One of the more annoying characteristics of President Obama is his lack of graciousness, his tendency to gloat, to take victory laps, and his overall peevishness even in victory. Rather then having a “first class temperament” as the buffoonish Christopher Buckley declared in October, 2008, Obama exhibits all the tendencies of having an immature temperament, vindictive and petty and being a malignant narcissist.
“For many years, the word that Democrats hurled at Republicans was ‘divisive.’ (Their other great word was ‘mean-spirited.’) I can’t think of people — certainly of Americans — more divisive than the Obama Democrats.
You remember what Obama said during the campaign, right? He said it in a television ad: ‘Mitt Romney. Not one of us.’ Can’t get any starker than that, really.”
Jay Nordlinger
by Michael Goodwin
A Favorite apocryphal tale goes like this: A New Jersey town where 90 percent of the residents are Irish and 10 percent Jewish had an election. The Irish candidate got 90 percent of the vote, and the Jewish candidate got 10 percent, whereupon the Irish victor celebrated by lamenting the clannishness of the Jews.
Sore winners have always been with us, but they are especially grating when they include the president of the United States.
“It makes me so sad,” a self-employed woman I know said during Monday’s inauguration. “It’s so amazing and wonderful that America elected a black man, but I can’t enjoy it. He’s not talking to me.”
I share her dismay at the partisan, joyless event, but she is wrong in one respect. Barack Obama was talking to her. He was scolding her about America’s imperfections and warning her that the liberal train will roll over her if she doesn’t get on board.To hear Obama, you would think he was anointed by unanimous consent. The more than 63 million people who voted for someone else were cited only as obstacles to his vision. Apparently, his victory makes all other views illegitimate.
The banana-republic approach was one of many demoralizing flaws in a speech that fell short of the grand occasion. In tone and content, it struck me more as an omen of trouble than a celebration of our democracy.
The speech was full of Obama oddities, from straw men easily demolished to hazy promises wrapped in juvenile phrasings. Consider this doozy assertion to justify big government: “No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future.”
And here’s a line noteworthy for its dissonance: “A nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American, that is what this moment requires.”
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While a certain license comes with the job, being president does not confer the right to deny reality. Passing references to the debt and deficit were just that, as though these are trivialities instead of mortal threats.
His naked claim that “economic recovery has begun” doesn’t do justice to the devastation of the recession, or to the anemic pace of the recovery. Then again, jobs were never his obsession.
That distinction belongs to success, and for that he carries a chip on each shoulder.
Three times he decried the privileges or happiness “of the few,” setting the stage for more class warfare.
He sang the praises of the middle class, without acknowledging that median family incomes have fallen on his watch. Not his fault.
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The disappointment is that he lived down to expectations and didn’t seize the chance to be more inclusive. He could have pretended to respect the idea that no political party has a monopoly on patriotism, but didn’t bother.
So he sounded like a president only for the people who want more government instead of a president of a diverse nation of 315 million people. Even the Page 1 headline of The New York Times declared that “Obama Offers Liberal Vision.” For the Times to call you a liberal means you’re pretty far out there.
Obama, of course, fancies himself a modern Abe Lincoln, but he’s actually a reverse Lincoln. The 16th president went to war to save the union. The 44th seems determined to start a war to divide the union.By that yardstick, his first term was a roaring success, and his second is off to a great start.
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Taking aim, rationally
Now that there is a pause in the gun-control fever, this is a good time to focus on two little-remarked facts about weapons and crime in New York City.
First, there are probably more than 100,000 legal gun owners in the city. Second, cases where any of those owners were charged with using guns to commit crimes are as rare as the proverbial hen’s tooth.
About half the legal gun owners, or some 50,000 people, are current or retired members of the NYPD. The department says there are also about 3,100 private New Yorkers with “carry” permits, and more than 14,000 permits that allow owners to keep handguns at home for protection.
Nearly 2,900 permits are issued to private security guards, and some 20,000 rifles are registered to private citizens, most used for hunting outside the five boroughs.
Add in various state and federal law-enforcement officers based here, and the total surpasses 100,000 legal gun owners. Yet there are very few cases where owners used a legal gun illegally.
Paul Browne, deputy police commissioner, said he could think of none offhand — although he did turn up several in a later search, including some involving rogue cops. But by a clear measure, the city’s system of background checks, registrations and permitting, while cumbersome, allows gun ownership without jeopardizing public safety. Indeed, letting guns get into the right hands improves public safety.
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Read the rest – Left off Bam’s train
Tags: Michael Goodwin
