5. Obama has been lucky but it won’t last. You say, “No, wait a minute! After all he inherited two wars and a near depression!” Not quite. His bad war he campaigned against is essentially over in Iraq, and was by the time he entered office. The good war he wanted at in Afghanistan heated up when we turned our proverbial eye to it, largely because the president made it clear he did not wish to meet Stanley McChrystal for months, imposed artificial deadlines of withdrawal, and divided up responsibility between a feuding Gen. McChrystal, Amb. Eikenberry, and Richard Holbrook who apparently hated each other as much as they did the enemy.
The financial panic of September 15 was largely calm at the end of 120 days, and before Obama took office. The recession officially ended in June 2009. What then happened is that we took a deep downturn and turned it into something akin to European stasis by borrowing trillions more dollars and investing in redistributive schemes that destroyed incentives while terrifying entrepreneurs. In other words, had Obama done nothing, we would have been far better off as the natural cycles of recovery kicked in. But threaten business with higher taxes, more regulations, new health care mandates, energy surcharges, all the while conducting a psychological campaign against the morality of private enterprise, and you get the present push-back as banks, corporations, small businesses, and investors sit on trillions in cash, neither hiring nor spending until this Brussels bureaucrat leaves.
The point? The usual narrative that Obama is a victim of circumstance is unfortunately not true. Aside from the fact that all presidents make their own destinies (Reagan’s inheritance from Carter was not good; nor were FDR’s, Truman’s, Eisenhower’s, Nixon’s, or Bush’s), Obama has had it about as bad or good as had others who entered the presidency. A recession and 9/11 were not easy in 2001. And 18% interest, 18% inflation, 7% unemployment, and gas lines by 1981 greeted Reagan. Truman took over with a war, a supposed friend Stalin turned enemy, allies soon to be enemies in Russia and China, and enemies in Japan and Germany soon to be rebuilt and rehabilitated — amid a wrecked Asia and Europe, a groundswell of communism, a climate of panic at home, and a soon to be nuclear Soviet Union under the genocidal murdering Stalin, capped off soon by a war in Korea.
What’s ahead? I am afraid a reckoning in world tensions: China-Japan, North-South Korea, Iran and its neighbors, another Mideast war, Russian expansionism, a crack-up in the EU — to be fair, not just because of Obama, but in part accelerated by the sense that Obama either does not care or tends to be more sympathetic to those who voice grievances such as his own against the U.S. than to our allies who traditionally give us the benefit of the doubt. There will be a lot of jostling as nations seek to make readjustments in the new climate of anything goes.
One-eyed Jack?
So, yes, Obama really can hit 40%. To preclude that I predict the most vicious midterm election in memory and some sort of October surprise abroad. Both will fail to arrest the decline.
The one-eyed Jack has been flipped over.
“The one-eyed Jack has been flipped over”
Or perhaps, the chiicccckkkkensss have come home to roost.
At some point, the moron’s built-in 5-10% polling advantage will disappear. Whites who were afraid to tell a pollster that they oppose the marxist madman will lose that fear. Any remaining business supporters, apparently excluding Warren Buffet who could lose another 90% and still be wealthier than a king, will realize they will lose everything if this disaster continues. His real approval today is probably slightly above 1/3, and almost all of that 1/3 are, in one way or another, on the dole or otherwise emotionally invested in a freak who has every demographic covered in one body.
The real question is whether or not this most ignorant and most stubborn ‘leader’ of all time can marshal his remaining nutter supporters to create a catastrophe that will be impossible to correct. The September 2008 staged catastophe very nearly spun out of control. We may not be so lucky next time.
“His real approval today is probably slightly above 1/3, and almost all of that 1/3 are, in one way or another, on the dole or otherwise emotionally invested in a freak who has every demographic covered in one body.”
The same dynamic was on display in the last two administrations. About 28-30% of the electorate approved of Bill Clinton no matter what he did; the same percentage disapproved of George W. Bush in the same fashion.
I believe it’s less that this segment is invested in Obama personally, or even in what he “represents” (whatever that may be at this point- the power of petulance?), than that they are reflexively pro-socialism and anti-capitalist. In short, they dream of a “People’s Republic”, and will rally behind whoever they think will give it to them, even if (like Clinton) their man on horseback give lip service to the other side to avoid being shown the door by the other 70%+ of voters.
I consider this one more good reason to assume that any “progressive” running for any office, but especially President, is really an authoritarian wolf in populist sheep’s clothing unless and until proven otherwise. By deeds, not words.
clear ether
eon
I have long argued that Barack Obama’s poll numbers will not fall below forty percent. We can only hope Victor Davis Hanson is right—and that I am overly pessimistic. Obama benefits greatly from race guilt. Countless Americans are still infatuated with the “historical significance of his election.” He merely needs to stay out of the limelight for a few days and his numbers increase by a few percentage points. This man is president only because of the color of his skin. So many well meaning people were desperate to prove they are not racists. Obama is one of the nastiest men ever to reside in the White House. Still, how often do hear somebody exclaiming that while they disagree with Obama—they like him personally?
Last weekend, BookTV had one of the unluckiest authors I’d ever seen.
Author was the dull, effete editor of a dwindling New York-based magazine and a frequent, inconsequential guest of Charlie Rose. The dull, effete editor/author had just brought his ill-timed Obama hagiography to market!
This sad man was so in love with Obama, that when a young fan inquired about the magazine, the editor seemed furious that the subject was briefly changed.
BookTV gave him plenty of airtime and he raced excitedly and repeatedly over the same meaningless cliches that had once made Obama seem important and brilliant and historically significant.
Obama’s stunning harvest of fail was hardly mentioned. Doughy old white people at the Book Fair stood up to volunteer that all of Obama’s problems were the result of white peoples’ racism. The dull, effete author would agree because like Obama, he had nothing else to offer.
Exactly!
90% of blacks will never back off. They’re 13% of the voter population.
50% of Hispanics will likewise cling to him. They’re 15% of the population.
100% of the union plus traditional leftist true believers won’t move. They’re 10%.
50% of pimply scraggle-bearded Ché wannabe students and their professors. They’re 8%.
Do the math: fully 33% approval. Throw in another 7% white guilt, you’ve got 40%.
What’s worse? With only a 3-5 percentage points more by ACORN and Union style “get out the vote” progroms (sic),=:obama will easily carry in 2012.
And I didn’t even count Government workers at all levels.
90% of blacks will never back off. They’re 13% of the voter population. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-color-of-tea/
“Fully one-third (35%) of Black Likely Voters nationwide interviewed during the time frame of the poll so far (August 2 – September 19th, 2010) stated that they Strongly or Somewhat support the Tea Party movement, with 17% supporting it Strongly.
And a comparable number (32%) of Black Likely Voters nationwide stated that they were Very or Somewhat Likely to vote for a candidate who has the support of the Tea Party movement, with 14% saying they were Very Likely to do so.”
50% of Hispanics will likewise cling to him. They’re 15% of the population. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7126282.html
“But the survey, also sponsored by the Nielsen Company and Stanford University, shows Obama gets only lukewarm ratings on issues important to Hispanics — and that could bode poorly for the president and his party.
For a group that supported Obama so heavily in 2008 and in his first year in office, only 43 percent of Hispanics surveyed said Obama is adequately addressing their needs, with the economy a major concern. Another 32 percent were on the fence, while 21 percent said he’d done a poor job.”
100% of the union plus traditional leftist true believers won’t move. They’re 10%. http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/union-chiefs-warn-obama-their-members (The speech was in January, it has not gotten any better for them since nor does Obama seem to care anymore.)
“Three hours earlier, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a hard-edged speech at the National Press Club that discontent with the final bill, when combined with a general perception that Obama and Congress have been insufficiently populist in responding to the recession and financial crisis, could demoralize his members. The risk, he said, was a replay of the Democratic blowout in the 1994 elections, when, after the passage of NAFTA and other disappointments to unions, “there was no way to persuade enough working Americans to go to the polls when they couldn’t tell the difference between the two parties.”
50% of pimply scraggle-bearded Ché wannabe students and their professors. They’re 8%. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-rising-college-campuses/story?id=11712923
“The study, which analyzed voter registration among young voters, said more 18- to 29-year-olds are identifying themselves as Republicans, while fewer are registering with the Democratic Party.
Dooley campaigned heavily for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. Now he spends his time volunteering for Tim Cahill, an independent candidate for Massachusetts governor running on a fiscally conservative platform, making calls to voters and performing social media tasks.
Dooley said his political ideology shifted over the past year. Turned off by what he calls Obama’s “glossy ideals” and “lack of concrete policies,” he said the economy has forced him to reconsider his politics.”
Your calculation
overcounts Obama’s true believers because the
four categories black, hispanic, traditional lefty, and academic are not disjoint, not even approximately. For instance,
and sometimes by wide margins.
I’m sitting here reading about marginal probabilities and this never occurred to me. Very insightful comment.
Excellent repost to my provocatively sloppy math.
But regardless how cerebrally one cuts the numbers, nor how (Nohanni) many partisan “studies show” what they want to show, American elections seem always to reflect the sort of self-evident guesstimates I made, not the smart stuff. The majority in the electorate are mouth-breathing, gum-chewing, knee-jerking, illegal, dead or repeat voters. Not what you want them to be.
Need to bring back property ownership, poll taxes, maybe even EXAMS to change it.
One wonders what kind of arithmetic dem operatives are doing regarding how to calculate the amount of ballots they must stuff to overcome those 40% totals in key districts. Yes, the messiah is come, the dead shall rise, and vote democrat party! Good night and good luck!
It will not come to pass in this election year…sorry Democrats!
That is right. For Republicans to win, they don’t have to get 50 out of 100 voters. They really have to get 50 out of 80, as the other 20% (blacks, single moms, leftists) will never, ever vote anything other than Democrat.
The left’s strategy is to increase the percentage of the electorate that will vote for them no matter what, thereby shrinking the percentage of those who vote against leftism. The Tea Party is the last gasp of the anti-leftist population.
For starters, there will be NO purging of leftism until whites start to really hold blacks accountable for voting 90% Democrat no matter what. George Wallace ran as a Democrat as recently as 1976, and Robert Byrd was a Senator until 2010. Yet, blacks vote FOR such a party.
The founders had it right when they restricted voting to land-owners. Blacks and single mothers do not have the minimum intelligence required for Democracy.
Toads, you sure you’re not Whiskey?
Heya Toad;
Your last comment is foul generalizion, and is therefore not only unnecessary but is proveably false.
@Toads
“The founders had it right when they restricted voting to land-owners. Blacks and single mothers do not have the minimum intelligence required for Democracy.”
First, let’s look at the first sentence. I used to tend to agree with this statement before my conservative understanding of the nature of man kicked in: Imagine the shenanigans that would have been schemed to ensure the “correct” people were even permitted to purchase land — even in spite of their financial ability to do so — if that included the right to select those holding governmental power. And think about the corruption of those holding governmental power to ensure all legislation sustained this way of business. The founders got it right: it’s a zero-sum game — more power to people equals less power to government and vice-versa.
Second, let’s take a look at this second sentence. As a Black, ultra-conservative, Tea Party-rallying, Fortune 500 corporate executive who has thought many times about running for public office as a back-to-first-principles Republican, I take extreme issue with the base prejudice inherent in your sentiment, because single mothers come in all stripes.
JW Hunt
Delaware
Nicely done! Got sucked right in :)
100% of the union plus traditional leftist true believers won’t move. They’re 10%
A whole lot of rank-and-file union members in the private sector are a reconstitution of the “Reagan Democrats,” so you may want to rethink that.
Please note my response to Gaffe Price who was responding among others to David Thomson’s post #2 and yes you are blessed, may you enjoy the rest of your day and thereafter!
the union i belonged to (illinois is a closed shop, little freedom) was approx 20% black 20% hispanic and approx 20% female. lots of over lapping of the other percentages.
Ahh, but David Thomson, you also predicted that Obama would psychologically collapse and resign before the midterms. That hasn’t occurred and I maintain won’t occur because Obama’s pathological narcissism won’t allow such an implosion.
Will his poll numbers fall below 40%? I suggest they will, after the midterms, when people feel that it is socially acceptable to reject Obama. For the first year, it was seen as socially unacceptable to criticize, to review, to even consider his proposals – which went so far as indifference to even reading the bills he proposed in Congress!
That has changed. There is more open criticism, more questions about his agenda, more concerns about the disparity in his speeches between fact and fiction, more rejection of his speeches, more comments on his narcissism and so on. AND – this is occurring in his so-called base, the black community. He’s already losing the hard-core left; he’s losing the midstream Democrats who are refusing to use Obama’s name in their election ads; he’s got Democrats openly telling the electorate they voted against Obama’s policies. Clinton rather than Obama is being used in the campaign.
So, my prediction is that his numbers will fall below 40% after the midterms when people feel that it is socially correct to criticize and reject him. That’s when the Democratic leadership will have to find him some UN job where he can be shunted to, where he can pontificate about his magnificence as much as he wants.
Barack Obama is not wrapped tight. We should be worrying about his psychological health. You also seem to agree with me that Obama will leave the White House before the end of his term. I can only hope that his poll numbers fall below 40%. Unfortunately, I still encounter enormous race guilt. Obama is just as nasty a human being as either Richard Nixon or Lyndon B. Johnson—but countless numbers of Americans still perceive him as warm and friendly. They insist on giving the president the benefit of the doubt. There is little doubt that if he were white his poll numbers would not be any higher than 30%.
I don’t know about the “not wrapped tight” thing. I think the paradigm of Obama is the Wright part of his life. Reflexive anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-white rhetoric washes over him like warm water. When, as a result, bad news comes, he can turn off the faucet and put it away without changing his thoughts, programs, or demeanor.
He’ll be anti-American until the day he leaves office, and then, much more so than Carter, revert to the partisan organizer that is his true calling in life. In 2014 we’ll read the book (ghost) written by Michelle about how the rednecks and Wall Street brought his administration down.
I fully agree with you, David Thomson. If Obama were white, he’d poll well below the 40s, even in the low 30s.
We know that Obama has used the race card as both his entry and his maintenance all his life. He campaigned on it; he continues to deflect criticism by means of it. As well, he is embedded, as VDH points out, with the elitism of the 1960-80′s left, with their “tired canards of the black caucus, extremist residuals from Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, and twenty years of university multicultural, utopian pacifist, and moral equivalent indoctrination”.
So, not only does Obama deflect criticism by his suggestion that your dissent is actually your racism, but his frozen elitism enables him to reject your dissent as due to your ignorance, your uneducated views, your backwoods biases.
I don’t think that Obama will go for a second term. For two reasons. One, is that he is not, himself, interested in America or its people. He, and his wife Michelle, have ‘made it clear’ that they have no love for either. The second, is that Obama is not, himself, a worker, he is not someone who wants to plow through documents, examine and explore issues, develop plans and programs.
As you have also argued, Obama is intellectually shallow, ill-educated (by his own indifference) and fundamentally lazy. What Obama wants is adulation. Constant relentless and loud -adulation. He’s not getting it. Without this adulation, he becomes restless, nasty and then, extremely vindictive. His handlers are having to keep him ‘emotionally fed’ with prepared crowds, rare press interviews…and lots of parties and golf.
I think he can’t be compared to Nixon, Carter, anyone. They at least had some sense of shame. Obama has none.
I think that Obama won’t leave on his own will; he’ll leave because the Democratic National Party will become alarmed at the electoral cost of keeping him – and will try to get him a UN post as Chief Pontificator.
“and will try to get him a UN post as Chief Pontificator.” No, that won’t do. I would suggest his future post should be at UNOOSA (United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs) as Chief Ambassador for Extraterrestrial Affairs: a post now held by Mazlan Othman.
The UN Secretary General begins the next 5-year term Jan 1, 2012.
That’s the Moron’s out…..he has an even higher calling. Too bad the timing is a year off.
You can bet desperate Dem leaders are already trying to figure out how to get somebody to agree to be a one-year caretaker so that they can run Hillary or anybody in 2012 and have a soft landing for their House Marxist after he graciously relinquishes power in order to save the rest of the world.
For the first year, it was seen as socially unacceptable to criticize, to review, to even consider his proposals
The first crack in the wall that was Obama’s barrier to criticism was the Joker poster. Someone had dared, and the door was opened.
Spot on, Don.
This explains why Obama does not bother reaching out to build coalitions or he why can tell outrageous, obvious lies to millions of voters and do it with all the ease of a politician certain he isn’t lacking votes for reelection.
He knows he will control around 40% of voters regardless of anything he says or of any dismal performance he submits. The nation is almost completely polarized to the point where the independent voter is disappearing almost as fast as the middle class. He has those on the right marginalized as racists and any critique of his work dismissed as the ravings of idiots mesmerized by Fox News.
Obama only has to represent the radical left to win and screw the rest as a bunch of useless “clingers” in fly-over country. And we can’t forget what happened in Minnesota with Franken’s close election: leftists have infected enough of government’s “back office” to steal any election close enough to qualify for a recount. Sadly, they have their apparatus, unions and other corrupted groups like ACORN, in place to make any election close enough to recount.
Mr Obama has nothing to fear from voters. Heck, even if he is caught with a dead woman or a live boy, cash in his freezer or Mao on his teleprompter, his coalition will back him ever more strongly.
Incisive and Elegant.
Good on you for highlighting to vital 40/60 statistic.
While we must endure the fluff of empty words about particular “news” of any moment, there is always the ultimate yes or no bottom line. So, as I’ve long been enjoying reading you, VDH, it constantly amazes me how you are able to remember and clearly write about all the still simmering-in-consciousness hot topics.
As an aside, as one who carefully followed the Bill Clinton show—I was CERTAIN he couldn’t be elected president, the night I saw an old “friend” of his on TV bring up his draft dodging and womanizing and pot smoking—this “news” led me to raise some glasses of wine in happiness that this scoundrel had been exposed, and we all know that light is the best disinfectant! AND, the rest is history!
However, back to the choice numbers. My own cynicism has only grown with the passing years, as events that SHOULD happen don’t, and vice versa, after the facts about various events and choices by people—see Clinton, above—become known.
So, my life-long-learned belief is that at least 80 % of the general population is essentially equivalent to the deluded and programmed from birth religious believers, such as epitomized by a bin laden. That is, 40% of us will choose the left side of any either or question and 40% the right side. Mostly unconsciously.
But, there is always the more aware 20%, and it’s ever at this margin that the scales are tipped.
Right now, we are experiencing a Clinton-like barrage of negative “facts” thanks to the Obama child and his pack. And, perhaps enough excrement has been dumped on the left side of this scale that more and more revulsion will cause the vital margin voters to remove all doubt about the phony Obama “machine”
Actually, even though it’s “against the law” to disallow votes on the basis of color, let alone mention certain irrefutable facts in public, isn’t it “interesting” that 90% or so of blacks support Obama? When this cohort is factored out of the approximately 40% who NOW claim to support him, it seems like something like the following is mathematically true—
Of 100 voters, 40 are for Obama. Since blacks are about 17% of the population, 90% of that is 15%. So, of the 40 Obama lovers, subtract 15 blacks, and that means BHO is only registering 25% approval among non-blacks!
Why, Obama is ALREADY a failed loser, to non-blacks!
We used to worry about the digital divide, when the Internet and personal computers started to permeate society, back in the late 90’s, remember?
Well, here we are, over a decade later, and the cascading lack of awareness of the truth brought about by mal-education in this country logically brings us to the current impasse.
How much longer can the fools on the left continue to yank the strings of the great mass of Americans?
“How much longer can the fools on the left continue to yank the strings of the great mass of Americans?”
Perusha:
If you throw in the Republicans and the right, the answer to your question is probably forever.
The Republican dog and pony show without dogs or ponies should be enough to convince most people of that reality. What was that snake oil designed to cure?
The Political Ruling Class will never return power back to The People whom they permit to elect them to the chairs they exchange from time to time. The game is rigged and there’s no end in sight.
Balanced budgets, term limits, enumerated powers, out of foreign entanglements, restoration of the manufacturing base, rebuilding a true middle class, devotion to country, patriotism, all are now history and the people who vote, for the most part, are too stupid to know what they are doing to future generations or they simply don’t care.
We’re on course to encounter a huge disaster and there is no apparent leadership from outside the rigged system in sight to try to correct it.
Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Mike Pence? Give me a break.
What a complete waste of bandwidth! Someone’s gravy-train is about to derail?
Try it again without the adolescence rationalizations.
Sharpshooter:
The gravy train that is about to de-rail is loaded with fools who tend to believe that they and all people in the future can live the good life as they define it without consequence and then simply forward the bill on for someone else to pay.
Very reflective of the childish notion so prevelent today that I want what I want and I want it right now. It’s way past time to grow up. Life and reality are not always reflective of rose gardens. And the truth sometimes really hurts. And that’s just the way it is.
“the people who vote, for the most part, are too stupid”
And who might you be? The smart elite? The old media has been steering the public for many years. The public has been duped and we’ve only been made aware of it since the Dan Rather story broke. Too many are tied still to a biased media that decides what their viewers and readers may know and that makes voters ignorant not stupid.
The Tea Party is putting people in place and are saying they’ll do things differently. Whether or not Washington DC has something in the water that will change these people into the same-old-same-old remains to be seen but there are alternatives on the table and that’s what we need to choose.
Ron Kean:
Thank you for making my point. Stupid people allow the old media to dupe them and those who’ve only been aware of it since the Dan Rather story broke are stupid X 2.
No, I am not one of the smart elite. I am one who has lived a long life believing in the work ethic, individual exceptionalism, free markets, opportunity for all who seek it, and in the greatness of my country. I am one who has paid my dues to America and the ideals for which she stood during most of my lifetime. How about you?
I’m a working man, still a child of the ’60′s but now a neo-conservative who will give my fellow Americans the benefit of the doubt and I’m offended by those who insult or condescend to them be it a foreigner or a native.
Ron Kean -
You are correct that there are alternatives on the table and that’s what we need to choose.
It is indeed possible to make changes from the ground up, but it takes commitment, determination, and participation. It cannot be done from the sofa.
Case in point; the 5th Congressional District of Virginia. The various local Tea Parties in the District maintained communication among their leadership, and they discovered that the County GOP Units were actually run by a relatively small handful of establishment Republicans who pretty much towed the party line from above. They realized that there were more us us than there were of them. Thanks to the motivation of the local Tea Party leaders, enough members were cajoled into actually participating in their local GOP meetings to replace the Unit Chairs in 11 of 11 Counties with our own people, elect quite a few Delegates, and ultimately elect our own District Chairman. WE run the District GOP now.
That will not change a whole lot until the next election cycle, but WE will decide whether we want a primary or a convention, and WE will choose our candidate, NOT the RNC. In the meantime, although the RNC choice is the candidate this time, he is fully aware that if he does not perform after being elected, he may not even have a chance to be on the ballot in 2012. The fifth District of Virginia’s GOP has been effectively taken over by We The People, and the establishment Republicans are in the minority.
Now, we have to maintain what we have won. We have to go to the meetings, and do the work necessary to capitalize on what we have done. We have to maintain the communications and organizational networks, and recruit possible candidates. We have taken on a real job, but it is a labor of love – love of Country and Liberty. Our District is mostly rural and small cities and towns – it may be a bit more difficult to deal with if a Metro area is involved, but we proved that it can be done. Just remember, We Outnumber Them. Participate!
You got it! There’s no one, either person or institution, to stop them.
Soldier A: We’re not getting anywhere. This position we’re in is really hopeless. The CO doesn’t know what he’s doing and the companies around us are in the same boat.
Soldier B: Take it easy the attack hasn’t started yet. We’ve beaten these guys before.
A: Yeah but this time I can see we’re really going to catch it. The old man is green and doesn’t know anything about tactics.
B: Calm down will ya. How do you know he doesn’t know anything about tactics?
A: Look at this lousy rifle I’ve got here. It seems to jam up when I need it most. I think those guys who decide what kind of rifles to issue have never been in a fire fight.
B: Hey, I told you just yesterday that you should have cleaned your weapon so you’d be ready for today.
A: We haven’t got a chance here and Regiment doesn’t even care about us. They’re going to let us go down on this one.
(CGW seems to be a Soldier A. At least today.))
Actually, Beloit, CGW is more like Soldier B With Introspection. He is a proven conservative, a great admirer of VDH, and someone who avoids the jingoistic epics like those of a poster later in line who repeats the American Myths as if they were the determinants in life for the typical citizen in 2010. CGW has simply presented the realities, and goes one step farther than VDH is willing to go. VDH is simply incapable of progressing past the viewpoint that BHO is all a tragic error, a Leftist Blip waiting to be corrected by the Normal Americans, who include (apparently) the bulk of national-level Repub pols. The reality is a little starker. But CGW is certainly a soldier, just one with awareness of the pain and complexities of messy political/cultural realities.
Blacks are about 12.5 percent of the population, not 17 percent.
Brilliant VDH. Forgive me if I hope that the “October surprise” will be in baseball, but I fear the truth will be more harmful.
Several years ago I recall seeing this bumper sticker that read, “These Colors Don’t Run the World.” I thought it was pretty snide and an attempt to mock it’s patriotic counterpart. It is not like the United States asked for the continent of Europe to have two world wars that we would save them from, a resurgent Communist Russia that believed it was Communism that defeated the Nazis, and a world that is in general completely hostile to the United States. However, it was the United States, with its massive nuclear arsenal, that prevented the entire world from going to hell. Now, that we have an ambivalent Obama in the White House who shirks his duties as Commander-in-Chief we see that the world’s despots have no greater opportunity than now to make permanent changes to the geopolitical landscape. Once those changes are made, they are near impossible to roll back.
I wonder if that driver who was sporting that sticker is still sporting it now.
More than likely, his car has been repossessed, bumper and sticker and all.
The cars I still see around with Obama stickers on them all look very sad, unwashed, and uncared for. I assume either their owners are too depressed to bother with washing a car, or can’t afford to have life’s little dings and scrapes repaired any more.
I *did* see a white Mercedes at a gas station last week, with a Tea Party sticker on it. I touched the lady on the shoulder and said, “Yo, Tea Party!” and we had a very nice and lively conversation. The silent majority is feeling brave enough to stand up in the sunshine and put stickers on our cars now.
VDH, if I may, I would like to add a couple of my own.
6) These folks really don’t like the country they are “leading” and certainly don’t like the majority of the people in it.
“bitter clingers”, “homegrown terrorists”, “teabaggers”, “racists”, “Islamophobes”, it seems really that they don’t have a single nice thing to say about the overwhelming majority of our countrymen. And the apology tour for America’s “stained past” and its lack of any sort of exceptionalism, reflects an antipathy toward the very country itself.
How in the world can you lead a country and a people…you really don’t like?
7)In addition to not liking the country and essentially despising its people (save for a select few), these folks despise capitalism and free market economics with a vengeance.
Combined with the strong antipathy toward a vast majority of its people, it is little wonder that they would turn over a STATE!!!! to the U.N. for condemnation and potential retribution under the pretense of human rights, a farce so broad no canvas can contain it.
And, we deep bow to the worst offenders of human rights, essentially making them the backwoods judges against our own people.
We engage in a radical infusion of Marxism, seeking “redistribution” of property, benefits, income….
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/blaze-mix-video-top-20-pro-socialism-sound-bites-of-obama-advisors-allies/
8) ….and justice.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/a-blind-eye-to-campus-anti-semitism–15510
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=21355#comments
The Civil Rights division of the US government — having been overtaken by leftist intellectuals and bureaucrats, now operates from a complete inversion of its stated mandate: no longer concerned with protecting the civil rights of all citizens, the commission is now an insular and highly politicized legal cabal wherein a successful appeal for justice is perforce determined beforehand by one’s race.
This is where our “post-racial” President and his ideological fellow travelers have taken us. And some of us saw it coming as a matter of intellectual inevitability.
It’s what happens in a world in which meaning becomes unmoored and “truth” is decided by those who shout the loudest or form the biggest coalition.
9)If it is true that a house divided against itself cannot stand, then is should be axiomatic that a government so abhorrent of its people, its past and its structure ….cannot endure. The smarmy platitudes to the contrary, delivered with less than half-hearted conviction and less than a whiff of sincerity aside, in the “off the cuff” moments, the genuine distaste for America and Americans oozes out of every pore.
40/60 would be a sad, sad, disheartening and discouraging outcome at the end of this destructive path. It would mean that 40% of our countrymen agree. That cannot be true.
Let me conclude by conditioning the above statement with this final thought. Whatever the nadir of this plummeting number, when it reaches its final low point, it will have been artificially propped up by a conspiratorial and deceitful mass media apparatus that deprived us of truth and facts with impunity, distorted and trampled every story, and deserves a lion’s share of credit for destroying nearly 250 years of progress, pride and achievement. Even if we reverse everything else written by each of us in our nine paragraphs, if we continue to accept this Journolista destruction of our information stream, we will fight this battle again and again and again.
As usual an excellent analysis. I think the race is on to see which currency collapses first, ours or the euro. That will tell you where the upheavel shall commence.We have passed the tipping point in fiscal insanity.
Dr. Hanson, I’ve been thinking the same about Obama basically changing history by scaring business into “staying out” until he is gone. Two years and counting of wasted economic potential. Sad.
Same with foreign policy–the man changed history. It’s an “anything goes” world now that we have a weak & inexperienced man-child at the helm. World leaders are pouncing on this opportunity.
“I think Barack Obama will soon dip below a 40% approval rating.”
He may already be there. Yesterday’s poll, while it still has his “approval” over 40, also finds that 38% do not believe that Obama deserves re-election.
Let’s hope Obama does not take out his angst on the Jews. Illegitimate “leaders” who come from nowhere frequently turn on the Jews. Witness Stalin and Hitler, both nobodies who became haters of Jews. Even the biblical Haman, the Persian minister who decreed that all Jews should be killed, was a nobody who suddenly rose to power.
WOW! Professor Hanson hits it out of the park again.The looney “ONE” is the gift that keeps on giving. Hopefully, we will see his ratings dip below 30 % soon.
When showing W’s low approval ratings the media never made the distinction between disapproval from the left and disapproval from the right, which I think was strong. I grew to loathe the man, despite having worked on the campaign in 2004.
Obama might possibly end up in the position of Gray Davis- hated on the right, hated on the left, hated in the middle, with only a hard inner core of government employees and party operatives (largely the same people) not deserting.
The irony for California is that while Davis is long gone, his supporters are still firmly in control and things are worse than ever. Obama’s core supporters control the country, so what happens to him doesn’t really affect the power structure.
Obama is a dangerous fool and never should have been elected were it not for the fruits of 40+ years of relentless propaganda, convincing enough of the populace, among other things, that blacks are owed. Certainly we owed them heartfelt apologies for their treatment and a welcoming arm into the embrace of the American idea – the idea that in America you can become anything you want – in direct proportion to your efforts. What we did not owe was a blank check for an individual of such scant accomplishments that, to paraphrase Geraldine Ferraro, ‘wouldn’t have gotten a second look were he white with such a thin resume’. Life was hard on blacks but that’s what it is – life everywhere is hard and history is replete with injustice. The recent plight of blacks in Rwanda, with close to a million macheted to death – is just a recent example.
America is an idea, not just a geographical territory, and all you need to gain full membership is to accept that idea and do your best to live it. Few if any countries on the planet offer the same low admission fee. All you have to do is go to the local Costco or local mall and see the sea of faces, from every place on earth imaginable – all Americans. Try moving to China and see how far you get trying to become a citizen. Or France or Germany or Russia or pretty much any other place on earth – where your ethnicity is your right to citizenship. We are the very definition of diversity and it’s high time we started focusing on those things that unite us and not those that divide us. And the President we have now is fixated on dividing us. He is heir to a poisonous idea – call it statism, collectivism, socialism, communism, totalitarianism, whatever – all are first cousins that are anathema to the very idea of America. It’s the idea of equal opportunity – not equal outcome – that makes us what we are. Embrace that idea and you are my brother, regardless of your color or background. Embrace the other and you are my enemy.
Very well said.
My thoughts exactly! Thank-you.
LGoPs – every once in a great while I read something that expresses so much with succinctness. This one goes into my file of great posts. Thanks!
Well spoken LGoPs.
The Great American melting pot, a land of disparate immigrants sharing the same ideals, patriotism and desires. What a vision!
Here in Britain you’ll walk down many city streets and see the same kind of diverse ethnicity.
Unfortunately due to the Marxist tug which infects European leaders multiculturalism became the byword du jour.
We’ve got a land of immigrants, that’s plain to see, but enjoying the same aims under a national umbrella? Quite the contrary.
We are experiencing massive fragmentation and Islam is in the vanguard. They find the fissures and exploit and exploit and exploit.
America isn’t quite in that position but you can bet the very thought of it has Obama salivating.
He is quite literally Cloward Pivening the dismantling of a nation.
Unfortunately for him the Tea Party founders twigged and more to the point, took action.
And only half way through the first term, the American worm is turning.
He’ll be gone.
The hauteur is falling from his manner, replaced by irritation and tetchiness.
He falls back on the absolute’s of command , Let it be said, Let me tell you and the ones quoted, “Let Me Be Perfectly Clear” and “Make No Mistake About It” as if addressing morons with attention deficit disorder. Not the way to endear a crowd or a TV audience.
Add in the five hundred dollar sneaker wearing Antoinette of a wife and resentment builds.
What took our electorate twelve years to see behind the ‘Phoney Tony’dazzle of Blair is happening in less than two years.
For that, at least you are truly blessed.
Thanks for another good reality check. More than anything else Obama needs a major “surprise” crisis/attack on the homeland to become indespensable for 2012. During the interim he will have the House Republicans to blame for EVERYTHING. Democrat loss of the House, therefore will be to his political advantage. Obama is a miserable failure except to any and all who hate America. His goal achieved.
Dr. Hanson:
cfbleachers, No. 3, piques my curiousity and maybe you can help me out in one of your essays in the future.
“We engage in a radical infusion of Marxism, seeking “redistribution” of property, benefits, income….” Said he or she.
I agree with his or her statement and we’ve seen the vision implemented during the first two years of O’bama’s presidency without question.
What definition of Marxism would one use to conclude that Barack Obama is not one of them? A Marxist?
The fact that he’s still over 40% terrifies me.
I really can’t argue with John Kerry. “We have an electorate that doesn’t always pay that much attention to what’s going on, so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what’s happening.”
Obama found this to be true also. During his campaign in 08, people got no further than his skin color and “hope and change”.
People did not look any further into his background, he had them with his “slogan”.
The ‘October Surprise’ will be another financial collapse. We’re due for another one and the dollar is imploding. (Gold anyone?). Then it will me more loss of freedom – just like all of the other crises in the past under both parties that were used to limit freedom of ordinary citizens.
VDH does say it will be overseas.
October surprise abroad = Bombing of Iran?
Bombing Iran would be a Good Thing.
An October surprise for the Dem’s would have to be something that most of us would consider to be a “Bad Thing”; i.e., Abu Ghraib. I’m seeing headlines about thrill-seeking soldiers in Afghanistan shooting “innocent civilians”, which would be a twofer for the Dem’s: a knock on the military, and another reason to leave Afghanistan ASAP.
An overseas October surprise might involve China (attacking Japan or South Korea), or Russia (invading one of the ‘stan countries and stealing bathtubs like they did in Georgia).
Alternatively who could the Obamacons accuse of having a personal life involving torturing kittens, seducing children, and killing baby seals? Other than Sarah Palin.
I completely agree. When it becomes a certainty that the Congress will not extend current tax rates, then the meltdown begins.
14. LGoPs
Well said. Excellent.
VDH:
Unfortunately, I agree with everything you write here, and with the comments thus far (~18). cfb points out again that we should never forget the role played by the MFM in bringing about this disastrous presidency.
Otherwise, there is nothing to add, but the obvious — that there must be something intrinsically wrong with our culture that we elect a fraud such as Barack Obama. I suspect that “something” is not racial guilt, or Soros & Co, or even the machinations of the MFM. I believe fundamentally it is our education system that fails us. The best evidence for this root cause theory is that 40% of the public still think this clown is a good president. Unbelievable.
Exactly the thought I had…
The characters in question (Obama and co.) are the product of a distorted admissions process that rewards those with the most currency (marks in the education market).
The current value of ivy league degrees or mba’s has been exposed whereby they became highly inflated (mostly due to the tendency of i-bank hiring in the 80′s and 90′s where compensation was $100k+ right out of the shoot).
These are really not bright, nor qualified people, and the standards to which they were measured were substantially less than the perceived value beyond the bounds of those universities.
And as an aside, consider that the $100k+ starting salaries are for pro athletes – heck if you’re 6’3″ at the age of 16 and can throw it 93mph, you can expect to be in the running to get paid in the millions. And that’s just until you fill out, and get on track to actually pitch in the major leagues in your early 20′s!
In a nutshell, great packaging of these people, but there’s nothing inside – limited in scope, harder hearts than one would expect, empty souls, and mice nutz not cajones.
Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past 18 months has to be able to see that things are not going as well as Barry had promised. From the war in Afghanistan, to the governments forced health insurance mandate; from higher taxes to bail outs for bankers and wall street; from a DOJ that is overtly racist to a President who doesn’t know when to keep is mouth shut over local issues it appears that we as a country are headed downhill, picking up speed with each passing day. Yet there are still 40 or so percent of the people who support this agenda? That just doesn’t seem to make sense.
Victor,
Why so glum?
There are many healthy lessons to be learned from the Obama presidency and, based on his collapsing poll numbers, Americans seem to be learning them. How’d you be feeling right now if his poll numbers were still up at around 70%?
ThOR
Very perceptive ThOR … I like your thinking.
It’s hard to get excited about a train wreck, but most people seem to want to prevent that now, thankfully.
That’s good news indeed.
Yes – the Tea Party has achieved a lot. But nothing with real impact yet. The first test comes in November…
Then the real tests come:
First, there will still remain 40% or so who support a radical leftwing agenda. We have to think of ways to decrease that number. We need to do a better job making the case for small government and capitalism. Of course that starts with a strong economy and jobs, but we need to sell America better than the leftwing Dems sell anti-America.
There have been a lot of comments here about the education system. How do we get back to instilling real critical thinking, historical awareness and economic literacy to our kids. And how do we break the stranglehold that the hard left has on higher education? Are we prepared for the hysterical uproar that will break out when we start to expose the leftist ideologues brainwashing our kids?
And remember, they control the media. It’s true that traditional media seems to be losing its ability to sway people as alternate media emerges. But what of the ’08 phenomenon. Obama’s meteoric rise proves that the traditional print and television media can still be extremely powerful in swaying public opinion. When all of them are chanting a united message in glowing terms, its hard to ignore it. And even regular ‘entertainment’ programming now often pumps out subtle political and social biases to young minds. Many see through it, many don’t. How do we oppose this pernicious propaganda without threatening freedom of expression?
How do we give citizenry more power over their elected officials? Make the process more transparent? “Who watches the watchers?” as the good doctor has asked before.
And what about the radical “Progressive” wing of the Democratic Party? Can an objective observer honestly claim that they are concerned with protecting the Constitution? Are they not intent on shredding it? We are partly to blame for letting them gain power, but does that absolve them of their crimes? (Are they crimes?) What I mean is, should Obama’s (and Pelosi / Reid’s) attempts to rein-in American dynamism and put it at the service of their global redistributive agenda be seen as falling within the legitimate mandate of Federal policy
Besides addressing a tottering economy and a porous border; a belligerent China, a demented Iran, a rapacious Russia, a global Jihad, a corrupt UN and a rudderless NATO; these are some of the debates we need to have in earnest starting November 3.
Excellent post. If I could pick just two areas where we should put some effort into structural change moving forward, they would be term limits for congress critters and reforming the educational system, i.e., less indoctrination and more critical thinking. These two changes break the cycle at two critical points, and after a few election cycles the healing will become quite noticeable. Someday, we may even stop using the term “sheeple” and not worry so much about voter stupidity and the “bread and circuses” syndrome. Two little things that over time would make a HUGE difference. Needs to be done…
Kweibe;
You’re singing my song !!
1) Term Limits for all elected officials & 2) Wrestling away the role of educators from the progs is the way to go.
Americans need to revisit what it means to be a citizen of a republic.
And how would term limits have helped from 2008 to 2010?
The damage has been done in 18 months. It may be irrrevocable.
Next time, if we should be so lucky as to have a next time, the damage will be done in half the time.
The answer is the ability to Recall (and quickly), not Term Limits.
Professor Hanson, you are to be commended for your tact and class, but you are being entirely too kind to Obama and his gang of thieves and thugs. What you describe as “errors” are actually willful misstatements, part and parcel of a campaign to discredit and weaken America at every turn. Obama’s agenda was on display for anyone with the diligence and wisdom to examine his record prior to 2008, he has been quite frank over the years in his desire to transform our nation. You would agree, I am sure, that while words matter, it is actions that ultimately determine the record of a political leader. Obama’s actions are cosistent with those of a de facto if not de jure Muslim, a communist or at very least a hard-socialist, a would-be leftist revolutionary, and friend of our enemies. Psychologically, he is damaged in ways no prior chief executive has been and quite probably a malignant narcissist with fascistic tendencies. He is also a serial liar whose political machine effectively stole the Oval Office for him. Fundamentally, he is a deciever and a usurper. No foe America faces abroad is as dangerous to our republic as Obama – the enemy within.
Just as important as Obama himself, who is after all only a symptom of the problem, is the enormous criminal enterprise that catapulted him into the presidency, and the negligence and lack of due diligence by those charged with upholding our constitution and protecting the republic. It has now been fairly well established that almost nothing about Obama’s past is as it is seems; he is a manufactured candidate designed to be a Trojan Horse. When the lid blows off this scandal, it will be among the biggest in U.S. political history – if not the very biggest. His campaign engaged in open and notorious voter fraud, via SEIU and ACORN, and allowed New Black Panther Party thugs to bully voters (to the shame of the Bush Administration, which did nothing). He also received tens of millions of dollars in illegal foreign campaign contributions, and nothing was done. The paperwork certifying him as a native-born citizen was fiddled by the Democratic National Committee and two sets of different certification documents have now come to light. Speaker Nanacy Pelosi signed off on two different copies. Obama’s murky past remains hidden, almost all of it. It is not simply about a missing long-form birth certificate; it is a consistent pattern of deception, secrecy and skullduggery – which would not have been tolerated in a white and/or conservative politician. How did Obama – a man unable to pass a basic background check to join the police or military (due to his known associations with people like Bill Ayers) – get handed the keys to the most powerful military machine in world history, including our nuclear arsennal? Yes, elections, I know – but one heard nothing in the way of protest or concern from any in a position to influence events – nothing, nada, zilch, zippo. Congress, the Supreme Court, the Democrat & GOP party aparatus, and President Bush all remained silent, and rubber-stamped Obama’s path into the White House. Obama’s ever-lengthing trail of unlawful and unconstitutional actions apparently excites little concern in the minds and hearts of our leaders, else why the silence? Silence, remember, is tantamount to assent.
The mid-term elections are for all the marbles. If the GOP cannot regain control of Congress, Obama and company will be free to complete their America-hating, criminal agenda. If the GOP does regain control of Congress, and doe not immediately institute impeachment proceedings, this voter will consider them no better than the opposition. Members of the elite political class who are tempted to sweep all of this under the rug, in the hopes that the electorate will simply forget about it, would do well to remember that there are plenty of empty cells in this nation’s prisons.
It takes 67 votes in the Senate to successfully confict a President who has been impeached by the house. If you don’t have the votes, and they aren’t going to be there in even the best of circumstances don’t even try.
Great recap of the situation.
It’s the most successful con of all time.
The reason Obama’s ratings will never fall below 40% are as follows 1) Racist Blacks who will and do support him no matter what and comprise about 13% of the voters 2) nailed on brainwashed left wing moonbats who comprise 20 -25% of the voters 3) the uneducated irredeemably stupid voters who are round about 10%. Which gives Obama 43 -45% guaranteed support which is exactly where he has been on Rassmussen for the past year or so. So now you know why Illegal Immigrant Amnesty is the DEEM’o'crats Holy Grail as trhey know the Illegals once legal will invariably support the REGIME.
Have to agree. Obama comes into any political fight with a ‘core’ margin that is pretty much unshakable. Its ironic, for instance that blacks, who suffer the most as a group in harsh economic times, will vote for him no matter what. Any group that supports a candidate by 95%+ is simply not doing any critical thinking. It is voting by race, period.
Contrary to conventional conservative wisdom, Blacks as a group are not politically stupid. They, more than any other part of the electorate know how to manipulate the government bureaucracy to their advantage. Blacks will affirmatively vote for the most left-wing (government oriented) Democrat candidate available regardless of skin color. They will positively revile a conservative black candidate. Blacks as a group comprise single mothers and their children and unmarried single men who want Washington to pay (not them). Even the small percentage of middle class blacks with intact families don’t want their needy relatives to hit them up for monetary support and prefer the government to do it. It’s obvious why they vote as they do.
You make all the salient points except one. That is: You can take Obama out of the Hate Whitey Church, but you can’t take the Hate Whitey Church out of Obama. Obama’s dealings with race and religion and foreign relations seem to be in accord with the dogma that is serve up there.
What gets me is not just that he continually sides with 30-40% of America. But he does so on issues that should be ‘no brainners’ and then proceeds to lecture us. Alot of these things he goes against make no sense on why he goes against it, unless you are TRYING to tear down the system. It makes no sense to Spend trillions during a recession, but he does. It makes NO sense to pass any bill without reading it, yet he rammed it through. It makes no sense to say the police acted ‘stupidly’ whithout knowing the fact, but he did so with pride. He will comment on the wisdom of kanye west during the grammies, but not on the ground zero mosque. There is only 1 reason to continally do things that make no sense if you want to help a country. that that is you want to tear down a country. With all the help, and easy decisions he has had I could be a better president with him and I know full well that i am no where near qualified.
Hey jmz, you make way too much sense for some of Dr. Hanson’s more sophisticated readers. Better be careful. Up is still down and wrong is still right. A dictatorship is better than a Constitutional Republic and all will be right in the world again when the “right republicans” take control of the House of Representatives in November.
How uncaring and insensitive it is for those among us who have worked hard for a lifetime to provide for the needs of ourselves and our families to not be overjoyed that President O’bama assumes the right to take what is ours and give it others who have never in their lives even attempted to do anything for themselves, or to foreign invaders who are exempted from immigration laws.
As long as inside professional politicians maintain control over the nation’s checkbook and are empowered by the voters to spend XX TRILLIONS of increasingly inflated dollars each year, spreading the nation’s nonexistent wealth all around the world, nothing is going to change for the better. And as China emerges as an even greater world power, all bets are off in favor of the United States of America.
Political leaders in training from the time they are in diapers, then advance to suits and ties, carrying with them law degrees from Harvard and Yale, and or have served as interns in DC, and who because of their experience and enlightenment there, subscribe to the Globalist world view of equality and justice for all as outlined in the United Nations Charter and “explained” to us by the mainstream media propagandists are the problem, not the solution.
Sovereign nations, what a far out concept that has become. How sovereign is Mexico under the narco ganster government that now controls it while the population flees for safety in the land of plenty.
We The People, right now, need to show the grit to say no more musical chairs to the Ruling Class. Real change, not phoney change is the correct prescription for the disease that afflicts this nation. Protections provided by the Constitution and Bill of Rights are in great peril.
How about a Victor Davis Hanson or a General David Patreus for President in 2012? That might be a start.
“The answer to every challenge is to found a new program, borrow billions to run it, hire millions more loyal to the progressive gospel of public employment, and demagogue any who oppose it.”
But this is the tired old song of the liberal left and has been for years. Bill Clinton did it but in a more subtle way. He could do it because he had a red-hot economy at the time. But Obama doesn’t seem to care if anyone notices. He has his far-left agenda and nobody is going to push him away from it. The far-left is his life and we shouldn’t be surprised by it. Whether it was his communist parents, his socialist upbringing in school, his time as a “community leader” in Chicago, or as a member of Reverand Wright’s church, the man is a tried-and-true big-government socialist. His models all are in Europe and he is determined to make us look more like them, even though every country in Europe is now proving through their economic decline that socialism just doesn’t work. Anybody take a look at Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, or France lately?
So Obama will do whatever it takes to turn us into countries like France or Spain, even though those countries are wracked with a high level of unemployment, high taxes, huge national debt, low job growth, and a military that isn’t worth a damn.
The only question is, will Obama even run in 2012? He hasn’t made any noises about it and, if 2010 is as much of a disaster as everyong thinks its going to be, maybe he won’t? He may decide, like Lyndon Johnson after ushering in the “Great Society,” that he made his mark and now it’s time to go and rake in all of those high-paying book and lecturing deals. Doesn’t really matter that he destroyed the country in the process. Being paid over $100,000 per speech in the private sector can make a guy decide that it’s time to go. One can only hope.
I will be delighted when Obama’s numbers dip below 40%, because I think it will encourage more people to speak up and offer differing views. I agree with so much of what has been said in earlier comments, that companies will scale back their plans for growth and hiring until he leaves office, that he knows no other way than the Chicago way, and he will eventually be hated by across the political spectrum. And Professor Hanson is right, BO and MO are not going to accept being reminded of their unpopularity with anything less than the worst they have to offer. Will Obama have a McCarthyesque meltdown on camera and off ‘prompter? The probability improves as the poll numbers go down.
There have been some silver linings to the dark cloud over America. I have been delighted to discover so many Jacksonian Democrats in my part of flyover country. Most of us have a family connection to farming, to the military or to both. We love our country fiercely, can distinguish enemies from friends, and support men of action over men of words. In his quest to change America into Europe of the 90s, Obama has awoken the spirit of many who thought this could not happen here. Bring on the elections, we are ready to send the weak, apologizing, moral relativists a message. Buh-bye.
I could NEVER understand the obsession the talking heads seemed to have with his “rhetorical skills”. Whenever I listened, when I could tolerate it at the very beginning, he came across as a stilted fraud who was hiding his true self unable to walk away from his electronic minders. His cadence is choppy, the tone is grating, and his pronunciation of the letter “s” carries a sibilance a rattlesnake would envy. His tossing of his head from side to side, the look of contempt down the bridge of the nose, the whole miserable spectacle is mind blowing when you take into account that it was being described as effectively comparable to Reagan. I tune him out and the few times I have heard him, when it can’t be helped, I want to throw a pair of shoes right at the source of the irritation. I just can’t believe we still have two more years of this torment.
Divorce ain’t pretty; yet we often read the press release where the soon to be singles intend to remain the best of friends; if children are present they pledge to be the best of parents, each wishing the other nothing but wonderous times forever; all the while asking us, those for whom the press release was surely intended…to respect their need for privacy at this very, very sensitive time.
Obama has never been “cool” as far as I am concerned!
…. He apparently never read other than Ms. Doris Kearns Goodwin ….
… and, it would seem, the first false fuhrer’s Mein Kampf – AKA the Koran, the final (solution’s) false prophet’s Koran – AKA Mein Kamf and absolutely exchangeable — and without missing a beat — with the original.
Sail-eared simpleton Sayiid Buraq Hussayn also seems to have read and to have been duped by Karl Marx and seems to have read and to have had his ego inflated by the Bill Ayres’ books: The Audacity of Hoping To Get Away With an Unacknowledged Mentor/Ghostwriter — and Dreams From Bill Ayres’ and My Father, I Think: Frank Marshall Davis.
And, more seriously, to have read and to have absorbed into the marrow of his bones, Saul David Alinsky’s ‘Rules For Radicals.’
A great piece of work! Things have gone so wrong now that even the Republicans can’t see the right way to move. Imagine being on a ball team where one player gets cut (Murkowski) and decides to play for another team but you STILL let them manage your team? That says it all about the elites in Washington. We’ll have to boot them all pretty soon and build some policy positions that we can support. One thing I like to talk about is the IRS Form 1099-GOV. Health care legislation boosted plenty of reporting for those that generate income so why shouldn’t government report, just like real income, all the “INCOME, REDISTRIBUTED” that they deal out?
The International Left, Communists, Marxists, and assorted Liberals have failed to acquire total control of the world by going piecemeal after Eastern Europe, Cuba, Nicaragua, China, Chile and such. They realized that it is always America that prevents their ambition. Therefore, America must be destroyed and the only way this can be done is from within. How Soros & his Red and Green friends are doing it is in my book THE CAGED EAGLE (187 pages)available from amazon.com since 2008.
http://www.amazon.com/Caged-Eagle-Socialists-Hundred-America/dp/143921123X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229450302&sr=1-1
Truth, entertainment, insight, and eloquence all in one article … Again!
And did I mention humour: “He simply cannot leave the teleprompter — even for a second. To do so means that “like a dog” petulance immediately spews forth.”
This one had me ‘rollover’ – Bow wow!! LOL
Another terrific piece Dr. H!
To link and classify Gates and Jones in the same sentence is unfair. Robert Gates stayed on at Defense for one reason, to protect as best he could the U.S. military. If open to appoint someone of dubious qualifications and in tune with his agenda Obama would have done some serious damage and left us even more vulnerable. When the dust settles, Gates will be one of the few who probably saved the country from a devastating dereliction of our armed forces.
Sherman benefited from having to face Joe Johnston and was particularly effective against civilians, not so much against N.B. Forrest or Pete Longstreet. Lincoln was not well served but persistent and stedfast in his desire to preserve the Union. Obama is not well served but is determined to destroy the Union, big difference.
I have nothing to add, until election day.
> “Let Me Be Perfectly Clear” and
> “Make No Mistake About It,”
When Obama says one of those two phrases, my ears perk up, because those are his “tell” phrases. They mean that the next words out of his mouth will be a significant, deliberate lie phrased as a promise.
“read my lips”
Isn’t there a procedure to remove under performing, incompetent presidents?
The “let me be perfectly clear” that gets walked back within twenty-four hours says it all about this president.
AlGore would have been worse, though without the racial gloss. He is as left wing and “progressive” as B. Obama any day, and is the paramount hero of the Greens worlwide to boot. The economy would be a shambles by this point in a gore presidency, not merely moribund as it is now.
I expect foreign affairs to intrude sometime soon. Obama is an exceptionally poor leader in that field, and shows no signs of improving. After the upcoming elections he we be even weaker domestically than he is now, and that will be obvious to all outside the US. But he will still be President for two years. (He won’t be impeached; policy decisions, even disastrously amateurish ones, are not crimes.) Any foreign power intent on doing mischief will therefore have a guaranteed two-year window of opportunity to do its worst. And which foreign power might that be? Iran? China? I don’t know, and perhaps it doesn’t matter.
“I expect foreign affairs to intrude sometime soon.” Well said, indeed.
Power abhors a vacuum. While Barack Obama spends his time in the sandbox of his domestic social agenda there remains a very big world out there with some very evil and ambitious people. The foreign policy puffery of the Obama administration is nothing more than amateurish disengagement from the international commitments, interests and allies that have served as the cornerstones of American security, in some cases for decades. In that respect, Obama is following his Democratic predecessors. Jimmy Carter, obsessed with “human rights” and dismantling America’s intelligence community, slept through Soviet and Cuban adventurism in Africa and was caught flat-footed by the iranian revolution. Bill Clinton was so intoxicated with the illusory “peace dividend” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union that he all but ignored the rise of militant Islam on his watch, while participating in a less-than-inspired coalition effort in the former Yugoslavia.
What harvest will current US foreign policy neglect of East Asia (China, North Korea, Indonesia) reap over the next decade and beyond? Where is Pakistan headed? What are India’s ambitions? Will Iran be irretrievably lost to a growing Russian sphere of influence, and what will this mean for American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan? How are US policies in South America and the Caribbean, and American rhetoric regarding Mexico, advancing longer-term US interests? Are socio-economic models the only interest Obama has in Europe? Who have we emboldened while bashing traditional allies Great Britain and Israel? Is it too ethereal for the American electorate to ask itself how the international power vacuum being filled?
Sadly, as the British learned in the 1960s and the Chinese are demonstrating today, the ability to exercise and sustain an effective foreign policy requires a strong economic base. As things stand currently, the inevitable intrusion of foreign affairs may very well be both rude and catastrophic for the American people.
Re “What are India’s ambitions?”
Whatever they may be, India is the least of my worries. If anything, I suspect India will be a great ally of the United States in the years to come.
obama is digging another hole, and most people are missing it. His administration is picking and choosing which laws to enforce, and which groups of people to enforce them against. Two examples are voter intimidation laws and laws against illegal immigration.
Selective enforcement of laws means the government can punish certain groups while allowing others to do whatever they want. This is already happening in Arizona. Arizona is being punished for trying to enforce an existing law, while illegals are being rewarded for their illegal activity.
How does the government plan to enforce the mandate that I buy health insurance, or pay my taxes? How can they force me to obey the law when they’re not forcing everyone to obey?
Not enforcing laws equally undermines the bedrock of American law. This can only lead to chaos and anarchy. But maybe this is what obama had in mind all along.
As every major incumbent national and State politician has known since at least 2002, BHO is an illegitimate poseur, acting in bad faith under false pretenses. Incompetence and blatant corruption are his stock-in-trade, plus a deep-seated antipathy towards every American ideal.
At root, Incumbent 43 [we do not count Cleveland twice] is a vile anti-Semitic Black Supremacist of the Farrakhan school, a supercilious quota-baby without a grain of character or integrity. Pure and simply a propaganda creation of an incredibly malfeasant mass media, his crypto-Fascist corporate State attitudes accord with those of Luddite sociopaths like Science Commissar John Holdren, on record from 1974 as viewing humanity as “a mass of seething maggots.”
BHO and his ilk accord with jihadi Muslim terrorists because they share a goal: They are not nihilists but what we call “Thanatists,” death-eaters akin to Wahabi anchorites who “love death more than life” as Ahmadinejad’s suppurating mullah-dullahs put it.
Either an aroused citizenry extirpates these gangsters root-and-branch in the near future or Leninistic double-think will subvert every Jeffersonian and Madisonian principle, leaving megadeaths in train.
Excellent points (naturellement), including but not limited to…
…an entire economic team leaving in the midst of the chaos they helped to further…something akin to European stasis by borrowing trillions more dollars and investing in redistributive schemes that destroyed incentives while terrifying entrepreneurs…threaten business with higher taxes, more regulations, new health care mandates, energy surcharges, all the while conducting a psychological campaign against the morality of private enterprise…
…the sense that Obama either does not care or tends to be more sympathetic to those who voice grievances such as his own against the U.S. than to our allies who traditionally give us the benefit of the doubt.
A future question for the age of Obama administration is, “how much damage will this Marxist Malware do before his redistribution run is done?”
Scythe (#29) I too could never understand how anyone can conclude that Obama is an “articulate”, “inspiring” public speaker. Not only do I find his speeches dull and insipid (even when he’s is reading from his teleprompter), but his body language reminds me of only one other public speaker — Benito Mussolini. But perhaps I’m spoiled since my standard for a great speaker was set by the “Great Communicator”, himself, Ronald Reagan. I know this, Obama, you are no Ronald Reagan!
Put me down as another mystified by the cheers for Obama’s eloquence. That guy who does the Allstate commericals is a better speaker. When a friend of mine told me she was so happy to at last have an eloquent President I told her that word doesn’t mean what she thinks it does.
I too failed to see what was so “eloquent” or “articulate” about this fraudulent buffoon. I pegged him as a fraud, and said so, in the Spring of ’08.
Perhaps more important was the epiphany I had from the reactions of the “elite” who made all these extravagant claims for Obama. That’s when I knew for certain that the western world’s elite was rotten to the core, and utterly incompetent.
They don’t like us? Hey, the feeling is mutual, except that we have legitimate reasons to despise them, and they don’t.
For the ‘most transparent administration ever’ – this administration is a train wreck of epic proportions.
You’re absolutely right, Professor. Obama’s partisan politics is disgustingly troubling. Most recently he’s ‘rallying the Democratic/”Progressive” voters’ and to ‘buck up’. What planet does this man preside?
Do Democrats/”Progressives” want more of this guy’s idiocy? 25% of the GDP is now towards Government spending. With a myriad of bills which are MORE Government control in Reid’s greedy hands which he wishes to pass without discussion/debate before the upcoming break.. IT’S INSANITY!
For Steny Hoyer, Reid, Pelosi, Boxer, Feingold, Feinstein and NUMEROUS RINOS to still be in their respective elections is ludicrous.
Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion – Arthur Koestler
True creativity often starts where language ends – Arthur Koestler (Something Obama can and will never fathom)
……and another thing that sticks in my craw about this poseur….accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Put aside the comic hilarity of the nomination and award itself – best exemplified by a storefront sign I read about – “Free Nobel Prize with Fish Taco’. The Nobel Committee continues to make a mockery of itself….ever since they saw fit to award Jimmy Carter and Al Gore similar awards. The new standard for excellence, in my humble opinion, is TO NOT BE AWARDED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE.
Getting back to my initial observation, a man of grace and dignity would have thanked the Committee for its consideration and humbly declined asking that they revisit the issue in four years when there would be some accomplishments to merit it. But those would have been the words of a wise man, worthy of holding the position the people had bestowed on him. That man is NOT our President.
The left in this country are a decidedly minor voting bloc of maybe 20-25% of voters. What they’ve done is brow-beat us with (their) heart-felt issues such as AGW – the spotted owl – acid rain – the tuna/dolphin problem – DDT – etc etc – pulling out guilt trip on voters. The list is long – and for a reason – and add to that their berating of us for our supposed racist attitudes – and you have the likes of an Obama elected president – the first ‘social quota’ president if you will.
Thinking about all this – how they’ve managed to ‘bring’ people to their side – a mental clubbing it seems – it becomes very apparent to me why they like islamists and dictators so much – they are all very much alike in their tactics.
40%? This clown will be lucky to hold 30%.
40/60 is insufficient. 30/70 or bust. Time to sweep out the stables. Don’t let up, Professor.
“In other words, had Obama done nothing, we would have been far better off as the natural cycles of recovery kicked in.”
The same could apply to just about everything he touches. There was no doubt in my mind that Democrats’ policies would be ther own undoing despite all the “permanent majority” nonsense, I just had no idea how quickly and drastically their ineptitude would shine through. I will be putting a lot of my own cash reserves back in the stock market on November 1.
VDH:
“There is no eloquence, period.”
This is your most important point. The great communicator has not used language as a scalpel, to precisely convey ideas to his audience. Instead, Obama orates blunt arguments that are simply cliche. Much of what he says can be summarized in fewer words, and his preference for quantity rather than quality indicates that his goal is to fillibuster rather than convince others of the strength of his arguments.
Obama is unable to be persuasive because he is unwilling to familiarize himself with details that would instill confidence that he is in possession of facts rather than opinions. By describing the economy as ‘headed in the right direction’, he manages to avoid both qualitative and quantitative description. Essentially, he has made a meaningless statement, and he repeats it expecting that its repetition will inspire or invoke confidence.
Obama’s lack of experience prevents him from knowing who he is, and we can assert that it is his lack of experience that is the most important reason for his failure. Someone with more experience would have a greater appreciation for varying points of view, and by expanding the breadth of his view, he would be able to make comparisons between others and himself. Because Obama’s view is limited, he is unable to see how divisive he is, and by his actions and words we are forced to conclude that he is a small individual. Small individuals have a tendency for failure.
Even where Obama is said to have experience, ironically, we see very little of that experience in practice. Though Obama describes himself as a citizen of the world, the group of individuals he culturally bonds with are academics. So many of his appointees are from academia that the lack of cultural diversity is apparent.
Instead of a ‘true’ multi-culturalist, who enjoys the positives and negatives of a given culture, Obama exploits culture. Specifically, Obama criticizes and praise cultures as if he is an ‘outsider’ — because he wants to be unique in the world. Obama thinks that he can maintain a unique status in the world by avoiding cultural classification. Obama has a self-serving reason to do this: he believes that he can escape criticism. How can others criticize Obama in the same way that he criticizes them if Obama is not culturally defined?
True to his training, Obama operates like a common lawyer. He uses ambiguous and evasive language, and tries to hide behind the letter of law. When things go badly for Obama, he chooses to obfuscate rather than clarify. How else do we reconcile the clear and unambiguous statement that ‘you will get to keep your current health insurance’ with the reality that many, if not most, will not?
To conclude: Obama is a narcissist, with elements of a lawyer. Narcissistic lawyers are quite common, and we have little to learn from them. Obama is not guaranteed greatness simply by being elected President — he is also entitled to infamy. History should portray Obama as an academic lawyer who wanted to be greater than the sum of his parts — and failed.
I stand in awe of the certainty expressed here, whereas I am just as confused as ever about what is really happening in our world.
But some things are predictable. When an opposition President confronts real-world problems and falls far short of his campaign promises, the opposition goes nuts. We have a feeding frenzy of vituperation. We saw it happen to GWB when the WMD’s were not found and the insurgency kicked up in Iraq. The left foamed, gloated, pontificated, the whole nine yards. GWB got no credit for anything. Now we see it with with the right and Obama. Clearly he has failed to raise employment and he has taken the socialization of the country, which has been happening steadily since the New Deal to the next level with the healthcare bill…but that IS what lefty Presidents do, or try to do. As for his verbal skills, remember what GWB had…or didn’t have. It is absolutely true that he has NOT brought the country together, nor does he seem to have much of a clue on how to do that, but short of another 9/11 or some similar event, what IS going to make the dueling 40%’s stop thinking that the other side is evil incarnate? Beats the hell out of me.
VDH is sure that Obama cannot slouch to the center as Clinton did, but it his more his assertion, than any real observation of the facts. Is this not the guy who jettisoned Ayers, Wright, and Jones in a heartbeat when the winds started to blow the other way? No doctrinaire clinging there. Is this not the guy who retained Gates, is killing hundreds of bad guys and probably thousands of semi-innocents with drones, and who DID send more troops to Afghanistan? Nevermind; it does not suit the emerging narrative.
My main observation here is that the opposition is always so damned excitable when they smell blood in the water (and usually there is always at least some blood in the water) that their rhetoric makes reasonable people in the center…recoil. Yes, maybe the country will be better off with Angle and Donnelly coming into power, but it is unlikely that they, or anyone on either side, has a clue as to how to deal with our decline and China’s ascendance. True believers assert that getting back to constitutional principles, limited government, and massive cutbacks of social programs and regulation will solve at least some of our problems. I would love to believe that if we halved the unemployment rate and and the process reduced most of our average salaries by 20-30% that we could hold our own with the Chinese, but that’s a tough plank to run on.
I’ll just throw the question out there one more time: is there ANY country IN THE WORLD following the correct political and business model in 2010?
So let’s see. Your post seems to boil down to: “So Obama didn’t turn out to be ‘some sort of God’ after all. And yes he’s a bit more leftwing than some others – but what did you expect? Why get so worked up about it? Show me which country is perfect. You’re all reacting like excitable lemmings tuned to bark at Dems in pavlovian fashion.” Am I missing anything Dwight?
Leaving aside your painfully obvious attempts to whistle past Obama’s serial deceptions, his autocratic lurch towards socialism; his disturbing connections to rabidly anti-American lunatics (assorted Mao-ists etc.), his reckless spending far beyond any defensible rationale and so on… Do you really think you are being persuasive here. Do you really think your transparent little offerings in propaganda 101 have any effect? Are your cunning attempts at moral equivalency causing some of us to doubt our views (that Obama’s is wilfully hostile to America, or at least his vision of it)? Are you swaying any perplexed fence-sitters out there who are ‘tired of defending’ Obama? Are you helping us benighted hacks understand the error of our ways? Think your milqetoast ‘he’s not so bad’ routine really does the trick? Well all I can say is that if that’s the best you can do then your side is truly screwed come November. I’d think about getting a day job if I were you.
Dr. Hanson:
This is certainly one of your best comments since the election of the current President and needs no repetition.
I would like simply to add that the Presoident’s conduct, from the beginning, bot in the field of foreign affairs as well as domestic policy, revealed a huge ego but an even greater lack of understanding of the responsibilities of his office both in domestic matters and more seriously in foreign affairs.
Watch his eyes when he is before an audience. They move from right to left, pausing only momentarily from time to time, but never in communication with his audience. He is forever, in his mind,talking to a TV audience. There is no eye communication between him and his audience in front of him. And the TV audience no longer hears him, except in snippets on somebody’s news program.
Bottom for Barry is 20% – because that’s the number of self-identified Liberals (roughly). He will hit it.
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
“We’re 5% of the world’s population yet we use 25% of its resources.” – Barack Obama.
This statement pretty much sums up his entire attitude toward our country, capitalism, success, Western culture, and even, dare I say, white people.
I don’t understand why Obama is above 40% in approval ratings. I expected him to be under 40% this summer.
guess the Rev said it best
God damn America
hope there is something left to fix
“their rhetoric makes reasonable people in the center…recoil.”
I’m so proud of you for defining your personal beliefs as the epitome of moderation & reasonableness. Clearly takes a lot of thought on your part, doesn’t it?
“I’ll just throw the question out there one more time: is there ANY country IN THE WORLD following the correct political and business model in 2010?”
You’re the Very Principled Moderate here to minister to the fevered “extremists”. You tell us what needs to be done to Save Amerikkka (if farming beets doesn’t take up too much of your time).
“Watch his eyes when he is before an audience. They move from right to left, pausing only momentarily from time to time, but never in communication with his audience.”
Oh, that? That’s just him reading the teleprompter (not a joke – I actually read that this is what causes his unusual head movements.) Further evidence of his amateurishness – any reasonably good public speaker would be able to paraphrase notes/teleprompter statements and ad lib his/her most important points. As others have noted, 0bama goes badly off-script when his addresses are not regimented – even when he is speaking to a friendly audience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWy2XzDrz30
Bush/Cheney paid for and delivered the Socialism bus to Obama’s driveway for Obama to drive away in. The Republicans should not have anything to do with anyone from the Bush/Cheney years. Notice how much Liz Cheney (introduced as a former state dept. official), is often on the Sunday shows to make the Republican case against Big Government. You just have to sit back and laugh at the completely silly lack of credibility there.
Spot on re:
1. Speech writing team is terrible. I laughed out loud during the inaguration speech when he used a line from a old Broadway show, “Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. Start all over again.” I thought he should have sung it.
2. BHO is way, way overexposed. Bush 41 had a theory that the Pres. shouldn’t be on the front page every day.
3. Thanks for setting the historical record straight about what Obama “inherited.”
“You’re the Very Principled Moderate here to minister to the fevered “extremists”. You tell us what needs to be done to Save Amerikkka (if farming beets doesn’t take up too much of your time).”
“Minister”…or mock, depending on which way the wind is blowing, which I will acknowledge is far less valuable than coming up with a solution.
What we are caught between is the fact that we love foreign-made computers, tv’s etc because they are relatively cheap, but we don’t want to work for lower wages or have pcb’s in our water. We can’t produce much (or enough) here any more at wages that the average person wants to work for.
To address on medium sized slice of the issue, we now take ourselves and our children to the dentist and the doctor all the time, compared to Americans a couple generations ago. When we have a decent job, we can afford the health care. Some feel the need to extend health care to all; many believe that doing so will ruin things for those of us who can still afford health care.
Very few people on social security or medicare want to give it up, because they “earned” and need it, but supposedly the country will go broke paying for it.
If one took away most regulation and all minimum wage laws, outlawed (or made completely voluntary) all unions and Social Security, you would create a wild west scenario that would have a majority of the population electing someone more liberal than Obama within an election cycle or too. Sure it would be exciting, but the population as a whole prefers security to that kind of excitement.
What is likely to happen is that eventually someone like Reagan gets elected, cuts taxes and slows the growth of a few programs, but can’t cut enough programs to get into the black.
We had better hope that we can muddle on, because that is what we always do. It is only in campaign rhetoric and nostalgia for some golden age that everything is wonderful.
But if enough people vote to tear things apart and start over, I’ve got a few vegetables stored (although it was a bad year for sugar beets and potatoes), a few guns, a little ammo, and protein in the woods close by. I think survivalists are generally over-the-top misfits, but hey, it takes all types; diversity and all that. The trick is to be a centrist-moderate survivalist, eh? ;-)
It is no surprise that Obama is and will always be popular with black america. Black people place race identity above all else – something that probably (almost certainly) stems from an inferiority complex…one that indeed has merit. Democracies, as envisioned, cannot properly function without a substantial investment by a wise populace, and on the wisdom front, black people far short on the scale. That’s why every African country is a disaster and tyrants like Mugabe enjoy mass popular support. The more America becomes demographically like a third world country, the more it will become just that.
“Well all I can say is that if that’s the best you can do then your side is truly screwed come November. I’d think about getting a day job if I were you.”
My job won’t change (being retired) no matter who wins or loses. I’ll stand by my analysis and since you can’t respond to its specifics, why should I change anything? As to whether or not anyone here changes their mind, who knows? Any changing of the mind usually comes very slowly. What happens when people are better able to see events in some historical perspective, rather than ranting and thrashing (which is undoubtedly a lot more fun)? People who want to change people’s minds badly enough, exaggerate and cherry pick to make their point. I’ll pass on that.
I’m an infrequent visitor, usually following another site’s link to a specific article, then moving on. I think I will have to come back more often. Excellent discussion!
Most of what I might have submitted has already been more than adequately covered by others. I’ll just toss out a couple of things I haven’t seen here yet.
With Obama’s %s dropping so fast, and the Tea Parties and others rising so fast, doesn’t he seem just a little too unconcerned? There’s talk from his supporters suggesting that he’s so dedicated to his ideals that he isn’t concerned about being in power for only one term. Really? To me, that doesn’t seem to fit with everything else I’ve observed about him. I don’t think he’s so oblivious about his position. I also don’t think he’s the “selfless” type. What does that leave?
I have a sinking feeling that he is unconcerned because something is on the way that will make all of this moot. I expect a financial crash of fairly epic proportions, but we can recover from that. He can cause our various political and financial affairs to become very tangled, but again we can recover from that, and all his mischief can be undone. What is in the works that he might believe cannot be undone? What is causing the smirk that he is doing such a poor job hiding?
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