I Beg To Differ

Jay Cost at The Weekly Standard puts our hyper-partisan President on the couch:

What explains this transformation in President Obama's attitude?  How did he go from being the candidate who promised post-partisanship to the president who all but accused Mitch McConnell of playing the fiddle while Rome burned?

I can think of four potential explanations.

(1) He’s trying to mobilize the base in advance of the midterm.  Sure, but two points in response: he’s been making these kinds of claims since the early days of his administration, and anyway who reads Rolling Stone magazine?  Enough people to justify such a direct and personal attack from the president of the United States?  I don’t think so.  This explanation has merit, but it is not sufficient.

(2) He really wanted to be post-partisan, but it turns out that the Republicans really ARE that perfidious!  This would be the explanation from somebody who accepts the Democratic worldview.  Watch as I dismiss it out of hand…

(3) The post-partisan thing was just a campaign tactic.  Maybe, but candidate Obama had basically ditched the post-partisan angle once he won the nomination and squared off against John McCain.  It was instead part of his earliest campaign, when he was actually trying to persuade the most committed of Democrats to support him.  Why pitch post-partisanship during a Democratic primary unless you really believed it, at least in some way?

(4) He really thought he was a post-partisan, but actually he’s as partisan as they come.  This is the explanation I’m leaning towards.

Let's note that (3) and (4) are complementary rather than exclusive.  And my thought is that during the campaign against Hillary, Obama's chief selling point was that he could move ob from the partisan warfare of the 90's in a way that Hillary never could.  That answers "Why pitch post-partisanship during a Democratic primary unless you really believed it?".

Mr. Cost closes with a question:

The president's background is such that he's never had to deal with a conservative Republican coalition on the rise, and that makes me wonder how he will handle the 112th Congress, if the GOP does indeed take control of the House.  Will he be deft like Bill Clinton was in the winter of 1995/96, or will he dig in and, to borrow a phrase, cling to the partisan worldview he so bitterly expounded to Jann Wenner?  Time will tell.

Interesting.  A clue is guesed at earlier:

My guess is that President Obama never really learned [in Chicago, of the Illinois State House, or the U of Chicago Law School] what makes conservatives and Republicans tick, as he hadn't been around them long enough to understand them.  He had an idea about what it means to be a conservative, and he wanted to work with those "conservatives," but they don't really exist outside his own mind.

That would contrast poorly with Wild Bill Clinton, who surely had a good working knowledge of Southern white guys (and gals!).

I have assumed for a while that Obama has planned on the economy recovering, as economies tend to do, with or with Presidential ministrations.  His original hope had been that this would be happening in time to bail out the dems in 2010, but surely (Surely!) it will be happening in time to salvage his own prospects in 2012.

I further think he has utterly misunderestimated the job freeze resulting from the uncertainty he cast over the business community with his promises to reform health care, energy and financial services.  2012 may arrive before a strong recovery, which puts his re-election plan in jeopardy (He'll take Health Care Reform for $100, Alex...).

And Obama really may lack the triangulation skills of Bill Clinton.  Keep in mind, we are talking about a guy whose only claim to fame is what - being everyone's third choice for editor of the Harvard Law Review?  Quick, name his predecessor, or successor, or any other editor of the HLR (proud parents are not eligible for this contest, but they will be forgiven if they, too have forgotten their progeny's achievement.)

 

 

Comments

[bgates]

Maybe I can't name any other editors, Mr Smartypants Blogger, but I do recognize a couple of important Democrats in the list of HLR alumni.

Eliot Spitzer and Alger Hiss.

(If you click through to the link and see Hiss listed as "accused spy" rather than simply "spy", that means somebody has undone my edit.)

My guess is that President Obama never really learned

There is no more versatile way to begin a sentence in the English language than that.

[jimmyk]

This may seem like a nitpick, but I'm pretty sure he was President of the Law Review--a largely ceremonial position as best as I can tell--not Editor, which would have required him to, you know, do real work and know something about the law. Big difference.

Just like he wasn't a Law Professor, just a dime-a-dozen adjunct. Oh, and George Washington never chopped down that cherry tree.

[bgates]

Fair point by jimmy.

Fun quote from the NYT article announcing the historically unprecedented first black president of HLR in history:
You have to remember that for every one of me, there are hundreds or thousands of black students with at least equal talent

At least.

[Captain Hate]

Well done, bgates; it's still there. Hiss's defenders really had no leg to stand on after the Venona papers ID'd their snotty little hero; but those idiot continue to beclown themselves on behalf of that high bred filth.

Speaking of gutter trash, LUN for a proper sendoff to Rahm.

[serfer62]

And we overlooked the main reason.
.
Everything he got was given to a minority because its owed to him. Where in his life has anyone stood up and made him prove himself?
.
He is the product of 50 years of the Great Society

[Clarice]

As usual, brilliant, bgates. They are finally dying off but when I came to DC decades ago, I learned that most of the Georgetown set believed Hiss innocent. Their proof--he was one of them.

"if the GOP does indeed take control of the House. Will he be deft like Bill Clinton was in the winter of 1995/96, or will he dig in and, to borrow a phrase, cling to the partisan worldview he so bitterly expounded to Jann Wenner? Time will tell."

Except for getting elected by every underhanded game in the book like getting his opponents sealed divorce records unsealed and packing the caucus states with ringers, and stuffing the ballot box with ACORN votes, at what has he ever been "deft"?

[bgates]

If you thought the possibility of deftness sounds odd, check out how Cost began the piece:

Certainly, even those most skeptical of President Obama in January 2009 would have been a little surprised to read an interview that drips with contempt for so many of the president's fellow citizens.

I was probably in the top quintile of voter skepticism in 2009, and I don't think I could begin to be surprised at that man's contempt for this country unless he delivers a State of the Union address that prompts the networks to adopt a 7-second delay for all such speeches in the future.

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

If water boarding can be construed as torture, then I don't see why deft can't be construed as 'dumbest post in the fence'. I wonder if he still sleeps with Romer's chart under his pillow?

[jimmyk]

If you click through to the link and see Hiss listed as "accused spy" rather than simply "spy", that means somebody has undone my edit.

It's still just "spy." But you didn't edit Spitzer's entry to read "Former New York governor and Connecticut john"?

[narciso]

He has always been an Alinskyite radical, as such he doesn't think any rules apply to him, and consequently they must only apply to his rivals. Now picking Rouse as his majordomo, is interesting because we've seen this playbook before

[Joey D]

"...whose only claim to fame is what - being everyone's third choice for editor of the Harvard Law Review"

Not the only claim to fame. I read somewhere that he also got the asbestos out of Altgeld Gardens.

[maryrose]

I just remember Michelle saying about Iowa" If we don't win Iowa 'then it's all a dream."
Well let's take a look at how he won Iowa.
Edwards had been practically living there for 2 years which is why he came in second. He was involved with Rielle but no one would report on it. Bill Clinton was begging the Des Moines register to endorse Hillary and had Edwards been outed in time Hillary would have won Iowa. The twists and turns of fate. I was never fooled; Obama was a partisan hack and socialist from day one.

[Clarice]

Now that's a thought, Rick.

So far, I've been lucky enough to avoid those credentialed morons of my acquaintance who walked around in 2008 swooning over Mr. Hope and Change like teenage girls on prom night with their swains.

[Clarice]

Hershel Smith just sent me this gripping report from Afghanistan. I hope Soylent is well.
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2010/10/03/from-the-front-lines-in-afghanistan/>What's going on there

[andycanuck]

So the explanation "he was lying" has been discarded?

[Neo]

The first stage is denial.
The second stage is anger.
The third stage is bargaining.
Then comes depression.
Finally, there comes acceptance.

Tom Friedman is up to the third stage .. or is that the fourth stage ?

He may have the element of surprise .. because who would think of a third party coming from the Left ?

[Ann]

Soylent has been on my mind a lot. Hope he is well too, Clarice.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

What explains this transformation in President Obama's attitude? How did he go from being the candidate who promised post-partisanship to the president who all but accused Mitch McConnell of playing the fiddle while Rome burned?

He lied?

[Generic Viagra Online]

That kind of experience is now hard to get in an impatient culture, where actors crave instant recognition and are more likely to grab a part in Holby City than commit themselves to rep in Hull.

[Generic Viagra Online]

It's very common to say "I beg to differ". This expression is heard in both formal and informal contexts. It's generally considered a polite way to disagree, but when said in a context in which the disagreement is clearly acrimonious, it takes on an air of sarcas

[rse]

You remember the law professor who was attacked so viciously for pointing out that raising taxes on families making just over the $250,000 threshold in urban areas meant real cuts in "necessary" spending?

Apparently Brad Delong is now going after his law professor job.

LUN is the link to his co-blogger pointing this out. I think the attacks are so vicious because they didn't want anyone humanizing the realities of life for these families they had declared to be "rich".

Another reminder that thug tactics are in use.

[bunkerbuster]

Rick claims: ``If water boarding can be construed as torture...''

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.: waterboarding is a "very exquisite torture" that should be outlawed. -- but what does he know about torture??

Torture is defined under the federal criminal code as the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering.
If waterboarding didn't inflict either or both of those, it would be of no use at all.

On "Good Morning America" today, Goss told ABC News' Charles Gibson that the CIA does not inflict pain on prisoners.

Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War. A Washington Post of a U.S. soldier water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier's court-martial.

In 1901, an Army major was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for water boarding an insurgent in the Philippines.

The facts are in: Waterboarding is torture. Always has been and always will be.

I've yet to meet or hear of anyone who both thinks that waterboarding is NOT torture and who opposes torture. Every single person I've met or encountered online who says waterboarding isn't torture ends up acknowledging that they support torture anyway. I suspect Rick's the same way, but I'd be very pleased to be corrected on that.

[Jane (sit on the couch or save your country)]

I further think he has utterly misunderestimated the job freeze resulting from the uncertainty he cast over the business community with his promises to reform health care, energy and financial services.

What I find so funny are the attempts at comparisons to a Reagan or Clinton comeback. No one bothers to stand up and say: "Obama's policies failed, he has no clue how to fix the economy".

It all seems so simple, yet he begs for more time and the republicans waft around hoping to be voted in on nothing, pretty much.

[bunkerbuster]

Clarice fantasizes: ``stuffing the ballot box with ACORN votes''

Not a shred of evidence for that has been published in any credible source I know of. Certainly not here on JOM. Not a shred. Says it all that something so flighty with zero evidence behind it nonetheless informs Clarice.
If there were any evidence at all that ACORN was involved in ballot stuffing, surely Brietbart would have siphoned some of his wingnut welfare largesse into exposing that, rather than sending his Keystone Cop video brigade to entrap hapless Acorn functionaries on giving tax advice to some ludicrous fake pimp...

[Thomas Collins]

Jimmyk, I believe Prez of HLR is a working position. I believe it is the equivalent of Editor-in-Chief at most other law reviews (perhaps a HLR alum will confirm this or correct me). In any event, by the time Obama was in law school, law review work at most elite law schools involved little or no analysis of legal doctrines and principles. They were mostly pseudo-philosophical talking points outlets for the latest post-modern fad (such as Critical Legal Studies). Obama is not likely to have learned anything at HLR that would serve him in good stead when he became POTUS.

[Thomas Collins]

Bunkerbuster, clarice has plenty of support for her ACORN ballot stuffing statement. See LUN for an example.

[Thomas Collins]

See LUN for another article on ACORN voter fraud, and on the relationship between Obama and ACORN.

[pagar]

rse, Brad Delong must have a serious disconnect with reality. from the LUN.

" He also claims that Todd is “ignorant” or “mendacious” because he does not know that “the laws that Barack Obama has lobbied for and gotten Congress to pass, in the long run don’t expand but shrink the government relative to what it otherwise would be.”

[Thomas Collins]

Obama and the Dems benefit not only from ACORN style voter fraud activities, but also from a Justice Department that refuses to enforce federal voting rights law when it is the people of the wrong color who are the ones whose voting rights are being trampled upon. See LUN.

[Extraneus]

That Fox Butterfield article from 1990 is enough to make a person gag.

Imagine an America without Affirmative Action. Where the Supreme Court had struck it down as unconstitutional, and nothing mattered but merit, and character. Where would Obama be right now?

[Thomas Collins]

See LUN for an article detailing voting fraud activities that benefitted Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election. Those who claim that Bush somehow "stole" Florida ignore evidence that Bush would have clearly won Florida without voter fraud that helped Gore in Dem strongholds.

[Porchlight]

Quick, name his predecessor, or successor, or any other editor of the HLR

TM, I assume you mean president, not editor? Obama was president. Evidently there is a big difference as the president is an elected position that doesn't require (surprise!) as much work as editor.

The only other president I can recall offhand was Susan Estrich (first woman elected).

[narciso]

One is struck by the fact, that the Fox
Butterfield profile, misrepresents Barack Sr.s
actual status, so being at HLS doesn't seem
as impressive as before, from the description
of the changes wrought by Bok, and others

[J]

My very dear friend has three children that voted (two, for the first time)in a presidential election. They proudly proclaim (even to this very day)that they voted to elect the first black president.....and that is the extent of what they knew about him (college students).
The other day I asked my friend if she was going to let her children vote in these next elections, based on their still-proud vote for the first black president. She yelled no! I hope SHE educates them because the famous college they attend certainly isn't.

[Jane (sit on the couch or save your country)]

Not a shred of evidence for that has been published in any credible source I know of. Certainly not here on JOM.

You've been trolling here for about 5 minutes in the scheme of things bubu. Try not to sound so pathetically stupid.

And why are you now separating your paragraphs with spaces? Please go back to your old way of doing things.

[jimmyk]

TC:
I believe Prez of HLR is a working position.

I think it was at some point in its past a working position, in the sense you mean of "editor-in-chief," and awarded on merit. By BO's time, as bgates's NY Times link confirms, it was more political, based in part on a vote. BO himself seemed to view it as just a platform for whatever whacko ideas he had. I've yet to see any evidence that he did any serious scholarly work in that position (or any other).

[SplatterGate's the next ClimateGate.]

At the L!ink U!nder N!ame, EuReferendum has an excellent short video criticizing the 10:10 people for 'No Pressure'. I've seen at least three other video takes of it, most much funnier than the original. One has the teacher blowing up all the kids in class, one after the other.

So far as I know, James Delingpole invented 'SplatterGate'. He's had four columns in a row on the furor.
=======================

[DebinNC]

...at what has he ever been "deft"?

Living his first 40 yrs. without leaving discernible footprints is rather unique. Nothing tangible of his exists from his HLR days or from any class he ever took, except the fig-eating apes "poem". He oversaw no cases during his law practice years. In the IL legislature he originated no bills and voted "present" hundreds of times. Even the anecdotal stuff we've been told is almost all self-generated in his books. I can't imagine anyone else reaching so high based on nothing at all, which may be more daft than deft, but it's extraordinary.

[Jane (sit on the couch or save your country)]

Amy just came back from visiting her in-laws who are absolute lifetime liberals, both docs who announced this weekend that they are no longer democrats because the democrats are ruining the country.

I suspect anyone who works for a living is coming to the same conclusion.

[Ain't it grand, Peter?]

Woof, I failed to notice that Richard North has about 5 in a row. Scroll down to the 41 second Monty Python take.

Great Britain is really taking this to heart, at least partly because they are a great deal further under the green bootheel than we are.
=======================

['Course, I'm biased.]

I've got a feeling that 'No Pressure' is entering the language.
=================

[Very nice, daft, deft.]

I don't hear enough of you or see enough of your links, DebinNC.
====================

[Danube of Thought]

Doris Kearns Goodwin's husband Michael was a prez.

I think the man is bereft of any knowledge of history or economics, and as a result he lacks the capacity to understand what is going on around him. It is very plain from all too many of his utterances that he is an ignoramus, and that's a dangerous thing indeed.

[jimmyk]

TC, let me clarify: I am sure that HLR president can be a working position for someone who wants to work. All the evidence suggests, however, that BO treated it pretty much the same way as he's treated all his previous positions (state legislator, senator, law "professor"): as lines on his resume, with nothing substantive to show for them.

As POTUS he has been more ambitious, but equally lazy, and his lack of preparation, the result of having done so little in his other roles, has tripped him up.

[We allude to the Master. All pretty tragic for us.]

Ignorant of history, and now he's farce.
================

[Janet]

Here is Roger Simon on CNN hiring Eliot Spitzer.

It is unbelievable to me....blackmail or something must be involved. Hire Eliot or you'll end up with a horse head in your bed.

[narciso]

Well therein lies the rub, Doris Kearns, was a plagiarist, along with Mike Barnicle, Lawrence TRibe, Joseph Ellis, invented whole sections of his bio, yet they never are really
called on it, in fact they are still considered authorities, in the 'bearded spock' universe we live in. I do believe it is Richard btw

[Rick Ballard]

I'm a bit more interested in how the 112th Congress, (The Refudiators), is going to behave rather than how BOzo the Pathetic is going to react. The Refudiators may have an actual mandate (60%+ of the total vote) in hand when they convene. The claim will be made that it doesn't count because so many Dems stayed home. It's a specious claim on the face but it will be made, nevertheless. The Refudiators are going to have to buck up and begin dismantlement of the BOzoan Proglodyte Empire immediately through control of the purse or their mandate will evaporate before BOzo has a chance to quit.

As to what BOzo will do - I believe that Ignatz and Jane are correct - he's going to quit and call it victory. I don't doubt that we'll be subjected to unending vicious whining as he quits and no doubt that his unending whining will be coupled with petty malicious gestures but his main focus is going to be redefining quitting as winning.

[I expected scowls and didn't get them.]

Living in a Blue Heaven, I pretty much keep my trap shut in public, but something like this slipped out a week or so ago: 'I don't know what Obama is doing, but it's not work'.
==============

[Jane (sit on the couch or save your country)]

Hey the Sturbridge Tea Party is getting some press.

[I think he's awfully vulnerable in '12. Democrats are worse cannibals than Republicans.]

Rick, you think he's just going to give it up to Hillary? Surely, no other Dem is going to enter the ring. Or do you just mean give up on his agenda after this election?
=================

[Jeff]

Obama in touble in the polls so what does he go to in his time of need ?

He steps up the drone war in the GWOT and he starts talking about his Christian faith.

Who's clinging to his guns and religion now ?

[Clarice]

Good job, Jane.

[Danube of Thought]

If Obama is not the Dem candidate in 2012, the black voter will stay home.

[OldTimer]

The torture bubu inflicts on those who attempt to scroll by his vapid intellectual scribling is perhaps the type of literary torture we should use on our enemies. It would surely kill them incrementally if administered 24/7. Prayer directed towards his countenance may be helpful, but he'd no doubt find this method of aid a TORTURE beyond his endurance.

It boggles the mind how any "great thinker" could so willfully ignore the beheadings and bloody demonic atrocities perpetrated against Islam's enemies, without considering they themselves would be the first in line to either submit or be viciously TORTURED and killed wherever Islamic Sharia gains the upper hand.

Protecting by dumbass ignorance or stubborn denial the communist Acorn and its subversive vote scam activities will eventually bring the useful idiots of Bubu-land the same bloody TORTUROUS end.

[Rick Ballard]

Kim,

I'd bet on Bayh, not Hillary. There is no 'after' for the narcissist, it's all the construct of the moment. He's going to define quitting as winning.

As to the prog agenda - what source of OPM remains to be exploited by the addicts? Air taxes were the last, worst hope of the leftist scum world wide and when China and India told BOzo to get stuffed at Copenhagen the nightmare which the progs describe as a dream came to an end.

[jimmyk]

I agree with Rick on the "Declare victory and withdraw" scenario. He has an amazing ability to put a positive spin on his own disasters (just think "B+"). As I've said a few times here, he can go on the lecture circuit and earn millions, being surrounded by only his adoring admirers. Why should he have to endure all these ingrates who fail to appreciate his greatness?

Narciso, you are right--Mr. Goodwin is Richard. Kind of an eccentric-looking fellow.

[jimmyk]

It boggles the mind how any "great thinker" could so willfully ignore the beheadings and bloody demonic atrocities perpetrated against Islam's enemies, without considering they themselves would be the first in line to either submit or be viciously TORTURED and killed wherever Islamic Sharia gains the upper hand.

This is the mindset of the appeaser. Or as Churchill so pithily put it: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."

[caro]

Clarice, thanks for sharing the account of our heroes in Afganistan. I,too,am thinking of Soylent.

[Rob Crawford]

If Obama is not the Dem candidate in 2012, the black voter will stay home.

They can stay home all they want, but their votes will still be cast.

[Danube of Thought]

Sorry--I got Richard's name confused with Michael, the columnist.

[jimmyk]

LOL, Rob. Theirs and their dead grandparents.

[boris]

"He had an idea about what it means to be a conservative, and he wanted to work with those "conservatives," but they don't really exist outside his own mind."

Sounds like bubu conservativism ... a vantage perspective, a way of looking at policy to provide a necessary counterpoint for the inexorable inevitable progressive path to keep it on track by avoiding unrealistic strategeries.

IOW a true conservative is a liberal who can apply commonsense corrections when the progressive agenda requires directional adjustment. When the agenda's on track ... who needs 'em?

[Danube of Thought]

Here's a nice sampling from Michael.

[MarkO]

It's not deft, but daft.

[Pagar]

Great news, Jane!

[narciso]

Buckley, remarked on how his grandfather was a loyal Democrat, still voting in the '48
election, some 20 years after he passed.

Here is another example, of how they are in
a deeper well,in the LUN, than the girl in Texas

[Ranger]

Just to remind Bubu that even Eric Holder doesn't think Waterboarding, done the way the US government has it torture:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/181884/holder-waterboarding-proving-its-not-torture-while-insisting-it/andy-mccarthy>Holder on Waterboarding — Proving It’s Not Torture While Insisting It Is

Holder: No, it’s not torture in the legal sense because you’re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we’re trying to do is train them –

Lungren: So it’s the question of intent?

Holder: Intent is a huge part.

So, since the key here is intent, and our people know with scientific certainty that there will be no permenant physical or mental harm, only short term discomfort, they can not be commiting torture any more than the military instructors who administer the same technique at SERE school.

The person being subjected to it may "feel" they are being tortured, but under the very strict legal framework that defines torture, it is not.

[Sue]

The Dallas Morning News has endorsed Stephen Broden to represent District 30 in Congress. Why is that a big deal? Broden is the republican in the race. Again, why is that a big deal? The DMN hardly ever, if ever, endorses a republican. But what really what makes this a really big deal? It is Eddie Bernice Johnson's seat. http://www.brodenforcongress.com/>Broden is also an African American.

[Danube of Thought]

Whether waterboarding is torture is a question of law, and the answer is "no." As in so many other instances, John McCain does not know the law, but is very much in touch with his own emotions.

[Extraneus]

Surely, no other Dem is going to enter the ring.

What about Evan Bayh? The fool voted for Obamacare, though. Otherwise, he'd be a real contender right now.

[Extraneus]

Ooops, should have refreshed before that one.

[Melinda Romanoff]

OT-

Rick-

Yves Smith has some new stuff on the breadth and depth of the Foreclosure/Mortgage Mash-Up.

This put a lot of different things in motion. None of them good.

[Porchlight]

I'd bet on Bayh, not Hillary. There is no 'after' for the narcissist, it's all the construct of the moment. He's going to define quitting as winning.

In either case, the "quitter" argument against Palin will be neatly neutralized. Bayh quit his position as Senator, and Hillary left her Senate seat to be SoS, and would have to quit State to run for President. So either of them would be quitters angling to replace a quitter in their own party.

[narciso]

I'm trying to figure out the geniuses behind this, in the LUN

[Clarice]

narciso, that really must be disappointing to you.

[Ignatz]

--I believe that Ignatz and Jane are correct - he's going to quit and call it victory.--

I'm not sure I ever predicted he'll quit, if by quit Rick means, 'not run in 2012'.
If I had to guess I'd say he will run. Usually you have to pry power from these guys' cold, dead fingers.
It's usually when they actually do try and then fail that they redefine an obvious loss as some sort of bizzare victory no one else can see.
But who really knows? Tactically they are very predictable and monotonous, but strategically they are given to unknowable and surprising flights of fancy. Their brains just do not work like ours.

[jimmyk]

Ignatz, I think Rick was probably mixing you up with me, which is flattering for me. Your scenario is certainly a possibility, but I think a massive rejection by the voters is more than his ego could handle, and unless he's really delusional he will see the writing on the wall and want to avoid the public humiliation.

[glasater]

Melinda--thanks and UGH!

[Jane (sit on the couch or save your country)]

I'm not sure I ever predicted he'll quit, if by quit Rick means, 'not run in 2012'.

That's funny. I don't think I ever did either, but I figured I was in good company, and I'm certainly fine with that option.

I can't imagine him not running unless he can find a way to call it a promotion.

Jimmy,

I'm pretty sure he will never ever accept that rejection. He will find an excuse for it instead. I get it, it's FOX news fault.

[Rick Ballard]

Ignatz,

Sorry for ascribing to you the interpretation which jimmyk presents. I suppose BOzo's claim of victory wrt HCR fits the line I'm taking. The true price of that victory will be exacted in one month. There won't be any more 'victories' because he sacrificed the troops necessary to win any further battles. He has already set the stage for departure with his comments about being satisfied with being a "good one term" President, just as he has prepared the ground for the coming electoral defeat by blaming lack of ardor on the part of his sycophants as the primary cause.

IMO - he quit when HCR passed and he intends to spend the next two years resting on his laurel before collecting fat speaking fees and eating pasta in Tuscany.

[Ignatz]

jimmy and Rick,
You guys may be correct. These guys' strategies are prone to bizarre twists of irrationality.
The one caveat to the quitting scenario is that they simply don't perceive things the way you or I might.
A bad poll number just means the numbskull citizens haven't had the benefit of enough Barry yet, in his mind. It never occurs that bad poll numbers might mean we've had more than enough already. They appear to actually believe they can talk others into anything and themselves out of anything.
And the insistence on having innumerable fall guys within arms reach at all times means they are willing to take risks and chance odds that a rational person would fold on. I can very plausibly see Barry in November 2012, after a 60-40 loss, holding forth that he would have won handily if only his staff and supporters weren't a bunch of lazy ingrates and if the hoi polloi had truly appreciated all the hard work he himself had been doing on their behalf, even out on the links.

[Jane (sit on the couch or save your country)]

I also see him saying that he is the only one doing what is right for his country and the rest of the democrats are selfish ingrates who put themselves over doing the right thing.

[macphisto]

he may be talking calmly now, but when the axe falls he won't go like Sydney Carton. he'll go kicking and screaming and clawing the carpet with his fingernails like a Ceaucescu after a convention speech the likes of which will never be seen again, because they'll never again let convention coverage go live after that.

[JM Hanes]

TM:

"I have assumed for a while that Obama has planned on the economy recovering, as economies tend to do, with or with Presidential ministrations."

Love the typo. Personally, I'd just strike the middle and assume that Obama has planned on the economy recovering with or with Presidential ministrations.

[rse]

Kim-

One of the reasons UK is so much further along is that they got bait and switch national standards in 2001 similar to what is being hoisted on us now as the Common Core standards.

Voters and politicians are told it's about raising literacy and numeracy but the national bureaucratic control lets a political and economic agenda get pushed in the name of "citizenship".

The UK architect, Sir Michael Barber, has now established a US office to "help" with the implementation of Common Core.

The final national science standards being published in 2011 will be the real leverage for propaganda.

[rse]

Kim-

Here's Barber's famous speech "Impossible and Necessary:Are you Ready for this?" from July 2009 that shows just how radical his vision for education is and how he plans to use both K-12 and higher ed to push it. LUN

He accomplished his goal in the UK and now he's proselytizing here and Obama and Arne Duncan have handed him the keys to reach all US students.

This speech shows he is out there. He's also a Visiting Prof at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

But of course. Aren't national ed standards useful for idealogues?

[bunkerbuster]

Thomas: I read your LUN and they contain no evidence of voter fraud. Rather, they are desultory accounts of, mostly unproven, voter registration fraud cases. Do you not understand the difference between voter registration fraud and voter fraud, are you in denial about it, or simply lying?
As the largest voter registration organization in the country, Acorn has indeed been cited for its share of voter registration violations. These are of rather obvious origin: Acorn pays part-time "volunteers" a dollar per registration to register voters. A small percentage of those "volunteers" only care about the money and thereby fill in bogus registration cards themselves in order to collect the cash, not in order to, absurdly, assume that, on election day, Acorn will mysteriously know where and when to send fake voters to vote for the Democrat.
Anyone who's ever been involved with GOTV or even read about it, knows it is a fairly involved matter of logistics. Getting fake voters to the polls in numbers sufficient to have any effect at all would, then, be a much more involved logistical prospect. One that would require records, lists and, almost certainly, payments.
For all the investigations of Acorn, not a single one has ever produced any such list of fake voters or any other link between voter registration fraud and actual voting. Not one link. Ever. Until I see such a link, the only rational response is to consider the case closed.

[glasater]

Always have to get the last word in dontcha....

[rse]

I think there are certain topics babu doesn't want being picked up on.

Hope Kim reads what's posted above. We have so many home-grown idealogues, it's a shame to also import them and then pay for the bad ideas with tax money.

[JM Hanes]

I'm always amazed when I hear the left defending voter registration fraud. Then again, when you fight against eliminating ineligible voters from the rolls and oppose demanding valid I.D.'s at the polls, you've already jumped the shark.

[daddy the "Extremist"]

"...at what has he ever been "deft"?

Living his first 40 yrs. without leaving discernible footprints is rather unique. Nothing tangible of his exists from his HLR days or from any class he ever took, except the fig-eating apes "poem". He oversaw no cases during his law practice years. In the IL legislature he originated no bills and voted "present" hundreds of times. Even the anecdotal stuff we've been told is almost all self-generated in his books. I can't imagine anyone else reaching so high based on nothing at all, which may be more daft than deft, but it's extraordinary.

DebinNC,

From years and years back I recall an episode of a Bill Cosby show, wherein he was a High School Track Coach. One episode, (the only one I recall) was about a kid who came on to the track one day and did an amazing sprint, beating everyone, but the point of the show was Cosby could never get the kid to join the team and compete, because he wanted to maintain his anonymity above all else, so that in future he could become whatever job he wanted without personal historical baggage that he would have to explain.

For some reason that Bill Cosby show really struck a bell with me in order for me to remember it so many years later. I wonder what other kids were watching that Cosby show many years ago who might likewise have absorbed that message.

[We're getting a haircut.]

rse, thanks for the Barber tip. Yet another hair to stand individually on end and on fire. At least his name will be easy to remember.
=======================

[It's been a near thing. Still is, for real.]

And yes, the British are acutely aware that their children are being propagandized. That's one of the reasons that this is such an uproar over there. One of the videos at North's at the L!ink U!nder N!ame shows that Pachauri and the whole movement directly targeted the youth and has vignettes of some of the most horrifying videos produced in pursuit of the naive.
===========

[rse]

Kim-

He's got Gates Foundation funding behind him and is also involved with UNESCO.

He came on my radar screen after he hired Kathy Cox, Georgia' Ed Super, to head EDI in DC, which he had just formed. Although known to be "Smarter than a 5th Grader", Kathy had a habit in Ga for lobbying for patently absurd ideas with grant money attached. Knowing it was unlikely she was hired for competence and knowledge, it only made sense someone needed a public face while they actually pursued a different agenda. Hence the investigation.

The IMF calls Barber "the frontier of performance management in Government". He joined McKinsey in 2005 as the expert partner in its Global Public Sector Practice.

I have more but he should be on both our radar screens. He was basically the person behind all the sustainability provisions that got into UK school standards and was Blair's ed guy between 1997 and 2005.

Now he has founded EDI with Education Trust and Achieve to "advise governments in the US on implementation of reform in higher ed and school systems".

In other words they plan to use Race to the Top, the planned ESEA reauth, and most importantly these new Common Core national standards to proseletyze US school kids a la UK.

Our work is really starting to overlap. Aren't blogs useful?

[rse]

Watched the link to those films.

It certainly puts all the references in the new national standards to media literacy and the visual into context.

Watch and discuss and then write about how it made you feel-both science and language arts in our 21st century classrooms.

As voters they'll be clamoring for someone to save them and provide a job at a living wage, a place to live, and healthcare even though they are not very knowledgeable and have limited skills.

Gee-I think that agenda was tried back in the 20th century with markedly poor results.

[Shalom Patrick Hamou]

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When was the last time you were given that opportunity?

We don't intend to replace the prevalent system but to expend the number of your options.

We will add a significant amount of jobs, income and investment.

This is the only election in which the law of the majority is not binding on the minority.

If you don't participate you are still be making a choice:
the choice of relying exclusively on the prevalent system.

Vote Now for the Credit Free, Free Market Economy
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