Be Bold Good Fool

James Carville got his panties in a knot today when a CNN "reporter" asked him what he would advise Obama to do in the face of political disaster. I know Carville talks all the time, never shuts up actually, but his advice to Obama makes him seem like more of a superfluous twat then normal.

Here are the steps he lined out:

1. Fire People - This certainly seems like a good idea, the people working in the White House are incompetent indeed and should be put out to pasture. The only problem is that Obama has canned a few people, Van Jones comes to mind, and has replaced them with equally incompetent know-nothings. Obama doesn't know any really talented people and even if he did he wouldn't have the sense to put them in power positions. He finds clones of himself and hires them. He's incompetent and so are they. Changing the names won't help unless you change who picks them.

2. Indict People - Carville is referring to Wall Street execs here because they of course are the scum of the earth and deserve to be lined up and shot for ruining the economy. Or so Carville thinks. The real truth is that any criminal investigation into bad economic practices would only lead back to Washington and hurt members of Congress. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank come to mind first but there is plenty of blame to go around, especially with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Janet Reno threatening lenders over redlining. Carville thinks harassing execs who were responding to federal regulations will appease the people angry over the economy. Putting rich people in jail won't help poor people.

3. Make the Case Like A Democrat - Carville is saying that Obama should forcefully defend Keynesian economics, big spending liberal policy, instead of going along with Republican austerity programs. He cites some mythical world where we're doing worse now after spending cuts than we were doing during stimulus. The problem here is that we've never tried any austerity program here. Never. Big spending liberal policies have sadly ruled the day and everyone knows it. Even the Ryan plan was fairly timid in the face of the danger. The people know what we've been doing and O can't defend it with any credibility.

4. Hold Fast To An Explanation - This is a good idea. Flip flopping around on every issue looks weak and confuses the electorate. Unfortunately this is hard to do when you are actively trying to deceive people on topics you really know nothing about. None of his explanations work so he's just scattering shots hoping to hit something.

EXTRA - here are some of the attacks Carville wraps up the piece with, explaining his fear of a crazy person being elected:

creationism-loving: belief in God is mainstream.
global-warming denying: that's because its a lie.
immigration bashing: no, illegal immigration bashing.
Social Security cutting: would you rather tweak a program or have it become insolvent?
clean air hating: I assume he means greenhouse gases which are necessary for all life and quite different from smog.
Morally fascinating: I have no idea what this means. Pro-life maybe? Welfare reform? Standards at all?
Wall Street protecting: Have you seen who has been getting all of the stimulus money from Obama? Unions and Wall Street. All of it.

If conservatism can't flourish in the face of this kind of delusional incompetence then it never will.

The Chosen One Spoketh, Then A Black Hole Consumed All That Was

It really is my own fault. I joined in the chorus of people that were calling for President Obama to explain himself in his actions regarding Libya.

Today he did.

Basically his speech said that the United States had to intervene in Libya because "it was in the national interest", "to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe" and because not acting would "have been a betrayal of who we are." Awesome. That explanation is so high minded and convoluted that if you were to take it literally, the United States would be morally obligated to throw up a no-fly zone over about 60% of the globe.

Rather than just admire in it's childlike nature, it's best to tackle it head on. Libya is is no way the United States national interest. Sure they have oil but so do lots of people. George Bush scared them into abandoning their nuke program and they are not at the top of the terrorist sponsor countries. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan are all more important to the national interest than Libya. And that's just the Middle East. China, Russia, N. Korea, Mexico and Japan are all much higher priority than Libya. So who does care about Libya? Europeans. For reasons I haven't fully researched, Europe seems to have a lot of money and resources tied up in Libya. By that I mean oil. Maybe they thought Qaddafi was easier to deal with than some of the other nutjob dictators. Who knows. But they are in deep and that's why anyone cares. Obama got himself roped into this because he couldn't withstand the pressure from the French.

Prevent the humanitarian catastrophe. Please. Sure, the government was killing people but to be fair there was a fully armed opposition that was trying to instigate a revolution. Nobody likes dictators but you have to expect them to defend themselves. How can Obama even mention the "humanitarian catastrophe" while Darfur and North Korea still get to operate as they please? How many Africans and Bosnians, etc. have been allowed to massacre each other without NATO, the UN or people like Obama batting an eye? You could stage an invasion of North Korea any day of the week and be completely justified. Why don't we? Well, we gave them nukes so that's a problem. Besides, they don't have oil and Europe doesn't care about starving Koreans. Obama is just trying to find cover to appease his Kucinichesque cadre of bleeding heart pacifists that can't understand why gitmo is still open and Obama is killing more Muslims.

How would Obama even know who Americans are? He has spent most of life community organizing which has as it's primary goal the destruction of the traditional American free market capitalist system of economics. Like it or not, the United States was founded because of money and the desire for people to get their hands on it. The idea being that if you could get your hands on it, you could keep it. Obama's whole ideology believes that if you have money, it should be forcibly taken away from you and given to those who didn't earn it. It's awful presumptuous for Obama to try and project American values overseas when all he tries to do is undermine them at home. That's what all that hope and change was about. The values Obama is truly projecting overseas are European ones. He shares far more common ground with their way of thinking than traditional American political thought. Even for liberals he's out there.

Maybe it's better when Obama just doesn't talk about stuff. Maybe his advisers knew that too and that's why he's been so quiet lately. Deafening silence is better than what we got today. That speech today was so patently a contrived speech intended to mollify critics that it was embarrassing. He knows it wasn't true. We know, everyone knows. To actually say that crap makes him either a liar or a fool. Better to just keep quite after all.

Double Shot

It's been an exciting day on a number of fronts.

In Boston, the Celtics finished off the Cavs and started Cleveland's doomsday countdown to LeBron's exodus. It's not so shocking that the Celtics won but the end of the game was bizarre. Down by 7 with about 2 minutes left, Boston gets a steal and a bucket to go up 9 with about 1:30 left. After that, Cleveland completely quit. They didn't foul the Celts, they walked the ball up the court and the last few shots of their season were desperation tres jacked up by Anderson Varaejo. I've never seen such blatant quitting in all my years watching sports. The coaches quit as well. While the LeBrons were busy running out the clock, Mike Brown was busy letting them. They looked like a group that knew the magic was gone and that their window had slammed shut. I'm far less confident about Orlando going to the finals than I was a few days ago.

In DC, the Obama administration has decided it's OK for the CIA to assassinate an American citizen who has joined Al-Qaeda and lives overseas. I'm torn over this because letting an unmanned drone kill this Anwar al-Awlaki piece of crap is a good thing but it flies in the face of most other policy decisions. Unless I missed something, the CIA still can't assassinate any foreign nationals so why can we whack this guy, this citizen, without any of the precious Miranda warnings and due process we hear so much about? If whacking this guys is a good idea, why can't the CIA take out other leaders? In addition, if we can kill our own citizens for conspiring against the nation from overseas, why can't we wiretap American citizens calling people overseas that have terrorist links? Like much of Obama's reign, it has no rhyme or reason to it. I'm sure in a few weeks we'll get a leak from somewhere explaining the political calculations of this. Until then we can only wonder. I do hope the spooks get him though.

Krugman Must Be Exxxstatic

President Barack Obama released his healthcare "framework" today and what a spectacle it is.

The first question I would ask is "Why bother?" I'm not sure what good it does El Presidente to put this non-binding suggestion to Congress days before the dog and pony show with Republicans over healthcare. All this does is show to everyone that that meeting is a farce and that he doesn't have any intention of letting Republican ideas anywhere near the bill. Combine that with the stated plan to use reconciliation to pass it, Obama, Reid & Pelosi are once again making all their reps in moderate districts fall on the sword for bad legislation. While spitting on the American people all at the same time.

The second question is "You're Joking Right?" This non-bill the President released is an absolute legislative abortion. There is a reason why we have professional legislators and separate executives and this is it. The bill is all the worst aspects of both the House and Senate bills, nearly a trillion dollars in cost, contradictory to itself and probably too poisonous for the reconciliation process if not not flat out prohibited by the rules of the Senate. The most shocking thing? The Congressional Budget Office won't even score this atrocity. Those group of math wizards would score rat piss on a cocktail napkin if a big time liberal asked them too. That's how Ted Kennedy submitted his proposed legislation, fyi.

For being the smartest politician since Plato, Obama sure does many a dumb thing and this is another one in a long list. That list still has "Hiring Robert Gibbs" right at the top for those of you keeping track at home.

I'm not even sure Obama is a skilled Community Agitator (organizer). I've read Alinsky and while Obama seems to have the "keep everyone on edge" thing mastered, he doesn't seem able to move from that to "make change happen". In fact, Obama seems to agitate people to the point of making them defy him just out of principle instead of caving to him so he'll leave them alone.

Man, those November elections just can't get here fast enough.

What A Special Time

The Carnival of the Damned was back in full force today as both Obama and the Senate took turns insulting out intelligence and making a mockery of the Constitution.

Where to begin. Obama is the Instigator in Chief so we might as well start there.

In a speech today, Obama took the time to blast the TARP package passed at the end of the Bush term, pat himself on the back for rescuing the economy and laid out his new plan to spend our way out of the recession.

Whew. First of all, I happen to agree that the TAP plan was a legislative abortion. I just wish Obama also felt this way back when he was voting for it as a Senator. I also wish Obama would not have appointed the architect of said abortion (Tim Geitner) as his Secretary of the Treasury. The most galling thing about Obama constantly hammering the spending explosion under Bush is that most of it happened since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006 and wore out the credit line. With Obama's support the whole time. Obama should be trying to ignore discussing the economy at all given his complicit part in it's destruction. He's decided to try and spin 15% unemployment, 7 million jobs lost and absolute zero growth as "saving the economy." Very odd.

Most insulting though is his new plan to spend our way out of the recession. What exactly have we been doing? The TARP was meant to get banks lending credit again. Instead, Obama decided to buy up banks, lending firms and GM. The stimulus was meant to get people working by taking shovel ready jobs and funding them so they could be gin right away. So far, there isn't any evidence the stimulus has created one job. Most of that money has gone to states to cover various deficits, social programs or legal teams, if you live in Colorado. Whatever money is left is just sitting in a slush fund waiting for the Fed to send out to its political allies. So after two multi trillion dollar failures, Obama ow wants stimulus III to finally start getting people working. Yeah right buddy. You're a liar and a bad one at that. I know you're just daring the media to call you out on all this but what you don't seem to get is that even the most dim witted American can see the truth of your flawed ideology.
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In other news, the Senate has defeated the Benson Amendment banning federal health care reform from paying for abortions. That's right, your tax dollars might end up collapsing a fetal skull in the near future. The only question now is how much spine do the pro-life Democrats have now? Ben Nelson has drawn a pretty firm line in the sand on the abortion issue, much like Joe Lieberman has drawn an anti public plan line. If I had to make a prediction, Nelson would crumble as would all the other pro-life Dems and Lieberman can probably be bought off with some clever rewording of the socialist option. Then the elections will come and heads will roll.
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From the world of sports, the Yankees are apparently close to sending Austin Jackson, Phil Coke and Ian Kennedy off into the wilderness to acquire Curtis Granderson. The WWL assumes that this might also mean the end of Johnny Damon in New York. I am mystified that seems to be a positive move in the eyes of the media heads. We must first throw out the Kennedy/Coke part. Nobody cares about those two. Essentially its Austin Jackson for Curtis Granderson. While certainly an upgrade defensively, Granderson hit a whopping .249 last year with 30 HR's and 71 RBI. Essentially he's Melky Cabrera with more pop and less average. And way more expensive. For years Yankee fans have been hearing about how great Austin Jackson could be. If the team believes his ceiling is batting .250 with 25 HRS and 50 RBI then the trade makes sense but it seems like the Yanks are trying to get the big name again hoping Granderson somehow recreates his 07 season (.302, 23 HR, 74 RBI) on a consistent basis. A risky proposition considering he has only done that once in his six year career.

Commander In Who Gives A Crap

The highly anticipated Obama announcement concerning Afghanistan should becoming this week, maybe even today and I must admit I feel a bit underwhelmed by the whole thing.

In the months leading up top this monumental decision (more so recently) we've been hearing through leaks that Obama will authorize somewhere in the range of 30,000 troops with the focus being turned to ending the war.

How inspiring.

This decision is classic Obama. It's weak, it tries to play both sides, it assumes the American people are morons and it will ultimately fail.

First of all, we should all now know that Obama was just lying during the campaign about this being a just war. As far as he is concerned, the only just war their is is one America will lose badly in.

How do we know he's lying? Because, as always, his policy doesn't match the stated goal. If the real goal is to end the war, then there is no need to send 30,000 more troops. The number of troops you need to not fight a war is zero. Everybody knows this and for Obama to make this move that is clearly designed to do nothing but endanger soldiers lives shows how little respect he has for the American public. He seems to think if he keeps repeating it enough than we must believe it because of the power of his persona. I guess he really doesn't check the polls.

So what does he think it'll do? He thinks by sending 30,000 more troops it will prevent pro-war conservatives from labeling him weak in a fight and therefore not tough enough to lead. He also assumes that by ordering 30,000 more troops into a battle so they can surrender, he will placate the Mike Moore/Dennis Kucinich wing of his own party. Both these propositions are of course absurd and will achieve the opposite result. I always thought Bill Clinton was a man of far less than average intelligence (I still do, actually) but he was able to triangulate issues in a masterful way that confounded Republicans for eight solid years. Watching Obama try and take all sides of an issue is an exercise in the painfully absurd. It's like listening to British people speak Spanish, it has all the fundamental elements required but is still horribly wrong.

I'm sure Obama will stride up to the podium in West Point (guess he needs some cover) like Patton addressing his troops and then give a speech that makes him look like Alan Alda in M*A*S*H* (not a compliment lefties). It should be high theater of a mind completely gripped in an egotistical delusion of its own making. Hopefully no soldiers get killed while this idiocy hashes itself out.

Is There Any End To This Pit?

Listening to the Big O's speech/campaign stop/shameless publicity stunt in New Hampshire today, I was unsure what was the most shameless thing I heard.

Was it Obama claiming he was never for single payer health care, when the whole world has heard different?

Was it the local Democratic Party members who were allowed to ask questions and bask in the glory of their leader?

Was it the lady who nearly fainted when Obama winked at her?

Or was it the audacity of planting a question with a 13 year old girl, who wondered aloud why people were "being so mean" when all Obama wanted to do was help people?

No all of those things are becoming typical for our ever campaigning President.

The worst part of all that is how low the office of President seems now. How can the leader of the free world conduct affairs this way? Where is the dignity? Say what you will about W. but at least he always took the questions from a media that despised him. Obama is so insecure and cold that he feels the need to control absolutely a media that is completely invested in him. While lying is an almost expected quality in politicians these days, the blatant lack of respect Barak shows his own constituents is especially galling. At least try and lie subtly, anybody who can use YouTube knows what a liar he is.

And poor New Hampshire, what happened to our beloved Granite State? It's hard to believe now but there was a time when N.H. was our quirkiest, freest thinking state. Primary elections went there to die mostly because the people were particularly sensitive to being B.S'd and they were equally hard on liberals and conservatives. You wouldn't have even staged such a display as was held today.

Oh well, I guess they couldn't resist the leftward drag of New England forever.

An Important Address

Last night's prime time address by President Obama was a painfully difficult thing to watch or listen to. It was at times condescending and spiteful, uninspired and uninspiring, full of child like attacks at his opponents, highlighted by a race baiting attack on a Cambridge police officer. All of this from the man who was "post-partisan".

However, The address may be the most important one Barak Obama ever gives us. All during the campaign, he was an enigma. Was he the charismatic leader who inspired a generation of new activists or was he the horribly over matched, easily confused, rambling lightweight that appeared sometimes during unscripted moments? Now we know. As all hard times do, this health care debate has laid bare for all to see the real qualities of our 44th President.

And after examination, the only conclusion to draw is that he isn't much of anything at all.

He isn't a charismatic, political survivalist like Bill Clinton; he doesn't have the steely resolve of George W. Bush; he doesn't have a great political mind like Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon, he's not an expert in any one area like Herbert Hoover, he isn't capable of defining an era or movement like FDR or Harry Truman and he doesn't inspire the masses like Kennedy or Reagan.

No, he isn't any of those things or much else. The health care debate was entirely defined and timed by Obama. He could've taken up this task whenever he wanted; taken all the time he needed to plan and execute it properly. His Presidential measuring sticks all had history foisted upon them and rose to the challenge. Even Bill Clinton faced an impeachment, Somalia and Monica and came out a hero to many. Obama had the opportunity to dictate history and came up horribly small. When faced with opposition he became a feckless liar. Despite having an iron grip on all of government, he reacts like a petulant child when faced with mild Republican opposition. With two of the weakest, intellectually deficient leaders in the House and Senate, he can't control his party. Worst of all, he falls back into the politics of victims and victimizers, oppressed and oppressors when unable to cope with the issue at hand.

Why should we expect any different? Obama has always been a committed Stateist, student of Alinsky, serving out Marxist populism and Black Liberation ideology to a niche voting block in Chicago. The community agitator has reemerged. Barak Obama is the perfect representation of Chicago politics in that he is simply a machine. He has his playbook and he executes it without passion or patience. He is what he has always been, a shell filled with the ideas of other, more respected minds.

The real tragedy doesn't reside in his destined to fail policies or the damage his identity politics will do to the nation. No the real victims are the new faces brought into politics by the Obama revolution. The youth, minorities and the disillusioned all became involved during the 2008 election. When these people begin to realize what little they invested themselves in, will they become more active, looking for the real McCoy or will they again retreat into political oblivion, bitten one too many times by hope not fulfilled? This would truly be a tragedy for all involved, even conservatives who are now engaged in a way not seen since Reagan, due to Obama's radical leftist agenda.

Who knows, maybe Obama will develop into something tangible. History does have a way with presenting Presidents with opportunities to transform from the mediocre to the memorable. Some grasp the opportunity, like Truman, some don't, like Carter. He might want to get started though, the clock is ticking toward 2010 and if Obama and his party don't get something going, they will find themselves where Clinton found himself in 1994, a leftist President watching history being made by a conservative revolution that he was instrumental in starting.

Voluntary Quagmire

Recently it has been in the news that American forces are turning over areas of Iraq to Iraqi military forces. Despite a predictable rise in insurgent (fanatical Muslin terrorist) attacks, the transition has gone smoothly.

While this is news now because the handover is becoming official, in reality American forces have been pulling back from some time now, allowing Iraqi forces to take the lead on and responsibility for securing cities.

Yet since the pull back began violence had started to flare up again, this time in Afghanistan. The Afghan war has been on the back burner for at least a couple of years but it seems Taliban/Al-Qaeda forces have decided that they have been regrouping long enough and have started the offensives again.

The real question is why NATO forces, especially with American forces from Iraq available, aren't kicking the hell out of these terrorists as we speak.

I know President Obama isn't exactly a warrior but the Afghan war was the one everyone agreed on in the beginning, so what's up?

I realize that chasing Ahmed through Waziristan isn't like invading a city but it seems that we know about where they are, after all, they have to be fairly close to kill U.S. soldiers.

Also, our forces obliterated that country with relative ease deposing the Taliban, even our limited forces should be kicking some serious ass.

I can't believe the problem is the military. Destroying things and killing people is what they do best. So the problem must be political and that problem lives in the White House.

After all that bitching from liberals about how W. forgot Afghanistan they are willfully doing the same thing. Why? Easy. Liberals in the American government have decided to burn all their political capital and our country's money on their social restructuring programs. If they committed to an Iraqi-esque surge or some special offensive, they would have to justify that to the American people. The administration has already burned every bridge with Republicans, even the moderate, sissy ones who became star-struck with Obama during the campaign. If they commit the money to really fight the war in Afghanistan, all the radical, anti-war leftists will be howling for their heads as well. Essentially, Obama decided turning our country into a European Socialism was a more pressing need than giving our troops the tools they need to fight the war and fulfill our promise to the Afghan people.

The second reason is Obama's warped foreign policy views. I'm sure he thinks his hands are tied given that many of the terrorists are in Pakistan now, specifically the border/Waziristan area. Following his pattern of letting unstable countries full of fanatics do as they please, he'll just wait until the Pakistan situation plays itself out then do something, maybe.

There are a few problems with that. First, Pakistanis lie to the U.S. all the time. They have no interest in clearing Waziristan. They can barely control the "civil" parts of the country. Besides, some Pakistani leaders like having those nut jobs around. They can be useful in the right circumstances. Secondly, they can't clear Waziristan if they want to. They have no control over that area. In reality, that part of the world is just a void. Not existing in a country, not sovereign, no recognized government. Just a black spot full of militants, plotting and planning their next violent action.

President Obama shouldn't give it any legitimacy by treating it as a territory issue with Pakistan. What he should do is break out the A-10's, B-52's and B-2's and give that a whole area an old-fashioned Dresden style bombing. Might as well see if you can bomb somebody back further than the stone age.

Putting this conflict on the back burner during the Iraq war is one thing but it's embarrassing that the Taliban has been able to regroup. The only reason Afghanistan is a third world country is because he we haven't defined a fourth yet. We should be mopping them up by now.

It's time to get it in gear, bloody some noses and let our troops put this thing to bed.


(Baitullah Mehsud, head Waziristan tribal terrorist. Planned assassination of Benazir Bhutto.)

In Search of a Dictionary

Now that Honduran President Zelaya has been ousted by the military and sent to Costa Rica for trying to illegally circumvent the constitution, the outraged cry from socialists every is "coup!"

The idea that this was a coup is ridiculous but when President Obama gives it some credence by saying how troubled he was at what was going on and that Honduras should remain committed to democracy gives a perfect occasion to examine it carefully.

For those who don't know a coup is when a leader of a country is removed from power through force and replaced by an illegitimate leader.

In Honduras, President Zelaya was barred constitutionally from seeking reelection but decided to hijack another term illegally, supported by Chavez.

Unfortunately, the Honduran constitution cannot be altered by Presidential momentum, it can only be alter at the instigation of the legislative body. In the United States, this would be the equivalent of President Obama adding an amendment to the Constitution by executive order instead of a constitutional convention, which is the legal way.

The Supreme Court of Honduras rightly declared Zelaya in violation of the constitution and ordered the military to have him removed, which they did, so that the authentic election could take place in peace.

This is the exact opposite of a coup, this is a constitutional democracy following the legal prescriptions for ousting a wanna-be tyrant for life.

While it's expected that the Chavez, Ortega, Castros and Ils of the world should try and confuse the issue by calling it a coup but President Obama should really be above this sort of thing.

Instead of showing his "grave concern" about the Hondurans, he should be applauding them as an example of how functioning democracies can solve these kinds of power transfer issues without the civil unrest that is characteristic of much of the world. Instead he seems content to allow the situation to get worse without any democratic support from him.

In his attempts to placate all sides and not voice any real opinion, all he does is make himself (and us)look weak. Jimmy Carter 2.0.

***AFTERNOON UPDATE*** - Now President Obama is saying the actions by the Honduran military and Supreme court were not legal (even though they were) and that Zelaya is still President (even though he was removed on constitutional authority). What a joke. I guess Obama only follows his "no meddling" pledge when dictators get to keep power. When it comes to ousting a thug, he's always ready to meddle to keep them in power.

The Temerity of Sophistic Hubris

Another day and another incoherent set of position from the administration concerning the situation in Iran which now resembles a full-on war zone complete with death, tear gas and atrocities.

Despite the images being sent out of Iran by brave bloggers and twitterers, all we heard from the White House was administration mouthpiece Robert Gibbs mumbling about the possible injustices done towards women in Iran.

Wow, women being abused in Iran, I wonder how deep undercover the C.I.A. went to find out that nugget of information.

Why can't Obama just support freedom, whereever it springs to life? It costs him nothing and could mean so much. It's getting so bad that noodle-spined Senator Lindsey Graham actually came out of his hidey hole to call the Presidents response timid and weak while French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel are now the front line defenders of democracy and freedom in the world.

Just to repeat, Lindsey Graham(!), amongst others, called the President a coward and France and Germany are now the torchbearers of Western belief.

What an awesome new world this is turning into.

Many pundits have seen this as a sign of weakness, Obama taking no position. On the contrary, by taking a vow of silence, Obama is stating clearly that he wants no such revolution to take place in Iran. You don't need to say anything to maintain the status quo.

Why Obama would want to keep a dictator in power is directly tied to ideology and arrogance. Evidence of this can be seen in all parts of his presidency.

In Iran they are openly running towards nuclear weapons while threatening Israel, blaming the U.S. for their troubles and telling the U.N. to go screw in blatant defiance of the Security Council.

Despite this, Obama is continuously pandering to Iran while lecturing the Brits, Germans, Jews, etc. about their role in world troubles. The first reason for this is simply that Obama doesn't believe in a unipolar world led by the United States. He would prefer a multipolar world led by intergovernmental organizations like the UN, NATO and the World Bank. Talking the U.S. and its allies down is a good first step for this. The second reason is pure arrogance. All the tactics Obama is trying with Iran have been tried before by the U.S. and Europe and have failed miserably. The only difference now is that Obama believes his force of will and empathy can overcome the divide where others have failed. The end result is going to be a revolution that gets crushed and Iran having nuclear missiles well within range of Israel. Try dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah backed by nukes, see how far down the roadmap to peace you get then.

The same pattern is in play in North Korea. Despite years of deals, sanctions, six-party talks and flat out bribery, North Korea now has nukes and is threatening to launch a test missile in the direction of Hawaii on the 4th of July, just to make a point. The response? Increasing the sanctions that have failed for over a decade and more talks/UN action. This strategy is based on a foundation of delusion that Kim Jong Il can be reasoned with, so long as Obama is the one doing the talking. At this point, North Korea has nothing left to sanction or penalize. Nuclear war might actually help the country. If a few million people were killed that's just that many fewer mouths to feed for the Commies. Even if a North Korean nuke couldn't make it all the way to Alaska or Hawaii, the currently technology is about 500 miles short, we do still have appx. 30,000 troops in South Korea, a fleet of ships patrolling the area and staunch ally Japan all in harms way facing devastation.

This liberal belief in dialogue and institutions to solve the worlds issues is mostly a failure even when spearheaded by normally arrogant politicians but with Obama being deluded by his own belief in his powers of persuasion the world is even more susceptible to tyranny. All the other would be crackpot dictators have stood up and taken notice of this as well, whenever Obama gives a speech ripping the U.S. and its allies and praises the very people threatening us, he may think it's opening the avenues for compromise but other leaders see what it truly is; weak, naive and an opportunity.

This arrogance is also taking shape domestically.

All of the massive spending plans enacted as part of stimulus plan, the banks being nationalized, the auto industry being nationalized, more regulation, higher taxes,
healthcare etc. have all been thrown into the works at breakneck speed.

What do all these various plans have in common? None of them work. None of them have ever worked.

History shows us what happens when countries bury themselves under an exponentially growing mountain of debt. We can see the results in Cuba, the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, all the large socialist democracies in the EU, Vietnam, etc. In every instance, the cost of the bureaucracy becomes so big that it can no longer be sustained. Services get cut, inflation runs wild and joblessness and criminality rise.

All those other examples have decayed at varying speeds depending on the commitment to government expansion but they all do decay in time. The best you could say about any aspect of the socialist agenda is that it can do things as well as a free market capitalism. This may be rare but theoretically possible. Not better mind you, just even.

Knowing that railroading all these social programs in to existence won't actually help the situation the United States is in, why is Obama forcing the issue instead of using the tried and true method, used by liberals and conservatives, of long term tax cuts and stable government spending? This method increases the expectation of economic stability which encourages people to become economically active which creates growth and ends recessions.

Again the reason is twofold.

First, Obama is as liberal as they come. Leaving the fate of the country in the hands of the people simply isn't his way. The Keynesian belief that government spending, fast and furious, is what creates wealth is as true to liberals as gravity.
In addition to that, it's also a power grab. Liberals like the feeling of the government being in control of vast chunks of day-to-day life. Enacting these programs, especially healthcare, give the government control over a tremendous amount of the countries GDP. If socialized healthcare passes, the government will control over half the nations GDP and that bring a lot of power and influence with it.

The biggest reason is that Obama believes that socialist-democracies can work in the United States is because he thinks he can will it to happen. All of the past examples of complete failure don't matter and the models of success that have been used successfully for years don't matter. The only deterrent to this is the next election which is why there is such an urgency to get them all done now. Obama doesn't want to be derailed by a petty election.

Unfortunately for Obama, this kind of naive hubris always ends in disaster. In four short months one of the most historic presidents of all time has seen his approval ratings plunge into the 50's, support for his programs even lower, the most weak kneed moderate opposition is calling him a coward while members of his own party are starting to grumble and quietly distance themselves from him to maintain their own positions with their constituents. The only questions is how bad it will get before he scales back or if he even knows how to scale back. It won't be a question of intelligence but of pride. You don't get to be President by being stupid but you do get through the ranks of Chicago politics without being a cold, backstabbing, never say die son of a bitch.

President Bush held many of the same traits even if they were to different ends. When he left office he did so passing massive spending bills, bailing out business and just about turning his back on the core beliefs that got him elected twice and led him through some dark times. It's unclear if Obama has that kind of defeat in him. Should he lose the 2010 mid terms does he moderate or does he go to the mattresses?

Only time will tell but until then we all get live this Greek tragedy with him, every step, every embarrassment and every nuke of the way.

Democracy Iranian Style

Apparently, the debate is indeed "robust". More after the photos.

(I found this photo, on Andrew Sullivans blog and can be found with other news and videos from inside Iran at http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/. )

It's hard to quantify these events exactly. On one hand, it's encouraging to see the Iranians actually caring about the vote and elections in general. It shows a general level of discontent which is always a good start towards change. However, it's also incredibly sad to know that, unless a full on revolution starts, this is all completely meaningless.

Despite President Obamas self congratulatory delusion, repeated by the media, that these elections were proof of a "democratic" Iran having a serious debate about the future of the country, this election was in the bag before it even started. All presidential candidates in Iran have to be approved by the mullahs. Even if current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was replaced by challenger Mirhossein Mousavi, who cares? Lets not forget that Mousavi is the former Prime Minister of Iran (no longer a part of the Iranian political structure) who during his tenure openly started a nuclear weapons program in defiance of all the Western powers. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss indeed.

Even more disturbing is the reaction of leaders at home and abroad. After President Obama's initial views on the election have proven to be a myth, he now is proclaiming that he is "troubled" by the election, is cautioning against more bloodshed and calling upon Iran to respect the civil right to fair representation and clean elections all the while proclaiming that all nations must respect the sovereignty of the Iranians to conduct their own elections. The President has been echoed by spokesmen for the UK and France.

The idea that any of these leaders actually believe that Iran cares about clean elections, civil rights or basic human dignity is absurd. There isn't any evidence to support any conclusion other than the hard line radicals who run that country get exactly who they want in office. If Obama, or any other leader, believes the things they say about Iran then they are in a state of willful ignorance about the world and how it works. On the other hand, if they know the truth of the Iranian situation, then all this "democratic Iran" business is a deliberate attempt to deceive the people of their respective countries into believing the myth as well so that Iranian aggression can be explained away leaving the leaders to proceed with their domestic and foreign agendas without having to deal with Iran at all.

Much like the Iranian protesters can't win either way with this election, so long as Obama is either lying to himself about Iran or just lying to us, the outcome is the same; an Iran that is unchecked and dangerous.