Category — Politics

Jonah Goldberg explains how President Obama’s European trip reflects something fundamental about his use of language:

Give the man points for consistency. He has put rhetorical innovation on an equal footing with policy innovation. Exhibit A: “Overseas contingency operations.” That’s the Obama administration’s term of choice to replace “the long war” or “the global war on terror.” No doubt they were inspired by the famous Leo Tolstoy novel, Overseas Contingency Operations and Cessation of Overseas Contingency Operations, later dumbed-down by the publisher to War and Peace.

Janet Napolitano, head of Obama’s Department of Homeland Security — primarily created to deal with terrorist attacks in the wake of 9/11 — has decided “terrorist attack” is too hard-edged. It’s “man-caused disasters” now. “That is perhaps only a nuance,” Napolitano explained to a German newsmagazine, “but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.”

Meanwhile, the White House has announced that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will no longer be called “enemy combatants.” No word yet on what the new term will be. No doubt the poetic euphony of “man-caused disasters” and “overseas contingency operations” sets a very high bar for Obama’s Office of Euphemism Generation. But surely “Men Prone to Disaster Causation” or “Overseas Counter-Contingency Operators” are the most obvious choices. My friend Mark Steyn, however, suggests going another way: “Future Facebook Friends.”

The question is whether Obama will wake up to the fact that fancy language only goes so far:

Obama’s naivete may rest in his own belief that his words amount to some kind of Jedi mind trick.

Indeed, Obama spent the week telling Europeans everything they wanted to hear, but got little for it. The French and the Germans still belittled America’s “Anglo-Saxon” capitalism and refused to follow our lead.

This might lead to a painful realization for Obama. While he may think words are everything, for our enemies and even our friends, words are — still — just words.

Let’s just be honest about the monstrosity labeled the stimulus package:

1. It will not stimulate the economy in any where near the fashion the Democrats claim it will (if it manages to do so at all).
2. It is not even really designed to do so.
3. It is instead an attempt to grow the size and reach of government and cement it there for generations.

The Democrats have an unalterable belief that government is the solution to any and all problems.  It also just so happens that those connected to or dependent on the government form the base of the party.

Spending is always the hammer and so any and all problems look like a nail to Democrats.  And this economic crisis is no different.  The differences is the scale.  And that means, IMO, the GOP has found a hill to die on.

Ron Brownstein unintentionally makes the case for me.  Details below.

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You can officially start your President Barack Obama broken promises counter:

Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on Jan. 29, 2009, keeping a longstanding promise to counter a Supreme Court decision that limited workers’ ability to sue for pay discrimination. We moved the Obameter and gave him a Promise Kept.

But we also had to give him his first Promise Broken for the same signing. As part of his agenda to bring more transparency to government, Obama said he would institute “sunlight before signing” –  posting laws to the White House Web site for five days of public comment before he signed off on them.

The Ledbetter Act was passed two days ago, yet the request for public comment was posted after he signed the bill. For that, he earns his first Promise Broken.

Methinks you will want to have the ceiling on that counter be a rather large number . . .

Michael Ledeen ponders Obama’s promises:

So President Obama promised virtue and transparency, and declared war on lobbyists. Thus far, we’ve got a tax cheat headed for Treasury, a man who lied under oath headed for Justice, and two celebrated lobbyists headed for the #2 slots at Defense and HHS.

I do not understand why the Treasury guy wasn’t thrown out in a rage of protest.  We’ve got something like 350 million Americans. I refuse to believe he is so uniquely qualified that Geithner’s dramatic lack of virtue should be ignored. Nor do I understand why Holder’s denial that he knew all about Marc Rich isn’t grounds for rejection. Precisely for the reason Obama stated: at a time when confidence in government is crucial, you can’t start your administration by violating your own announced principles.

Via Ace of Spades, and pretty much over once Kelly noted that Burton had gotten the narrative wrong from the start about what Fox had been reporting.  Mind you, a distressingly increasingly-common subset of Obama supporters would disagree, but that’s mostly because they apparently have difficulty grasping the notion that a mere woman could possibly be effective against one of their candidate’s spokesman (Allahpundit says “spokestool,” which is of course mean of him).

Anyway, enjoy.

***This is satire, in case that wasn’t obvious***

Precocious Youngster Sells Cookies To Buy Attack Ad

We can now add Dan McLaughlin to Stanley Kurtz as someone who took the time to diligently document Obama’s troubling past.  Dan has a lengthy series on Barack Obama and The Integrity Gap
that really is must read material.

Start with the link above and just keep reading.  Well worth your time.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Thomas Sowell is on to the Obama con.  He notes how tempting people find Obama’s words:

Barack Obama is much smoother. Instead of issuing explicit denials, he gives speeches that sound so moderate, so nuanced, and so lofty that even some conservative Republicans go for them. How could anyone believe that such a man is the very opposite of what he claims to be — unless they check out the record of what he has actually done?

But when it comes to deeds things are very different:

In words, Obama is a uniter instead of a divider. In deeds, he has spent years promoting polarization. That is what a “community organizer” does — creating a sense of grievance, envy, and resentment — in order to mobilize political action to get more of the taxpayers’ money or to force banks to lend to people they don’t consider good risks, as the community organizing group ACORN did.

After Barack Obama moved beyond the role of a community organizer, he promoted the same polarization in his other roles.

That is what he did when he spent the money of the Woods Fund bankrolling programs to spread the politics of grievance and resentment into the schools. That is what he did when he spent the taxpayers’ money bankrolling the grievance and resentment ideology of Michael Pfleger.

When Barack Obama donated $20,000 to Jeremiah Wright, does anyone imagine that he was unaware that Wright was the epitome of grievance, envy, and resentment hype? Or were Wright’s sermons too subtle for Obama to pick up that message?

How subtle is “Goddamn America!”?

As Sowell points out, however, raising any of these issues is seen as divisive and distracting from the issues.  And he notes how this leads to the Obama con:

Does anyone in real life put more faith in what people say than in what they do? A few gullible people do — and they often get deceived and defrauded big time.

That is what is at the heart of this election.  Are we going to take what Obama says over what he has actually done?  Are we going to take his word when he has consistently proven himself untrustworthy?

The media doesn’t want to have these questions asked, but they are necessary and valid.  It is up to the voters to ask them and think about what the answers mean.

Out of the first 2,100 (of about 5,000 submitted, all in the last few days before the deadline) handed in by notorious Democratic ally ACORN, all of them were fraudulent.  Not my word choice: CNN’s.

CNN is now mocking ACORN for this.

Mocking:

Extra fun is watching the ACORN attorney try to weasel out of this.

A picture is worth a thousand words and all that . . .