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Forgive us, Barack Obama, for we know not what we do

by Mojambo ( 231 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Elections 2010, Progressives, Republican Party at September 8th, 2010 - 6:00 pm

It is unbelievably funny to watch our “betters” dismiss the public’s disillusions ( we here on this blog could not be disillusioned since we were never had any illusions of competence from Obama from the beginning) with Barack Obama. Recall Peter Jennings “The American voters threw a temper tantrum like a 2-year old” when the GOP took over the House and Senate in 1994 as a classic example of political/media disconnect. Obama is so tone deaf that even the Stupid Party (aka the GOP) may not be able to blow a huge victory in November.

by Victor Davis Hanson

In just 20 months, President Obama’s polls have crashed. From near 70 percent approval, they have fallen to well below 50 percent. Over 70 percent of the public disapproves of the Democratically controlled Congress. Hundreds of thousands of angry voters flocked to hear Glenn Beck & Co. on the Washington Mall. Indeed, things have gotten so bad that the cherubic Mormon Beck might outdraw Barack Obama himself on any given Sunday.

All this was not supposed to be — and it has evoked a lot of anger.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson thunders, “The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.”

You see, hoi polloi want “easy solutions” — like trying to close an open border, cut federal spending, and balance the budget. Instead, they should be manning up to pay more for gas, more in taxes, and more for entitlements for more to come across the border.

Worse still, the uninformed voter cannot seem to appreciate the brilliance of Barack Obama, who has deigned to suffer on our behalf, in offering only unpopular but necessary solutions. Obama has tried his best to prepare an immature nation for amnesty, borrowing at record levels, cap and trade, and additional trillions of national debt — the castor oil that the obese and now constipated public for some reason just won’t swallow.

Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution chimes in with the thought that Neanderthal Americans can’t really distinguish between cause and effect. So in clueless fashion, they blame big deficits, big spending, and high unemployment on Obama, when what they’re really afraid of is the “browning of America.” In other words, we remain a nation of primitives resisting the future. “Successful black and brown professionals have had to learn to be comfortable in a sea of white faces, but most white Americans have not experienced the reverse. And many are not eager to have that experience. While some prognosticators were naïve enough to believe that Obama’s election signaled the beginning of a post-racial era, it prompted something altogether different: a backlash against the browning of America.”

Vanity Fair just ran yet another hit piece on the now-worn subject of the ogre Sarah Palin. Uppity Sarah, you see, is still on her hind legs — even after the 2008 swat from the Katie Couric set, the jogging-suit photos, and the true-story revelations from the philosopher Levi Johnston.

Worse still, Sarah is no longer quite the white-trash yokel with the snowmobiling husband and pregnant teenage daughter that so appealed to Cynthia Tucker’s backlash America. Instead, Palin has had the gall to have devolved into a fake yokel, with Michelle Obama–like fashion pretensions. So Vanity Fair shocks us with the dirt that the now-clothes-hungry former mayor of Wasilla is making some money speaking. She is not the sandwich-making mom of five that she used to be. And she doesn’t really do the moose-and-fish thing any more.

[…]

The president himself is grieved by these polls and the Beck-led protests. Indeed, he derides it all as the “silly season.” He does not mean “silly” as in Michelle Obama’s Marbella–to–Martha’s Vineyard odyssey, or his own mini-recession summits on the golf links. Instead, like Robinson and Tucker, he is bewildered that millions don’t appreciate that our godhead is “making decisions that are not necessarily good for the nightly news and not good for the next election, but for the next generations.” I suppose here the president means that he is on schedule to add more debt than all previous presidents combined — just the sort of bravery that the “next generations” who will pay for it will appreciate.

In the case of Obama worship, the tone is always set at the top.

Read the rest here: Our waning Obama Worship

Nile Gardiner points out the obvious, that even the Left knows that Obama’s presidency is folding like a cheap camera. Of course Chris “Tingles” Matthews and a certain husky pony-tailed blogger will disagree but that is what alcohol (at least in the case of Matthews) can do to you.

by Nile Gardiner

Democrats in Congress are no longer asking themselves whether this is going to be a bad election year for them and their party. They are asking whether it is going to be a disaster. The GOP pushed deep into Democratic-held territory over the summer, to the point where the party is well within range of picking up the 39 seats it would need to take control of the House. Overall, as many as 80 House seats could be at risk, and fewer than a dozen of these are held by Republicans.

Political handicappers now say it is conceivable that the Republicans could also win the 10 seats they need to take back the Senate. Not since 1930 has the House changed hands without the Senate following suit.

Is this a piece from National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal or Fox News.com, all major conservative news outlets in the United States? No. It’s a direct quote from yesterday’s Washington Post, usually viewed by conservatives as a flagship of the liberal establishment inside the Beltway. The fact The Post is reporting that not only could Republicans sweep the House of Representatives this November, but may even take the Senate as well, is a reflection of just how far the mainstream, overwhelmingly left-of-centre US media has moved in the last month towards acknowledging the scale of the crisis facing the White House.

To its credit, The Washington Post has generally been ahead of the curve compared to its main competitors such as The New York Times in reporting President Obama’s travails, but its striking front page coverage of the “Democrats’ plight” and talk of a possible GOP Senate win (regarded as fantasy just a fortnight ago) was a bold step for a publication that is probably read in every office of the Obama administration.

[…]

For most of the year, America’s political and media elites, including the Obama team itself, have touted the notion of an economic recovery (which never materialised), significantly underestimated the rise of the Tea Party movement, and questioned the notion that conservatism was sweeping America. It is only now hitting home just how close Washington is to experiencing a political revolution in November that will fundamentally change the political landscape on Capitol Hill, with huge implications for the Obama presidency. What was once a perspective confined largely to Fox News, online conservative news sites, or talk radio is now gaining ground in the liberal US print media as well – historic change is coming to America, though not quite the version promised by Barack Obama.

Read the rest here: Even America’s Liberal Elites Concede that Obama’s Presidency Is Crumbling

Tags: Nile Gardiner, Sarah Palin, Victor Davis Hanson
Posted in Barack Obama, Elections 2010, Progressives, Republican Party | 231 Comments »

The straight shooter v. the poseur

by Mojambo ( 365 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, George W. Bush at September 7th, 2010 - 6:00 pm

For all his faults – Bush was a patriot, a man of uncommon decency and compassion, combined with the patience of a saint. Obama is a spoiled elitist who needed the collaboration of a supine media and the popular culture (Hollywood, MTV etc.) to con the American voting public. Bush was a tax cutter, Obama is a tax raiser, Bush put America first, Obama puts the United Nations first, Bush was proud of America, Obama is ashamed of America. Bush was authentic, Obama is a phony trying to play pretend intellectual (that is why I refer to him as a poseur) whose politics were shaped in Chicago and by a host of Marxist influences, Bush instinctively loved America, Obama … well the less said the better!

by Victor Davis Hanson

Various polls report that George W. Bush in some states is now better liked than President Obama. Even some liberal pundits call for Bush to weigh in on the Ground Zero mosque or the Arizona anti-immigration legislation.

Suddenly, Bush is missed. Why? Let me list 10 likely reasons.

1) The Obama record. We naturally compare Bush to his chief critic and successor — and find the latter increasingly wanting.

Obama turned Bush’s misdemeanor deficits into felonious trillion-dollar annual shortfalls. He’ll pile up more debt than any other prior president. Bush was tarred in 2004 for a “jobless recovery” when unemployment hovered near 6 percent. It’s now almost 10 percent, and Obama still harps about “jobs saved.”

2) Obama as Bush. Candidate Obama demagogued Bush on a variety of issues, which, as president, he simply flipped and endorsed. Remember Bush’s Guantanamo gulag? Or how about the terror-producing Predators? Or the need for an immediate Iraq pullout?

In case after case of national security, Obama, when invested with the responsibility of governance, simply adopted, or even trumped, Bush’s protocols — the irony made worse by not acknowledging his debt.

3) Bush Did It. The public is tiring of Obama’s Pavlovian blaming of Bush. After 20 months, it’s time for the president to get a life and quit the “heads you lose/tails I win” attitude about presidential responsibility.

4) Who’s the real yuppie? The media tried to paint Bush as the privileged yuppie, masquerading as the Texas rancher. But this president’s handler could not stage a chain-sawing task for Obama if they tried — severe injury would surely follow.

From 2001-03, presidential golf was proof of aristocratic disdain and laziness. Suddenly, from 2009-10 — given that Obama has hit the greens more in 20 months than Bush did in eight years — the Ministry of Truth redefined the game as necessary egalitarian relaxation.

5) Michelle is no Laura. Remember the narrative: Conservative women are elitists who decorate, buy nice clothes and play Barbie; liberal first ladies are independent feminists who can’t be bothered by inanities like fashion and play. But Michelle this summer enjoyed a movable feast from Marbella to Martha’s Vineyard, in designer clothes and shades. Laura Bush used to vacation at the national parks.

6) United Nations first; United States second. If Bush was a supposed “cowboy,” at least there was never any doubt that his first and foremost interest was America, not the “international community.” One Obama bow was OK; one apology about genocide tolerable; one smug line that we aren’t exceptional understandable; one mea culpa sent to the corrupt UN human-rights crowd I suppose forgivable. But add them up, and we sense that our president is embarrassed about America’s history and culture.

7) Who’ll criticize the critics? American elites crucified Bush. Al Gore called him a liar. John Edwards and John Kerry tag-teamed him in vicious attacks.

Now? Edwards imploded in scandal. Kerry was exposed as a tax-dodging elitist hypocrite. Gore, if not a sex poodle, at least is a green-con-artist billionaire, who both hyped a world-ending crisis and then profited from his rhetorical overkill by selling supposed green snake oil like medieval penances.

[….]

But Obama? He can’t really speak off the teleprompter without pauses, repetitions and constant self-referencing. He’s stiff and not comfortable with himself off the court or golf course. Bush made decisions and stuck by them; Obama the professor offers a perennial “on the one hand/on the other hand” mishmash and a sorta, kinda, almost answer.

Who knows? At this rate America may play Brandon DeWilde to Bush’s Shane: Bush — come back, Bush, come back!

Read the rest: Why we miss Bush

Tags: Victor Davis Hanson
Posted in Barack Obama, George W. Bush | 365 Comments »

Reality bites

by Mojambo ( 203 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Elections 2010, George W. Bush, Politics, Progressives, Republican Party at August 17th, 2010 - 8:00 pm

Remember all those ex Bush staffers who ran for the exits to write moronic and self serving memoirs? It will sure be interesting to see how the media treats the inevitable Obama defectors. Somehow I do not think that they will be welcomed with open arms and book deals.

by Victor Davis Hanson

The usual rush to the exits from a sinking administration is now ongoing. The only difference in this cycle is that — whereas in the case of the Bush departed who, we were lectured, were rightfully bitter that their genius was not appreciated (e.g., Paul O’Neil, Richard Clarke, Scott McClellan, etc) by the Bush Neanderthals, and were men of conscience who were “blowing the whistle” — we are now told by the New York Times that the Obama parachutists are burned out and “exhausted,” from “blackberrying” all day long!

You see, we should not imagine that these technocratic careerists want to leave the bank before the posse arrives in November, or are moving on to lucrative seven-figure jobs after the requisite administration bumper-sticker billet, but rather after being on the cross suffering for our sins for 18 months, well, can suffer no more for the unworthy. We hoi polloi didn’t turn around the economy, and we couldn’t win the war, and we made them keep Guantanamo open, and we wore them out over healthcare, and we forced more of those once damn Predators and formerly unconstitutional renditions down their throats.

Defeat?

Al Gore just shrieked that his green war is over. He says he lost and is withdrawing from the front. His retreat from his epic Stalingrad-like stand-off had nothing to do with the green equivalent of the ice and cold, the Red Army, or his shaky Eastern European allies, but was simply a crisis of will among the faithful: no one was brave enough [1] to follow Commander Gore into battle anymore.

So Gore did not bring up the recent green-gate email revelations [2], the weirdly cold weather the last two years in a variety of places (my grape crop is 2-3 weeks late here in once scorching California), the lack of green leadership shown by his splurging on multiple estates all the way to Montecito, or his own public devolution from Nobel Laureate to “sex poodle.” (Green gurus can’t fly on private jets; sorry, they just can’t — at least if they want still to remain green gurus.)

The Thrill Is Gone

Obama himself is not the Obama of 2008 when all America’s problems were declared coterminous with twangy George Bush, and executive governance was defined as sitting at a Senate hearing table in front of blaring cameras and pontificating before squirming witnesses. (Obama, Biden, and Hillary sitting in judgment of Petraeus [who in just three years would now offer them a life-raft for the moment] was one of the more bizarre moments of the last twenty years.)

The tingling legs are gone. The Newsweek editor who declared [3] Obama a god is gone [4]. Heck, there is not even a Newsweek anymore, wrecked on the shoals after sailing blindly to the siren song of hope and change [5]. Even the left is saying if you sing “Close Guantanamo” for years, then, close Guantanamo.

I don’t think we will hear any more Obama assurances of on-hand first responders, ready to attend to the fainted at his hope-and-change rallies. There is no more Victory Column, faux Greek capitals, or cooling planet moments any more. The fair left town and all that is left is the clean-up and the remorse for acting so stupidly last Saturday night on the Midway.

Now we will see the real Obama. Does he have the character to persevere with soon to be 40% something approval ratings, an angry base, a fleeing media, and an organized, energized opposition? Or is it to be two more years of golfing, Bush did it, Martha’s Vineyard, blame the limb-lopping surgeons, beer summits, killing time in preparation for a $50-million-a-year, Mandela-like, globe-trotting post-presidency.

Then There’s John’s Room

There was a time when blow-dried John Edwards gripped the nation with psychodrama interviews with the network anchors about his heroic ordeals and triumphs. And now? Only John’s room remains. Strike that — he does not even get to play in John’s room anymore. John Edwards did the impossible: he turned the National Enquirer into a premier American newspaper, whose reporters had more integrity (albeit a weird sort of prurient profit-driven integrity) than did all those Columbia Journalism School graduates at the Los Angeles Times or Washington Post).

The Problem With Spandex

I used to think in 2004 that John Kerry was trying to lose the election. Why windsurf or bike in spandex when you’re trying to prove Bush an out-of-touch elitist, insensitive to a “jobless recovery” of 5.7 percent unemployment (those were the days)? But what now are we to make of buying a $7 million yacht, and weaseling out on high-tax state Massachusetts’s $500,000 bite (he used to call those who did that “Benedict Arnolds”). That’s a new one: a populist Democrat skipping the yacht tax in times of recession even amid liberal calls for even more taxes and the president’s warning for all of us to “have skin in the game.” (Michelle showed a lot of skin with a one-strap designer blouse in Marbella the last week, perched over the Costa del Sol, recharging her batteries for Martha’s Vineyard, after all of us downright mean people raised the bar on her.)

[…]

The only difference? Just as the traditional-values right suffers the additional charge of hypocrisy when its luminaries get caught on massage tables or in airport bathroom stalls, so too blue-collar Democrats, who spread around other people’s money, should not prefer Marbella to Pismo Beach or spandex to shorts and a T-shirt. I don’t think I have ever seen the country so mad; and the furor will explode at the ballot box in November in ways even the Democrats’ depressing polls underestimate.

And that’s that.

Read the rest here: The weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth

Tags: Victor Davis Hanson
Posted in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Elections 2010, George W. Bush, Politics, Progressives, Republican Party | 203 Comments »

Our postmodern cultural elite

by Mojambo ( 38 Comments › )
Filed under Progressives at July 24th, 2010 - 11:00 am

Victor Davis Hanson describes so many of the “progressive” people that we all know. They romanticize poverty while aiming to live in luxurious condos or townhouses. They crave physical fitness via a gym, not by actually having to do hard manual labor. Truth to them is an elastic concept – there is that which aids your cause and that which does not – the truth therefore is irrelevant.

by Victor Davis Hanson

I think most of our problems transcend politics, which is increasingly a reflection of an elite, insider culture that is completely at odds with the majority of the country that it oversees.

So what is a cultural elite?

It is a sloppy term that might include the academic class in the university that educates our children in college. The upper echelons that run government departments constitute part of this cultural elite. So does an entertainment cadre that oversees television and Hollywood. Corporate managers are elites as well.

There is no racial, regional, religious, or tribal commonality. One shared allegiance perhaps is to higher education that certifies the cultural elite by diplomas of all sorts from a “good school,” as well as a respectable salary and a nice home with appurtenances. The good life of the elite is defined by both the absence of worry about necessities, and a certain status that accrues from properly recognized advanced education and sensitivity.

How would we characterize the new aristocracy?

In a number of ways:

1) Untruth. One requisite to being a cultural elite, unfortunately, is a certain allegiance to untruth, to saying one thing and doing another. Consider the manifestations of falsity from ecology to race. Often exempt from worry over a weekly check, and distanced from the mechanics of how things work, the elite clamors for a green cap-and-trade revolution. It rejects compromise with a fossil fuel near future that would transition us in a half-century or so to renewable energy.

[…..]

2) Nature. The cultural elite class tends to romanticize nature, since it has little contact with it. Energy Secretary Steven Chu cheaply announces that California farms will dry up and blow away, with no clue how the tomatoes in his salad or the lamb chops on his plate are grown, cleaned, shipped — and land in his mouth.

The elite like big hiking boots and four-wheel-drive SUVs that can go anywhere, and — once that is exhibited — usually stick to the hallways and freeways. The further the distance from nature, the greater the desire to experience it vicariously, symbolically, or representationally.

[……]

3) Muscularity. An elite is often characterized as staying fit entirely by the workout, the gym, the jog — never by chain sawing, digging, climbing, or hammering. Yet here too arises contradiction. The elite, being largely progressive, champion the muscular classes to the degree they can stay distant from them. Having good abs by crunching is far different from having big arms by using a five-foot long pneumatic drill. Expect the more cerebral our jobs, the more paranoid we will become about diet, fitness, and appearance, and the more we will romanticize, fear, and separate ourselves from those who work with their muscles.

[……]

4) Gender. Here I am worried, as I have expressed previously, about the marked differences in the way our cultural elite express themselves. Hollywood offers an instructive example. Why can’t any of our actors talk like a Humphrey Bogart, Glenn Ford, Lee Marvin, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Bill Holden, or Gregory Peck? I’m not asking for Jack Palance or Fess Parker, just a normal male mainstream voice. I know there are Al Pacinos and Robert De Niros, but they too seem to fade before the new wave of DiCaprios. Elites talk (and probably sound) like the freedmen in Petronius’s Satyricon.

Today’s male’s voice is often far more feminine than that of 50 years ago. Sort of whiney, sort of nasally, sort of fussy.

[……]

5) Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense. The idea that taxes cause scarcity, and subsidy abundance is a foreign concept. The notion that entitlements create dependency is considered Neanderthal.