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January 5, 2010
Exclusive – Oval Office Watch – Tuesday, January 5
Ten New Reasons Why Obamacare Can Still Be Killed - HERE.
The massive accounting blunder that should sink health care reform - GO HERE.
How to Get Western Intellectuals to Support Dictatorships and Totalitarian Ideas - HERE.
Most Important Civil Right of All
Wesley Pruden, JWR.com
Well, to paraphrase a famous president of a slightly earlier time, "you're doing a heckuva job, Janet." That goes for everybody at the White House.
If Barack Obama wants to reassure a nervous public that bureaucratic incompetence won't be tolerated, he might look to the example of what happened to the director of FEMA in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But no one expects the president to sack Janet Napolitano, the secretary of something the government insists on calling Homeland Security.
That's not how an administration that regards words and deeds as equals actually works. The lessons in the latest Islamist attempt to bring down a Western airliner could be useful, but such lessons are too painful for the guvvies to think about.
Mzz Napolitano's early assurance, since amended, that "the system worked" was either dopey beyond belief, or an unintended ringing endorsement of the ancient folk ethic that "G0d helps those who help themselves." Better G0D than a guvvie, but not everyone can count on having as a fellow passenger a young Dutchman with quick instincts, athletic grace, a sharp eye and a full complement of bravery and courage. That's not really a "system" for securing the homeland.
Janet Napolitano can conjure up more ways to harass air travelers, going after all those blue-eyed Scandinavian grannies in Minnesota again to avoid "profiling" the likely terrorists. She may require us to take off our pants as well as our shoes. But even with more harassment of the innocent, she still won't have a "system" that works. We must pray for a Dutchman. Read article.
Candidates face ultimatum: Kill Obamacare, or else ...'Americans have to pull this weed out by its roots'
Chelsea Schilling, WND.com
Tea-party leaders are delivering a bold ultimatum to all congressional candidates in 2010: Pledge to repeal the health-care reform bill in its entirety if it passes – or you will be booted from office.
FreedomWorks Press Secretary Adam Brandon told WND the message couldn't be any clearer. Asked whether he believes the tea party movement will seek to oust politicians who refuse to repeal the legislation, he emphatically declared, "Absolutely."
Max Pappas, vice president of FreedomWorks, echoed Brandon's statements in an interview with Gary Sargent, Washington blogger for the Plum Line, this week. "This has an unusual ability to be repealed, and the public is on that side." he said. "The Republicans are going to have to prove that they are worthy of their votes."
Both Brandon and Pappas emphasized that Congress must try to repeal the whole bill if it passes. Read article.
Some Modest Obama Predictions
Victor Davis Hanson, PajamasMedia.com
1) We will begin to hear ever so insidiously mention again of the “war on terror”; some quiet memo will go out to cool all the talk of ‘man-made disasters’ and ‘overseas contingency operations’.
2) Either shortly or soon next year, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano will resign. I don’t see how the nation’s point woman on domestic terrorism can claim that the system worked like “clockwork” (she has since backtracked) when the Nigerian terrorist’s own father contacted American authorities long ago to warn us about the proclivities of his own son, who came within seconds of blowing apart a transcontinental jet. The system worked only at the 11th hour thanks to a courageous Dutch tourist who took matters into his hands.
3) I think the overseas bowing, apologizing, and kowtowing will stop in 2010—it brought no tangible results. Indeed, Obama is one bow away from global caricature and humiliation. And when one examines the recent behavior of Iran, Russia, Venezuela, or Syria, one concludes that they all think they can make favorable readjustments in regional landscapes and power relationships in 2010. Obama’s advisors will try to stop his natural inclinations to apologize, and I think will be successful—given the gathering storm clouds of 2010.
4) We may hear something finally in support of the Iranian dissidents. The ‘reach out to Ahmadinejad’ line has failed. And Iran will probably get the bomb in 2010. Since we will not ratchet up sanctions or impose an embargo, the only hope to stop an theocratic bomb will be regime change—and that may prompt some Obamians to speak out on behalf of the courageous rather than worry whether the murderous will meet with us. Read article.
Presidential Leadership
Maj. Gen. Jerry R. Curry (ret'd), CurryforAmerica.com
Leaders in the military are taught to quickly identify, isolate and focus on the most important things in a war to the exclusion of lesser things. That is because to be successful, a military leader has to win wars, not individual battles. President Obama has yet to learn that lesson; he has yet to learn how to lead.
Obama has evaluated the nation’s current situation and properly concluded that there are three issues, which require the nation’s attention. Unfortunately, he has been unable to figure out that all three are not of equal significance. Therefore, he has failed to determine which is most important.
If Obama loses the battle of “Healthcare,” he can still win the war. If he loses the battle of “Global Warming” he can still win the war. But if he loses the battle of restoring the economy and “Creating Jobs,” he will lose the war. That is why at twelve noon on January 20th, 2009, Obama’s focus and the focus of everyone in his Administration should have converged with laser beam intensity on the task of creating private sector jobs – real jobs – and more real jobs.
Now is the time for Obama to stop the blame game, to stop assigning fault to others for the problems he and his Administration have failed to solve. Whether he likes it or not, the President of the United States is responsible for everything that happens during his administration good or bad, right or wrong -- YES, even those things held over from previous administrations. He is elected to lead the nation, to solve national problems, and to evaluate and establish priorities -- not to dodge and weave, assign blame, preen and avoid responsibility. Read article.
Obama's Image: What a Difference a Year Makes
Ed Lasky, American Thinker.com
Almost a year has passed since January 20, 2009 -- when the waters of the ocean no longer rose and America began to heal from the depredations of Republicans. Barack Obama has been our president for that long, and the people have started to wise up.
The light that shines on Barack Obama as president has reflected back an image that bears very little similarity to the iconic visage that floated above us all in 2008. Why has Barack Obama betrayed so many allies, broken so many promises, thrown so many pledges and people under the bus?
One simple aphorism (paraphrasing Winston Churchill) can explain it all. Barack Obama is no longer a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Much about his past remains murky, but faced with the need to govern, he has given the American people plenty of evidence of his nature...if only they will look.
Obama is a cynic wrapped in a hypocrite inside a bully. Read article.
Utopian New Left Just Like Old Left
The Foundry, Heritage.org
How did the European left rationalize communism’s crimes and transform itself into a viable political force after the fall of the Soviet Union? It’s all explained in “Last Exit to Utopia: The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era.”
First published in 2000, the book by the late French intellectual Jean-Francois Revel is only now available in English. But given Revel’s insights into today’s leftist movements, it couldn’t be more timely.
The old left’s attempt to “excommunicate” modernity, as Revel describes it, is as alive today as it ever was. He traces the left’s ideological rejection of modern civilization and the idea of progress back to French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who in the 18th century launched the Romantic rebellion against the Age of Reason.
Revel explains how Rousseau’s “primitivism” and denial of reason manifested itself in the utopian ideologies of communism and fascism. As with the old left, new left environmentalists view capitalism and the free market as enemies. But so, too, is reason. The lengths to which some scientists will go to stifle dissent reveal not only a disrespect for the scientific method, but also contempt for using reason to understand reality. If truly understanding climate change were the main goal, there would be no hesitation to look at all the evidence of global warming. In the minds of many climate-change scientists, however, the top goal is not to understand the planet but to “save” it. The cause transcends the science. Read article.
The Politics of Repeal
Charles Kesler
Everything depends on health care reform. President Obama has made that clear in his 29 (at last count) speeches on the subject and by his administration's legislative and lobbying priorities. His long-term ambitions to revive the Democrats' reputation for epochal social reform, to restore his party as America's majority party, and to elevate himself as one of its immortals-all turn on a breakthrough on health care.
Success would allow him to fulfill a promise made by Franklin Roosevelt 65 years ago. Failure would make him another Bill Clinton. That's why Obama can be counted on to fight for the last vote in the Senate as he did in the House of Representatives, whose narrow passage of a bill was a big step forward for the president's efforts. Though the whole enterprise could still fall apart in the Senate or in conference committee, it's increasingly likely that something called health care reform eventually will emerge from this heavily Democratic Congress and be signed into law by President Obama.
But contrary to his expectations, that won't be the end of the fight. Or at least it shouldn't be. Without letting up on their resistance to the awful health care bills now before them, Republicans and conservatives of all stripes ought to prepare themselves for a possible second phase of the struggle: repeal, of whatever noxious bill the Democrats manage to pass. Read article.
Al Qaeda's Clear Message: The U.S. has to rethink jihad's global recruitment of terrorists.
Review & Outlook, WSJ.com
Apparently the fellows in al Qaeda took as a personal insult Secretary of Homeland Anxiety Janet Napolitano's comment Sunday that their role in the foiled Detroit airliner bombing wasn't clear but would be investigated. Yesterday, al Qaeda's ascendant franchise in the Arabian peninsula saved Secretary Napolitano the trouble of plowing through all the layers of the national-security bureaucracy for an answer.
The terrorist organization put out a pointed statement not only claiming responsibility but also mocking the U.S.'s ability to stop them. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, they said, "dealt a huge blow to the myth of American and global intelligence services and showed how fragile its structure is."
What this means is that we have to think more broadly about jihad and the potential recruitment of terrorists anywhere in the world, including inside the United States. We and our European allies have to revisit the problem of fiery imams using mosques as recruitment depots for airline suicide bombers. The close call in the airspace over Detroit gives "probable cause" new meaning. Al Qaeda has sent a message to the Obama Administration: You are in a war. Someone in our government needs to say clearly that they now understand the message. Read article.
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