Switching Oxen

Op-Ed Columnist - Where Did ‘We’ Go? - NYTimes.com

I read through Freidman's piece and despair that Americans can return to some semblance of reality based discourse. He seems to realize that Bush was also de-legitimatized, but seems to think it was only because his first election was close. True, the Republican's tried to impeach Billy C, but that was only after he clearly lied often and egregiously in a suit that would have cost any other male at least his job, if not jail time. He also certainly perjured himself, and the Democrat side was recently very pleased to see Scooter Libby be prosecuted on that charge.

It is clear that someone as smart as Friedman CAN utterly forget the CONSTANT calls of "Bush Lied", "Bush is Hitler", "Bush is tapping your phone" ... and indeed, whole movies, some of them shown in theatres to millions of people like "Fahrenheit 911", dedicated to any sort of shoestring insinuation and smear that could be trotted out, not only of Bush, but of American troops, and "Death of A President", a FILM about the assassination of Bush. The number of people that "Bush ought to be shot" got to be so high that it wasn't shocking to hear anymore.

It is very hard to believe that Friedman (and others of his ilk) is not just trying to "set the stage" so that **IF** anything should happen to BO, there can be maximum use of force against all who  Tom is "holding responsible in advance". When Reagan was elected, I remember A LOT of folks saying "he is going to get us all blown up with his cowboy attitude". I personally knew a number of people that were actually building and stocking bomb shelters for the apocolypse -- and while I thought they were idiots, they were college educated folks working in good jobs at a major US corporation. If someone honestly believes that the president is going to "kill us all", isn't that MORE of a reason that someone might try to harm him than "he might be a socialist"?

Reagan of course WAS shot shortly after taking office and AFAIK, NOBODY tried to make it out that the rhetoric of the time "caused his death". People of course DID try to claim that "the hate filled climate in Dallas" got JFK shot, but the guy that shot him had gone to the USSR and Cuba and was a Communist -- not exactly the sort of "Southern angst" that the MSM was hoping for. How about today? It is certainly possible that any sort of a crackpot MIGHT take a shot at BO -- the Reagan would be assassin was trying to impress Jody Foster. You don't get a whole lot loonier than that -- unless of course you take Squeaky Fromme who was a drugged out Manson follower that tried to shoot Gerald Ford with a .45 ACP, but she had failed to chamber a round.

So ANY president COULD have an attempt made on his life at any time -- Saddam Hussein for example tried to have Bush 41 assassinated, but the MSM wasn't very worried about that other than they were concerned that W may have been trying to "get even". Were we missing ANYTHING of the "climate for violence against the president" when Reagan or Bush 43 were in office? I can't imagine what it would have been. Would it have been helpful for the media to assert that during Reagan, "people concerned that he was going to blow us all up" would be tempted to do him harm? or that during Bush 43, that "people who thought he was not legitimately elected, a liar, having soldiers killed for the corporate interests, or trying to harm lower income people for his rich friends" might have cause to do him harm?

Either Friedman is so far gone on bias that he utterly missed the 80's and the '00s, or he has his own rather nasty agenda. There is no way to know, we just have to guess.

But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far left has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.

What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Bush be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.

Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.

The previous isn't really a quote -- replace "far left" with "far right" in the first paragraph and "Bush" with "Obama" in the second, THEN it is what Friedman said. BUT, unless the guy is especially evil (see above), we have to assume that he is so biased that he didn't have at all the same feeling in the years from '03 to '08 that Bush was demonized beyond ANY comparison with relatively mild criticism of BO today. Apparently, whose Ox is getting gored really DOES make all the difference.

French Contempt for BO?

RealClearPolitics - Sarkozy's Contempt for Obama

Hey, these are the folks that take showers once a week! BO is a subject they know a good deal about.

Nicolas Sarkozy was furious with Barack Obama for his adolescent warbling about a world without nuclear weapons at a meeting Mr. Obama chaired of the United Nations Security Council last Thursday (9/24).

"We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth," President Obama said.

What infuriated President Sarkozy was that at the time Mr. Obama said those words, Mr. Obama knew the mullahs in Iran had a secret nuclear weapons development site, and he didn't call them on it.

‘President Obama dreams of a world without weapons...but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite," Mr. Sarkozy said.

"Iran since 2005 has flouted five Security Council resolutions," Mr. Sarkozy said. "North Korea has been defying Council resolutions since 1993."

"What good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community?" he asked rhetorically. "More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe out a UN member state off the map."

Golly, the cheese eating surrender monkeys are finding BO to be worthy of disdain. Our media used to CELBRATE any slight or perceived slight of Bush from any foreign power -- it was "evidence of how little respect the world had for Bush". But what is up here? Oh, wait -- the MSM LIKES BO, so when foreign leaders show that they think he is an idiot, they do their very best to ignore it, rather than to trumpet it from the mountaintops for days as they did with Bush. If they throw a shoe at him, I bet the MSM will demand that the US go to war over it -- just like we ought to do SOMETHING about those damned "tea bag protestors"!! (after there are so many they can't ignore them anymore).

NOT "The Decider"?

RealClearPolitics - The Campaign is Over, Mr. President

One thing BO seems to want to very much be is "not Bush". Although implementation of that has been hard -- he announced last week that there isn't any way they are going to make the deadline he had set up in January for closing Gitmo -- my expectation is he may just have to rename it rather than close it. Imagine, the great and powerful BO has been unable to convince folks that they REALLY ought to take a couple hundred terrorists that the US deems as too dangerous to be housed on US soil. Might it have been just a BIT more intelligent to figure out a plan for closing it BEFORE you announced that you were closing it by a specific date? That is the way some of us mortals in business have to operate.

The press was certain it was BAD for Bush to be "The Decider", but how good is it now that BO clearly isn't? He is dithering around on Afghanistan while soldiers die -- for what? Things are certainly much worse since BO's last brilliant strategy. The Generals have asked for more troops, but now he isn't sure. While running, he was CERTAIN that Afghanistan was the "war of necessity" and Iraq was "the wrong war". So is it OK for BO to screw up and lose the war that he had declared the right one? Maybe he can cover that on Letterman the next time.

The trouble with Obama is that he gets into the moment and means what he says for that moment only. He meant what he said when he called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" -- and now is not necessarily so sure. He meant what he said about the public option in his health care plan -- and then again maybe not. He would not prosecute CIA agents for getting rough with detainees -- and then again maybe he would.

Most tellingly, he gave Congress an August deadline for passage of health care legislation -- "Now, if there are no deadlines, nothing gets done in this town ..." -- and then let it pass. It seemed not to occur to Obama that a deadline comes with a consequence -- meet it or else.

Well, actually there is a lot more trouble with BO than that, but it is a start.

How surprising. Super candidate without any leadership experience finds that being a leader is HARD -- especially when it is leader of a nation of 300 Million people. Candidate returns to what he knows, being a candidate!! That was much more fun, and he was successful at it! But wait, did those 300 million people hire him to prance around on TV everywhere and be "entertaining"? Not really.

In the Presidents Secret Service

The subject book by Ron Kessler is generally an easy and fun read. It gets way too preachy on the alleged shortcomings of SS management and funding shortages at times, but that stuff can be skimmed.

Generally a fun look behind the scenes at some of the Presidents and first families. Sounds like Jimmy Carter was an even bigger fake than it seemed -- he would carry an empty bag for the camera to make it seem like he carried his own bags, made a big deal out of having a "dry White House" and then liked Bloody Marys before church and treated the help and the SS like absolute crap.

LBJ was as nuts as he seemed -- very close to being a drunk, but kept it under control. Would whip it out and pee with press or staff around anytime he wanted outdoors and didn't mind calling a secretary to take notes while he was taking a big dump.

Reagan was what you would expect -- respectful of the guys, apologetic that they had to work holidays, always saying thanks and giving them food and inviting them and their families to parties. Nancy was as cold as you might expect.

They disliked most of the protectees that were womanizers -- JFK, LBJ, Spiro Agnew, but they sympathized with Slick Willie. They had to deal with Hillary too, and it seems that Billy was very easy to like in private. Apparently the infamous "Hillary throwing stuff at Billy" never happened, but he did get to spend the Martha's Vinyard vacation after the Monica "confession" in the doghouse.

In most ways the book makes the SS seem less invincible than one would like -- I'm not sure that it is doing their ability to protect the president any favors.

Oh, they like BO and family -- he is still smoking away, but that is OK -- he's a Democrat!!

The "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"

Bill Clinton: 'Vast right-wing conspiracy' as 'virulent' as ever - CNN.com

Does this really make any more sense than "Birthers", "Truthers", or whatever zany idiots are braying at any moment? I think not, except this is the man who walked the halls of power with his pants around his knees, believe it or not, this particular zany idiot was once president.

What would the press have to say if Bush was on a show and talked about a "vast left wing conspiracy"?? From the lefty view, anyone who doesn't accept that the MSM in generally is completely unbiased, Fox is virtually a Nazi hotbed, and there is NO SUCH THING AS LEFT WING MEDIA is as bad a nutcase as someone that believes in hard work, individual responsibility and paying your bills. That kind of howl at the moon naked kind of stuff that really ought to get one locked up as a racist or worse these days ...

KIds SInging Praises to "The One"

The Associated Press: Scrutiny rises over NJ kids singing Obama song

Naturally, the MSM finds this to be just fine. What could be wrong with singing praises to "the one"? Unless someone is a racist, don't they simply HAVE to support the great and powerful BO?

How would kids singing praises to Bush be? Suppose there would have been a Hitler comparison or two on that? Nah, Our press is UNBIASED!!

Preemptive Hillary Use

Have we no mercy?


U.S. Condemned For Pre-Emptive Use Of Hillary Clinton Against Pakistan

Carter Racism

Jimmy Carter says that tea baggers hate President Obama because he's black.

America abhors history. No wonder, given how many national crimes are lurking back there. But we’ve arrived at a time when a politician’s refusal to consider the past is a perverse testament to prudent leadership. And as a result, a statement as obvious as Carter’s—that the tea-baggers hate President Barack Obama because he’s black—can be passed off as controversy in 2009.

Yes indeed, America abhors history. Like how about the last 6 years? Did America hate Bush because he was white? How many times was he called liar, Hitler, idot, burned in effigy and generally maligned in every way possible? The left loved to carry a sign that said "A village in Texas is missing it's idiot" -- it was a pure scream. Now though, "A village in Kenya is missing it's idiot" is completely inappropriate. Strange.

For the leftys, the answer is simple -- Bush did everything wrong and BO does everything right. There is no possible reason to dislike BO other than he is black, end of story. The war in Afghanistan was worthy of protest with  Bush in office, now it is fine -- even though it is going far worse under BO's policies. Being left means that ideology is the only answer -- hatred of folks with opposing views is reflexive. True, blacks are hated worse if they are conservative like Clarence Thomas, but leftys can never  be racist. It is righteous to hate conservative views and the idea that blacks would have such views is so abhorrent, they are hated especially badly. Forcing blacks into a standard thought prison isn't racist at all if you are of the left.

So to the left, Carter is right -- criticism of the right is just inherently good. Racism is especially noxious, so hanging that placard on anyone that disagrees with BO is just fine. Everyone is free to agree with the left!!

Liberal = Forced

Op-Ed Columnist - Have a Nice Day - NYTimes.com

Friedman is a smart guy. At one time he seemed to have a pretty good handle on what global competition means, but lately he seems to have decided that we are too much at peril from global warming to keep being competitive. He makes this rather straight forward statement relative to solar energy:

The reason that all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three prerequisites for growing a renewable energy industry: 1) any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; 2) if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and 3) the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop.

I'm always impressed at how quickly the leftward leaning fall into the force mode -- "has to"! They are all about "choice" as long as it is offing the unborn, same sex marriage, or paying taxes (as long as you are a Democrat), but for the stuff they get interested in, "has to" arrives very quickly. A few laws for public safety and preventing crime isn't enough for them -- they need to have a law for every aspect of your life, your companies life, and if possible, the lives of everyone in the "universe" (as in "universal" health care).

 Businesses, markets and such are just not as smart as "the experts" ... although we find out over and over that they are.  

Charles on BO and the Truth

RealClearPolitics - Does He Lie?

Great column, just read it.

Czars!

Nuff said!

Wilson Gauranteed Not Racist

Jimmy Carter Cites 'Racisim' in Joe Wilson's Outburst

If Jimmuh thinks Joe is a racist, that is absolute proof to me that he isn't. It seemed like Jimmuh was right one time, but then he changed his mind.

ACORN Video

Just take the time to watch it, and THEN give just a TINY bit of thought. This ranks amoung the most AMAZING things I've ever seen!! In some ways I almost hope it is a hoax -- one would think it almost has to be. If it isn't, the level of corruption in the Democrat party and the MSM is WAY beyond anything I ever imagined.

If true (which I find increasingly hard to imagine, but if NOT true, why doesn't someone expose them???to one of the liberal dodges to press bias."They just print what sells". Are you KIDDING!!! We have a cute young woman, scantilly dressed running around looking like the college Halloween party version of Pimp and Hooker, but it is WORKING, over and over with employees of a national organization that has both helped and been paid by the current President!!! BO wanted to have these stooges do the CENSUS for crying out loud. The ONLY sort of legit job that BO ever had was as one of these folks!!!!

You've got sex, scandal, stupidity cubed, connection with the President. This is a GREAT story -- except, except -- well, it is the MSM's guy!!! They can't run this, it makes BO look like the idiot he is. If they could have had something like this connected to Bush, it would have been 24x7 -- "when will he resign"!!!

To Almost Get It

Op-Ed Columnist - High-Five Nation - NYTimes.com

Brooks sees the disease, and he ALMOST gets the cause:

And there was something else. When you look from today back to 1945, you are looking into a different cultural epoch, across a sort of narcissism line. Humility, the sense that nobody is that different from anybody else, was a large part of the culture then.

But that humility came under attack in the ensuing decades. Self-effacement became identified with conformity and self-repression. A different ethos came to the fore, which the sociologists call “expressive individualism.” Instead of being humble before God and history, moral salvation could be found through intimate contact with oneself and by exposing the beauty, the power and the divinity within.

Brooks is right -- most of the nation is self absorbed, self promoting, out to "get it all", "only going around once -- and grabbing for all the gusto". We used to have "shared values" -- actually we basically had ONE "shared value" -- that we were all children of God that would finally be judged by a standard that was much higher than our own. Gayle Sayers said it as "God is first, my friends are second, and I am third". I'd argue that God, Family, Friends, Country, and then self might be good, but the only REALLY important think is that God in position one. See, it IS always "God" in position #1 -- for some folks it is self, for some political party, for some money, for some the Packers (OK, so that one is hard for me) ... the point is that EVERY human has a "God" -- the issue is just which one.

The difference in America is that the vast majority of folks have took the eternal, the transcendent and the redeeming person of Christ out of their lives and replaced it with some earthly idol -- for a lot of folks and the media, it is his holiness BO, but one idol is pretty much like another.

The idea that of the supposed "civility thing" being somehow worse now is absurd. The Democrats booed Bush in at least '05 during the SOTU, and I think at other times. John MacEnroe made swearing at the line judges a standard part of tennis, and odd happenings at celebrety awards events are also so normal that they hardly bear reporting except for the media to make some tenuous connection with Joe Wilson and claim that somehow "town meetings" are responsible for the "loss of civility".

Egads, "Bush lied, people died", "Bush=Hitler" and at least some screaming and chanting set of protesters at any sort of a Republican event has been old hat for as long as I have known. It is true that it IS very different to get Republicans away from family, church, job, hobbies, volunteer work, etc to speak out. Democrats figure that leftward demonstrators are "comforting" and supposed "right wingers" are somehow "chilling". The left is always hot to defend your right to agree with them and pretty certain that anyone that doesn't agree with them is dangerous, racist, evil, stupid or all of the above. Democrats don't believe in debate -- they have all the correct positions, it is up to the Republicans to shut up, work hard and pay for whatever crazy scheme the Democrats dream up.

Nothing important ever changes. If it changes, it is just mechanism.

Admonish the Democrats!

The Democrats have gone nuttier than usual.

In the words of our most holy and illustrious leader, BO; "Wiith all that's going on in the country with health care and the economy and the wars abroad, it doesn't make sense to arrest a guy in his own home if he's not causing a serious disturbance."

That was over the Gates arrest, for which it made no sense at all -- it isn't a policeman's job to think about those issues, but it IS the job of congress!! Does it make any sense to take a day of Congressional time to admonish a guy who apologized already? Especially when Bush was booed at a SOTU by the Democrats and called a "liar" CONSTANTLY for saying that Saddam had WMD --- which Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, Harry Reid, and virtually everyone else ALSO said?

We just got done with 6+ years when the MSM and the Democrats succeeded in making "Bush=Liar" essentially the national view over a position that their leadership virtually unanimously shared prior to the Iraq war.

But now when BO spews lies that he MUST know to be lies a mile a minute, it is a HUGE breach of decorum to call him on it? I agree it IS a breach of decorum (in congress) and the ONE Republican that told the truth from the floor OUGHT to have apologized ... which he did.That ought to have MORE than ended it given the past history of the other party.