May 22, 2012
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Exclusive: Thursday - July 31
by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH July 31, 2008
Sweet Nothings - A close reading of The Speech.
Andrew Ferguson, Weekly Standard.com
Anyone who wants to understand Barack Obama would do well to stay away from the radio and the TV. Obama is a theatrical presence. That's what it means to be "charismatic": To an unnerving degree his appeal relies on sight and sound rather than sense. Better, in my opinion, to stick to the printed word. On paper (or the computer screen) his words can be thought about and chewed over. You can understand him at your own pace, undistracted by that rich baritone, the regal bearing, the excellent drape of his Burberry suits.
The printed word has its problems too, of course. You really need to be on your toes if you're going to get anything out of a newspaper's election coverage. You've got to tune your ear to euphemism and translate as you go. So last Friday, having missed the television broadcasts of Obama's speech in Berlin the day before, I read the Washington Post with a cocked ear, and when I saw that the speech was described as "broadly thematic" and "sober and serious" I knew exactly what it meant: a boring speech full of blah blah blah.
When his handlers decided to schedule a speech in Berlin, they teed up comparisons with the portentous speeches that Presidents Kennedy and Reagan had delivered there.
Instead, in the heart of Europe, before 200,000 breathless admirers, Obama pulled himself up to his full height, lifted his chin, unlimbered those eloquent hands, and said nothing at all. Read article.
Obama's Romantic Revolution
Gabor Steingart, Spiegel Online.com
Barack Obama's promises to heal the world were lapped up in Berlin on Thursday. His speech was a masterpiece in the art of political magic -- and it was all coolly calculated.
Barack Obama is often compared with a pop star these days. That makes the job of being a politician all the more difficult for him.
In show business the performance is the finished product, where reality and appearance come together as one. What you see is what you get, as the Americans say. There is no morning after.
For politicians, on the other hand, words are not actions, rather they are announcements of future actions, often actions to be claimed or even just simulated. Reality and appearance are in conflict, whether by accident or design. Read article.
Obama's Tour de Farce - Photo Ops & Fecklessness
Amir Taheri, NY Post.com
Termed a "learning" trip, Sen. Barack Obama's eight- day tour of eight nations in the Middle East and Europe turned out to be little more than a series of photo ops to enhance his international credentials.
"He looked like a man in a hurry," a source close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said last week. "He was not interested in what we had to say."
Still, many Iraqis liked Obama's claim that the improved situation in Iraq owed to Iraqi efforts rather than the Gen. David Petraeus-led surge. In public and private comments, Obama tried to give the impression that the Iraqis would've achieved the same results even without the greater resources America has poured into the country since 2007.
In private, though, Iraqi officials admit that Obama's analysis is "way off the mark." Without the surge, the Sunni tribes wouldn't have switched sides to help flush out al Qaeda. And the strong US military presence enabled the new Iraqi army to defeat Iran-backed Shiite militias in Basra and Baghdad. Read article.
The Thrill Is Gone
Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com
That was a brief fling, even by European romantic standards. One day after his speech before an adulating Berlin crowd last week, Barack Obama said more NATO troops would allow the U.S. to cut its presence in Afghanistan. The "billions of dollars" saved, he told CNN on Friday, could "finance lower taxes for middle-class families."
Ah, not so fast. On Sunday the Secretary General of the opposition German Free Democrats, Dieter Niebel, responded to Mr. Obama by telling the Bild am Sonntag that "Under no circumstances will the German taxpayer pay with more money and more troops for Afghanistan for tax cuts in the U.S."
Erwin Huber, chairman of the center-right Christian Social Union of Bavaria, called Mr. Obama's statement "a disappointment for Europe and Germany." Mr. Huber, who belongs to the sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, also said that "it is the opposite of solidarity and partnership when one side is to make more sacrifices and the other gains an advantage from it."
Welcome to President Bush's world, Senator Obama. The myth is that Mr. Bush's "unilateralism" has so antagonized America's allies that they will rush to share more of the war burden once the Texan is back in Crawford. But Europeans have long enjoyed the free ride of U.S. military protection while enjoying even more their freedom to criticize how that protection is provided. Read article.
Audacity Overload: The Democratic nominee suffers from a severe case of Obamamania.
Kathryn Jean Lopez, NRO.com
Barack Obama has at least one thing right: the author of The Audacity of Hope is certainly audacious.
The junior Illinois senator has been telling us for months now: “We are the hope of the future. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” If I believed that about myself, I’d be pretty audacious. Not to mention messianic.
And so the political savior went to Berlin to stand on the shoulders of giants, and didn’t even have the courtesy to tip his hat to the president of the United States — Ronald Reagan — whose monumentally historic rhetoric he adapted ad nauseam, showing an audacious disregard for creativity and originality.
But the Berlin speech wasn’t anything too new, save for a U.S. presidential candidate’s self-conscious embrace of a post-national identity as a “Citizen of the World.” Other than that, you’ve heard most of the speech before. It would be less disturbing if it were merely empty rhetoric signifying everything and nothing, requiring projection on the part of the unformed masses Obama seeks to give it meaning. But his substance is audaciously insulting, on top of the language. Read article.
Michelle Obama says military families can expect to see more of her.
Military Times.com
Obama told USA Today in late June that the struggles of military families would be one of her areas of focus as first lady. On the campaign trail for her husband, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, she already has met with military families in two locations: with about 30 spouses in Fayetteville, N.C., near Fort Bragg, on May 5, and with about a dozen spouses in Hopkinsville, Ky., near Fort Campbell, on May 19.
Although the schedule for upcoming visits was not available at press time, more meetings are expected starting within the next few weeks, according to Obama’s campaign office.
According to Obama’s campaign, these meetings with military families grew out of a series of round-table discussions with working women held in New Hampshire.
In North Carolina and Kentucky, spouses told Obama about the stresses of families whose service members are at war. Read article.
Barack Obama & the UN's Drive for Global Governance
Tom DeWeese, NewsWithViews.com
Senator Barack Obama has introduced a dangerous bill and it's on the fast track to Senate passage, probably because of his high profile position as the expected Democrat presidential nominee. Obama hasn't done much legislatively in his freshman Senate term, but this one is very telling about what we can expect from a President Obama.
The bill is the "Global Poverty Act" (S.2433) and is not just a compassionate bit of fluff that Obama dreamed up to help the poor of the world. This bill is directly tied to the United Nations and serves as little more than a shakedown of American taxpayers in a massive wealth redistribution scheme.
In fact, if passed, The Global Poverty Act will provide the United Nations with 0.7% of the United States gross national product. Estimates are that it will add up to at least $845 billion of taxpayer money for welfare to third world countries, in addition to the $300 billion Americans spent for the same thing in 2006.
The situation is urgent because the Global Poverty Act has already passed the House of Representatives by a unanimous voice vote on September 25, 2007. The senate version
has been passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by unanimous consent and ready for a full Senate vote. Read article.
Obama’s Victory Lap
Peter Wehner, Commentary Magazine.com
I wanted to bring up a few different points about Obama’s speech. Obama said he spoke “as a citizen — as a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.” Later in his remarks Obama declared that the “burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together.”
This is a rather odd choice of words. To be a citizen means to be a member of a sovereign nation to which one owes allegiance and through which come certain rights, duties, and responsibilities. To say that he is both a citizen of America and a citizen of the world implies equal rank between the two; and to then say that the “burdens of global citizenship” is what binds us together merely underscores the point.
This kind of rhetoric is, at best, sloppy.
Those of us who are Americans are not “citizens of the world;” our first loyalty is to this country. Our servicemen and -women do not put on a uniform and fight and sometimes die on behalf of “the world;” they fight and die on behalf of the United States. When John McCain was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and tortured, it was not because he was a “citizen of the world;” it was because he was an American citizen fighting on behalf of his country. Nor do we pledge allegiance to “the world;” we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands.
Does Obama understand U.S. national sovereignty and the meaning of American citizenship? Read article.
If Obama Loses In November, Will America Suffer?
Austin Hill, Townhall.com
What will happen if, on election night in November, John McCain wins the presidency? Will it necessarily be determined that Obama’s defeat is the result of a conspiracy? A fraud? Or something worse?
Much has been said and written in recent months about the historical and cultural significance of the Obama nomination, and the would-be Obama presidency. Obama, himself, seems to place no limits on his own historical and cultural significance. At age 46, he has already authored two books - - both are about himself - - and the securing of his party’s nomination marked, according to him, the moment when our nation began to “heal…….”
But what if Obama’s seemingly inevitable destiny - - that of “change agent President” - - was abruptly cut short? I’m not hinting here at the possibility of an assassin’s bullet (I’ll leave it to Hillary Clinton to suggest such things). I’m merely stating the obvious. The first Black American to secure the presidential nomination of a major political party could end up losing the election. If that were to happen, then what would the historical and cultural significance of that event be? Read article.
Contest Unworthy of Candidates
Ronald Brownstein, National Journal.com
It may be time to hit the reset button on Campaign 2008. After an exhilarating and historic primary season (especially on the Democratic side), the early stages of the general election campaign between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have been, to use the technical term, awful. The race has been snippy, disconnected, trivialized, and consumed with peripheral arguments. What's more, it has
been unworthy of the candidates--and of a country facing serious choices at home and abroad.
Blame for this dismal condition begins right here, with the media. Under that label now jostle traditional newspapers and magazines, the broadcast networks, cable news channels, talk-radio provocateurs, online political tip sheets, and Internet agitators of the Left and Right.
The good news is that this plenitude ensures that anyone seeking discussion of the campaign can find more of it than in previous cycles. Almost everything the candidates or their surrogates say is captured and aired or printed somewhere. Remember the old philosophy question: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? That question is moot in the 2008 campaign: No tree falls anywhere without someone there to hear it--and probably record it and upload it onto YouTube.
That is, on balance, positive. The political system benefits from more scrutiny and more information. The problem is what happens next. Every day, by definition, someone--the candidates, or people associated with their campaigns (however tangentially), or a media personality--says something slightly more outrageous, more offensive, or just flat-out more stupid than everyone else. Read article.
Ghosts of 1976 in Today's Campaign
Michael Barone, Townhall.com
Looking back over the last 40 years, the presidential campaign that most closely resembles this year's is the contest between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976. The Republicans were the incumbent presidential party that year, as they are now, but the Democrats had a big advantage in party identification -- on the order of 49 percent to 26 percent then, far more than today.
The Republican president who had been elected and re-elected in the last two campaigns, Richard Nixon, had dismal favorability ratings, far lower than George W. Bush's. His name could scarcely be mentioned at the Republican National Convention. The Democratic nominee was a little-known outsider, with an appeal that was based on the idea that he could transcend the nation's racial divisions. Jimmy Carter.
How this came about is an interesting story, and one of obvious relevance to the McCain campaign this year. Read article.
The Coming Obama Recession
Jerry Bowyer, Political Mavens.com
Everyone’s been so busy searching for the alleged Bush recession that they’ve missed what the markets are trying to tell us about next year. As the attached chart shows (courtesy of Professor Mark Perry’s Carpe Diem blog), the current bear market corresponds fairly well with the drop in the probability of a McCain victory.
Intrade’s presidential future’s market (where investors buy and sell futures based on their estimate of the probability of a particular candidate’s victory) has been tracking the falling prospects of McCain and the rising expectations of an Obama victory. As of this writing, Obama futures are trading at more than a 30 point premium over McCain futures. This doesn’t, of course, mean that the market thinks Obama will win by 30 points. It means that the markets think that he is about 34% more likely to win than McCain. In other words, it’s not a margin of victory; it’s a margin of the probability of a victory. Read article.
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The #twittergulag saga continues: @gopfirecracker suspended, others still trapped
May 21, 2012 11:54 PM
#freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker— Dale Holt (@DaleHolt8) May 22, 2012 Come on conservatives! Everyone rallied around @ChrisLoesch when he was suspended! Now its @gopfirecracker so stand up! #freegopfirecracker— Schmoop (@RGSchmoop) May 22, 2012 Hey @twitter and @support – #FreeGOPfirecracker's account has been suspended. Please fix this mishap. Thank you.— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) May 22, 2012 [...]
Cory Booker tweets #IStandWithObama; Hashtag hijackers flood the zone
May 21, 2012 11:39 PM
Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, the Democrat who defended Bain from the Obama campaign's attacks yesterday morning, has been backpedaling more furiously than a clown on a high wire. Tonight, in an effort to mollify his critics on the Left, he posted four tweets that included the hashtag #IStandWithObama. Conservatives immediately took over the #IStandWithObama hashtag to mock President Obama, and within an hour it became a trending topic.
Cory Booker tries to clear up his position on Bain attacks
May 21, 2012 10:25 PM
Cory Booker continued his quest to run screaming away from the apparently too candid comments he made on Meet the Press on Sunday. Despite attempts earlier today to #FreeCoryBooker from those trying to force him to apologize Booker went on the Rachel Maddow show to do everything he could to walk back what he said. Que the mockery.
Obama's 'When you're president' picture spawns hashtag
May 21, 2012 09:59 PM
"When you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot." -Barack Obama
Cue #WhenYouArePresident
Obama takes anti-Romney rant to Twitter
May 21, 2012 09:49 PM
It started off this morning with a video of a woman named Valerie from Indiana posted by Barack Obama’s official Twitter account. 12 hours, 12 tweets and a failed hashtag later, Obama’s reelection team took the day to tweet ongoing misinformation about Mitt Romney’s record in the private sector, specifically Bain Capital’s work with the [...]
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