Just Don't Call Him A Czar

Quite a Labor Day weekend - lose a czar, gain a czar:

President Obama to Appoint Ron Bloom Manufacturing Czar

In Cincinnati tomorrow, President Obama will announce that he's appointing Ron Bloom his Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy, White House sources tell ABC News.

Bloom is currently Senior Advisor to Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner as a member of the President’s Task Force on the Automotive Industry, named to that position in February.  He will remain in that position even while he takes on his new task.

That headline is from Jake Tapper of ABC News, who was being naughty - the NY Times stays on message by avoiding the dreaded "Czar" word.

The WSJ and TIME profiled Mr. Bloom when he joined the Administration this winter.  Wesleyan, Harvard B-School, ten years as an investment banker and then Special Assistant to the United Steelworker President from 1996 on - dare we wonder whether Mr. Bloom is interested in promoting manufacturing jobs, or unionized manufacturing jobs?

Comments

[Thomas Collins]

CHACO, we'll never know for sure, but for the reasons discussed above, I am skeptical about regular 4:30 am academic wake-ups. I suspect the truth is that Mom got Barack the Student up early a couple of times to drill him in Math or vocab or something else, and Barack the Prez is exhibiting politically expedient irrational exuberance in recollecting his school days.

[Porchlight]

"Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how."....and he liked the title.

Zing! Thanks, Janet. :)

If Barack H. Obama were a Jane Austen character, which one would he be?

I vote for Mr. Elton....but he has shades of Wickham, too.

[Ooh, ah, ouch. I didn't mean it, no, no...noooo.]

Buster might well have been a midwestern colloquialism learned from her father or mother, and heh, Buster Brown shoes were popular, featuring, as went the times, white children.

Whew, almost tripped the racism wire there. Hey, what's all this red stuff?
================================

[I'm gonna start calling Leo Buster.]

'Buster' is a rough term of endearment used in place of the next, rougher, term.
===================================

[Gregory Koster]

Charlie, I am having trouble making a lot out of it too, but I did think it was mildly unusual. That's why I asked the practicing attys to see if it is unusual or just me being ignorant again.

It's a good point about 0430 being a cool time of day, but I still can't swallow any preteen boy being willing to take lessons at that hour, let alone get much out of them.

Clarice, thanks for the tip. That could be what did it. So far I can only find an arrest for VJ in 1992 around the time of the Rodney King riots, carges being dropped. But I've heard of that conviction too. Off to more digging...

Daddy, that was supposed to be a jest. I was a bit nervous that you'd think it was a slur on your honor and challenge me to a duel, weapons being a copy of DREAMS FROM MY FATHER read at 0430. Good God.

Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster

[clarice]

Gregory--anything that raised a question of good moral character could hold up the admission.
Also, if he failed the exam one or more times--soemthing there's probably no publicly available record of.

[Jane]

As far as I am concerned if you graduated law school but have never passed a bar exam you are ipso facto a failure

Dave,

I'm not sure I agree with that. I don't think the bar exam prepares you for much - and failure to pass it means that you can't appear before the bar, which means practice in a courtroom which something like 90% of lawyers never do anyway.

I also don't think law school prepares you for much except maybe thinking like a lawyer.

Practicing law is what makes or breaks a lawyer. You are either good at it or you aren't. But if you are never actually planning to practice law,all it does is widen your perspective a bit, at least IMO.

[Daddy]

No sweat Greg. Took it as complete good humor the first time and just assumed I was blabbing crazy like normal.

[Daddy]

TC,

Your comment above at 7:43 about possible exageration of Academic Wake-ups makes excellent sense to me.

[peter]

Daddy, I've heard our Leader make this claim before. Not sure if it is in Dreams from my commie fathers

[Elliott]

Just Don't Call Him A Czar

Yes, there are too many to name them alphabetically (A Tsar, B Tsar, &C. Tsars). My own view is that the best names would come from the Greek alphabet: Nu Tsar, ETA Tsar (is George Mitchell available?), Pi Tsar (FLOTUS), Alpha Tsar.

[Ann]

Daddy,

I FOUND IT!!!!! It's at the 1:10 mark in the video.

"HIGHLY OBJECTIONABLE"

[Highly, I say, ha ha highly.]

Nice catch, Ann, but it's at 15 seconds when I view it.
=============================

[Ann]

And this smiling picture of the outraged President Barack Obama accompanied the AP story that was printed across the nation:

President Barack Obama smiles as he walks to Marine One prior to departing the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 21, 2009, for Camp David, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (Alex Brandon, AP / August 21, 2009)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday called the elaborate Libyan homecoming for the freed Lockerbie bomber "highly objectionable."

Obama commented before departing the White House for a weekend at Camp David, Md.

Asked after issuing a statement on Afghanistan's elections for his thoughts on the jubilant crowd that greeted Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in Tripoli on Thursday, Obama said: "I think it was highly objectionable."

Outraged President Obama Smiles For The Cameras After His "Highly Objectionable" Comment

[Ann]

Dang it, Kim, you are correct! I must of added the commercial time. Sorry, but you know me...I have been known to call people "bunkers". Just ask bgates. :)

[maryrose]

I hope per Mike Pence's suggestion Congress starts looking at some of these czars. maybe a senator can stop some other appointment with a hpold until we get some clarity and TRANSPERANCY!

[bgates]

Just saw an Althouse post that reminded me of something - Obama is going to end the Sermon on the Television with the line "God bless you, and God bless America".

Have that Newdow character and the ACLU filed suit, or are there no Establishment Clause concerns when the Executive delivers an affirmation of monotheism to a captive minor audience so long as we know he doesn't mean it?

[Taqiyah Tommy, yes he is.]

Omigod, Jane, if that is not a conspiratorial grin I don't know what is. That's damning video.
============================

[Ann]

Oh, come on, bgates. Everyone knows that when a liberal says "God bless you or God bless America" it is equivalent to the political magic of:

"abracadabra, alakazam, hocus pocus, presto-chango, shazam, HOPE AND CHANGE, etc.

Get with the program! Sheesh! :)

[Porchlight]

Ann, that or it is equivalent to saying "guys you know I loathe saying this as much as you loathe hearing it but I gotta placate the rubes, so wink wink, etc."

[daddy]

I take it all back. Just saw Ann Althouses link to The School Kid speech, reread the thing, and think it ought to be shown in every school across America, all day, every single day, from now to 2012.

The instant a Bart Simpson type kid gets out of line and sent to detention, the school's Principal Skinner equivalent ought to set the little miscreant down in a detention desk, click the Video, and make the poor sucker watch the darn thing at loud volume, start to finish, and on multiple tv's if possible. In nothing flat our delinquency problems would flatten out across this country like Obama's popularity ratings, and our litle truant would be begging to go outside and help groundskeeper Willie scrub grafitti off the playground walls. I can't think of anything a school could do on a regular basis more painful as punishment to a bored, unruly kid, than subjecting him to a continuous daily repition of such brain-dead, vapid platitudes.

Would also be interesting to see us then take away Harry Potter from the Gitmo badboys and subject them to a non-stop 24 hour straight dose of the same darn thing. Sure it'd be torture, but where you gonna' find a single lefty that would object to that.

Of Obama the School-Marm, I say bring it on.

[mockmook]

Hmm, wonder if Mr Soeto (sp?) might have mandated that his property, err, wife give lessons to his lesser property, err, "son" at 4:30am ?

Seems a good way to get rid of one or both without too much fuss :-)

[daddy]

Thank you Ann for digging that video up. That's the event. BBC or CNN-International had it from a slightly different angle, and slightly tougher to hear (I thought he simply said "It was objectionable") but that 7 seconds or so is the video they kept replaying over and over and describing it as "Harshly critical."

In this KTLA story you posted with the smiling photo, KTLA calls the President "DISGRUNTLED." I've never seen a less gruntled President in my life, but I suppose I should add that descriptive "DISGRUNTLED" adjective to the VENTS HIS FURY, FURIOUS, ANGRY, SLAMMED, CONDEMNING, OUTRAGED, DISGUSTED, DESPERATELY APPEALS adjectives they were able to make up out of thin air for him in the other headlines I pasted yesterday.

Perhaps he has said some of these things. But the fact is, that from out of Obama's own mouth, all I have is 2 things:

1) ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrjlAc2QK5s&feature=related"> This 40 second video where all he says is:

"We have been in contact with The Scottish Government indicating that we objected to this and we thought it was a mistake. We're now in contact with the Libyan Government and want to make sure that if in fact this transfer has taken place that he's not welcomed back in some way, but instead should be under house arrest. We've also obviously been in contact with the families, the Pan Am victims and indicated to them that we don't think this was appropriate."

2) And your new video showing his response to the question from CBS's Bill Plante, "What about the hero's welcome in Libya Sir?" "I think it was highly objectionable." Nothing else.

Obviously I'm biased, but if these are all the comments that he's made publicly, I fail to see any anger, surprise, outrage whatever. It's sure not in his words when he's speaking them, nor in that picture. So how does the MSM wind up telling the whole world that Obama is DISGRUNTLED, FURIOUS, ANGRY, CONDEMNATORY, OUTRAGED, etc. What are they seeing that I am not? Or instead, are they dishonestly providing the adjectives themselves because they know an angry America expects and needs to hear them from its President, who in fact doesn't share those angry feelings about this release because, as the Brits are now telling us, he was thoroughly briefed on the release of the Lockerbie terrorist from the git-go, and did nothing of consequence to oppose it. "Highly Objectionable" if you ask me?

[RICH]

I AM ONE OF THE LAID OFF STEELWORKERS FROM STEUBENVILLE ,OHIO.ron bloom has done us no favors thats for sure.our international union has always sold us out...we are always the one getting the wrong end of the stick.i have 31 years at wheeling pitt,we have been thru this before.....it makes me sick to my stomach that the bozo's in washington...with their friggin nafta and free frickin trade....lets the illegally dumped steel come into this country.its free trade?when we abide by the rules and nobody else does? wake up you bozo's......we have been putting up with illegal imports for years from these foreigners,now we are owned by them......because of our lack of leadership in this country...always worry about the rest of the world.....and SCREW US HERE POLICY. politicians make me sick....either party it doesnt matter..BILL COSBY HAS THE RIGHT IDEA.......CUT OFF ALL IMPORTS INTO THIS COUNTRY ......MAKE IT HERE SELL IT HERE.....no exports either.....just wheat.....and charge for the bushel of wheat what we get charged for a barrel of oil...im sick of all these other countries owning us and running our jobs to there countries...like china..no labor laws,no e.p.a.,ect.there are also the greedy executives here that promote this too....if they prome it deport them to the country they take their business too......what needs to happen in this country is for the people to get involved,there are 300 million people here......and leaving out the rich.....people who support this.......we 100 million to got to the white house and 100 million to go to capital hill...and dont leave until these bozo politicians do the right thing and start doing things for us hard working americans....it will probably never happen but,thats what needs to be done here....WAKE UP ASHOLES IN WASHINGTON.........WAKE UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP