This Wouldn't Be Happening If Obama Were President!

Peggy Noonan thinks Obama ought to dial in to the reality show known as "Life in America":

There was the tearing and unnecessary war over his health-care proposal and its cost. There was his day-to-day indifference to the views and hopes of the majority of voters regarding illegal immigration. And now the past almost 40 days of dodging and dithering in the face of an environmental calamity. I don't see how you politically survive this.

The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen. This is a terrible thing to see in a political figure, and a startling thing in one who won so handily and shrewdly in 2008. But he has not, almost from the day he was inaugurated, been in sync with the center. The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They're in one reality, he's in another.

Obama's governing theory is that he knows what the people want and they deserve to get it, good and hard.

Comments

[MarkO]

No. He really is unqualified.

[boris]

Obamaloof

[Shove it in under climate. That category will take anything.]

How many times have I claimed Obama's Waterloo will be from the forces of three phenomena over which he has little control, Capital, China, and Climate.

So which of these three uncontrollable phenomena are in action here?
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[Patience, child. Interesting times will come soon enough.]

Just think if this were a leak from a well the Chinese were drilling.
======================

[narciso]

Ah, the Pegster, is still clueless, when he said he was "unconcerned with high oil prices, just that they came up to quickly, said inflating tires was the solution to the energy crisis, that electricity prices would naturally skyrocket, coal companies would go
bankrupt," was she paying attention, or was
she taken in by the false eloquence

[Ignatz]

Like she hasn't been living in Barry's alternate reality until the last month or two.
Welcome back to planet earth Peggy, if only temporarily.
I'm sure she's only one well turned phrase away from another interplanetary voyage with the lighworker.

[Extraneus]

This is a terrible thing to see in a political figure, and a startling thing in one who won so handily and shrewdly in 2008.

Actually, Peggy, it's only a startling thing to the gullible, like you. Otherwise, it's not a startling thing at all.

[Peggy, over there, the Egress.]

Only the little children screamed when he diddled away a $150 million. Now that he's diddling away $150 trillion or so, still, all I here is the children screaming.
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[Porchlight]

46% of the voters weren't startled.

[Pagar]

"who won so handily"

Subtract the ACORN fraud votes and who knows whether he would have "won so handily".

[Ranger]

The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They're in one reality, he's in another.

That's not a bug, its a feature. Funny how so many of us out here in middle America knew Obama was lying when he promised to help the nation get beyond "politics" and when he promised "net spending cuts" and "if you make less than $250,000 your taxes will not go up."

Maybe his chummyness with Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright might have been a clue to how he realy views the world?

[Fred Beloit]

Pegs and Ann Althouse fell in love with the handsome stranger from another planet. But he was in techno-disguise mode. He was in actuality only a callow and unknown Columbia sophomore with biiiig ideas, or should I say fancies.

[Rick Ballard]

The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached very stoopid* from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen.

*edited for the sake of accuracy

Herbert Hussein Obama acknowledged yesterday that 2010 will look a lot like 1930. 2012 is very likely to look like 1932.

[Janet]

chronically very stoopid is exactly right. With the brouha about where Obama spends Memorial Day....I say, who cares. He is a joke. Who cares about Noonan's opinions either? If she couldn't see behind the Obama facade...I have no respect for her opinions. I am done with most of the pundits. They are clueless, and a big part of the reason that the grifter Obama was elected.

[Wondering]

I wonder if Obama would have won if he wasn't black. McCain was not a good alternative choice, but I wonder if The One's historic blackness didn't hand him just enough racist and emo votes to make him win.

[Captain Hate]

Peggy's in an untenable position. She can't regain her lost credibility until she owns up to what a witless skeezer she was by buying into the garbage that Odummy shoveled at her and that anybody with a functioning cortex should have seen through. But by admitting that she loses any reason for people to read her for "insight".

Yet Rupert still pays her.....

[Ignatz]

That's what's kind of funny Rick.
Clueless Barry thinks he's auditioning for the part of the grimly determined and heroic FDR in the spectacular, star studded Great Depression sequel, right down to living in his own little Hyde Park, but in reality his idiotic idealogy and poor timing have already cast him as the mayor of a thousand little Hoovervilles.
Apparently Barry forgets that, similar to his presidency and not FDR's, the crash of '29 happened only a few months into Hoover's term.

[narciso]

She's the Journal's equivalent of Douthat and Brooks, why you would want that is unclear, in a top line paper is unclear Frank is the equivalent of Rich and some other ridiculous
Times pundit, possibly Gail Collins, among a solution in search of a problem

[ShyAsrai]

There are people who don't expect an alligator to behave like an alligator. And yes, they're always 'startled' when, after having fed him, it eats their dog anyway.

Then there are the rest of us who see an alligator, know why it should never be fed, and shun its presence. We are never 'startled' when an alligator behaves like an alligator.

[Ranger]

To paraphrase Monty Python...

Middle aged credentialed morons inspecting how well creased the candidates' pants are is no way to select a political leader.

[anduril]

Obama's governing theory is that he knows what the people want and they deserve to get it, good and hard.

This is part of the truth--Obama wants to give it to certain groups good and hard and he sees this as the moral imperative behind his presidency, the kind of imperative that led Senator Roberts to suggest that The One needs to take a Valium. I think Obama's governing ideology is essentially and quite consiously Marxist and, in practical terms, comes down to a few big ideas:

1. America--which is code for "white people"--have grievously oppressed minorities. Prominent among those minorities are "black people," with whom he self identifies (cf. his census return) to the exclusion of the reality that he's as white as he is black. Call this his romantic Marxist view of America and of his own salvific role. His solution rejects the gradualism that has been step by step transforming America in favor of reparations. Only, he calls reparations "Obamacare" and "stimulus" etc. He wants these things in place as moral imperatives that will "stick it to" the oppressors, even if the cost is bankrupting the country. All of this steadfastly ignores the complexities of not only real America but of himself as a person.

2. His foreign policy follows the same basic pattern: reparations for the rest of the world for the wrongs that "white people" have committed, ignore all complexities in the process, transform reality not so much through action as through verbal incantations--a gnostic technique prevalent in the West since Hegel (and probably far earlier).

Of course, reality is stubbornly resistive to Marxist theory and incantations. There are few situations in life that can be improved by such simplistic remedies, but very many that can altered very much for the worse.

[All the News That's Left to Print.]

It's a real hoot to read what Walter Russell Mead has to say about the Times and Rosenthal's column about growing climate skepticism. He waxes hilarious about how late they are coming to the story. Scroll a little at the LUN, well worth bookmarking. Tom Nelson misses almost nothing, and is just as enthusiastic as Morino and less histrionic. No knock on Morano, mind you.
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[narciso]

I think he believed Biden when he said that FDR was on the TV addressing the nation in '29

[Janet]

I agree Anduril.

[Captain Hate]

Since this seems to be the "idiots in media" thread: LUN for the Black Bill Moyers makin' shit up on the taxpayer's dime.

[Cecil Turner]

This is interesting. An FOIA request uncovered documents pertaining to last year's public comments on the offshore drilling plan proposal, which apparently contradicts MMS head Birnbaum's testimony:

In reality, Liz Birnbaum contributed to the culture of corruption, enabled and abetted by a number of other political appointees at MMS and Interior, including Secretary Salazar, who never acted to correct the record after Birnbaum lied under oath to Congress in March about an offshore drilling comment period.

There are quotes from her March testimony (in which she claims not to be able to give a general sense of the comments) juxtaposed with an Oct 13, 2009 memo that does precisely that, complete with talking points and graphics. That's the best explanation I can see for the sudden no show at Congressional hearings yesterday:

The now-ex MMS director was in her office early yesterday, preparing to testify before an congressional panel about the agency's role in handling BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as she had several times in recent weeks.

Yesterday morning was different, according to congressional sources. Someone from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's office called and said the secretary did not want her to attend the House hearing.

Looks to me like there's some "there" there, and it's likely to have legs.

[Thomas Collins]

OK, we have a prog Presidential Administration following the Hoover/FDR economic formula (and it looks as if the same results are happening), embroiled in at least three scandals (Black Panthers, Sestak bribery and Birnbaum lying under oath) and implementing an ineffectual at best and disastrous at worst foreign policy. It's probably time for MSM to do an in-depth study on the threat from those low IQ conservatives!

[Janet]

Captain - Tavis Smiley is a moron. The left doesn't even understand the basic tenets of Christianity much less Islam.
white American=Christian? postman=Christian? American=Christian? What exactly does Tavis mean? He must be a Christian in the same way Rev. Wright or Obama are Christians. They use the mantle of Christianity and the familiar religious words as a backdrop for their political desires. Social justice to the beat of Amazing Grace.
And some leftists seem to think being a Christian means the person considers themselves sinless and better...when in reality being a Christian means we admit we ARE sinners.
Anyway...I know, I'm preaching to the choir!
Tavis Smiley=moron

[Thomas Collins]

"Social justice to the beat of Amazing Grace."

Janet, I think you just jumped into the lead for Blog Quote of the Day. If the blogosphere had a show like ESPN's Sports Center, I think your quote would lead the show today!

[Pofarmer]

Disastrous Foreign policy. Disastrous energy policy. Disastrous domestic policy.

We. Are. So. Screwed.

One of Salazar's first actions was canceling drilling leases in the Continental U.S. that were done during the Bush administration. Now, they've cancelled offshore drilling, and are making it, much, much harder to run production platforms, as well. EPA is going to regulate the heck out of coal plants. There is no genuine interest in nukes. Windmills and solar are a bad joke.

Yeah, it's gonna take a while to get over this buffoon in Chief, and maybe not ever.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Cecil- Nice one!

[FeFe]

When did our sitting president start being referred to as a lowly politician and not a statesman? It feels like, for me, just with Obama as he can not point to anything, foreign or domestic, that has a majority of approval. How sad for our post nation.

[Captain Hate]

Janet, even some of my lefty friends are embarrassed by Tavis Smiley, particularly because they know he has a lifetime gig at Pravda Broadcasting Service.

[Ed]

President Failure IS bringing the country together.
More people hate him every day.

[Pagar]

Pofarmer, You ain't seen nothing yet!

Nothing trading to rival Crude!

"Carbon trading set to become the biggest commodity market in the world"

[glasater]

Another side to the Father of Carbon Trading.
He's quite the collector of photography.

[Pagar]

Just a quick additional note on carbon Trading.

"In January, investigators from Belgium said that in some E.U. countries, 90 percent of the market volume in carbon trading was based on criminal activities."

[narciso]

You can't get a bigger long con, then this, we're trading an intangible, not oil or gas, steel or grain, not even mortgages, the folks
in the Ocean would say, no one is that stupid,
but Barnum would correct them

[Captain Hate]

Fitch downgrades Spain's long-term debt. Gold and US Treasuries say "If you've got too many euros rattling around your pocket..."

[daddy]

Kim,

Really enjoyed ">http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/24/lord-monckton-wins-global-warming-debate-at-oxford-union/#more-19868"> your link to Lord Moncton's recent victory in the Climate Debate held at Oxford.

A very decent read with a great finish. Thanks for that.

[RebeccaH]

That headline is priceless, and I'm stealing it the first chance I get... which won't be long, given the Great O's history as prez.

[Porchlight]

"Carbon trading set to become the biggest commodity market in the world"

That is just sick. If you set out to manufacture a bubble you couldn't do a better job.

Of course, that may have been the point...

[pst314]

"Carbon trading set to become the biggest commodity market in the world"

We'd be better off trading tulip bulbs.

[Threadkiller]

Helix Small Wind is working on a vertical turbine that should prove easy to set up in urban sites. How wonderful!!

If you watch the presentation you will see the “revolutionary windmill” tracks carbon credits and Helix uses that to calculate the aggregate of all their generators. The tell the customer it is for monitoring performance, should the mill need maintenance, but it is actually for their carbon collecting scheme.

You get to put a windmill on your property so they can keep the carbon credits. Some deal.

http://www.newfangler.com/helix_vid.htm ">Helix presentation

[Jim Ryan]

Helix Small Wind is working on a vertical turbine

Good luck to him. An Indian chief, is he?

[Threadkiller]

The short version:

One day an Indian boy asked his father why they have such long names? The dad answers, "Well son whenever a Indian baby is born the father would go outside and name the baby after the first thing he sees... Why do you ask Two Dogs F#@(ing."

[matt]

it's the tulip mania of 1637 again. The good news is that the slow motion train wreck in Europe may kill it yet.

They are going to have to zero out all the BS and focus on providing fundamental services to their citizens. All the frills are going, whether they like it or not.

No more checking grandma into the hospital so Yves and Yvette can spend the month on the Costa del Sol....no more reading the paper in a cafe for 3 hours on the government cheese. As my pop from Brooklyn used to say, "my nose bleeds for them".

Glas, you know what is really amazing about the photography in that article? Most of it sucks. A lot of celebrity portraiture, but I didn't see much of the really outstanding stuff, even in the portraiture. Some nice 1930's work, but not a lot of iconic images.

Thematically, it was as if they were saying, "look, we're rich and have taste".

[Janet]

Indian names...my favorite on a tacky beach t-shirts was, "My Indian Name is 'Runs With Beer'"

and the ever popular - veg·etar·ian (vej′ə ter′ē ən)
noun
an old Indian word for bad hunter.

[Janet]

and let me guess...Gore is Helix Big Wind?