Buyers’ Remorse ?

Not What They Signed Up For
Jennifer Rubin - 12.17.2009 - 8:40 AM

Karl Rove observes that Obama’s self-grading of a B+ constitutes a serious case of grade inflation. He writes:

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Mr. Obama has not governed as the centrist, deficit-fighting, bipartisan consensus builder he promised to be. And his promise to embody a new kind of politics—free of finger-pointing, pettiness and spin—was a mirage. He has cheapened his office with needless attacks on his predecessor.

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Because so many conservatives never bought into candidate Obama’s image as a ”centrist, deficit-fighting, bipartisan consensus builder,” it’s hard for many to appreciate fully just how fervently many voters did embrace that portrait of Obama. He was the candidate who didn’t raise his voice and promised an alternative to the Bush-Clinton-Bush partisan wars. Calm and cool, above the fray. He was going to go line by line through the budget. No taxes on anyone not “rich.” He believed in ”markets,” he told CNBC. Voters grabbed on to these messages and averted their eyes from data that didn’t fit the campaign-approved image of a reasoned centrist. And his embrace of the “good war” — Afghanistan — without reservation and of sanctions against Iran conveyed to many that he would be more Clinton than McGovern. That has not been the case.

When, as Rove points out, Obama disparages in his 60 Minutes interview a “a triumphant sense about war” and turns up his nose at the notion that our war to preserve Western civilization is a ”glorious” endeavor, he is repudiating a long tradition, really an unbroken one, of American presidents. We’ve never had a president parrot the antiwar Left’s rhetoric, at least not after getting elected. And his domestic agenda is far more radical than those who touted his “moderation” were led to believe — or chose to believe. As for that “superior temperament,” well, we haven’t seen that in some time. We get threats, dire warnings, narcissism, and huffiness.

So it may be that the collapse in Obama’s ratings has much to do with the chasm between expectations and reality. Most voters pretty much had George W. Bush and Bill Clinton pegged. Few were surprised by Ronald Reagan. But many voters took a year to figure out that they weren’t getting what they thought they would get when they elected Obama. Recent polling reflects Obama’s rather shoddy domestic record, the paltry results of his “engagement” foreign-policy ventures, the still bleak jobs situation, and most of all, a large helping of buyer’s remorse. Voters may have been naive, but now they are disappointed.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/bl...p/rubin/199121

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Originally Posted by Howard Dean

In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done.

The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care.

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Dean: I Won't 'Vigorously' Back Obama Re-election Bid
By Mark Finkelstein
December 17, 2009

Pour some more butter on the popcorn . . .

Yesterday, Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs took shots at Howard Dean and his opposition to ObamaCare, suggesting the good doctor didn't know what he was talking about. http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmi...acks_Dean.html

It was payback time this morning, as Dean announced that he would "not vigorously" back Pres. Obama's re-election bid.

The former DNC Chairman expressed his tepid support for Obama, Part Deux on today's Morning Joe in response to new poll data indicating Pres. Obama's popularity, and public support for ObamaCare, have fallen to all-time lows.

Joe Scarborough suggested that Dean would be accused of dragging down his party and helping Republicans.

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HOWARD DEAN: Look, here's the thing: every politician says this and I hesitate to do it because they all say it, but sometimes the country's more important than either party.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Amen.

DEAN: I'm going to support President Obama when he runs for re-election. Not vigorously. I'm going to vote for him.

Scarborough can be heard bursting into laughter off-camera.

DEAN: I am, I am.

SCARBOROUGH: "Not vigorously." Boy, I can almost feel the confetti [presumably from GOP victory celebrations] falling on my head here!

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My two cents: the MSM has largely been portraying Dean as a principled progressive opponent of ObamaCare. I say that good old personal spite might also be motivating Doc Dean. Remember that it was the very same Gibbs who, during the 2003 Dem presidential primary campaign, was behind an a TV ad showing OBL and suggesting Dean was incapable of protecting American's national security. PBO has also hurt Dean's feelings, snubbing him for the HHS Secretary post which many Dems felt was his due.




http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-fi...e-election-bid

The Nobel Peace Prize winner wields his brass knuckles
December 18, 2009 02:47 PM

Democrat Rep. Peter Fazio talks openly about dealing with the Chicago Way to The Hill: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/72...re-rep-defazio

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Rep. Peter DeFazio’s phone rang. On the other end was Rahm Emanuel.

The White House chief of staff last month expressed frustration with DeFazio’s resignation calls for President Barack Obama’s top two economic aides — Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House chief economist Larry Summers — and appealed for cooperation, according to DeFazio.

But Emanuel, known for his blunt manner and ability to bend members of his party to his will, did not raise his voice with the Oregon Democrat. “Rahm does not yell at me,” DeFazio said, “because he knows that I yell back.”

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Straight from the lips of the Nobel Peace Prize winner himself:

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Personal calls from Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former Vice President Al Gore couldn’t persuade him to vote for the Speaker’s climate change bill. He also opposed the $787 billion stimulus, citing concerns that only 7 percent was devoted to infrastructure spending.

DeFazio was one of only two Democrats to vote against those measures and the $700 billion bank bailout. (The other was Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) a Blue Dog conservative.)

Yet he’s also a pro-gun Democrat who has a B rating from the National Rifle Association. “I would have less of a voice and I would have less respect if I voted for things I didn’t believe in because of pressure from the leadership,” DeFazio told The Hill in an interview.

Obama himself has taken notice.

“Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” Obama told DeFazio during a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, according to members afterward.

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Yes, indeed, Hope and Change is wrapped in brass knuckles.

But you already knew that.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/18...rass-knuckles/

Analysis: Obama the pragmatist gets what he can
By Jennifer Loven And Ben Feller, Associated Press Writers
Fri Dec 18, 5:54 pm ET


COPENHAGEN – The world is coming to know President Barack Obama, the pragmatist whose stand at a messy global warming summit underscored the way he leads: Let's get done what we can, imperfect as it is.

When Obama impatiently told other leaders here to rally behind a climate change deal despite its limitations, he sounded like he was talking about his health care push or his economic stimulus plan at home. The president whose election campaign was about change knows that governing — and re-election — are about showing results.

"I'm sure that many consider this an imperfect framework," Obama said Friday to a gathering of leaders from 193 countries. "No country will get everything that it wants."

On several levels, watching Obama in Copenhagen was like getting a mini-course in what makes him tick as a leader.

He's learning the frustrating limits of his powers of persuasion. Yet he presses on, willing to jet across the ocean and plunge into a long day of unpredictable diplomacy in pursuit of a deal to fight global warming.

At the same time, he's hemmed in by the high expectations he helped create. Across the world, so many people have come to see Obama the way they want that his actions often don't fit their perceptions, and he finds it ever harder to meet people's wishes.

He won the White House because voters from all over the U.S. political map placed in Obama their hopes for the future — expanding health care all around, reducing racial tensions, saving the planet. Now his approval ratings hover around 50 percent, down considerably from the heady, early days. Reality is harder than hope.

And so when Obama plunged at the last minute into a summit where the best chance was a political deal — talk of a legally binding pact had long been quashed — he sought to grab the moment and claim what he could.

"We can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, continue to refine and build upon its foundation," Obama said. In other words, focus on what's in, not out, and don't walk away empty-handed.

Later, after a long day of negotiations, Obama announced that the U.S., China and three other countries had reached an "unprecedented breakthrough" on curbing climate change. Yet not without more hard work and trust would a more comprehensive, binding deal be in sight, he added.

This was only a start, but one that was well worthwhile.

"This is a classic example of a situation where if we just waited for that (legal deal), then we would not make any progress," he said. "There might be such frustration and cynicism that rather than taking one step forward, we ended up taking two steps back."

So it goes across the many fronts of Obama's agenda. He is no longer on his own pace to sign a nuclear arms deal with Russia, or to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, or to get a health insurance overhaul through Congress. But there is halting movement on them all, and that's what he likes to talk about.

In Copenhagen, Obama's diplomacy displayed the importance of his presence and the limits of his power. He has promised a U.S. posture of leading without lecturing, although he did both here as his patience shrank.

He said the U.S. has its demands for any climate deal: aggressive emissions reductions from all major economies, not just wealthy ones, a way for promises to be verified, financing to help poorer nations.

"We have made our commitments," Obama said of the U.S. offers to reduce heat-trapping emissions, offer financial aid to poorer nations and invest in clean energy. "We will do what we say."

But that is not solely for him to say.

The president is constrained by political realities at home.

The House has passed climate-change legislation but the Senate has not yet. Obama is making administrative moves on his own as he pushes lawmakers to act, but Republicans say they will try to block his administration from regulating heat-trapping gases, saying the administration can't strong-arm Congress.

Obama again showed his style of making a direct appeal at a big event, which carries risk and reward.

Though negotiators worked through the night, Obama and other leaders arrived here Friday morning for the U.N. climate conference with hopes for a deal dimming instead of brightening.

Many officials in Copenhagen have been laboring for years over extraordinarily complex issues. But Obama, not even a year into his job at the helm of the world's most powerful nation and its second-largest polluter, seemed to say it was time to move on.

"After months of talk, and two weeks of negotiations, after innumerable side meetings, bilateral meetings, endless hours of discussion among negotiators, I believe that the pieces of that accord should now be clear," he said, one of several impromptu flashes of impatience he injected into his brief remarks.

Yet the negotiations didn't end just because Obama said they should. He said America was showing responsibility and taking bold action on climate, but critics sniffed at that.

Obama's approach is to grab wins where he can, emphasizing progress even when goals are scaled back and deadlines missed.

And so he went to Copenhagen to try to close a deal. It was about results.

Even mixed and modest ones.

Just before he left for Denmark, an interviewer asked Obama what he would have to do over the next three years to have a successful presidency.

Obama named fixing the economy, getting Afghanistan to a stable place, passing meaningful health care reform and moving the nation toward clean energy.

"If I can get those things done over the next three years — and that's a pretty big list — I will feel really good," he said.

Fittingly, he added: "If I get three out of four, then I'll still feel pretty good about myself."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091218/...obama_analysis

Obama defends self against black critics
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE - Associated Press writer
Published: Dec 21, 2009 - UPDATED: 5:10 p.m.


WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Monday rebutted critics who say he isn't showing enough compassion toward black America, citing his health care effort as one example he says "will be hugely important" for blacks.

Obama said another example is the billions of dollars in aid to states included in the economic stimulus bill, money that was used to save thousands of teachers, firefighters and police officers from losing their jobs. He said many of those workers are black.

"So this notion, somehow, that because there wasn't a transformation overnight that we've been neglectful is just simply, factually not accurate," Obama said in an Oval Office interview with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks.

But the president acknowledged there are limits to what a president can do for any class of people.

"The only thing I cannot do is, by law, I cannot pass laws that say 'I'm just helping black folks.' I'm the president of the entire United States," Obama said, giving his standard answer to questions about the economic and other disparities facing blacks.

"What I can do is make sure that I am passing laws that help all people, particularly those who are most vulnerable and most in need," he said. "That in turn is going to help lift up the African-American community."

Black members of Congress have begun pressing their demands that the nation's first African-American president do more for minorities hard hit by the recession, noting the billions of dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to prop up big banks and large corporations.

Nationally, unemployment stands at 10 percent while 15.6 percent of blacks are jobless.

Obama said the grumbling was justified because the U.S. has just begun to emerge from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. At the same time, he said polls show overwhelming support among blacks for what his administration is trying to do.

The president said the health care bill the Senate is expected to pass this week will help the one in five blacks who don't have health insurance - almost double the general population - by making coverage more affordable.

"This will be hugely important for the African-American community," he said, also citing increased spending on education.

Asked to comment on the state of black America, Obama paraphrased author Charles Dickens when he said it continues to be the best of times and the worst of times. Still, he said he was optimistic about the future.

"But it's going to take work. It was never going to be done just because we elected me," he said.


http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/79854632.html

OBAMA'S "GOOD ENOUGH" REVOLUTION
By Ted Rall
Thu Dec 24, 7:58 pm ET

Why the Imperfect is the Enemy of the Good

NEW YORK--MP3s exemplify "disruptive technology," a new product initially ignored by major investors due to its low quality yet catches fire due to its convenience. The history of recorded sound has been at the vanguard of the Good Enough Revolution throughout the 20th century: 78 rpm records sounded better than 33s, analog 33s delivered higher fidelity sound than brittle, cold, digital CDs, which make compressed MP3 files sound like dog poop.

People like poop. Wired magazine reported: "Jonathan Berger, a professor of music at Stanford University, recently completed a six-year study of his students. Every year he asked new arrivals in his class to listen to the same musical excerpts played in a variety of digital formats--from standard MP3s to high-fidelity uncompressed files--and rate their preferences. Every year, he reports, more and more students preferred the sound of MP3s, particularly for rock music. They've grown accustomed to what Berger calls the percussive sizzle-a.k.a. distortion--found in compressed music. To them, that's what music is supposed to sound like." MP3 poop sounds like angels singing. And MP3s don't scratch, take up room, or get stolen by your roommate.

From the ridiculously portable Flip video camera to streaming video through a laptop to the low-tech Predator drone plane that screws up the best-laid plans of Afghan wedding planners, Good Enough dominates the technology world. Cheap and easy, that's how we like it.

At least at first glance. Convenience isn't always, well, convenient. The Flip records videos in a file format that's hard to manipulate. I have 25 feet of shelf space dedicated to compact discs but I won't suffer like my friend Mary, whose computer decided to melt down at the same time as her back-up hard drive, taking $15,000 worth of iTunes downloads with them. Print newspapers are hurting, but they can't be turned off with the flip of a switch as the governments do in China and Iran whenever the Internet masses get rambunctious. And dispensing death from the Predator's ticky-tacky lawnmower-engine buzz is a surefire prescription for blowback by inspiring the Pakistani jihadis of the future.

In the world of ideas, President Obama has come to symbolize the triumph of Good Enough. (Candidate Obama, he of "hope" and "change," has been discontinued.) Obama, along with his PR flacks and Congressional allies, loves to paraphrase Voltaire: "Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good." Better to move forward incrementally than not at all.

Repeatedly ceding ground from the wimpy compromises he made by negotiating against himself, Obama deploys this mantra against anyone who pushes for significant change. "We can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary," said the president after bailing out bankers but not Americans who had lost their jobs and/or homes. Now he's using the same mantra to tout the toothless, inconsequential mess that came out of the global warming summit in Copenhagen, and a healthcare bill that manages to make the current disaster even worse.

"The general consensus [on healthcare] was that we shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good," said Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana and a key Obama ally.

Unfortunately for us, Obama's argument relies on a historical example that doesn't apply today.

Obamaite pundit Jonathan Alter summarizes liberal thinking: "You don't always get everything you want the first time up at bat," he argues. "Roosevelt was constantly going back to Congress to strengthen...Social Security, which was not until he had been in office for more than two years. A lot of New Deal types really hated Roosevelt's Social Security plan because they thought it was so weak. And then later they changed it, and they changed it again, and they changed it again."

Other Obamaites point to the civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s, which started out weak but wound up strong and meaningful under LBJ. Perfect isn't achievable now, they argue. But Good Enough is. Get half-assed reforms through on long-standing problems like the economy, climate change and healthcare, they say, and we'll improve upon them later. But this approach relies on two logical fallacies.

First, Good Enough often turns out to be Even Worse Than Before. Prices of insurance company stocks rose sharply on news that Obamacare was close to passage--an ominous sign for patients. "All in all, relative to the last version of health reform issued by the Senate, things have turned out pretty well for the health insurance industry," said Carl McDonald, an analyst at Oppenheimer. "In particular, all versions of a government-run health plan have largely been eliminated." Companies like Sigma and Aetna will be allowed to pass new federal taxes on to their patients, which will include tens of millions of new "customers" forced by the government to sign up--at their own expense. Obamacare will be like a smash to the face for the 20 percent-plus of workers already reeling from many months of unemployment.

Second, looking to the middle of the 20th century doesn't make sense. Back then historical progress was assumed to be a continuous process. Organized labor, civil rights groups and New Left activists fought hard for movement forward for higher wages and equal rights. They never settled, and they didn't let Congress settle either.

Our times are different. Although we are clearly entering a period where breakdown, collapse and even revolution could occur, we're currently stuck with late-period American capitalism and its political leadership. They are stagnant, devoid of dynamism, and alienated from the people. Obama's half-assed compromises on issues like gays in the military, torture, Guantánamo, healthcare and global warming will be touted as triumphs in the next few elections. Neither Obama nor Congress will view them as building blocks, part of a continuous movement toward historical progress. We will not revisit these debates. They will be over.

Good Enough will always be good enough for Obama. But not for us. Like the kids who've been made to believe that MP3s sound OK, we would be better off with nothing at all.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/2009122...quotrevolution

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From the ridiculously portable Flip video camera to streaming video through a laptop to the low-tech Predator drone plane that screws up the best-laid plans of Afghan wedding planners, Good Enough dominates the technology world. Cheap and easy, that's how we like it.

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Holy Hannah, that's a cold analogy :stunned

Blame Ted ...

CAPITAL CULTURE: Big first year leaves Obama tired
Dec 29, 12:25 AM (ET)
By JULIE PACE

WASHINGTON (AP) - After a sleepless, overnight flight to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month, President Barack Obama made a not altogether surprising admission. He was tired.

Who could blame him? The president was on his ninth foreign trip to his 21st country; he added a 10th trip the following week. The year had been bookended by the two most intense periods of his young presidency - the early decisions to bail out the nation's banks and automobile industry, steps the president deemed unpopular but necessary, and his December orders to deploy 30,000 additional U.S. troops to fight the war in Afghanistan.

Throw in an unemployment rate in the double-digits, a health care bill still stuck on Capitol Hill, and last-minute negotiations on a global climate change agreement, and aides say it's no secret that the president is tired, and looking forward to recharging during his year-end family vacation in Hawaii.

Obama himself has been candid about the pressures of being president during what he has called an "extraordinary year."

"You have a convergence of factors that have made this a difficult year not so much for me but for the American people," he said in an interview with CBS News last month. "Absolutely that weighs on me."

That weight was particularly striking during the president's exhaustive, three-month review of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. Images of a visibly tired Obama, his black hair now flecked with gray, greeting the bodies of fallen soldiers at Dover Air Force Base and walking through rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery sparked rumors that he was skipping meals and losing weight.

Not true, the 48-year-old Obama said. His weight never fluctuates more than five pounds and he still wears the same clothes he wore when got married 17 years ago. But the gravity of war did take its toll in other ways.

"With this one, you feel it viscerally," he said in a White House interview with ABC News. "You lose sleep. You think about families. You think about history."

Aides who have known Obama since before he took office say he seems more sober than he did a year ago, but also increasingly focused on the issues facing the country. Though he may need a vacation, they say he still thrives on a keeping a busy schedule and continues to scoff at critics who say he's taken on too much in his first year. Unlike former President George W. Bush, who made getting eight hours of sleep a priority, Obama often works late into the night, averaging five or six hours of sleep, but making do with less when need be. After the Senate held a 1 a.m. vote on health care last week, Obama said he was awake to see the results.

As a presidential candidate, Obama was known to get grumpy about grueling travel schedules, questioning why so many events had to be layered on top of each other and why the days had to be so long. He not only hated being away from his family for long stretches but, in his typically rational style, questioned the reasoning behind the craziness of the campaign trail. Aides came to dread having tell him about certain aspects of his schedule.

The grueling travel hasn't gone away, nor have the long days. Now they're further compounded by red-eye flights to Europe and the seemingly endless stream of social events the president is expected to attend, from concerts at the Kennedy Center to holiday parties where he and the first lady spend hours shaking hands.

But for all of its stresses, the presidency has provided Obama ways to cope. He persuaded advisers early on to let him keep his beloved BlackBerry to stay in touch with a handful of friends outside the White House. Aides try to include time in his schedule for morning workouts in the White House gym and weekend rounds of golf.

Most importantly, Obama is living with his family full-time for the first time in his political career. He eats breakfast with his daughters, 11-year-old Malia and 8-year-old Sasha, before heading to the Oval Office. That "home office" also allows the president to take a break in the evenings to spend time with his family.

In a city where virtually anything can become political, Obama has said that one of the things he values most about his wife and daughters is the refuge they provide him from the folly of Washington.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091229/D9CSP5F82.html

Why is Obama still in Hawaii?
By Michelle Malkin • December 30, 2009 02:09 AM [/b]

Five days after the Christmas Day bomber tried to blow up NWA Flight 253 over Detroit, President Obama is still on vacation in Hawaii. He has delivered two hasty, tie-less statements on homeland security from a makeshift podium in Honolulu whose underwhelming sum impact has been the equivalent of voting “present” (Obama’s career m.o.) By his own admission and in direct contradiction to his hapless DHS Secretary, the president acknowledged yesterday that “systemic failure” led to the breach.

Obama is not scheduled to return to Washington until Sunday. That’s four more full days of reinforcing his image as detached, aloof, and too damned tired to tackle the jihadi epidemic with the once-hyped energy and passion of a 48-year-old Super-Agent of Hope and Change.

Team Obama’s stage managers and image gurus are all about symbolism. Wouldn’t the president send a more credible message to jihadi plotters around the world (and to Americans) by cutting his holiday break short and getting back to work in the White House, rather than by phoning it in for the next four days?

And how many more tropical paradise pow-wows and basketball games with his Chicago cronies Valerie Jarrett, Marty Nesbitt, and Eric Whitaker does he need, anyway? http://www.politico.com/politico44/p...c615c9e18.html http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/po...tball_bri.html

We’ve gone from “Blood, toil, sweat, and tears” to “Beach, golf, (gym) sweat, and (self-pitying) tears.” ??

Rough men stand ready to keep and defend our safety.

As for President Obama, it’s still Me Time.

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This Politico piece tries to make hay of the supposedly unfair double standard in how Bush was treated during the shoe bomber attack during Christmas 2001 versus the “heat” that Obama is taking now for remaining on holiday. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/31049.html

A few inconvenient differences and facts that the article glosses over: Bush had been working non-stop since September 11 on homeland security issues and had the public’s trust. The attacks consumed him. By contrast, the current Democratic majority and White House have been working non-stop to lower our defenses and speed the jihadi revolving door.

In December 2001, Bush had not yet amassed his lousy record on Katrina, Harriet Miers, Dubai Ports, shamnesty, and the massive bailouts (all of which have been lambasted extensively on this website and in my columns over the last four years). In December 2009, Obama has already amassed enough Culture of Corruption material to fill an encyclopedia set.

And unlike the low-key Bush, President Obama has been a shameless, consummate TV hog from Day One — willing to turn anything and everything, including a race-baiting tiff between his good friend Professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge MA police — into a global “teachable moment” of “unprecedented” proportions. When he doesn’t rush to address Americans after a matter of real import strikes, “heat” — no matter how hypocritical his supporters may paint it – is entirely appropriate.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...aring_act.html http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159...SIN=1596981091

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/30...ill-in-hawaii/

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Originally Posted by December 30th, 2009 at 2:23 am, Sanddog

Baracky can stay in Hawaii for the rest of his term for all I care. Now I know that the “WH goes with the president” wherever he travels so personally, this isn’t a big deal to me but it does shine a big light on the hypocrisy of the left and their perpetual whining every time Bush went to Texas.

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Originally Posted by On December 30th, 2009 at 2:40 am, npphotog

He’s telecommuting.

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Originally Posted by On December 30th, 2009 at 2:55 am, BobonStatenIsland

In all appearances from the start Obama was hoping that the failed terrorist attack on Christmas Day would just go away on its own or at least his underlings would take care of it. It is just interupting his play time. The worse this looks for him the better as far as I am concerned. The longer Janet Incompitano stays in her position the better in the sense that that administration looks so incapable of handling almost any situation that even the left is it finding harder and harder to come to Obama’s defense. The nerve of Obama to insinuate that this is actually Bush’s fault. Still? Really? Why not go back so far as to blame Clinton? He is not a leader. Period. So far he and the country have been exceedingly lucky that that attack failed. The masses will turn on him if we get hit with a successful attack. The masses are starting to turn already with the outrage of long delays and all too personal frisks at the airports as they return home from their Christmas vacations.

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Media Vacations With Obama?

Media bias can sometimes be difficult to nail down. While looking around for some comparison opportunities on vacationing presidents, citing just one of many to be found below, it's unclear if our media cares more about the lives of Palestinians, or vacationing Democrat presidents. Whatever their motivations, a survey suggests their priority is either not the protection and defense of America; or it is the protection of a Democrat in office.

To be fair, former President Bush enjoyed plenty of vacation time. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that former presidents have encouraged sitting office holders to make the most of them when they're planned. Also, advanced communications today give reason to ask just how out of touch any sitting president might be at a given time.

However, how the media handles presidential vacations is a different matter. A non-biased media would be consistent.

Days ago a terrorist was about as successful as one could be without succeeding in trying to murder a large number of Americans by bringing down a commercial airliner. As Michelle Malkin points out, Obama was slow to respond, later did - weakly, and has cited a "systemic failure" in our nation's homeland security system, while praising Janet Napolitano, his cabinet-level appointee responsible for DHS. Meanwhile, the International press has been covering a broader current threat from an alleged Yemen-based network of trained al Qaeda operatives.

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He has delivered two hasty, tie-less statements on homeland security from a makeshift podium in Honolulu whose underwhelming sum impact has been the equivalent of voting “present” (Obama’s career m.o.) By his own admission and in direct contradiction to his hapless DHS Secretary, the president acknowledged yesterday that “systemic failure” led to the breach.

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In December of last year, Think Progress was on the job rounding up negative media coverage of a then vacationing President Bush for his reaction to another Middle-East dust up in Gaza. It's nice to know they're capable of caring for at least someone else in the world besides themselves, I guess. They sure don't look to be on the American people's side from what I've reviewed this morning.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/29/...a-middle-east/

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On ABC's This Week yesterday, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) expressed his hope that removing Bush's hands-off approach may help address the situation. "I'm hopeful that as this transition comes, as we look to January, that strong presidential leadership can make a difference here."

Even an emerging crisis in the Middle East, one he pledged to resolve just 13 months ago, has not drawn President George W. Bush from his final vacation before leaving office. Despite his personal pledge at Annapolis last year to broker a deal between Israel and the Palestinians before 2009, this weekend Bush sent his spokesmen to comment in his stead. [...]

Since departing Washington for Crawford on Friday, President Bush has made no attempt to be seen in public. In fact, he has yet to leave his ranch.

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 10:57 AM in

http://www.typepad.com/services/trac...20a78da68d970b

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Originally Posted by Peter | Wednesday, December 30, 2009

We are as close to having a state-run, state-controlled media as at any point in our nation's history. The traditional media is so in the tank for Our Lord and Savior that they are incapable of reporting the news, just parroting whatever it is He wants said and how He wants it said.

Shameful. That includes Mr. Tingly Leg and The Olbertard.

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Originally Posted by Jef Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Obama on the other hand is "less clear" ... that is why people wanted a quicker and more forceful response from Obama ... Its because many people are not sure of his beliefs ...

The 3 day delay was required to:

1) review any White House directives that may have effected Intels and DHS's process ... (CYA)

2) Once understood all senior officals had to be briefed on the "company line" by Rahm and Axelrod ...

3) then it was ok for Obama to make a statement (you'll note not a press conference with questions)

This leads me to believe that we have not heard the last of this ... there will be more insiders who will clarify just what changes in proceedure where directed by the Obama Admin as it is related to the "system" ... they will do so to protect themselves from being bus undercoating ...

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Originally Posted by Elmo Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Caught a few minutes yesterday of Andrea Tantaros (a reg'lar stiletto ... in a paper wrapper), on O'Reilly (w guest host).

Dan: "their priority is either not the protection and defense of America"

She said Chucklehead's been only wagin war ... on the Repub's, could care less about national security. Colmes was on as counter (feigning?) outrage/getting his freak on/red faced/huffing puffing. Tough broad. Didn't back down a millimeter.


Blah, blah, blah ...
http://anechoicroom.blogspot.com/200...ht-smells.html

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