OBAMASTAN II

Patraeus is not listened to by Obama, just as Admiral Mullen explained in yesterdays post. This is really hard to believe. Read the comments of Patraeus in the NYT.

In this case we already know what "the offer he couldn't refuse" is - can you say "CIA".

Chicago style works with the military and that saddens and actually scares me. Resignation would be the honorable thing to do, but we must be without honor in the military!

OBAMASTAN

Gives you a warm feeling when Obama makes a military decision against the recommendation of his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with no apology or explanation. Read Admiral Mike Mullen's comments quoted by the NYT. Afghanistan is definitely his now!

But Admiral Mullen fully supports Obama now. OF COURSE - THEY ARE ALL MILITARY IN THIS PROCESS AND HE CAN DO NOTHING ELSE!!!

Resignation would be a good response, but I doubt that will happen due to Obama's Chicago style control. The Admiral probably got "an offer he couldn't refuse." We'll watch over the next few months to see what that was.

"Obama: Drill, Brazil, Drill!"

IBD points out a bit of a problem with Obama's energy strategy:


"His "What, me worry?" presidency has given both Americans and our allies plenty to worry about. But in the process of making nice with Brazil, Obama made a ming-boggling announcement that should make even his most loyal supporter cringe:

We will help Brazil develop its offshore oil so we can one day import it."


While we don't drill? Give Brazil the jobs instead of the U.S.? Is he kidding?

Sadly, he is not. More of his "One World" ideology. If you agree with him, you have a BIG problem!

But, I kind of like the phrase: ""What, me worry?" presidency""! Alfred E. Neuman has returned!

Judicial Activism

James Taranto in WSJ's Best of the Web Today explains the history of this term and the distortion of it by Obama and his minions. Interesting read and conclusion!

Daniel Henninger Explains Berwick Problem; It Is A BIG one!

In "Berwick: Bigger than Kagan" Mr. Henninger explains with disgust the maneuver of BHO to get this British National Health Service fan as the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). His last three paragraphs summarize the problem clearly:


"Barack Obama, Donald Berwick and the rest may fancy themselves philosopher kings who know what we need without the need to inform or persuade us first. That's not how it works here. That is Sen. Baucus's point."[The Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, was taken aback at the end-around: "Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the Constitution that serves as a check on executive power.]

It should be clear why Berwick is bigger than Kagan. We need a large public debate over these views, over what Mr. Obama has said his health plan would and would not do. We need to find out if every Democrat in Congress and every Democrat writing newspaper columns and blogs agrees with Dr. Berwick about clinical and individual autonomy and about leaders with plans.

Then we need to build an election around whether we want to go down the road Dr. Berwick has planned for us, or start dismantling the one that President Obama paved through Congress on a partisan vote."


Read Mr. Berwick's comments in Mr. Henninger column and make your own decision. It is truly disgusting!

"A Postmodern Presidency" by Victor Davis Hanson

Mr. Hanson has summarized brilliantly the situation we have put ourselves in with the election of Obama - our first postmodern President. As a great historian he has analyzed the events of the last 14 months and is telling us why it is happening and where it will lead.

THE BEST ANALYSIS OF OBAMA I HAVE SEEN!! A MUST READ!!!

His closing paragraph gives you a summary of his explanation:


"I could go on, but you get the picture of our first postmodern presidency. For 14 months we have tried to use abstract benchmarks like “did Obama contradict himself?,” “did Obama break another promise?,” “did Obama really think borrowing another $2 trillion won’t help to bankrupt us?,” “did Obama indeed think another entitlement ’saves’ money?,” “did Obama snub another ally and court another enemy?,” “did Obama apologize again?” — when, in fact, such linear thinking, such artificially constructed “norms,” such “facts” are nothing of the sort at all. To Obama, our first postmodern president, such facts and truth are mere signatures of privilege, and so he is offering us another — a postmodern — way of looking at the world."

"Decisions, Decisions"

Read "Decisions, Decisions" by James Taranto in todays WSJ Best of the Web Today.

Good analysis of BHO's dithering and exposing his MSM supporters who are still lying about W's methodology.

His closing paragraph:


"Achenbach's [WaPo journalist] eagerness to portray Obama's vacillation in a positive light reinforces another stereotype: that of journalists as courtiers rather than critics of the "new" president. "

Obama Watch: #3

"Aide: Obama May Keep Bush Tax Cuts"

"WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama may consider delaying a campaign promise —..."

The above headline and first sentence is from a Reuters article, November 23.

Do any Obama suupporters feel let down yet? I'm getting happier with him each day!

Obama Watch: #1

Obama ran on change. Is this the best he can do? Do you supporters feel a bit betrayed? Give me your justification for not feeling betrayed based on Dick Morris' analysis below:


"Obama's 'Change': Appointing Beltway Has-Beens

Sunday, November 9, 2008 4:46 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

What's with Obama's choice of old-time Clinton cronies and recycled Washington insiders to run the transition to his new politics of change?

Can't the anti-Washington-insiders and the president-elect find anyone who isn't a Beltway has-been?

Judging by the appointments to his transition committee and leaks about possible top staff and Cabinet choices, Obama appears to be practicing the politics of status quo, not the politics of change.

Obama based his innovative campaign on an emphatic and convincing commitment to change the culture of Washington and bring in new people, new ideas, and new ways of doing business.
But now, Obama has definitely changed his tune. As president-elect, he's brought back the old Washington hacks, party regulars, and Clinton sycophants that he so frequently disparaged. Like Jimmy Carter, the last president who ran as an outsider, Obama has reached out to the same old folks who dominate the Democratic Party and represent the status quo.

His transition committee looks like a reunion of the Clinton administration. No new ideas of how to reform the system there. The chairman, John Podesta, was Clinton's chief of staff. He presided over outrageous last-minute pardons and his style is strictly inside-the-Beltway and make-no-waves.

Then there's Carol Browner, Clinton's competent former EPA administrator who became the consummate Washington insider. She's Madeline Albright's partner and recently married mega-lobbyist and former Congressman Tom Downey. During the uproar over Dubai taking over U.S. ports, Browner brought Downey to meet with Sen. Chuck Schumer to plead Dubai's case. Downey was paid half a million dollars to push Dubai's position. He's also a lobbyist for Fannie Mae, paid half a million to try to cover their rears on the subprime mortgage mess. Is this change?

Federico Pena was Clinton's secretary of transportation and of energy. The president felt he was unduly soft on Air Florida after a crash and lost confidence in him. Now he's back as a transition committee member.

Bill Daley, Clinton's former secretary of commerce and the brother of the mayor of Chicago, is the epitome of the old Democratic establishment. Clinton appointed him to the Fannie Mae board and his son worked as a lobbyist for the agency. Aren't these the kind of folks that Obama ran against?

Larry Summers, president of Harvard and former Clinton secretary of the treasury is not exactly an outsider either. He's also alienated more than a few with his bizarre suggestion that women may be genetically inferior to men in math and science.
Susan Rice, assistant secretary of state under Clinton advised John Kerry and Mike Dukakis. Does that tell you enough?

Obama has named one of his big bundlers -- Michael Froman, an executive at Citigroup. Is this supposed to symbolize change?

Obama's choice of a spokesperson for the transition is also surprising; she is definitely not the face of reason and new politics. Stephanie Cutter is the brash and combative former Clinton, Kerry, and Ted Kennedy mouthpiece. The liberal DailyKos.com once described Cutter as "a moron to the nth degree" when she tried unsuccessfully to force The New York Times' Adam Nagourney to treat her unsolicited e-mail criticizing Howard Dean as "background" without mentioning her name.

Speaking of brash, Rahm Emanuel, the new White House chief of staff, makes Cutter look timid. Rahm is also a former Clinton White House staffer -- and a very obnoxious one. He spent his White House years leaking to The Washington Post whenever he didn't like what the president was doing. Even Bill Clinton stopped trusting him. Any hopes of Obama keeping his commitment to reach across the aisle would go right out the window with Rahm's appointment. Instead of extending a hand to the opposition, it would be like raising just one finger. And Rahm's strident demeanor laced with the 'F' word in every sentence will do little to elevate the bipartisan dialogue in Washington.

Christopher Edley, another member of the transition team, is dean of the Berkeley Law School. He was a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission under Clinton, and his wife, Maria Echaveste was Clinton's deputy chief of staff.

Transition committee staffer Christine Varney was a federal trade commissioner under Clinton and worked in the White House.

Throughout the early debates, Obama criticized Hillary Clinton as part of the inside-the Beltway establishment that needed to go. But now he's reaching out to these exact same folks. Some change. "

CONGRATULATIONS TO OBAMA!

He ran a hell of a campaign, disposing of the Clinton's on his way to the Presidency of the United States. We will disagree on why he won. We will disagree on on what his policies will be for the next four years. But he is our President and deserves our support and respect!

Todays Patriot Post Chronicle, Vol. 08 No. 45, summarizes their feelings in a Publishers editorial that matches pretty closely my feelings on his win. This is a right - not center right - publication, but hits the various "nails on the head."

""Fellow Patriots,

Tuesday, 4 November 2008, is a date which will live in infamy. While most presidential elections are followed with calls for unity by both candidates, Barack Obama issued no such call in his speech last night, with the possible exception of his observation, "I may not have won your vote tonight, but ... I will be your president, too."

Of course, none was expected -- liberals have elected a Socialist with deep ties to cultural and ethnocentric radicalism, and his executive and legislative agenda poses a greater threat to American liberty than that of any president in the history of our great republic.

Obama has twice taken an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same." He has never honored that oath, and, based on his policy proposals and objectives, he has no intention to honor it after again reciting that oath on 20 January 2009. Obama seeks to, in his own words, "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution."

For that reason, this morning, the symbol of our national heritage of liberty, the American flag atop the 35-foot mast at our editorial offices, was respectfully lowered, inverted, and raised to full mast as a sign of national distress. It will remain inverted until next Tuesday, when we right it in honor of Veterans Day.

Today, at least 55,805,197 Americans are concerned for the future of our nation's great tradition of liberty. Some 63,007,791 Americans have been lulled, under the aegis of "hope and change," into a state of what is best described as "cult worship" and all its attendant deception.

One of our editors, a Marine now working in the private sector, summed up our circumstances with this situation report. It aptly captured the sentiments around our office:

"It's been tough, fellow Patriots; tough to stomach the idea that more than half of my fellow citizens who vote, have booted a genuine American hero to the curb for a rudderless charlatan. What a sad indictment on our citizenry that some are so eager to overlook his myriad flaws -- his radical roots, his extreme liberalism, his utter lack of experience or achievement. Barack Obama is the antithesis of King's dream: He's a man judged by the color of his skin rather than the content of his character. If it's God's will that Barack Obama is our next president, then so be it. We Patriots will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and wade back to the war front, intent on liberty or death."

This battle is lost, but the war is not. Let's roll.

Mark Alexander,Publisher""


I do not agree with the upside down flag or some of the more direct adjectives, but I do agree in general with the points they make.

How about a controlled, thought through discussion on their points? Anyone interested?