Buyers’ Remorse ?

January 24, 2010
Obama minions astroturfing an unsuspecting media?

http://sisu.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8345...a671970b-800wi

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"Bungalow Bill at BBCW alerted his readers to the fact that an Ellie Light Facebook page has been started; they also used the image that he created," writes Left Coast Rebel, a Photoshop montage merging President Obama's face with a woman's body, a stand-in for prolific letters-to-the-editor writer Ellie Light, rumored to be Samantha "Hillary's a Monster" Power.

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"These letters really do strike that blame-others, self-pitying tone we have all come to know so well in Obama's 411 speeches in the past year," writes blog buddy Amy Kane, catching the conscience of would-be kingmakers possibly trying to shore up Obamacare by planting flagrantly astroturfed, identically worded snarky "letters-to-the-editor" in various publications across the nation. A sample quotation:

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So let’s get this straight. Obama’s predecessor took America to war under false pretense, citing "weapons of mass destruction" that everyone agrees did not exist, and today’s Republicans don’t want Obama addressing children because of "indoctrination?"

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Can you say right out of the Bush-Derangement-Syndrome playbook? The rhetoric is so tired, so false but accurate, so adolescent in tone. Where are the grownups? Well, since you asked, Dan Riehl, Pat from Patterico's Pontifications, Left Coast Rebel, Bungalo Bill's Conservative Wisdom and others are on the case, delving into IP addresses, twitter accounts and other such arcana to trace the propagandists back -- Where? To the White House itself? -- to the heart of darkness where taxpayers' dollars may or may not be being spent to soften an unwitting electorate into accepting the force-feeding of an unwanted, sweeping health-care overhaul.

More scripted talking points masquerading as grassroots concern intended to misdirect the reader's attention from what's really going on behind the curatin:

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Our previous president preached war against Iraq to anyone who would listen, children, adults, young and old, making us partners in his blunder, and the Republicans dare talk of keeping their children safe from Obama’s ideas? What are Obama’s ideas? That the government can be an active partner in change, rather than a nuisance. And this notion is supposed to be bad? The Republican Party seems determined to be “against” everything Democrats want.

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Here's delving Dan, rooting out the facts, ma'am, just the facts:

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The story was originally broken by The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Patterico is adding up the number of times the letter has appeared - still growing, it seems. And the Left Coast Rebel seems to still be on the case, as well. Stay tuned ...

It increasingly looks as though there's a fairly sophisticated spamming, or astroturfing campaign going on in support of Obama. Its target seems to be the op ed pages, in part, anyway.

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Left Coast Rebel:

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The Ellie Light [the name signed on dozens of the letters, each claiming to be a local reader] story has been gaining more and more attention across the net, Pat from Patterico's Pontifications contacted me and we were shooting around some details (secret for now). Pat also put up a new post at HotAir on the topic. Dan Riehl and I also have been discussing the topic (woo-hoo, LCR is swimming with the big fish!).

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And Patterico:

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The story is exploding. There is Astroturf everywhere. Go find some yourself. Just take phrases from suspicious-looking letters and put the phrases into Google and see what you find. Then report back here.

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The Samantha Power connection alluded to above is intriguing. Obama's NSC senior director for "multilateral affairs," the Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights Policy professor is married to "libertarian paternalist" Cass "nudge" Sunstein, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality and statistical programs,"

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as Salon.com explains:
In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists.

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There's no proof that the Administration is engaging in such bone-chillingly un-American activities, but as Dan Riehl says, stay tuned.This could be the next big under-the-radar disintermediation via the internet of the powers that be.


http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/2010/01...-speeches.html

Ellie Light, Now Mark Spivey

It increasingly looks as though there's a fairly sophisticated spamming, or astroturfing campaign going on in support of Obama. It's target seems to be the oped pages, in part, anyway.

I was first alerted to Mark Spivey via a link to the Freepers in a comment. There are also other things popping up in comments on this post of mine. As you can read at link, of the relatively few number of people the Twitter nick Winston44 was following, one of them was a news editor punked by Ellie Light. That seems to take this a bit beyond sheer coincidence.

Patterico is following up on Mark Spivey. Left Coast Rebel on the Ellie Light affair.

A recent Associated Press article stated that President Barack Obama’s hesitancy on the Afghan war buildup implies weakness.

I wish world leaders had more of that kind of weakness. Clearly, Obama does not want to send soldiers into harm’s way without a clear goal, a solid plan and an exit strategy, three aspects sorely missing from former President George W. Bush’s military ventures.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carniv...rk-spivey.html


Someone has started Facebooks to track Ellie and Mark. Dan, your article is linked there.

Who is Ellie Light? http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=261752540668
Who is Mark Spivey? http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=...d=272559025123

Sunday, January 24, 2010
Revolting voters and the endless campaign
Trenchant analysis of our Campaigner-in-Chief from Jennifer Rubin. This Obama move is absolutely perfect: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/bl...p/rubin/222901

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It is only fitting that Obama’s first significant personnel change in the wake of the Massachusetts debacle is to hire back his campaign manager. No, really. Chris Cillizza reports: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the...ite-house.html

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David Plouffe, the man who managed President Barack Obama’s campaign, will be taking on an expanded role as an outside adviser to the White House, according to sources familiar with the plan, a move that comes just days after a stunning defeat for Democrats in a Massachusetts Senate special election.

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Not a new economic team. Not a new chief of staff. Not even a new national security staff to replace the gang that dropped the ball on the Christmas Day bomber. No, with the Obami, it is never about substance or getting the policy right. It’s not about governance. It is about the perpetual campaign. So the campaign manager gets the emergency call.

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RTR. Don't tell, but judging from his remarks Plouffe will serve as an enabler, shielding the Obama White House from disturbing political realities:

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Plouffe, not coincidentally, authors an op-ed in Cillizza’s paper arguing that ObamaCare was a fine idea, just misunderstood. (”It’s a good plan that’s become a demonized caricature.”) He says Democrats better pass it, or the public won’t understand how wrong Sarah Palin was. (I’m not making that up: “Only if the plan becomes law will the American people see that all the scary things Sarah Palin and others have predicted — such as the so-called death panels — were baseless.”)

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Submit to your betters, you halfwits.

More from Ms. Rubin on another Obamacare advocate in need of reality-orientation (but not just yet). http://www.commentarymagazine.com/bl...p/rubin/222881

Frank Rich is a Massachusetts-miracle denier: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24Rich.html

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Everything is fine, perfectly fine. According to Rich, the real issue is that Obama was not angry enough or wasn’t everywhere enough. Or Left-leaning enough. You can almost sense Republican candidates and operatives holding their collective breath, smilingly nervously and whispering to each other, “They couldn’t be that obtuse, could they?”

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By all means, ramp up the socialist anger.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-WnLixn1dg...re+Cowbell.jpg

George Will hopes that Obama isn't hopeless: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...012203009.html

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If Obama can now resist the temptation of faux populism, if he does not rage, like Lear on the heath, against banks, he can be what Americans, eager for adult supervision, elected him to be: a prudent grown-up.

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Unfortunately for America, prudence and maturity aren't part of the "superior Obama temperament."

Favorite Obama analysis of the day comes from Michael Goodwin. Hear him: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/nationa...RlOqRxirNUoCxO

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It's all smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles, held together with glib talk, Chicago politics and an audacious sense of entitlement.

At the center is a young and talented celebrity whose worldview, we now know, is an incoherent jumble of poses and big-government instincts. His self-aggrandizing ambition exceeds his ability by so much that he is making a mess of everything he touches.


He never advances a practical idea. Every proposal overreaches and comes wrapped in ideology and a claim of moral superiority. He doesn't listen to anybody who doesn't agree with him. [. . .]


They warned us he wasn't ready. [. . .]


Obama's reactions were predictable. More self-pity, blaming George W. Bush, and claiming that the voter revolt is due to ignorance about the health-care plan they hate.

Blah blah blah. Hasn't he heard? The magic is gone.

Massachusetts changed everything. America's spirit of independence has been emancipated and the cult of Obama-ism is finished.

The health-care debacle perfectly captured his utter lack of governing substance.

He embraced major provisions he rejected during the campaign, misled the public about costs and impact, and got competing versions through Congress only with a grab bag of outlandish bribes and exemptions.

He pledged transparency, then retreated to secret deal-making that corruptly rewarded unions and fleeced everybody else. The result was a national scandal that would have done tremendous damage if it became law.

His sudden adoption of a bank tax springs from a baser motive -- political desperation.

He unveiled the tax as polls showed Scott Brown closing in on victory. White House flunkies said the tax marked an aggressive turn to populism and Obama obliged by trotting out the "fat-cat banker" phrase.


Which, of course, is bizarre when you want those banks to lend money to create jobs. And you can be sure Obama will hit up those fat-cat bankers for contributions at election time, as he did in 2008. Even his attacks are cynical.

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Yes indeed. Read the rest.

Cowbell image courtesy of Mako Snark. http://makosnark.blogspot.com/2010/0...e-cowbell.html

Axelrod: voter backlash against Obama was unavoidable
President Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, said Sunday that it is impossible to 'govern in an economy like this without great disaffection.'
By Mark Sappenfield Staff writer
posted January 24, 2010 at 3:42 pm EST

President Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, said Sunday that the economic disaster left behind by the Bush administration made the current voter anger – and its toll on Mr. Obama’s agenda – virtually unavoidable. “I said to him a year ago, ‘Mr. President, your numbers are going to be considerably worse a year from now than they are today, because you can't govern in an economy like this without great disaffection,’ ” said Mr. Axelrod on ABC’s “This Week.”

“And that's what's happened,” he added.

Last week's US Senate race in Massachusetts, however, suggests that Americans are less interested in explanations or blame than a change of the nation’s course. Given the depth of the continued economic crisis, that puts the Obama administration in the difficult position of trying to encourage hope while also keeping expectations reasonable.

The election last week of Republican Scott Brown to the US Senate seat previously held by Edward Kennedy marked the biggest setback to the Obama administration since it came to office. The Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, endangering some of Obama’s most important initiatives, including healthcare reform and greenhouse-gas regulations.

One year later

On Sunday, Axelrod suggested that Mr. Brown’s victory was the natural byproduct of the financial meltdown. The problems left to the Obama administration were so enormous that it could not make enough headway in a year to blunt voters’ frustrations, he said. “When the president walked in the door, he was handed the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, a financial crisis that held out the prospect of the collapse of the financial system and a fiscal crisis,” Axelrod said on “This Week.”

In casting voters’ minds back to a year ago, Axelrod sought to add context to the current frustrations. Yet there was also a note of blame in his comments. “President Clinton left a $237 billion surplus; President Obama received a $1.3 trillion deficit,” he said.

The Massachusetts Senate race – a Democratic loss in a Democratic-leaning state – suggested that voters were not overly concerned about the past. Voters did not connect Brown to Bush-era policy, despite attempts by the White House and the Democratic challenger to make that link.

Instead, results showed that the Democratic candidate – who was closely aligned with the Obama agenda – did worst in counties with the highest unemployment. In short, voters wanted the change that Obama had promised.

Defending Obama

On Sunday, Axelrod at times struck a defensive posture, justifying decisions as crucial that have become increasingly unpopular. “Nobody wanted to have to throw a lifeline to the financial sector. Nobody wanted to shore up the auto industry. Nobody wanted a $787 billion emergency Recovery Act as our first initiative as president,” he said. “But our responsibility was to make sure that the economy didn't tip into a second Great Depression, which was a real possibility.”

“I have no regrets about that,” he added.

With the State of the Union address coming Wednesday, Obama’s challenge will be to pivot forward and convince Americas that he can lead the country out of recession quickly and effectively. “We have to make this economy work for all Americans and not just for a fortunate few,” Axelrod said. “We've got to make sure that work pays, that people who work hard and meet their responsibilities get ahead, and we have to insist on responsibility from our institutions, whether it's on Wall Street or in Washington.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politic...as-unavoidable

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President Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, said Sunday that the economic disaster left behind by the Bush administration made the current voter anger – and its toll on Mr. Obama’s agenda – virtually unavoidable.

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Bush left office - we had just over a 3 billion deficit. Obama and his 'team' drive up the bill to over 11 TRILLION and it is still Bush's fault ?? :rofl: YHGTBKM :rofl:

Astroturf Master/Senior White House adviser David Axlerod’s twin, David Plouffe, is officially being called an “outside adviser” It’s not clear who is paying his salary. But based on the Obama propaganda flowing into my e-mail box in his name over the last few weeks, I think we can properly call him the Spam Czar:

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Organizing for America
michelle –

On Wednesday evening, President Obama will deliver his first State of the Union address. It comes at a critical moment.

We must regroup, refocus, and re-engage on the vital work ahead. So let’s watch it together at a State of the Union Watch Party in your neighborhood.

Find and RSVP for a Watch Party

We’ve hit some serious bumps in the road recently in our march toward change. We always knew it would be difficult, but this past week has definitely been a hard one, for all of us.

But this movement didn’t come so far without making it through some challenging times. It’s at moments like these when we need you most. People are hurting. Our country is at a crossroads, and in communities like yours all across America we must all fight for the progress our families and businesses need to thrive.

The President’s resolve has never been stronger to keep fighting for health insurance reform, for lasting job creation, and to rein in the big banks and fight the undue influence of lobbyists. Wednesday’s speech will be a pivotal moment for us all to get on the same page and continue the fight together.

In just two days, OFA supporters like you will be gathering at State of the Union Watch Parties in living rooms and community centers across the country. You can share ideas and experiences — and I’ll be joining on the phone for a special strategy huddle before the speech.

Find and RSVP for a State of the Union Watch Party near you:

http://my.barackobama.com/AttendSOTU

I hope you can join us,

David Plouffe

P.S. — Volunteers have set up hundreds of Watch Parties over the last few days. But if there isn’t one yet near you, just sign up to host one yourself. It’s easy and fun, local OFA organizers will help you with any questions you have, and it’s an incredibly important way to let supporters near you be part of the action:

http://my.barackobama.com/HostSOTU

Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee — 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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(Sent twice in the last hour today.)

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Organizing for America

Last Friday marked our passage into a new year, and a new decade.

2010 will be a year of new, exciting challenges. We’ll be working hard with President Obama to finish the fight for health insurance reform, put more Americans back to work, and get our economy running strong. We’ll fight to protect consumers and our economy from Wall Street abuses, improve transparency in Washington to elevate the voices of the American people, and create a vibrant, clean energy economy. And we’ll stand up for the President’s allies at the ballot box.

As we’ve always known, change this big must come from the bottom up. Organizing for America was founded last year based on your feedback, and OFA supporters are at the core of everything we do.

So as we wrap up one year and prepare for the next, we want to hear your reflections on our work together in 2009 and how you want OFA to move forward in the new year.

Can you take a minute to fill out our quick survey on what’s next in 2010?

What’s next in 2010

There’s no limit to what we can accomplish this year, if we keep working together.

Can’t wait to get started:

http://my.barackobama.com/2010

Happy New Year,

David Plouffe

Donate

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Wonder how much of this will end up in Ellie Light’s next letter to the editor?

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Update: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is downplaying Plouffe’s advisory role. Says he’s not “taking over every campaign” and is just spending extra time at 1600 Pennsylvania. Is his cot next to Andy Stern’s?

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/01/25...ffe-spam-czar/

Do you regret voting for Obama ?

Yes 5 - 6.76%
No 20 - 27.03%
I didn't Vote for Obama 46 - 62.16%
Like it matters anyway .... 3 - 4.05%
Even if I did I wouldn't tell you because it would make you right 0 - 0%

Voters: 74.

Can Obama rebound?
GOP wins give the White House a loud-and-clear wake-up call
Clarence Page
January 22, 2010

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said a few days after Barack Obama's election to the White House. A year into his presidency, the crisis appears, in many political ways, to have been wasted.

A timely wake-up call came last week on the final night of Obama's first year in office. Republican Scott Brown's come-from-behind victory in Massachusetts cost Democrats their 60-seat majority in the U.S. Senate.

After similar setbacks for Obama-backed candidates in the Virginia and New Jersey governor races, the loss in overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts was particularly jarring. Brown could not have won without disenchanted Democrats, who either sat out the race or crossed over to help Brown win — saying in many cases that they wanted to "send a message" to Washington.

In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Obama appeared to get the message: He admitted that his administration got so busy that it lost touch and left the public with "a feeling of remoteness and detachment." Gee, do ya think?

What a difference a year makes. Remember Obama's inaugural address? "Now there are some who question the scale of our ambitions," he said. "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them."

A year later, the ground shifted beneath him too. Unemployment hit 26-year highs, two of the nation's biggest carmakers declared bankruptcy, and the president's health care bill got caught up in the ugly sausage-making process of haggling, partisan sniping, backroom deals and other "old ways of doing politics" that candidate Obama promised to change. His approval ratings slid from almost 70 percent in his first weeks to about 50 percent.

Happy first year, Mr. President.

What went wrong? In some ways, Team Obama fell prey to the same hubris revealed in the early days of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and the conservative 1994 "revolution" of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. They also thought their electoral victories represented big shifts in the political paradigm. Instead, their tidal waves look like ripples in America's constantly shifting political tides.

And even Obama seems to realize there's substance to the rap from his critics that he's been too aloof from everyday concerns of economically anxious Americans: "If there's one thing that I regret this year," he said, it is that "we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises ... that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values." Indeed, how hard you're working doesn't matter much unless the public sees some good results or, at least, knows you're working hard on getting good results.

For bonus-hungry Wall Streeters, Obama's economic stimulus package cushioned the impact of the Great Recession, more than it did for the nation's growing ranks of jobless, it appeared. Health care stalled in midsummer as Senate Democrats tried unsuccessfully to win at least a few Republican votes.

In polls, moderate Obama voters shifted to the right, if only to "send a message" to Washington. Progressive-wing Democrats, already disappointed by Obama's hawkish foreign policy and Wall Street coziness, are outraged by compromises like the cave-in on a health care public option.

But as Democrats scramble to reassess and make course corrections, they'll be missing a truly historic opportunity if they don't support a scaled-back version of the bloated and complicated health care package. Future lawmakers can return to it later, once it's enacted and the public has a chance to get comfortable with it.

By contrast, if Democrats try to ram through a huge, complicated health care overhaul against the current tide of public suspicions, they will only unite Republican opposition, a task Republican leaders have been remarkably unable to do on their own.

And if the Democrats' big push for health care reforms fails now, it won't just be the economic crisis that will look wasted in Obama's first year. It will be the entire year.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...2515501.column

Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Obama’s in Deep Doo-Doo: Statues Are Falling Already
by Dymphna http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/20...atues-are.html


How far the mighty have fallen in just a year. This is indeed a Fickle Finger of Fate moment for The One They Used to Be Waiting For: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...k4Y8UFGhAJkDpg

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Indonesian authorities said Monday they are considering a petition to tear down a statue of US President Barack Obama as a boy, only a month after the bronze was unveiled in Jakarta.

The statue of “Little Barry” -- as Obama was known when he lived in the capital in the late 1960s -- stands in central Jakarta’s Menteng Park, a short walk from the US president’s former elementary school.

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http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_md61S_gChL...eindonesia.jpg

Critics say the site should have been used to honour an Indonesian and 55,000 people have joined a page on social networking website Facebook calling for the statue to be removed.

I suppose I’m going to have to break down and get on Facebook. So many tantalizing subjects in this medium. I’d love to see this one, for instance. The page has 55,000 folks at the moment but wait until the news about his 180 degree turn on America’s domestic policy is more widespread. For example, when he gives his State of the Union address. Obama is going to resemble more and more the Bush he’s been hiding behind for a year.

At any rate, don’t underestimate the power of Facebook. These folks have the bureaucrats scrambling:

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“We’ve been discussing for the past two weeks what to do with the statue… whether to take it down, move it elsewhere or retain it. We’re finding the best solution,” Jakarta parks agency official Dwi Bintarto said.

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There goes the respect, Mr. President. So what are you going to do about your plans to visit now?

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Obama said in November he would visit Indonesia this year along with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha.

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Perhaps discretion is the better part of valor here, sir. Not that valor was ever touted as one of your strong points. In this case, however, looks like you’ll save yourself some embarrassment if you just stay home.

Given the cost of your trips, your fellow Americans would certainly appreciate the savings we’d see if you went with Plan B and just hung around the White House instead. You and the family could eat Indonesian take-out food and watch some travel documentaries in your very own White House theater.

Frankly, we’re finding it hard to afford your jet-set life style. Not that you’re any worse than Congress when it comes to junkets. They cost us more than a million for their trips to Copenhagen. The good Lord only knows what we shelled out for your entourage to the fake Climate Change summit.


Dymphna | 1/26/2010 12:51:00 PM

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Frankly, we’re finding it hard to afford your jet-set life style.

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So are we hosts! It costs us some $ 10 million every time Airforce One touches down for Big 0 to be around for a few hours, make a speech and go back home before climate change snows over his home airport.

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What an Obama Do-Over Would Look Like
By Rick Newman
46 mins ago

Many Barack Obama supporters felt a messiah had arrived when he assumed the presidency in 2009. But when it comes to predicting the future, Obama has proved he's a mere mortal.

A year ago, the unemployment rate was 7.7 percent, and mainstream forecasts predicted it might hit 9 percent or so before leveling off. The financial system, meanwhile, was a shambles, with banks barely lending. Stocks were still plummeting, huge companies like General Motors and Chrysler were on the brink of insolvency, and investors were worried that a full-blown depression might unfold.

Obama focused on the financial crisis, assuming that once he got that fixed, employers would start hiring again and the job market would rebound. Then he moved on to a set of long-term priorities: reforming healthcare, combating global warming, creating sustainable, high-paying "green jobs," pushing America down a path toward energy independence. Remember all those comparisons to FDR's first 100 days? Obama thought in big, historical terms and tried to use his popularity and charisma to remake America.

A crushing recession, however, has driven America in a direction Obama didn't anticipate. Unemployment is now at 10 percent, and it's likely to go higher. Aggressive intervention in the financial markets did in fact prevent a deeper downturn and set the stage for a recovery. But middle-class distress has mounted all the same, and it's wrecking the rest of Obama's agenda. These and other lessons from Year 1 will probably guide a shift in Obama's priorities for the rest of his term. So here are six things the president might do differently if he could relive his first year in office:

Stimulate faster.

The $787 billion stimulus bill passed last year wasn't really a job-creation bill, and Obama--and the nation--have been paying a steep price for that. Despite all the talk of "shovel-ready projects," well under half of the money went toward the immediate creation or preservation of jobs. Nearly one third went toward various kinds of tax breaks and credits, which put more money in the pockets of individuals and businesses--where it has mostly stayed. Another big chunk--more than $200 billion--paid for health, food, unemployment, disability, and other extended benefits for the needy. In theory, that money was supposed to flow into the mainstream economy, keeping people employed. If it has, it hasn't been enough.

Explain the bank bailouts better.

Most of the bank bailouts were inked during President Bush's term, leaving Obama little room to maneuver on them. Still, he could have said from the outset that the bank bailouts were a necessary evil and explained that even if bankers are the most vile people on earth, a functioning financial system is essential for a healthy economy. It would have helped if tough financial reform measures and the new, $90 billion bank tax came sooner, so that it looked like Obama had a coherent plan and wasn't merely pandering to voter outrage.

Apologize for AIG.

This bungled bailout is the biggest blot on an emergency economic triage plan that has more or less worked. Obama should just come right out and say that paying off AIG counterparties in full--which cost American taxpayers an unnecessary $62 billion--was a grievous mistake made in the heat of battle. Even though it mostly happened under Bush, Obama should beg forgiveness in his usual humble-magisterial style. Taxpayers got sold out, and it's not good enough for the president to just let it slide or blame somebody else.

Bail out small businesses on a par with big banks. Part of the outrage over the banker bailouts is the impression that they were the only bailouts. More than a year after the big bank rescues, Obama is now talking about tax credits and other breaks for small businesses, as if these heartland enterprises are a tiny afterthought. If there had been less money for Wall Street and more for Main Street a year ago, fewer Americans would feel abandoned by their government.

Stall cap-and-trade. Obama and Congress started pushing this complex legislation, meant to reduce pollution, while businesses were still getting hammered by the recession, finding it tough or impossible to get loans, and trying to figure out how sweeping healthcare reform was likely to affect them. Pushing cap-and-trade regulations at the same time made Obama seem insensitive to the intense pressure on business owners who were trying to keep their companies afloat and their workers employed. It would have been better to save this for his second year or even his second term.

Simplify healthcare reform. Healthcare reform legislation has taken so many twists and turns that it has become exhausting to follow and almost impossible to plan for. And it's not even over! It's true that most people don't like change, but they'll accept it if you explain what's coming and give them room to adjust. The healthcare ordeal, by contrast, has left consumers and business owners alike numb, perplexed, and completely distrustful of politicians, including Obama, who seem to vacillate between wildly divergent stances. Obama's strategy has been to let Congress take the initiative, but that has made him seem wishy-washy on a matter he himself has deemed one of America's most vital priorities.

If he had a chance to do it over, Obama might forget all about FDR and his big ideas, choose one set of pragmatic reforms, get it done, declare victory, and then get back to that tricky little matter of jobs. That's where he's headed anyway.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20100...rwouldlooklike

State of Union: Lessons Obama Can Learn from Reagan
By Mark Halperin 1 hr 47 mins ago

Back in January 2008, while meeting with the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal before the Democratic Nevada caucuses, Barack Obama offered some approving commentary on the legacy and influence of the 40th President. Ronald Reagan, he said, "changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not." Not surprisingly, Obama's remark riled both Hillary Clinton and her husband, who viewed it as demeaning to the achievements of the Clinton Administration as well as a cheap tactic to win favor with some of the Silver State's more conservative Democrats.

In reality, Obama (and, for that matter, the Clintons) has a long history of paying public homage to the leadership and political skills of Reagan, even while disagreeing with his policies.

Now, just as Reagan struggled to find his footing at the start of his first term, Obama is straining to revive his political mojo. And so as the President prepares for his first official State of the Union address, here are five elements of the Gipper's arsenal that his latest successor would be smart to follow:

1. Stand for a few big things. Obama rode to his party's nomination as the anti-Clinton and won the general election as the anti-Bush without ever having to define his political persona. Reagan's policies didn't always live up to his mantra (lower taxes, stronger defense, family values), but he was able to fit most of his major initiatives and high-profile events under that simple tripartite rubric.

2. Be bigger than life. Obama is in many ways an ordinary guy (not unlike brush-clearing Bush and shorts-wearing Clinton). Scenes of him rhapsodizing about ESPN or headed out for burgers serve to humanize Obama and are certainly an appealing window into his real-life self. But through stagecraft and style, Reagan was able to be both an accessible and a towering figure. The Democrat in the White House needs to be more imposing and less familiar in order to wow his friends and strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. Plainspoken speeches, richly symbolic events and well-timed humor are Reagan tools that Obama could employ.


3. Create more Obama Republicans. Candidate Obama had broad appeal for Republicans and conservative-leaning independents. Now his image and agenda have left him without any calling card to widen his support (essential for winning policy fights and elections). The Gipper wooed so-called Reagan Democrats by finding common cause with them on key issues such as national security and lower taxes while still keeping his political base solidly on board. Education, spending cuts and maybe even health care are all ripe areas where Obama can make another effort to reach out to voters, if not intransigent Republicans in Washington.


4. Don't let the media get you down. By the time Reagan reached the White House, he had been trapped in the glare of press scrutiny from his days in Hollywood through his time in the California governor's mansion. Obama, meanwhile, glided into his Illinois Senate seat and into the White House with very little negative attention from the press (beyond brief, isolated incidents like the Rev. Wright dustup). Now, hammered nonstop by both the conservative and mainstream media, Obama has to thicken his skin. Reagan wasn't crazy about the coverage he got either, but he sloughed it off and followed the actor's credo: Never let them see you sweat.

5. Use national security to strengthen your hand at home. Obama needs to frame future foreign policy successes in way that gives him leverage with voters and Congress. Reagan deployed his standing as a successful Cold War President to rally the public around him, and then used higher approval ratings to advance his agenda. Obama is governing in a more partisan era, but he can break the bonds of a divided Washington to turn his domestic agenda into a patriotic one - by pushing for energy independence, for example - rather than one side of a left-right slugfest.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2010012...5hbHlzaXM1dGhp

:dancing: :dancing:

Judging Obama's First Year, Issue by Issue
[i]On the anniversary of Barack Obama's historic Inauguration, TIME takes a look at what the President has been able to accomplish and what he still hopes to do


http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...954999,00.html

Walesa, Socialism And The Challenges Ahead

Lech Walesa states, "The world has no leadership," in this taped interview up at Big Government. http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/31/...cialism-video/

Items that stand out: 1) Lech Walesa tells his American Audience that the United States no longer leads the world politically or morally 2) At least one of your Founding Bloggers asks President Walesa if he thinks America is slipping toward Socialism. His Answer? Yes!

His thinking on America's role in the world reminds me of an item I posted on January 16th. BTW, There Is No World Order Right Now.

Once again victimized by abstract thinking, an item via Instapundit caused me to think about world order as a general concept. Due to recent events, the case can be made that there is none ....

Walesa's unique background provides him a better understanding of the world's politics than most of us share. As for America sliding into socialism, he's absolutely correct on that, as well.

While these certainly are "heady" times given the thriving Tea Party movement - more on that, including on the Contract From America from Bruce Kesler here, it would be a mistake to mis-underestimate the challenges we face going forward. While our best and perhaps only practical option is to reform the Republican Party, it will require pulling both parties back from the Leftward shift they've experienced in recent years to not only stop America's slide toward socialism, but try and retake some ground.

This is heady stuff -- and, for people in the political establishment, both Republicans and Democrats, it's worrying stuff. If political movements can bubble up from below, and self-organize via the Internet, what will happen to the political class?

Bush's so-called "Compassionate Conservatism" and the Republican establishment's desire to compromise with the current crop of Democrats represent little more than half-steps down the path toward full-blown socialism, as opposed to the full step Democrats would seem to prefer, or the step back from it many of us would like to see.

Part of the problem is, politicians love to campaign on bright, shiny new things. Those things are invaribly programs - usually just a nice way of saying entitlements in the end. And despite any talk of reform, or improving upon that which already exists, it's difficult to find instances where government has actually gone back to rectify its many past mis-steps that now trample all over any notion of a free market, as well as our individual freedom.

It's gotten so bad, there's now a significant amount of reforming required down through American culture if one wants to ever truly turn around America's course. I'm not suggesting this to be pessimistic, or to discourage. Still, serious minded individuals wanting to see real change in America as regards restoring what's always been viewed as our tranditional freedoms - those things that best serve American exceptionalism - well, they had better be prepared for a long tough battle lasting years and perhaps generations. That's precisely what accomplishing anything significant in this regard is going to take.

And there may not ever again come a better, more oppportunistic time to begin that than right here and right now as we move forward toward Election 2010.



http://www.riehlworldview.com/carniv...ges-ahead.html