Looking For A Picture On A Blank Screen

Maureen Dowd is waiting for Obama to show signs of a pulse but, per Shelby Steele, she is missing the point of His Obamacy.  Over to Ms. Dowd:

Before he left for vacation, Obama tried to shed his Spock mien and juice up the empathy quotient on jobs. But in his usual inspiring/listless cycle, he once more appeared chilly in his response to the chilling episode on Flight 253, issuing bulletins through his press secretary and hitting the links. At least you have to seem concerned.

On Tuesday, Obama stepped up to the microphone to admit what Janet Napolitano (who learned nothing from an earlier Janet named Reno) had first tried to deny: that there had been “a systemic failure” and a “catastrophic breach of security.”

But in a mystifying moment that was not technically or emotionally reassuring, there was no live video and it looked as though the Obama operation was flying by the seat of its pants.

Given that every utterance of the president is usually televised, it was a throwback to radio days — just at the moment we sought reassurance that our security has finally caught up to “Total Recall.”

Looking to Obama for leadership is like looking in the mirror, which in Ms. Dowd's case may not be such a great idea.  Over to Mr. Steele:

Barack Obama, elegant and professorially articulate, was an invitation to sophistication that America simply could not bring itself to turn down. If "hope and change" was an empty political slogan, it was also beautiful clothing that people could passionately describe without ever having seen.

Mr. Obama won the presidency by achieving a symbiotic bond with the American people: He would labor not to show himself, and Americans would labor not to see him. As providence would have it, this was a very effective symbiosis politically. And yet, without self-disclosure on the one hand or cross-examination on the other, Mr. Obama became arguably the least known man ever to step into the American presidency.

...

I think that Mr. Obama is not just inexperienced; he is also hampered by a distinct inner emptiness—not an emptiness that comes from stupidity or a lack of ability but an emptiness that has been actually nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the political world.

The nature of this emptiness becomes clear in the contrast between him and Ronald Reagan. Reagan reached the White House through a great deal of what is called "individuating"—that is he took principled positions throughout his long career that jeopardized his popularity, and in so doing he came to know who he was as a man and what he truly believed.

He became Ronald Reagan through dissent, not conformity. And when he was finally elected president, it was because America at last wanted the vision that he had evolved over a lifetime of challenging conventional wisdom. By the time Reagan became president, he had fought his way to a remarkable certainty about who he was, what he believed, and where he wanted to lead the nation.

Mr. Obama's ascendancy to the presidency could not have been more different. There seems to have been very little individuation, no real argument with conventional wisdom, and no willingness to jeopardize popularity for principle. To the contrary, he has come forward in American politics by emptying himself of strong convictions, by rejecting principled stands as "ideological," and by promising to deliver us from the "tired" culture-war debates of the past. He aspires to be "post-ideological," "post-racial" and "post-partisan," which is to say that he defines himself by a series of "nots"—thus implying that being nothing is better than being something. He tries to make a politics out of emptiness itself.

But then Mr. Obama always knew that his greatest appeal was not as a leader but as a cultural symbol. He always wore the bargainer's mask—winning the loyalty and gratitude of whites by flattering them with his racial trust: I will presume that you are not a racist if you will not hold my race against me. Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and yes, Tiger Woods have all been superb bargainers, eliciting almost reverential support among whites for all that they were not—not angry or militant, not political, not using their moral authority as blacks to exact a wage from white guilt.

Mr. Steele offered a similar argument back in March of 2008 and used Obama's own words against him:

But bargainers have an Achilles heel. They succeed as conduits of white innocence only as long as they are largely invisible as complex human beings. They hope to become icons that can be identified with rather than seen, and their individual complexity gets in the way of this. So bargainers are always laboring to stay invisible. (We don't know the real politics or convictions of Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey, bargainers all.) Mr. Obama has said of himself, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . ." And so, human visibility is Mr. Obama's Achilles heel. If we see the real man, his contradictions and bents of character, he will be ruined as an icon, as a "blank screen."

Reaching back three years to December 2006 we can find even more on Obama as a self-described "blank screen":

Obama is humble in all the right places. Before a thousand swooning fans in New Hampshire, he says, Evita-like: "This isn't about me. This is about you." One gets the impression from his public appearances and book, "The Audacity of Hope," that he doesn't even get a haircut without first consulting his wife.

What Obama really thinks should be done about health care and the terrorist threat remain secrets that his book does not unlock. His two years in the Senate certainly haven't revealed any bold policy ideas.

This leave-them-guessing strategy slips out in the book's prologue. "I serve as a blank screen," Obama writes, "on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." He notifies readers that "my treatment of the issues is often partial and incomplete." It takes some doing for a politician to write a 364-page book, his second volume, and skate past all controversy.

In Mr. Steele's telling the whole "No Drama Obama" routine was born of necessity.

Comments

[Neo]

"I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . ."

So he himself described himself as a "Rorschach candidate."

[ben]

We have seen this script before. Obama's 15 minutes lasted 2 years.

[Soylent Red]

Obama's 15 minutes lasted 2 years.

The Milli Vanilli of politics. Question is when does he go from Miley Cyrus to Billy Ray, and how do we help him along in that transformative process?

[Thomas Collins]

I think the effete elite is beginning to figure out that it's one thing to assuage guilt about good fortune by espousing leftist policies that won't be implemented or will affect others lower in the wealth totem pole, but it's another thing to operate under a leftist regime whose implementation of those policies will actually affect the effete elite. MoDo and other Kings and Queens of Effeteness may blabber on about leadership, but I think the real concern is that as Prez Obama is being as true as he can be to his leftist roots.

[MarkO]

Isn't this how guys pick up girls in bars?

[Clarice]

I still say he's not very bright. A jivester who played the university professors who were just looking for a clean, articulate, leftist fruitcake.

[JorgXMcKie]

Is it possible to be more clueless than MoDo? I mean, seriously, Pauline Kael was more award than this lump of protoplasm.

[JorgXMcKie]

Whoops! award = aware

[Rick Ballard]

I find the perpetuation of the tabula rasa meme (as developed and marketed by Chance's handlers with the assistance of Fenton) to be tiresome. He's just a product and a poorly designed, crappy one to boot. Had he received one tenth of the scrutiny directed at Palin he would still be peddling votes to the likes of Uncle Tony as he floated in the sewer of Chicago politics. Dowd is surprised by sunrise each and every morning (or late afternoon, depending on the hangover) and Steele is offering zero on the 'new insight' meter.

Clarice, I agree completely wrt "not very bright". He has a modicum of low cunning, the ability to deliver a mediocre speech (when allowed sufficient practice time) and he can parrot leftist cant upon the slightest tug of his leash. He's not going to 'grow' in the job, he's already the epitome of the Peter Principle and his utter vacuity is going to continue to 'surprise' only those who consider the NYT or WaPo to be purveyors of information.

[Ignatz]

I think Steele stops one step short of the real Obama, and it's a very cynical and shrewd step.
Obama only portrays himself as post-partisan-racial-idealogical. But it's a facade. He doesn't define himself as any of those things he merely projects them for public consumption.
Narcissists are almost by definition over their heads except in one area; the cynical manipulation of other's perceptions.
He is rigidly partisan, idealogical and racial but masks it with his carefully crafted facade. To the extent he bends idealogically it is always and only forced expedience.

[Sue]

Isn't the shorter version already in a song? You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything.

[Extraneus]

Exactly, Ignatz. Steele's claim that Obama is empty and unprincipled is wrong. He's not empty at all. In fact, he's a die-hard leftist with a chip on his shoulder, and he means to take us down however many pegs he can. He's just been allowed to hide his true self, although it's peeked out enough times to let us know what's under the mask.

Steele's larger point, that Obama's opaqueness has been facilitated by white sophisticates, is more valid -- but even there, he doesn't account for politics in the equation. It's not white conservatives helping Obama hide. The "blackness" is the mask the white leftists help him hide behind.

[Laura]

Ignatz,
Ithink you have gotten at the nub, and Steele is being extremely naive in not recognizing the underlying malignant ideology. Obama is still an empty suit as we know, but his very strong belief in far left causes me much more dread.

Clarice,
Isn't Obama's chosen ideology evidence of his not very brightness?

[Clarice]

He's just bright enough to fool people like Oglethorpe and Gates who share his views and probably also don't deserve the positions they hold either.

[Sue]

I saw this quote on Facebook...Once we had Bush, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. Now we have Obama, no Cash and no Hope...

[rsg]

You can't fight a war when you let the enemies population immigrate to your country. Impossible.

Stop mooooslim immigration if you wanna really fight. We don't. It's all "pc", liberal feel-good nonsense.

[NK]

I am with Ignatz and Extraneus. Barry O is a doctrinaire lefty and a 'racialist' of the highest order, using an intentinally constructed false facade to get himself elected. He will not 'grow' into the job of CINC. His marxist and racialist world view allows no room for critical thinking about his politics which was drilled into literally since birth from his marxist mom, and then by the Columbia U., Harvard Law faculties and then surrogate dad Bill Ayres. Barry O curses the economic collapse of the Federal tax base which had grown so strongly since the Reagan second term; that collapse coupled with the Red Chinese imposed limit to debt financing makes the redistributionist policies Barry O thought he would use his messiah-like powers to impose on the US that much more dfficult to carry out. Where does he go from here? Continue the facade and try more demogogary to dramatically ramp up taxes on the rich -- he's looking at YOU TM. Will that succeed? Up to the voters. Cheers and Happy New Year to all.

[glasater]

For me, the only thing that may save us/our country is the fact that Zero is plain, flat out lazy.

[Rob Crawford]

Steele's larger point, that Obama's opaqueness has been facilitated by white sophisticates, is more valid -- but even there, he doesn't account for politics in the equation. It's not white conservatives helping Obama hide. The "blackness" is the mask the white leftists help him hide behind.

You articulate what I was trying to get at in the other comments on this -- Steele says "whites" but it's really a subset of "whites" that are responsible. Steele's failure to be specific obscures the real problem -- "elites" who are dumb as posts.

[Rob Crawford]

For me, the only thing that may save us/our country is the fact that Zero is plain, flat out lazy.

And, apparently, unwilling to push anything if he might lose. I'm still scratching my head over the "pivot" crap -- does he realize what damage he's done to the Congressional Democrats by announcing he'd just as soon abandon their efforts?

[Clarice]

I think he meant the white elites and in that he's so true. A conservative black like himself is somehow considered inauthentic to this same crowd. Remember Wolfe's marvelous account of Bernstein's cocktail party for the Black anthers in his fab Manhattan apt? These folks were getting a bit tired of the mau mau act but in any event recognized they needed a smoothie who held those extreme views but was capable of fooling the muddle. because, well the lumpen being so much less sophisticated than they held all sorts of preposterous notions like equality of opportunity, not outcome; capitalism and free markets; federalism.

[Extraneus]

Has Steele ever written about the talk that Obama gave to the white sophisticates in SF about how "[bitter white yokels] cling to guns and religion"? I'd be interested in his take on that.

[Jane]

For me, the only thing that may save us/our country is the fact that Zero is plain, flat out lazy.

And in his 40's which I think is most people's most productive decade. I bet he has never lifted a finger in his life. And he doesn't seem to do much more than give speeches now.

I like seeing him tired. I just hope he comes out one day and gives up.

[Cecil Turner]

I still say he's not very bright.

If he is, he's remarkably reticent to provide evidence. What he is is a good speaker (when properly prepared). And wayyy out to the left, which provides a lot of lefty "intellectual" types with a reason to think he's brilliant (i.e., the old metric of assessing people's intelligence by how well they agree with you).

[jimmyk]

He's not empty at all. In fact, he's a die-hard leftist with a chip on his shoulder, and he means to take us down however many pegs he can. He's just been allowed to hide his true self, although it's peeked out enough times to let us know what's under the mask.

As someone noted in this forum probably a year or more ago, he's the Eddie Haskel of politics.

[Rick Ballard]

I've always interpreted the hard pivot as being a campaign tactic. His handlers and advisers are adept at campaigning rather than governance and Job #1 will always be keeping the Big Buffoon in the Big Chair. I agree wholeheartedly with Glasater, if the phony wasn't such a slacker we'd be in much worse trouble. That's really where I differ with others regarding him being such an ideologue - he simply doesn't have the required mastery of the ideology. He's a well trained and conditioned parrot. He doesn't deviate any more than he thinks - until something affects the potential for re-election. Then he gets a lot more flexible than would any true ideologue.

[glasater]

I just hope he comes out one day and gives up

And give up all those perks.......?:)

I don't think he gives two hoots about the Democrat party.
He certainly has the barest grasp of the history of that organization.
Bet he's never heard of Scoop Jackson.

[matt]

Chauncey Gardiner....or Max Headroom, take your pick. The man is a hollow, but very dangerous suit.

When he saw the poll numbers on Napolitano's disaster he immediately jumped in front of the cameras to denounce her response. As Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, there is no there there.

His oratory has become a joke, which is where I get the Max Headroom analogy. maybe he really is a robot from a secret lab somewhere on one of George Soros' islands.

[Extraneus]

I don't argue that Obama is smart (if he was, we'd know his SAT and LSAT scores), but it doesn't take a genius to believe in redistribution of wealth, that the Man has been keeping the brothers down, exploiting an unfair share of Gaia's riches, etc.

(And in case anyone's contemplating a comment on who the Beaver is to jimmyk's Eddie, just *don't* do it.)

[Ignatz]

--That's really where I differ with others regarding him being such an ideologue - he simply doesn't have the required mastery of the ideology.--

Agreed Rick. He doesn't know much of anything. But there are a great many leftists by rote. They don't know what any of it means but by god they know it's true.

As an aside the few narcissists I've know were all the same. They have a broad but extremely shallow knowledge, which is used to skate through life sounding smart and competent to bumpkins and toadies but like a flim flam man to the rest of us.
This clown just took the Peter Principle to its logical extreme.

[Danube of Thought]

I think people are beginning to feel real fear about the fact that this guy is the commander-in-chief and is charged with keeping the nation safe.

Do we yet know who decided that this man would not be treated as an enemy combatant and interrogated? Do we know why that decision was made? Has anyone thus far asked these questions?

Doesn't it seem that there is a very real possibility that our failure to interrogate this man may directly result in American deaths?

[Extraneus]

Apparently it was Holder, with the aid of his wife and brother, DoT.

[Extraneus]

CIA rejects charge it failed to share bomb suspect intelligence

"We learned of Abdulmutallab in November, when his father came to the US embassy in Nigeria and sought help in finding him. We did not have his name before then," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano.

"Also in November, we worked with the embassy to ensure he was in the government's terrorist database -- including mention of his possible extremist connections in Yemen," the CIA spokesman said.

"We also forwarded key biographical information about him to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)" Gimigliano said, referring to the government office tasked with compiling and integrating intelligence from various US agencies.

[Thomas Collins]

Isn't the answer to your question, DOT, John Kerry? Although Kerry didn't make the specific decision in the case of the Nigerian, wasn't one of Kerry's campaign positions that we needed to view terrorism as something that we will deal with on an ongoing basis through the criminal justice system? Kerry may have lost in '04, but, many of his foreign policy and national security views may be realized in this Administration (to our detriment).

[Extraneus]

Obama admits failures, goes snorkeling

[narciso]

The Sorcerer's Apprentice, is an analogy that feels more appropriate to me, Despite the Alinskyite patina, he's really (thankfully)
not very good at implementing his agenda.

[Extraneus]

The British press is on it.

Barack Obama gets an 'F' for protecting Americans

There’s a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. On Sunday, Bill Burton, Deputy White House Press Secretary, briefed: “On the Sunday shows, Robert Gibbs and Secretary Napolitano made clear that we are pressing ahead with securing our nation against threats and our aggressive posture in the war with al Qaeda. We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us, and have dramatically increased our resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan where those terrorists are.” Why pat yourself on the back for “winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us” when the issue at hand is why the US government under Obama, er, took its eyes off a terrorist who did try to attack us and nearly killed 300 people? It’s bordering on the juvenile. Obama’s been president for a year now.

[Extraneus]

Speaking of race and politics...

Four of the Democrats' six most admired men are Obama, Nelson Mandela, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. (The other two are Bill Gates and Bill Clinton.)

Oh, and Sarah Palin is tied with Hillary for Independents' most admired woman.

Gallup: Palin comes thisclose to replacing Hillary as most admired woman

[Captain Hate]

I'm with Rick Ballard: Stoopid and lazy is no way to completely screw up the country. Plus toss in his need to always be liked (like Slick he had daddy issues and a whore for a mother) and that skims off another level of potential malignancy.

The piece from the lefty Hofstra prof that Extraneous or CentralCal (or somebody else; sorry I can't remember who) linked really resonated with me in how enraged somebody who should be joined at the groin to him has become. Admittedly it's just anecdotal but when's the last time you've heard somebody enthusiastically talk about Bammy? Less than a year ago you couldn't get away from it.

[Captain Hate]

The Sorcerer's Apprentice, is an analogy that feels more appropriate to me

Not bad but I told you guys a year ago he's Rupert Pupkin.

[MayBee]

I'm trying to find a link, but in a recent interview Barack Obama told Will Smith and Jada Pinkett that his gift was his ability to put himself in the shoes of a poor housewife in (somewhere. I can't remember where).

I have never seen any evidence that Barack Obama is able to imagine being in someone else's shoes, certainly not in any American Conservative's shoes. It certainly didn't seem like the kind of thing one says about oneself, anyway.

[Extraneus]

He probably told that story a thousand times on the South Side.

[matt]

clarice,

you reminded me of a post I started when overseas that I never got around to finishing. The limousine liberals Wolfe described are now G V liberals. LUN.

[Ignatz]

--I'm trying to find a link, but in a recent interview Barack Obama told Will Smith and Jada Pinkett that his gift was his ability to put himself in the shoes of a poor housewife.....I have never seen any evidence that Barack Obama is able to imagine being in someone else's shoes....It certainly didn't seem like the kind of thing one says about oneself, anyway.--

Perhaps he wasn't imagining and perhaps he wasn't speaking metaphorically.
Would explain a whole lot, especially the mom jeans.
We've been blaming MO for her outfits; maybe they're hand me downs.

[Free Radical]

That's really where I differ with others regarding him being such an ideologue - he simply doesn't have the required mastery of the ideology.

I agree. Kaus described Obama as a 'Vulgar Marxist,' which is apparently exactly what the limo-liberals wanted. He hides it well enough to become the 'blank screen' for those who would have felt shame for voting against a black man.

Vulgar Marxism is the 'feel-good' version w/o all the hard thinkin-n-stuff. Or so I'm told.

[PD]

Steele's claim that Obama is empty and unprincipled is wrong. He's not empty at all. In fact, he's a die-hard leftist with a chip on his shoulder, and he means to take us down however many pegs he can.

Ex, I agree. Obama is about one thing: The acquisition and maintenance of power.

[Extraneus]

If you're reading, Shelby Steele...

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too. My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

– Obama to Joseph Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. "Joe the Plumber," on October 15, 2008

This is not empty rhetoric.

[MayBee]

Good one, Ex.

The housewife Obama can/does relate to was in Pakistan or something. By all means, not an American housewife.

[matt]

may;

the housewife he was thinking of was actually a chain smoking Upper East Side Botox queen with very little connection to either the family finances or kitchen implements.

[Rick Ballard]

Free Radical,

The real tip off on his intellectual limitations was the appearance of the syllabus he prepared for his Constitutional Ebonics lectures at Chicago. It was all regurgitated Derek Bell pap without any requirement to read the actual cases. The full depth of his ignorance has yet to be plumbed. I'm betting it's going to take a bathysphere to get to the bottom.

[RichatUF]

He aspires to be "post-ideological," "post-racial" and "post-partisan," which is to say that he defines himself by a series of "nots"—thus implying that being nothing is better than being something. He tries to make a politics out of emptiness itself.

Too bad the Obama Administration couldn't just hire the Seinfeld writers.

Hello all. Hope everyone has a happy and prosperous New Year.

[narciso]

That was the thing that struck me, too, Rick, reading from the Cantor article at the time,
the diagram with the Alinskyite power relationships, the primer from Derrick Bell,
in the Civil Rights and the Law class, the peculiar bent of his exam questions. I took only one Con Law class, but the professor who was an admitted lefty (big woop there) insisted on reading as much of the first hand sources as possible, and whenever possible the audio recordings of same

[Danube of Thought]

I still don't consider him an educated man, in the sense that that term used to convey. It is entirely possible to graduate from an Ivy League undergraduate institution these days without being educated, and law school does not even purport to educate its students (again, in the strict sense of the word) it simply teaches them a trade.

The reason I want so much to see his transcripts from Occidental and Columbia is not so much that I want to see his grades (although that would be of interest). I want to see what courses he took. Time and again this guy demonstrates that he really has no knowledge of world or American history, nor any knowledge of economics. He often seems actually to be something of an ignoramus.

[Jane]

You know its funny - regardless of whether he is smart or dumb, fake or real, patriotic or treasonous the confluence of events that elected this president may be the defining moment of this country to date.

And if not, it will still make an unbelievable movie when it all gets sorted out.

[bse5150]

You can't fight terrorism when you have a DHS Secretary who:
- issues warnings against returning vets in case they 'snap'.
- issues warnings against phantom right wing terrorists.
- changes 'terrorism' to 'man-caused disasters'
- says 'the system worked' when clearly it did not.
- says the airline terrorist was 'not improperly screened' when clearly he was.
- is rebutted by the president who hand picked her.

It's time for Dingbat Napolitano to resign.

[Janemarie]

Maybe most of you saw this interview of Nat Hentoff: http://www.rutherford.org/Oldspeak/Articles/Interviews/oldspeak-Hentoff_2009.html.

He says things pretty similar to Steele, but is more worried for our country (as am I!).

[PD]

State Authorities: BP Alaska Oil Spill Larger Than First Thought

How much bigger, you ask?

BP estimates that a breach at a well line in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oilfield resulted in a spill of as much as 100 gallons of crude oil, more than the company had originally calculated.

Better shut that sucker down for a few years and appoint a commission.

[Extraneus]

Janemarie's link.

[narciso]

Lord Browne, the head of BP/Amoco and an self avowed Greenie, surprisingly doesn't live up to advance billing. 100 gallons, pass me the smelling salts

[Clarice]

100 galloons! Oh, dear.

Hi Rich UF!

Matt, you are really a beautiful writer.

[pagar]

"It's time for Dingbat Napolitano to resign. "

" Napolitano Would Step Down -- When Obama Named Her to the Supreme Court"

[Free Radical]

Rick,

IANAL, so I don't have the drill-down to see the signs in his law class.

But his long comment about [paraphrase] 'small-town folk clinging to guns and religion because the government didn't help them' set off all kinds of alarm bells with me. That's beyond socialism- it's Marxism. I didn't realize at the time that there was a name for it (Vulgar Marxism.)

Any time you see journalists wondering why the well-born upper-class Nigerian would become The Underwear Bomber, you've got someone who drank that kool-aid, perhaps without intending to.

[Thomas Collins]

DOT, no need to see Obama's transcripts. Here is a summary of the college courses he took:

Peace Studies.

Advanced Peace Studies.

The Non-White Non-Male As the Other in America.

Introduction to Critical Post-Modern Deconstructionist Theory.

Reality as a Construct.

War as Phallic Hegemony.

Middle Eastern Politics: Islam as the Other.

African Politics: Breaking Free of Colonial
Hegemony: A Study in Post-Constructivist Lensing and Frameworking.

Latin American Politics: Che and Castro as the Other in the Hegemoy of Capitalistic Imperialism.

National Security Studies: Getting to Yes With Soviet Russia-Queer and Feminist Perspectives.

Seminar on Racism in Everything White.

Physics For Community Organizers: Gravity as a Caucasian Male Hegemonic Construct.

Ancient African and Native American Literature: Combating the Construct of Imperialistic Techno-Normativity.

Psychology of Racism, Heteronormativity and Sexism: An Interdisciplinary Approach.

See, DOT, no need to see an actual transcript.

[Sue]

Limbaugh rushed to hospital in serious condition with chest pains. Via Hot Air.

[Clarice]

On his show last week he was complaining that he wasn't feeling well, I hope it's not serious.

[Jane]

Rush has been rushed to the hospital in Hawaii.

[Jane]

It sounds serious.

[PaulL]

Rush is invaluable and irreplaceable to conservatives. Nobody else on radio or TV comes close. Nobody is even in the same ballpark.

[Clarice]

The account says paramedics treated him (he's in Hawaii) and took him to the hospital.Let's hope all is well.

[Sue]

Someone at Hot Air pointed out that the initial reports on Tiger Woods said he was in serious condition. Turned out he was okay. I'm hoping the same is happening here.

[Jim Miller]

Melanie Phillips describe Obama as a "Marxisant radical", which sounded just right to me, after I looked up what the word means.

(I haven't been able to think of an exact English equivalent for that French word. Maybe we'll just have to steal it.)

[Janet]

Oh no! Rush has really opened my eyes on so many conservative principles. Well...he'll be in my prayers for sure.

[E. Nigma]

Thomas, your Po-Mo curriculum is a hoot, but it would be an interesting excercise for someone to get the course offerings from Oxy and Columbia of that era and start to do a process of elimination to find out just what Obama took in college.

Stupid? No. Incredibly uninformed about America (as DOT aptly expressed it), YES.

About two years ago (Jan of 2008) I sat in a restaurant in Paris and was explaining the dynamics of the Democratic primary to my international co-workers, trying my best to be unbiased. At that time, I only held a contempt for Hillary, and Barry was an interesting phenomenon to me (although I distrusted him). There was an incredible fascination with the Obama Illusion among those people, too.
The difference was that within a few months, I had educated myself as to who and what Obama was. Despite the lack of scrutiny by the Media, "The Truth was out there".
I got into more than a few arguments with people who had been hypnotized by the faker.

1) Limited experience at anything.
2) Limited professional political experience
3) probably a poor lawyer. Harvard Law review and he couldn't get a position as Law Clerk with a prominent Federal Judge? A year as a clerk with a big time judge would have been a tremendous opportunity.
4) The community organizer shtick in Chicago was a huge scam. What he got out of that was connections to the Daley Machine and friendship with Valerie Jarret (another unsavory ward healer).
5) And the $64,000 question: Just when did he meet Bill Ayers and how much of an influence was he on Obama? Did Ayers ghost-write "Dreams"?

I think at the time (late 80's , early 90's) that his political ambitions were much more limited. He thought he could rise to be a political mover and shaker in Chicago, and maybe Illinois. Other politicians saw his as their tool to gain more power.

So much of the popular impression of Obama has rested on a handful of possible lies. What investigative journalist has the guts to go and dig. All I hear are the chirping of crickets among those people.

[Rob Crawford]

So much of the popular impression of Obama has rested on a handful of possible lies. What investigative journalist has the guts to go and dig. All I hear are the chirping of crickets among those people.

There have been a couple of reporters who have done digging. Their work has pretty much been ignored/blacklisted by the "mainstream" who are more interested in buying into the hype than asking difficult questions.

[Janet]

Who is Barack Hussein Obama is the biggest unreported story I have ever witnessed. Our country elected a man they knew virtually nothing about. I still can hardly believe it.

[Melinda Romanoff]

E-

You've nailed the game. You DO NOT ADVANCE in Illinois politics without "the nod".

Take that as you will.

I'm having lunch with Santelli tomorrow. If anyone has a point they want to raise, e-mail me, but keep in mind, he has editors in NY that cut him off at the knees regularly.

G'night all.

[E. Nigma]

Rob, I know that Byron York tried to dig into the records of the Chicago-Anneberg challenge, and was sorta villified for that, plus parts were then made off limits, and co-operation evaporated. Some transparency for a collection of "public records", huh?

Who is Barack Obama? Years have now passed and we still don't know. He is an enigma, wrapped inside a riddle, purloined within a mystery.

[narciso]

Well a bit of a palate cleanser on what leadership can bring about on the isle of Alibionthirty years ago, in the LUN

[Melinda Romanoff]

And why the hell is TM taking campaign money from Illinois Governor Pat Quinn's re-election campaign on the right side of this site?

Cash is cash, but sheesh.

[RichatUF]

Melinda-

Hummm....

What's his take on the continuing bailout of GM (another 3.8 billion into GMAC in the coming days) and does Chrysler last another year?

Or is the next administration plan going to be mortgage principle forgivness which required lifting the $400 billion bailout cap of Fannie and Freddie?

Also his take on the Eurozone and his take on the weak dollar:US equities trade. Going forward does that relationship breakdown and if so what are the consequences?

[J. Peden]

I still say he's not very bright.

You and your advisors can't be very bright if you have to avoid reality in order to deal with reality, by sticking to some by quantum level behind the curve Marxian Political Science work of Fantasy, to the point of then unleashing a horde of exponentially multiplying problems upon the whole freaking World.

And yes, I've been saying that too, except that until recently I couldn't imagine how bad it could get.

[I had to use the Lorentz Transformations for some of it.]

[J. Peden]

Melanie Phillips describe Obama as a "Marxisant radical", which sounded just right to me, after I looked up what the word means.

Yes, I've been calling him a "Latte' Commie" for a while, and it sounds mostly the same. I don't think any Progressive Commie I know would try to find out what "Marxisant" means, though they make up lists of words to find the definition of, then never use them anyway.

[BR]

TC at 6:56:

"...view terrorism as something that we will deal with on an ongoing basis through the criminal justice system?"

That line of yours (re Kerry) really communicated to me just how ineffective that whole idea is. This way they have to wait until the crime's been committed versus using proper intelligence to prevent terrorist acts.

It's so obvious, but something in the way you said it, caused a flash of lightning :)

[BR]

I trust Rush is well and out of the hospital. If not, I suggest a round-the-clock guard of trusted friends and get out of that hospital as soon as you can, Rush.

If you happen to have an out-of-body experience, go check out the Obama birth records in the county records office, will ya?

[AL]

Blaa-blaa-blaa…

What was the response of Obama when Jer.Wright records surfaced?

1) I did not hear it;
2) This is not Jer.Wright I know;
3) His views are outrageous, I denounce him.

I mean, how stupid, shallow, and arrogant one could be for not to prepare in advance for Wright affiliation questions?

This is not even a conclusion, this is the diagnose.

[susanne]

AL,

True enough. But, Obama denounced Wright AFTER Wright attacked Obama publicly in that press club (?) speech. Which leads me to believe the only thing Obama really believes in is Obama.

The shallowness and (truly gobsmacking) arrogance is just part and parcel of his unbelievable self-regard.

I don't think he is stupid,though. I go back and forth between incompetent and purposefully evil, depending on the day.

[Jane]

I go back and forth between incompetent and purposefully evil, depending on the day.

That's precisely my pendulum too.

[Jane]

Sarah Palin, Man of the Year

[Rick Ballard]

"I mean, how stupid, shallow, and arrogant one could be for not to prepare in advance for Wright affiliation questions?"

I would reply 'Fairly stupid, very shallow and arrogant to the point of silliness.' but I would bring the example forward to his appearance before the IOC followed by his appearance at the IPCC. Both were very well publicized and completely unnecessary trips resulted in abject failure and diminishment of whatever minimal stature he possessed before the eyes of the world. He had no plan in hand prior to his arrival at either event and no intelligent political leader would ever place himself in a position to be publicly humiliated as Obama was at the IPCC.

I would also note that he continued to press himself onto the public through grabbing the public air waves well after the fact that exposure was resulting in rising contempt for his obvious shortcomings. That's not a sign of intelligence. The same applies to the promotion of Lt. Worf as a fashion plate, although they do lock her up intermittently in order to minimize revulsion.

I'll grant the 'cleverness' of a Marxisant radical puppet married to the same degree of low cunning possessed by Bubba but his possession of 'intelligence', defined as the ability to define, understand and successfully resolve problems, remains (IMO) wholly unproven.

He's a decent parrot though - as long as he stays within very narrow boundaries and keeps TOTUS in sight.

[bgates]

I trust Rush is well and out of the hospital.

The White House released a statement - "It's not the kidney failure we were hoping for, but it's something."

I don't think he is stupid,though. I go back and forth between incompetent and purposefully evil

I'm a uniter, not a divider - I think he's all three.

[Extraneus]

Don't these bloggers deserve press protections?

TSA subpoenas bloggers, demands names of sources

Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents Tuesday night at his Connecticut home for about three hours and again on Wednesday morning when he was forced to hand over his lap top computer. Frischling said the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn't cooperate and provide the name of the person who leaked the memo.

He was forced to turn over his laptop during a visit by uninvited federal government officials to his home?

Er... Shouldn't the ACLU be all over this?

[Clarice]

Is it me or has Althouse substantially wised up after her recent marriage to a real person?
"Wednesday, December 30, 2009
"I hope he dies."

I'm impressed that it took 12 comments before anyone at Politico said that (or anything like that) after a report that Rush Limbaugh has been hospitalized with chest pains and is in "serious" condition.

ADDED: Much re-tweeted at Twitter: "The people calling for Rush Limbaugh to die are the same people who ask to control your healthcare."

AND: Rush Limbaugh has said on his show many times that once the government runs health care, there is a threat that life-or-death decisions will be made based on politics, and people will worry that if they criticize the government or espouse the wrong opinions decisions will go against them."

[Janet]

While looking up Marxisant radical, I came across this LUN -
Being marxisant isn't an intellectual position. It's a social posture, designed to indicate that you are a member of an upscale elite.

For example, a member of the upscale elite who sneers at people in rural areas, clinging to their religion and guns.

It describes most of my neighbors in Northern Virginia.

[Jane]

She does seem to have a bit of buyer's remorse Clarice. I never thought that it might be the guy.

Well good for him.

[Janet]

My last LUN was a post by Jim Miller...is that the same Jim Miller that posts here sometimes? Ha, small world.

[pagar]

Clarice, IMO, this has already been proven with the Black Panther case.

[centralcal]

Horrible news about Rush and prayers for his speedy recovery.

I think Obama is a selfish, egocentric narcissist, first; evil, lefty radical second; and has minimal intellectual capacity.

[bgates]

I just read that the guy who murdered five people in a shopping mall in Finland was an Albanian Muslim (Ibrahim Shkupolli).

It should go without saying that this is an isolated occurrence, as were the Detroit plane bombing, the Ft Hood massacre, the murder of the Arkansas army recruiters, the beheading of the wife of the Muslim tv channel founder, the murder of a "Westernized" woman by her Iraqi father in Arizona....

[Jack is Back!]

This new press mantra of "connecting the dots" bothers me since they never did that for Obama. When you look at his unexplored dots they are both numerable and enigmatic:

Kenyan father
Bohemian white American mother
Indonesia
Muslim school
Birth certificate
Prior passports
Franklin Marshall
Occidental College
Pakistan trip
Columbia transcripts
"The Lost Years"
Chicago gap years
How he got into Harvard Law
Law Review
Return to Chicago
Bill Ayers
Jeremiah Wright
Authorship efficacy
Blogo
ACORN
Chicago-Annenberg Project
Daley Machine
Valerie Jarret
Saul Alinsky
George Soros
MoveOn.Org
Michelle and her CV

This is just from memory. But if you are a serious journo with a kevlar vest and safe house for your family, you should be out there digging, baby, digging.

[Clarice]

A little climate sherbet:
"To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.

In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades."

LUN