BP: The Virginian Pilot’s Kind of Oil Company

Who has not suffered through the nauseatingly politically correct commercials that mega-polluter BP ran? BP tried to brand itself with the slogan “Beyond Petroleum.” Why? Because it’s exactly the kind of slogan that opinion writers – the kind of people who write editorials for newspapers – believe as an article of faith. You know that, in their heart of hearts, the Virginian Pilot editors believe that the government should force the country to convert from oil and coal to “reusable energy” NOW. Well, BP is their kind of company.

Companies like BP have their willing dupes ready to swallow their BS line as they get ready to ride the government mandated gravy train to ever greater profitability. BP is the kind of corporate citizen that gets government awards for "outstanding safety and pollution prevention."

The incestuous relationship between government and BP is nowhere more clearly revealed that in BP’s support of “cap and trade” Columnist Tim Carney writes in the Washington Examiner that

As BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig was sinking on April 22, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was on the phone with allies in his push for climate legislation, telling them he would soon roll out the Senate climate bill with the support of the utility industry and three oil companies — including BP, according to the Washington Post

the Kerry-BP alliance for an energy bill that included a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases pokes a hole in a favorite claim of President Obama and his allies in the media — that BP’s lobbyists have fought fiercely to be left alone. Lobbying records show that BP is no free-market crusader, but instead a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s bottom line.

Bait and switch is one of the favorite tricks of the Left:

Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.

… Expect BP to be public enemy No. 1 in the climate debate.

There’s a problem: BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.

BP backs the kind of tax that the Pilot relentless advances, a gas tax:

Tne provision BP explicitly backed, according to Congressional Quarterly and other media reports: a higher gas tax. The money would be earmarked for building more highways, thus inducing more driving and more gasoline consumption.

The “Beyond Petroleum” hucksters saw an opportunity to get its greedy hands in the taxpayer’s pockets via government subsidies for policies that are economically unviable unless subsidized by tax dollars. The Left is perfectly willing to shovel money from your pockets to the pockets of BP.

Elsewhere in the green arena, BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels and solar energy, two products that cannot break even without government support. Lobbying records show the company backing solar subsidies including federal funding for solar research. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency, is currently financing a BP solar energy project in Argentina.

Ex-Im has also put up taxpayer cash to finance construction of the 1,094-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, Turkey—again, profiting BP.

Lobbying records also show BP lobbying on Obama’s stimulus bill and Bush’s Wall Street bailout. You can guess the oil giant wasn’t in league with the Cato Institute or Ron Paul on those.

BP has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans. ..

Two patterns have emerged during Obama’s presidency: 1) Big business increasingly seeks profits through more government, and 2) Obama nonetheless paints opponents of his intervention as industry shills. BP is just the latest example of this tawdry sleight of hand.

Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool.

Let there be no mistake, BP is not the free-market Republican tool that the press would like you to believe they are. They are “rent seekers” who use the power of the government to profit at the expense of the consumer. They are the people who, like the Virginian Pilot, lobby for the non-stimulating “stimulus” bill (where much of the money went to pay public employee salaries) , the Wall Street bailout, Cap and Trade, higher gas taxes, solar subsidies, in fact, subsidies for all of their uneconomical alternative energy projects.

BP is the kind of energy company that the Virginian Pilot loved. You can be sure that the Dear John letter is already in the mail as they try to convince you that they were never in bed with their corporate lover.

Barack Obama's attacks on BP hurting British pensioners

... and American pensioners.  Think of it as collateral damage.

Oil spill clogging Washington's biggest mouths

PB has always been comfortable as a bedmate of governments and environmentalists.  They have been pimping politicos and talking heads for decades.  Where do you think the "BP: Beyond Petroleum" shtick came from?  It's what Fascism look like.

The real reason liberals accuse Tea Partiers of racism

Roger Simon: 

The real reason liberals accuse Tea Partiers of racism is that contemporary American-style liberalism is in rigor mortis. Liberals have nothing else to say or do. Accusations of racism are their last resort.

Francis Poretto on Political Frenzy ... or the Left's Playbook.

To anyone who's been watching attentively, the Leftist rhetorical pattern is fairly clear:

• 
  
  Start with dismissals of the opponent's intelligence and understanding;
• 
  
  Second, question his "real" motives;
• 
  
  Third, assign him defamatory motives (e.g., "racism," "sexism," "homophobia," or generic "intolerance");
• 
  
  Fourth, incite fears of violence and impute them to his rhetoric.

...it is the unvarying pattern of the Left, and its political arm the Democrat Party, when faced with substantial, vocal opposition.

Obama and the Media is Why Palin is so Successful

The American public decided that his upper crustiness wasn’t disqualifying but since he’s been in office his arrogance has come to grate on more and more Americans. This sneaking suspicion that Barack Obama doesn’t like us lowly Americans very much only adds to Palin’s appeal.

Palin’s success at becoming a focal point for conservative America is only facilitated by the hatred of her that the Old Media wallows in. It is they that have propelled her past what might have been her likely expiration date having lost her bid for vice president. I mean, let’s face it, few losing vice presidential candidates are ever heard from again politically. Palin, though, has been a glaring exception to that down and forgotten rule for losing vp candidates. And the reason for that is the Old Media’s obsession with her coupled with her own innate ability to hit the Old Media where it lives.

The media mercilessly attacked Palin from the second the McCain campaign announced her as its pick for the number two slot. They attacked her children without pause and smeared her with lies at every turn. But one of the main things that the Old Media’s overt, wild-eyed attacks on Palin did was to cement her in the minds of potential supporters as the quintessential woman of the common people.

When it comes to leftist violence, the media sees no evil, hears no evil, and especially speaks no evil.

Of course not, they would be tattling on their own.

Faisal Shahzad, Subprime Terrorist?

Mark Steyn: 

Well, one way of falling behind with your house payments is to take half a year off to go to Pakistan and train in a terrorist camp.

Helen Thomas: Celebrated For Her Sex, Not For Her Accomplishments

Quick, name a story that Helen Thomas broke.

Left-Wing Icon Daniel Ellsberg: 'Obama Deceives the Public'

Another rube revealed.

Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool

Before that little goof, BP was the darling of the Left.

BP has …has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.

Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.

NASA now sending photos of people (instead of real people) into outer space?

Having more fun than a President should be allowed to have.

Obama's house up for rent -- shop now and save

"I had sex in Obama's old bedroom!" the tenant announced.

Joe Biden update: Off to Africa now for some reason

Obviously, Democratic President Barack Obama feels he can handle the pressure alone of yet another major presidential music party and any more job offers to rebel Democrats. Not to mention the nation's $13,000,000,000,000 national debt, which under his administration is now projected to surpass the nation's entire economic output.

Obama's crude rhetoric targets BP, hits state pensions

The "evil scum" who own BP include the New Jersey Division of Investment (51 million shares), and dozens of other pension funds.  Maybe it was not unintended.  When you're obsessed with wrecking the economy so you can start over, this may be a good way.

What $13 Trillion Could Buy

According to data from the Concierge Medicine Research Collective, $13 trillion could buy 10 years of round-the-clock on-call medical care for more than 928 million people – or for the entire population of the U.S. for 30 years.

There are a whole bunch of other things, but Team Obama already blew this money.

The Alien in the White House

Dorothy Rabinowitz:

...it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.

A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe....

... it is held [in the Salons of the Left and the halls of academe] as revealed truth that the United States is now, and has been throughout its history, the chief engine of injustice and oppression in the world.

They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.

Old and busted: Recovery, The New Hotness: Endless Recessions

A job seeker wandering the streets aimlessly

Taliban using HIV Bombs

Threaten to turn us all into Andrew Sullivan

74% Oppose Taxing Internet News Sites To Help Newspapers

The New American Fascist Party (NAFP) under the leadership of Obama, Reed and Pelosi specializes in ruling against the will of the people.  Of course the newspapers run by local Gauleiters will go along.

Palin's backing pays off for pals

Some of Sarah Palin’s riskiest endorsements scored major victories Tuesday for the former Alaska governor, showing off her power in Republican primaries.

Palin had four primary endorsements in play – Carly Fiorina, Nikki Haley, Terry Branstad and Cecile Bledsoe – and three won or moved on to a runoff.

Palin is showing WAAAAY more political strength than Obama.

The Year of the Republican Woman

California Republicans took an historic step Tuesday by nominating two wealthy businesswomen to challenge Democratic icons for governor and U.S. Senate.

It helps that Republican women have bigger balls than Republican men.

Tea Party Favorite Sharron Angle to Challenge Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada

Angle is an anti-tax crusader and an uncompromising conservative. She favors abolishing the Departments of Education and Energy, phasing out Social Security and Medicare, and removing the United States from the United Nations.

A clear choice.

The transformative power of Rick Santelli's rant

No more equivocation, not more intermediaries.  The Tea Party and MoveOn.org are now front and center. 

National Deficit-Reduction Commissioner: "The market-worshipping, privatizing, de-regulating, dehumanizing American financial plan has failed and should never be revived"

It's hardly surprising that President Obama's deficit commission has become a font of unintented (if wince-inducing) hoo-larity. Nor is it a shocker that diabolically effective labor organizer Andy Stern would be brazen about re-molding government to benefit public sector workers at the direct expense of the rest of us. Still, there's something irritating about seeing a presidentially appointed deficit commissioner and inner circle FoB uncork statements like these

You do understand who Obama is by now, don't you?

The Road To Serfdom is currently the #1 book on Amazon.

Glenn Beck can move an old classic to the top spot.  I guess he has more viewers than the troglodytes at MSNBC.

"Way More" oil gushing out AFTER the fix?

Just one nimute:

Dr. Leifer said in an interview on Monday that judging from the video, cutting the pipe might have led to a several-fold increase in the flow rate from the well.

“The well pipe clearly is fluxing way more than it did before,” said Dr. Leifer, a researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “By way more, I don’t mean 20 percent, I mean multiple factors.”

It looks like Obama may be responsible for making the oil leak much worse.

Is Dr. Leifer delivering the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, or were there government scientists predicting a "way more" increase in the flow even before the pipe was cut? Were these pessimists over-ruled by a larger, more vocal, or better connected group of scientists arguing the "No worries" viewpoint? Were they over-ruled by politicos who needed to say they were Doing Something? Was the decision to cut the riser made by BP, the Coast Guard, the White House, or by whom? This BP press release says the plan was reviewed by the Coast Guard and the DOE experts, but where did the buck stop?

At his May 27 press conference, Obama claimed that every major BP step was US Government approved:

But make no mistake: BP is operating at our direction. Every key decision and action they take must be approved by us in advance.

Then make no mistake - the President had pessimistic scientists on his team who thought snipping the riser might dramatically increase the flow rate of the leaking well, or else he got advice from a group of erring optimists (or Dr. Leifer is an Erring and Lonely Pessimist). If the pessimists were outspoken, presumably they were overruled by other Administration officials or scientists, not BP.

He said it, I didn't.

Top Ten Barack Obama Tough Guy Lines

“My name is Barack Obama. You spilled oil in my gulf. Prepare for finger pointing.”

Israeli students trying to organize flotilla to Turkey

Why not? 

The most ambitious of the two plans has been devised by members of Israel’s National Student Union, who this week announced their intention to set sail toward Turkey, in an effort to bring humanitarian aid to the “oppressed people of Turkish Kurdistan” and to members of the “Turkish Armenian minority.”

Oh this should be good.

What Should “Public” Education Cost?

When the answer stops being "more."

The Bullish Case for U.S. Economy, U.S. Equities

I'm feeling better about the US market.  After rising 80% from trough to peak, the market needs a pullback to avoid an overvalued bubble.  We're getting that now.

Funny how extremism in the defense of liberalism is no vice.

This is about Blanche Lincoln and her radical Left opponent supported by MoveOn.org.  But it could just as well be about Helen Thomas.

You have to admit he and the press ran a masterful campaign.

Byron York: Spill reveals Obama's lack of executive experience

Croft said to Obama, "there's no executive experience, and in fact, correct if I'm wrong, the only thing that you've actually run was the Harvard Law Review."


"Well, I've run my Senate office, and I've run this campaign," Obama said.

And that satsfied the press.

Teens Face Worst Summer Job Market in 41 Years

Trillions of dollars spent and all they got was this lousy T-shirt: "The worst economy since Lyndon Johnson."

Joran van der Sloot confesses.

I have a feeling other bodies will turn up.  Like cockroaches, there's never just one.

Gold sets a record

A vote of "no confidence" in Obama.

Newsweek: "women are stupid and helpless."

What do you expect from the patriarchy?

Reuters hides the knife

The Reuters news agency removed from its photos a knife in the hand of a "peace activist" standing over a bloodstained IDF boarder on the "humanitarian" flotilla.

Pictures don't lie? Hah!

White House press corps not surprised by Helen Thomas outburst.

Thomas: "thank God for Hezbollah" But the press loved her.  Says a lot about the press.  Says a lot about the reason they're hated.

Another "Macaca" moment? Not for Helen Thomas.

Another "Oh, that biased media" moment: 

Another "Macaca" moment, but infinitely worse, and actually bigoted? Not a chance, if the Post can help it.

Remember "Macaca?"  The racial slur that no had ever heard of, that no one ever knew?  The one that the Washington Post used to brand George Allen a racist and sink his election?  The remark that appeared on the Washington Post over 131 times.

Following the Macaca video, the Post ran no fewer than 131 articles on Allen’s slur. Thirteen of the articles slammed Allen on the front page, and 34 were in the national section or on the main editorial page.

If you read the Washington Post today there would be scant mention of a remark that, compared to Macaca, is a nuclear bomb compared to a 4th of July sparkler. 

From Pajamas Media: 

It is day four of the Helen Thomas saga. The 89-year-old White House doyen, adored by Washington’s liberal mainstream media, told a Jewish rabbi in a video that Jews must “get the hell out of Palestine” and must “go home” to Germany and Poland.

The issue has been raging since Thomas’ ugly comments were released on Friday by RabbiLive.com. Ironically, Thomas made her remarks at a White House Jewish Heritage Month observance.

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post, there is near silence. As of the this writing, searching “Helen Thomas site:washingtonpost.com” on Google brings up two articles on Thomas being dropped as a commencement speaker at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, a Howard Kurtz piece mentioning her remarks, and a post debating if Hearst will drop Thomas as a journalist.

Otherwise, the Post, which prides itself since the days of Watergate as being the “political” paper of record, is dark.

So what's the problem with the Post being in the Hamas corner?

The media watchdog organization CAMERA has long critiqued the Post for feeding anti-Israel bias. They reported 25 major instances in 2009.

In the wake of the global anti-Semitic blasts of the past week, the Post’s continuing near-silence about the anti-Semitic views of the White House’s leading liberal columnist only aids and abets hatred and bigotry.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Meanwhile the Virginian Pilot focuses on the REAL outrage: a Virginia Beach council member using official stationery to write a letter to New Yorkers objection to the Cordoba mosque.  It has been a multi-day story leading to an outraged editorial and a column by Kerry Dougherty.  The Thomas remarks come at the end of a hagiographic smooch in an AP reprint.

I, for one, welcome our Muslim overlords.

Jonah Goldberg on Helen Thomas

Can we do away with all of the shock and dismay at Thomas' statement? Spare me Lanny Davis's wounded outrage. Everyone knows she is a nasty piece of work and has been a nasty piece of work for decades.

And when I say a nasty piece of work, I don't simply mean her opinions on Israel. She's been full-spectrum awful. I've known a few people who knew her 40 years ago, and she was slimy then too. ....

Also, let's just get the liberal bias thing out of the way. If there was a right-winger who'd spouted so much bile, hate, and ideological agenda-driven nonsense in the White House briefing room for half a century it would be . . . oh wait, no such person would have ever been allowed to become a Washington "institution" in the first place. According to the media graybeards, it's always been a sign of seriousness and unwavering truth-seeking for reporters to attack from the left (c.f. Dan Rather, Daniel Schorr, et al.).

See? She's not biased she asks Obama and Clinton tough questions too! Yes, from the hard, loony left.

All of these condemnations, equivocations, repudiations, and protestations are all fundamentally silly because they are part of a D.C. Kabuki that treats the last straw as if it was wholly different than the million other straws everyone was happy to carry.

Suddenly, all of these people and groups are stunned to discover that Helen Thomas is . . . Helen Thomas. Feh.

Now if he were a Republican this would be a scandal.

The ties that bind. Remember Rahm Emanuel's rent-free D.C. apartment? The owner: A BP adviser.

Put an (R) after his name and the Washington Post would carry this story on the front page for months, the NY Times would call for Obama's impeachment and there would be endless talk about the "culture of corruption." 

But the MFM is too busy lobbying for a Washington bailout to to bite the had that's going to feed the,

I'm sort of curious about the FTC initiative to put journalists onto the government payroll.  It's like having a live-in girlfriend who gives her favors to you for free, but you insist on leaving money on the dresser.  It's not like they won't not love you  in the morning.

Genuine bigots on the left are celebrated.

Investors Business Daily in Helen of Oy points out that Helen Thomas is not the only openly bigoted leftist who has been idolized by the fellow members of the media.

The "retirement" of Helen Thomas comes as no surprise. Neither did the remarks that prompted it. She's expressed such sentiments before, and her brethren in the White House press corps, which salivates over any politically incorrect utterance from the right, let her get away with it.

She got away with it for the same reason those on the left from Bill Maher to Keith Olbermann get away with similar over-the-top sentiments. It depends on whose political ox is being gored. Tea Partyers who oppose the policies of the first black president are racists. Genuine bigots on the left are celebrated.

Looking at pictures of Helen Thomas, I am reminded of "The Picture of Dorian Grey" in reverse. Thomas' reputation was carefully burnished by her supporters while the actual image of Thomas was repellent, indicative of her hatred for Jews, for America and for democracy.

helen Thomas IS the face of American journalism.

In a way, it's a shame that Thomas is gone.Her departure will be blamed on the Jews, on the Right, on those who wish to suppress freedom of speech.  She should be there as a constant reminder of the kind of person lauded by the MFM.  Sort of ironic for those who decided that Jeff Gannon should not be allowed to part of the White House press corps.  Whatever he was, one thing he was not: a Jew hating abettor of the next holocaust.

The FTC Confuses Newspapers With Journalism as it Seeks New Media Tax

As the FTC seeks to tax you and the alternative media to give support to the dinosaur media, the MSM, The MFM (whatever you want to call it) make your voice heard.

Why does the FTC want to do any of this? I am not a mind reader, but the FTC is an “independent” agency run by people appointed by the Obama Administration, which has been antagonistic to an Internet it cannot control and nostalgic for the good old days when the news was controlled by a handful of mostly liberal newsmen.


The FTC is merely suggesting these proposals. It adds, “we welcome additional proposals, which can be submitted” here. I suggest you write to them.?

At the very least, click on the link and let the FTC know what you think. 

All the President's Newsmen

If you thought that the news was in the bag for Obama, wait until he signs their paychecks.



One comment:

Great idea! We could call it The Ministry of Truth, or "MiniTrue" for short.

The Maureen Dowd Narrative

Richard Fernandez considers the difference between reality and perception.

During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran’s forces were no match for Saddam Hussein’s professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child’s neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.

At one point, however, the earthly gore became a matter of concern. “In the past,” wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettelaat as the war raged on, “we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes would henceforth be avoided, Ettelaat assured its readers. “Before entering the minefields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.”

Who needs an APOBS when you’ve got willpower like that? None of this matters because as Maureen Dowd probably knows, facts depicting non-Western ‘brutality’ don’t count at all in stories. Nobody is interested in them. Now talk about a guy handling a Koran without gloves and you have a war crime. That’s what is meant by narratives. Speaking of narratives, the one word which neither Burton nor the White House have used with respect to the “humanitarian flotillas” is that they are a type human shield tactic. Like the Nazis and the Soviets and the Ayatollah, Hamas figures that if you send enough human shields into the Israeli blockade the inevitable collision will clear a path through which all kinds of goodies can eventually flow through to Hamas. That’s as plain as day, as is the actual fact that the “human shield” tactic is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. But you have to establish that to the public, creative the narrative as it were. Since the media knows it won’t sell, why bother to talk about it....

Perhaps Maureen Dowd is right. From long experience, she may have come to believe that nothing matters except appearances. The storyline, the dek, the masthead, the narrative — these are the atomic bombs of the 21st century. Call a person a ‘peace activist’ and though he might be Charles Manson himself, an aura of sanctity descends upon him. Call a flotilla humanitarian for long enough, even though the humanitarian goods they deliver are themselves refused by the recipients unless imbued with political content, and the flotilla becomes humanitarian. “Hamas officials on Wednesday refused to allow into the Gaza Strip 21 truckloads of humanitarian aid that had been offloaded from the Gaza-bound flotilla ships currently docked at Ashdod Port, until ‘all’ of those detained in Monday’s naval raid were released.” It’s all in the labeling. What’s inside the can is irrelevant. The goods are spoiled anyhow; they’ve been touched by Jewish hands.

Once upon a time “making a difference” meant changing reality. It meant winning actual victories, making actual things, saving actual lives. Today it means changing the narrative, altering perceptions, hiding brutality, or better yet, convincing the audience that brutality happens only when the dramatic cues come on. Dowd ends on this note:

This president has made it clear that he’s not comfortable outside whatever domain he’s defined. But unless he wants his story to be marred by a pattern of passivity, detachment, acquiescence and compromise, he’d better seize control of the story line of his White House years. Woe-is-me is not an attractive narrative.

Is it a sane thought?

"We Con the World!"

Something Wonderful: Tea Party Member Stuns Crowd

Things to Be Learned from the Gaza Flotilla Operation

The Great Clean Copper Clapper Caper

Obama getting up and going to bed focuses on ... PARTY!!!!!

The hardships of the Presidency as the oil leaks, more are thrown out of work, homes are repossessed at record rates and the Europeans go broke.  This cool guy really likes to PARTY!!!!

From Drudge:  OBAMA OFF TO THE THEATER

Sent: Sun Jun 06 18:06:32 2010

Subject: pool report #1

Reception in the East Room prior to performance at Ford's Theatre

Print pool only was ushered into the East Room about 5:20 p.m. where many elegant ladies in long dresses and men in tuxedos were standing sipping drinks and eating small finger food. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood came over to say hello to the pool but the president and first lady were announced before there was any real conversation. A few faces spotted in the crowd, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Rep. John Dingell and his wife.

Helen Thomas Updates

A Liberal heard from:
Helen Thomas Should Go, Says Lanny Davis

Her agent also decided that he could no longer represent her.  But there are lots of people who will continue to stand by her, citing her Liberal record.  Vehement anti-Semitism is forgivable in the Liberal community.  Read the comments. Most of them are along the lines of this one from someone who goes by Flatus:

For goodness sake, Craig, separate her remarks from all the rest of the substance of your relationship which is good and important for both of you. She is a wonderful human being who overshadows virtually all others in any of the serious professions.


So she disappoints by having a lapse of judgment. Who amongst us hasn't done the same well before our late 80s?

Those defending her basically are saying she's developed dementia without using that term.  So would that be a reason for removing her from the White House press pool?

Neo-neocon translated Thomas' non-apology apology.

And by the way, when did the words “I regret” come to constitute an apology? Here’s the full statement Helen Thomas released in an attempt to absolve herself after her initial offensive remarks—and remember, this woman is a writer, so we can assume she is choosing her phrases carefully here:

I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.

Are these words of apology? Where is any indication that Thomas acknowledges her moral transgression? And to whom is she “apologizing?” There is no object of this so-called apology.

Translation of Thomas’s statement:

I wish I hadn’t said it, and I especially wish I hadn’t gotten caught on camera saying it.

But I don’t take it back, I won’t apologize to those evil Israelis/Jews. Instead, I’ll put out some cover words that indicate I want peace to come to the Middle East. Of course, my idea of “peace” in the Middle East is for the illegitimate Israelis to leave the area and make it Judenrein, as I made crystal clear in my previous, more spontaneous, statement.

And then I’ll speak in some general moral equivalency terms about respect and tolerance on both sides—a respect and tolerance I completely failed to show towards the Israelis. That sort of non-apology ought to do the trick and get me off the hook with the idiots who don’t think too deeply.

Jennifer Rubin points out that the press fails to police itself even as it demands other sectors of society do so.

We’ll see if the White House is willing to endure yet another controversy by continuing to host a bigot who uses her perch in the briefing room to spout her venom. It is pathetic that the press corps does not police itself. They’re very fond of calling on business and government to do that but atrocious at doing it themselves. Let’s hope neither Hearst nor the White House has the stomach for this and gives Thomas the boot.

Apollo 13, the Gulf Oil Spill, and BP

The Obama administrations actions following the Golf oil rig explosion has been one of finger pointing and blame shifting. Almost all of the efforts to remedy the situation have been taken by private industry and local government officials. In the mode of “the beatings will continue until morale improves” the Obama team has harassed, not aided the efforts of those who have been on the front lines.

Harrison Schmidt makes the point dramatically:

Nothing in the government’s response to the blowout explosion on the Deepwater Horizon and its aftermath bears any resemblance to the response to the Apollo 13 situation by NASA and its mission control team at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

Gene Kranz and his Apollo 13 flight controllers and engineers worked on the assumption that “failure was not an option.” In contrast, President Obama and those claiming to have been on top of the Gulf oil spill situation “from day one” assumed that failure is an option and, indeed, may want BP to fail for their own ideological reasons. Whatever their motives, the president and his cabinet officers, without any experience in real-world management of anything major, much less a crisis, have no idea how to deal with a situation as technically complex as the Gulf oil spill.

It has been left to BP engineers and managers and to Gulf state officials to respond as best they can in a regulatory environment that is politically charged, incompetent, fearful, and hesitant. Rather than allowing BP to stay focused only on solving the problems of the spill, Attorney General Holder now has launched a civil and criminal investigation! And let’s then follow with sending an unsupported bill to BP for $69 billion! For good measure, lets also stop offshore oil exploration by the United States. How misguided (or ignorant and devious) can our president be!

Following the path that the MFM have created for him, Obama is focusing his energies on showing emotion since he’s been criticized by the same media, not for being a clueless idiot, but for not “feeling the pain” of the people on the Gulf coast. As if emotion will somehow make their situation any better or “plug the damn hole.”

Here's the brutal truth:

If America and freedom are to survive indefinitely, the next Congress must begin to restore sanity and intelligence to national energy policy. Until economically competitive alternatives become fully feasible, fossil fuels will remain the mainstay of our economy. Our dependence on unstable foreign sources of oil has become one of our greatest national security vulnerabilities that only domestic production can solve in the next 50 years.

Glenn Reynolds: Higher education's bubble is about to burst

I agree wholeheartedly.  The money quote:

My question is whether traditional academic institutions will be able to keep up with the times, or whether -- as Anya Kamenetz suggests in her new book, "DIY U" -- the real pioneering will be in online education and the work of "edupunks" who are more interested in finding new ways of teaching and learning than in protecting existing interests.

I'm betting on the latter. Industries seldom reform themselves, and real competition usually comes from the outside.

Conservatives upset over Helen Thomas' demand that Jews go back to Poland and Germany. Why aren’t Liberals?

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post notes that Conservatives have condemned Helen Thomas for what are clearly anti-Semitic remarks. In fact, they put Thomas on the same page as the most radical supporters of Hamas and other violent Jew haters.

Jim Treacher asks: why aren’t Liberals?

From my own blog, here is a good example of the kind of neo-Nazi that shares Thomas’ views, suggesting that Jews should be exterminated: “it’s a natural as pest control.” Gas ovens anyone? I’m leaving the comment up because it’s such a great, and scary, illustration of the kind of mind that envisions a “final solution.”

UPDATE:  If course she's a Liberal so apologizing for making remarks remarks that would get a Conservative fired in a heartbeat makes it all OK.  Nothing to see here, move along.

Let's see, which is more offensive:  the Tea Party demonstrators being accused of calling members of the Congressional Black Caucus the "N" word, or telling Jews in Israel "... go back to Poland ... or Germany."  One gets you called a racist by every Liberal that can talk or write even though there's overwhelming evidence that the racial slur was never uttered.  The other one was said in an interview to a video camera.  There's no question of what she said or what she meant.

Let's see, a made-up racial incident sparks outrage among the press corps.  Blatant anti-Semitism bordering on Nazi-like hatred of Jews is OK.  It's forgive and forget because she's a dues paying one of THEM.  Bees in the hive don't sting each other.

Apparently, there is no limit to how far one can go — provided Jews are the object of the venom.

I would add Christains to that catagory.

Preparing for the "Final Solution"

One, just one, of the reasons Liberals and Progressives are so despicable is their support of groups that are actively seeking for another "Final solution" to the "Jewish Problem."

An outstanding example of the type is Helen Thomas, the White House press queen, beloved and revered by the White House press corps who had this to say about Jews

Shown here with the object of her affection, Barack Hussein Obama,

Thomas made the ultimate Washington Gaffe, she spoke what's in her heart, what she really believes, and I'm supremely confident what much of the White House press also believes, but is too politically astute to say. Thomas, on the other hand, is so old she may have problems with what comes out of her bladder, and can no longer control what comes out of her mouth.

Charles Krauthammer effectively sums up the ways in which Israelis have tried to defend their minute slice of land surrounded by enemies who still revered Hitler's actions against the Jews and are determined to finish the job.  A job that is being made easier by the Liberals and Progressives not just in the United States but the rest of the world.

The Mandarin Class

Sure, we may see them as nutty know-nothings who got an English degree or went to J-school because they flunked high school math, but they see themselves the unelected leaders of the nation, the Mandarin Class.  And why not, thousands of people read their daily jottings and people actually ask their opinions.

If you sometimes wonder why Rush Limbaugh has changed his mantra from the “drive-by media” (lazy, disinterested character assassins who can’t be bothered to get blood on their hands) to the “state-controlled media” (slavish lickspittle apparatchiks bucking for career advancement), you need look no further than this news announcement, courtesy of Politico’s Ben Smith:

Another jump from the media to politics: ABC News’s deputy political director, Teddy Davis, emails that he’s leaving the network to join SEIU’s already-muscular communications and politics operation.

Years ago another government/journalist stooge, Walter Lippman wrote:

My conclusion is that public opinions must be organized for the press if they are to be sound, not by the press as is the case today.

And that, in a nutshell, is how many of today’s elite journalists still think of their jobs. They’re a mandarin class, a collection of high priests who circle the thrones of power and interpret the words and deeds of the sovereign for the benefit of the masses. (Unless, of course, the king is a tyrant and a usurper, in which case they work overtime for his speedy removal.)

Lippman wrote at a time when many Progressives were supporters of one or another of the European fascists and communists who could do what today's pundits like Tom Friedman would like to see: a government that can act without regard to the will of the people; in Friedman's case a wish that we could have the Chinese style of government.  That is why those of us in the new media are watching the slow death of the old media (the MFM) with great satisfaction.

SEIU Thugs Target Red Cross, Threaten Blood Supply

Is there any low to which the SEIU won't stoop? Now it's interrupting blood donations in a strike against the American Red Cross. The Boy Scouts and Baptist churches are also on unions' enemies list.
Demanding higher wages and better benefits, the Service Employees International Union on Wednesday launched a three-day strike against the Red Cross' blood donation operations. The job action comes as the nonprofit, in a realistic response to the weak economy, is cutting salaries, ending bonuses and reducing pensions.


SEIU thinks its members should not only be exempt from the Red Cross' efforts to live within its means, but actually get a raise.

Candidate Kaus Takes Contrarian View of Voter Revolt

Democrat congressman: "I want Republicans put in prison"

This is always how it starts. First a whack job says it and after a while there's a movement, then it becomes conventional wisdom and finally government policy.  This isn't funny any more, it's becoming scary.

Helen Thomas to Jews: "Go home to Poland"

This is always how it starts. First a whack job says it and after a while there's a movement, then it becomes conventional wisdom and finally government policy. This isn't funny any more, it's becoming scary.

Chris Christie: 'This Is Not About Teachers'

“Leach’s speeches demonstrate the cosmic gulf between Jim Leach’s opinion of his abilities and Jim Leach’s abilities.”

Via Powerline:

After illustrating the dense and inscrutable prose the passes for "smarts" in Jim Leach's opinion of himself, Scott Johnson mentions a revealing insight into Obama's choice for the Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities

The new issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly reports that Leach's office in Washington's refurbished Post Office building is filled with painted wooden cutouts of famous "iconoclasts," among them "Rep. Jeannette Rankin, the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in both world wars [and] Henry Wallace, vice president under Franklin Roosevelt, who lost his place on the ticket to Harry Truman..."

Henry Wallace! I have long thought that Roosevelt's replacement of Wallace with Truman on the Democratic ticket in 1944 provided irrefutable proof that God looks out for the United States. Wallace was a fool who would have altered the course of history very much for the worse if he had succeeded Roosevelt to the presidency in 1945 instead of Truman. Among other evidence of Wallace's foolishness, one thinks of Wallace's 1948 campaign that led him into an alliance with the Communists who were the backbone of the Progressive Party.

Every day in every way the mind of the man we elected as President is revealed.

THe "Master Race"

PRIVET HEDGES

This is so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.  Written by Rachel Peepers at Eternity Road

PRIVET HEDGES

(verses)
The first brigade was standing in formation
One goodbye away from flying off to war
While the CO spoke of duty and dedication
Their family’s tears fell like they never did before

A little girl walked up as they stood at attention
She reached up to hold a Marine Sergeant’s hand
He didn’t recognize her, she didn’t look familiar
Why she picked him he did not understand

CHORUS

She smelled of privet hedges in the springtime
The kind that he grew up with in his hometown
Her hair was gold the color of cornfields
And eyes a deep shade of chestnut brown

(verses)
His third patrol started out like the others
Down a dusty road though a quiet town
Three Humvees and forty men advancing
It seemed like no one knew they were around

When suddenly the smell of privet hedges
And the golden hue of the sun shown down
and on a Humvee somebody’d written the name Sarah
The Sergeant quickly gave the order to slow down

The first barrage landed short by 30 meters
Then small arms fire came in like pelting rain
No one was hit and he called in the copters
And 16 attackers were not heard from again

There were many more patrols for that young sergeant
Who had a reputation for smelling trouble a mile away
And after their tour of duty ended
His entire unit they came home to stay

His hometown they all came out to greet them
A reserve detachment all hundred forty four
Somewhere in between all the hugs and kisses
He thought he saw the girl he’d seen before

CHORUS

She smelled of privet hedges in the springtime
The kind that he grew up with in his hometown
Her hair was gold the color of cornfields
And eyes a deep shade of chestnut brown

(verses)
The years past and he worked his farmland
His kids grew up, he and his wife their hair turned gray
At 89 he developed some heart problems
And in his hospital room there was a spray

That smelled of privet hedges in the springtime
Wrapped in pretty paper that had a golden tone
The note said simply, “Much love, Sarah”
After one last kiss, his loving wife went home

It was almost dawn when he awoke and felt much better
Breathing deep like he was young once more
Then he noticed sitting in the corner
Was the little girl that he’d seen before.

He smiled and said you must be Sarah
And she said, you’re my Marine so brave and strong
He took the hand of his little guardian angel
In the blink of an eye the both of them were gone

She smelled of privet hedges in the springtime
The kind that he grew up with in his hometown
Her hair was gold the color of cornfields
And eyes a deep shade of chestnut brown

Obama's FTC plan to reinvent America's news media

First it was the car companies, then the banks, then investment firms, now the newspapers.  Is there nothing that the Obama Administrtion does not want to control?  Is there nothing that those "brave" defenders of the First Amendment won't bow down to?  From the LA Times

What hasn't been widely-known, until now, is that a year ago the new Democrat administration of Barack Obama launched a major internal study intended to design a major government rescue plan for the nation's financially-troubled information media, primarily newspapers.

That strident sound you hear are the alarms going off in minds and offices across the country: Government helping the press? Which press? How help? In return for what?

Well, two years ago who'd have thought the feds would own General Motors with major holdings in a bunch of banks and financial institutions, reshaped the healthcare industry, spent $787 billion on who-knows-what to create some jobs, have rewritten a package of new financial regulations to corral Wall Street and still not be securing the U.S.-Mexico border?

This wouldn’t be happening if Obama was President. Impeach Sarah Palin!

If only Barack Obama had been elected and old John McCain hadn’t died, we wouldn’t have a clueless radical demagogue in the White House whose only talent is giving a speech to fire up the rubes.

If only we had listened to the media.

Oh wait ….

Great comment from the readers of the LA Times blog: 

The Democrat party and the press have been sleeping together for years. Obama just plans to put a ring on it- make an honest woman out of CNNMSNBCCBSABCNBC


BUT if you put a ring on a whore, she's still a whore- just with jewelery

General Andrew Breitbart's New Media War

CBN Interview: 

Breitbart describes himself as a "secular Jew" who grew up in liberal circles.

"My commitment to the left was about an inch deep, but it was a fashion to wear," he said.

But his fashion taste took a conservative turn during the congressional hearings on then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

"I went in with popcorn on my lap with a big diet coke," Breitbart recalled. "They're going 'Lets take this guy down.' And by the end of the hearing I went from rooting for this guy to be taken down to throwing my shoe at the television set, outraged."

He was angry because the liberal left was exposed as trying to take down a man who was living the great American dream. "They were willing to destroy him because he didn't have the right political view," Breitbart said.

There were also other changes ahead in his life. Breitbart acknowledges that he had a conversion process on his attitude towards Christians, too.

"I grew up loathing the religious right to the core of my being. But it wasn't a thought process," he explained. "It what was handed to me."

When he traveled south to study at Tulane University in New Orleans, he says he started to think for himself. Those he met helped transform his worldview.

"I am not Christian but I love Christian people," Breitbart said. "I've come to realize that if they did not exist, this country would not exist in the form that exists."

Amen.

Who In the MSM Will Stand Up For Michael Yon?

Via Instapundit:

RON FUTRELL: Who In the MSM Will Stand Up For Michael Yon? “Let the administration boot Helen Thomas out of her seat in the front of a White House press conference and there would be outrage. Remove Jonathan Karl from the Capitol and media would revolt. Kick Andrea Kremer off Sunday Night Football and there would be pandemonium. And yet nobody in the media seems to have much of a problem with Michael Yon being removed from the front lines by Obama/General McChrystal.”

You remember how Jews were constantly sneaking across the border into Nazi Germany?

Ann Coulter has a column headlined: Did You Plug the Hole With a Blue Dress Yet, Daddy?

A few pithy excerpts:

The New York Times' Linda Greenhouse recently compared the Arizona law to Hitler's policies toward the Jews. You remember how Jews were constantly sneaking across the border into Nazi Germany? ...

And:

Suck up to Hispanics with insane amnesty proposals; get one out of three Hispanic voters. Do the right thing and defend the country's borders; get one out of three Hispanic voters. ... Promise to make every Tuesday "Ladies' Night"; get one out of three Hispanic voters. Offer them a choice between "Extra Crispy" and "Original Recipe"; get one out of three Hispanic voters....

And finally:

As far as I'm concerned, the only good thing Obama has done so far is to endorse Specter, thus ensuring his defeat.

Maybe Obama should endorse oil spills.

This wouldn’t be happening if Obama was President. Impeach Sarah Palin!

If only Barack Obama had been elected and old John McCain hadn’t died, we wouldn’t have a clueless radical demagogue in the White House whose only talent is giving a speech to fire up the rubes.

If only we had listened to the media.

Oh wait ….

Michelle Obama Admits Kenya is Barack Hussein Obama's Home Country

Obama's 'Chicago Way' plunders the private sector

Michael Barone believes that Obama is really unaware that America is not Chicago. I'm not sure, but it's one theory.

An interesting thing about Barack Obama is that he chose, on two occasions, to live in Chicago -- even though he didn't grow up there, had no family ties there, never went to school there.

It was a curious choice. Chicago has a civic culture all its own and one that is particularly insular. ...

So it's natural for a Chicago Way president to assume that higher taxes and a hugely expensive health care regime will not make a perceptible dent in the nation's private sector economy. There will always be plenty to plunder.

...

It assumes that there will always be a Machine that you can complain about and that if you make a big enough fuss it will have to respond. And that the Machine can always get more plunder from the private sector.

The problem with Obama's Chicago Way is that Chicago isn't America. The Chicago Way works locally because there is an America out there that ultimately pays for it. But who will pay for an America run the Chicago Way?

The Nanny Zone

When will the dream meet reality?

Most of the American people have finally become aware that if you spend a lot more than you take in, eventually you go broke. That’s as true of countries as of individuals. Exhibit “A” is Greece. The American people are not economists, but they have finally gotten worried enough that they are beginning to rebel against the really, really smart people – those who fancy themselves as our natural aristocracy – and are telling them to stop the madness, or else that natural aristocracy is going to find itself out of office.

Other than budget busting spending, the other big, big project of our really, really smart class is getting away from fossil fuels, NOW! The answer is electric cars. The government part of this is to make gasoline and coal so expensive that people will turn to electricity to run their cars. And the electricity for those cars is going to come from … the plug in the wall. And that plug in the wall is going to be connected to a power station, via a “smart grid” (wouldn’t want a “dumb grid”) which is going to run on … and then a miracle happens.

A real miracle because the government is going to make coal and oil prohibitively expensive. So that power is going to come from wind and solar power and … stop with the questions already. We know what we want, the rest is a detail that’s for the lower classes; the nerds who engineer and build things to make electricity and stuff. We really, really smart people create the concept and it’s up to you guys, you peons whose job it is to actually bring our grand plans to reality and to work out the details. You don't expect us to do all the work for you, don't you? 

We know our way works so well because we see what happened when The One gave the order to “plug the damn hole.” Instant success!

So let’s follow Woody Allen’s advice (or was it Tom Friedman) and make Barack Obama dictator. And he can wave his dictatorial wand and scrap the auto fleet and decree that everyone who wants a car shall have an electric car. And if you can’t afford one, you’ll get a free car from Obama/UAW Motors.

And all the people cheered and rushed out to pick up their new electric cars and plugged them into the wall and crashed the electrical system. Because nearly half or our electrical power used to be generated by coal, the rest by natural gas or nuclear power so when the edict went out to stop the use of fossil fuels, the US lost about 75% of its electric generating capacity. In fact, there was barely enough electricity to turn on the lights but not enough to run our air conditioners, electric appliances, factories or office machines. Not a problem, because the White House is supplied by its own stand-by generator and Obama’s golf cart is not air conditioned.

It turns out that if we want to have our electric cars actually, you know, drive us to the store or to work, we’ll have to actually increase the amount of power generated by that dirty old coal. And the pollution from those coal fired plants will be greater than the pollution that those bad old gasoline powered cars ever produced.

But don’t tell that to the really, really smart people because they will call you a class enemy, and accuse you of being in the pay of Big Bad Oil. Because when it comes to really, really smart people who have big ideas, if you come between their dream and reality, the dream always wins. It’s just a little hard to remember when a dream becomes a nightmare.

The Census Bureau Defrauds the Taxpayer. Exposed by James O'Keefe

Via Breitbart's "Big Government"

"There are too many bureaucrats and they are paid too much"

Powerline via Instapundit

“There are, indeed, two Americas: the increasingly straitened world of the private sector, where jobs are competitive, money is scarce, and job security is, for many, nonexistent; and the lush world of the government employee, where competition is more or less unknown, salaries and benefits often double those available to private workers, retirement is ten or more years earlier than in the private sector, and it may take a felony to get fired. This is the central economic conflict of our time, between lavishly compensated and ever more gluttonous government employees, and wealth-creating private citizens who are increasingly unable to support their public-sector masters in the style to which they have become accustomed.”

Conservative Anthropology

Jonah Goldberg has the Liberal writer's attempt to describe conservatives pitch perfect.

But, my point is, whenever I read liberals reporting about the goings-on of conservatives I always get the nature-documentary vibe. A liberal reporter puts on his or her Dian Fossey hat in order to attempt to write another installment of Conservatives in the Mist. I've followed this particular brand of reporting for years, it's almost a fetish of mine. Most attempts fail. Of these lesser varieties, there's fear ("Troglodytes!"), mockery ("Irrelevant troglodytes!"), condescension ("I had to explain to them they're troglodytes."), bewilderment ("Why don't they understand they're troglodytes?"), astonishment (Dear God, they're not all troglodytes!"), and a few combinations of all the above.

Calling Donny Luzatto!

We’re too broke to be this stupid

Mark Steyn in Macleans. 

Only the wealthy can make stupid mistakes without worry.

Back in 2008, when I was fulminating against multiculturalism on a more or less weekly basis, a reader wrote to advise me to lighten up, on the grounds that “we’re rich enough to afford to be stupid.”

Two years later, we’re a lot less rich. In fact, many Western nations are, in any objective sense, insolvent. Hence last week’s column, on the EU’s decision to toss a trillion dollars into the great sucking maw of Greece’s public-sector kleptocracy. It no longer matters whether you’re intellectually in favour of European-style social democracy: simply as a practical matter, it’s unaffordable.

How did the Western world reach this point? Well, as my correspondent put it, we assumed that we were rich enough that we could afford to be stupid.

Read the rest.

Everything You Cannot Know About Obama Is In This Photograph

Via Vanderleun:

What are ordinary Americans to make of this strange man-child who has, through sloth and design in the media, sloth and inattention among the body politic, and cupidity, corruption and chicanery within his dark political machine, risen to dominate the landscape? What are ordinary Americans to make of this most un-American of all our erstwhile leaders; a man profoundly ungrounded in the American earth? It is a protean question, painful and difficult to contemplate, to which ordinary Americans will give but a partial answer this November.


In the meantime, there will be an ever increasing addition of possible answers and pondering added to the already towering tsunami of non-information available on the subject of Obama. It is by now a commonplace that never has so little been known about so pivotal a figure in our history. In this case partial ignorance leads not to bliss but rather an opera buffa that is sung in the key of existential distress and portends a finale that is not "a comedy tonight," but a Roman Tragedy replete with fire and blood.


Conspiracy abhors a vacuum and we've had more than our share of theories, speculations, dire warnings, and dark murmurings about a leader's life that is, in many ways, less documented than the undocumented Democrats oozing across our southern borders.


He is /is not a natural-born citizen.
His mother was / was not a harlot.
His father was / was not a man named Obama.
His mentor was a black Communist pornographer/poet.
His mentor was a crazed, race-hustling preacher on the make in Chicago.
His mentor was a bitter Red agitator with an sheaf of techniques for destroying the country.
If we knew his college grades we'd see how brilliant he is.
We don't know his college grades because he's much less brilliant that he seems.
He wrote his books.
He couldn't write a rubber check.
His books are the accurate transcript of his life.
His books are carefully crafted legends.
He's out to rule the world.
He's just another hack politician in the iron mold of corrupt Chicago pols since time immemorial.


With Obama the best that can be said is, "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned." We simply do not know enough, even now, to know who this stranger among us is.

Read the rest.

Sell Everything Immediately (Laughing as you sink)

Via Jonah Goldberg at NRO

Michael Ramirez watched the video.

Cartoonist Ramirez on the "Peace Ship" incident. Via Powerline



The Video:

Most political cartoonists just indulge their prejudices. Michael Ramirez actually knows what he is talking, or drawing, about.

A great commentary on the Euro.

The Non-Job Offer

Trying to ridicule the Obama spin on the Sestak bribe is too easy. so here's some humor:

So the White House’s official story on whether they bribed Sestak with a job to get him to drop of the Senate race was that they sent Bill Clinton to offer Sestak an unpaid advisory position that he’d have to drop out of Congress for. That’s the story they spent so long making up? So I guess while they’re not admitting to anything illegal, they are admitting to being extremely moronic.

Still, we can’t dismiss the story completely. To think someone would jump at the chance to work with you in an unpaid advisory position takes a huge amount of arrogance, and that does fit Obama. Still, I’m guessing bribing people with jobs was pretty common practice in Chicago and Obama was just caught unaware it was actually illegal; naive and ignorant sounds like him too.

So what should we do with Obama? I’m happy if as punishment he has to write an essay on why bribing is wrong. That way, we’d at least know he’s learned something. So far, it seems like Obama isn’t anymore experienced now than when he was first picked to be president after his two week internship in the Senate. After his presidency, I at least want to say, “Yeah, he may have destroyed the country, but he really learned some important lessons doing it.”

Mickey Kaus for Senator

Meet the Death Panel Creator

MEET "OBAMA'S RATIONING MAN": Sebelius: Rationing Advocate is ‘Absolutely Right Leader At This Time’ to Run Medicare. Let's hear from Donald Berwick himself:

The decision is not whether or not we will ration care—the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly.

By “blindly” I can only presume he means that we as physicians dare to make decisions based on our expertise and our patients’ needs without seeking his permission or that of central control government elites.


It gets better:

...any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must, MUST redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is, by definition, redistributional."

Forgive me, Dr. Berwick, but I believe excellent health care is, by definition, simply the provision of excellent health care, not a means for your socialistic attempts of economic redistribution.


So what would Berwick have us do?

I am romantic about the [British] National Health Service; I love it.
He particularly loves how the Brits purposefully under supply their patients' health care needs:

I can hardly wait for an American Death Panel to "under supply our health care needs."  Because thousands of people will die, loving it.

Sarcasm does not get any better than this.

My favorite President Obama speech was the one where he pointed out that, although the problem under consideration was challenging, and there was no quick fix, Obama was trying the best that he could, and the most important thing we must all keep in mind was that the problem didn’t begin with him, it began with his predecessor, Obama only inherited it.

Remember that one? That particular speech was awesome.

I am 100% confident that Donny Luzatto will be searching his files of favorite Obama speeches.

"Smart Diplomacy" Just Blew Up. Is Obama a Suicide Bomber?

The Perils of Pauline are nothing compared to the Perils of Obama as his "Smart Diplomacy" craters and the American government stumbles from one catastrophe to the next.  At this point is looks as if his Middle East "smart diplomacy" resembles nothing so much as a would-be bomber who blows himself up assembling his bomb.

Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club opines that the Obama administration was dancing a complicated minuet designed to re-align the geopolitical interests in the Middle East.  Well, someone threw a spanner into the Rube Goldberg device and countries that were cool to each other are becoming hostile.  And where is America?  Hard to say.

The power of the referee rests in great part on his predictability. Everybody should know what he will call a foul. When Washington triangulates in the wrong way or relies on a Rube Goldberg scheme full of unknown variables to achieve its ends, a policy disaster may ensue. Imagine what would happen if America tried to re-architecture its Northeast Asian alliances in the middle of crisis. That would be to court disaster. Yet that’s exactly what may be happening in the Middle East. The Wall Street Journal says President Barack Obama’s “dream of knitting together a kind of loose American-Arab-Israeli front to stand up to Iran and its nuclear program” was in a shambles.

In a few violent minutes at sea Monday, that all went out the window. … All this began unfolding before the sun had even risen over Mr. Obama’s Chicago home, where he was spending the Memorial Day weekend. Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of ships headed for the Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian supplies to Palestinians there in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade of Hamas-run Gaza. …


Worse for the administration, this twist complicates its Iran strategy. The United Nations Security Council has been moving toward a resolution imposing new economic sanctions on Iran, but that’s now in danger of being slowed or sidetracked by the inevitable clamoring to condemn Israel.

It was a complex undertaking, replete with feints and bilateral talks. It had more moving parts than a Swiss watch. Then “nuance” met Murphy in the Clausewitzian “fog of war” and Murphy won. The Gaza flotilla upset the calculations and now the question is whether it can all be glued back together again. Simplicity has its virtues.

We can rely on the MFM to use its bullhorn to relay and amplify the Islamist terrorist propaganda.  Here's a video of the "peace activists" attacking Israeli soldiers.  Fernandez has it absolutely right here in the consolations of philosophy.

The main reason to worry is that it illustrates the Western MFM addiction to fiction, an addiction which sooner or later will have practical consequences. That addiction was also being pandered to on the other side of the world.

Another truth that no one wishes to admit is that North Korea sank the South Korean warship Cheonan, an act which the Security Council will no account denounce with the same vehemence as the interception of the “peace activists.” Notwithstanding the physical evidence nor the recovery of the North Korean torpedo which sank the ship, since China doesn’t admit to North Korea’s culpability what is factually true can never become officially true. It’s the narrative and the narrative and the narrative.

Both cases demonstrate that nothing is more paramount either to the establishment nor to the politically correct sections of the media than the maintenance of a lie. For the lie is in the service of the greater good. High reasons of policy will be invoked to explain why the truth should not be so. But the extreme reliance on fantasy by parts of the Western establishment goes well beyond surrounding a kernel of the truth with a “bodyguard of lies.” Instead it is the lie itself which is guarded by even more falsehoods. Gradually and inexorably, an entire political class has staked its existence on continuation of falsehood. The greater good is the fiction. Deception has become a necessity in itself.

As a result, any moderately well informed individual knows that there is no Islamic extremism, nor even terrorism. There are only man made disasters. Everybody knows that we can borrow our way out of debt, that the welfare state is the sustainable wave of the future; that Egypt has no border with Gaza through which it can provide supplies if it wanted; that the UN has kept Hezbollah from importing hundreds of missiles into Lebanon; that the thought of a handful of Jews has kept hundreds of millions of oil-rich Muslims from attaining prosperity; and that Global Warming is the main danger facing the planet Earth. That these assertions are untrue hardly matters; that they are indisputable is what seems to count. For who shall dispute them?

Reality might. And therein lies the problem.

Here’s what is going to happen with one hundred percent certainty. All of these lies will explode with considerable force in the faces of political establishment. Nothing can prevent it. Just as reality eventually exposed the hollowness of the financial bubble and showed that nothing was “too big to fail,” eventually it will demonstrate to our extreme cost, that no lie can be maintained forever. That is the real reason anyone should really care about what happened on the “peace flotilla.” We are as corrupt as a preacher in a whorehouse. It ain’t what we don’t know that will hurt us, it’s what we know that ain’t so that will drive the dagger into our hearts.

This wouldn’t be happening if Obama was President. Impeach Sarah Palin!
If only Barack Obama had been elected and old John McCain hadn’t died, we wouldn’t have a clueless radical demagogue in the White House whose only talent is giving a speech to fire up the rubes.

If only we had listened to the media.

Oh wait ….