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Thread: Obama's Less Than Brilliant Moments - Page 11







Post#251 at 05-26-2010 06:00 PM by KaiserD2 [at David Kaiser '47 joined Jul 2001 #posts 5,220]
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I didn't want to start a new thread

This, from a blog called themoderatevoice.com, is very interesting, and it expresses many of my own fears about a Nomad in the White House--and my fear that, in terms of shifting the direction of the US, the crisis imight be just about over.

"Obama’s cebebral, stay-cool style has often been viewed as a plus. But there are times in American history when Presidents need to show more than coolness. Presidents need to reflect public concerns or channel them in history-shaping directions, bring all of the elements in a crisis together and push it in a certain direction to achieve a goal. Moreover, Obama’s long-noted ability as a communicator is (again) shown to be a high-concept media label: Obama is once more showing that he has problems connecting with the public and the media until he is boxed in a seemingly no-way-out political corner. He seems a couple of beats behind the event-song. This raises the question: was Obama’s most politically consuming passion restricted mostly to getting health care reform passed? Are his communcation attributes highly limited or is he simply using them too sparingly?

"To put it bluntly but accurately: many on the left, right and from both parties are now openly questioning whether Barack Obama has the political cojones to grab this crisis, grab ahold of the federal government, and seize BP and oil companies by their lapels — whether he has the basic, historical leadership capabilities that many American Presidents have shown in times of great crisis.

"Some have begun to liken Obama’s performance so far to George W. Bush’s on Katrina — but that is perhaps a poor analogy. In this case, the federal government is trying to respond but leaving a lot of the technical fixes to BP with the feds and some scientists saying that the private company has the expertise.

"Perhaps more correctly, so far this is shaping up as the equivilent of George Bush’s initial response to 911 — when Bush was flying around in the air and seemed out of sight after the immediate attacks. Bush’s initial statement at the time was judged to be tepid and then New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani became the symbol of official response — until Bush took total control by articulating the public’s outrage and government’s determination to toss out business as usual and deal with terrorism and the government’s handling of it by new, tougher rules.

"The perception is now growing that to Obama and his administration the oil spill is just one big, fat bother that is distracting them from other issues they want to pursue — not the equivilent of America’s environmental 911. Many now believe Obama can be rolled by an oil company’s slick talk about the oil slick. It hasn’t helped Obama that his administration had green-lighted BP’s drilling project — and that, in what in retrospect was quintessential lousy political timing, Obama called for expanded offshore drilling weeks before the oil started spewing from the underwater pipe."

Yup.







Post#252 at 05-26-2010 07:19 PM by Wes84 [at joined Jun 2009 #posts 856]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
This, from a blog called themoderatevoice.com, is very interesting, and it expresses many of my own fears about a Nomad in the White House--and my fear that, in terms of shifting the direction of the US, the crisis imight be just about over.

"Obama’s cebebral, stay-cool style has often been viewed as a plus. But there are times in American history when Presidents need to show more than coolness. Presidents need to reflect public concerns or channel them in history-shaping directions, bring all of the elements in a crisis together and push it in a certain direction to achieve a goal. Moreover, Obama’s long-noted ability as a communicator is (again) shown to be a high-concept media label: Obama is once more showing that he has problems connecting with the public and the media until he is boxed in a seemingly no-way-out political corner. He seems a couple of beats behind the event-song. This raises the question: was Obama’s most politically consuming passion restricted mostly to getting health care reform passed? Are his communcation attributes highly limited or is he simply using them too sparingly?

"To put it bluntly but accurately: many on the left, right and from both parties are now openly questioning whether Barack Obama has the political cojones to grab this crisis, grab ahold of the federal government, and seize BP and oil companies by their lapels — whether he has the basic, historical leadership capabilities that many American Presidents have shown in times of great crisis.

"Some have begun to liken Obama’s performance so far to George W. Bush’s on Katrina — but that is perhaps a poor analogy. In this case, the federal government is trying to respond but leaving a lot of the technical fixes to BP with the feds and some scientists saying that the private company has the expertise.

"Perhaps more correctly, so far this is shaping up as the equivilent of George Bush’s initial response to 911 — when Bush was flying around in the air and seemed out of sight after the immediate attacks. Bush’s initial statement at the time was judged to be tepid and then New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani became the symbol of official response — until Bush took total control by articulating the public’s outrage and government’s determination to toss out business as usual and deal with terrorism and the government’s handling of it by new, tougher rules.

"The perception is now growing that to Obama and his administration the oil spill is just one big, fat bother that is distracting them from other issues they want to pursue — not the equivilent of America’s environmental 911. Many now believe Obama can be rolled by an oil company’s slick talk about the oil slick. It hasn’t helped Obama that his administration had green-lighted BP’s drilling project — and that, in what in retrospect was quintessential lousy political timing, Obama called for expanded offshore drilling weeks before the oil started spewing from the underwater pipe."

Yup.
I wonder if these issues will cause a more progressive Democrat to run against Obama in the 2012 primaries? or, This is the course we're headed on and nothing more transformative will be accomplished in this 4T?







Post#253 at 05-26-2010 10:06 PM by KaiserD2 [at David Kaiser '47 joined Jul 2001 #posts 5,220]
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My fear is that the transformation has already occurred.







Post#254 at 05-26-2010 10:53 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
My fear is that the transformation has already occurred.
I don't know David. It seems that things are too broken for the transformation to be over. Can major problems be resolved by just deciding to not resolve them? The economy is still bad, we are still in two wars and the level of dissension is rising. That sounds to me like more is on the way.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#255 at 05-26-2010 11:14 PM by herbal tee [at joined Dec 2005 #posts 7,116]
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It's just starting

You can't pour a foundation on quicksand.
This 4T is nowhere near settled.
There's no reason to believe that the 'cement' of a coming 1T is curing.
When the old 3T structure is still sinking.


This 4T has a long way to go.







Post#256 at 05-27-2010 01:49 PM by ASB65 [at Texas joined Mar 2010 #posts 5,892]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
This, from a blog called themoderatevoice.com, is very interesting, and it expresses many of my own fears about a Nomad in the White House--and my fear that, in terms of shifting the direction of the US, the crisis imight be just about over.

"Obama’s cebebral, stay-cool style has often been viewed as a plus. But there are times in American history when Presidents need to show more than coolness. Presidents need to reflect public concerns or channel them in history-shaping directions, bring all of the elements in a crisis together and push it in a certain direction to achieve a goal. Moreover, Obama’s long-noted ability as a communicator is (again) shown to be a high-concept media label: Obama is once more showing that he has problems connecting with the public and the media until he is boxed in a seemingly no-way-out political corner. He seems a couple of beats behind the event-song. This raises the question: was Obama’s most politically consuming passion restricted mostly to getting health care reform passed? Are his communcation attributes highly limited or is he simply using them too sparingly?

"To put it bluntly but accurately: many on the left, right and from both parties are now openly questioning whether Barack Obama has the political cojones to grab this crisis, grab ahold of the federal government, and seize BP and oil companies by their lapels — whether he has the basic, historical leadership capabilities that many American Presidents have shown in times of great crisis.

"Some have begun to liken Obama’s performance so far to George W. Bush’s on Katrina — but that is perhaps a poor analogy. In this case, the federal government is trying to respond but leaving a lot of the technical fixes to BP with the feds and some scientists saying that the private company has the expertise.

"Perhaps more correctly, so far this is shaping up as the equivilent of George Bush’s initial response to 911 — when Bush was flying around in the air and seemed out of sight after the immediate attacks. Bush’s initial statement at the time was judged to be tepid and then New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani became the symbol of official response — until Bush took total control by articulating the public’s outrage and government’s determination to toss out business as usual and deal with terrorism and the government’s handling of it by new, tougher rules.

"The perception is now growing that to Obama and his administration the oil spill is just one big, fat bother that is distracting them from other issues they want to pursue — not the equivilent of America’s environmental 911. Many now believe Obama can be rolled by an oil company’s slick talk about the oil slick. It hasn’t helped Obama that his administration had green-lighted BP’s drilling project — and that, in what in retrospect was quintessential lousy political timing, Obama called for expanded offshore drilling weeks before the oil started spewing from the underwater pipe."

Yup.
David, I hope you know that I respect you. I wouldn't ask your opinion on different things if I didn't. I will try to explain the Xer mind set without seeming to point the finger at the boomer generation. So if I offend, I apologize in advance.

I was attracted to Obama during the elections because I felt like he was one of us (Xers). I figured he probably viewed the world the same way I do. I personally felt a kinship to him. He was basically the same age as me. His upbringing and family dynamics were very similar to mine. He was raised by a single mother with his grandparents also being central caregivers. His grandparents would have been a big influence on him. They would have passed down their GI values of team work to him. This something else that is unique to the Xer generation than other generations before us. Because of the divorce rate, many people of my generation had grandparents who stepped in to help the single mothers raise the children out of necessity, because the mother couldn't do it herself. Many of us feel more influenced by our grandparents then we do our silent/boomer parents who were off having their midlife crisis’s or who were busy trying to find new partners or had mothers who were on unchartered ground trying to survive the new dynamics of women joining the working world. The grandparents took up the slack.

He also came from a multi-ethnic family. In my family we have Greeks, Croatians, Dominicans, and even Turkey. (And I'm talking immigrants and first generation Americans which are still very much tied to their parents traditions and cultures.) We have several different religions in my family: Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Greek Orthodox, Muslims, and Jewish. When you grow up in that environment you learn tolerance and acceptance of other people’s views and feelings. Obama would have experienced this too. He knew we can find common ground. It is possible! He went into office believing that he really could get the Democrats and Republicans to work together. He extended olive branches in the beginning. One of the first things he did was hold a dinner honoring John McCann, his opponent. He told the Democrats, "No, you are not going kick Joe Liebermann out of the caucus because he ran against me. You can still work with him." He understood how the rest of world viewed us so negatively and wanted to fix that, because he truly is a citizen of the world.

But he was naive, because he looked at the world through the eyes of an Xer. He didn't fully understand the whole boomer attitude of standing on principal for the sake of principal. This is foreign to him. This was not how he was raised. This is not the way Xers think. And the boomers are still the ones in charge of congress. It didn't matter how hard he tried to get people to work together, they were going to stand their ground. They aren't interested in hearing other people opinions because "They are right, damnit!"

I do think he is getting to the point of, "if you can't beat em, join em." He is getting ready to take the gloves off. He is still learning, but he is getting there. Hopefully, he didn't take too long to learn that lesson.
Last edited by ASB65; 05-27-2010 at 01:58 PM.







Post#257 at 05-27-2010 08:06 PM by KaiserD2 [at David Kaiser '47 joined Jul 2001 #posts 5,220]
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Amy, you don't have to apologize to me for anything you have to say, and what you say makes perfect sense. Remember, I was just as much for Obama as you were and was appalled at the idea of my exact contemporary Hillary in the White House. And he surely would have been a great President in a High. Whether he can be in a Crisis is an open question. He did sound very different in what I heard of the press conference today, and I hope that's a start.







Post#258 at 06-02-2011 02:08 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ak_110029.html

On a visit intended more to advance his re-election campaign than the interests of the United States, Mr. Obama played Ping-Pong with British Prime Minister David Cameron, signed the wrong date in the distinguished visitors' log at Westminster Abbey and botched a toast to the Queen...

-Did someone break his teleprompter?







Post#259 at 06-16-2011 11:14 AM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...r-davis-hanson

In the world of Barack Obama, inflating tires and “tuning up” moderncar engines precludes off-shore drilling. Four-dollar-a-gallon gas prices can be ameliorated by having the average consumer trade in his 8-mpg clunker. Medical bills soar because doctors unnecessarily rip out tonsils and lop off limbs. “Skyrocketing” power bills and bankrupt coal companies are abstractions, and do not involve personal tragedies. One third of the border fenced means that the fence is “basically” completed. Nine percent unemployment is due in part to automation like ATMs, which apparently first came on the scene during the Obama administration to eliminate jobs...

...Obama has never run a business, spent any considerable time off the public payroll or outside of politics, or spent any time with those who were once characterized as “clingers,” and thus cannot be expected to know much about how cars work, doctors are paid, illegal immigrants cross the border, or the basics of economics...

...at no point in his past soaring cursus honorum (Occidental, Columbia, Harvard Law Review, Chicago Law School, Chicago politics and organizing, the U.S. Senate) did anyone hold him to account, as in saying, “First, let us see exactly what you achieved that might justify yet another honor or promotion” — as in a stellar GPA, high LSAT score, brilliant law-review essay, a seminal tenure-winning book on the law, an award-winning law course, a landmark new community-organizing program, or a hallmark piece of senatorial legislation.







Post#260 at 06-21-2011 10:05 AM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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Waging Another Unconstitutional War

By Ralph Nader

June 20 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- The meticulous Harvard Law Review editors should be rolling over in their footnotes. The recidivist violations of constitutional and statutory requirements by their celebrated predecessor at that journal - Barack Obama has reached Orwellian dimensions in the war against Libya.

You see, the widespread daily bombing of Libya, the strict naval blockade of Muammar Gadhafi-controlled Libya, the destruction of Gadhafi's family compound and tent encampment in the desert--killing his son and three grandchildren--and the deployment of special forces inside Libya is not a "War." It is in the Obama White House's evasive nomenclature just a "time-limited, scope-limited military action" Can you find that phrase in the Constitution?

If Obama used the word "War," he would have a more difficult time explaining to Congress and the American people (three out of four oppose this war) why he did not (1) seek a declaration of war under Article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution, or (2) seek Congressional authorization for appropriated funds to further the war with our NATO co-warriors, or (3) comply with the deadlines of the War Powers Resolution. He threw all three lawful restraints on his Presidential unilateralism overboard.

So, in the invidious tradition of George W. Bush and his indentured confessor, Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, now comfortably ensconced on the law faculty of the University of California Berkeley, Mr. Obama is blithely claiming as authority for taking our country into another war "the inherent powers of the President under Article II of the Constitution." This wouldn't pass the laugh test by Jefferson, Madison, Franklin Mason or even Hamilton. James Madison believed placing the war-declaring power in the exclusive hands of Congress was the most significant achievement during the convention in Philadelphia that summer of 1787. No more King George substitutes for America's future, they demanded.

Note that Libya did not attack the U.S. or its appendages, and did not attack a member of NATO. Obama admits these points. Libya's trusting government sovereign fund even left $37 billion in the U.S. which Obama promptly froze. Lacking even the prevaricatory pretenses for Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, Obama and Hillary Clinton now say the U.S. is militarily involved "to protect our interests and advance our values" in the region and, of course, to protect the "universal rights" of the Libyan people. (Opportunities abound for this Obama doctrine around the world from the Congo to Syria, to Burma, to occupied Palestine and many other areas.)

Desperately seeking legitimacy, Mr. Obama cites the UN resolution, NATO, and the Arab League instead of seeking it from Congress. For all treaties with foreign countries, including the UN Charter, are trumped by the U.S. Constitution (Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957)). As a former teacher of constitutional law, the President knows this basic principle but then, as Lord Acton declared: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Congress, rendered a rubber stamp by President George W. Bush, is bestirring itself. On June 3, 2011, the House of Representatives passed H.R. Res 292 declaring that the President shall not deploy, establish, or maintain the presence of units and members of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Libya. On this matter, Obama pleads state secrets.

On June 16, 2011, ten members of the House - five conservative Republicans (including Walter B. Jones (Rep. N.C.) and Ron Paul (Rep. Texas) and five Democrats (including Dennis Kucinich (Dem. Ohio) and John Conyers (Dem. Mich.) filed suit against President Obama in federal district court for an order declaring the U.S. war in Libya "without a declaration of Congress with the use of funds never approved for such a war" to be unconstitutional. Given past judicial decisions declaring members of Congress to have "no standing to sue" on what they call "political matters," this suit is facing an uphill barrier.

Congress has appropriated no money for this war, already costing nearly a billion dollars, nor has the lawless Obama asked for it because he knows there will be strong bi-partisan resistance.

More: http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle28371.htm
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#261 at 06-23-2011 01:00 PM by jpatrick [at Venice Beach CA joined Dec 2009 #posts 228]
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Deb C Waging Another Unconstitutional War
By Ralph Nader

June 20 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- The meticulous Harvard Law Review editors should be rolling over in their footnotes. The recidivist violations of constitutional and statutory requirements by their celebrated predecessor at that journal - Barack Obama has reached Orwellian dimensions in the war against Libya.

You see, the widespread daily bombing of Libya, the strict naval blockade of Muammar Gadhafi-controlled Libya, the destruction of Gadhafi's family compound and tent encampment in the desert--killing his son and three grandchildren--and the deployment of special forces inside Libya is not a "War." It is in the Obama White House's evasive nomenclature just a "time-limited, scope-limited military action" Can you find that phrase in the Constitution?

...

Note that Libya did not attack the U.S. or its appendages, and did not attack a member of NATO. Obama admits these points. Libya's trusting government sovereign fund even left $37 billion in the U.S. which Obama promptly froze. Lacking even the prevaricatory pretenses for Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, Obama and Hillary Clinton now say the U.S. is militarily involved "to protect our interests and advance our values" in the region and, of course, to protect the "universal rights" of the Libyan people. (Opportunities abound for this Obama doctrine around the world from the Congo to Syria, to Burma, to occupied Palestine and many other areas.)

Desperately seeking legitimacy, Mr. Obama cites the UN resolution, NATO, and the Arab League instead of seeking it from Congress.

...
Is the bombing of Libya tripleplusgood? That's Orwellian Newspeak, and T4T continues.

President Obama and his administration are trying to figure out how to take advantage of this Arab Spring, and it's very interesting (and frustrating) to watch. He gave a good speech last night about bringing some troops home and continuing to fight America's enemies. If you try to understand and deconstruct Obama as a Gen Xer in power you're going to miss reality for the fake prop tree. He's a Boomer after all (born in '46-'64), grew up during the later half of the Boomer American culture years, and yet he's unique. The S&H ideas about the four types of people is a bunk oversimplification of human complexity.
New Coalition Democrat who watches MMA, listens to Dennis Miller, and eats organic food after attending church
http://www.pollwatchdaily.com/tag/pe...ypology-study/

"Chi pò, non vò; chi vò, non pò; chi sà, non fà; chi fà, non sà; e così, male il mondo va."
"Fra il dire e il fare c'è di mezzo il mare."









Post#262 at 07-05-2011 11:15 AM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/the-pres...124935579.html


Obama said: "First time I saw 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn't receiving it posthumously."

The soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division listened in stunned obedience...

A reader of the military blog "Blackfive" put a finger on the magnitude of the mistake: "How does the commander in chief mix these heroes up? He put that medal around Giunta's neck and he stood with Monti's parents as they grieved. These fallen heroes leave such a great legacy, and we should know all their names."

The point we ought to contemplate this Independence Day weekend is that our president committed an error such as this and it barely touched the American consciousness. Had the president mixed up NBA stars Steve Nash and Carmelo Anthony, can you imagine the media attention?

Americans can by and large name the No. 1 draft pick of their favorite NFL team, but they can't name one distinguished soldier from their home state.







Post#263 at 07-13-2011 11:01 AM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/271410

...At various times, Barack Obama has lashed out at those who wished to refuse to raise the debt limit, although as a senator that is just how he voted. He deplored the polluting effects of big money in campaigns, only to raise more Wall Street cash than anyone else in presidential history — as he became the first candidate to reject the public financing of general-election presidential campaigns and the limitations on fundraising that such four-decade-old laws entailed. He once decried the very idea of not applying the War Powers Act that as president he has completely ignored. He insisted that drilling and increased supply had little effect on oil-price stability — but maintained that releasing a small amount of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve most surely would. The once-demonized Bush protocols — Guantanamo, tribunals, renditions, intercepts, wiretaps, Predators, Iraq, preventive detention — have been embraced or indeed expanded...



Hope & Change...







Post#264 at 01-07-2012 01:24 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson...nt-the-legend/

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss, on no evidence, once proclaimed Obama “probably the smartest guy ever to become president.” When he thus summed up liberal consensus, was he perhaps referring to academic achievement? Soaring SAT scores? Seminal publications? IQ scores known only to a small Ivy League cloister? Political wizardry?

...That his brilliance is a myth was not just revealed by the weekly lapses (whether phonetic [corpse-man], or cultural [Austria/Germany, the United Kingdom/England, Memorial Day/Veterans Day] or inane [57 states]), but in matters of common sense and basic history. The error-ridden Cairo speech was foolish; the serial appeasement of Iran revealed an ignorance of human nature; a two-minute glance at an etiquette book would have nixed the bowing or the cheap gifts to the UK.
In short, the myth of Obama’s brilliance was based on his teleprompted eloquence, the sort of fable that says we should listen to a clueless Sean Penn or Matt Damon on politics because they can sometimes act well...







Post#265 at 03-24-2012 11:49 AM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art..._113502-2.html

...Given the demands of modern presidential politicking, no one is going to be perfect. But that doesn’t explain why, as president, Obama keeps discussing the “Intercontinental Railroad,” supposedly built in the United States in the 19th Century. (It was called the Transcontinental Railroad, and crossed no oceans...)

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/pr...e-laughed.html

...So let's see. The president sneers at the ignorance of 15th century Spaniards when, in fact, he is the one entirely ignorant of them. A man who has enjoyed a million dollars of elite education yet has never created a dime of wealth in his life sneers at a crippled farm boy with an eighth-grade schooling who establishes a successful business and introduces electrical distribution across Michigan all the way up to Sault Ste Marie. A man sneers at one of the pioneering women in broadcasting, a lady who brought the voices of T.S. Eliot, G.K. Chesterton and others into the farthest-flung classrooms and would surely have rejected Obama's own dismal speech as being too obviously reliant on "Half-A-Dozen Surefire Cheap Cracks For Lazy Public Speakers." A man whose own budget officials predict the collapse of the entire U.S. economy by 2027 sneers at a solvent predecessor for being insufficiently "forward-looking."

A great nation needs successful self-made businessmen like George Peck, and purveyors of scholarly excellence like Mary Somerville. It's not clear why it needs a smug over-credentialed President Solyndra to recycle "Crowd-Pleasing For Dummies" as a keynote address...


http://spectator.org/archives/2012/03/13/the-chu-plan

"If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant they can," said candidate Obama in a 2008 interview with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's just that it will bankrupt them..."

..."Under my plan of cap and trade, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket," continued candidate Obama. "Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers."

The next step would be the demonization of price-hiking industries as money-grubbing capitalists in need of even more mandates or a full government takeover...







Post#266 at 05-19-2012 12:30 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/ob...ver-white.html

...it turns out that the earliest recorded example of Birtherism is from the president's own literary agent, way back in 1991, in the official bio of her exciting new author:

"Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."

So the lunatic theory that Barack Obama doesn't meet the minimum eligibility requirements to be president of the United States was first advanced by Barack Obama's official representative. Where did she get that wacky idea from? "This was nothing more than a fact-checking error by me," says Obama's literary agent, Miriam Goderich, a "fact" that went so un-"checked" that it stayed up on her agency's website in the official biography of her by-then-famous client up until 2007:

"He was born in Kenya to an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister."

...I'm an Occam's Razor man. The more obvious explanation of the variable first line in the eternally shifting sands of Obama's biography is that, rather than pretending to have been born in Hawaii, he's spent much of his life pretending to have been born in Kenya...

[ ...have you ever thought it would be way cooler to have been born in colonial Kenya? ]

...At Harvard Law School, where young Barack was "the first African-American president of The Harvard Law Review," there's no end of famous firsts: ..."Harvard Law School hired its first woman of color, Elizabeth Warren, in 1995." ...she "self-identified" as Cherokee, so that makes her a "woman of color." Why, back in 1984 she submitted some of her favorite dishes to the "Pow Wow Chow" cookbook, a "compilation of recipes passed down through the Five Tribes families." The recipes from "Elizabeth Warren – Cherokee" include a crab dish with tomato mayonnaise. Mrs. Warren's fictional Cherokee ancestors in Oklahoma were renowned for their ability to spear the fast-moving Oklahoma crab. It's in the state song: "Ooooooklahoma! Where the crabs come sweepin' down the plain." But then the white man came, and now the Oklahoma crab is extinct, and at the Cherokee clambakes they have to make do with Mrs. Warren's traditional Five Tribes recipe for Cherokee Lime Pie...


Lizzie and Barry, sittin' in a tree...







Post#267 at 05-20-2012 02:10 AM by Ragnarök_62 [at Oklahoma joined Nov 2006 #posts 5,511]
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Left Arrow Research should have been done

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/ob...ver-white.html
<snip>
...At Harvard Law School, where young Barack was "the first African-American president of The Harvard Law Review," there's no end of famous firsts: ..."Harvard Law School hired its first woman of color, Elizabeth Warren, in 1995." ...she "self-identified" as Cherokee, so that makes her a "woman of color." Why, back in 1984 she submitted some of her favorite dishes to the "Pow Wow Chow" cookbook, a "compilation of recipes passed down through the Five Tribes families." The recipes from "Elizabeth Warren – Cherokee" include a crab dish with tomato mayonnaise. Mrs. Warren's fictional Cherokee ancestors in Oklahoma were renowned for their ability to spear the fast-moving Oklahoma crab. It's in the state song: "Ooooooklahoma! Where the crabs come sweepin' down the plain." But then the white man came, and now the Oklahoma crab is extinct, and at the Cherokee clambakes they have to make do with Mrs. Warren's traditional Five Tribes recipe for Cherokee Lime Pie...


Lizzie and Barry, sittin' in a tree...
Yes, this is a major screwup. First, he could have had his staff do a few easy searches like my war baby cousin did. First, you can ask Ms Warren who her Cherokee ancestors were and start here . Note, at that time a lot of folks did the "hide the indian thing", since interracial marriage was a major no no back then. So, he could have continued on with Cherokee By Blood .So.. my cousin did find our ancestors in the latter. The only bad thing is that since they weren't registered with the Dawes Census, we don't get any casino goodies. Oh well. So if Obama did this sort of stuff wrt Mrs. Warren, he'd have a proper paper trail. Cuisine? Easy, Here are some subject matter experts. I think a simple phone call or email wrt cuisine would have helped.
MBTI step II type : Expressive INTP

There's an annual contest at Bond University, Australia, calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term:
The winning student wrote:

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end."







Post#268 at 05-20-2012 03:48 AM by annla899 [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 2,860]
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05-20-2012, 03:48 AM #268
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Quote Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62 View Post
Yes, this is a major screwup. First, he could have had his staff do a few easy searches like my war baby cousin did. First, you can ask Ms Warren who her Cherokee ancestors were and start here . Note, at that time a lot of folks did the "hide the indian thing", since interracial marriage was a major no no back then. So, he could have continued on with Cherokee By Blood .So.. my cousin did find our ancestors in the latter. The only bad thing is that since they weren't registered with the Dawes Census, we don't get any casino goodies. Oh well. So if Obama did this sort of stuff wrt Mrs. Warren, he'd have a proper paper trail. Cuisine? Easy, Here are some subject matter experts. I think a simple phone call or email wrt cuisine would have helped.
Elizabeth Warren didn't claim herself as Native American on any of her college apps. It wasn't until she was hired at Harvard that her 1/32nd came into play. My guess is that she agreed to let them use it so she could be touted as a "minority hire."







Post#269 at 05-20-2012 04:07 PM by annla899 [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 2,860]
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05-20-2012, 04:07 PM #269
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I will add this from The Atlantic:

The head of the committee that brought Warren to Harvard Law School said talk of Native American ties was not a factor in recruiting her to the prestigious institution. Reported the Boston Herald in April in its first story on Warren's ancestry claim: "Harvard Law professor Charles Fried, a former U.S. Solicitor General who served under Ronald Reagan, sat on the appointing committee that recommended Warren for hire in 1995. He said he didn't recall her Native American heritage ever coming up during the hiring process.

"'It simply played no role in the appointments process. It was not mentioned and I didn't mention it to the faculty,' he said."
He repeated himself this week, telling the Herald: "In spite of conclusive evidence to the contrary, the story continues to circulate that Elizabeth Warren enjoyed some kind of affirmative action leg-up in her hiring as a full professor by the Harvard Law School. The innuendo is false."
"I can state categorically that the subject of her Native American ancestry never once was mentioned," he added.
That view was echoed by Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe, who voted to tenure Warren and was also involved in recruiting her.
"Elizabeth Warren's heritage had absolutely no role in the decision to recruit her to Harvard Law School," he told the Crimson. "Our decision was entirely based on her extraordinary expertise and legendary teaching ability. This whole dispute is fabricated out of whole cloth and has no connection to reality."
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...r-what/257415/







Post#270 at 05-25-2012 08:21 AM by '58 Flat [at Hardhat From Central Jersey joined Jul 2001 #posts 3,300]
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05-25-2012, 08:21 AM #270
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Of course President Obama's least brilliant moment of all could turn out to be his same-sex marriage proclamation. I fear that he has dealt himself the Ten Of Swords with this.
But maybe if the putative Robin Hoods stopped trying to take from law-abiding citizens and give to criminals, take from men and give to women, take from believers and give to anti-believers, take from citizens and give to "undocumented" immigrants, and take from heterosexuals and give to homosexuals, they might have a lot more success in taking from the rich and giving to everyone else.

Don't blame me - I'm a Baby Buster!







Post#271 at 06-06-2012 11:42 AM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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06-06-2012, 11:42 AM #271
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ht_114271.html

...Adjectives frequently applied to Mr. Obama are "smart" (278 million hits on Google), "intelligent" (62 million) and "brilliant" (24 million). There is little evidence to support it. Mr. Obama went to Harvard, but so did George W. Bush... The president won't release his transcripts, so we can't judge by his grades. Mr. Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review, but when he was selected, popularity mattered more than scholarship.

Mr. Obama joined an undistinguished law firm, where he tried no cases...

Many cite the president's oratorical skills, but he often rambles when he speaks without a teleprompter...

Columnist Joe Klein said Mr. Obama's first autobiography "may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician." But Mr. Obama got help writing "Dreams from My Father" from "his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers" ... "The book's language, oddly specific references, literary devices and themes would bear a jarring similarity to Ayers' own writing" ... Biographer David Maraniss published this month his interview with Genevieve Cook, who dated Mr. Obama in New York, but bears little resemblance to the "New York girlfriend" described in "Dreams." ...Yet Mr. Obama's description closely resembles radical Diana Oughton, who was Mr. Ayers girlfriend and who blew herself to smithereens in 1970 while building a bomb intended to kill soldiers at Fort Dix...

Mr. Obama has said a lot of unsmart things: there are 57 states; Canada has a president; "Austrian" is a language; America is "20 centuries" old; Arabic is spoken in Afghanistan. He's called the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) the Maldives, and declared it would be "unprecedented" for the Supreme Court to invalidate a law passed by Congress [from a guy who is a lawyer]...

Could it be that Mr. Obama's "superior intellect" is a myth created by journalists to mask what may be the thinnest resume of anyone ever elected president? An example of puffery is the description of Mr. Obama as a former "professor of constitutional law." Mr. Obama was a part time instructor at the University of Chicago law school, without the title or status of professor. And, according to blogger Doug Ross, he wasn't very popular with the real professors... "According to my professor friend, [Obama] had the lowest intellectual capacity in the building. ... The other professors hated him because he was lazy, unqualified"...


Quote Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62 View Post
...Note, at that time a lot of folks did the "hide the indian thing", since interracial marriage was a major no no back then...
1) The census records show "white" for her anacestors going back to the 1840s. At that time was done by census takers, not self-identifying;

2) I don't think there was a problem with whites and indians marrying, at least not legally (as far as I know).

Quote Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62 View Post
Yes, this is a major screwup. First, he could have had his staff do a few easy searches like my war baby cousin did...
-That would have defeated the purpose of enjoying the racial diversity spoils!

Quote Originally Posted by annla899 View Post
-Is there any chance that you take Harvard's claim seriously?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...ee-nation.html

At first Warren said she learned that her employer, Harvard Law School, had cited her as a minority faculty member only after the Boston Herald informed her of it several weeks ago. Then last week she conceded that she herself had told Harvard that she was American Indian, though she said she told the university only after being hired.

Many Americans share, if not some Indian ancestry, at least what Warren has called "family lore" about Indian ancestry. What has given the story legs is its context. At elite institutions like Harvard, achieving racial diversity is both an ideal and a challenge... certain racial designations not only lend cultural cachet to applicants for scarce places in the student body and faculty, but also market value, however inexact. Minorities can receive a leg up.

That's no doubt why Warren insists that she told Harvard of her (perhaps mythical) ancestry only after she'd been hired. She clearly doesn't want to be perceived as having benefited from affirmative action... Her application to Rutgers University Law School, which Warren attended, included the question: "Are you interested in applying for admission under the Program for Minority Group Students?" Warren answered, "No." Yet at some point in the late 1980s, when she was teaching law at the University of Pennsylvania, Warren began listing herself as Native American in a legal directory. A recently-unearthed article from a 1997 Fordham Law Review describes Warren as the Harvard Law School faculty's "first woman of color."

...anyone in Warren's position would've understood that, all other things being equal, nonwhite status bestowed an advantage. Meanwhile, both Penn and Harvard seemed all too eager to claim credit for an extra dose of racial diversity on their faculties...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...clU_story.html

Warren says that for almost a decade she listed herself in the AALS directory as a Native American because she hoped to “meet others like me.”

This makes perfect sense to a liberal subscriber to the central superstition of the diversity industry, which is the premise of identity politics: Personhood is distilled not to the content of character but only to race, ethnicity, gender or sexual preference...

...Warren’s adult dabbling in identity politics is pertinent because it is, in all its silliness, applied liberalism.







Post#272 at 06-30-2012 12:08 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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06-30-2012, 12:08 PM #272
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The most brilliant man to ever be POTUS:

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson...inglepage=true

...For months the president fought the Birthers who insist that he was born in Kenya, only to have it revealed that he himself for over a decade wrote just that fact in his own literary biography. Is Barack Obama then a birther?

Has any major public figure (57 states, Austrian language, corpse-men, Maldives for Falklands, private sector “doing fine,” etc.) been a more underwhelming advertisement for the quality of a Harvard education or a Chicago Law School part-time billet...

Oops:

http://triblive.com/opinion/2069400-...ther-executive

...President Barack Obama’s invocation of executive privilege to shield those documents is another matter. In fact, it’s a mountain of a mess that could topple Mr. Obama (if the electorate doesn’t do it first). By now declaring executive privilege, the administration is legally stipulating that there was direct White House involvement. And it has placed itself in Catch-22 jeopardy: It was more intimately involved in Fast and Furious than previously stated and it has been involved in nothing less than a cover-up to prevent that public disclosure.

Either the White House lied or the White House lied...







Post#273 at 06-30-2012 09:02 PM by Aldaris [at 1983 joined Oct 2010 #posts 78]
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I really feel sorry for you. I honestly can't imagine what it must be like to never find joy in anything. Seriously, when was the last time you were happy? To spend every waking hour constantly looking for something to hate.... I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I think you need to seek professional help.
'True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.' - Kurt Vonnegut







Post#274 at 07-07-2012 11:55 AM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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07-07-2012, 11:55 AM #274
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http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/0...on-health-tax/

Following the Supreme Court decision last week, President Barack Obama has been struggling to square his no-new-middle-class-taxes promise with the court’s ruling that the law is constitutional precisely because it is a tax...

That has made for some uncomfortable moments...

Quote Originally Posted by Aldaris View Post
I really feel sorry for you. I honestly can't imagine what it must be like to never find joy in anything. Seriously, when was the last time you were happy? To spend every waking hour constantly looking for something to hate.... I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I think you need to seek professional help.
-I'm happy all the time. Posting here is entirely different.

Funny, I don't see any joy in your previous posts:

Quote Originally Posted by Aldaris View Post
A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is politics?"

Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me capitalism. Your Mom, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the people. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense,"

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what dad had said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."

The father says, "Good son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."

The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit."
...or this:

...or this:

Quote Originally Posted by Aldaris View Post
Start seeing some flag-covered boxes being unloaded from planes on the nightly news every day and you'll see some changes. But alas, no such thing from the pro-MIC corporate media.
Does that mean you have no joy? I feel so sorry for you.

You haven't commented on the content of any of my posts, which is revealing. I suspect that it's the target of my postings on this threads which bother you, not the tone. It is funny that people actually fell for the idea that Obama was a well-spoken, intelligent moderate. It just goes to show what you can get away with when the Mainstream media is willing to look the other way.

And the next time you comment, could you use the quote bar? It makes things easier.







Post#275 at 10-27-2012 11:17 AM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://www.commentarymagazine.com/20...in-the-debate/
...This inadvertently hilarious New York Times story this morning lays out the apologists’s explanation: “Mr. Obama does not like debates to begin with, aides have long said, viewing them as media-driven gamesmanship….Mr. Obama made clear to advisers that he was not happy about debating Mr. Romney, whom he views with disdain. It was something to endure, rather than an opportunity, aides said.”

On the face of it, this is absurd: If he views Romney with disdain, why wouldn’t he relish the opportunity to crush him in a debate? Debates aren’t dates or dinner parties or business meetings; they are contests, and Obama is a very competitive person. Why would he only “endure” one, given how utterly wonderful he is? As for “media-driven gamesmanship,” what does Obama call going on David Letterman’s show, or Jay Leno’s, both of which he seems to enjoy mightily?

...The president didn’t lose the debate on Wednesday because he performed badly on Wednesday. He didn’t perform well, to be sure, but others have done much worse with less fallout. He lost the debate because he’s been a bad president.




http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid..._not_true.html

Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter admitted on CNN's "OutFront" tonight that their claim that Mitt Romney's tax plan costs $5 trillion is untrue...

Cutter eventually acknowledged that the closing of deductions accounts for at least four trillion of the five trillion in lost revenues she claims that will not be collected in taxes. Transcript below...

http://politics.kfyi.com/cc-common/m...ticle=10476080
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