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October 21, 2009
Exclusive: Oval Office Watch – Wednesday, October 21
Does Obama's communications chief know the bloody truth about Chairman Mao? GO HERE.
Obama to Critics: 'Grab a Mop!' Help Me Clean Up This Mess. SEE HERE.
The Democrats’ Coming Defeat CLICK HERE.
Kiss Your Money and Freedom Goodbye - Read it all HERE.
Anita Dunn herself: egg, face at the White House
Roger Kimball, Pajamas Media.com
Damage control time!
–She didn’t mean it.
–She was only quoting a Republican operative.
–Fox News is mean to Democrats.
–Glenn Beck is an extremist.
–The President is trying to clean up a big mess left by George Bush.
–Can’t we just change the subject?
When Glenn Beck aired a video of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn praising Chairman Mao — one of her “two favorite political philosophers” — in front of an audience of high school students, the conservative blogosphere lit up like a non-denominational sustainably harvested Kwanza tree. Read article.
Rush, Jesse, and Fidel
Humberto Fontova, American Thinker.com
Jesse Jackson's (public) objections to Rush Limbaugh's NFL ownership plan ran roughly as follows: "Rush Limbaugh made his wealth appealing to the fears of whites with an unending line of insults against blacks and other minorities...the National Football League has set high standards for racial justice and inclusion."
"Viva Fidel!" bellowed Rev. Jesse Jackson during his speech at the University of Havana in June 1984, while trailing a 300 person entourage that included Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "Viva Che Guevara!" he yelled again with fists raised high. "Long Live our cry of freedom!"
"He (Jesse Jackson) is a great personality," reciprocated a beaming Fidel Castro, "a brilliant man. Jackson's main characteristic is honesty. He is sincere and there is no hint of demagoguery in his speech."
As mentioned, this was summer of 1984, so at the time, the world's longest-suffering black political prisoner suffered his incarceration and tortures in stoic defiance. "Nigger!" taunted his jailers between tortures. "We pulled you down from the trees and cut off your tail!"
I do not refer to Nelson Mandela. No, this prisoner was being tortured a few miles away from the Revs. Jackson, Wright and their entourage of black American luminaries. The prisoner was a black Cuban named Eusebio Penalver and he was being tortured by Reverend Jackson's gracious hosts. Mr Penalver's incarceration and tortures stretched to 29 years which makes him the longest-suffering black political prisoner in modern history, surpassing Nelson Mandela's record in time behind bars and probably doubling the horrors suffered by Mandela during this period.
Eusebio Penalver was bloodied in his fight with Castroism but unbowed for almost 30 years in its dungeons. He's what Castroites call a "plantado"--a defiant one, an unbreakable one. "Stalin tortured," wrote Arthur Koestler, "not to force you to reveal a fact, but to force you to collude in a fiction."
"The worst part of Communism," wrote Solzhenytzin, "is being forced to live a lie." Read article.
Cost Projections vs. Actual Costs, or Hope and Change vs. Reality
Arnold Ahlert, JWR.com
One of the lynchpins Democrats are using to foist government healthcare on the country is telling people that it won't add to the deficit. In other words, they are making future cost projections, which they claim are accurate. So, what's the government track record with respect to such accuracy? Read about it HERE.
Obama’s Theorems - The people don’t believe any more.
Victor Davis Hanson, NRO.com
Part of the problem with the president’s agenda is that it is predicated on a number of radical ideas that are asserted, rather than proven. His experts and the elites assure us of a reality that most people in their own more mundane lives have not found to be true. In short, they may find Obama personally engaging, but they no longer believe what he says.
Take cap-and-trade legislation. We are asked to endanger an already-weak U.S. economy with a series of incentives and punishments to discourage the use of carbon-based fuels, with which — whether shale, natural gas, coal, or petroleum — America is rather well endowed.
A number of eminent scientists, along with environmental advocates such as Mr. Gore, lecture us that global warming as a manmade phenomenon is unimpeachable. But this month Americans are shivering through one of the coldest Octobers in memory, whether in Idaho, Colorado, or Michigan. They understand that over the last decade average global temperatures did not spike; in fact, they slightly decreased.
We are advised, of course, to look at larger trends to grasp the full extent of the looming disaster. But again, that is a more abstract proposition. And it is not one that is enhanced by elite condescension. In the here and now, the weather seems cooler, and it has for a decade. Voters, unless convinced otherwise, are not about to invest trillions on a theorem.
If borrowing money is the right way to get us out of the recession, the public wants to know why we do not call it “borrowing,” rather than “stimulus.” If well over a trillion dollars in new debt was supposedly essential to restarting the economy, why not three, four, or five trillion more to make recovery a sure thing? And if Americans know from first-hand experience that charging purchases on their credit cards is optional, quick, easy, and fun, but that paying them off is necessary, slow, difficult, and unpleasant, why would they think their government’s charges would be any different? Read article.
Political scientists fight to keep federal grants
Stephen Dinan, Washington Times.com
The nation's political scientists are on the warpath, angry at efforts to cut off their federal funding and at taunts that they are getting taxpayer dollars to do what television talking heads do already.
The professors of "poli sci" are fighting to save a taxpayer revenue stream amounting to $112 million in federal grants and other programs over the past decade to study topics ranging from how politicians benefit from being vague and how world leaders react to crises.
Theyre letting fly on budget hawk Sen. Tom Coburns bid to eliminate the funds with the full force of academia: They blogged, they Tweeted, they filled Internet message boards, and they begged senators to save their National Science Foundation (NSF) funding.
"Does Coburn have some special reason for hating NSF allocations to poli sci? Maybe his proposal for a dissertation improvement grant wasn't funded?" wrote one anonymous commenter on PoliSciJobRumors.com, a Web site for political science folks, which erupted into a spirited debate as the Senate prepared to vote on the amendment.
Mr. Coburn, who is not backing down, offered the funding ban to a major spending bill being debated this week on the floor of the Senate. Read article.
Nobelist turning whiny as his medal is tested
Michael Goodwin, NY Post.com
Poor President Obama. Everybody is picking on him. Some people don't understand how hard his job is. Others are just mean and selfish.
That's the latest White House whine, as though the most powerful man in the world is a victim of sinister domestic forces beyond his reach.
The woe-is-me complaints suggest the occupant of the Oval Office, Nobel Prize and all, is feeling weak and small.
Yikes. No wonder the world is ganging up on us.
The point was driven home yesterday when Russia's foreign minister told Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that Russia was not ready to impose tougher sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. Shockingly, Clinton reportedly agreed new sanctions were premature.
Premature? Iran has been violating UN resolutions for years and is planning to get nukes and promises to use them.
What would be the right time to get tougher -- when we see a mushroom cloud?
And sanctions, remember, are the "soft power" the administration prefers, instead of military action, which is so George W. Bush. But suddenly faced with resistance, Washington now finds even sanctions too rough.
Another report says Palestinians are losing faith in Obama. If true, they join Israelis, meaning Obama has achieved his first Mideast agreement, though not the one he promised.
Alas, the evidence is clear--doubts about Obama's backbone are spreading. The Financial Times says the view that he talks a good game but doesn't get anything done is no longer confined to conservatives.
"The danger for Mr. Obama is that you are beginning to hear echoes of these charges from people who should be the president's natural supporters," columnist Gideon Rachman writes. He cites a European politician -- part of a key Obama base -- who says the president often goes wobbly when challenged.
Examples are abundant, from succeeding in Afghanistan to reducing the deficit, but there is no sign the White House gets it. Instead, the president's team is in full attack mode against an enemies list of dissenters and critics.
The targets, from the Fox News Channel to the insurance industry to gay-rights bloggers, stand accused of being unfair, self-serving or unrealistic.
Each attack contained a whiff of self-pity, revealing just how difficult Obama is finding the transition from candidate to superpower president.
The attacks on Fox, where I am a contributor, are a fresh assault on an old target. While it is true that hosts on some popular programs openly oppose Obama policies, the White House has no problems with two other cable networks, CNN and MSNBC that tilt in his favor.
So it's not opinion journalism that bothers the White House, only critical opinion. Read article.
Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize becoming a political lead weight
Brad Knickerbocker, CS Monitor.com
President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is looking less and less like a shiny trophy for his mantel and more like a political lead anchor.
Far from fading from public discussion, Obama’s surprise Nobel win just keeps generating comment, derision, and gratuitous advice about what he can do with it. At the very least, it’s become a grinding distraction at a time when he’s trying to fix things like healthcare and Afghanistan.
And now it’s being reported that the five Norwegians who gave him the award argued among themselves over the Obama pick.
True, there are those who laud Obama’s award.
At Truthdig, Joe Conason writes: “He kicked out the neo-conservative faction, led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, that prefers armed confrontation to diplomacy — and the world applauded in relief, along with the majority of Americans.”
Actually, Cheney is back to hector Obama. That would be Liz Cheney, the former vice president’s daughter. She’s just formed a group called “Keep America Safe.” Their target is Obama’s “radical” foreign policies, reports Politico. But even more friendly commentators worry that Obama’s Nobel “threatens to become a central metaphor of Barack Obama’s turbocharged political career,” as Time’s Joe Klein put it.
But even more friendly commentators worry that Obama’s Nobel “threatens to become a central metaphor of Barack Obama’s turbocharged political career,” as Time’s Joe Klein put it. Read article.
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