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Friday, April 10, 2009

A NEW TITLE

Barack Obama, President of The United States Of America, Fearless Leader and Duce, Lowerer Of The Seas, Defender Of Islam, Apologist Of All That Is American, Sovereign Of The Stimulus, Healer Of The Earth, Duke Of No Nukes, Sovereign Restorer Of Images, Messiah Of The Mob, Leader Of The Lay-Abouts, Sovereign Organizers Of Communities, Duke Of Alinsky, Sovereign and Most Honourable Provider Of Health Care, Sovereign of the Most Venerable Order of Narcissists, has a new title: Financial Adviser-In-Chief.

As reported by Ben Feller and Alana Zibel of the AP:

WASHINGTON – Declaring "good news" in the midst of an economic meltdown, President Barack Obama on Thursday urged families to take advantage of near-record low mortgage rates by refinancing their home loans. "We are at a time where people can really take advantage of this," Obama said, seated with a handful of homeowners who have already lowered their bills.

But he also warned people to watch out for scam artists, cautioning, "If somebody is asking you for money up front before they help you with your refinancing, it's probably a scam."

...

"The main message we want to send today is there are 7 to 9 million people across the country who right now could be taking advantage of lower mortgage rates," Obama said in a photo opportunity in the Roosevelt Room. "That is money in their pocket."

Your Excellency, whose shoes I am not fit to lick, if I may humbly beseech thee with a question: should I contribute the full amount allowed to my 401K? In great anticipation, I humbly and meekly await your reply. I exist only to serve Caesar. Ave Obamacus!

10 apr 09 @ 10:02 am edt Comments

THE ROAD TO NEMESIS

Many of us were feeling a little nauseous every time our Fearless Leader spoke on his recent leg of the Narcissus World Tour 2009!™. Over at Contentions, Peter Wehner is feeling a bit queasy:

At convenient points on his overseas trip President Obama purposefully disfigured reality in a way that reflected poorly on America. That is to say, an American president played up cartoon images of the United States in order to get foreign audiences to applaud him. It is rare for the leader of a nation to revise history in order to make his nation look worse. But for Obama, the upside — making himself look good — is an easy trade-off. One senses that when it comes to Obama, it is all, and always, about him.

...

As one might expect, President Obama is executing his game with panache and skill; he is far too smooth and politically smart to lacerate America in a manner that would come across as clumsy and obviously offensive. He would rather speak in an elliptical manner, with a wink and a nod to a knowing audience, to communicate in sub-text as well as through text. But the goal is the same: to elevate himself at the expense of his country, to say (in so many words) that he is better than it. This isn’t the worst thing a President can do, but it is bad enough.

It may not be the worst thing, but what are the consequences? I think Jennifer Rubin, in her commentary on Mr. Wehner's remarks, nails it:

These things are never simple and perhaps Obama’s peculiarly detached and hyper-critical view of America (which necessitates figurative and literal bowing and a fair measure of scraping) neatly fits both his intellectual bent and personal needs. Still, the cause is not so nearly important as the result. The prostration of the American president before European crowds, Iranian mullahs, and Chinese dictators leads, as we have seen in history, not to a more united and peaceful world, but one more dangerous and violent. Nations big and small, and non-state actors, realize the U.S. is unwilling or unable to assert its moral and military weight.

She also makes a very insightful observation earlier in the same posting:

During the campaign, he went to Berlin and proclaimed his citizenship of the “world” — an odd formulation for someone then seeking the presidency not of the “world” but of a particular country. How much odder now that he is president to see him speak of America as a distant observer, critiquing it as would a Harvard professor, and tut-tutting our desire to “dictate” to the world. It is all of a piece — the perfect embodiment of the academic Left which eschews nationality and even more so pro-Americanism.

We've elected a professor, God help us.

10 apr 09 @ 9:38 am edt Comments

Thursday, April 9, 2009

SHIVER THEIR TIMBERS

Over at The Corner, former Justice Department officials David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey think that piracy is here to say for some time:

The less obvious, but probably even more deleterious, consequences are that, in the 21st century, the forces of chaos and disorder are flourishing on the world's oceans at levels unseen for more than a century, and the forces of civilization and law and order are manifestly not up to the task of pushing back. The world's navies outgun and outperform today's pirates by greater margins than ever before in naval history; what is lacking is the willingness to use deadly force, manifested through enormously restricted and impractical rules of engagement, backed up by a general refusal to treat captured pirates as hostis humani generis — enemies of mankind — subject to harsh sanctions, up to and including the death penalty. It should also be recalled that the harshness of traditional punishments for piracy was, at least partially, grounded in the nature of their operations on the high seas — a vast area that is not, and cannot be, policed in the same manner as the territory of states. The law-abiding are simply at greater risk in those areas where pirates operate. However, instead of pursuing today's pirates into their lairs, and destroying these outposts of lawlessness, powerful warships stand by as pirates collect ransoms and sail away, content to view these episodes as something akin to a humanitarian rescue operation, instead of a military-style engagement against hostile forces. Given these realities, we can unfortunately expect that piracy will continue to flourish.

Mackubin Thomas Owens disagrees and offers a proposal:

Our problem with pirates is the same as the one with al Qaeda et al. We have extended legal rights to people who do not deserve them. We need to return to an important distinction in first made by the Romans and subsequently incorporated into international law by way of medieval and early modern European jurisprudence, e.g. Grotius and Vattel. The Romans distinguished between bellum, war against legitimus hostis, a legitimate enemy, and guerra, war against latrunculi — pirates, robbers, brigands, and outlaws — "the common enemies of mankind."

The former, bellum, became the standard for interstate conflict, and it is here that the Geneva Conventions and other legal protections were meant to apply. They do not apply to the latter, guerra — indeed, punishment forlatrunculi traditionally has been summary execution. Until recently, no international code has extended legal protection to pirates.

So first, we should revive that distinction. When they are caught, they should be hanged. Second, I'm not the first to suggest that we should use force to wipe out the pirate lairs. Under the old understanding of international law, a sovereign state has the right to strike the territory of another if that state is not able to curtail the activities of latrunculi.

He is absolutely correct. The United States dominates the other navies of the world to ensure the freedom of the seas. It is imperative that we be the main actor in this drama, (1) because it is our duty and (2) as a show of determinative force for our enemies to view. We are the world power and we are a force for good in the world and we are the main defenders of Western Civilization: let's start acting like it [How's that for arrogant? Quick, send the boy to be re-educated in hopeychange!].

I, of course, understand that the chances of the Dali Bama doing anything like the above are slim to none. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has another way to fight the pirates that, given we the President we have, the Congress could take action under Article I:

Washington, D.C., April 9, 2009— News that Somali pirates had seized an American ship and, after being repelled, held her captain hostage drew a response from analysts at the Competitive Enterprise Institute: the United States should consider authorizing private parties to attack pirate ships under little used instruments called “letters of marque and reprisal.”

The letters, specifically authorized in the Article 1 section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, allow private parties to attack and seize the property of other parties that have committed violations of international law. Congress has the power to grant the letters. The United States made significant use of them during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 and never joined 19th Century treaties in which European nations forswore their use. The U.S. issued letters of marque to ships during the Spanish-American War of 1898; and a civilian operated airship, The Resolute, operated under a letter marque during World War II. The letters also have a long history prior to the establishment of the United States. Elizabethan-era explorer and adventurer Sir Francis Drake operated under a letter of marque.

Please take the time to click here and read the full press release. [tip of the fedora to Iain Murray]

9 apr 09 @ 1:55 pm edt Comments

USEFUL IDIOTS

Regarding the Congressional Black Caucus and its meeting with Castro, Peter Kirsanow is concise and spot-on [and worth quoting in full]:

Useful Idiots Caucus

The awestruck members of the Congressional Black Caucus who lavished praise and gratitude upon Fidel Castro after meeting with the former dictator are either profoundly ignorant or indifferent to evil — perhaps both.

Since they identify themselves as members of a race-specific caucus, one would expect that they might be interested in whether there might be a few racial disparities in Cuba. It doesn't appear, however, that they troubled themselves to find out.

Next time they visit the island gulag, they might notice the contrast between the number of blacks in positions of political power and the number of blacks confined in Castro's political prisons. Should they need any explanation for the contrast, they should consider consulting Oscar Elías Biscet, the heroic black physician and winner of the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom who has been rotting in one of Castro's dungeons because of his tireless advocacy for basic freedoms for all Cubans.

The members of the CBC who made the trip will be recorded as yet another embarrassing historical footnote in Castro's 50-year campaign to dupe America. Disgraceful.

Indeed. I can think of a few more descriptive words: ignoramuses, cretins, fools—I'll stop there.

9 apr 09 @ 1:32 pm edt Comments

WHILE ROME BURNS...

Party on, Dudes!

Still from the soon-to-be-released DVD: GUYS GONE WILD! Volume G-20

9 apr 09 @ 10:45 am edt Comments

THE OBAMA TREATMENT

First he dissed the British. And now, as Red State's Jeff Emanuel reports:

During his incredibly successful[/snark] trip to Europe last week, President Obama rejected an invitation from French president Nicolas Sarkozy to visit Normandy, France — the site of the 1944 D-Day beach landing. The reason given by the Obama administration? They didn’t want to offend the Germans by having the U.S. president visit the site where over 4,400 allied soldiers died in the operation that made victory in Europe against the evil, inhuman Nazi German regime and its allies possible.

It gets better...
Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Absolutely — until you push a little further, and learn anew just what absurdity really is, courtesy — again — of the Obama administration:

Mr Sarkozy’s most senior aide said Mr Obama had agreed to come back in June for the 65th anniversary of the June 6th 1944, D-Day landings. A White House spokesman declined to comment on whether Mr Obama would travel to France in June.

So far, innumerable media outlets have reported that Obama will, in fact, be joining Sarkozy in Normandy on the June 6 anniversary of D-Day — but every one is citing Sarkozy and other European sources, because the Obama administration, for whatever reason, is refusing to confirm or deny whether Obama intends to honor those fallen — and those saved — by the historic D-Day operation.

Just some of the actions of the Divine Obamacus so far: disrespect towards Britain and France, trashing America in foreign lands, agree to meet Iranian officials without preconditions, figuratively [and, in one case, literally] bow and scrape to the Muslim world. The world has truly turned upside down.

What is He up to? Would somebody please explain the strategy to me?

Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Emanuel's full posting which also contains another diss.

9 apr 09 @ 10:06 am edt Comments

THE DENIAL IN THE KREMLIN

The Editors at Investor's Business Daily ask the question:

Russia tells the U.S. not to worry about a nuclear Iran and not to punish nuclear North Korea. Fidel Castro wants to help the president, Russia's "new comrade." Are we being set up?

Part of the answer:
Clearly, Russia wants to lull us into complacency regarding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction among hostile regimes. Do Moscow and other adversaries of the free world sense an uncommon opportunity in the year 2009?

With an unprecedented financial crisis battering the West's economic system, and a man of the left in the White House, is Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's description of Barack Obama as "my new comrade" more than a clever sound bite?

Ailing Cuban dictator Castro, having granted an audience to members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday, seemed to share Medvedev's sentiment, asking, "How can we help President Obama?"

When longtime foes of the world's lone superpower behave in such fashion, it isn't because they've been converted to the cause of world peace; it is because they see a chance to change the dangerous global power game in their favor — and at our expense.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, always unguarded in expressing himself, claimed this week on a visit to Beijing that "the power of the U.S. empire has collapsed."

"Every day, the new poles of world power are becoming stronger: Beijing, Tokyo, Tehran," he said. "It's moving toward the East and toward the South."

Toward danger and away from security would be a more accurate description.

The Russians will take advantage of any weakness we show. This is standard operating procedure for them. Read their history from 1918 onward to see the truth in this. The trouble is: they have an alarming tendency not to think it through. I have no doubt that the thugs in the Kremlin think they can control Iran, Syria, North Korea, et. al. and, thus, letting them go nuclear will not pose a threat to them. They're as naive as our Fearless Leader.

Please take the time to click here and read the full editorial.

9 apr 09 @ 9:51 am edt Comments

TUDOR-PALOOZA

If you're at all interested in that endlessly-fascinating tyrant Henry VIII, the British National Archives has created a special online exhibition of documents and images that will satisfy a good deal your curiosity. It may be found by clicking here.

9 apr 09 @ 9:03 am edt Comments

EMP EMT'S

Over at The Corner, Frank Gaffney addresses the news that the U.S. power grid has been the subject of many cyberattacks and reminds us of a related threat:

That we are under incessant cyberattack is not news; as the Journal notes, the Pentagon had to spend $100 million last year fixing damage done by hackers, most of whom seem to be from China and Russia.

What is news is that our enemies from those countries, and perhaps others, have put themselves in a position to strike our Achilles' heel: the electrical production and distribution system and all of the other infrastructures — transportation, communications, food distribution, health care, water and sewage, banking, etc. — that critically depend upon it. For a sense of what an "unplugged" America would look like, think New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast region post-Hurricane Katrina.

Unfortunately, the cyber threat to "the grid" is only one means of eviscerating the soft underbelly of American society. Another which has been getting increasing attention could be delivered via the kind of nuclear-armed ballistic missile that Iran and North Korea have been developing: a strategic electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack. As Newt Gingrich and others — including a blue-ribbon commission that reported to Congress last year — have been pointing out for some time, by detonating a nuclear weapon in space high over the United States, an intense burst of electrical energy would be unleashed.

The effect of that EMP wave on unprotected electronic devices and the grid that powers them would be at least as severe as whatever the cyber-spies have cooked up: severe damage, if not the irreparable destruction, to transformers and other critical nodes without which our 21st-century society simply cannot function....

The current Administration like to boast about how tech-savvy they are. Let's hope we see them put that understanding to good use here.

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.

9 apr 09 @ 8:54 am edt Comments

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

SHOW ME THE MONEY

One of the things Barack The Unready said before the Turkish Parliament on Monday instant has generated a lot of controversy. So as not to be accused of taking one sentence out of context, I quote the full paragraph here with emphasis on the part of which I'm referring to [you can read the full text of the speech by clicking here]:

I also want to be clear that America's relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world, cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstandings, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country — I know, because I am one of them.

Yesterday I commented on the latter part of this sentence thusly:

Huh? Name me one—ONE—positive contribution by Islam to the United States. Think hard; think real hard. You can't, can you? Didn't think so.

Over at Front Page Magazine, Islamic scholar Robert Spencer offers his take on this part of the sentence:

Surveying the whole tapestry of American history, one would be hard-pressed to find any significant way in which the Islamic faith has shaped the United States in terms of its governing principles and the nature of American society. Meanwhile, there are numerous ways in which, if there had been a significant Muslim presence in the country at the time, some of the most cherished and important principles of American society and law may have met fierce resistance, and may never have seen the light of day.

Mr. Spencer backs up this statement in the article with solid evidence. He then asks and answers the following question:

So in what way has the Islamic faith shaped Obama’s country? The most significant event connected to the Islamic faith that has shaped the character of the United States was the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Those attacks have shaped the nation in numerous ways: they’ve led to numerous innovations in airline security, which in generations to come – if today’s politically correct climate continues to befog minds -- may be added to future versions of the fanciful “1001 Muslim Inventions” exhibition. The Islamic faith has shaped the U.S. since 9/11 in leading to the spending of billions on anti-terror measures, and to the ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to Guantanamo, and to so many features of the modern political and social landscape that they cannot be enumerated within the space of a single article.

As to the first part of the President's sentence, over at Jihad Watch, Hugh Fitzgerald has a good number of questions for our Fearless Leader. Here are a few:

Did the artistic riches of Byzantium, of Constantinople (for a thousand years the most important city in Christendom), so many destroyed, others vandalized beyond recognition, when the Muslims took over, end up "for the better" when Islam conquered the Byzantine Greeks?

And...
Did Greece, did Bulgaria, did Serbia, did the rest of the Balkans, change for the better" when the Ottoman Turks arrived, leading some to convert out of a desire to protect themselves? What are Bosnian Muslims if not the descendants of Serbs who converted, just as Pakistanis and Indian Muslims are merely the descendants of Hindus who sought to escape the crushing conditions of life for non-Muslims during the centuries of Muslim rule, so much more aurangzeb than akbar? Was the child-snatching of the "devshirme" system, where Christian (and Jewish children) were taken to serve as Janissaries, a change "for the better"?

And...
Was the arrival of Islam in Black Africa, through the Arab slave traders who began their cruel work, seizing black African boys, castrating them on the spot, in the bush, and then bringing them by slave coffle and dhow to the slave markets of Islam, a change, for those black Africans, "for the better"? Islam legitimizes, for all time, in its immutable texts, the rightness, the justness, of slavery. Slavery was only abolished among Muslims by the fiat of outside European powers (as France in Morocco and Algeria, or by the Royal Navy suppressing the Arab slave trade with Africa in the late 19th century, with intermittent booster shots of naval power displayed through much of the early 20th century) or by international pressure from the West, as when Saudi Arabia, but only in 1962, formally abolished slavery -- though of course it continues, informally, right through to today. Did Islam, which allows slavery, and has never experienced a Muslim Wilberforce, change things "for the better"?

Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Spencer's full article and here to read Mr. Fitzgerald's full posting.

8 apr 09 @ 2:49 pm edt Comments

THIS IS THE DAWNING OF THE AGE OF OBAMACUS

Yesterday, the Editors of The Wall Street Journal published an excellent piece spotlighting the naive utopianism of the Dali Bama's 'grand no-nukes vision' and what it will lead to if seriously pursued. From the chilling conclusion:

...If Iran acquires a bomb or North Korea retains one despite this attempt to stop them, then the world will conclude that there is no such thing as an enforceable antinuclear order. It will be every nation for itself.

In the Middle East, a Shiite bomb will send the region's Arab nations scurrying to Pakistan to get a Sunni weapon. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and perhaps even Iraq will be in the market for a deterrent. The Turks -- long a power in the region but wondering if NATO membership is enough protection -- will also seek to join the nuclear club. Meanwhile, Japan will increasingly wonder if Americans would really risk an attack on themselves in order to protect Tokyo. The nightmare imagined by strategists at the dawn of the atomic age in the 1950s, with every major nation getting the bomb, will be that much closer.

Mr. Obama is a brilliant talker, and his words thrilled a Europe that wants to believe he can conjure peace and a nuclear-free world. But note well how little the Europeans answered the President's call for more troops in Afghanistan, much less any help in stopping a nuclear Iran. Mr. Obama is offering pleasant illusions, while mullahs and other rogues plot explosive reality.

Lovely.

Please take the time to click here and read the full editorial.

8 apr 09 @ 2:27 pm edt Comments

COinC

Over at Pajamas Media, Victor Davis Hanson analyzes the attitude with which Barack The Unready went into his just completed tour:

Our Philosopher Organizer

The most successful practitioner of community organizing looks around for what he thinks is a problem, chastises both sides and allots absolutely equal blame, gives exalted moral lectures about compromise and understanding, and then waltzes away well paid, praised for his moderation, but having accomplished nothing.

So I wasn’t too surprised to learn that President Obama decided to tackle European-American relations—something that has a pedigree going back to our Revolution, and has been analyzed by the likes of Tocqueville and Henry James to contemporary essayists such as Bruce Bawer, Joseph Joffe, Robert Kagan, and Bruce Thornton. But then who needs to read them, when you have the power of ‘hope and change’?

Had Mr. Obama done his homework, he would have learned that our transatlantic “differences” transcend communication problems, and, yes, even Barack Obama’s charisma.

Never mind about that. This most successful of community organizers showed us why he is the best:

Obama walks in. He sees a “new” problem (read Bush’s). And as if he’s trying to resolve a renter group’s anger over bad conditions in a city-owned apartment building, he immediately decides his “cool” can relieve the “tension”. So Europe gets 50% of the blame, America 50%—but, wait, in reality more since an American while abroad “courageously” blames first his fellow Americans on the charge of being cowards“arrogant”. Then, presto, problem addressed and solved, Obama goes into campaign mode to wow the crowds with his untraditional heritage.

Takes your breath away, don't it?

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.

8 apr 09 @ 2:12 pm edt Comments

NON-SENSE

The Apologypalooza Tour now being over, in a posting over at Powerline, John Hinderaker sums up our Fearless Leader's public pronouncements just right:

As we've seen before, Obama appears to betray a surprising lack of knowledge of American history. It seems that instead of actually having studied his own country's history, Obama has merely absorbed the ignorant, left-wing narrative that is peddled by Jeremiah Wright and others of his ilk. As a result, Obama not only confesses his country's sins overseas, he confesses wrongly.

Typical Leftist drivel.

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.

8 apr 09 @ 2:02 pm edt Comments

HOW DARE THEY!

Good tidings as reported by Fox News:

American crew members aboard a U.S.-flagged ship have regained control of the vessel hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia Wednesday, FOX News confirms.

Defense Department officials confirmed that one pirate is in custody. A U.S. official said the status of the other pirates is unknown but they were reported to "be in the water."

Will the Divine Obamacus denounce what the crew did to the Somali/Muslim pirates as another example of American arrogance?

Please click here to read the full story.

8 apr 09 @ 1:36 pm edt Comments

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

THERE WAS TRUTH AND THERE WAS UNTRUTH

As reported by Politico, on 05 April, Barack The Unready said the following in Prague:

The president directly addressed the Cold War history of this former Soviet bloc city, calling the remaining nuclear weapons “the most dangerous legacy” of that era.

He again pointed to history to say that America must lead. “As a nuclear power – as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon – the United States has a moral responsibility to act,” he said.

I was preparing a response to the 'most dangerous legacy' of the Cold War bit when I discovered that Jonah Goldberg beaten me to the punch [and said it better than I could]:

...To me, the most obvious dangerous legacy of the Cold War would have to be the damage the Soviets did to the world. I don't mean the millions they murdered; those dead do not threaten us now, even if they should haunt us.

I mean the relentless distortion of the truth, the psychological violence they visited on the West and the World via their useful idiots and their agents. I'm thinking not merely of the intellectual corruption of the American Left (which even folks like Richard Rorty had to concede), but the corruption of reformers and their movements around the globe. Soviet propaganda still contaminates, while nuclear fallout does not. Lies about America, the West, and the nature of democratic capitalism live on throughout the third world and in radioactive pockets on American campuses.

The Soviet effort to foster wars of national liberation, to poison the minds of the "Bandung Generation," to deracinate cultures from their own indigenous building blocks of democracy, to destroy non-Marxist competitors interested in reform, to create evil and despotic regimes that are seen as "authentic" because they represent the "true will" of their subjugated and beaten down peoples: these seem to me to amount to the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War. Not least because it was those sorts of efforts that gave birth to North Korea in the first place.

Because of this horrible legacy, we now live in an Orwellian world where words and phrases do not mean what they mean. A no longer equals A. In such a relativistic world, everything is permissible with many boots stamping on many faces.

The Dali Bama's remarks did serve one useful purpose: they compelled Mark Steyn to create this spot-on [and prophetic] quip:

It's not just embarassing to hear the so-called "leader of the free world" talking like a 14-year old who's been up in his room listening to "Imagine" for too long. I fear this presidency has the makings of global tragedy.

Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Goldberg's full posting and here to read Mr. Steyn's.

7 apr 09 @ 2:16 pm edt Comments

TRUE ATONEMENT

In light of the current Apologylooza Tour, there's a spot-on posting by Victor Davis Hanson on wherein he proposes a new rule for when Presidents go abroad:

In this great age of atonement, in a mere two or three days the world has been reminded that (1) the U.S. has been arrogant; (2) dismissive and derisive to Europe; (3) was a slave-owning society; (4) practiced genocide against native Americans; (5) did not let blacks vote; (6) was the only nation to have used nuclear weapons; (7) embraced torture; (8) alienated the world under Bush, and on and on. The subtext has been that those of a different race, of a different era, or under a different president have done terrible things, which I, from my own moral Olympus, must now apologize for.

A modest suggestion: from now on, every president who wishes to go abroad and review all his lesser citizens' collective past and present sins, with accompanying apologies — to applause from foreigners — must first, in the spirit of New Testament atonement, review his own regrettable transgressions.

A highlight from what Mr. Hanson believes such a review would look like if our Fearless Leader had to make one:

"Smoking is a great plague on the world, killing millions each year and giving great profits to modern merchants of death. I, President Obama, as a long smoker, know that temptation well and the global health problems entailed with tobacco addiction. We all also most avoid the perils of drug usage, a plague on all our nations. I can attest that as a youth I used cocaine, not only endangering my health, but doing my small part to send profits back to drug cartels abroad that cause so much death and destruction."

Please take the time to click here and read the rest.

7 apr 09 @ 1:53 pm edt Comments

NO CHOICE

In a recent posting over at The Corner, Michael Ledeen linked to a very good article by Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor for The Times Of London, on the chances of Israel bombing Iran to destroy its nuclear threat. The signs are there that they will:

An Israeli colleague was sent on an assignment so secret and sensitive that it was years before he would share the full story with friends.

He was dispatched by Menachem Begin, then the Prime Minister, to European capitals with orders to meet editors, politicians and opinion makers to spread the word that Israel was increasingly concerned about Iraq's nuclear programme and would do anything to stop Saddam Hussein building the bomb. The warnings, intended to prepare Western public opinion, were largely dismissed as sabre-rattling (one editor insisted on discussing a new lavatory system designed on a kibbutz) - until June 1981, when Israeli Air Force F16s bombed the plant to rubble.

A few days ago a chill went down my spine when an articulate and intelligent senior Israeli official made exactly the same argument about Iran's nuclear programme at a briefing in London. He described an Iranian nuclear weapon as an existential threat to the Jewish state, which would defend itself whatever the consequences. These warnings are not new but the political and military circumstances are conspiring to make an Israeli attack on Iran a probability, unless the Middle East experiences dramatic changes in the coming weeks and months.

The new Israeli government certainly has men in it who have the will to take such an action:

This bleak outlook is made even more sombre by the formation this week of a new Israeli Government under the leadership of Binyamin Netanyahu with Ehud Barak, the Labour leader and junior coalition partner, as the Defence Minister. What is significant is not their political affiliations but their military background. Mr Barak, the most decorated soldier in the Israeli army, once headed Sayeret Matkal, Israel's equivalent of the SAS before becoming the army chief. One soldier serving under him was Mr Netanyahu. Another veteran of this elite unit was Moshe Yaalon, also in the Cabinet. These men have taken part in assassination operations against Palestinian leaders and commanded daring raids deep inside enemy territory. In short, they have the experience and the confidence to plan and execute an attack on Iran.

I wish we had such men in power here.

But what of the condemnations that would surround Israel:

These military imperatives might make sense to soldiers, but surely the political cost of a pre-emptive raid - not to mention the risk of plunging the Middle East into another big war - would rule out an attack.

This argument might make sense from Europe but in the Middle East quite another logic is at work. Many Arab states, particularly in the Gulf, are more afraid of a nuclear-armed Iran than Israel is. A military strike that delayed that threat would be welcomed in some Arab capitals. The Israelis know that they would face a huge international outcry. But that happened after the raid on Iraq and many countries later thanked them privately....

Surely the Israeli's would only take such an action with the tacit approval of America especially considering our Fearless Leader's desire to negotiate away the problem? Think again, as Mr. Ledeen points out:

I can add another piece to his jigsaw puzzle. At the time of the attack on the Iraqi facility, I was Special Adviser to the Secretary of State (the same title that Dennis Ross holds today), and it was quite clear that nobody in the U.S. Government knew that attack was coming. Menachem Begin didn't ask for permission, and while there were some top Americans who were irked that they hadn't received advance warning, I didn't hear anybody say that the Israelis needed our approval, tacit or explicit.

If the Israelis think that Iran is likely to nuke them, I can't imagine why they would feel constrained by American wishes. Good relations aren't a suicide pact, after all. I doubt that the Israelis will ask any such question, in keeping with the old adage, don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer.

It's clear that the "Western world" has no intention of doing anything serious about Iran. I rather suspect that many European countries would be pleased if Israel managed to do effective damage to Iran's nuclear program, and I'm quite sure that many Arab countries would privately cheer the event. I really don't know what the president and his various czars would think, although they would undoubtedly join in the chorus of denunciation.

But none of that really matters if you're Israel, and you are convinced that Iran is very close to removing you from the map.

It is clear that the apocalyptic imams in Iran cannot be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. It is clear now, that our President is hopelessly naive, arrogant, and inexperienced. Therefore, it is crystal clear that Israel must do the dirty work we are not willing to consider for the sake of Western Civilization.

Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Ledeen's full posting and here to read Mr. Beeston's full article.

7 apr 09 @ 9:38 am edt Comments

FOR SHAME

As you probably know, yesterday the Dali Bama gave a speech in Turkey. Some highlights from Tom Raum's report for the AP, with commentary by yours truly:

"Let me say this as clearly as I can," Obama said. "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical ... in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

The United States is not at war with Islam; the United States has never been at war with Islam.

Al Jazeera and Al Arabiyia, two of the biggest Arabic satellite channels, carried Obama's speech live.

No need to put the speech on delay: no fear that he would say anything that would injure Islamic sensibilities. Nope. No chance.

"America's relationship with the Muslim world cannot and will not be based on opposition to al Qaida," he said. "We seek broad engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect."

"We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better, including my own country," Obama said.

Huh? Name me one—ONE—positive contribution by Islam to the United States. Think hard; think real hard. You can't, can you? Didn't think so.

What an embarrassment this naive and arrogant fool is. This European Tour has to be one of the lowest points in U.S. history. This man is putting us all in greater danger and mortgaging our future and our children's futures and HE DOESN'T CARE.

Please click here to read the full report.

7 apr 09 @ 9:10 am edt Comments

BAM RAY

Over at The Corner, Brian Kennedy, President of the Claremont Institute, has posted three very insightful observations on the North Korean missile test. Here's one:

Third, we must thank the North Koreans for at least reminding the American people that the world is a serious place where life and death matters. This is more than our elected representatives are giving us these days. Newt Gingrich, no longer elected, struck just the right tone on Fox News Sunday in taking the threat as seriously as it is warranted. It was in stark contrast to Mr. Obama’s pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons — an idea so ridiculous that it begs the question, “Why not a world without weapons of any kind?”

Either the Leftists in control in Washington are experiencing a massive attack of denial or our Fearless Leader thinks he truly is divine and he will prevent anything bad from happening. 'Surreal' is a word that comes to mind frequently these days.

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.

7 apr 09 @ 8:36 am edt Comments

Monday, April 6, 2009

TAXING TIME

Jonah Goldberg has come up with some very good ideas for reforming the tax system and, in the course of his column, manages to pen the best description of tax time I've ever seen.

First off, one of his reforms [my favorite one]:

For starters, no more purchasing the Leviathan State on layaway. And that means: Get rid of withholding, a World War II measure intended as a temporary policy to pay for the war instead of putting it on a credit card. Even a system of mandatory quarterly payments for those who are self-employed is no good. Why is Uncle Sam entitled to an interest-free loan just because it makes things more convenient for him? If the feds want to borrow money from citizens, they should sell bonds.

Right now, the withholding tax keeps us from seeing and dealing with what we pay. If we received a 'Taxes Due' notice once a year and had to make out a check to the government, I think there would be more outrage over the percentage of our incomes we have to pay. No more out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

As for his description of tax time:
Uncle Sam takes off that gaudy blue coat, puts on his white smock, and snaps that all-too-familiar rubber glove into place. And we, the taxpayers, must gird ourselves for intrusions of proctological magnitude and glacial duration by the revenuers.

Classic Goldberg.

Please take the time to click here and read the full column.

6 apr 09 @ 2:28 pm edt Comments

A IS A

Charles Krauthammer doesn't think that Comrade Obamin is pursuing what he calls '1930's-style fascist corporatism' in the actions the Administration has taken regarding the banks and the auto industry. Rather, he thinks our concerns should like elsewhere:

...I have my doubts. These interventions are rather targeted. They involve global financial institutions that even the Bush administration decided had to be nationalized, and auto companies that themselves came begging to the government for money.

Bizarre and constitutionally suspect as these interventions may be, the transformation of the American system will come from elsewhere. The credit crisis will pass and the auto overcapacity will sort itself out one way or the other. The reordering of the American system will come not from these temporary interventions, into which Obama has reluctantly waded. It will come from Obama's real agenda: his holy trinity of health care, education and energy. Out of these will come a radical extension of the welfare state, social and economic leveling in the name of fairness, and a massive increase in the size, scope and reach of government.

With all due respect to Mr. Krauthammer: there was no 'reluctance' to wade into both areas and the real agenda is fascism.

Please click here to read the full column.

6 apr 09 @ 2:18 pm edt Comments

UNDER THE SPREADING CHESTNUT TREE

In his latest article for NRO, Andrew McCarthy proves that Attorney General Eric Holder is a bald-faced liar. In the article, he compares what Mr. Holder said at his confirmation hearings with what he has done in the very short time he has been in office. Here's one example:

The new attorney general would understand that “we are at war,” as he put it during his confirmation testimony. “To be honest,” Holder explained, he believed that “our nation didn’t realize that we were at war when, in fact, we were.” On reflection, when he “look[ed] back” at his tenure helping run the Clinton Justice Department — when he considered “the embassy bombings, the bombing of the Cole” — Holder had to admit that “we as a nation should have realized that, at that point, we were at war. We should not have waited until September the 11th of 2001 to make that determination.” Things are different now, though. Holder had come to appreciate that there are dangerous terrorists out there who mean real harm to Americans. He grasped, he said, that those terrorists have to be stopped and captured — even if it means detaining them without trial.

...

...at a press briefing two weeks ago, Holder said he’d been pondering the shuttering of Guantanamo Bay — which is to say, the emerging plan to honor the closure commitment Obama made to the Left simply by springing most of the remaining 240 or so detainees, several of whom are suing the United States courtesy of the free legal help they’ve gotten over the last several years from Holder’s former law firm. Some of these captives, Holder observed, would need to be released in the United States, the better to encourage other nations to join Adopt-a-Binyam.

The detainees, it bears remembering, are aliens affiliated with the global jihad. In the main, they are associated with terrorist organizations and have received paramilitary training. Under federal law, both terror-group membership and terrorist training are grounds for excluding aliens from the United States. That law was enacted in 2005 because of the war Holder says he now realizes we’ve been in for over a decade. It was enacted because paramilitary courses factored into all those terrorist attacks from the 1990s that “we as a nation” missed the significance of. Holder hasn’t explained how turning trained jihadists loose on the infidels that they were training to kill is consistent with his new war mentality (a war in which, at his direction, we no longer call enemy combatants “enemy combatants”). Nor is it clear how this comports with his “responsibility . . . for the safety of this nation” and his obligation to enforce U.S. statutes.

Mr. Holder is par for the course in this Administration. They say the proper things and then go off and do the radical thing. Mr. Holder is another O'Brien in Obama's Oceania.

Please take the time to click here and read the full indictment.

6 apr 09 @ 2:10 pm edt Comments

PROTOCOL

So...our Fearless Leader does not bow to the Queen, but bows to the King of Saudi Arabia [please click here to see the picture]. And he gives the Queen an iPod that contains [thanks to Jake Tapper]:

Uploaded onto the iPod:

Photos from the Queen's 2007 White House State Visit
Photos from the Queen's 2007 Jamestown, Va., Visit
Photos from the Queen's 2007 Richmond, Va., Visit
Video from the Queen's 1957 Jamestown Visit
Video from the Queen's 2007 Jamestown Visit
Video from the Queen's 2007 Richmond Visit
Showtunes
Photos from President Obama's Inauguration
Audio of then-state senator Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and
Audio of President Obama 2009 Inauguration Address

Two words: rampart narcissism.

I've been travelling through the ether the past number of days and have encountered the following...

Over at The Corner, Mark Steyn:
So let me see if I understand American protocol in the age of Obama: The First Lady hugs Queen Elizabeth as if she's some granny at a seniors' center photo-op, but the President of this republic prostrates himself before King Abdullah as if he's a subject of the Saudi pseudo-Crown.

This is a very weird presidency....

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's noticed.

Over at Powerline, Scott Johnson:
What's wrong with this picture? Americans do not bow to royalty. In my view, when the royal is the ruling tyrant of a despotic regime, the wrong is compounded. Putting aside the breach of American protocol, it is akin to Jimmy Carter succumbing to Brezhnev's infamous kiss at the signing of the arms accord in Vienna in 1979. It is a disgrace. As in Carter's case, Obama's supplicant attitude signifies his spirit. In this respect I distinguish it from George Bush's otherwise embarrassing handholding with the the king.

There should be no bowing to other heads of state. The American President and the head of state of any other country are equals. There should be no bowing most especially to pseudo-kings/tyrants.

The MSM have been very silent on the matter of Barack The Unready bowing to the Saudi tyrant. Allahpundit dug up this gem:
Exit quotation from a 1994 editionof the NYT, contemplating the prospect of Clinton bowing to Japan’s emperor: “Canadians still bow to England’s Queen; so do Australians. Americans shake hands. If not to stand eye-to-eye with royalty, what else were 1776 and all that about?”

Indeed, Pinch, indeed.

Rachel Lucas, now living in Britain, on the iPod and protocol:
I’m not even the Queen of England, and I’d be insulted by such a gift. It’s like a commenter sending me an iPod loaded with copies of my own posts and of his or her own comments. In other words, shit I’ve already seen before and can see for free just by logging onto the internet.

...

UPDATE: Via Hot Air, now we know why the hell:

According to a person close to the situation, Obama hasn’t yet appointed a chief of protocol and his staffers, still unpacking, didn’t realize that the State Department has an entire office dedicated to foreign visits.

Jesus on the river, is this a hoax?

I am just a nobody Texas blogger, and I’ll never meet the Queen or 20 other foreign heads of state on foreign soil, and even if I do, it won’t be broadcast all over Earth, but I still took a few hours here and there to perform due diligence before we came over here, frantically trying to learn all I could about the customs and culture of the UK so that shopkeepers and pubsters wouldn’t think I was a dumbshit. Let alone royalty and the entire planet.

Oh wait a minute, wait just a gall-darn minute. I have figured it out: IT’S BUSH’S FAULT!!!!

Why didn’t Bush’s outgoing people explain all of this to Obama’s transition team? Huh? HUH? Karl Rove, that scheming magnificent bastard, he planned it all! He bribed someone into making sure Obama’s flunkies wouldn’t even KNOW there was an entire office of protocol, and right now he’s in a cave somewhere rubbing his Saudi-oil-stained little hands together and cackling like the Nazi maniac that he is. Bwahahaaa!

(You know that’s what some of the Kos/Huffpo/Rosie O’Donnells are thinking right now. Bet your balls on it.)

The word 'naive' doesn't begin to describe the ignoramuses populating this Administration.

And, finally, Mr. Steyn again from his appearence last week on the Hugh Hewitt Show:
HEWITT: Now I never thought that anyone would ever get another bad picture with the Saudi Arabian king after George Bush held hands with him and that got on film. But now there is a picture on the internets that has President Obama apparently bowing to the Saudi Arabian king. Have you seen it yet?

STEYN: Yeah, I haven’t seen this picture. I have heard of it. It’s interesting to me when you look at their meeting with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace where Michelle Obama and Barack Obama did not bow, and Michelle Obama did not only not curtsy, but apparently embraced the Queen, which is, you’re not meant to hug the Queen, and you’re not really meant to touch the Queen. It’s official protocol, but it’s also the sort of thing you shouldn’t really need to have put down in writing. So it’s slightly odd when you see the way they were concerned not to bow and curtsy at Buckingham Palace, with what this picture with King Abdullah is rumored to be like.

HEWITT: Well, I have seen it. It’s available at www.freerepublic.comand a number of other websites, and it is a pretty deep bow by the President. And I just don’t understand what their protocol office…how about the I-pod to the Queen, Mark Steyn?

STEYN: No, but just to go back to that, I think there is a serious thing. I think if you’re…for example, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are clear about this, that if you don’t want to do the full bow, you can just give a sort of polite nod. And if you don’t want to give a polite nod, and you just want to hold out your hand, she’s quite happy to do that, too. So there’s something odd in the way that you can do flexible protocol with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, but you have to do things the Saudis way when you’re with King Abdullah, who’s basically just the grandson of some kind of itinerant Bedouin of no fixed abode, who happened to be lucky enough to be sitting on a bunch of oil that he couldn’t get out of the ground himself, but that a bunch of sophisticated Westerners were prepared to do for him. If that picture is as you describe it, Hugh, I think that sums up everything that’s wrong in the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

HEWITT: I’m so confident you’ll find that it’s everything I’ve described, I wouldn’t be surprised to find it in the Steyn, the subject of a Steyn column in the not too distant future. Will the I-pod make it into a Steyn column in the not-too distant future?

STEYN: (laughing) Well, I do think apparently there’s no room on there put in anything the Queen herself would like. I mean, I don’t know if the Queen listens to the Jonas Brothers or whatever, but if she does, she can’t put it on there, because it’s filled up with Barack Obama’s speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention. Now I understand he wowed them at the 2004 Democratic Convention. I can’t actually see the Queen when she’s going jogging at Windsor Castle listening to Obama addressing the adoring masses at the Democratic Convention. It seems an odd gift.

6 apr 09 @ 12:06 pm edt Comments

GEE, CAN YOU LEND ME A 20?

Over at the Coffeehouse, Lloyd Evans has one of the best summaries of the just completed G-20 conference:

It looked the final victory of International Socialism as [PM Gordon] Brown wrapped up the G20 summit. Lenin himself couldn’t have been happier. The world’s banks have now effectively been merged into a global collective. There’ll be subsidies for the poor provided by the wealthy. Bonuses will be monitored. Salaries for top bankers may well be capped. Tax havens for fatcats will be squeezed into extinction. Colleges of supervisors will be trained and sent out to patrol the international bourses, like bean-counting beach attendants, to ensure that the world economy never again surfs onto the rocks of fiscal oblivion. The costs are so vast they vanish into the clouds. Their sheer scale obviates all scrutiny or criticism. A billion may be a blunder. A trillion is an act of God....

But setting aside one’s cynicism, it felt as if something new and original happened today. We learned that the G20 will reconvene later in the year to monitor progress. Are we witnessing the birth of a world parliament that meets at six monthly intervals? Bob Geldof, commenting on the BBC, declared that today’s summit ‘makes the G8 redundant.’ And he agreed broadly with Brown’s global approach and in rather more colourful approach than a sober-suited politician can use. ‘We sucked on the tit of free money and the bloated asset that burst was us – and we have to clear up that mess.’

I wouldn't call it the 'world parliament'. How about: The Leviathan? As in "Dear, did you hear what The Leviathan did today?'

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.

6 apr 09 @ 10:58 am edt Comments

THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER NO MORE

Iain Martin is no enemy of our Fearless Leader. In fact, he believes: 'The Obamas have handled their trip well and in their public appearances have been a credit to their country'. However, even he is tiring of listening to our Philosopher King:

Isn't it time for him to go home yet? It is good, in theory, that the new President of the United States is taking so much time to tour Europe. He arrived in London last Tuesday, has been to Strasbourg, Prague yesterday and now he's off to Turkey. It shows, I suppose, that he cares about the outside world and that is 'A Good Thing'. But his long stay means that we are hearing rather a lot from him, way too much in fact.

His speeches have long under-delivered, usually leaving a faintly empty sensation in this listener even though I welcomed, moderately, his victory last year as offering the possibility of a fresh start and a boost to confidence.

Yet, we are told that he is a great orator and in one way he certainly is. He does have a preternatural calm in the spotlight and a mastery of the cadences we associate with the notable speakers in US history - such as JFK and MLK. But beyond that, am I alone in finding him increasingly to be something of a bore?

His performance at the first press conference in London with Gordon Brown featured moments in which he sparkled - his riff on loving the Queen was a high-point. But most of the serious answers that I listened to were interminable, windy and not very impressive. At points there were pauses so long that it appeared he had simply lost his train of thought.

Better heed this Mr. President. When those sympathetic to you say you are a bore, you've got a problem that, if not fixed, will increase in intensity over the rest of your term in office; this will be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in respect.

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting. [tip of the fedora to Andrew Stuttaford]

6 apr 09 @ 10:42 am edt Comments

QUISLING-IN-CHIEF

With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that this Administration is filled with people who loath America and everything it stands for.

Over at Powerline, Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker offer spot-on commentary on one of the recent statements by our Loather-In-Chief:

Once upon a time Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg forcefully articulated the proposition that "politics stops at the water's edge." The year was 1950, President Truman was in office and America was at war. Daniel Henningerhas observed that Vandenberg's point was, as he put it, "to unite our official voice at the water's edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us." In recent years, Henninger commented, we have had the opposite -- a domestic political war waged relentlessly at the water's edge.

Barack Obama's criticism of America before a French audience takes this approach to a new level. He is after all the president of the United States. Obama nevertheless passed judgment on the United States and found America wanting:

In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

Obama juxtaposed the failures of American attitudes with offsetting European failures:

[I]n Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what is bad. On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common.

Apparently only the judicious Obama himself, bestriding the Western world in the guise of a philosopher king, has it right. Obama's criticism of American arrogance in this context strikes me as at least slightly ironic.

JOHN adds: Obama's constant criticism of his predecessor is doubly reprehensible because it is false. Thus, in his Strasbourg speech Obama said:

I don't believe that there is a contradiction between our security and our values. And when you start sacrificing your values, when you lose yourself, then over the long term that will make you less secure. When we saw what happened in Abu Ghraib, that wasn't good for our security -- that was a recruitment tool for terrorism. Humiliating people is never a good strategy to battle terrorism.

Obama thus repeats the slander that the pointless abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib by a handful of low-life Army Reservists was part of President Bush's "strategy to battle terrorism." This is an absurdity. The Reservists in question violated every known policy, which is why they went to jail when their crimes were discovered. For Obama to defame his own country in this way is contemptible.

'Contemptible' is the mild, gentlemanly version of what this is.

Over at Ace Of Spades, Gabriel Malor is not so restrained [worth quoting in full][warning: language]:
I don't really have anything to add to what the Powerline Guys say. Except that if Obama loves Europe and dislikes the U.S. so much he should just stay there.

The President's new comments aren't the mere embarrassments we've all come to expect from him over the past three months. Yes, he's a bumbling buffoon when it comes to representing America. It's not really something to get angry over. Rather, we'll just have to suffer until he and his wife learn on the job how to comport themselves with a little dignity.

On the other hand, this latest speech was planned and plotted, a neon-lighted "Fuck You" directed right at us while he campaigns for European Suck-up of the Year. And that is something to get angry over, the quisling fucker. The Powerline Guys use words like "contemptible", "reprehensible", "slanderous." All true, but it doesn't go far enough.

This guy is going to stand up Over There and badmouth Americans and President Bush? He's a coward with an inferiority complex, a desperate desire to win the approval of his perceived European betters. What an ass.

Which end of it?

I must say, Mr. Johnson's description of Tiberius Obamacus in Europe ['bestriding the Western world in the guise of a philosopher king'] is one of those phrases that will become a classic. Also, I like 'quisling'

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting over at Powerline.

6 apr 09 @ 10:26 am edt Comments

I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE

You probably have already read this since its been widely posted out in the ether, but, just in case you haven't, here is a highlight from John Crace's take in The Guardian on what Barack The Unready was thinking when replying to a question, sans teleprompter, asked by Nick Robinson:

Nick Robinson: "A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn't the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?" Brown immediately swivels to leave Obama in pole position. There is a four-second delay before Obama starts speaking [THANKS FOR NOTHING, GORDY BABY. REMIND ME TO HANG YOU OUT TO DRY ONE DAY.] Barack Obama:"I, I, would say that, er ... pause [I HAVEN'T A CLUE] ... if you look at ... pause [WHO IS THIS NICK ROBINSON JERK?] ... the, the sources of this crisis ... pause [JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY] ... the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . pause [I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] ... a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system ... pause, close eyes [THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK OF SHIT BACK HOME. HELP]. I think what is also true is that ... pause [I WANT NICK ROBINSON TO DISAPPEAR] ...

Sad thing is: this is probably what the Divine Obamacus was actually thinking.

Please take the time to click here and read the full article.

6 apr 09 @ 10:00 am edt Comments

OF BAD ACTORS AND BAD LEADERS

Over at Contentions, Abe Greenwald has posted a very good and succinct chronicle of the triumphs of our enemies in the mere seventy-six days Barack The Unready ~~has been in office~~ has ruled. He concludes:

President Obama said that he wants the U.S. to lead not by force, but by example. However no one is following (not in these matters and not in the economic realm either). This means that there is, at this time, no world leader among nations. There is no unipolarity, but there is also no multipolarity. Declinists who thought American influence would be challenged (or augmented) by “emerging Asian superpowers” have been made irrelevant by the global economic crisis. Those countries are suffering as service economies and export economies, and don’t have the time-tested maritime-order institutions to weather the storm.

Influence is now in the hands of bad actors that see the Free World’s reluctance to take a stand. They and their enablers within international bodies are setting the global agenda. Everyone else is reacting. In three months, the Obama administration has not failed one foreign policy test but six, by this reckoning. The only national security areas in which the president has acted soundly are in Iraq and Afghanistan. And those have been matters of continuing or expanding Bush policies. There are still nine months left in the year.

Nine long months. This is very disheartening. Mark me: we will be attacked on U.S. soil within one year.

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.

6 apr 09 @ 9:50 am edt Comments

STEYN OF THE WEEKEND

From Mark Steyn's 02 April 2009 column in Macleans:

...You don’t like the President’s pathetic “joke”? Hoot and jeer at him. Obama could use more of that. The best response to his suggestion that his 129 bowling score put him in Special Olympics territory came from the Special Olympics bowler Kolan McConiughey, who pointed out he’s scored a perfect 300 on three occasions, and he’d be happy to take on Mister Hopeychange any time he wants. That aside, I thought it was a revealing remark: as one of my Quebec readers put it, in Leno veritas. Away from the telepromptered hopeychangey touchyfeely mush, this President is not cool so much as cold. The PC niceties are skin deep, and this won’t be the first time he gives us a glimpse of the harder man underneath. Unlike Clinton, he doesn’t feel your pain, and he doesn’t care if you know it.

Please take the time to click here and read the full column.

6 apr 09 @ 9:40 am edt Comments

ALONG THE NEW PATH WHERE GREAT OBAMIN DID LEAD

Having not posted anything here since Friday, I will be playing catch-up over the next day or so.

Let's get started:

Since Russian President Dmitri 'The Pawn' Medvedev has declared the Dali Bama his 'new comrade' and Dmitri is an honorable man, henceforth, I will will sometimes be referring to our Fearless Leader as 'Comrade Obamin'. Tovarich!

6 apr 09 @ 9:30 am edt Comments

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