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October 30, 2009
Exclusive: Oval Office Watch - Friday, October 30
Barack Obama and the Flying Circus - from Pravda! CLICK HERE
Told You So – Yes I Did - SEE HERE.
The Post-Gracious President - GO HERE.
Chicago Way czar needed to keep outlanders in check
John Kass, Chicago Tribune.com
Any day now, President Barack Obama will be calling me with an offer I can't refuse.
I can just feel it. He's going to make me czar of the Chicago Way.
"Look, let me be clear, dude, you've got to help me," Obama will say, if he ever does call me, probably at about 3 a.m. "Every time I read the paper or watch Fox News when Rahm and David let me, somebody is throwing around 'The Chicago Way' like they know what they're talking about. And it's all your fault."
Me?
"Yes, you. You started it. I read in the Tribune that you've mentioned it in at least 120 columns. Now they're all using it. The Wall Street Journal, blogs, puff pieces in magazines, bed-wetting liberals, red-meat conservatives. That guy on Fox News was doing the baseball bat scene from 'The Untouchables,' for God's sake. They don't know jack about Chicago. You started it! You stop it! STOP IT!"
Calm down, please, Mr. President. Get ahold of yourself, sir. Do you have any Hopium in the White House?
"All I've got is that cheap schwag from the MSNBC guys, but it sends a creepy tingle up my leg. Wait! Those op-ed nerds from The New York Times left me some primo Hopium when they came over to give me their 'views' on Iran, as if I really give two [figs]. Here it is. Cool." Read article.
O’s (Latest) Insult
Jay Nordlinger, The Corner, NRO
Barack Obama is pretty interesting when he gets in front of his money-givers — his biggest fans, I guess. In New York, he said, “Democrats are an opinionated bunch. You know, the other side, they just kinda sometimes do what they’re told. Democrats, y’all thinkin’ for yourselves.” Last year, in San Francisco, he said of Middle Americans, “It’s not surprising . . . they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them . . .”
He speaks a lot differently — a lot more respectfully — when he has one of his big national addresses: Then, we’re not red states or blue states but the United States, blah, blah, blah. Well, which is the real O? The nice, inclusive guy or the sneering, contemptuous partisan? I vote the latter: I think it’s the real O, unfortunately: the one who speaks to Democrats in New York and San Francisco. But I am not much of a psychiatrist.
Republicans are people who do what they’re told? That reminded me: One of the reasons I left the Left, or became disenchanted with the Left, is that too many of them were like sheep, all herded up — scarcely thinking for themselves at all. They were wedded to dogma and political correctness. They did not dare to deviate — not in my environment. Read article.
It's His Rubble Now - "You own it. You fix it!"
Peggy Noonan, WSJ.com
At a certain point, a president must own a presidency. For George W. Bush that point came eight months in, when 9/11 happened. From that point on, the presidency—all his decisions, all the credit and blame for them—was his. The American people didn't hold him responsible for what led up to 9/11, but they held him responsible for everything after it. This is part of the reason the image of him standing on the rubble of the twin towers, bullhorn in hand, on Sept. 14, 2001, became an iconic one. It said: I'm owning it.
Mr. Bush surely knew from the moment he put the bullhorn down that he would be judged on everything that followed. And he has been. Early on, the American people rallied to his support, but Americans are practical people. They will support a leader when there is trouble, but there's an unspoken demand, or rather bargain: We're behind you, now fix this, it's yours.
President Obama, in office a month longer than Bush was when 9/11 hit, now owns his presidency. Does he know it?
He too stands on rubble, figuratively speaking—a collapsed economy, high and growing unemployment, two wars. Everyone knows what he's standing on. You can almost see the smoke rising around him. He's got a bullhorn in his hand every day.
It's his now. He gets the credit and the blame. How do we know this? The American people are telling him. You can see it in the polls. That's what his falling poll numbers are about. "It's been almost a year, you own this. Fix it." Read article.
Obama is president of academia, too
Don Surber, Daily Mail.com
Glenn Beck is America's favorite rodeo clown. He used to be one. His critics keep sneering about it.
America needs a rodeo clown, because the key to being a rodeo clown is knowing where the bull is coming from.
Every White House has its bull. This White House's bull comes from the Ivy League.
At the top of the roster is the president - a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law - and his wife, Michelle Obama, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law.
His staff includes Larry Summer, a former president of Harvard, and his former green czar, Van Jones, a graduate of Yale Law.
Now there is nothing wrong with the Ivy League or intellectuals. Americans prefer a president with brains. Nearly a half century after his assassination, people still love Jack Kennedy, Harvard '40.
But just as his collection of intellectuals - the Best and the Brightest - led to the Vietnam War after his death, this gang - the Second Best and Almost As Bright - is running into trouble.
What cost Jones his job was his kooky association with Marxism - he is an avowed communist - and his embrace of the Sept. 11. Truth theory, which holds that the Bush 43 administration is somehow responsible for the Sept. 11 attack.
These are ideas, and intellectuals love ideas. On the college campus where academic freedom is bountiful, the only bad ideas are the conservative ones. Read article.
On Being Liked . . .
Victor Davis Hanson, NRO.com
In one sense, we should all be happy that Obama — it is undeniable — has improved America's standing in the polls taken abroad.
But what might account for such a radical turn-about in America's image in such a short time, other than the fact that a young, charismatic, and eloquent African-American is now the titular head of the U.S. instead of an older, white, Christian guy with a Texas accent who says "nuclar"? Not being George Bush helped, but there is clearly something more going on to account for such markedly improved attitudes about America.
I think the answer is pretty clear: The world likes us when we admit that it was a mistake to take out Saddam Hussein; it likes us when confess to two centuries of systematic sinning and agree that we are no longer all that exceptional; it likes us when we at least verbally agree to sign on to the mass transfers of wealth in cap-and-trade European-style environmentalism; it likes us when we talk up the U.N. and rejoin the Human Rights Commission; it likes us when we distance ourselves from the hated Zionist entity; the world also likes us when we reach out to Ahmadinejad, Assad, the Castros, Chavez, Putin, and other dictators and totalitarians that are the norms in much of the world; and it likes us when it feels that we are adopting more statist policies akin to many states abroad.
In other words, the more we resemble at least some of the popular attitudes of those in Asia, Africa, South America, and in Europe, the more we are liked. Read article.
Unlike Obama, Americans reject European model
Michael Barone, Washington Examiner.com
An interesting paradox. Last year America elected a president who, in attitudes and policies, is closer to the elites of Western Europe than any of his predecessors. Yet in the nine months that he has been in office ordinary Americans have been moving away from those attitudes and policies and have increasingly embraced positions that over the years have made Americans distinctive from those in other advanced Western democracies.
Barack Obama's European tendencies aren't in doubt. His policies on government spending, taxation, health care and carbon emissions would all tend to bring America in line with European norms, to a far greater degree than any other president of the last 40 years and probably any president ever.
And what of America's special place in the world? "I believe in American exceptionalism," Obama said on one of his trips to Europe, "just as I suspect that Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." In other words, not at all. One cannot imagine Presidents Roosevelt, Truman or Kennedy, Eisenhower or Reagan, uttering such sentiments. Read article.
Congress Keeps Gold-Plated Health Care... For Themselves.
Jillian Bandes, Townhall.com
Personal doctors on call 24/7. Coverage that knows no caps. No exemptions for pre-existing conditions.
Those are the sorts of benefits members of Congress currently enjoy on the taxpayer’s dime, and the kinds of benefits Americans on a government-run public health care plan will never see if Obamacare passes.
“One thing is certain: Congress will exempt itself from whatever lousy health care system it forces on us little people,” said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. “Congress will get better insurance than you do because politicians always get a better deal under government-run health care.”
While it’s not news that Congressional health insurance plans are posh, CBS News recently uncovered the details of plans – right as the details of the Baucus health care bill are being hashed out.
Members of Congress can choose from five different plans, and have access to both the VIP Bethesda Naval Hospital and a reserved spot Ward 72 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, an elite division usually reserved for military members. Their everyday medical concerns can be taken care of at a doctor’s office located inside of Congress. Read article.
Welcome to the Social Engineering
Ken Connor, Townhall.com
In the wake of the controversial dismissal of Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, another of the President's men has been attracting negative attention.
The President has chosen teacher and GLBT activist Kevin Jennings for advice and guidance on how best to foster a safe and drug-free environment for America's school children. Much has already been written about Jennings's controversial background, his troubling associations, his questionable ethics, and his obvious lack of qualification and suitability for the job of Safe Schools Czar. Given Obama's need to stay in the public's good graces in order to advance the cause of health care reform, it would hardly be surprising to see Kevin Jennings gently shoved off the President's roster of advisors if this criticism continues.
What the American people are beginning to realize—thanks to appointees like Van Jones and Kevin Jennings—is that the President's vision for the country involves far more than making health care accessible to all or reducing our collective carbon footprint. True to his promise to bring about "change," Mr. Obama is aggressively pursuing a comprehensive policy of social engineering designed to do just that.
And he is using America's schools as an instrument to produce that change. Read article.
How about another approach like Court Reform?
Michael Arnold Glueck, JWR.com
Tort reform is a lot like everything else in America today. Everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it. Although President Obama and numerous legislators and others have suggested that changes in medical liability and malpractice should be part of any health care reform, before that happens some very warm places will be hosting the Winter Olympics. In reality President Obama sabotaged tort reform by stating in his September speech that he would ask for pilot studies. Those should be complete in 10-20 years and even if really done would be designed to fail -- something the government does extremely well.
However, there is another alternative worth considering.
CORE Courts.
In 1997, Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank, published "Justice Matters: Rescuing the Legal System for the 21st Century." The book was co-authored by two then-Discovery fellows, Roberta Katz, a lawyer , and Philip Gold, a national security analyst and historian.
"Justice Matters" never received the attention it deserved. It appeared the same week as the US Justice Department instituted its antitrust suit against Microsoft. But the fundamental ideas remain valid today.
"Justice Matters" did the usual bemoaning of predatory lawsuits and rapacious plaintiffs and attorneys, and of the system's chronic inability (read here: refusal) to self-reform. But it went beyond this to suggest that perhaps a common-sense alteration in the structure of the civil court system might have the same effect.
Most courts are "courts of general jurisdiction," taking whatever cases come before them. But we also have numerous specialty courts for matters that require unusual expertise, unusual sensitivity, or both. We have family courts, juvenile courts, bankruptcy courts, military courts, admiralty courts, tax courts, etc. Why not expand the use of specialty courts to include matters of enormous complexity, such as telecommunications, intellectual property . . . and medicine? Further, why not structure them in ways that make sense in the 21st century?
Why not expand the use of specialty courts to include matters of enormous complexity, such as telecommunications, intellectual property . . . and medicine? Further, why not structure them in ways that make sense in the 21st century? Read article.
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