Vacation has benn a non-stop sprint to get some things done and visiting people who I have missed. My Dad celebrated his 84th Birthday this week and that was worth the trip home alone. My Dad has always been the "rock" which all in my family as depended on for leadership.
I watched the debate last night and Obama got schooled. Romney took Obama out last night and the body language alone told the story. What a beat down!!
Next on the schedule will be " The Wedding of the Century" this weekend in Salem, MA. My sister in law will be getting hitched which should be a great time.....more to follow.
Showing posts with label DEMS. POTUS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DEMS. POTUS. Show all posts
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
CLUELESS NY TIMES STAFF might have to take pension downgrade...The horror.
Take a listen to the bucketheads at the NY TIMES whine about the possibility that they might have to take a reduction in pension benefits. The horror !!
Here's a bite of reality for you Mr. Media-Elite. Welcome to the new economy that the Democrats & dear leader Mr. Obama have given us...Share YOUR wealth Mr. Newspaper Elite !!. Here is what the rest of us have known for the past three years as we watched the DEMS spend us $5 TRILLION dollars further into debt.
Granted, the other side is not much better but they haven't figured out how to wreck things like Pelosi, Reed and Obama did in three years. These ingrates will get their pensions, just not a life-time of their full salary. That is reserved only for Municipal workers, State & Federal employees. The rest of us will have to get by on working in normal retirement age, add in what little social security is left and anything else we can do.
To work for a major newspaper and to act this clueless/entitled/elite is the sign of how badly the media does it's job. If they couldn't figure this crap out until now, how much other shite they write about is wrong also ?
Russel Mead lays it out in true Schadefreude...enjoy.
To quote John McClean from DIE HARD, " WELCOME TO THE PARTY PAL..."
At The NYT: Clueless Blue Deer Meets Onrushing Truck
Russell Mead - PJ Media
Schadenfreude alert: readers, and especially those who don’t much like the New York Times, should make sure they are not eating soup or holding hot liquids before viewing the video below. Uncontrollable gales of laughter stemming from excessive levels of schadenfreude may cause spilling and staining.
New York Times staffers, like suffering proles all over the world, belong to a labor union, and over the years the union has negotiated a very comfy defined benefit retirement plan. The staffers love the plan.
But economic reality is intruding. Times management, perhaps reading the coverage in its own pages about the companies and cities going bankrupt due to unsustainable union-bargained pension systems, wants to make a change. It wants to offer a defined contribution plan, instead. Workers and the company pay into a 401(k) plan, workers invest it, and when they retire, that is the amount they have towards their income.
It’s an entitled blue deer, meet onrushing truck kind of moment. The Guild is talking about a strike, and an array of Times staffers, including some famous bylines that are well known in news circles, worry aloud that the new plan could make them eat cat food and sleep in boxes on the street in old age. (Or late middle age, anyway; not one staffer talks about working past 65.)
Nobody in the video talks about the changes in the news business that threatens to drive the Times into a deep dive. Nobody talks about the prospect of future significant staff cuts if costs can’t be contained. None of them discuss the incongruity between their own naive sense of entitlement and what is going on in the cities, companies and countries they cover.
They just want the money.
Some writers allude to the prospect of leaving the paper if the pension change goes through, but a quick check of the newspaper business suggests they don’t have all that many options. Certainly with the exception of a handful of superstars the New York Times would have less trouble replacing its current staff than the current staff would have in replacing their jobs. And if those new jobs are in journalism, good luck finding a company with a generous defined benefit pension plan.
I sympathize with the Times staff about living in tougher economic conditions, but that is what people are adjusting to all over the world; I’m not sure what gives them an exemption. Newspaper reporters of all people should have seen this coming long ago, and have made savings and retirement plans on the assumption that their defined benefit plan would be going the way of the passenger pigeon and sooner rather than later.
If anything, their feelings of regret and chagrin should be tinged with at least a soupçon of relief. In the end, a defined benefit plan is only as solid as the company behind it, and given the turmoil on today’s media landscape it’s not at all clear where the Times will be or how it will be restructuring its debt 20 years from now. The good thing about a defined contribution plan is that you don’t lose the money if your ex-employer goes broke.
For readers, this is a fascinating and revealing glimpse inside the Times bubble. I am not sure which is more disconcerting; the deeply embedded sense of blue entitlement so palpably on display or the poor political judgement that led the union brass to think that releasing this video to the public would be good PR. Either way it serves as a powerful illustration of just how fundamentally out of touch many of the people working at America’s most famous newspaper have become.
I like and admire many of the people who write for the Times. Some of them I have known for years and, happily, the judgment and sensibility behind this video doesn’t characterize everyone who works there. But I suspect that most viewers around the world are going to find this video funny and revealing rather than heartfelt and convincing.
Here's a bite of reality for you Mr. Media-Elite. Welcome to the new economy that the Democrats & dear leader Mr. Obama have given us...Share YOUR wealth Mr. Newspaper Elite !!. Here is what the rest of us have known for the past three years as we watched the DEMS spend us $5 TRILLION dollars further into debt.
Granted, the other side is not much better but they haven't figured out how to wreck things like Pelosi, Reed and Obama did in three years. These ingrates will get their pensions, just not a life-time of their full salary. That is reserved only for Municipal workers, State & Federal employees. The rest of us will have to get by on working in normal retirement age, add in what little social security is left and anything else we can do.
To work for a major newspaper and to act this clueless/entitled/elite is the sign of how badly the media does it's job. If they couldn't figure this crap out until now, how much other shite they write about is wrong also ?
Russel Mead lays it out in true Schadefreude...enjoy.
To quote John McClean from DIE HARD, " WELCOME TO THE PARTY PAL..."
At The NYT: Clueless Blue Deer Meets Onrushing Truck
Russell Mead - PJ Media
Schadenfreude alert: readers, and especially those who don’t much like the New York Times, should make sure they are not eating soup or holding hot liquids before viewing the video below. Uncontrollable gales of laughter stemming from excessive levels of schadenfreude may cause spilling and staining.
New York Times staffers, like suffering proles all over the world, belong to a labor union, and over the years the union has negotiated a very comfy defined benefit retirement plan. The staffers love the plan.
But economic reality is intruding. Times management, perhaps reading the coverage in its own pages about the companies and cities going bankrupt due to unsustainable union-bargained pension systems, wants to make a change. It wants to offer a defined contribution plan, instead. Workers and the company pay into a 401(k) plan, workers invest it, and when they retire, that is the amount they have towards their income.
It’s an entitled blue deer, meet onrushing truck kind of moment. The Guild is talking about a strike, and an array of Times staffers, including some famous bylines that are well known in news circles, worry aloud that the new plan could make them eat cat food and sleep in boxes on the street in old age. (Or late middle age, anyway; not one staffer talks about working past 65.)
Nobody in the video talks about the changes in the news business that threatens to drive the Times into a deep dive. Nobody talks about the prospect of future significant staff cuts if costs can’t be contained. None of them discuss the incongruity between their own naive sense of entitlement and what is going on in the cities, companies and countries they cover.
They just want the money.
Some writers allude to the prospect of leaving the paper if the pension change goes through, but a quick check of the newspaper business suggests they don’t have all that many options. Certainly with the exception of a handful of superstars the New York Times would have less trouble replacing its current staff than the current staff would have in replacing their jobs. And if those new jobs are in journalism, good luck finding a company with a generous defined benefit pension plan.
I sympathize with the Times staff about living in tougher economic conditions, but that is what people are adjusting to all over the world; I’m not sure what gives them an exemption. Newspaper reporters of all people should have seen this coming long ago, and have made savings and retirement plans on the assumption that their defined benefit plan would be going the way of the passenger pigeon and sooner rather than later.
If anything, their feelings of regret and chagrin should be tinged with at least a soupçon of relief. In the end, a defined benefit plan is only as solid as the company behind it, and given the turmoil on today’s media landscape it’s not at all clear where the Times will be or how it will be restructuring its debt 20 years from now. The good thing about a defined contribution plan is that you don’t lose the money if your ex-employer goes broke.
For readers, this is a fascinating and revealing glimpse inside the Times bubble. I am not sure which is more disconcerting; the deeply embedded sense of blue entitlement so palpably on display or the poor political judgement that led the union brass to think that releasing this video to the public would be good PR. Either way it serves as a powerful illustration of just how fundamentally out of touch many of the people working at America’s most famous newspaper have become.
I like and admire many of the people who write for the Times. Some of them I have known for years and, happily, the judgment and sensibility behind this video doesn’t characterize everyone who works there. But I suspect that most viewers around the world are going to find this video funny and revealing rather than heartfelt and convincing.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Trying to have it both ways
The WSJ hits the nail on the head with this analysis of why the White House is all wet on the issue of Gas prices and a lack of action to help the average American.We heard plenty of carping from the "loyal opposition" when prices spiked in the past. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, we hear that criticism of the President is unfair. It is unfair for Americans to get screwed over on inflated prices that the Administration could help if they weren't dedicated to raising the price of energy.
Unfair to the President? REALLY ?? Take your medicine Mr. President. You and your ilk don't have a clue and this is one of many of the reasons why you don't deserve another term. What has occurred over the 3 1/2 years of your term in office is wholly unfair to those of us who know that you need to go back to privtae life and stop impeding the success of our nation.
'Stupid' and Oil Prices
Obama's Forrest Gump analysis of rising gas prices..
Wall Street Journal
'The American people aren't stupid," thundered President Obama yesterday in Miami, ridiculing Republicans who are blaming him for rising gasoline prices. Let's hope he's right, because not even Forrest Gump could believe the logic of what Mr. Obama is trying to sell.
To wit, that a) gasoline prices are beyond his control, but b) to the extent oil and gas production is rising in America, his energy policies deserve all the credit, and c) higher prices are one more reason to raise taxes on oil and gas drillers while handing even more subsidies to his friends in green energy. Where to begin?
It's true enough that oil prices can't be commanded from the Oval Office, so in that sense Mr. Obama's disavowal of blame is a rare show of humility in the face of market forces. Would that he showed similar modesty in trying to command the tides of home prices, car sales ("cash for clunkers"), or the production of electric batteries.
The oil price surge has several likely sources. One is the turmoil in the Middle East, especially new fears of a supply shock from a conflict with Iran. But it's worth recalling that Mr. Obama also blamed the last oil-price surge, in spring 2011, on the Libyan uprising. Moammar Gadhafi is now gone and Libyan oil production is coming back on stream, yet oil prices dipped only briefly below $90 a barrel and have been rising since October. Something else must be going on.
Mr. Obama yesterday blamed rising demand from the likes of Brazil and China, and there is something to that as well. But this energy demand is also not new, and if anything Chinese and Brazilian economic growth has been slowing in recent months.
Another suspect—one Mr. Obama doesn't like to mention—is U.S. monetary policy. Oil is traded in dollars, and its price therefore rises when the value of the dollar falls, all else being equal. The Federal Reserve throughout Mr. Obama's term has pursued the easiest monetary policy in modern times, expressly to revive the housing market. It has done so with the private support and urging of the White House and through Mr. Obama's appointees who are now a majority on the Fed's Board of Governors.
Oil staged its last price surge along with other commodity prices when the Fed revved up its second burst of "quantitative easing" in 2010-2011. Prices stabilized when QE2 ended. But in recent months the Fed has again signaled its commitment to near-zero interest rates first through 2013, and recently through 2014. Commodity prices, including oil, have since begun another surge, and hedge funds have begun to bet on commodity plays again. John Paulson says he's betting on gold, the ultimate hedge against a falling dollar.
Fed officials and Mr. Obama want to take credit for easy money if stock-market and housing prices rise, but then deny any responsibility if commodity prices rise too, causing food and energy prices to soar for consumers. They can't have it both ways, as not-so-stupid Americans intuitively understand when they buy groceries or gas. This is the double-edged sword of an economic recovery "built to last" on easy money rather than on sound fiscal and regulatory policies.
As for domestic energy, Mr. Obama rightly points to the rising share of U.S. oil consumption now produced at home. But this trend began in the late Bush Administration, which opened up large new areas on and offshore for oil and gas drilling that are now coming on stream. Mr. Obama sneered at expanded drilling as a candidate in 2008 and for most of his term has done little to expand it.
In early 2010, he proposed to open some new areas to drilling but shut that down after the Gulf oil spill. According to the Greater New Orleans Gulf Permits Index for January 31, over the previous three months the feds issued an average of three deep-water drilling permits a month compared to the historical average of seven. Over the same three months, the feds approved an average of 4.7 shallow-water permits a month, compared to the historical average of 14.7.
Approval of an offshore drilling plan now takes 92 days, 31 more than the historical average. And so far in 2012, an average of 23% of all drilling plans have been approved, compared to the average of 73.4%.
Oh, and don't forget the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have increased the delivery of oil from Canada and North Dakota's Bakken Shale to Gulf Coast refineries, replacing oil from Venezuela.
The reality is that most of the increase in U.S. oil and gas production has come despite the Obama Administration. It is flowing from the shale boom, which is the result of private technological advances and investment. Mr. Obama has seen the energy sun rise and is crowing like a rooster that he made it happen.
Mr. Obama yesterday also repeated his proposal that now is the time to raise taxes on oil and gas companies, as if doing so will make them more likely to drill. He must not believe the economic truism that when you tax something you get less of it, including fewer of the new jobs they've created.
We'd almost feel sorry for Mr. Obama's gas-price predicament if it weren't a case of rough justice. The President has deliberately sought to raise the price of energy throughout the economy via his cap-and-trade agenda. He is now getting his wish, albeit a little too overtly for political comfort. Mr. Obama has also spent three years blaming George W. Bush for every economic ill. If Mr. Obama now feels frustrated by economic events beyond his control, perhaps he should call Mr. Bush for consolation.
Monday, September 12, 2011
The so called " Jobs Plan" from the White House
The President previously spent $900 Billion in Stimulus money to help the economy and it didn't produce any real results, so explain to me how spending on a "jobs plan" the White House estimates at $447 billion will be any different ??? The new plan calls for construction jobs, teachers, police, etc to get more $$$ which all went for naught last time, so how will this not be a stupendous failure like last time??
This is more of the same from the White House and not an answer to how regular Americans will see "real jobs" as we progress forward....
Shame on those who believe that the "Jobs Plan" will make a single bit of difference in the economy other than deepening the debt we find ourselves in. To help Americans, we need real jobs, not ones ginned up in an effort to get the President re-elected, something he DOES NOT deserve as he has been an utter failure, as predicted. He was the wrong person for the job then, and he is the wrong person for the job now.
The only thing the "Jobs Plan" from the President is trying to create is a 2nd term for himself.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Paranoid & Pathetic - Looks like the White House went after Fox News in 2009 after all
A local blogger from the hometown accused me once of "regurgitating FOX News" simply because I have a low opinion of the President. I have rarely, if ever, highlighted a FOX News story here. I like to write about issues, provide some newstype as the basis of what the discussion is about and leave the analysis of my POV to you the reader.Some of us are old enough to remember the infamous NIXON Administration and the " Enemies List" that President Nixon had in a paranoid delusion that he could control the opinion of others by excluding his "enemies" from access to the White House (which in reality belongs to the PEOPLE).
Well flash forward to 2009, and the juveniles in the Obama Administration were accused of doing the same thing with FOX News, a charge which they dismissed as baseless......Seems as the TRUTH (something the White House has no clue about) was that YES, THEY DID make a concerted effort to exclude FOX News from the access given to others who were Obama's Cheerleaders.
I'm sorry, but when you start having to utilize NIXONIAN style tactics to defend your actions, you've pretty much shown that whatever you were doing is wrong....and then to LIE about it only further repeats the mistakes.....Paranoid & Pathetic - Very telling behavior from the worst President we have seen since NIXON.....
TIME TO GO BARRY....back to Chicago where you belong.
Looks like the White House went after Fox News in 2009 after all
By Joe Pompeo -Media Reporter
Yahoo News The Cutline – 16 JULY 2011
As the U.K. phone-hacking scandal continues to engulf News Corp's British segment, one of the company's top-performing assets in the U.S. is enjoying a bit of unrelated vindication.
Rewind to October 2009: Fox News Channel and the White House were at war. In one particularly heated incident, Fox claimed the Obama administration had tried to oust the "fair & balanced" network from an interview with Treasury official Kenneth Feinberg, when the other four news nets in the TV coverage pool had been offered access. In the end, Fox was included, and a Treasury Department spokesman snarled: "There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing."
Emails that surfaced last week, however, through a public records request by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, suggest otherwise.
"We'd prefer if you skip Fox please," a White House broadcast media staffer advised a Treasury Department public affairs secretary ahead of the interview. In other emails during the same time frame, deputy White House communications director Jennifer Psaki called Fox News anchor Bret Baier "a lunatic" and boasted that "I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby--just cause." In yet another email, another White House press officer wrote: "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews …"
Proof of an anti-Fox agenda in the Oval Office? Judicial Watch thinks so.
"These documents show there is a pervasive anti-Fox bias in the Obama White House," said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton in a statement. "The juvenile Mafioso-talk in these emails has no place in any White House. For the Obama administration to purposely exclude a major news organization from access to information has troubling First Amendment implications."
But current White House press secretary Jay Carney pushed back on the revelation during a briefing Thursday.
"It is well known that at the time there was a dispute between Fox News and its coverage and the White House and its feelings about the coverage," he said, according to CBS News. "I mean, that was then, and we obviously deal with Fox News regularly. ... We regularly engage with every network and every news organization here, including Fox, and give interviews to Fox, and respect the reporters at Fox who are reporters and do their job."
Monday, June 27, 2011
The Search for the " Anti-Romney"...Is Rep. Michelle Bachmann the answer the GOP is looking for???
Type in " Anti Obama" into Google and you will get "About 209,000,000 results" - That number almost looks too small based on the people who have issues with the President. No big surprise that people have issues with POTUS
Go to Google and type in the words " Anti Romney " - you will get "About 11,500,000 results" - I wonder why that many hits register about ROMNEY?
Here's the main issues as I see it. He has been trying to get to the Presidency since he first was elected Governor of Massachusetts. He used Masschusetts as a "stepping stone" as he was an absentee Governor for the last two years of his term, spending the majority of that time away from Massachusetts trying to raise cash and national credentials which got him nowhere when he ran for the Presidency in 2008. People saw through his flip-flopping and pandering ways. He would say anything and seemed terribly DESPERATE....He still does as he has this, " C'Mon, it's my turn" attitude about running for the GOP nomination....ugh. The fact that he has more money than anyone else reeks of an attitude that he can buy his way into the Presidency.
Now, we are in 2012, and " Slick MITT " is back at it again. I fail to understand why he didn't get the message last time. The GOP cannot keep running on being the " Old Rich Guys Party". The younger voters were the ones who propelled Obama into office along with the independent voters who swing the key middle.
Go to Google and type in the words " Anti Romney " - you will get "About 11,500,000 results" - I wonder why that many hits register about ROMNEY?
Here's the main issues as I see it. He has been trying to get to the Presidency since he first was elected Governor of Massachusetts. He used Masschusetts as a "stepping stone" as he was an absentee Governor for the last two years of his term, spending the majority of that time away from Massachusetts trying to raise cash and national credentials which got him nowhere when he ran for the Presidency in 2008. People saw through his flip-flopping and pandering ways. He would say anything and seemed terribly DESPERATE....He still does as he has this, " C'Mon, it's my turn" attitude about running for the GOP nomination....ugh. The fact that he has more money than anyone else reeks of an attitude that he can buy his way into the Presidency.
Now, we are in 2012, and " Slick MITT " is back at it again. I fail to understand why he didn't get the message last time. The GOP cannot keep running on being the " Old Rich Guys Party". The younger voters were the ones who propelled Obama into office along with the independent voters who swing the key middle.
The GOP will need someone who can energize these key voting blocks, something new that allows them to get people's attention. Pawlenty, Hunstman, Rick Perry, etc. all reek of the same bland politician model that has been the hallmark of the GOP.
So we go back to the central issue, who will be out there for the GOP against Obama ?
The choices have not been stirring up much interest until recently. For reasons that defy political reason, Rep. Michelle Bachman has been gaining some serious traction.
She's the Tea Party's Belladonna and that has ensured that the press painted her as a lightweight until now when polling has shown here breaking out and going neck & neck with Slick Mitt in Iowa. She did well in the NH debate and was the other candidate who got a significant reaction from potential NH voters.
Is she to be taken serious??? She has been a gaffe prone as Romney but when you think about it, the GOP would shake up the electoral game by throwing a female candidate at our first minority President running for re-election.
Politics has a funny way of defying the "knowns" and heading off in unexpected directions. In the search for the Anti-Romney, it may be that Ms. Bachmann is the very thing the GOP needs. She's not Palin either as Ms. Palin has high negatives.
Would Ms. Bachmann make a good President ?? That will be the question that will drive the campaign to nomination or runner-up status for the nomination. All I Know is that right now, SLICK MITT seems like " more of the same" from the GOP. That is a recipe for disaster and a sure lock for re-election of the "Empty Suit" from Chicago....something no one needs.
Bachmann on 'Face the Nation': Two Signs She is Serious
By James Fallows Jun 26 2011 - The Atlantic
The two takeaways from this morning's show (via notes written 12+ hours ago -- have been in transit in the interim):
1) She looks so much better than she used to. Compare her appearance from a famous Hardball spot during the 2008 campaign with her presentation today. (The Hardball episode was famous because it was when she called Obama "very anti-American.")
Is this a retrograde sexist judgment? Overall presentation matters in politics, especially at the TV-based national level. It mattered that JFK looked better than Nixon in 1960, Reagan than Carter in 1980, Obama than McCain in 2008. It mattered that Dukakis looked the way he did in a tank in 1988. The change in Bachmann's presentation -- hair, makeup, styling in general -- tells me that she has thought about "raising her game," and in a much more sophisticated way than what we see in the evolution of Sarah Palin's appearance through that same period.
2) She showed that she is an absolute genius at the established political technique of "giving the answer you want to give, no matter what the question was." Schieffer reeled off a list of whopper-scale false claims she had made -- for instance, that Obama had approved "only one" offshore drilling permit, when in fact he'd approved hundreds. Her response, every time, was some variant on "the real question is why President Obama has misled us." Or, on policy: what specifically would she do to create jobs? "The real question is why President Obama has failed to create jobs." See for yourself from CBS's site.
I am not endorsing this as the ideal way to lead a public discourse, and you can't get away with it forever. (Schieffer closed the show with a manful for-the-record note that he had tried time and again to get answers to his questions about her falsehoods, and hadn't.) If you have only this one trick in your array of responses, eventually this will be what the press constantly harps on. But it is a part of a big-time politician's arsenal, and she showed that she knows how to use it.
When I say these are signs that she is serious, I don't mean that by my lights she suddenly has practical, plausible answers to the nation's problems. It means that her run could be more disciplined and professional than some other ill-starred long-shot campaigns we've seen recently.
So we go back to the central issue, who will be out there for the GOP against Obama ?
The choices have not been stirring up much interest until recently. For reasons that defy political reason, Rep. Michelle Bachman has been gaining some serious traction.
She's the Tea Party's Belladonna and that has ensured that the press painted her as a lightweight until now when polling has shown here breaking out and going neck & neck with Slick Mitt in Iowa. She did well in the NH debate and was the other candidate who got a significant reaction from potential NH voters.
Is she to be taken serious??? She has been a gaffe prone as Romney but when you think about it, the GOP would shake up the electoral game by throwing a female candidate at our first minority President running for re-election.
Politics has a funny way of defying the "knowns" and heading off in unexpected directions. In the search for the Anti-Romney, it may be that Ms. Bachmann is the very thing the GOP needs. She's not Palin either as Ms. Palin has high negatives.
Would Ms. Bachmann make a good President ?? That will be the question that will drive the campaign to nomination or runner-up status for the nomination. All I Know is that right now, SLICK MITT seems like " more of the same" from the GOP. That is a recipe for disaster and a sure lock for re-election of the "Empty Suit" from Chicago....something no one needs.
Bachmann on 'Face the Nation': Two Signs She is Serious
By James Fallows Jun 26 2011 - The Atlantic
The two takeaways from this morning's show (via notes written 12+ hours ago -- have been in transit in the interim):
1) She looks so much better than she used to. Compare her appearance from a famous Hardball spot during the 2008 campaign with her presentation today. (The Hardball episode was famous because it was when she called Obama "very anti-American.")
Is this a retrograde sexist judgment? Overall presentation matters in politics, especially at the TV-based national level. It mattered that JFK looked better than Nixon in 1960, Reagan than Carter in 1980, Obama than McCain in 2008. It mattered that Dukakis looked the way he did in a tank in 1988. The change in Bachmann's presentation -- hair, makeup, styling in general -- tells me that she has thought about "raising her game," and in a much more sophisticated way than what we see in the evolution of Sarah Palin's appearance through that same period.
2) She showed that she is an absolute genius at the established political technique of "giving the answer you want to give, no matter what the question was." Schieffer reeled off a list of whopper-scale false claims she had made -- for instance, that Obama had approved "only one" offshore drilling permit, when in fact he'd approved hundreds. Her response, every time, was some variant on "the real question is why President Obama has misled us." Or, on policy: what specifically would she do to create jobs? "The real question is why President Obama has failed to create jobs." See for yourself from CBS's site.
I am not endorsing this as the ideal way to lead a public discourse, and you can't get away with it forever. (Schieffer closed the show with a manful for-the-record note that he had tried time and again to get answers to his questions about her falsehoods, and hadn't.) If you have only this one trick in your array of responses, eventually this will be what the press constantly harps on. But it is a part of a big-time politician's arsenal, and she showed that she knows how to use it.
When I say these are signs that she is serious, I don't mean that by my lights she suddenly has practical, plausible answers to the nation's problems. It means that her run could be more disciplined and professional than some other ill-starred long-shot campaigns we've seen recently.
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Speech Obama Hasn't Given - - - The American Public deserves to know what we hope to accomplish in Libya
The President is famous for repeatedly using the quote, " Let me be clear..." On many occasions when he is asked a question about something the US people need info on....well in this case, he could not be more opposite to that pledge.....Peggy Noonan hits the nail on the head....." What are we doing in Libya ?"
We need a plan of action as without a plan, we are not only heading down the road to disaster, we are betraying the pledge we make to our servicemen & women to not place them in harm's way without clear guidance as to what they need to do and what they will accomplish....The NATO allies can't state clearly what we are doing and we need some idea of what we are trying to accomplish.
I hate to use the metaphor but watching POTUS seems to be like something the Joker said in the movie DARK KNIGHT:
The Joker: Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just... do things.
I hate to say it, but when it comes to Obama, that line fits.
The Speech Obama Hasn't Given
What are we doing in Libya?
Americans deserve an explanation.
By PEGGY NOONAN.WSJ.com
It all seems rather mad, doesn't it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn't take place within a less hospitable context. The U.S. is reeling from spending and deficits, we're already in two wars, our military has been stretched to the limit, we're restive at home, and no one, really, sees President Obama as the kind of leader you'd follow over the top. "This way, men!" "No, I think I'll stay in my trench." People didn't hire him to start battles but to end them. They didn't expect him to open new fronts. Did he not know this?
He has no happy experience as a rallier of public opinion and a leader of great endeavors; the central initiative of his presidency, the one that gave shape to his leadership, health care, is still unpopular and the cause of continued agitation. When he devoted his entire first year to it, he seemed off point and out of touch. This was followed by the BP oil spill, which made him look snakebit. Now he seems incompetent and out of his depth in foreign and military affairs. He is more observed than followed, or perhaps I should say you follow him with your eyes and not your heart. So it's funny he'd feel free to launch and lead a war, which is what this confused and uncertain military action may become.
What was he thinking? What is he thinking?
Which gets me to Mr. Obama's speech, the one he hasn't given. I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest. He referred to his aims in parts of speeches and appearances when he was in South America, but now he's home. More is needed, more is warranted, and more is deserved. He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support. He has to make a case for his own actions. It's what presidents do! And this is particularly important now, because there are reasons to fear the current involvement will either escalate and produce a lengthy conflict or collapse and produce humiliation.
Without a formal and extended statement, the air of weirdness, uncertainty and confusion that surrounds this endeavor will only deepen.
The questions that must be answered actually start with the essentials. What, exactly, are we doing? Why are we doing it? At what point, or after what arguments, did the president decide U.S. military involvement was warranted? Is our objective practical and doable? What is America's overriding strategic interest? In what way are the actions taken, and to be taken, seeing to those interests?
From those questions flow many others. We know who we're against—Moammar Gadhafi, a bad man who's done very wicked things. But do we know who we're for? That is, what does the U.S. government know or think it knows about the composition and motives of the rebel forces we're attempting to assist? For 42 years, Gadhafi controlled his nation's tribes, sects and groups through brute force, bribes and blandishments. What will happen when they are no longer kept down? What will happen when they are no longer oppressed? What will they become, and what role will they play in the coming drama? Will their rebellion against Gadhafi degenerate into a dozen separate battles over oil, power and local dominance?
What happens if Gadhafi hangs on? The president has said he wants U.S. involvement to be brief. But what if Gadhafi is fighting on three months from now?
On the other hand, what happens if Gadhafi falls, if he's deposed in a palace coup or military coup, or is killed, or flees? What exactly do we imagine will take his place?
Supporters of U.S. intervention have argued that if we mean to protect Libya's civilians, as we have declared, then we must force regime change. But in order to remove Gadhafi, they add, we will need to do many other things. We will need to provide close-in air power. We will probably have to put in special forces teams to work with the rebels, who are largely untrained and ragtag. The Libyan army has tanks and brigades and heavy weapons. The U.S. and the allies will have to provide the rebels training and give them support. They will need antitank missiles and help in coordinating air strikes.
Once Gadhafi is gone, will there be a need for an international peacekeeping force to stabilize the country, to provide a peaceful transition, and to help the post-Gadhafi government restore its infrastructure? Will there be a partition? Will Libyan territory be altered?
None of this sounds like limited and discrete action.
In fact, this may turn out to be true: If Gadhafi survives, the crisis will go on and on. If Gadhafi falls, the crisis will go on and on.
Everyone who supports the Libyan endeavor says they don't want an occupation. One said the other day, "We're not looking for a protracted occupation."
.Mr. Obama has apparently set great store in the fact that he was not acting alone, that Britain, France and Italy were eager to move. That's good—better to work with friends and act in concert. But it doesn't guarantee anything. A multilateral mistake is still a mistake. So far the allied effort has not been marked by good coordination and communication. If the conflict in Libya drags on, won't there tend to be more fissures, more tension, less commitment and more confusion as to objectives and command structures? Could the unanticipated results of the Libya action include new strains, even a new estrangement, among the allies?
How might Gadhafi hit out, in revenge, in his presumed last days, against America and the West?
And what, finally, about Congress? Putting aside the past half-century's argument about declarations of war, doesn't Congress, as representative of the people, have the obvious authority and responsibility to support the Libyan endeavor, or not, and to authorize funds, or not?
These are all big questions, and there are many other obvious ones. If the Libya endeavor is motivated solely by humanitarian concerns, then why haven't we acted on those concerns recently in other suffering nations? It's a rough old world out there, and there's a lot of suffering. What is our thinking going forward? What are the new rules of the road, if there are new rules? Were we, in Libya, making a preemptive strike against extraordinary suffering—suffering beyond what is inevitable in a civil war?
America has been through a difficult 10 years, and the burden of proof on the need for U.S. action would be with those who supported intervention. Chief among them, of course, is the president, who made the decision as commander in chief. He needs to sit down and tell the American people how this thing can possibly turn out well. He needs to tell them why it isn't mad.
Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
It all seems rather mad, doesn't it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn't take place within a less hospitable context. The U.S. is reeling from spending and deficits, we're already in two wars, our military has been stretched to the limit, we're restive at home, and no one, really, sees President Obama as the kind of leader you'd follow over the top. "This way, men!" "No, I think I'll stay in my trench." People didn't hire him to start battles but to end them. They didn't expect him to open new fronts. Did he not know this?
He has no happy experience as a rallier of public opinion and a leader of great endeavors; the central initiative of his presidency, the one that gave shape to his leadership, health care, is still unpopular and the cause of continued agitation. When he devoted his entire first year to it, he seemed off point and out of touch. This was followed by the BP oil spill, which made him look snakebit. Now he seems incompetent and out of his depth in foreign and military affairs. He is more observed than followed, or perhaps I should say you follow him with your eyes and not your heart. So it's funny he'd feel free to launch and lead a war, which is what this confused and uncertain military action may become.
What was he thinking? What is he thinking?
Which gets me to Mr. Obama's speech, the one he hasn't given. I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest. He referred to his aims in parts of speeches and appearances when he was in South America, but now he's home. More is needed, more is warranted, and more is deserved. He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support. He has to make a case for his own actions. It's what presidents do! And this is particularly important now, because there are reasons to fear the current involvement will either escalate and produce a lengthy conflict or collapse and produce humiliation.
Without a formal and extended statement, the air of weirdness, uncertainty and confusion that surrounds this endeavor will only deepen.
The questions that must be answered actually start with the essentials. What, exactly, are we doing? Why are we doing it? At what point, or after what arguments, did the president decide U.S. military involvement was warranted? Is our objective practical and doable? What is America's overriding strategic interest? In what way are the actions taken, and to be taken, seeing to those interests?
From those questions flow many others. We know who we're against—Moammar Gadhafi, a bad man who's done very wicked things. But do we know who we're for? That is, what does the U.S. government know or think it knows about the composition and motives of the rebel forces we're attempting to assist? For 42 years, Gadhafi controlled his nation's tribes, sects and groups through brute force, bribes and blandishments. What will happen when they are no longer kept down? What will happen when they are no longer oppressed? What will they become, and what role will they play in the coming drama? Will their rebellion against Gadhafi degenerate into a dozen separate battles over oil, power and local dominance?
What happens if Gadhafi hangs on? The president has said he wants U.S. involvement to be brief. But what if Gadhafi is fighting on three months from now?
On the other hand, what happens if Gadhafi falls, if he's deposed in a palace coup or military coup, or is killed, or flees? What exactly do we imagine will take his place?
Supporters of U.S. intervention have argued that if we mean to protect Libya's civilians, as we have declared, then we must force regime change. But in order to remove Gadhafi, they add, we will need to do many other things. We will need to provide close-in air power. We will probably have to put in special forces teams to work with the rebels, who are largely untrained and ragtag. The Libyan army has tanks and brigades and heavy weapons. The U.S. and the allies will have to provide the rebels training and give them support. They will need antitank missiles and help in coordinating air strikes.
Once Gadhafi is gone, will there be a need for an international peacekeeping force to stabilize the country, to provide a peaceful transition, and to help the post-Gadhafi government restore its infrastructure? Will there be a partition? Will Libyan territory be altered?
None of this sounds like limited and discrete action.
In fact, this may turn out to be true: If Gadhafi survives, the crisis will go on and on. If Gadhafi falls, the crisis will go on and on.
Everyone who supports the Libyan endeavor says they don't want an occupation. One said the other day, "We're not looking for a protracted occupation."
.Mr. Obama has apparently set great store in the fact that he was not acting alone, that Britain, France and Italy were eager to move. That's good—better to work with friends and act in concert. But it doesn't guarantee anything. A multilateral mistake is still a mistake. So far the allied effort has not been marked by good coordination and communication. If the conflict in Libya drags on, won't there tend to be more fissures, more tension, less commitment and more confusion as to objectives and command structures? Could the unanticipated results of the Libya action include new strains, even a new estrangement, among the allies?
How might Gadhafi hit out, in revenge, in his presumed last days, against America and the West?
And what, finally, about Congress? Putting aside the past half-century's argument about declarations of war, doesn't Congress, as representative of the people, have the obvious authority and responsibility to support the Libyan endeavor, or not, and to authorize funds, or not?
These are all big questions, and there are many other obvious ones. If the Libya endeavor is motivated solely by humanitarian concerns, then why haven't we acted on those concerns recently in other suffering nations? It's a rough old world out there, and there's a lot of suffering. What is our thinking going forward? What are the new rules of the road, if there are new rules? Were we, in Libya, making a preemptive strike against extraordinary suffering—suffering beyond what is inevitable in a civil war?
America has been through a difficult 10 years, and the burden of proof on the need for U.S. action would be with those who supported intervention. Chief among them, of course, is the president, who made the decision as commander in chief. He needs to sit down and tell the American people how this thing can possibly turn out well. He needs to tell them why it isn't mad.
Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
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