans!
IF the economy improves, please realize it’s little/nothing to do with your wunderboy..
Yeah, perhaps, …thew, but I think even you might be frustrated by gasoline at $5 or $6 a gallon and COLA at about 8%. These will make even Carter look good by comparison. Goodbye, Barack, enjoy your wealthy retirement while your librul supporters will be asking why “change” was for the worst.
Actually, I agree that economic conditions will improve. The Republican House will call Obama’s budget “dead on arrival” like Reagan’s budgets were ignored by the Democrats in the 80s. They will reduce spending to 2008 or even 2007 levels and dare the Senate Democrats and Obama to stop them. If Obama vetoes the new budget, the government may shut down but Obama is not Clinton and Boehner is not an ego inflated Gingrich. Next year’s budget will be implemented by small appropriations bills that will not allow Obama to shut down all the government but only agencies that are not very popular with the public. The economic revival might assure Obama of re-election if he agrees to ride the wave of Republican reforms like Clinton did.
Remember that the “budget” is a resolution. The bills that count are appropriations. Ryan has been working on them for months.
Sorry matthew but the real economy will be gas & utility bills, not the govorments economic stability. A soaring investment off set by the above does nothing for The Won. Extended unemployment isn’t a vote getter either.
OHbamaCare eradication will be a relief not a loss but closure of oil drilling will be a big loss of votes.
Why did Obamas poll numbers jump? Because the Republicans didn’t have the guts to call him on his hypocrisy.
From The Wall Street Journal-
” JUNE 14, 2008, 1:29 PM ET
Obama: ‘If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun’
Amy Chozick reports on the presidential race from Philadelphia.
Mobster wisdom tells us never to bring a knife to a gun fight. But what does political wisdom say about bringing a gun to a knife fight?
That’s exactly what Barack Obama said he would do to counter Republican attacks “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said at a Philadelphia fundraiser Friday night. “Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”
Sen. Barack Obama talks at a town hall meeting at Radnor Middle School in Wayne, Pa., Saturday, June 14. (AP)
The comment drew some laughs and applause. But it also struck a chord with his Republican rival. John McCain’s campaign immediately accused the Democratic candidate of playing the politics of fear. They also mentioned that Obama said he would use a gun that would be illegal under Obama’s plans to cut down on illegal firearms.
“Barack Obama’s call for ‘new politics’ is officially over. In just 24 hours, Barack Obama attacked one of America’s pioneering women CEOs, rejected a series of joint bipartisan town halls, and said that if there’s a political knife fight, he’d bring a gun,” McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.
Obama made the comment in the context of warning donors that the general election campaign against McCain could get ugly. “They’re going to try to scare people. They’re going to try to say that ‘that Obama is a scary guy,’” he said. A supporter yelled out a deep accented “Don’t give in!”
“I won’t but that sounded pretty scary. You’re a tough guy,” Obama said ”
How many Republicans appeared on the major news media ? How many of them called pointed out Obamas statements?
I do agree. the republicans have no idea they are being gamed day after day. they fall into the trap of defending themselves and that usually comes off badly.
you are correct the republicans need to call him out. ….the facts are on their side. they can easily show that he is a hypocrite and liar and has caused the discourse we are seeing today..
they can also show that the stimulus doesn’t work. DO NOT RAISE THE DEBT CEILING …tell the marxist to cut his spending.
sad but I think the republicans will get gamed again.. the seating arrangement for the SOTU is another example of that. It implicitly make the republicans complicant on the discourse which has only been hateful on the democrat side of the country.
When Obama starts to fade, and he will, because he is a Statist Liberal. Watch the U.S. Senate Republicans take up support for him, in the course of the next 2 years.
Mccain, Kirk, Brown, Snowe, Grassley, Hatch, Lugar, Graham, Murkowski, Collins, Blunt, just to name the usual suspects, are all capable of defending Obama and the Liberal Position.
The “Good old Boy” network of Professional Politican, News Media, Corporate Welfare Lobby, lawyers, labor & Government Unions, Political Funding Groups are all part of the “Political Class. This Class have become the burden the Worker Class and taxpayer can no longer afford.
Now, everyone that is paying any attention, know what the problem is, and the only real long term solution, reduce the size of Government. Federal, State, Local.
They will not go away without a fight. I hope everyone is ready.
The cult of personality is all he has and will ever have.
As Farina said: “I’ve been down so long, it looks like up to me.”
Obama has been wrong so many times, it is cause celebre when he finally doesn’t pee his pants. What a sorry SOB we have as “leader?”
As to the polling. I have no problem understanding the increased approval swing numbers over a few short weeks.
The overwhelming majority of Americans are fickle minded and only stand for something a nano second. The rest of their time they spend falling for anything and everything on a personal basis rather than a national basis.
The economic crisis is not the rhetoric of the day. Health care and its repeal is not 24/7 on the peoples minds and many folks have personally benefited from it already. The elevated excitement of rallies for a new movement has wained. Unemployment is slowly reversing its trend. The congress passed sweeping socialist progressive reforms but that is ancient history in most peoples minds now. People are preconditioned to higher fuel prices and utility bills. The majority of people are bored and disconnected from foreign relations now. The president appears to now be moving into a centrist position for the remainder of his first term. People have to stop and literally think for a moment to remember that our nation remains in two war fronts. National spending and debt is something the majority of folks never grasp until tax increases are significantly reflected in their paychecks.
So yes, all is well after a bit of conditioning for the majority and why not give credit to the president…thats what people do when they become content.
Only about three million people (junkies) actively follow politics….mostly during election cycles.
Obama will conduct the same campaign for 2012 as he conducted in 2008 – and in every campaign previously.
It will be pure rhetoric, based around ‘hope and change’ or other similar sophist phrases (together we thrive).. His rhetoric, as in every campaign in his past, will be filled with images of collective love and harmony, collaborative well-being and universal employment and ease of life.
He will, as he has always done in every campaign since high school, define himself as a ‘brave victim’ – whether of racism, poverty, …or..as in 2008, of not merely racism but also, Evil. Evil in the guise of Bush, war, hatred.
This time, it will be Evil in the guise of the GOP -who control Congress and prevent Obama, the Brave Knight, from helping the impoverished and hapless helpless.
He will silence criticism – by stealth and thuggery, smear campaigns,and outright lies, as he did in his Senate races in the early part of his political career. Remember, Obama is a clinical narcissist; he has no connection to reality; he lives in a virtual world made up entirely, completely, of His Own Words. He is therefore a pathological liar and has no sense that what he says today, contradicts tomorrow, and promotes the following day – has any hint or taint of immorality and even, manipulation.
He’s going to talk about jobs and employment in his State of the Union – ignoring that his very first bill when he came to power, his infamous Stimulus Bill, was supposed to be about just that; was supposed to keep unemployment below 8.5%, was supposed to be spent on ‘shovel-ready projects’; was supposed to develop infrastructure. It did none of this. Nothing. Yet Obama feels no shame, no sense of failure, sees no misconnection between His words and reality. He’ll continue this way.
He has denigrated the US all around the world, reducing its power, its integrity – such that no-one now believes that the words coming from the WH or the President have any strength beyond the sound of those words.
The GOP has to offer commonsense solutions – simple, clear, data-based, explicit – without the romanticism of the Obama rhetoric. That is the one area which Obama cannot deal with: the real world. He exists totally, in a virtual world of rhetoric. The GOP must not counter his sophistry with their own rhetoric; they must instead focus on hard reality – and commend the American people for doing the same.
IQ? I can’t say a lot for yours if you can’t understand why some speeches work, and some don’t. You are blinded by partisanship, and evidently repulsion. THAT is not intelligence but obsession.
Okay, let us assume these polls are accurate. My wonderment is that Obama is not higher in the polls than he is. For all the “good news” he has gotten in the last sixty days why is he not at Clinton levels after OKC or Bush after 9/11?
It fits my theory that sixty percent of the country has pushed the mute button on Obama. And with, as Newsweek points out, five dollar coffee and four dollar gasoline coming this spring I would say we have seen Obama at his peak.
Obama will ALWAYS get the 13% Racist Black vote no matter what he does, add to that the 20%+ certified left wing moonbats and the 10% irredeemably stupid and you can see how he continues to rate highly. It therefore does not take too many stupid, uneducated, unthinking media driven, hysterical, emotional American voters to tip him in to the majority. So sad America I know but this is the price you pay for letting moonbat Deem’o'crats and RINOS infiltrate Academia and Government and set your agenda for so long
Lastly, American’s I.Q. averages have been dropping frighteningly low for some time now. I always think of the scene from the movie, ‘Forrest Gump’ where the Principal of Forrest’s school displays a crude graph of ‘average I.Q>’ and Forrest’s lacking I.Q. in comparison.. Forrest’s I.Q. is today’s average!
Couldn’t have anything to do with us allowing the Third World to move in and be de facto citizens, could it?
Thank you Anonymous. I can believe how many of the average American citizens take all the propaganda about the destruction of our schools and colleges without asking some basic questions. Like is the influx of low IQ foreigners into our schools and colleges maybe reducing the average IQ of our students at all levels. Now the self interested teachers unions and state and local bureaucrats that love to point in faux despair at falling SAT scores and whine about the need for more money is to be expected, but can no one see the obvious. Race and country of foreign origin adjust the SAT scores, academic achievement scores of all kinds and the problem disappears. Another Left Wing Progressive manufactured crisis solved. Not that the Progressives haven’t destroyed our educational system, only that they are clearly using a totally one sided analysis to make their case for more money more compelling.
Average Black IQ = 84
Average Hispanic IQ = 86
Average White IQ = 101
Average Chinese IQ = 106. And, Val, we might also note the well-known Chinese work ethic.
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/060423_lynn.htm
Let’s have more Chinese immigrants to the USA and fewer from Somalia and Mexico.
I’d gladly trade any individual with poor work ethic for one with with an above average one, regardless of ethnicity. Stats may say a whole lot about a large group, but they say nothing about the man (or woman) in front of me. Ideally our immigration needs would be filled by individuals that we actually recruit based on merit… Now that would be something.
I’d trade high average IQ scores for high average work ethic any day of the week. Maybe a little critical thinking skills thrown in for good measure. Of course, all of you know where those have gone, as well.
The crux of this entire article is the sentence; “the most well-financed, Wall Street-subsidized, vitriolic camping in modern memory, in which Obama’s rivals will be metaphorically reduced to caricatures of racist, selfish, and cruel nativists”
What irritates me most about this site is the brilliant illustration of the dot, but abject failure to then connect dots to each other.
Presidents Obama, Bush, Reagan, Nixon, Clinton, Bush II were all financed by the same people, through different channels, but the same groups. Our nation has suffered almost straight declines in economy and living standards since the early 70′s as each president fulfills desires and wishes of their sponsor, which gutted the banking system and US Dollar, filling their treasuries with cash and wealth. The collateral damage is the US taxpayer.
Wall street ( actually European banking interests) do not care who the president is. They are not liberal or conservative, democrat or tea party or republican. They love money, and have been squeezing it out of the United States for the last 50 years, and we have been bending over backwards making it easier for them.
It is emotional American voters that fall victim to the liberal/conservative slant, allowing vultures of finance to pick the Bones of this nation while we ignorantly cheer them on, thinking a Republican President will somehow right imagined wrongs of a Democrat, or vice versa.
The American Voter needs to distance themselves from their party, and become reacquainted with what the Nation needs. And what we need is a Leader that will demand accountability from the Federal Reserve, and overhaul Entitlements that are destroying any future hope for the nation.
Your comment is exactly on target. Now if we can only get the other 308 million people to wake up. Forums like PJM offer a chance to communicate the truth to those that matter. If the comment above is accurate that there are only 3 million political junkies in the world, we have a large task of communication ahead of us. The vast bulk of the population will follow American Idol to their graves as free men and woman or as serfs, but with little awareness of what or who got them there.
“Our nation has suffered almost straight declines in economy and living standards since the early 70′s”
Utter nonsense. It’s one of the most profoundly stupid statements I have ever read on a public forum.
Living standards shot up from the early 80′s until 2007. As a Krugman fan, you can play with numbers and “prove” the opposite, because numbers don’t reflect that home sizes and amenities doubled in 25 years, that entire new categories of communication devices appeared, and that choices for food, clothing, transportation and leisure increased exponentially.
GDP, personal income, and all the other bullshit metrics don’t reflect what really happened to lifestyles during that period. The difference between 1980 and 2007 for the average American was night and day.
In 1970, the average home was about 1800 square feet; less than half of the country owned homes; nobody had access to a computer; there were no cell phones, ipods, ipads, wide-screen TV’s no matter plasma TV’s, no wireless devices of any kind; engineers used slide rulers, they drew their plans with a pencil; there were 3 TV channels; grocery shelves had 1/3 the choices; normal people ate in restaurants about twice a month; there were no Home Depots, no Targets, few Walmarts, no PetSmarts, 1 or 2 major grocery chains; average lifespan was 2 or 3 years less; automobiles fell apart after 2 years, had no safety features and you could pick between Ford and GM for your deathtrap; medical science was primitive; there were no doc-in-the-boxes, many people didn’t see a doctor until they were on their death beds; people died from dental problems, few children saw orthodontists; average airfare was about $1000 (inflation adjusted), many people had never flown in their lives; the typical vacation was driving through a neighboring state; Americans lived with a real fear of another world war; and on and on and on and on and on and on.
Anybody who makes the ludicrous statement that living standards declined since that time is painfully brainwashed, or a complete idiot.
proreason…THANK YOU!!!!!
Especially since the 90′s America’s economy has been saturated with far to much currency!
What folks forget or don’t understand is that the prices or values of goods and services are completely arbitrary! Consumer credit, now a top tier national economic component, replacing much of the lost industrial base, is what is used to prop up the insane inflated and arbitrary values. Such an economic model is unsustainable as we all witnessed in 2007 to present. Such a model relies upon irresponsible consumers to keep the market going until it bursts….next time!
Well TT, I’m not sure if you comment is supportive or not, but it does bring up an associated point.
Were the skyrocketing lifestyles paid for with debt or funny money that will crash soon? That isn’t an easy question.
More than 13T of the 14T national debt was accumulated since 1970. That amounts to about 43K per US citizen. Double that for personal debt (may be more than that), and you might say that the lifestyle of 2011 was purchased for 70-100K per person in current debt.
That’s a lot, but it’s been 40 years. Doesn’t look like a slam dunk either good or bad to me. And the national debt has not contributed a penney to life style improvements anyway. 90% of the national debt is money flushed down the toilet.
But one thing is for sure, that debt, government or personal, has got to go down fast or the era of improving lifestyles will come to a screeching halt real soon.
Do I sense a third party on the horizon? The more I hear about RINO’s together with old farts like Gingrich, and now Romney thinking about running for POTUS; the more sinister things seem to be. The Republican Party is finished, gone. Those moderate Republicans would vote Democrat in a heartbeat if it meant keeping their power and position.
I don’t trust this “nest of scheming bastards”, nor can I respect anyone that constantly plays catch-up with Obama, as if POTUS is deciding all the plays and telling everyone what to think – which he is. No more whining about Obama; we all know he could charm the pants and panties off of anyone that inclines their ear without a pinch of discerning.
Third Party it is…
An excellent analysis.
Those who love freedom would do well to look and see how the media firestorm erased the truth.
That is how they will do it in 2012, indeed. I guess it pays to have heavyweight, expensive psychologists and propagandists on the team?
For the truth to win against these cleverly constructed half truths and lies things will have to be awfully bad.
Margaret Thatcher didn’t become Prime Minister in Britain until the wheels were well and truly coming off.
People don’t really seem to bother to see reality (the truth) until they are extremely desperate.
Which is very, very sad.
The left may have bren discredited by their slurs, but the slurs are still out there, festering in the backs of the minds of otherwise reasonable people.
For whoever the Republican nominee is in 2012 I have two words of advice: FIGHT BACK! I’m sick and tired of Democrats like Obama calling for “civility” on one day, and the next day you have Democrats comparing Republicans to Nazis. Enough is enough. Why do you think Republicans did so well in 2010? It wasn’t because we were so NICE to the Democrats. We were angry and we STAYED angry. And this anger motivated other people to vote Republican, giving the Republicans their biggest victory in about 70 years.
So civility is for losers in American politics. John McCain was the dean of civility and he lost, badly. Nope, to the far left and for Democrats in general, this is open warfare. They know their hold on power is slipping away and they will do anything to smear any Republican they think is popular these days. Just ask Sarah Palin about how much “civility” has gotten her over the past three years. Nope. If you’re nice in politics, you will lose. If unemployment is still at 9% by the this time next year and if Obamacare is still the law of the land because of Democratic obstructionism, conservatives won’t have to hit very hard to prove their points. Stick with what worked in 2010 and you can’t go wrong.
FIGHT BACK!
That should be the rallying cry.
And we have to make it clear that what we are fighting for is to defeat the destruction of the greatest country in history by the cruelest ideology in history; the ideology that turns free people into serfs and that ensconses arrogant criminals in positions of absolute power.
Don’t take my word for it. Investigate any other socialist country that has ever existed, excluding the modern European countries that have just now started going over the falls.
“There he goes again,” said Reagan and the Carter campaign collapsed.
I’ll be saying “there they go again” a lot in the coming months and Democrat partisans will go down like a bully with a glass jaw.
In the end, you can’t hide slow to nonexistent recovery and and a ten percent unemployment rate, no matter how much the media is in the tank for you, and whatever the distraction du jour.
Our political class is the worst ever. There are a few governors who seem to be trying to fix problems, but most politicians are consumed with fixing blame.
Dr. Hanson is spot on week after week, but I wonder if he is not being unnecessarily alarmist at Obama’s seeming poll float. This country has a very short attention span. That speech will be forgotten by next week, if it hasn’t already. Despite the black/brown/left coalition he is cobbling together, he will be defeated in 2012 unless he is the agency of destruction the Mayans warned about. (Just kidding). But only if the center-right nominates a candidate that is not a phony (Romney) hasn’t been around forever and has a repulsive personal history (Newt and to a lesser degree Guiliani), has been demonized and is unacceptable to too many women (Palin), is not a RINO and keeps a couple of zip codes between him or her and the Bush clan. And the Republican Party will have to take off the gloves. The make-nice McCain campaign where Obama’s background was off limits should not be repeated.
Again I say, no one has asked my opinion in such a poll regarding Obama. My opinion remains the same. Wrong track. Worse job performance.
MacDaddy Obama-Mao, puts out wonderful words to swish us voters up into the heavens of his creations, to float about in trances of his making: He is a malignant narcissist of the first order; while we are the dupes who follow his commands right off the cliffs to which his policies are leading us.
Seeds for revolution are all about being planted and nurtured.
Snapping dogs are there for the safety and pleasures of the owner who knows full well what they do and lovingly reinforces his pets to continue behaving as such.
The wise warrior would have set up (ambushed) the pets on the second chance–then shot them dead; whereupon your visiting his residence with two dead animals in the pickup bed, you would have had the horrifying story to shout into his face, all the while holding onto your tested weapon for him to see!
(Oh…all you lawyer types–just like Barry, forget your legal solutions, etc. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance!”)
Bullies like Obama only have one ending. Remember Tacitus’ words.
The reason Obama got a “remarkable turnaround” is because he read one good speech from his teleprompter, and benefitted from the continual lies of the “mainstream” media. Big deal. A set of disasters of his own making still lie ahead for him: the economy, the deficit, skyrocketing oil prices, foreign leaders see him as a joke… That goodwill will evaporate very quickly if those problems continue to go unsolved.
Mr. Hanson sees through the veneer of this President…Most members of the media have indicated that they do not… I refer to the Memorial address given 5 days late!
My dilemma is: the puppeteer(s). I truly question the source of the policies, and/or rhetoric of this administration…
I sure hope the New Yak (sic) Times doesn’t get ahold of your idea about Obama/Mandela. We’ll never hear the end of that, and Obama will be painted as even greater than Mandela.
And thank you Dr. Hanson, for writing about Obama being ever the opportunist. As you illiterate so well, the American Socialist Media is no more than pit bulls unleashed and rewarded for their attacks on their opponents, and obedient when told to heel.
And can anyone illustrate any grievous moment that Obama has not turned into a campaign type of rally for himself?
His depth of character is so shallow, there are no metaphors to describe its veneer. Doesn’t it seem that his administration and the suckling media are in competition to see which can be most crass?
Well, let me offer a positive note here. Thirty years ago an analysis like this would likely have been seen by only a handful of people. The networks, the newspapers, the news magazines, the cable outlets, not one of them would have touched it. Today, millions (maybe billions) will read it, not only here but around the world. That is push-back. The Left is screaming but the decibel level is somewhat necessitated in order for them to be heard (even minimally) over the low background rumble of people talking amongst themselves.
Knowledge is power. To be able to recognize that we are being manipulated is a major advantage. Calling someone “racist” was once enough to completely flabbergast them. Today, it is nearly a joke. Call “bulls**t” on it. All of it.
Great article, as usual, Mr. Hanson. Just one thing. As someone who was attacked by two mangy pit bulls resulting in some mauling of me and a police officer, I say if you see those filthy beasts in your orchard again, let them have it with the 12-gauge. Pit bulls are Satan’s Hell Hounds, and pit bull lovers either love them because they are grotesquely stupid or just like bullying those around them with their demon canines.
Well, you can thank Beck, Ted Baxter O’Reilly, and a host of other idiots that fell over each other praising the great Barak for his great oratory and speech following the Arizona tragedy. Do you honestly think the Left wing MSM would have praised a conservative President? Once again the left played the right just as it did the last time under Clinton.
You can put lipstick (fake poll numbers) on a pig (Obama), but at the end of the day (campaign 2012) it’s still a pig.
I believe a majority of the American electorate can detect a pig running for office. Obama will not be reelected.
My own informal polling, which is worth about as much as the skewed polls being done ON BEHALF of the Obama Machine: I know a lot of folks who voted for Obama and the Dems in 2008.
None will do so this next election. I know of no one, not a single person, who will change from Repub voting to Dem voting, even were it to be Palin against Obama.
I live in Illinois, and at least among the people who actually work for a living, people are ANGRY about taxes, and they realize it was the Dems fault that the budget crisis is so bad and Obama is part of the problem in a way as much as the state politicians are.
Having said all that, I don’t put the Obama Machine beyond ANYTHING immoral or outright criminal in order to get Obama re-elected. If he is, it’s the end of America. People can be optimistic and say that we’ve endured worse…but I don’t think so. There are too many things different now, and I’m hoping we endure another ~2 years of this anti-American administration; I believe we’re over if we have it for another 6.
But I’m optimistic that Obama cannot change anyone’s mind with mere rhetoric, unless there is VIVID evidence of betterment in the economy. Platitudes will not work this time, too many, in my unscientific polling, refuse to forget how incompetent and even dangerous this President has been.
Obama could prove Lincoln wrong! A. Lincoln said something to the effect that you could fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. Well, if O gets a second term, Lincoln was wrong.
It is terrifying that the general populace is so dumb it doesn’t see the obvious good cop that Obama is playing to his buddies’ (leftist blogs and MSM) bad cop.
While emotionally satisfying, Sarah Palin’s visceral response was an unfortunate mistake, particularly in the light of the enormous opportunity that was presented; the opportunity to call checkmate when the mainstream media openly exposed their most valuable asset — their credibility.
After offering genuine condolence for the tragedy, Sarah Palin might have included the parents of the deranged gunman. As a parent, one can only imagine the absolutely devastating horror of seeing your child slip into the nether world of mental disorders and then commit this horrific act. Sarah could have even suggested adopting certain standards that allows institutionalization of dangerously deranged individuals. The parents will now likely be tortured with a sense of horror and of responsibility they can never escape for the rest of their lives.
Then with cheerful demeanor, Sarah Palin could’ve commented how the Internet disrupted the old order of hierarchy that allowed control of the narrative. No longer can the truth be covered up. Within matter of hours everyone in the whole world could see the truth, and yet with jaw-dropping astonishment, the left-wing in the mainstream media kept defending their narrative in spite of obvious facts.
Expanding on that theme, Sarah could have highlighted how history has always had its political ruling class, in every nation and society, with its narrative that supported authoritarian and totalitarian power. These narratives are always false. Those narratives represent the big lie; big lies such as such as lineage of divinity, divine right to rule, dictatorship of the proletariat and so forth.
And then with a sweet smile, Sarah Palin could have ended on a positive note: a free Internet may yet free the world of these enslaving lies.
All I can say is, oh my, what a missed opportunity — but that’s the way things go.
CFBLEACHERS: Your comments are correct. Thank you for your post:)
Victor, my esteemed colleague in arms; could you please explain to us all, why but why do the Americans in the middle of the political spectrum always fall for what is by now referred to as “the clinton trick,” ie, when re-election time comes, the democ-rats play Republican?
Please, don’t tell us it’s because those in the middle are stupid.
_________________
PS. Some commenters seem to be light readers, jumping the gun before carefully having read an article/comment. Caution is advised.
The only thing more fun than reading the blogs at PJTV, is reading the wonderful comments.
G-d bless you guys for giving me a place where sanity and decency still matter. Where I can see for myself that not everyone in the USA is drunk on the O’s koolaid, or bamboozled by bullsh*t.
(with exception of a few jewhaters and trolls)
Perhaps a more accurate title is “Obama’s Pseudo-Mandela Moment.”
I hope ObaMao keeps inviting foreign dictators to the White House, and having them entertained by playing hymns that depict battles of victory over the U.S. in prior conflicts, just like they did with Hu.
See the article at Michelle Malkin, “Maybe Hu Got the Last Laugh”, by Doug Powers.
Like I’ve been saying; Under ObaMao’s orchestration, “We looks like a nation of fools”.
I suspect the reason Obama is doing what he’s doing is because he’s literally in a race with the demographic and political clocks. These two stories strongly suggest the much-vaunted Obama coalition will be, at best, hideously difficult to reassemble for the next go-around. There’s no guarantee Obama will even win Illinois in 2012 given public anger there about the recent massive tax increases:
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/business/economy/2011-01-19/jimmy-johns-founder-contemplates-moving-headquarters-out-illinois.h
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/21/america-s-dying-cities.html
For Obama, it’sll be hard to rely on “political machines” when the machines themselves are rusting, falling apart, and collapsing under their own weight.
We are at war.
“We” is the set of those who want to keep their born-free American patrimony.
Most of this group of Americans is either confused, misinformed, or otherwise deluded, and therefore suicidally vote for “dogs” like Obama.
Just as the war against the Islamofascists is existential, so is the one always going on against our citizen “enemies”, because if they finally get their wish, America as a free country will be no more.
Where is our Lincoln, these dire days, to break through the almost impenetrable barriers that surround so many deluded fools? What is crucially required is a conversion by enough people at the margin, a la what happened with the neoconservatives, like Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol.
Imagine a Chris Matthews becoming thus “awakened”!
Well, just as Lincoln finally had to replace McClellan because he had a “case of the slows”, essentially America is being “led” by a very ignorant subset of the populace, which indeed is SLOW!
Actually, a better way to clinically put it is that a majority of Americans are INSANE, if doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
I’m with Roger Simon, as I approach the age of 69.
Not only are too many people deluded and confused and “insane”, but they also have bad memories—when they USE them!
All one needs to do, to prove this, is say two words—Bill Clinton.
When his popularity soared, after his impeachable Monica perjury, as time passed, that was all I needed to know to realize that most people I ever saw in public were—NUTS!
And, now?
WYSIWYG—what you see is what you get: in SPADES!
Get ready, America, because the suicidal leftists never waste ANYTHING, in order to kill the constitutional republic of America, so you can bet that they’re being driven by one of Reagan’s optimistic sayings—
YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET!
I agree; We are in a war. And as our Forefathers knew, Freedom would require vigilance, diligence, and constant conflict.
Could this be the start of the Obama surge in polls similar to the stock market rising?
Don’t look at what he says, look at what he’s done!!
Or, as one of the Marx brothers said, “Who are you going to believe? Me or your own lying eyes?”
Look at some of the stats.
40 million on food stamps.
1 million foreclosures the past two years.
Record number of personal bankruptcies.
Real unemployment at 16%. Black unmemployment much higher.
Gas prices over $3.00. When we get to $4.00, hello next recession.
I hate to say it VDH, but as an intellectual and academic you focus too much on BHO’s words; not his deeds.
He’s accomplished nothing.
Dr. Hansen, you correctly identify the reasons for Obama’s boosted ratings after the Tucson shootings, but seem perplexed that popular sentiment is so easily manipulated. Do you remember this caution by H. L. Mencken:
“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental – men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost…”
Was Mencken too cynical? Perhaps he was, but in 2008, the barking pack was elected and began to devour this nation’s substance. Nobody responded in kind, because the pack had serious power behind it: they made the laws, and held sway with the FBI and DOJ as police and prosecutor, with the IRS as inquisitor. And they didn’t need to go that far, with their ability to destroy reputations. Here is Mencken again:
“All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre – the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.’ The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
— H. L. Mencken, Baltimore Sun (26 July 1920)
Did Mencken guess right about the inner soul of our people? Not exactly, because this is not a monolithic culture. It is a fractured one. And his statement about the plain folks of the land doesn’t set well with me, as it may contain some truth. But after all, only half of Americans bother to vote, and government schooling and welfare tends to turn young and old alike into passive, dependent subjects.
Progressives did well in laying the groundwork: a fiat paper money system (Federal Reserve Act of 1913), a direct tax (Income Tax Act of 1910), subversion of the State public schools (John Dewey, Stanwood Cobb, and others in the 1920s), the New Deal under FDR, and the Great Society under LBJ. All Obama needed was take his Victory Lap.
“…the most well-financed, Wall Street-subsidized, vitriolic camping in modern memory…”
It took me a few seconds to understand that was supposed to be “campaign”. Then I wondered if “memory” was a good term to use for something that hasn’t happened yet. You need a proofer at PJM.
This guy has lied to the masses ever since he was a Congressman.He has lied to everybody along the way,overseas and at home.
It is truly a gullible America that believes him now.Of course the media will take anything with a groan.(get what I mean).
What’s required in 2012 is a republican candidate who will relentlessly run ads using Obama’s own words to show his duplicity. The video is out there, and can be used to show the various Obamas that emerge as needed. When put up back to back to back it will show voters reality. Want to bet no one on the right has the courage to do it?
Great idea. It’s such a good idea that conservative advocacy groups should start doing it NOW. One advantage we have is that there is only one target. The marxists have about 2 dozen targets…and the eventual candidate might not even have appeared yet.
The Marxists will have to make it illegal, in the unlikely case that a republican has the balls to do it.
Regardless of what is driving the opinions, there are apparetly (I guess) some actual people who are saying, “oh, yes, last month I thought he was a jerk, and today I think he’s wonderful.” So. What we’ve got is a bunch of individuals apparently quite unable to think, unable to reason, unable to recognize lying manipulation. And these people vote.
We’re doomed.
#34 ALEX
To you, Sir, I say thank you and a resounding AMEN.
Far leftist Axelrod and marxist Obama and Soros OSI and Democracy Alliance and others think they have the numbers. They do not care what we think. Otherwise they would not appoint Patrick Gaspard executive director of the Progressive/OSI/ex-Democratic National Party.
Patrick Gaspard is openly marxist for life, (like Obama) and thankfully will bring the Chicago and New Jersey Marxist New Party into the discussion if anyone has the stones, except Sarah.
Gaspard was also tightly connected to ACORN, SEIU (SDS) and other leftist groups. Maybe he will help Obama fulfill his campaign promise to paint the USA SEIU purple.
What will it take to get FOX or some public group to focus on what the far left has done to the schools and find a way to reverse. Parents must get more involved.
There are now 900 schools teaching soros OSI, one world marxism in the USA – how Ayers said he was going to launch the bolivian revolution in the USA and we are not even watching. NEA is now a front. Teachers union dues go far left. Even the murderer Jared Laughner attended Mountain View which follows the precepts of the Small Schools deal ran by ayers, obama, klonsky for the Annenberg project in Chicago. They just added Soros. What is it going to take to wake people up? No wonder the media hit a massive diversion. It was not just to attack Palin, Beck and FOX but to divert attention from Mountain View.
Okay, so we seem to agree — this was a brilliant move by President Obama, and it worked (for him) like a charm.
He knows that, in 2012, he will run for reelection against an opponent who is either backed by Sarah Palin or is Sarah Palin. It is very much to his advantage to discredit her as much as he can — and he accomplished that, while raising his own standing, in one masterstroke.
Just one question. What will we do when it happens again? This was just the warm-up… and chances are that the next incident, whatever it is, will not be so easy to discredit as this one was.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
The “old” GOP surrendered to the socialist progressives in the 20′s and 30′s….and again in the 60′s and 70′s. The “new” GOP since the 90′s have remained in surrender to the socialist progressives. One may ask why todays GOP remains in surrender. The answer is easy!
The [overwhelming] majority of American citizens have methodically become indoctrinated by the socialist progressives and their “programs” systematically implemented over many decades. A majority that expands in-depth across all political parties. A majority that in spite of their rhetoric to the contrary, are HAPPY – CONTENT recipients of the socialist progressives ideological agenda. The list of examples are simply to long to post here!
So, does anybody know any candidates willing to stand before the American people and proclaim, “you all have become socialist progressives and I’ve come to take away all the candy they given you rights to over so many decades?”
Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and education doesn’t even begin to put a dent in the list of entitlements the socialist progressives have brought you and you’re enjoying daily.
Only a sound majority of the people can re-take Traditional America. How much are you willing to give up and start over? If the right GOP candidate knew the answer to that question….
Actually Mandela and Obama have a fair bit in common, both have been given an absurd messiah-like/saviour status by the Western public, both have unfortunately been hypnotised by the adulation and actually see themselves as saviour-like figures, Obama especially so of course.
In political affairs and international relations, both are grovelling dhimmis and anti-Semites. Mandela’s foreign policy when he was South African president was one of a love affair with Arafat and the Palestinians and Iran and contempt for Israel. Obama of course, well we all know…
To be fair to both men, it is not their fault the public is so desperate for saviour like figures to save them from themselves and their own stupidity, and their denial of personal responsibility. Mandela and Obama just cateted to the roles cast for them.
Don’t be fooled by this Fraud friends.You’ll be sorry !!
Those who live by the sword shall die by it. Obama, as you have pointed out so many times, has lived by the invective of the Left.
The words of his own mouth will destroy him as they have countless other demonically inspired liars. The fact that he now, again, has a forked tongue will only add to the forces working against him; some kind of plague most likely. You can only put so much lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig. One could die his hair and say soothing things but just can’t quite get rid of that hissing sound in his voice.
I watched the left pour forth ugliness for nearly a week, and they think one speech is supposed to make it all better? Their actions spoke far louder.
From time to time recently we have heard that so-and-so BELIEVE??? that Obama was born in Hawaii. WE DO NOT NEED OBAMA’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE TO KNOW THAT OBAMA IS NOT A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN. Obama’s father WAS NOT a citizen of the United States; therefore, OBAMA IS NOT A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN. The propaganda from Hawaii’s governor and recently from others is an attempt to end the debate. But like the Tea Party, the “Birthers” will not cease and desist from insisting that Obama be removed for failure to qualify according to our Constitution.
What is incredible is that ALL of those who have uttered that Obama is qualified have been sworn to uphold the Constitution. Like the repugnant and corrupt Nixon, Obama should be removed immediately and jailed.
I posted this comment on the DailyMail.com yesterday and today the comments section says, “We are no longer accepting comments on this article.” They chose not to post this comment. There is no wonder that radical leftist news media are helping Obama hide his birth certificate and keeping people from learning the falsehood that is Barrack Hussein Obama.
Article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348916/Hawaii-governor-says-Obamas-birth-record-exists-produce-it.html
Free speech is a very interesting topic. It’s needed the most where it’s wanted the least.
Or sometimes just put on hold until it’s irrelevant.
Can a white man have a Mandela Moment?
“At last, my love has come along
My lonely days are over” – Etta James
“But it’s too late baby, now it’s too late
Though we really did try to make it
Something inside has died and I can’t hide
And I just can’t fake it” – Carole King
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