Killing Greatness, Let's Double Down!

Op-Ed Columnist - When Greatness Slips Away - NYTimes.com

Bob Herbert is left of left, and apparently being left of left means that one sees the world with two left eyes. There is no "other side", only doubling down on the policies of failure. Bob seems old enough to realize we have been here before -- Jimmy Carter!!! We let the left have the keys in the late '70s and they promptly drove in the (left)ditch, plus sowed the seeds of a lot of what became more recent/current problems -- increasing the capabilities of S&Ls to try to help the poor which became the S&L debacle 10 years later, and Community Reinvestment Act, which became Sub-Prime, the root of our financial crisis.

The collapse of the economy in the Great Recession gave us the starkest, most painful evidence imaginable of the failure of laissez-faire economics and the destructive force of the alliance of big business and government against the interests of ordinary Americans. Radical change was called for. (One thinks of Franklin Roosevelt raging against the “economic royalists” and asserting that “we need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer.”)

Well, first of all, Carter policies coming home to roost -- along with all the FICA, Medicare and other heavy taxes slowing the economy helped at least as much as "laissez-faire economics". I wonder if the thinkers around laissez-faire would have envisioned the SEC, SOX, the IRS, and hundreds of other federal and state agencies as some sort of "pure market"??? Somehow, when the Vikings lose a game, the zebras are always a major factor. How come when the economy goes bad, even though the government is an ever growing part, it NEVER shares in any blame according to the MSM ... including the Bob corner.

As a nation, we are becoming more and more accustomed to a sense of helplessness. We no longer rise to the great challenges before us. It’s not just that we can’t plug the oil leak, which is the perfect metaphor for what we’ve become. We can’t seem to do much of anything.

TRUE! But the question is WHY? Can it possibly be that we are "short on government"? We have more of it than we have EVER had at all levels, and even by Bob's analysis, things suck! Bob can't envision that pouring water on the engine of productivity puts out the fire, but are the rest of us that MSM blinded??? **THE** reason that America used to be exceptional was FREEDOM ... which meant INDIVIDUALS had a shot to make vast improvement in their lives, and as a result, in the lives of their countrymen.

What happened is that in the 20th Century, the "progressives, statists, liberals, socialists, collectivists, etc (they are all really the same)" showed up and crapped all over the basic element that made us exceptional!! Now Bob is surprised we are no longer exceptional? When people are looking to the government to solve their problems, that is an extremely good definition of helplessness.

There are plans aplenty for demolishing large parts of what’s left of Detroit, which in its heyday was the symbol of an America that was still a powerfully constructive force, a place that could produce things and improve the lives of its people and inspire the rest of the world.

YES, YES Bob!!! Detroit was the VERY MODEL of the "progressive experiment" -- huge unions, huge income re-distribution, corporate and government partnerships, urban planning, huge investment in the public school system, entirely under the direction of union teachers. It was indeed a symbol of the "America" that Bob sees as best -- a "progressive" sort of America that isn't really American at all. The Detroit experiment FAILED!! Completely!!! Even Bob can see that -- he just doesn't realize what the problem is, or more likely, just doesn't want to admit it, even though it is awfully plain.

How is it possible that we would let this happen? We’ve got all kinds of sorry explanations for why we can’t do any of the things we need to do. The Democrats can’t get 60 votes in the Senate. Our budget deficits are too high. Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck might object.

Meanwhile, the greatness of the United States, which so many have taken for granted for so long, is steadily slipping away.

Bob, it happened because you and the progressive movement never understood what America was and you are well on your way to destroying it! Stop now, before this once great nation looks like Detroit and even more of the population are lost and unable to see the sad truth that America was exceptional BECAUSE it had LIMITED GOVERNMENT!

UNlimited government has killed a once exceptional nation! Look around the world, there is NO SHORTAGE of unlimited government -- and unsurprisingly, a lot of the rest of the world looks a lot like post-liberal Detroit!

Bush The Idiot?

Was George Bush an Idiot??????
 

 Before you answer with a resounding yes, read this through.
 

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how  inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?  If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a  minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless.   If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk.   If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown   Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in  New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?  So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 15 months -- so you'll have two years and nine months to come up with an answer.

Stimulus as Depressant

The best stimulus? Spend less, borrow less - Jun. 24, 2010

For Meltzer, the courageous, damn-the-sages stance that Thatcher took three decades ago should guide President Obama today. "If Obama announced a strategy to deal with the long-term debt and stopped doing things to increase the uncertainty that businesses face, it would do a great deal to stimulate the economy," declares the 82-year old Meltzer.

The difference is that Thatcher believed in people, business and the essential correctness of the principles of capitalism. It ought to be very clear  by now that BO does not. He believes that the answer is ALWAYS bigger government, in any form, even the form of limitless debt.

Today, the administration is pursuing a totally different policy. It's sharply raising expenditures when the U.S. already faces gigantic, chronic deficits that barely shrink even in a recovery, and burgeoning debt. "Keynes specifically warned against structural deficits when both U.S. and British economists were pushing for them at the end of World War II," says Meltzer. "He never said that more spending on top of chronic deficits was a stimulus. Just the opposite, in fact."

The rub is that the shadow of inexorably rising debt, with no plan to curb it, isn't a stimulus at all, but a heavy depressant. The solution is to sharply reverse course and bring the budget into balance over the next decade. That solution will require either a 50% increase in taxes, a 35% reduction in spending, or some combination of the two. The weight should fall heavily on the spending side.

The modern media looking glass world means that on the political front and many more, certain myths are stated as facts even beyond the point that they are clearly false, at which point, they are just dropped as stories. Thus, in this past week, we see BO move to hang his Afghan war effort on the General once derided as "General  Betray Us" with his tacit approval (he refused to vote for a "sense of the Senate" repudiating the ad). BO was 100% wrong about the surge. The media notices not at all, since their royal BOness might be seen as less than perfect for such a turn of events.

Sadly, not reporting on the emperors lack of clothing does nothing to cover his nakedness -- nor ours, as his wrong headed policies destroy our economy, security, and culture.

BO Screams In Praise of Bush

Charles Krauthammer - Afghanistan: The 7/11 problem

Actions speak much louder than words.

Great article by Charles.

Remember "General Betray Us"? Hill-Billy once said you had to "suspend disbelief" in order to listen to his reporting on the surge. BO sat on his hands rather than repudiate the shameful MoveOn.org Ad with most of the Senate. How the slimy have slithered.

Now they are staking the future of what THEY declared to be the "must win war" on the capability of Bush's general. Yes, that supposedly incompetent previous President, the one that looks much smarter as BO keeps stinking up the place. BO's hand picked golden boy, General  McCrystal? Summarily discharged for insufficient BO worship.

General Perspective

Flashback: Media Promoted Military Criticism of President Bush | NewsBusters.org

For people with any memory, please recall that from 2003-2008, the national media policy was that any military officer of any stripe that would publicly criticize Bush in any forum was "a courageous whistle blower, concerned for our nation, worthy of our highest respect" -- the media question would always be "is Bush Listening". Any recollection at all of Gen. Eric Shinseki??

At that time, every media person was a war expert, as well as any military person current or retired that agreed with them. The war in Iraq was clearly lost, there was no hope, we should get out -- and focus on the war in Afghanistan, which we MUST WIN!! Wesley Clark ran for President largely on a "General knows better than Bush", and there were all sorts of "Generals Against Bush" (all, or nearly all retired) sorts of political Ads out there. They knew that Iraq was lost as well. It was all as certain as global cooling in the early '70s and the fact that the planet was out of oil in the late '70s. Wisdom is rarely popular, and popular thought is rarely wise.

My how times have changed!!! Now, relatively mild criticism from a Generals staff in a Rock and Roll mag, that is about process, not policy, "calls into question the civilian control of the military". The MSM (and BO) were wrong about Iraq -- it wasn't lost, the surge worked. While the MSM is of course completely ignoring it, the much vaunted "day one changes in policy" in Afghanistan failed, and now the "setting a date and surging more troops with months of dithering to make the decision" is at least in grave question. Since we set a date, apparently Afghanistan is no longer "the war we must win".

Oh, and lest I forget, they had disparaging remarks about Joe Biden. How unusual! Has anyone that has ever worked for ANYONE else not heard some "bitching about the leadership over beers"? Certainly, having a reporter there was completely stupid, but again, confident and strong leadership isn't going to be bothered by that -- although I'm sure that pompous, vacuous, prima donna Slow Joe, was incensed beyond belief. Truth can be so hurtful.

It seems pretty clear from a media POV that at this point "BO is the President that must be successful", and right now that is more important than National Security and the Economy at least. After 60 days of the oil spill, there is some dithering in the MSM if BO's success is more important than the environment.

Should Generals go out and let their staff get wasted with Rolling Stone Reporters? No, absolutely not. However, last I recalled, BO is a smoker, which I believe even he would admit is "less than perfect", and who knows, it is remotely possible he may have other faults -- say a couple of small narcissistic tendencies.Strong leadership tends to not be overly threatened by the problems that come with having humans on your team -- the bigger issue is what players can best accomplish the task at hand with the minimum loss of our soldiers.

But then we already knew that BO wasn't any sort of a leader at all, let alone a strong one, so I can't see that he had, or likely even considered seriously any other choice but to fire McChrystal.

The Anti-BO?

Ride Along with Mitch

Mitch Daniels, 2nd term Governor of Indiana. National secret.

Long article, very much worth the read. If the Democrats had ever had a candidate that looked this good during the Bush years, he would have sucked the whole media spotlight in like a black hole. This guy sounds far too good to be true, he must have tried to get to 2nd base with some girl in 9th grade or something disqualifying for a Republican like that.

Actual executive experience that produced solid results. What a concept for a leader!!

Disturbing Anti-Statists

RealClearPolitics - The Right's Disturbing New Anti-Statists

The language of the new anti-statists, like the language of the 1950s' right, regularly harks back to the U.S. Constitution and the Founders in calling attention to perceived threats to liberty.

A group called Tea Party Patriots (many Tea Party groups include the word "patriot" in their names) describes itself as "a community committed to standing together, shoulder to shoulder, to protect our country and the Constitution upon which we were founded!" Tea Party Nation says it is "a user-driven group of like-minded people who desire our God given Individual Freedoms which were written out by the Founding Fathers."

Wow, what a radical group! Harking back to the Constitution and Founding Fathers. Radical!
It is pretty clear that in the EJ model, any amount of government (state) is great, and individual liberty and responsibility are completely off the wall radical concepts.

Thus has Obama brought back to life a venerable if disturbing style of conservative thinking. In the short run, the new movement's energy threatens him. In the long run, its extremism may be his salvation.

Even though it is the state that has coercive powers and was correctly identified by Hobbes as a "Leviathan" in 1660, not to mention the 20th century with the states of Germany, USSR, China, N Korea and Cambodia killing 100's of millions of people, EJ remains completely convinced in the benevolence of this monster, as well as of the horror of individual freedom protected by a written Constitution.


Get this straight folks. "Patriot, Founding Fathers and Constitution" are radical, disturbing and dangerous!! Untrammeled state power? The only rational way for a nation to go! We are so far down the Progressive / Statist agenda that the MSM, most of academia and probably 20% of the voters find the Constitution and Patriotism to be "radical and disturbing"!

Democrats and Malaise

RealClearPolitics - Malaise is Haunting the Democratic Party

This is a worthy column to read in that it does a good job of laying out what Democrats believe about what is going on, and shows their general cluelessness of what it even might mean to be a "Traditional American" ( believe in people before government, freedom, personal responsibility, smaller government, etc).

Democrats should feel a lot better than they do. They enacted a health care bill that had been their dream for more than 60 years. They pulled the country out of a terrifying economic spiral. They are on the verge of passing the biggest reform of Wall Street since the New Deal. The public has identified enemies that are typically seen as Republican allies: oil companies and big bankers. And given the Republicans' past policies, the Gulf oil spill is at least as much their problem as Obama's.

So the health care bill was "their dream for 60 years". Why should that make them feel good about being re-elected? That is a completely separate topic. If some guy dreamed about having a relationship with a 16 year old girl for 60 years and finally did (he would be at least 70 assuming he started dreaming of "older women" at 10), should he "feel good about it"? Democrats may think a government takeover of health care is just peachy, but essentially, given their operation in the Senate after Scott Brown, they would be like the underage girl dreamer that only accomplished his task by forceable rape rather than just statutory. One clearly has to be a Democrat to understand why that ought to make you feel good!

"Biggest reform since the New Deal" -- exactly! FDR elected in '32, his own Treasury Sectretary,  Morgenthau, talking of how their policies had failed in '39. While the Democrats and the liberal elite have cannonized the New Deal, the sad fact is that it didn't work. WWII did. More and more Americans are realizing that a lot of what is wrong is the hangover from the New Deal -- unfunded Social Security entitlement, a huge government that is already too big to afford, and no Democrat answer beyond "more, more, more".

Just what WOULD be "enough government" to a Democrat? Something a bit below 20% of GDP with at least 1/4 of that for National Defense is a good "conservative guideline". What would that number be for a Democrat? It seens to have no upper limit. I suspect that they would site "no pollution, everyone healthy, everyone happy, etc" as their objectives.

People that live in the real world know of "The Pareto Principle", better known as the 80/20 rule. We already have well over 80% of Americans covered by health insurance -- the the whole discussion we just had was about the less than 20%. It is VERY typical that 20% of your effort it spent on getting 80% of what you want, and getting the other 20% depends on spending the other 80% of that effort (or money, or time, or energy, etc) ... and not linearly. Each tortuous step toward 100% takes an ever larger piece of resources. What is more, the set of things that you decide "must be solved" take scarce resources away from OTHER "80/20s" ... maybe 80% of people today can afford a 2-week vacation. Get 90% covered by health insurance, and you might drop that number (or some other like it) to 50%.

Democrats tend to not believe in 80/20, especially for whatever they cherish. What is more, they are certain that they are smart enough to make better decisions for the general populace on where they ought to be spending their 80/20s than the foolish general public. The 20% of people that describe themselves as "liberal", and generally manage to run the country since many of them are in academia, media, professions and of course government, are ALSO completely sure they are smarter than the other 80% of the population.

Obama is often criticized for being too professorial. The irony is that Republicans who have little to say about how to solve the nation's major problems are dominating the country's underlying philosophical narrative.

There we have it in a nutshell. A Democrat simply can't conceive of the fact that it is GOVERNMENT that OUGHT to have "little to say about how we solve the nations major problems". It is THE PEOPLE that ought to have A LOT to say! EJ is precisely right that the difference is in the "philosophical narrative". The idea that solutions come top down is European, the idea that they come bottom up is American!

When I say that Democrats tend to be un-American, that is what I mean. The CORE of the "American difference" ... the "American exceptionalism" if you will, is exactly that. When BO says "America is as exceptional as a German thinks Germany is", he is explaining exactly why he is un-American. He doesn't believe in the core of what makes America exceptional -- the solutions flowing up rather than down. Freedom!!!!

Why does malaise always happen to Democrats? Well, because being European isn't as fun as being American. They may not believe in 80/20, but it is a fact of reality. In general, they tend to not believe in reality, and that is always a prescription for malaise.

Rahmbo PR

Rahm Emanuel says Tony Hayward Yacht trip big mistake

Rahm thinks it is a big mistake for the CEO of BP to go yachting, but hasn't had a single qualm about BO doing 6+ golf outings, hosting an evening with Paul McCartney, and a few other items during "the crisis".

Personally, I don't believe any leader can do their best work without any sort of diversion at all, and what is extremely unusual, I find that to be true for Presidents of both parties, CEOs, and even Indian Chiefs. I'm a lot less concerned that BO wants to golf than that his chief of staff would think that BO with "the biggest job" could with impunity, yet deny the same privilege to a poor little CEO.

We used to live in a country where individuals pretty much understood some basic principles and applied them to people of all stripes equally (we had a big problem with Indians and slaves of course, but this post isn't about that issue).

We now live in a society where the bulk of the media treats Republicans and Business leaders one way and Democrats another, and by the way, when another branch of the media (Fox) reverses the treatment, it is considered "dangerous".

The way out of this is to realize that EVERYONE'S motives and even approaches are flawed, but there is a reasonable chance that they are not all flawed equally. Our MSM and Democrats will never tire of pointing out the flaws in individual freedom, responsibility, and the capitalist system. While there certainly are flaws, the flaws in centralized, bureaucratic welfare states are much much greater.

Pointing out that the person next to you has gravy on their tie will not allow folks at the party to miss the fact that you failed to wear your pants, and the idea that a crony like Rahm can get away with something so stupid as being able to point his finger at the CEO of BP, while BO claims to have responsibility for taking care of this spill, yet keeps golfing and partying is just another sign of the danger of one party rule, especially when that party is the Democrats and their buddies the media!

CNN Imitates Onion

Language guru: Obama speech too 'professorial' for his target audience - CNN.com

The communicator is great, it must be the audience that is stupid. Perhaps that would explain how he got elected?

Sometimes the simple answer is best. When you decide to get involved with the worst environmental disaster in US history only over a month after it began, meet with the CEO of the company 46 days after event for the first time for 20 minutes, then have an hour lunch with your bumbling fool VP, folks start to catch on that "buyers remorse" is an understatement.

Hey CNN. Might it just not be a BIT easier to try to report FACTS rather than making crap up to try to cover for his Royal BOness?

Racist No More

Obama's speech: There's a pipe spewing a gazillion gobs of oil into the gulf, so let's build more windmills | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

Follow the link, the picture is worth the trip at least if you are male, and will add to the usual view of "what are men focused on" if you are female. The column is a darned good read as well.

This is an LA times article BTW, not Fox news.

 I found our 25th anniversary to be more important that listening to BO read from a teleprompter last night, so I missed his first oval office speech.  Sounds like he needs new speechwriters, maybe some new cabinet people and potentially a media relations kind of guy? Gerald Rafshoon did wonders for Jimmuh Carter, I wonder if he is still alive? 

Sadly, it becomes more clear every day even to the cheeriest of BO cheerleaders that being a failed community organizer isn't really a way to build the kind of leadership qualities needed for being President of a nation of 300 million people. Sort of like watching the Tour De France on TV isn't going to be much help in winning the race.

Golly, what a surprise.

It seems that we have crossed a major threshold here though. It is now OK to criticize BO without immediately being identified as a racist! That seems like one tiny piece of the significant progress we are going to need to recover from the greatest election mistake in the history of the nation.

Oil vs Snake Oil

RealClearPolitics - Oil vs. Snake Oil

Let's stop and think. Either the government knows how to stop the oil spill or they don't. If they know how to stop it, then why have they let thousands of barrels of oil per day keep gushing out, for weeks on end? All they have to do is tell BP to step aside, while the government comes in to do it right.

If they don't know, then what is all this political grandstanding about keeping their boot on the neck of BP, the attorney general of the United States going down to the Gulf to threaten lawsuits - on what charges was unspecified - and President Obama showing up in his shirt sleeves?

He left out "kicking asses". I think we all know the answer to that one. Political grandstanding is all the BO administration knows how to do. This administration is worse than incompetent. Incompetence is about doing the right thing badly. This administration has no clue what a "right thing" would be, because the only talent they have is essentially BO Brand Marketing.

A rather sobering conclusion.

If leaders of other nations can't depend on the United States, then they need to make the best deal they can with our enemies. They understand that preserving their nation's security is a leader's top priority, even if Barack Obama doesn't.

MPR Question Post

MPR had the daily question: "What would you like to hear in the President's speech tonight". I was listening to the call-in for a few minutes, and of course the MPR callers were all over the "less dependence on oil, force BP to do this and that, make sure people know it is all the Republican's fault, etc". I thought I'd take a shot at dream Presidential speech writing:

I have finally realized that I'm a narcissistic fool and my background is completely inadequate for the job of President. I humbly admit my error, and submit my resignation effective as of midnight tonight. I may not be exceptional, but I finally realize that this Nation and it's people are!

Being elected President was another of the many undeserved honors in my life, but I have finally realized that rhetoric is not reality and looking or sounding good is not the same thing as being good.

I was bequeathed leadership of a great nation with problems. Problems which I thought were simple, the result of incompetence or malfeasance. I now realize that problems are part of reality. Real people have to deal with them every day, and they must honor those with the capability to do so, especially when they themselves do not.

Those that DO will always have problems to deal with. Those that chatter and criticize may have less problems, but I now realize that we chattering classes also have very little of value to be offered. America has been and with Gods help, will be again in the future, a nation of DOERS!
BP and the rest of the oil industry has the tools and technology to deal with the spill. The US government does not. It was nothing but hubris for me to ever indicate anything else. The idea that I have any knowledge of use in plugging the well is at best a cruel joke.

I now realize that all my tough talk about kicking asses and criminal prosecution does nothing to make the problem better and everything to inhibit the problem from being solved. I made those moves purely in political interest, as I have made every other move of my life in the past decade or more. The environment and the economy are more important that politics.

I know now that i have severe personal problems that I need to focus on fixing. I also realize that the political selection of Joe Biden as a running mate was yet another of my mistakes. I submit that Hillary Clinton should succeed me, and in the interests of bi-partisanship, John McCain should be named VP.

Thank you, good night, and may God bless the greatest nation on earth.

Bush's Fault

Aurora Sentinel Archives Opinion Columnists Green: Obama is a victim of Bush's failed promises

Just in case BO returns to his usual form of "blame Bush" this evening, this is a great article to refer to.

An Ass to Kick

Political Cartoons by Glenn McCoy

Good cartoon. Seems like Deep Water Horizon is BO's Katrina and I'm still trying to decide if "Whose Ass to Kick" ought to be the equivalent of "Heck of a job Brownie", or "Bring it on".

BP and BO ... it has a nice symmetry.