01/04/2012 Fresh from the Department of ADLADS (A Day Late & A Dollar Short) comes this bit of hilarity, an AP story, via ABC News.
Oh, man . . . I promise it will make your day:
Carter's Advice to Obama: Don't Alienate Voters
By GREG BLUESTEIN Associated Press ATLANTA January 4, 2012 (AP)
Former President Jimmy Carter has some advice for Barack Obama as he gears up for the 2012 election: Don't alienate voters with controversial positions.
The Georgia Democrat told The Associated Press on Tuesday that just about everything he did alienated voters, from sealing a treaty to hand over the Panama Canal to establishing diplomatic ties with China.
Carter said: "If your main goal is to get re-elected, avoid a controversial subject as much as you can in the first term."
"I need ya! Jon needs ya! . . . Are ya fired up? Are you ready to go?"
And now there is this one from the RNC, below . . . featuring a frenzied Sheriff Joe, telling us how, right at the beginning, Jon Corzine was "literally" the "first guy I called!"
Sez Joe:
"He's the smartest guy that I know, in terms of the economy and on finance. I really mean this!"
And how about Joe's priceless closer, huh?
"Jon was right ... C'mon, I could start a mantra ... Jon was right! Jon WAS RIGHT!"
And then, you'll want to go here, starting at 928 to hear the "one recent voice" of Jon Corzine:
" . . . Obviously, on the forefront of everyone's mind, including mine, are the varying reports that customer accounts have not been reconciled. I was stunned when I was told on Sunday October 30th, two-thousand and eleven, that MF could not -- MF Global could not account for many hundreds of millions of dollars of client money. I remain deeply concerned about the impact of the unreconciled frozen funds have on MF Global's customers, and others. I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date. As the chief executive officer of the MF Global holding company, I ultimately had overall responsibility for the firm. . . ."
11/06/2010 -- Anyone who has any AOL account, is fully aware of the strong left-leaning character of the political coverage on their linked news stories . . . that is when they are not covering some insipid opinion or other, blurted out by some stupid hollywood celebrity! AOL "news" coverage can really be quite pathetic.
But is is possible that AOL is actively playing Democrat politics already -- just post mid-term elections? Just check the following photo montage AOL posted this morning on their face page, one that is intended to greet the millions of Americans having AOL as their e-mail service!
Bear in mind that CNN has just released a poll (ht: Ed Morrissey at HotAir) indicating that, as of today, two of the three most well known 2012 Republican hopefuls, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, would defeat Barack Obama. Only Sarah Palin would lose to Mr. Obama, according to the CNN poll. So, for the left and their acolytes in the media, perhaps it's become time to back off all the Sarah Palin bashing, and to begin unloading on both Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney! By the way, AOLwas well aware of the poll.
According to the CNN poll:
"Looking ahead to 2012, it may be too early to count Barack Obama out, particularly if Sarah Palin is his opponent," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "The former Alaska governor gets a lot of attention, but she is in third place when Republicans are asked to pick a presidential nominee, and in a hypothetical matchup with Obama she is arguably the weakest candidate of the top-tier GOP hopefuls."
The poll itself addressed several others as well, including Newt Gingrich. According to CNN, Gingrich too would fare better than Sarah Palin against the President. But the photo montage just cited those "top three" Republican hopefuls. Here is the AP/Getty photo posted by AOL today.
Get the sense that the AOL photo editor would like to negatively affect any chance of either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee growing in popularity and thereby being more likely to garner the nomination?
And, do you have any doubt something like that was a factor in the photos chosen to be posted together? I don't.
The Huckabee photo is terrible. It looks like he just had been told he failed an IQ test, for crying out loud! It takes real work to dig out a photo from the files that is that negative. Normally, this sort of selection represents the work of a partisan campaign consultant putting together a negative mailer meant to utterly ridicule the person or persons.
And Mitt Romney looks like he'd been holding his breath for several minutes, and just that second let the air out! Again, it took some real search time for the editor to come up with a photo that bad looking. Romney is normally a very photogenic person. It again looks like a selection made by a negative campaign consultant, not an ostensibly neutral media organization.
So, it sure looks to me like whoever did this editorial work, at this point wants Palin to get the nomination.
But it doesn't look to me like it was a Palin fan who made the choice. It is not the work of someone who wants her to actually be elected, mind you . . . just someone who wants her to win the Republican nomination.
The motive seems to have been trashing the two with, as of today, (according to the CNN poll) the best chance of beating Obama in 2012.
After all, Barack Obama's photo looks just fine. Presidential, even.
With somewhat characteristic understatement, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, Charles Krauthammer, has suggested in his Washington Post column that President Barack Obama may be a bit of a narcissist. At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey concurs.
Krauthammer pointedly made his case this way:
It's fine to recognize the achievements of others and be non-chauvinistic about one's country. But Obama's modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply.
It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention. And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America's sins and the world's to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the word "I."
And he rather sharply adds that all of this self-focus is really
[n]ot surprising, perhaps, in a man whose major achievement before acceding to the presidency was writing two biographies -- both about himself.
Regarding the narcissistic tendencies, Mr. Obama is by no means alone among past, and no doubt future Presidential contenders, or presidents. Moreover, he certainly has not had to rely exclusively on his own press to reinforce what appears at times to be an almost Ptolemaic sense of self esteem on his part! At times, the sickeningly baseless praise coming from some major press figures has actually been quite risible.
What seems to particularly distinguish Obama, according to Krauthammer, is that there also appears to be a very disturbing tendency on the part of this President to make quite disparaging comments about the United States, comments which cumulatively may not sit well at all with the American people. Even Jimmy Carter was out of office before he began his relentless sniping.
Again, Krauthammer nails it:
Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama's modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence -- yet not of his own country's.
As a major columnist and critic, Krauthammer's comments could have the effect of finally nudging open the door to more blunt public criticism of Obama and his agenda by additional folks in the major media, particularly as the nation begins to focus more and more on the mid-term election cycle, and a series of national policy changes that have come up so short.
And that, I suspect, is when the jokes may really begin . . . here's one based on the self-esteem theme:
Q: How does Barack Obama claim to change a light bulb?
A: Simple. He just holds the bulb while the world revolves around him.
(H.T. -- the generic joke was found here. There were several others, but this one, as adapted, seemed to fit best.)
A New Conspiracy Of Dunces? Bill Clinton & the Big Plot Against Democrats!
Updated: 09/29 -- Back in the pre-Lewinsky, though post "halcyon" days, of the Clinton Administration, Time Magazinepublished a commentary by Bruce Handy ridiculing conspiracy theorists in general, and pointedly snickering at those who were advancing governmental theories about Bill Clinton in particular.
The title, from which this piece is derived, was a play on a similar title taken from the one-hit-wonder novel by John Kennedy Toole. Yet, a bare few years later, when stories about Clinton and his relationship with Monica Lewinsky surfaced on the news aggregator, Drudge Report, it was Hillary Clinton leading the charge, in accusing conservatives and Republicans of being involved in a "vast right-wing conspiracy." By then, Bruce Handy didn't seem to recall his prior formulation. He was a bit too busy excusing the "putatively noble" President for having been a bit of a "tomcat."
For many, many years now, new media critics of what has fashionably come to be known as the "mainstream media," have prodded news outlets on the subject of bias, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, arguing that there is now and has been a decidedly left-leaning cant to the news coverage in that amorphous place we call the media marketplace of ideas, particularly with regard to political reporting. And over the years polls have repeatedly supported the sense that there is a liberal bias in the mainstream media, though liberals are increasingly likely to identify what they see as media bias as well.
If political news reporting is about anything in a representative democracy, it should be at least focused on ideas. We frequently lose sight, in the thick and intrusive fog of celebrity and personality, that what we are observing is little more than an entertaining focal plane from which politicians and newsmakers spew those ideas in order to fuel public debate, and from which the rest of us view and evaluate them.
But Bill Clinton has now jumped back into the current murky waters of conspiratorial accusations with a novel comment made today on NBC's Meet the Press with David Gregory, alleging, as the AP has quickly reported it, that the
"vast, right-wing conspiracy that once targeted him, is now focusing on President Barack Obama."
Whoever framed the question for Meet the Press host, David Gregory, either had a sense of humor, and set the boy up, or had no sense whatsoever about the irony of the question being framed in that manner.
Here is exactly what Gregory asked:
"Your wife famously talked about the vast right wing conspiracy targeting you. As you look at this opposition on the right to President Obama, is it still there?"
The question, of course, presumes that there was such a "conspiracy." Now anyone with any memory at all will recall that Hillary Clinton made that absurd comment on NBC's Today Show in the precise context of whether her husband had committed adultery. And as we all now know, he had. And, we all know that he openly lied to the American public about it. Hillary's comment then was appropriately tagged at the time as paranoid, and once the truth came out, her comment began being openly ridiculed, just as Bill's answer to David Gregory's query today ought to be.
But that is not the way the question and Clinton's comment are being reported, not just by AP, but also by CNN, here.
They are being reported as if each -- her original accusation, and his rant today -- are both somehow legitimate characterizations of political opposition to the policies of the current President.
The original Hillary Clinton comment, as you may recall, was made in the context of the breaking story in January of 1998 that then-President Clinton had had a sexual affair with young Monica Lewinsky, which affair was alleged to have taken place in the Oval Office within the White House. Hillary Clinton went on the attack, alleging that it was all false, and that there was instead, a "vast right-wing conspiracy" that was fueling this and all false stories about her husband.
"First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday launched a vigorous counterattack on behalf of her husband's beleaguered presidency, declaring that the president is the victim of a "politically motivated" prosecutor allied with a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
Using a nationally televised interview as her forum, she assumed a familiar and crucial role as Bill Clinton's first defender. She said she knew him better than anyone in the world, still loved him, and fully believed his denial of allegations that he had entered into a sexual relationship with a White House intern and had urged the young woman to lie about it."
Ooops! You might have thought that David Gregory and the Meet the Press staff would have access to those old Today Show clips, and that they would have eschewed the use of the much-maligned phrase!
Over time, the most potent evidence of left-leaning media bias has come from several instances of outright objective dishonesty, rather than the obvious contextual absurdity of Clinton's comment today.
In the former category, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes come to mind.* Or, Scott Beauchamp.**
Much more recently, however, we have witnessed blatant bias involving three "top" tier news gathering organizations, each climbing all over one another in an attempt at a take-down on the two young "conservative journalists" who have exposed ACORN. As documented by Joel Mobray at Big Government, three the mainstream media, including New York Times, the Washington Post and the Associated Press were not only late to the story -- they have now all had to issue corrections for false quotations or statements they made about James O'Keefe. Scott at Powerlinehas more detail about the Times and WaPo treatment of the duo. Update: Scott at Powerline has drawn a bead on the pernicious offense of the Washington Post in falsely attributing a racially-charged quote to O'Keefe. Scott links to a concise explication of the handling of the false quote by the newspaper in a piece posted by Gary Larson at Human Events.
Perhaps this latest Clinton foray is an attempt to tack back a bit from an earlier Democrat-based formulation, one advanced by another former Democrat President, Jimmy Carter -- that the "overwhelming portion" of the intense opposition to President Obama's policies is based on racism -- the fact that Barack Obama is "black."
In remarks decried by Republicans, former president Jimmy Carter told NBC's Brian Williams in an interview Tuesday that he believes race is at the core of much of the opposition to President Obama.
Carter's ugly and divisive characterization has since been thoroughly rejected by the American public, with a Rasmussen poll concluding that only 12% of Americans agree with him. And, though there are many (21%) who are uncertain if race is a source of the opposition, fully two-thirds (67%) of Americans outright reject that notion. Even the President himself shrewdly has put distance from that formulaic paranoia, noting on a guest appearance on Letterman that,
"First of all, I think it's important to realize that I was actually black before the election."
So, is this new Bill Clinton formulation just the latest Democrat effort to somehow convince the public that opposition to the President's policies is really based on a political conspiracy -- just not an overtly racist one, as Carter had claimed?
David Gregory comes across as the classic "useful idiot" for having either formulated or at least asked the question in a manner that would remind people of that old Hillary paranoia.
But you really have to wonder -- why do the "professionals" at top media outlets keep getting caught at it?
Is it genuine stupidity? Group think?
Or, is it an irreconcilable sense that it just plain doesn't matter what the public thinks? One thing is for certain -- professionalism it is not!
# # # # #
*Rather, the top newsman of his day and his producer, fashioned and aired an utterly dishonest report, based on what they knew or should have known were forged documents, ones that were given to them by an utterly disreputable source, and which had been hashed over and rejected repeatedly by other news outlets. But after working and reworking the story with an obsessive zeal, Rather and Mapes aired it on CBS with the obvious intention of politically "mortally" wounding a sitting President in the crucial run-up to the 2004 election. Update:AP reports that an appeals court in New York has dismissed Rather's suit against CBS on all grounds.
As we all know, the new media -- internet blogs and aggregators, initially a web contributor with the screen name "Buckhead" -- took the CBS report apart with a blizzard of evidence, the best of which convincingly proved that the documents on which the entire report was founded, were blatant forgeries -- proof based on close technological analysis of typeface fonts in the ostensible written correspondence, ones that simply did not exist at the time recorded on the "damning" documents.
And Rather's nearly immediate defense constituted what had to have been the most risible formulation in the history of journalism -- that the documents may have been questionable, but the underlying story was true. He might as well have said the story was false but it was true. We all had a good laugh, and Dan Rather left, only to become a pathetic, comic figure desperately trying to this day to salvage his reputation.
CBS conducted their own internal investigation, the key conclusion of which was nearly as comical as Rather's "it's false but it's true" formulation. Though the expert they hired to determine if the documents were forgeries, concluded what others in cyberspace had already done -- that no such typewriter typeface existed at the time the documents were supposedly written – the report concluded that they would leave the issue open, on the outside chance that someone at some time in the future might discover a typewriter with such a typeface. Again, we all had a good laugh.
**There was so much written about the fabulist Iraq soldier, Scott Beauchamp, who published his expose "story" in the New Republic, that it is hard to know where to begin with the exposure of his pattern of lies. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit posted a pretty concise summary of them here.
"This isn't about me. I have great health insurance, and so does every Member of Congress."
- President Barack Obama, July 22, 2009*
UPDATE, 10:oo pm: *The exact quote above was taken from the President's opening remarks at his Press conference earlier this evening. But during the conference, he was specifically asked about whether his healthcare plan would be good enough for his family. He would not directly address the question. We'll post video, and his specific response when it is available.
UPDATE II, 1:15 pm, 7:45 pm 07/23: [Corrected] Reporter Steven Thomma of McClatchy [and not Steve Koff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer as was indicated in the CBS transcript, and on the video] asked the question, and a follow-up when the President ducked the question the first time. The President apparently thought he was calling on Koff but Thomma, hearing "Steve" jumped right up and fired off his question when the President pointed to him. The personal reference to the Cleveland Mayo Clinic in his answer, and his reaction to Lynn Sweet's subsequent interjection makes it very clear Obama still thought he was speaking to Koff during his answer as well.
Gee, was Koff's question supposed to be a "set-up" question? Sure looks like it might have been. After Lynn Sweet spoke, Koff was then given an opportunity to ask a quick question, and he promptly asked the question about the Mayo Clinic that President Obama had essentially just answered in responding to Thomma!
(Original post) 07/22/09 Watch, if you will, the short and informative embeded video below,(ht, Reboot Congress, here. The clip is quite entertaining, and what can only be described as the clutch move is given voice by an unseen questioner in the audience. It suddenly crops up, right at the very end.
I think you'll enjoy it! The video contains a few key portions of a healthcare forum held by Russ Carnahan (D-MO), a first term Missouri Congressman, just as his forum was beginning to show a few signs of going south on him. Check the expressions on the faces of some of his staff at the end. Tango down!
While I was watching it, an idea struck me. If this healthcare overhaul is good enough for all Americans -- to have it be required for all of us to have it as a minimum, then it's good enough to be required for everyone, includingeveryone in the federal government, no?
Here is the clip:
President Obama was reportedly asked a similar question quite recently. Something like, "Are you going to be covered by this plan?" or words to that effect. And he largely ignored the question. Not hard to figure out why!
So, why not make a condition of the passage of any healthcare legislation, a specific statutory requirement that all Congressmen and Congresswomen, all of their staffs and employees, all United States Senators, and all of their staffs and employees, the President and his staff, all members of his Administration, in other words all officers and public employees of the Executive Branch of our government, and all members of the Federal Judiciary, and their staff officers and employees, are all subject to the same requirements of law that the promoters of the healthcare are now proposing to be required for the rest of us, you know . . . "We the People ..."
Of course, like any of us, they would be free to seek any private or supplemental coverage they want or desire, but not on our dime. Realistically, if they are certain such additional coverage will be readily available, then they could hardly have a beef placing themselves in the same situation they want the rest of us to be subject to. Of course, the law should require that they would also have to pay for any of that additional coverage entirely on their own, just as we would. But if they are going to require all the rest of us to be in a basic system that they tell us is so good, then it should be good enough for them as well.
The requirement would have to be in the form of an amendment to any bill that is proposed to overhaul the healthcare system. If a sufficient number of Americans make it clear that they want that amendment included in any provision to overhaul the healthcare system, then the Members of Congress would he hard-pressed not to include it, especially if it was offered as an amendment, and they had to vote yes or no on that particular provision.
An amendment to the healthcare bill might look something like this:
"(1). The provisions of any law to the contrary notwithstanding, all officers and employees of the United States of America, including, but not limited to all Members of Congress in either House, and their staffs and employees, the President of the United States, all of his staff, all appointed or ex officio members of his Administration, all officers and public employees of the Executive Branch of the federal government, and all members of the Federal Judiciary, constitutional or otherwise, and all staff officers and employees of the federal judiciary, shall be hereafter subject to the provisions of this law.
(2.) In no event shall any federal funds pay for any healthcare coverage beyond the basic coverage mandated herein [public option], provided however, that nothing shall prevent any federal officer or employee, as specified in paragraph (1.) of this provision, to contract for purchase of any additional healthcare coverage as said person or persons shall deem appropriate for themselves, and, or, their families, as the case may be."
__________________ Here is the transcript from CBS News, containing the exchange between Steven Thomma of McClatchy and President Obama on whether he and the Congress would abide by the terms of the "public option." At one point on a follow-up he says he would abide by the terms of the public option, and immediately notes why that could not possibly work! He ducked the question about Congress entirely, except to falsely suggest at one point that the plan they want to put in place somehow matches up with the federal plan. (my emphasis added)
[Steve Koff, the Cleveland Plain Dealer.] Correction: Steven Thomma, McClatchy
Q: Thank you. To follow up on Jake's question earlier, sir, so many Americans are concerned that this plan, particularly the government insurance, the public option, would lead to reduced benefits or reduced coverage.
Two questions. One, can you guarantee that this legislation will lock in and say the government will never deny any services; that that's going to be decided by the doctor and the patient, and the government will not deny any coverage? And secondarily, can you, as a symbolic gesture, say that you and the Congress will abide by the same benefits in that public option?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, number one, not only the public option but the insurance regulation that we want to put in place will largely match up with what members of Congress are getting through the federal employee plan. That's a good example of what we're trying to build for the American people -- the same thing that Congress enjoys, which is they go -- there is a marketplace of different plans that they can access, depending on what's best for their families.
Now, one of the plans that we've talked about is a public option. And part of the reason we want to have a public option is just to help keep the insurance companies honest. If the insurance companies are providing good care -- and as it is, they're going to be more regulated so that they can't deny you care because of a preexisting condition or because you change jobs or because they've decided you're too sick and not a good risk -- with regulation there's already going to be some improvement in the insurance industry.
But having a public plan out there that also shows that maybe if you take some of the profit motive out, maybe if you are reducing some of the administrative costs, that you can get an even better deal, that's going to incentivize the private sector to do even better. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing.
Now, there have been reports just over the last couple of days of insurance companies making record profits -- right now. At a time when everybody is getting hammered, they're making record profits, and premiums are going up. What's the constraint on that? How can you ensure that those costs aren't being passed on to employers or passed on to employees, the American people, ordinary middle-class families, in a way that over time is going to make them broke? Well, part of the way is to make sure that there's some competition out there. So that's the idea.
Now, to get to your original question, can I guarantee that there are going to be no changes in the health care delivery system? No. The whole point of this is to try to encourage changes that work for the American people and make them healthier. The government already is making some of these decisions. More importantly, insurance companies right now are making those decisions.
And part of what we want to do is to make sure that those decisions are being made by doctors and medical experts based on evidence, based on what works -- because that's not how it's working right now. That's not how it's working right now.
Right now doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that's out there.
So if they're looking -- and you come in and you've got a bad sore throat, or your child has a bad sore throat or has repeated sore throats, the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, you know what, I make a lot more money if I take this kid's tonsils out. Now that may be the right thing to do, but I'd rather have that doctor making those decisions just based on whether you really need your kid's tonsils out or whether it might make more sense just to change -- maybe they have allergies, maybe they have something else that would make a difference.
So part of what we want to do is to free doctors, patients, hospitals to make decisions based on what's best for patient care -- and that's the whole idea behind Mayo, that's the whole idea behind the Cleveland Clinic. I'm going to be visiting your hometown tomorrow to go to the Cleveland Clinic to show -- to show why their system works so well. And part of the reason it works well is because they've set up a system where patient care is the number-one concern, not bureaucracy, what forms have to be filled out, what do we get reimbursed for. Those are changes that I think the American people want to see.
Q:And what about yourself and Congress? Would you abide by the same benefits package?
THE PRESIDENT:You know, I would be happy to abide by the same benefit package. I will just be honest with you -- I'm the President of the United States so I've got a doctor following me every minute. (Laughter.) Which is why I say this is not about me.
I've got the best health care in the world. I'm trying to make sure that everybody has good health care -- and they don't right now.
Lynn Sweet. Oh. (Laughter.) Well, I said Steve Koff -- but he just stood up, huh?
Q: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that's not fair. Shame on you. (Laughter.) All right, get in there real quick.
He can say that bit about it not being about him again . . actually, he did say it, twice . . . it is not about him. Nor is it about the Members of Congress! They will just be the ones imposing it on the rest of us; not the ones who have to live with it.
Evan Thomas of Newsweek actually tells the furrowing-legged Chris Matthews* and the other Kool-Aid® drinkers over at MSNBC that, unlike Ronald Reagan -- who was just a parochial, chauvanistic, provincial American -- that Obama is above America, and -- get this -- even "above the world."
Then, Thomas actually comes right out and says that Obama is now "sort of God." Here's the exact quote:
"I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."
No, I'm not kidding. Evan Thomas said that.
He even claimed that this is Obama's task . . . his "job!"
Boy . . . we mere mortal Americans are in big trouble! Looks like we may have a few tasks to perform -- starting with cancelling any subscription to Newsweek.
UPDATE: 06/07/09 Apparently not wanting to be outdone by some cuckoo publisher of an American "news" magazine that has headed south for the duration, a French restauranteur has claimed "I saw God before me" when he eyeballed Michelle Obama in his Paris eatery last night!
"I saw God before me," he said, "because I saw this smile that a million people have seen around the world. I saw her (Michelle) radiant. ... It's idiotic, but it's like that."
Okay. I'll agree with the "idiotic" part.
*Oh. Sorry about the failure to issue the obligatory Olbermann-Content Alert in posting the "furrowing-up-my-leg" video.
On Monday, New York City area residents, including many folks here in New Jersey, were treated, without any advance public warning whatsoever, to a low-level "fly-over" by Air Force One and two F-16 fighter jets in and around the area of Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan, understandably causing many area residents to begin to panic.
And Barack Obama has let it be known -- through his spokesman, Robert Gibbs -- that he is "furious."
Wow! Mr. Cool has lost it? Makes you wonder what the reason or reasons are that he is "furious." It turns out, we'll ultimately be treated to the results of a fully-varnished "internal probe" conducted by the White House political deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina on the subject.
So really finding out why the President is "furious" will be anyone's guess. And every public official in sight is now risibly denying that they had any advance notice of the flight, including the President, New York Mayor Bloomberg, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs and New Jersey Governor Corzine. And Bloomberg, like Obama, says he is "furious."
Therefore, the following are our suggestions . . . i.e., the top ten reasons President Barack Obama is now furious about the FAA and the White House Military Office. In advance of the flight, they imposed a cloak of secrecy on, among others, the New York Police Department and the Mayor's Office, prior to Monday's low-level "photo op" flight over the Statue of Liberty, even though, according to an FAA document obtained by CBS, the FAA knew the flight would likely cause some to panic!
New York City officials were even threatened in advance with undefined "sanctions" if the story got out. The low-level flight of the large jetliner, immediately tailed by first two, then one jet fighter, was plainly visible from the lower end of New York City, as well as across the Hudson in Jersey City, and other New Jersey communities.
The claimed purpose for the fly-over, involving an Air Force One "back-up," accompanied into the area by those two F-16 fighter jets, was to obtain file-footage of the Statute of Liberty from Air Force One, and also footage of the Presidential plane flying past the New Jersey-based harbor landmark.
Now, the riparian rights to all submerged lands surrounding the Statute of Liberty are in New Jersey, located as they are just off of Jersey City. And nearby Ellis Island was declared to be located in the State of New Jersey by the United States Supreme Court back in 1998.
"he and other New Jersey officials were not informed ahead of time about the low-flying planes past the New York skyline that set off a panic on both sides of New York Harbor on Monday."
However, the story goes on to say that the FAA insists that the New Jersey State Police, for example, were informed in advance. From the story:
Governor Corzine said he has yet to find a New Jersey official informed in advance about the flight, which he called out of sync with "understandable anxiety that people in the metropolitan area have on both sides of the river."
But an FAA spokesman has said the flyover "was approved and coordinated with everyone," with notifications made to the New York City Police Department, the mayor's office, the New Jersey State Police, and other agencies.
Hmmmmm . . . ? New Jersey has a "Homeland Security Office." Were they one of the "other agencies" that was informed in advance?
White House Military Office
According to the Wall Street Journal, the current head of the White House Military Office, Lou Cadera, is an Obama political appointee, --which represented a change from the Bush Administration when that post was held by active duty military personnel.
There has been no credible public explanation yet for why, or for whom such footage was considered desirable, other than the remote suggestion that it may have been for documentary footage -- at a cost to the taxpayers of an estimated $328,835.00! The unscheduled and unexpected low-flying incident obviously conjured up memories of 9/11, scaring some New York and Jersey City office workers out of their wits, rattling windows, and even prompting some of them to panic and run, or to evacuate buildings.
According to the stories, Obama was so furious about the secrecy, that he has ordered a secret internal investigation -- as opposed to a public hearing -- as the right way to get to the bottom of the incident. And, he has further vowed "it will not happen again."
Gee, one would certainly hope so!
But clearly, someone has to poke a little fun at these curiously uninformed, yet furious politicians.
So here, then, are the "Top Ten Reasons" we believe the President is now furious.
10. The AF-1 "fly-under" of the Manhattan Bridge to show that Obama is a "regular guy" will now have to be cancelled, or at least postponed until some time in the second term. Update: Oops! The cancellation was apparently cancelled! (ht. Free Republic)
7. When Lou Caldera poked his head in the Oval Office door earlier that AM and said, "Hey Chief, were takin' eagle II & a couple of fly-boys to go buzz ground zero for your pics," Obama knew he should have done more that just laugh and fire back, "Hey . . . just don't get Bloomberg's knickers in a knot!"
6. Obama knew he could not keep a straight face and concede that they just didn't figure out that it would unintentionally remind people of a certain "'man-caused'disaster"
5. This time, no one in the Administration was willing to go out and blame the snafu on Bush, our veterans, right-to-lifers, or the Canadians.
4. Obama only apologizeswhen overseas. But here in America? "Fit to be tied!"
3.Jonathan Martin was unavailable for a new staring contest.
2. Initially blaming an anonymous city employee, and an anonymous police department employee for scaring of "a couple of million people" just wasn't working, for some stupid reason.
And the number one reason Barack Obama is furious over the "buzzing" of ground zero for a lousy photo-op, using Air Force One and two F-16s:
Funny Post of the Day -- Hero Worship versus Heroics --
We haven't had one of these in a while, but this one's a gem . . . a little window on our time!
You see, yesterday afternoon (1/15), two considerable events were in the news simultaneously . . . Obama visits newspaper, versus multiple heroics mark amazing jet crash, with all miraculously surviving.
The first unfolded in a blog posting by Washington Post blogger (Achenblog), Joel Achenbach, memorializing for all the world to share, the historic visit by President-elect, Barack Obama, who had just finished waltzing through their offices, including a "circling" of the WaPo newsroom itself. He obviously caused near delerium, even amongst the assembled scribes who reportedly buzzed around the triumphal One, all scrambling to shake his hand. At one point, having circled the newsroom, he graced them with words upon which great memories are surely always built . . . "All right, back to work!" he said. As reported by Joel, and in the WaPo itself (Kurtz), all work in the newsroom had indeed come to a screeching halt.
Michael Calderone at Politico has wryly traced the related press kerfuffel, started by N.Y.Times reporter, Helene Cooper, who began the spat it by suggesting that there had been actual applause amongst the Washington Post press pool upon his arrival. The WaPo, per Auchenbach, denies -- though none denied the heavy enthusiasm.
And, in other news, in New York, a veteran airline pilot, Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, III, somehow managed to safely bring down a huge jet, US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus 320, the two engines of which had just been critically damaged by impactwith a flock of geese during take-off.* By turning the crippled jet plane sharply and "gliding" it south, he coasted over the vaunted two-tier George Washington Bridge by about 900 feet, warned the passengers to "brace for impact," and splashed it belly down in the frigid waters of the Hudson River, just off 50th Street, between Manhattan and the Port Imperial Ferry Terminal in Weehawken, New Jersey. It floated down river during the many extraordinary rescue actions, and was eventually pulled into a pier in lower Manhattan. The former U.S. Air Force pilot, and safety expert thereby spared the lives of every one of the obviously terrified 155 passengers and professional crew, all of whom were subsequently snatched from the icy drink by a nearly instantaniously cobbled-together rescue effort of boats from both states, many displaying the coordinated training and tempering developed in the wake of 9/11, plucking them all from the wings and on-plane inflated life rafts, a feat the likes of which, rarely happens without the occurrence of at least some fatalities. There were none . . . and few injuries.
But back to our lead story. Joel Achenbach's posting of the triumphal visit of the PE to the Post offices, contained his very own personal account of actually shaking the hand of Obama. Nearly unbelievable!
"I was going to tell him that if he needed any tickets to inaugural events, he should call me, because I've got connections. But I froze up and just shook his hand and said good luck."
(Sigh!)
What spawned our funny comment of the day, printed below, can only completely be appreciated by scanning through the comments posted on the thread of Joel's drama-infested WaPo tale.
Said our funny commentier of the day, one RD_Padouk:
Joel, that is so cool that you got to meet the Pres-Elect in Person. Did he happen to mention me? No? We'll he has a lot on his mind.
See, this job of your does have some nice perks besides that whole, you know, minions bit.
Posted by: RD_Padouk January 15, 2009 4:33 PM
Heh! Ah, yes! Sarcasm is alive and well, even among some Washington Post readers.
But to really appreciate the context of the impact of those two simultaneously braking stories, one also should surf through the "comments" thread of that WaPo blog post.
Therein, you will see comment after comment obliquly referencing over to the breaking dramatic story of the jet airline, but not breaking off from their fascination with the Obama appearance at the paper. Some of the comments even expressed annoyance at the coverage of the crash by television stations, when there are obviolusly such far more important events to pay attention to -- such as the historic visit by Mr. Obama to the Washington Post newsroom!
I kid you not! Read for yourself.
Thus spake Obama hero-worshiping commenter, one Badsneakers!
I came home sick today or I wouldn’t have seen the news of the plane so soon. MSNBC has not broken into their coverage of it for two hours. I know it’s news and I’m very glad that everyone is ok, but do we really need non-stop coverage?
Joel, I am filled with envy to the point of being speechless.
Posted by: badsneakers January 15, 2009 5:31 PM
Or, check this opener by commenter firsttimeblogger.
Well, I think that meeting Obama is way more cool than watching an airplane ditch (and I only say it that way, since everyone got out alive and there appear to be no injuries -- otherwise I'd be way more circumspect). . . .
Posted by: firsttimeblogger January 15, 2009 5:20 PM
More circumspect? What is the idiom in vogue these days? "You can't make this up!"
You don't have to. They're out there. And, they obviously vote.
Meanwhile, Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, First Officer Jeffrey B. Skiles, the professional crew, the passengers, and the band of rescuers from both New York and New Jersey, all somehow came together, and what unfolded was one of the great "good news" stories of our time!
That was the one that left me speechless!
* The NTSB identified them thusly: "'a string of primary targets' that may have been birds at an altitude of 2,900 to 3,000 feet, 90 seconds after takeoff from New York’s LaGuardia Airport, said Kitty Higgins, a National Transportation Safety Board member." (Latest update: 1/17/09)
Taking the Contribution Float: Like Reneging on Public Financing, and ACORN Abuse, another case of "fair is foul, and foul is fair?"
He has been caught in a few instances of redistribution chatter recently, beginning with his conversation with Joe the Plumber - "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody!"
And past audio tapes are now surfacing, including the Obama radio interview from 2001, bemoaning the failure of the court system to engage in "redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society," and, further, suggesting the need for refocusing on "the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change." We embeded that audio clip here (transcript here).
In reaction to the relevations, Senator Obama has tried to reemphasize what he has been saying throughout the campaign, that his taxation plan, to the extent that it incorporates additional requirements for the redistribution of wealth, is really just about "fairness." That, he insists, is the overriding factor, even if it would be harmful to the economy in the short run, or reduce revenues. He has also called his notion of fairness "neighborliness."
Three major Obama campaign-related incidents, however bespeak an utter disregard for any notion of fairness. One was his outright violation of the commitment he made to participate in the public financing of his campaign -- of which Cambell Brown of CNN has now starkly reminded viewers. This has given him a huge cash advantage in the campaign.
In recent weeks a second scandal has erupted over revelations about attempts at massive voter fraud, and the involvement of ACORN, an organization with which he has had very close ties since his days as a "community organizer.
Finally, when it came to putting together his system of collecting campaign donations, an apparent disregard of fairness was at stake. As reported in the lede of the Washington Poststory on the subject, "Obama Accepting Untraceable DonationsContributions Reviewed After Deposits," printed in today's edition:
Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.
Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.
Well, fairness has always tended to be a relative term. The question always is, fair to whom?
As reported in today's WaPo story by Matthew Mosk, Senator Obama's campaign now concedes considerable campaign contribution irregularities. He was first caught at it by bloggers, as the paper noted. His campaign deliberately set up an open-ended contribution system, one that, because it did "not require front end screening," gave them the opportunity to accept millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions, including untraceable "cash" contributions from people using temporary credit cards, and for virtually anyone to "contribute" using the pre-paid cards, or the credit card numbers of others.
In recent weeks, questionable contributions have created headaches for Obama's accounting team as it has tried to explain why campaign finance filings have included itemized donations from individuals using fake names, such as Es Esh or Doodad Pro. Those revelations prompted conservative bloggers to further test Obama's finance vetting by giving money using the kind of prepaid cards that can be bought at a drugstore and cannot be traced to a donor.
The problem with such cards, campaign finance lawyers said, is that they make it impossible to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who have exceeded the limits, government contractors or others who are barred from giving to a federal campaign are making contributions.
In the aggregate, that deliberate choice has enabled the Obama campaign to take corrupt advantage of what financial folks call "the float" -- i.e., having all of that cash on hand for their use during the campaign, knowing that because much of it is illegal, they would eventually have to either return, donate or otherwise deal with much of that money.
But they only will have to do so after having helped themselves to the additional advantage of using the money, in order to win the election. Some bogus campaign contributions have worked their way into all major campaigns, including John McCain's campaign, requiring the campaign to address them. But the McCain camp had an up-front "screening process" in place that has prevented anything like the massively fraudulent influx of questionable donations in the Obama campaign.
Was that fair? To whom? Surely not his opponent, who played it straight by employing front end screening. Surely not the election process. Surely not the spirit of a system of regulating federal campaign contributions established in order to protect the American people from corrupt practices. And, by obvious extension, surely not the American people.
The Obama folks could have easily set up their system -- as did the campaign of Senator John McCain -- so that they would minimize such unlawful contributions. The Obama campaign intentionally chose not to.
When challenged about his lack of any real executive experience, Senator Obama's supporters have, from time to time, pointed to his running of his remarkably successful Presidential campaign as proof. Regardless of whether this is a "bootstrapping" argument, if one presumed the validity of it, then it is entirely legitimate to point to his decision to preside over a questionable, even sleazy fundraising operation as evidence of very bad judgment on his part.
He cannot, as they say, have it both ways! Corruption always strolls along shortcut paths, and it is obvious that the Obama campaign did little to keep it's own folks on track when it 1.) came to breaking his commitment on public financing, 2.) registering new voters, and 3.) in the entire process by which he raised money for his campaign. But at the same time, he would like us to somehow believe that the overriding concern for how he will handle the treasury of the United States and help guide the nation's economy, will be "fairness!"
Why should we not conclude that what he really wants, is for us to finally buy that Bridge to Nowhere?
(Updated: 10/29 AM) While he was a state legislator a few years back (2001), Barack Obama was quite candid in describing what he saw as the failure of the federal Court process to effectively redistribute wealth, as a way to redress the grievances addressed during the Civil Rights era.
" . . . [O]ne of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was, because the Civil Rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.
"And in some ways we still suffer from that."
and, he further said:
" . . . I'm not optimistic about bringing about major redistribute change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn't structured that way."
So now, Senator Obama is running for President. As you'll recall, just two weeks ago, out slipped a very telling comment in a brief moment of candor. He had stopped to speak with a man named Joe Wurzelbacher as he was canvassing for support in Joe's neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio. Among other things, Senator Obama said to the man who quickly became known as Joe the Plumber:
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody!"
Seriously . . . is this really what we've been waiting for? Throughout the campaign, voters have indicated that they strongly oppose "redistribution" plans to deal with the economy. And they do not like what amounts to a "welfare plan" disguised as a "tax cut." This latest tape had to be a blow to the Obama campaign. And as noted in the Wall Street Journal, he also wants to further alter an "already progressive" Social Security system, turning that into a welfare system as well. And the ever-vertiginous Joe Biden now seems to have further muddied the waters about exactly where the waterline begins between "redistributees" and "redistributors."
Our take.
It's a bit of a take off on a John McCain line from a speech to a crowd in Kettering, Ohio (near Dayton) as was quoted in an article by Jack Torry and Mark Niquette published in the Dispatch Politics, a division of the Columbus Dispatch:
"That's what change means for the Obama administration, the 'redistributor': It means taking your money and giving it to someone else," McCain told a crowd of about 2,000 at the James S. Trent Arena.
Thomas Jefferson, who those in the Democratic party so frequently see as their favorite founding father, was very distrustful of big government because he thought it always led to tyranny.
Likewise, he was distrustful of "too active" government as well. In a letter written in 1787, he told his friend, James Madison,
"I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive."
And he even had an interesting argument against wasteful or undue government spending:
"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys."
In his first Inaugural Address, in 1801, our third President framed his approach to how he would govern:
"With all [our] blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens--a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."
All of which makes Joe Biden's latest odd argument -- that criticisms of the policies and approach of Barack Obama are somehow comparable to those aimed at, among others, Thomas Jefferson -- seem strangely hollow indeed! And with all the "age" barbs being fired at John McCain, one can only guess that with his sense of humor, McCain might be tempted to paraphrase Lloyd Benston and say, "Joe the Senator, I knew Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was a friend of mine . . .
Transcription of the Radio Interview Portion of Clip Barack Obama, Chicago Public Radio Interview, 2001
Here is a transcription of a portion of a morning interview, found here on YouTube, and which we embeded here, that was held with then-State Senator Barack Obama on the radio show, "Odyssey" at public radio station, WBEZ Chicago, 91.5 FM, back in 2001. We have eliminated only the fequent interjections of "uh" and "um" in order to facilitate the ease of reading. Dots . . . indicates a break in the tape. Paragraph breaks are ours, as are any transcription errors.
. . . Announcer:"Good morning and welcome to 'Odyssey' on WBEZ, Chicago, 91.5 FM. And we're joined by Barack Obama who is Illinois State Senator from the 13th District, and Senior Lecturer in the Law School at the University of Chicago." Senator Obama: "You know, if you look at the victories and the failures of the Civil Rights movement, and it's litigation strategy in the Court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order, and, as long as I could pay for it, I'd be okay. "But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. "And, to that extent, as radical as, I think, people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and more important, interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. "And that hasn't shifted and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was, because the Civil Rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. "And in some ways we still suffer from that." . . . Announcer: "Let's talk with Kiran. Good morning, Kiran. You're on Chicago Public Radio." Questioner: (Kiran) "Hi. The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn't terribly radical. My question is -- with economic changes – my question, is it too late for that kind of repairative work economically, and is that the appropriate place for repairative economic work to take place?" (Announcer interjection:) "You mean the court?" (Kiran:) "The court, or would it be legislation at this point?" Senator Obama: "You know, maybe I'm showing my bias here as a legislator, as well as a law professor, but, you know, I'm not optimistic about bringing about major redistribute change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn't structured that way." . . . "You know, you just, say, look at very rare examples during the desegregation era, the Court was willing to, for example, order, you know, changes that cost money to local school districts, and the Court was very uncomfortable with it. It was hard to manage, it was hard to figure out. You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring, or, or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time." . . . "You know, the Court is just not very good at it, and politically it's just that it's just very hard to legitimize opinions from the Court in that regard. So, I mean, I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally, you know, I think you can, any three of us sitting here could come up with a rational for bringing about economic change through the courts." . . . .
Obama On Redistribution Of Wealth, Circa 2001: Using The Courts and Legislature
Apparently, Barack Obama has done quite a lot of thinking about the redistribution of wealth, and how best to go about it! The Warren Court was apparently not "radical" enough, what with their exclusive focus on all those "negative rights," just focused on what the government could not do to you!
Just check out this audio clip at YouTube (ht Tigerhawk, here) from a radio interview back in 2001, which, as noted by Tigerhawk, was prior to the impact of the Bush tax cuts.
Maybe Joe Biden needs to eat a little humble pie and go back and update his answers to TV anchor Barbara West's questions.
Others have said it, but few so persuasively as Mark Steyn, as he had also elaborated in an interview with Hugh Hewitt last Thursday. So, I'll say this. By damn, Mark Steyn is a great American, even if he is a Canadian! It was there where he and Macleans Magazine were recently officially accused by the Canadian authorities of . . . well, telling the truth! Now Mark points out that Joe the Plumber has managed, where all else had failed, to penetrate through the fog and, at least momentarily, induce Senator Obama to blurt out a little truth.
To Mark, the brief conversation between the two men revealed the contrast between Joe's world and the
hermetically-sealed environment that Obama lives in, in which his contact with the real world involves getting $50 million dollars from William Ayers through the Annenberg Challenge to spread, radicalizing Chicago schoolchildren. That’s not how real people spread the wealth around. And I would go back, you know, to Joe the Plumber’s point, that actually, if you just let people spread their own wealth around, they’ll make more sensible decisions than, for example, Congress interfering in the mortgage and credit market by making certain requirements of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and all the rest of it. Joe the Plumber, the three hundred million Joe the Plumbers across the land, will make better decisions on that than the federal government will.
Mark elaborates further in National Review Online:
The heart of the American Dream is aspiration. That’s why people came here from all over the world. Back in eastern Europe, the Joe Bidens and Diane Sawyers of the day were telling Joe the Peasant: "Hey, look, man. You’re a peasant in the 19th century, just like your forebears were peasants in the 12th century and your descendants will be peasants in the 26th century. So you’re never gonna be earning 250 groats a year. Don’t worry about it. Leave it to us. We know better." And Joe the Peasant eventually figured that one day he’d like to be able to afford the Premium Gruel with just a hint of arugula and got on the boat to Ellis Island. Because America is the land where a guy who doesn’t have a 250-grand business today might just have one in five or ten years' time.
I'm with Joe the Plumber, not Joe the Hair-Plugger. He's articulated the animating principles of America better than anyone on either side in this campaign. Which is why the O-Bots need to destroy him.
Months and months of examination by the campaign by John McCain, and by the campaign of Hillary Clinton before him, had fundamentally failed to penetrate to the core of what makes Barack Obama tick. And the mainstream press has largely provided him ample cover. As a result, in spite of all that probing, the candidate had essentially remained a mystery about what really motivates him, even regarding his plans for economic recovery.
But in one small, and actually very friendly conversation along a rope line in Ohio the other day, Joe the Plumber asked the candidate for a justification of his proposed tax plan. Mind you, he did not go seeking Obama. Obama's campaign came to Joe's neighborhood. At one point in the conversation, Joe even asked him why not a flat tax. Make no mistake, by what he asked, Joe was challenging the very core of Obama's economic "vision" for America. And Barack Obama uncharacteristically let his guard down just a little bit when he responded candidly and told Joe the Plumber at one point,
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody!"
Of course, what he meant by that is when the government spreads the wealth around, not when the economy grows because government gets out of the way.
I was curious to find out if any other well-known personality had slipped like that. You know, whether someone blurted out something similar.
So, I linked to Brainy Quote and searched for anyone who had made a similar comment, any quote containing the phrase, "spread the wealth around," or even "spread the wealth."
No dice.
Then I tried the "Quote Garden." Nothing there either.
Nor at "Quoteland." As for any matches, "none found" they said, to both searches.
Back in very early 2002, the leftwing site, The Democratic Underground, posted an opinion piece under this title: "Enron Spread the Wealth Around Washington" which obviously put any such activity in a very bad light indeed. Spreading the wealth to those in government -- nothing good about that!
About the closest I could come to a parallel quotation, was from famous utopian thinker ("New Atlantis"), Sir Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, who did contribute rather significantly to the development of the scientific method. On the general subject at hand -- spreading money -- he once reputedly said (ht. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 2 Ed.):
"Money is like muck, not good except to be spread."
But that too does not really seem to be the exact point Barack Obama was making. Bacon , who was appointed the Lord Chancellor in 1621, certainly did not specify that the spreader-in-chief should be the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who in his day was one Fulke Grenville.
And, for all of his contributions to the development of scientific thinking, that negative sounding comment is entirely understandable, as Bacon was notoriously bad with money throughout his entire life. As pointed out at Wikipedia,
"In spite of a generous income, old debts and spendthrift ways kept him indebted."
Bacon's public career ended in disgrace when he was accused of bribery (there's that "spreading the wealth" to those in government again), for which he paid significant fines, and narrowly avoided being stripped of all his titles.
So, it would seem that we can conclude this particular formula of Obama's -- that governmental "spreading the wealth" that is "good for everybody," is an original characterization by our newly coined, "Senator Government."
He owns it.
Looks like Barack Obama did not inadvertently pull a Joe Biden plagiarism when he let that one rip!
"The Funniest Fifteen Minutes of Your Life, or Any Other!"
Below are the intentionally comedic routines of both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama delivered at the annual Al Smith Dinner, held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York last night.
Each man delivered a good routine, and both were punctuated by self-deprecating humor, as well as friendly jibes aimed at the other fellow.
We thought John's performance was stellar. Great delivery, and a boffo finish.
Obama was good, but perhaps just a little too much giggling at his own punch lines. One of the great ephemisms of humor is that when a comic is succeeding, he's killing the audience, while the comic himself remains deadpan. But if he has to chuckle in order to telegraph the punch lines, the humor has obviously fallen flat.
Our title, above, is taken from the closer of the routine delivered by Senator John McCain, who went first. At the point where he delivered that line, John was pretending to have gotten a peek at a copy of the upcoming Obama routine. And he was warming up the crowd for what they should expect from the impending comedy debut of Senator Obama.
Of course by doing so, he was mockingly setting up the Illinois Senator, with wildly over-stated expectations, right after saying that to do so would be completely unfair.
Great stuff!
P.S. In each case, you should watch the first embed all the way to the end, and then click on the second embed. There is no need to click on the ghost white "switch" internally embeded right near the end of the first McCain video clip.
The first half of John McCain's routine begins here, with the second half posted embedded just below it.
The second half of John's routine begins here:
John was followed by Barack Obama, with the first half posted here:
The second half of Senator Obama's routine is posted here:
In addition to the McCain closer, there was one other telling moment during the evening which you may have noticed as well. After paying his obligatory personal respects to Al Smith, Senator McCain began talking about the wonderful work of the foundation named after the man.
It comes at about 4:04 of the second McCain clip. McCain ticked off all the foundation's work for the poor and needy, including their abiding respect for the dignity of life, and "especially your gallant defense of the unborn" all work which John said he can be counted on to support as "an ally."
His comment was followed by very warm general applause from the audience, and the camera panned over (at about 4:27) to record the reaction of Senator Obama. Note that he was indeed applauding, but very inconspicuously so, with his hands, for the first time, under the table.
"Just Another Guy Pedaling His Viewpoint" A Socialist One At That, He Adds
Given the fact that the Presidential Debate, earlier this evening, is already being dubbed the "Joe the Plumber Debate," here he is, Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Ohio, who confronted Barack Obama on a rope line the other day about his tax plan, and elicited the comment from the Presidential candidate about his idea to "spread the wealth around."
Obama also said to Joe:
"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too."
Joe didn't much care for the idea, which he called "a socialist viewpoint." Well, that's fair. In addition to running as a Democrat, Obama did run on a socialist (New Party) line in his first race for public office.
Here, we see Joe being interviewed by Neal Cavuto of Fox News Network, on the Obama tax plan.
An earlier Fox tape shows more of the direct exchange between Joe and Barack Obama.
More on Joe here. And the fact that it was indeed the Joe the Plumber debate.
Gateway Pundit (ht, Instapundit, here) has more face time with Joe the Plumber post debate, including video of an interview with Joe by the Toledo Blade. Here's the embed of that video:
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit asks, "Can we vote for him?"
Nice to hear someone, a small businessman, who really will be negatively affected by Obama's redistribution plan, talk about the impact rather than constantly hearing Senator Obama prattle on about how his friend Warren Buffet, "can afford" to pay more taxes. A lot of people have been hurt by the uncertainty in the credit markets, and small businesses across the nation will be crucial to the nation's financial recovery.
Larry Elder clearly explains why, when Obama says he will give "tax cuts" to 95% of American workers, he is being disingenuous.
Why? More than 30 percent pay nothing in federal income taxes. Obama comes up with this number by calling tax credits "tax cuts." One can debate whether these things are good or bad, but they are not tax cuts. McCain offers refundable tax credits for health care, as well as other credits, but he doesn't insult the intelligence of the American people by calling them "tax cuts." When Obama's credits go to people who pay no federal income taxes or who pay less than the value of the credit, they are not "tax cuts." They are transfers of money from one pocket to another, or redistributions of wealth, but they are not tax cuts.
Obviously, their campaign stung by the Joe the Plumber references during the debate, a blinking Joe Biden was given free rein by David Gregory at MSNBC on "Closing Arguments" to peddle his viewpoint about the credibility of Joe the Plumber. Notice how uncomfortable Gregory looks letting Biden go on and on. But he doesn't interrupt.
" ... It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?"
"Major Wilkinson, this is a glorious day for our country."
-- General George Washington, December 26, 1776, at Trenton
"Seas roll and months pass between the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system."
"Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors."
-- Thomas H. Huxley
"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
-- Henry David Thoreau, upon suspecting his milkman was watering it down.
"Really, the truth is everybody wants to tell their story."
-- Lawrence Wright, September 23, 2007, author of The Looming Tower asked by Sean Hannity why jihadis and their supporters were so willing to be interviewed for his book.
"I believe in having an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out."
-- Grace Murray Hooper, "Amazing Grace" - Mathematician, computer scientist & programming pioneer, Rear Admiral, U.S Navy, patriot, quoted by, Tropp, Henry S. "Grace Hopper: The Youthful Teacher of Us All." Abacus 2 (Fall 1984): p. 18 (ht, Wikipedia).
"For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?"
-- Paul of Tarsus, The Bible, 1st Letter to the Corinthians 10:29
"Every dollar spent by government is one less dollar spent by taxpayers."
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
-- Mark Twain, American Humorist, Writer, and Lecturer, as quoted here.
"I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty, or civilisation, or both.
... Either the poor would plunder the rich, and civilisation would perish; or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish."
-- Thomas Babington Macaulay, British Historian and Whig Politician, in an 1857 letter to an American friend as quoted here, ht, here.
