BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jun 10 - 06:59 PM

I acktshally enjoy yer lexdexic spelling, Bobert. I've become fond of it. I just thought it was kind of funny that both you AND Doug spelled her name wrong...but in 2 different ways! ;-D It figures. You guys just can't agree on anything, can you?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jun 10 - 06:28 PM

Well, as fir me??? I'm lexdexic and don't spell too good either...

As fir Doougie... I mean, the guy's a hundred, LH... It's a wonder he can even turn on a computer...

And, yeah, the speech was good...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jun 10 - 05:48 PM

She's gay? Well, better than being depressed, right? Although there are a fair number of reasons to be depressed these days if you're a political commentator, I think it's always best to look on the bright side. ;-)

I just listened to her speech that she says Obama should have given. Damn good speech! Too bad she isn't president, eh?

Now, tell me...why is it that neither one of you guys can spell "Rachel"?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jun 10 - 02:26 PM

Try the Racheal Maddow show, Dougie...

No don't...

You'll find it boring because it isn't all hysteria like the folks you watch... Plus, it deals with factual information... No sir, I don't think you'll like that either... And Rachael is gay so I reckon the show has struck out in yer book...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Jun 10 - 02:15 PM

And You, Douggie-Boy, get your information OUT OF THIN AIR!

Explains even more.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: DougR
Date: 17 Jun 10 - 01:48 PM

Bobert: You get your information from the Rachael Maddow show?

That 'splains a lot.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 10 - 01:46 PM

Washington
President Obama is "more popular overseas in many countries than he is at home," says Andrew Kohut, President of the Pew Research Center.

Skip to next paragraph
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Does Obama's global popularity matter ?
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Obama is Mr. Popular around the globe
.Mr. Kohut spoke at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters to discuss a new Pew Global Attitudes Project survey which canvassed 24,000 individuals in 22 nations. While 65 percent of those Pew surveyed in the US had a lot or some confidence in President Obama, 90 percent of those in Germany, 87 percent of those in France, and 95 percent of those in Kenya had confidence in him. The lowest popularity rating for the president came in Pakistan where only 8 percent had confidence in him. (The full report is at www.pewglobal.org)

In addition to the findings about Mr. Obama's popularity, the exhaustive report found opinions of the United States have remained much more positive than they were for much of George Bush's term in office.

Former Senator John Danforth, a co-chair of the Pew project, questioned whether Mr. Obama's popularity translates into anything concrete for the US. " For a former politician to see a politician retain popularity is really a wonder. There is no doubt that president Obama has done that," Senator Danforth said at the breakfast.


(Christian Science Monitor)

(As to the argument of what value thismay have, all I can say is I am delighted with the change from the Bush years when Americans abroad pretended to be Canadians in order to duck the obloquoy associated with W.)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 04:33 PM

This kind of emotional vacuity is just hot air and right-wing tubthumpery.

No shortage of that.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 02:41 PM

I get bemused by all this horsepucky about Obama not generating the emotions people want him to show and similar rot. Exactly what is it he should be doing that he is not?

During the Katrina catastrophe there were a thousand suggested actions Bush should have taken he did not.

Who's got a list of the things Obama has missed taking steps on? Hmmmm? This kind of emotional vacuity is just hot air and right-wing tubthumpery.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 02:14 PM

BB: Since you accepted the NYT biased editorials on Bush, ...

1.If you have any documentation for this statement, please provide same. (Or I can save you the trouble: No, you don't.)

2. If you have any evidence the TIMES editorials contained unsubstantiated statements or errors of fact, please provide, as above.

[ NB: There is ample incontrovertable evidence that a substantial proportion of Faux News' output & that or its operatives is just that. Beck & Rush? Please.]

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 01:51 PM

Scofular Views: the Edema Confabulation

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 09:27 AM

Greg F.

Since you accepted the NYT biased editorials on Bush, you have nop reason to complain.

Your comment has been noted, and ignored.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 09:23 AM

Yup. Dick Morris- a paid Faux News hack & proud TeaBagger. Right up there with Glenn & Rush & the Birther crowd.

Please.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 09:16 AM

a majority of voters there think George W. Bush did a better job with Katrina than Obama's done dealing with the spill.

1. Tinfoil sales must be way up in Louisiana.

2. Louisiana never did spend much per capita on education.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 08:06 AM

Well, yeah, MSNBC seems to the the lone leftie media outlet... Problem is that it is greatly outnumbered by the rightie ones...

But thank God for MSNBC... At least when more moderate and curious people ask me where I get some of my information I can tell them to check out the Rachael Maddow Show which, interestly enough, at least a couple of my frineds who had never heard of MSNBC, are now watching...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 08:04 AM

Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Fallout from the Spill

Our new Louisiana poll has a lot of data points to show how unhappy voters in the state are with Barack Obama's handling of the oil spill but one perhaps sums it up better than anything else- a majority of voters there think George W. Bush did a better job with Katrina than Obama's done dealing with the spill.

50% of voters in the state, even including 31% of Democrats, give Bush higher marks on that question compared to 35% who pick Obama.

Overall only 32% of Louisianans approve of how Obama has handled the spill to 62% who disapprove. 34% of those polled say they approved of how Bush dealt with Katrina to 58% who disapproved.

While the poll results indicate a lot of unhappiness with the President, ultimately BP is getting the largest amount of blame from voters in the state. 53% of voters say they're angriest at the oil company to 29% who say their greatest unhappiness is with the federal government. And 78% say BP has the greatest responsibility for cleaning up the spill to only 11% who say that onus lays with the federal government. 44% think BP CEO Tony Hayward should be fired to 29% who think he should not and 26% who are not sure.

One thing the oil spill has not done is created a spike of opposition to offshore drilling in Louisiana. 77% of voters still support it with only 12% against. Only 31% say the spill has made them less inclined to be in favor of drilling while 42% say it hasn't made a difference to them and 28% say they're now stronger in their support.

If there's any 'winner' in this unfortunate event it's Governor Bobby Jindal. 63% of voters approve of the job he's doing, the best PPP has found for any Senator or Governor so far in 2010. There's an even higher level of support, at 65%, for how he's handled the aftermath of the spill.

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/06/fallout-from-spill.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 07:30 AM

MSNBC Trashes Obama's Address: Compared To Carter, "I Don't Sense Executive Command"


Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman react to President Obama's Oval Office Address on the oil spill. Here are the highlights of what the trio said:

Olbermann: "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days."

Matthews compared Obama to Carter.

Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said."

Matthews: "No direction."

Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough."

Olbermann: "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling."

Howard Fineman: Obama should be acting like a "commander-in-chief."

Matthews: Ludicrous that he keeps saying [Secretary of Energy] Chu has a Nobel prize. "I'll barf if he does it one more time."

Matthews: "A lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk."

Matthews: "I don't sense executive command."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 07:28 AM

Obama vs. press freedom

By Dick Morris - 06/15/10 05:22 PM ET

Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of Obama's Federal Trade Commission, is at the epicenter of a quiet movement to subsidize news organizations, a first step toward government control of the media. In our book, 2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan, we reported that he had commissioned a study to examine plans for a federal subsidy for news organizations. Among the measures under consideration are special tax treatment, exemption from antitrust laws and changes in copyright laws.

Now Leibowitz has begun to pounce. A May 24 working paper on "reinventing" the media proposes that the government impose fees on websites such as the Drudge Report that link to news websites or that it tax consumer electronics such as iPads, laptops and Kindles. Funds raised by these levies would be redistributed to traditional media outlets.

While Leibowitz distanced himself from the proposals for the taxes, calling them "a terrible idea," his comments appear to be related only to the levies proposed in the working paper. Nobody is commenting on the other part of his proposal — a subsidy for news organizations.

By now, the Obama MO should be clear to all. As he has done with the banks, AIG and the car companies, he extends his left hand offering subsidies and then proffers his right laden with regulations. Should the government follow through on Leibowitz's ideas and enact special subsidies and tax breaks for news organizations, it will induce a degree of journalistic dependence on the whims of government not seen since the days when the early presidents bestowed government advertising on favored periodicals.

Is it too difficult to imagine that the Democrats might pass laws favoring news organizations, only to question — as former White House communications director Anita Dunn did — whether or not Fox News is a news organization or an "arm of the Republican Party"? We can see a future in which news media are reluctant to be too partisan or opinionated for fear that they would endanger their public subsidy.

Once such a subsidy is extended to news organizations, every company in the business must have it. Otherwise, the competitive advantage for the subsidized companies would prove too steep an obstacle to overcome.

In all the attention that has been given to the idea of an Internet tax on news aggregation sites and on tech equipment — trial balloons that would obviously be shot down — very little attention has been focused on the expenditure side of the proposal — the subsidy of news organizations.

But The Wall Street Journal reported six months ago that Leibowitz had commissioned a study to determine "whether the government should aid struggling news organizations which are suffering from a collapse in advertising revenues as the Internet upends their centuries-old business model." Among the steps under consideration are changing "the way the industry is regulated, from making news-gathering companies exempt from antitrust laws to granting them special tax treatment to making changes to copyright laws."

These are exactly the kind of subsidies that could and would trigger government oversight and control.

Look at how radio stations squirm when their licenses are up for renewal before the FCC. We can imagine news organizations pulling their punches in order not to antagonize the hand that feeds them.

The Leibowitz study, and the subsidy proposals that are likely to emerge from it, represent a chilling threat to the First Amendment and to our civil liberties.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Jun 10 - 08:14 AM

It's a sad fact, Greg, that the American people have become what they used to crticize the Brits for becoming: a tabloid nation... I remember a time when you couldn't go a week without a decent doumentary on the TV... Those have disasppeared because they were educational and not entertaining... People don't want to know anything and thus you have a dumbed down population that is only interested in sensational entertainment... The more sensationak, the better and thus: loonies get alot of press time...

And in the words of the late Walter Cronkite, "And that's the way it is"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Jun 10 - 10:36 PM

This

http://www.natedsanders.com/ItemInfo.asp?ItemID=29679

brings to mind the "TeaBagger/Birther/Obama The Socialist" crowd & reminds us that these right-wing loonies have been around for quite a while.

Question is, why are wackoes currently awarded any measure of respect which they rightfully were not in the past?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jun 10 - 05:36 PM

Yeah, right, LH... In yer dreams... Chongz would have allready emptied a couple hundrdd clips of live ammo at various and sundry folks... Heck, maybe the guy who runs the MiniMart/PB station down the street...

Plus, Chongzer woulda dropped a nuclear bomb down the pipe and blown the entire Gulf of Mexico off the map...

Nah, ol' hillbilly real happy that neither Chongz 'er myself won the election...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 14 Jun 10 - 01:57 PM

They had a choice between a chimp, a chump and a champ, and they picked the champ.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jun 10 - 01:42 PM

If only the public had gone for REAL change and elected Chongo. If only!   ;-)

(Chongo got lucky, though. They didn't. He has no idea just how lucky he is!)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jun 10 - 12:53 PM

I completely agree that Obama hasn't been out there pumping his chest like Bush used to do... In some ways, that's a good thing... But in this entertainment mentality society in which we live where news programs are greared more toward entertainment and less toward news I reckon that Obama is gonna have to do some compromisin'...

I understand that he is going to address the nation tomorrow night on the oil spill... That's a start but only a start... He needs to, at the ver least, watch a couple Bush reruns where Bush stuck out his chin (and chest) and acted like he had just scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl... Theh Obama needs see what parts of Bush's braggin' that he could borrow... Needs to find a happy medium to keep the entertainment crazed public somewhat happy... As well as, ahhhh, enetertained...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Jun 10 - 10:45 AM

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Jun 10 - 10:13 AM

'World News' Political Insights: President Obama Seeks Control of Sticky Storyline

White House Wakes Up Late to Political Fallout of Oil Spill -- Plus an Energy Bill That's Still Stalled

ANALYSIS By RICK KLEIN
WASHINGTON, June 13, 2010


Can Obama clean up oil and his image among voters?President Obama is now reacting to the BP oil mess in precisely the way he said he didn't need to. After weeks of insisting that bringing rhetorical heat on BP executives wouldn't get anything done, that's just what he's starting to do.

Now, a president who's known for his cool is looking for butts to kick. He's meeting with the same executives whose direct input he said he didn't think he needed, as his top aides telegraph growing frustration with their erstwhile partners at BP.

Nearly two months into the environmental calamity in the region, he's making his fourth visit to the Gulf region -- this time, spending an overnight and the better part of two days.

He's capping it all by using one of the loudest megaphones a president possesses: a prime-time address Tuesday night, from the Oval Office.

Why the shift? The White House is beginning to realize that the political fallout of the oil spill is very real -- and holding office for a year and a half makes it harder to blame the previous administration for evident shortcomings.

Just as the president and his top aides didn't fully grasp the scale of environmental fallout, they didn't comprehend the degree to which the response to the incident has evolved into a test of presidential leadership.

The president himself has voiced growing frustration over what he sees as a media-constructed storyline. Yet his actions now, in turning up the rhetorical heat and the personal involvement, play into that narrative.

Little if anything the president says or does this week will do much -- to quote the president on what he's indicated he thinks the American people really want -- to "plug the damn leak." But the time for making friends is over.

"I don't consider them a partner," White House senior adviser David Axelrod said on "Meet the Press" today, when asked about the White House relationship with BP executives. "They're not social friends. They are not -- I'm not looking to make judgments about their soul. I just want to make sure that they do what they're required to do."

Losing Energy
Backers of comprehensive energy and environmental legislation had hoped that the incident in the Gulf would refocus national attention on their cause, fueling a new push toward Senate action on a long-delayed comprehensive bill.

The BP oil spill has indeed scrambled the politics of energy -- but almost certainly not enough to get the cap into cap-and-trade.

Senate Democrats on Thursday will meet to discuss a path forward on an energy bill, and the likeliest path will involve dropping the environmental end of the policy checklist, and focus instead on renewable-energy incentives.

A much-watched vote last week laid bare the stubborn politics surrounding these issues in the Senate. Six Democrats voted with Republicans in a failed bid to strip the EPA of the power to regulate carbon emissions.

Backers of a sweeping approach to energy that involves caps on emissions are caught in a paradox involving the fallout of the BP spill. As President Obama himself realized when he endorsed further offshore drilling just a month before the rig explosion, the only way to get Republicans and moderate Democrats on board for a comprehensive bill is with significant drilling expansion.

In BP's wake, that's simply not going to fly. That means any efforts to impose meaningful limits on greenhouse gas emissions will have to wait at least another year -- and probably longer than that, given the likelihood of Republican pick-ups in the midterm elections this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 09:22 PM

So it's now back to, ahhhhhh, Obama...

Some interesting reading over the last couple days...

Pat Buchannan says Obams should come out and put a major blast on BP???

Other folks say that in doin' so this would show that Obama is somekinda angry black man... You know, feeding into old sterotypes... TRhe boogieman...

I'm with the "other folks"... If Pat Buchannon thinks that Obma needs to rant then let Buchannon step up and do the ranting gainst the Big Boys in Obama's place...

BTW, looks as if Rand Paul is supporting BP... We a;; know that the govrenment is evil... Right???

And we have a woman in Nevada running agasinst Harry Reid who wants to end Social Seurity and wants to bring back prohibition???

Life is gettin' stranger and stranger by the day...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 08:19 PM

Ditto on both the "Zzzzzzzzzzzzz" and the "(yawn)"...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 07:47 PM

(yawn)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 07:11 PM

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 03:38 PM

AP:Sanctions unlikely to stop Iranian nuclear drive
Jun 9 02:18 PM US/Eastern
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer

VIENNA (AP) - Washington calls the latest U.N. sanctions on Iran a diplomatic victory, a show of unity by the world's big powers and a powerful way to prevent the country from making nuclear weapons.
Iran says the sanctions are an unfair attempt to keep it from developing a peaceful civilian energy program.

Whatever Iran's ultimate goal, it is clear that, like three previous sets of sanctions, the new measures are unlikely to crimp a nearly mature nuclear program that can be turned to both peaceful purposes and making atomic weapons.

The new sanctions authorize countries to inspect cargo to and from Iran; strengthen an arms embargo by banning transfers of more types of conventional arms and missiles; expand restrictions on Iran's access to nuclear technology; add more institutions to a financial sanctions watch list and urge "vigilance" in doing business with any organization linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

But because many aspects of a civilian nuclear program can also serve military purposes, Iran already has most of what it would need to make a weapon. And the cost of getting China and Russia to approve the new sanctions was the removal of provisions that would have really hurt Iran, such as an embargo on Iranian oil or a ban on gasoline sales.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, in its newest tally last month said Iran was now running nearly 4,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges and had amassed nearly 2.5 tons of low-enriched uranium that can be used for fuel, once Iran's first reactor goes on line, which is planned for some time this year.

That's also enough for two nuclear bombs if enriched to weapons-grade levels. Iran recently began enriching to higher levels for what it says will be research reactor fuel.

The process is turning out less than weapons-grade uranium. If Iran should decide to pursue a weapon, however, it would take less work to turn such higher-enriched feedstock into fissile warhead material.

It will be hard to keep Iran from obtaining more nuclear technology. Many of the companies and entities mentioned in the new sanctions list have already been subject to sanctions and Iran has found ways in the past to circumvent the penalties or create cover companies to procure items on its behalf

"I don't think anybody thinks these particular sanctions are going to trigger Iran to give up its nuclear program," said Sharon Squassoni, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Secret Iranian nuclear activities were first revealed eight years ago when an Iranian dissident group provided evidence of a nascent government program of uranium enrichment—the technology that can make both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material.

Iran resisted years of calls to permanently stop enriching, prompting a December 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution that called for member nations to prevent the supply, sale or transfer of all materials and technology that could contribute to Iran's nuclear activities.

It was too late. Building on black market components and know-how, Iran already had most of what it needed to maintain—and expand—its enrichment capacities. And clandestine deliveries of equipment continued despite the sanctions—as reflected in dozens of convictions worldwide of people found guilty of nuclear smuggling to Iran.

Subsequent U.N. resolutions in March 2007 and March 2008 repeated demands that Iran come clean on unexplained aspects of its nuclear program that hardened suspicions it might interested in nuclear arms.

But Iran refused—and continued expanding enrichment.

"Sanctions won't stop Iran from continuing its nuclear, missile and space program. It may create some obstacles but Iran can find ways to go around it," said Abbas Pazooki, an Iranian commentator.

Iran says that despite its oil reserves it needs nuclear energy to guarantee its future economic sustainability.

After the U.N. vote, Iran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee accused the United States, Britain and their allies of abusing the Security Council to attack Iran.

"No amount of pressure and mischief will be able to break our nation's determination to pursue and defend its legal and inalienable rights," Khazaee said.

Western intelligence reports say it is clear that Iran is interested in at least achieving the ability to produce a bomb, even if it has no specific plans to produce it at the moment. The reports from the U.S., Israel, France, Britain and other nations assert that Iran has experimented with most other key aspects of warhead production and delivery.

Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress recently that if and when Iran decides to build its first bomb, it could amass enough highly enriched uranium to do so in as little as 12 months.

An International Atomic Energy Agency document meant to be read by only a handful of the agency's top officials and leaked to The Associated Press last year expanded on some of that intelligence. It cited Iran experts at the U.N. nuclear monitor as believing that Tehran already has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and worked on developing a missile system that can carry an atomic warhead.

It was the clearest indication yet that those officials share Washington's views on Iran's weapon-making capabilities and missile technology—even if they have not made those views public. And because the agency is generally seen as impartial, the findings added to concerns about Iran's nuclear goals

In that document, IAEA officials assessed that Iran worked on developing a chamber inside a ballistic missile capable of housing a warhead payload "that is quite likely to be nuclear."

_ That Iran engaged in "probable testing" of explosives commonly used to detonate a nuclear warhead—a method known as a "full-scale hemispherical explosively driven shock system."

_ That Iran worked on developing a system "for initiating a hemispherical high explosive charge" of the kind used to help spark a nuclear blast.

Iran did not comment on the report.

Whatever their efficacy, the latest sanctions may serve Iran's leadership in their drive to rally domestic support by depicting international opposition to its nuclear drive as an attack on the country.

"If you think that by making fuss and propaganda you can force us to withdraw you are wrong," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a home crowd last month. "The Iranian nation will not withdraw one inch from its stance."

In Vienna, International Atomic Energy Agency officials say that Iran recently served notice that it would further cut back on cooperation with the U.N. nuclear monitor if new sanctions were adopted.

That would reduce the outside world's already narrow window on Iran's nuclear program.

___

Associated Press Vienna Bureau Chief George Jahn has reported on Iran's nuclear program since 2002

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 03:07 PM

OPINION JUNE 9, 2010 The Alien in the White House

The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.

There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.

A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.

One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind. Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.

Far greater strangeness has since flowed steadily from Washington. The president's appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality. Their work is not easy, focused as it is on a current prime preoccupation of this White House—that is, finding ways to avoid any public mention of the indisputable Islamist identity of the enemy at war with us. No small trick that, but their efforts go forward in public spectacles matchless in their absurdity—unnerving in what they confirm about our current guardians of law and national security.

Consider the hapless Eric Holder, America's attorney general, confronting the question put to him by Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) of the House Judicary Committee on May 13.

Did Mr. Holder think that in the last three terrorist attempts on this soil, one of them successful (Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, preceded by his shout of "Allahu Akbar!"), that radical Islam might have played any role at all? Mr. Holder seemed puzzled by the question. "People have different reasons" he finally answered—a response he repeated three times. He didn't want "to say anything negative about any religion."

And who can forget the exhortations on jihad by John Brennan, Mr. Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism? Mr. Brennan has in the past charged that Americans lack sensitivity to the Muslim world, and that we have particularly failed to credit its peace-loving disposition. In a May 26 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Brennan held forth fervently, if not quite comprehensibly, on who our enemy was not: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is just a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear."

He went on to announce, sternly, that we do not refer to our enemies as Islamists or jihadists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam. How then might we be permitted to describe our enemies? One hint comes from another of Mr. Brennan's pronouncements in that speech: That "violent extremists are victims of political, economic and social forces."

Yes, that would work. Consider the news bulletins we could have read: "Police have arrested Faisal Shahzad, victim of political, economic and social forces living in Connecticut, for efforts to set off a car bomb explosion in Times Square." Plotters in Afghanistan and Yemen, preparing for their next attempt at mass murder in America, could only have listened in wonderment. They must have marvelled in particular on learning that this was the chief counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States.

Obama Resells Health Law to Seniors Lincoln Bucks Wave Against Incumbents The Blagojevich Drama Debuts Showdown on Fund Taxes Long after Mr. Obama leaves office, it will be this parade of explicators, laboring mightily to sell each new piece of official reality revisionism—Janet Napolitano and her immortal "man-caused disasters'' among them—that will stand most memorably as the face of this administration.

It is a White House that has focused consistently on the sensitivities of the world community—as it is euphemistically known—a body of which the president of the United States frequently appears to view himself as a representative at large.

It is what has caused this president and his counterterrorist brain trust to deem it acceptable to insult Americans with nonsensical evasions concerning the enemy we face. It is this focus that caused Mr. Holder to insist on holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan, despite the rage this decision induced in New Yorkers, and later to insist if not there, then elsewhere in New York. This was all to be a dazzling exhibition for that world community—proof of Mr. Obama's moral reclamation program and that America had been delivered from the darkness of the Bush years.

It was why this administration tapped officials like Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Among his better known contributions to political discourse was a 2005 address in which he compared the treatment of Muslim-Americans in the United States after 9/11 with the plight of the Japanese-Americans interned in camps after Pearl Harbor. During a human-rights conference held in China this May, Mr. Posner cited the new Arizona immigration law by way of assuring the Chinese, those exemplary guardians of freedom, that the United States too had its problems with discrimination.

So there we were: America and China, in the same boat on human rights, two buddies struggling for reform. For this view of reality, which brought withering criticism in Congress and calls for his resignation, Mr. Posner has been roundly embraced in the State Department as a superbly effective representative.

It is no surprise that Mr. Posner—like numerous of his kind—has found a natural home in this administration. His is a sensibility and political disposition with which Mr. Obama is at home. The beliefs and attitudes that this president has internalized are to be found everywhere—in the salons of the left the world over—and, above all, in the academic establishment, stuffed with tenured radicals and their political progeny. The places where it is held as revealed truth that the United States is now, and has been throughout its history, the chief engine of injustice and oppression in the world.

They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.

The truth about that distance is now sinking in, which is all to the good. A country governed by leaders too principled to speak the name of its mortal enemy needs every infusion of reality it can get.

Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the WSJournal's editorial board.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 10 - 03:05 PM

"06/09/2010

Left-Wing Icon Daniel Ellsberg
'Obama Deceives the Public'

REUTERS
Daniel Ellsberg, legendary leaker of the "Pentagon Papers" in 1971, still has a bone to pick with the White House. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, the 79-year-old peace activist accuses President Obama of betraying his election promises -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan and on civil liberties.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Ellsberg, you're a hero and an icon of the left. But we hear you're not too happy with President Obama anymore.


Daniel Ellsberg: I voted for him and I will probably vote for him again, as opposed to the Republicans. But I believe his administration in some key aspects is nothing other than the third term of the Bush administration.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How so?

Ellsberg: I think Obama is continuing the worst of the Bush administration in terms of civil liberties, violations of the constitution and the wars in the Middle East.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: For example?

Ellsberg: Take Obama's explicit pledge in his State of the Union speech to remove "all" United States troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. That's a total lie. I believe that's totally false. I believe he knows that's totally false. It won't be done. I expect that the US will have, indefinitely, a residual force of at least 30,000 US troops in Iraq.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What about Afghanistan? Isn't that a justifiable war?

Ellsberg: I think that there's an inexcusable escalation in both countries. Thousands of US officials know that bases and large numbers of troops will remain in Iraq and that troop levels and bases in Afghanistan will rise far above what Obama is now projecting. But Obama counts on them to keep their silence as he deceives the public on these devastating, costly, reckless ventures.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You doubt not only Obama's missions abroad but also his politics back home in the US. Why exactly are you accusing the president of violating civil liberties?

Ellsberg: For instance, the Obama administration is criminalizing and prosecuting whistleblowers to punish them for uncovering scandals within the federal government …

SPIEGEL ONLINE: … Such as the arrest, confirmed this week, of an Army intelligence analyst for leaking the "Collateral Murder" video of a deadly US helicopter attack in Iraq, which was later posted online at WikiLeaks.

Ellsberg: Also, the recent US indictment of Thomas Drake.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Drake was a former senior official with the National Security Agency (NSA) who provided reporters with information about failures at the NSA.

Ellsberg: For Obama to indict and prosecute Drake now, for acts undertaken and investigated during the Bush administration, is to do precisely what Obama said he did not mean to do -- "look backward." Of all the blatantly criminal acts committed under Bush, warrantless wiretapping by the NSA, aggression, torture, Obama now prosecutes only the revelation of massive waste by the NSA, a socially useful act which the Bush administration itself investigated but did not choose to indict or prosecute!

Bush brought no indictments against whistleblowers, though he suspended Drake's clearance. Obama, in this and other matters relating to secrecy and whistleblowing, is doing worse than Bush. His violation of civil liberties and the White House's excessive use of the executive secrecy privilege is inexcusable.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why would Obama reverse himself?

Ellsberg: He's a good politician. He said what he needed to say to get elected, and now he's just taking advantage of the office. Like any administration before, his administration caters to the profits of big corporations like BP and Goldman Sachs -- even though I think BP won't get off that easily this time. His early campaign contributions, the big corporate contributions, came from Wall Street. They got their money's worth.

In fact, during the campaign of 2008, three candidates were backed by Wall Street: Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. If you look at the rhetoric, the most promising was John Edwards. Too bad he turned out to be a jerk.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But Obama has been very verbal about his criticism of Wall Street.

Ellsberg: His actions are totally uncoupled from his public statements. I don't even listen anymore. He has turned 180 degrees. Another example: His promise to filibuster a law giving the phone companies legal immunity for any role they played in the Bush's domestic eavesdropping program. Then he not only voted not to filibuster it, he also voted for the law -- against the wishes of his backers.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you think that will backfire for the Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections?

Ellsberg: I don't think what Obama is doing is the best way to get votes. But it's the best way to get campaign contributions.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You were the ultimate whistleblower. In 1971, you leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, revealing that the government was well aware the Vietnam War couldn't be won. You changed history but were vilified and prosecuted for it. Would you still do it today?


Ellsberg: I wouldn't wait that long. I would get a scanner and put them on the Internet.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would that still have the same impact?

Ellsberg: If the Pentagon Papers came online today all at once, the government wouldn't be tempted to enjoin it. Back then, we got this long duel going between newspapers and the government. In the end, 19 newspapers ended up putting up parts of the documents, day after day after day. It created this ongoing scandal. I don't think it would have the same impact online as having it in the Times. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 01:39 PM

Ahhhh, how many Obama apologists have ever heard of the "National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan"???

(Hmmmmmm, Sawz, none holdin' up their hands...)

Oops thar's Bobert wif his hand up in tha air.

Bobert?

Ain't np "National Respinse Plan"

Hey, give Bobert an A for attendance.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 01:16 PM

Perhaps Sawz would like to detail for us how the plan he believes covered the whole subject of offshore drilling safety is supposed to be applied int he face of wilful disregard by speed and profit hungry execs, and a giant hole in the sea bottom unleashing thousands of gallons of raw oil?

Does he have a remedy for the situation that was dumped on the nation (and the President) by his well-beloved Chenyites?

Nooo?


Hmmmmmmmm.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 12:47 PM

Ahhhh, talk about distortions, Saws... Exactly when did you give Obama any chance to succeed??? Oh, that's right... You told yourself... Hmmmmmm??? Must have some personality disorder 'cause seems that all you've done is give the man the blast here in Mudville??? Like what's that about??? BTW, do you hears voices in yer head that no one else hears???

BTW, Part B... You have been doing well since yer last visit to Betty Ford but seems that you have fallen off the wagon yet again... Think it might be time for you to get back in there for a little refresher...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 11:36 AM

Excuuuse me Mr Poet but it has been 496 days since Obama took office.

What has he corrected? He hires corporate fat cats like the ones he supposedly is battling. Mr fatcat Soros that was so active in getting him elected made over a Billion last year. Warren Buffet? Richest man in the world at times.

You accuse others of fuzzy thinking but you grant yourself a license to telescope 496 days into one day and expand 48 years into 2000 years. Distortion of facts is OK for you.

I guess a functional brain, rubberized. pickled in 'shine and THC is capable of stretching the truth like that while facts and common sense bounce off like bullets bouncing off of Superman.

Obama is clearly to big to fail in your opinion and your task is to bail him out at any cost.

I told myself We should give him a chance. He got his chance.

Bottom line:
A. There is a plan.
B. It has been updated regularly to cover offshore oil spills.
C. You were wrong when you said there was no plan.
D. Your ego prevents you from admitting you were wrong.
E. A sensible person would admit when they are wrong and earn more respect.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 11:02 AM

Bobert: "...And, for the record, I spend way too much time with my various instruments..."

OHH! Is that why yout lawn is over grown??

Wink,

Gfs

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 09:26 PM

Yo, GfSer... That was my post that mouse was quoting... And, for the record, I spend way too much time with my various instruments...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 09:20 PM

Mouser, That was a rather extreme hostile, and violent post! I think you need to spend more time on the instrument!..and I've said that, in support of you, as well.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 01:12 PM

Obama should have corrected 30 years of corporate corruption on his first day in office!!! Yep, he should have just declared martial law and had the National Guard round up every CEO of a Fortune 500 company and he should have issued executive orders to undo the 3 decade old Reagan Revolution... Yes, that's what he should have done... Right???

Sigh. If only!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 01:03 PM

Yeah, Amos... I think we are finally seein' just what a piece of crap "energy plan" that Cheney and his oil buddies put together behind closed doors... Problem is that alot of this stuff got snuck into law with executive orders and signing statements that people really didn't have a clue had occured and now it takes a lot of hassle (and time) to undo the harm... Not to mention that the Repubs flat out don't want to give Obama any victories between now and the election... Hmmmmmmm??? Seems that sandbagging and runnin' out the clock are about the only things that I can see that the Repubs have any level of expertise...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 08:37 AM

As you visit us today for the third time since the Deepwater Horizon started gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the people of Louisiana have questions that must be answered.

Well now, the good "People Of Louisiana" have stood steadfast for unregulated, unbridled Capitalism, lower taxes, less government** and unlimited oil exploration.

In the words of the Alaskan Tea-Bimbo: "How's that workin' out for them?"

( ** less government until something happens and they come crying and whining for the government to do something toot sweet and damn the cost, that is)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 08:35 AM

Sawz,

You are indeed a piece of work, trying to blame Obama for the offshore drilling catastrophe, when it is matter of plain record that large oil interets under Cheney are the forces that oushed this solution for years, and these same oil managers are the ones who overrode the safety processes in place and ignored danger signs to hurry up the oil production.

Talk about needing a basket for your head, aux barricades, mon vieux.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 08:27 AM

For the last timr, Saws... I am a writer... If I say a 2000 year old plan it is obvious to any one with a funtional brain that I am taking some "poetic license"... Look that up in yer Funk and Wagnal...

Doesn't much matter, tho... Yje point is that a 40 year old plan ain't exactly grounds for the oil companies to get up on their high horses and proudfully pump their chests as if to say, "Hey, we got it covered"...

As for this being on Obama??? Yeah, yer right... Obama should have corrected 30 years of corporate corruption on his first day in office!!! Yep, he should have just declared martial law and had the National Guard round up every CEO of a Fortune 500 company and he should have issued executive orders to undo the 3 decade old Reagan Revolution... Yes, that's what he should have done... Right???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 01:42 AM

The thing that some say could create a black hole is the Large Hadron Collider. It is not an energy source, it is a tool for learning about subatomic particles. This makes me wonder, concerning things in your posts I don't know a lot about, if they're just as messed up as this is. Probably so.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 01:32 AM

Bobert:

"A two thousand year old plan on what to do with oil spills???"

Dear Bobert:

This has been updateD regularly. The last revision I see is :


Oil Pollution Prevention; Non-Transportation Related Onshore and Offshore Facilities

[Federal Register: May 16, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 94)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Page 27443-27448]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr16my07-16]

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
40 CFR Part 112
[EPA-HQ-OPA-2006-00949; [FRL-8315-1]
RIN 2050-AG36

Oil Pollution Prevention; Non-Transportation Related Onshore and
Offshore Facilities

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Final rule.


And you accuse me of fuzzy thinking????

You said there was no plan. There is a plan. You were wrong but too much of an ego freak to admit when you are wrong. Do you have a big basket to carry your head around in? Not stupid but just to belicose lazy to find out what you are talking about before you shoot off your mouth.

There has been a plan since 1968 , 42 years , not 2000 years but don't let that interfere with your fuzzy "I am always right" thinking. Where's the Bobert fan club when you need um?

No doubt you will devise some sort of task for me to do to prove you are right to weasel out of admitting your are wrong.

If the plan does not cover exactly the situation, that is Obama's fault. He is the one that called for offshore drilling a short while back. Didn't he for-see what might happen and require an update to the National plan to cover it?

Too busy rocking with Sir Paul, kissin ass with foreign governments and servin up the Wagu while children starve to do the hard job he asked for, said he could do and promised he would do: protect the American people.

It's more like the American people have to protect him from being a failure or they get called racists.

All this ongoing genetic engineering could unleash something bad like a plague that no one knows how to stop or like that perfect energy source thing they are trying to perfect in Europe which some say could create a black hole.

Where is the plan for dealing with those contingencies?

What? No plan? Who is responsible?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 12:35 AM

Great video post, Little Hawk! Cracked me up!

Sawzaw, It's been my experience on here, that those who are sold out socialist do not comprehend facts. They are more into promoting their illusion!...and believing their own press....even when they just make it up!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 11:55 PM

Correction:

I said the Approval of the Democratic party dropped 20% in one month.

Wrong.

The favorable rating of the Democratic party fell 20% from 57 percent to 37 percent in one year.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 11:46 PM

Now, THIS is emotion!