Bad Form, Obama

I think our President is going to need a Special Assistant for American Affairs to help him avoid these rather boneheaded moves:

Here it is less than 72 hours into a new administration and the blogs have already been burning up the internet over a major snub by our new president.

What is the slight that they’re feeling? What’s got them all bunched up? A party — one the new president failed to show up for.

Every four years during inauguration evening (the galas began in 1809), groups vie for a visit from the incoming president, his wife, and anyone from his ticket. For decades, the “official” and “unofficial” galas have hoped to get a short visit from the president. He would take a few turns on the dance floor, say a few words to those gathered, and move on to the next one. Typically, these galas and balls consist of groups of people that have a common theme or background — from youth groups (H.O.P.E. Inaugural Youth Ball) to the National Council on Women ball. Which ones the new president attends say much about his priorities (right or wrong) and which demographics he may hold in high esteem.

In this case, the American Legion, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, and the Paralyzed Veterans of America, as well as other veteran’s groups, were sponsoring their gala that has coincided with the inaugural evening since Eisenhower took office in 1953. In total, nine presidents and 56 years have gone by, and each inaugural evening the new president arrived to thank the veterans and Medal of Honor recipients in attendance. As one of the “unofficial” balls, it meant quite a bit to have the president show up and make an appearance.

Except this time.

The president and first lady, for the first time in those ensuing 56 years, did not make an appearance at the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball. In attendance at the gala were 48 of the 99 living recipients of our nation’s highest honor. Of the 99 who are still with us, not even half are in any condition or possess the wherewithal to travel to such an event. And by the next inauguration, likely half of those won’t be with us.

Making this evening even more special was the fact that it is the 50th anniversary of the Medal of Honor Society, which has been working hard to reach out to people to educate them about its members.

He just doesn’t get it – the soaring rhetoric about America’s glory is just that; soaring rhetoric. Its means nothing because it doesn’t come from the heart – it is mere words to disarm opponents. Its not like this was a hard call. Its not like Obama has to stay the whole time. Its not like these people were just another interest group. When does the President greet veterans? Whenever there are veterans around to greet – the appointment schedule is never too booked.

Small in itself, this incident reflects the larger truth about Obama and his Democrats, just as that sick, servile “pledge” video tells us volumes about Obama’s supporters. They don’t know what it means to be American – these people will pat themselves endlessly on the back for “organizing” communities which may or may not (a) need organizing or (b) want outsiders to organize them, but the concept of landing on Iwo Jima and grappling in desperate battle with a valiant foe is outside their frame of reference. We don’t need – and never will need – someone to organize a community. We do, on the other hand, always need people who will land on Iwo Jima for us. Between a choice between meeting with ACORN and meeting with the VFW the decision is plain as a pikestaff…the ACORN people are next to useless, the VFW people are the lifeblood of our nation. But that is not how Obama and his Democrats view the matter.

Obama Agitated When Asked a Substantive Question

So used to getting a free pass, Obama was clearly annoyed when he wasn’t given adoring praise from a Politco reporter:

President Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press corps Thursday night, but got agitated when he was faced with a substantive question.

Asked how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for Raytheon, Obama interrupted with a knowing smile on his face.

“Ahh, see,” he said, “I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here.”

Pressed further by the Politico reporter about his Pentagon nominee, William J. Lynn III, Obama turned more serious, putting his hand on the reporter’s shoulder and staring him in the eye.

 ”Alright, come on” he said, with obvious irritation in his voice. “We will be having a press conference at which time you can feel free to [ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys – that’s all I was trying to do.” 

He can’t even handle a simple question. How sad. And we got four years of him ducking questions ahead of before we get rid of him…

Obama Worship Isn't Patriotism

Boston Herald columnist Michael Graham reports on a disturbing video showing Obama supporters  pledging allegiance to him, not their country.

President Barack Obama has an unusual ability to bring out the best in his enemies and the worst in his friends.

Which is why former foe John McCain was leading the push for a Senate vote on Hillary Clinton as secretary of state; and why the most disturbing Obama video you’ll see this year was just posted by his biggest fans.

Demi Moore and her boy toy Ashton Kutcher have put together a YouTube video called “The Pledge,” in which a cast of celebrities and semi-celebs pledge their service to Obama.

Literally.

The video starts harmlessly enough, with Hollywoodies like Cameron Diaz, Laura Linney and the like making various innocuous pledges of good behavior. They range from the serious (“I pledge to promote mental health education”) to the silly (“I pledge to never give the finger while driving again”) to the slightly icky (Jason Bateman pledges to stop flushing the toilet after urinating. House guests, you’ve been warned).

So when rocker Anthony Kiedis says “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama,” it seems humorously over the top.

But then Moore stares intently into the camera and announces “I pledge to be a servant to our president,” a pledge echoed by all the celebs who promise to become “the change that we seek.”

A pledge of allegiance to Obama? I don’t care if you’re a Republican, Democrat or a Vegan Evangelical Anarchist – that’s just plain creepy.

It’s also odd coming from a group of people who’ve previously shown little enthusiasm for pledging allegiance to our flag, much less a previous president.

Creepy is an understatement. The aforementioned nut jobs are the worst of Obama’s supporters because they are not mativated by love of country. In fact, over the past eight years, they have been loud haters of this country. So,, it makes perfect sense that these Obamabots have pledged faithful service to Obama, not their country. 

Consider this litany: “I pledge to be a better mother. . . To be a great father. . . To consider myself an American, not an African-American. . . To always represent my country with pride. . . To care for America’s elderly. . . To meet my neighbors . . . To plant 500 trees this year,” and so on.

All this as part of a pledge to “serve my president.” Not, it should be noted, a pledge to serve their nation.

This isn’t patriotism. It’s Obama worship. Liberals who once mocked the idea of patriotism as “My country, right or wrong,” have long lived by the creed “My politics – or else.” That’s why the same celebs who never had a kind word about President Bush’s massive aid to Africa are ready to skip meals in support of Obama.

There is something truly odd, embarrassing even, about people who are only able to embrace an idea when it’s held by the right (or should I say “left”) candidates. Loving your country because of its president is like loving your kids as long as they keep a 3.0 in school.

Yes, yes; helping hungry people and being a better parent are good things. But weren’t they just as good a year ago? Eight years ago? Did Eva Longoria really have to wait post-Bush to plant those 500 trees? Had Karl Rove stolen her shovel?

This disgusting blind allegiance to America’s Narcissist-In-Chief is disturbing for a number of reasons. Mainly because their blind worship of him will make them unwilling to discern Obama’s failures from his successes. They simply won’t admit it the times he fails. It is natural that they will give him the benefit of the doubt, but even President Bush’s supporters were more than willing to call him out when they felt he did wrong. Today, I am not so sure that Obama’s hardcore supporters will ever disapprove of what he does. And that makes Obama very dangerous. When his actions fail to meet his rhetoric, will they see Obama as another politician, or continue to look at him as a god who was merely thwarted by a devil?

Obama is an imperfect person, as is everyone. If his supporters think he is bigger than the office he holds, and their only motivation to do what they think is right is having their chosen candidate in power then they are the polar opposite of patriots. They will act like they love this country for four years, and when someone else is elected they will hate it again.

A Prediction for the Obama Years

From Victor Davis Hanson:

As Obama begins to govern and as the public sees that he simply borrowed Bush’s foreign policy rhetoric, jazzed it up with his cadences and pauses, and then took either Bushites or Democratic centrists and called them hope and change, and as he glued new rhetorical veneers on the Patriot Act and FISA, and as he alienates many by making decisions other than voting present, and as the gaffes begin (Biden and Michelle can’t be put under wraps forever), and the Chicago fumes linger (Blago ain’t through yet), the fawning media will begin to look embarrassed, then ridiculous, and finally completely bankrupt. They offered no audit of Obama, no tough treatment, no honest examination of his flips, no balance in their treatment of Bush, and they will soon pay a terrible price for that derelection and worse, as the public sees them as the state megaphones that they have so sadly become. The only suspense? Will they play Pravda to the end?

I think they will – and if, as I expect, everything falls apart for Obama, then I suspect that come January of 2013, we’ll hear no more of the MSM which midwifed him to office, fed him on adulation and insulated him from reality.

The Stimulus Con

Stripped of the glitter of Obama, the “stimulus” looks like just another tax-and-spend-liberal boondoggle:

Less than half the money dedicated to highways, school construction and other infrastructure projects in a massive economic stimulus package unveiled by House Democrats is likely to be spent within the next two years, according to congressional budget analysts, meaning most of the spending would come too late to lift the nation out of recession.

A report by the Congressional Budget Office found that only about $136 billion of the $355 billion that House leaders want to allocate to infrastructure and other so-called discretionary programs would be spent by Oct. 1, 2010. The rest would come in future years, long after the CBO and other economists predict the recession will have ended.

The report does not analyze the entire $825 billion package assembled by House leaders and aides to President Obama. Parts of the legislation are scheduled to be considered today in the House Appropriations Committee. Other portions of the proposal — including $275 billion in tax cuts and nearly $200 billion for jobless benefits, health care for the poor and other entitlement programs — are expected to pour cash into the nation’s faltering economy much more quickly.

But the CBO analysis appears to confirm the complaints of many Republicans and other critics, who have long argued that spending money on highway construction and other infrastructure projects is ineffective at quickly jolting a sluggish economy. The report was distributed to reporters yesterday by aides to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

The report also suggests that the House measure would violate Obama’s rules for the stimulus package; Obama aides have said they want the bulk of the spending to occur before 2011…

What is going on here? Well, a huge amount of spending, which is what Democrats do best and which is how they buy and cement political support. Do keep in mind that they don’t give a damn how the economy is going except in as much as it might hurt their chances of being re-elected. What Democrats want is power – all of it, and all of the time. They’ll do anything to obtain and retain power – and if spending a trillion dollars on pork disguised as “stimulus” is what they consider a good means of obtaining and retaining power, they’ll do it.

Furthermore, Democrats don’t really care all that much about Obama – they like the fact that he’ll appoint a bunch of Democrat hacks who will help steer money the way Democrats want, but other than the fact that he keeps a Republican out of the White House, what happens to Obama – plus or minus – is irrelevant. The power Democrats care about – ie, the ability to spend money – is held by Congress, and that is the Party’s largest concern. Obama very much wants to be a success – not just for his re-election prospects but because anyone who becomes President wants to be remembered as a man who changed things for the better in America. But Obama, at the latest, will only be in office until January 20th, 2017…Democrats want to hold Congress on January 21st, 2017. Keeping the White House would be swell, but its not vital. Through 40 years Democrats managed to advance the liberal agenda – and advance their power – because they controlled the nation’s purse strings – Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and the elder Bush came and went, but Democratic power went on and on and on.

Obama wants very much to be sitting atop 6% or less unemployment in August of 2012 – but his Democrats will only allow him to do things which increase the power of the Democratic party, and most of these things will actually harm economic prospects. Obama seems a clever chap, but also stunningly ignorant of the way things work in the economy and, surprisingly enough, in politics. Chicago is a hard school, but its tailored for Chicago – DC is its own, little world and Obama doesn’t seem to understand that all the smiles he sees from his side of the aisle are just a mask for ruthless, power hungry political animals who only care about themselves. But, still, Obama is clever – once we blow through a good chunk of this trillion dollars Obama might come to realize that its not working…and then it will get interesting, because the only people who will be able to help him save the economy will sit over on the GOP side of the aisle.

Politics will be endlessly entertaining over the next four years…and I can’t wait to wade into it, personally.

The 36th Annual March for Life

It is today, the sad anniversary of the Roe abomination – but, also, the glorious anniversary of the rebirth of respect for life:

No one with integrity any longer argues that the child killed through abortion is not a human being. When the abortion occurs through miscarriage we properly enter into the mourning of the mother over the loss of “her baby”. However, when the mother is deceived into a voluntary abortion we use a different vocabulary. Most people now acknowledge that these children killed by abortion are human persons. A few hold on to the dangerous notion that dependency upon others makes someone less of a person. However, medical science has confirmed what our consciences and the Natural Law told us all along, these victims of the first “preemptive war” are human beings just like us. We frame “baby’s first pictures” in their 3D Image through sonogram technology. We use intrauterine surgery to intervene to save them or correct anything which they may need before they are born. We prosecute an offender who, in the evil act of harming their mother, causes their death as well. It is all so very clear what we are really doing in every procured abortion.

The “argument” now used to justify this preemptive war is that the choice to kill them should be left to the mother in consultation with her own Doctor and/or other counselors. This is presented in a language of “freedom” and clothed with a counterfeit compassion. However, there is no moral difference between the killing of a child after birth and the killing of a child before birth. We legally excuse fetal homicide when it is committed by a misguided mother through the agency of a deceived or corrupted Doctor who once pledged to “do no harm”. We call it “healthcare” or a “reproductive” choice.Under our new administration the Government may soon extract tax dollars to pay for it.

It is ironic that this 36th March for Life will take place only days after our nation rightly celebrated a great advance against another intrinsic evil, racism, and the horrid memory of its once institutionalized expression, slavery. The election of our 44th President signals progress against what the Catechism calls a “structure of sin”. However, it is rooted in the same evil idea that some human persons are less worthy of being welcomed within our National family than others. Evil ideas have a horrid way of repackaging themselves.We will mourn, pray and demand justice.

We are not going away – Obama wants us to; heck, in a very real way he even strongly urged us to give up our fight in his inaugural address. But the ground really has not shifted, and the debates of the past are not over – not, at least, until all life is welcomed from conception and protected until natural death. Until then, all the high flown rhetoric we have about freedom and human rights is incomplete and, ultimately, fruitless. Our liberals, in general, also want this debate over – ever solicitous of the political prospects of the conservative movement, liberals advise us that its best if we just give it up and accept the Culture of Death as a settled thing.

Not a chance. While our prospects, for the moment, are bleak and our new President is working hard to expand the Culture of Death, we know that the ultimate victory is to be ours, because we love life and have true hope – and we not only hope, but we pray, that President Obama and all of those hoodwinked into supporting the Culture of Death will come to their senses and realize they have been the merest tools of a diabolical plot against all that is good and true.

Virginia Gubernatorial Race Heats Up Early

The fight for Virginia’s governorship will be the crucial battle in the 2009 election season – with Obama having won the State last November, Democrats are hoping to seal the deal in the Old Dominion by electing another Democrat. Meanwhile, the GOP is hoping to bounce back from the trouncing of 2006/08 by expelling Democrats from the Virginia governorship and giving the GOP momentum heading in to the 2010 mid terms. The money race is telling the tale of how deeply each party is getting invested in Virginia:

Virginia’s candidates for governor raised millions of dollars in the last half of 2008, according to campaign finance reports released Thursday.

State Attorney General Bob McDonnell, the Republican nominee, reported raising $1.6 million between July and December. That figure includes a million dollars collected since the November election. McDonnell’s campaign manager said the GOP candidate has $2 million in the bank.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal both attended fundraisers for McDonnell during that period.

The three Democrats who want their party’s nomination also released their fundraising numbers.

State Senator Creigh Deeds, who represents a district that includes Charlottesville, collected $658,000 during the last half of the year. Deeds now has $891,000 on hand.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe raised $948,000 since he started raising money back in November. But McAuliffe has spent some of that cash, as he currently reports a bank balance of $718,000.

Brian Moran, who used to represent Alexandria in the House of Delegates, pulled in $755,000 during the last half of the year. Moran is spending more than he’s raising, however, as the Democrat reported $924,000 on hand during the summer.

I hadn’t noted that Governor Jindal had helped with Virginia GOP fundraising – and if that doesn’t signal Presidential ambitions, then nothing does. But, one election at a time. We GOPers need to dig in here and do all we can to support the GOP nominee in Virginia. While our GOPers in Virginia will have to carry the bulk of the load, we can donate our money and, if we live in surrounding States, our time. A lot of politics revolves around image – its sad, but its true…and nothing would better break the image of Democrat invincibility than to take the State Obama took just the year before.

Here is McDonnell’s website – have at it; lets whack the Democrats hard in 2009!

Tax Evader Timothy Geithner Expected To Be Confirmed Today

I expect Timothy Geithner to get all or most of the Democrat Party votes, so his confirmation as Treasury secretary is inevitable, as Democrats don’t need a single Republican vote to confirm him… but if any Republican votes for this crook, I’ll be very upset.

Timothy Geithner, President Barack Obama’s pick for Treasury secretary, told lawmakers that “substantial” and “dramatic” action will be needed to resolve the financial crisis but said the Obama administration was still determining how best to tackle the problem.

 

At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Mr. Geithner also apologized for failing to pay some past employment taxes, saying he made careless but unintentional mistakes and corrected the errors. 

[...]

While his tax problems are unlikely to derail his confirmation, Mr. Geithner faced some uncomfortable questions over why he failed to pay more than $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes over several years while working at the International Monetary Fund.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) called it “incomprehensible” that Mr. Geithner didn’t realize he needed to pay employment taxes. He also questioned why Mr. Geithner took so long to correct the problem for tax years 2001 and 2002. The payroll-tax errors were discovered during a 2006 Internal Revenue Service audit of Mr. Geithner’s taxes, and he paid what he owed for 2003 and 2004. But Mr. Geithner didn’t pay the Social Security and Medicare tax he owed for 2001 and 2002 until after Mr. Obama indicated in the fall that he planned to nominate him as Treasury secretary.

“I regret having not done that sooner,” Mr. Geithner said. “If I thought about it more, maybe I would have come to it sooner. I did not believe when I settled that audit that I had an obligation to go back. I had not thought about it in the intervening years.”

$34,000 in unpaid taxes is not an “honest mistake.” Anyone who votes to confirm Geithner ought to be ashamed.

Ok, Someone Get to the Beach

Its been 24 hours, so check to see if the ocean level is dropping.

Bloomberg: Worst Inauguration Day Stock Decline In History

I guess yesterday truly was historic:

U.S. stocks sank, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst Inauguration Day decline, as speculation banks must raise more capital sent financial shares to an almost 14-year low.

State Street Corp., the largest money manager for institutions, tumbled 59 percent after unrealized bond losses almost doubled. Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. slumped more than 23 percent on an analyst’s prediction that they’ll need to take steps to shore up their balance sheets. The Dow’s 4 percent slide was the most on an Inauguration Day in the measure’s 112-year history, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

So let’s tink about this…

Stocks plunged after Obama was elected. Stocks plunged on Obama’s inauguration. It is said that tho stock market is forward looking… Obviously they see bad times ahead under Comrade Obama.

HAT TIP: @jimmiebjr