Mark Halperin On The Obama Irrelevancy Watch

Mark Halperin, Keeper of the CW Flame, explains the passing of Obama:

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.

The breadth of discontent is impressive, but one of the reasons represent real Book of Revelation stuff for committed progressives:

But elites feel the President has failed to meet that challenge [of putting people back to work] and are convinced he will be unable to do so in the remainder of his term. Moreover, there is a growing perception that Obama's decisions are causing harm — that businesses are being hurt by the Administration's legislation and that economic recovery is stalling because of the uncertainty surrounding energy policy, health care, deficits, housing, immigration and spending.

Keynes wrote about the mysterious "animal spirits" that prompt business folks to hire, invest and expand, but, although they could pass as Keynesians we don't notice Barack, Nancy and Harry doing much to promote "the auld confidence".

Comments

[matt]

I'm calling it Electile Dysfunction. LUN for an explanation.

[The only velvet he's on is green.]

The Invisible Hand can't wriggle within the Iron Glove.
=========

[NK]

Mark Halperin catches on to what I have been posting in the JOM comments for 18 months-- Barry O. is AN EFFIN' MUPPET.
Who says there is no consensus in D.C.-- they all know he's AN EFFIN' MUPPET.

Cherrs

[maryrose]

Finally an accurate summation of the perils of Obama by a lamestream media former worshipper. At last we know the emperor has no clothes. Even at Politico they are dissing his latest Chamber of Commerce ploy.

[alanstorm]

"Moreover, there is a growing perception that Obama's decisions are causing harm — that businesses are being hurt by the Administration's legislation and that economic recovery is stalling because of the uncertainty surrounding energy policy, health care, deficits, housing, immigration and spending."

This is news to who, exactly? Maybe they should rename the magazine "Behind the Times"?

[centralcal]

Don't kid yourselves - MFM criticism is only temporary, I am sure.

Halperin writes truthful/insightful stuff every now and then to get some buzz, and then returns to his usual sycophant role.

[The world needs more Latin and Geometry.]

Heh, Texas has pulled 'Ultra Vires' on the EPA.
=========

[matt]

With his political persecutions,incompetence, and sheer pettiness Obama is synthesizing the worst of Nixon, Carter, and Captain Queeg.

[centralcal]

O/T: The Corner at NRO is now accepting comments. I signed up and wondered if I will actually ever get to comment before they take comments down again. I know how highly regarded some of their contributors are here. /sarcasm

Speaking seriously about the highly regarded - has there been any word on when Mark Steyn will return, or if he will?

[PDinDetroit]

As posted during the Last Presidential Election:

Obama, out of his depth in a parking lot puddle.

[RichatUF]

Even Soros is having some buyers remorse.

[Ranger]

With his political persecutions, incompetence, and sheer pettiness Obama is synthesizing the worst of Nixon, Carter, and Captain Queeg.

Posted by: matt | October 11, 2010 at 12:41 PM

"But it was Healthcare Reform, that's were I had them. I proved with geometric logic that people who wanted to keep their plans could, and that individual premiums would go down. So when that didn't happen, I knew they were conspiring against me."

[What an asshole.]

Heh, standing in the way of an avalanche. Created by the terrible stamping of the feet of the progressive herd.
===================

[NK]

Ranger/Matt--

"Healthcare, yes Healthcare, that's where I had them. But Pelosi/Reid, inefficient and disloyal Congressional leaders completely mishandled the matter causing the voters to erroneously believe that I was at fault. They called me effin' muppet behind my back."

[maryrose]

Obama's paranoia does resemble Capt. Queeg-even his rant against the chamber of Commerce. He sees enemies everywhere. Next he is going to ask who stole the strawberries...

[Barbara]

This is really OT - but it is an item that is near and dear to us here in So. Cal. The following is from an article in today's L.A. Times (LUN)

Cost concerns weakened Forest Service's assault on Station fire, study says. [The] Agriculture Department's review cites a letter before the blaze instructing fire managers to limit requests for crews, aircraft and equipment from state and local agencies.

The review by the Agriculture Department, which runs the Forest Service, echoes a Times report last fall that a Forest Service directive to reduce spending might have dissuaded fire managers from using more state and local strike teams and aircraft on the fateful second day of the blaze.

The new study also determined that the Forest Service, in opting to concentrate on protecting hillside neighborhoods and the communications towers and observatory on Mt. Wilson, did not stage a sustained direct assault on the back-country front of the fire as it spread into Angeles National Forest.

We all suspected that this was the case by the way that the fire was fought. The reluctance to deploy heavy aircraft to combat the fire was frustrating. It wasn't until they brought in the Silver State Hotshots from Carson City, Nevada that real progress against the fire was made. Unfortunately, that was several days into the devastation.

[narciso]

No. it's really more Chavista, as former officials in dISIP have revealed that Iranian and Libyan funds went into his campaign

[PDinDetroit]

Since it is football season, the Dems would be right on time with this messsage:

Let's win one this November for the Griper (Obama)!

H/T - Rush

[lyle]

Wow. Halperin wrote this? Really?

Teeny-bopper crushes are the worst, Mark. Too bad about that lip-ass attachment surgery you had two years ago. Any regrets?

[maryrose]

PD: LOL! What a great comment-griper, whiner, big baby...

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

Halperin and Soros writing and talking about President BOwser like this on the same day is rather telling. How long will he hold out against the voices from the side he theoretically represents shouting "Throw the incompetent bum out?". Twelve days in Kendonesia after the tsunami hits isn't going to be enough time to calm things down at all.

[caro]

CC,

Mark Steyn is back and you can listen to him in a Ricochet podcast about halfway down on the right column at NRO.

Ricochet is a really fun site and you can get the 38 podcasts (also free on iTunes) they have done so far. (also down the right hand column.

[PDinDetroit]

Twelve days in Kendonesia after the tsunami hits isn't going to be enough time to calm things down at all.

I'll bet Obama is expecting "trouble" right around the November Elections and wants to be as far away as possible.

I have an simple suggestion: Don't let him back into the country!

[Army of Davids]

Repeal the healthcare bill.

[matt]

or just ask him for his Kendonesian passport when he comes back, PD.

[narciso]

Well you know I despise Halperin, for that piece of tripe, called "Game Change" for either being gullible enough to believe many
of the claims, or being in on the scam

[(Another) Barbara]

Speaking seriously about the highly regarded - has there been any word on when Mark Steyn will return, or if he will?

He was on Hugh Hewitt's program for a segment last week, centraical,(on the phone from NH, if I recall) and there's an hour of him (with Rob Long and James Lileks) on Ricochet's latest podcast (wonderful conversation!) Everyone is tight-lipped about where he's been and what he's up to, however, though references are made to his imminent departure again for that mysterious place. Oh, the torment of being Mark-less!

[Wright]

Halperin also said this: "His efforts at job creation have been obstructed by Republicans (even the proposals based on policies supported by the GOP in the past). His opponents haven't put forth specifics of their own, nor offered genuine compromise, while the media have allowed the right's activists and gabbers to run wild with criticism without furnishing legitimate alternative solutions."
Yes, the democrats had decisive majorities in both houses of congress, but it was the Republicans who have obstructed Obama's excellent proposals. They have not offered genuine compromise? Were you watching when the democrats rammed policies down America's throat without the slighted concern for what the other side had to say? To a democrat, genuine compromise consists of abject surrender. And the day the media allow the right to run rampant and unchallenged is a day that is a long way from dawning.
Halperin is just another partisan hack, but the gist of his story indicates a truth to large to ignore.

[centralcal]

Caro and Barbara - hey thanks for the info, I will have to check out Ricochet.

I went to SteynOnline and see he is supposed to be on a mini-Canada tour at the end of this month.

Apparently he is doing radio, podcasts, but not so much writing.

[centralcal]

Excellent points and very well said, Wright!!!!

[narciso]

As President REagan, once pointed out, facts are stubborn things, which Halperin has found
a way to work around

[maryrose]

The days of Obama and Co. shoving unwanted policies down our throats are over.

[Tom Bowler]

I suppose it's just the nature of progressives, their infallibility and all. But isn't it remarkable that they wouldn't dream of questioning themselves.

Armies of them were off to Alaska to dig dirt on Sarah Palin, meanwhile covering up for Obama's inexperience to the point where they refused to even look at him themselves.

And now they're not happy with what they got. Imagine that. It didn't work out the way they planned.

"Such tough luck, our man Obama turning out to be such a boob. Oh well, no matter. Where were we? Oh yes, we're fixing health care."

[Pops]

Someone really needs to tell Obama that Pelosi and Reid, not Bush, were setting our economic policy (taxing/spending) for TWO YEARS before he arrived.

He apparently spent so little time doing his job in the Senate, he never realized his party was in charge.

[Old Lurker]

Wright's right. Right? Right.

[Jane]

most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions

Clearly what makes them "elite" is not their prescient insight. SO what is it exactly?

[Extraneus]

The VFW endorsement stuff is getting some attention at HotAir.

[Ignatz]

Barry is not the only one who tosses folks under the bus; it's endemic to lefties.
The minute they can no longer deny he is harming the Dem and lefty brand we're going to hear a solid thump, thump as Barry meets his fate.
Ask not for whom the wheels of the bus go round and round Barry, they thump for thee.

[Army of Davids]

The healthcare bill isn't perfect.

But it is good for unions, trial attorneys, political patrons and the few healthcare companies who owned a seat at the table.

For old folks, patients, doctors, taxpayers, businesses, the job market and future generations?

well....we had to do something.

Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.
Ludwig von Mises

[bgates]

there is a growing perception that Obama's decisions are causing harm

"In other news, this reporter is hearing stories of a massive rainstorm lasting almost seven weeks. The storm is said to have left no survivors save breeding pairs of each sort of animal that walks upon the earth."

"Also, this just in: Experts believe it may be possible for humans to summon and control the fearful destructive spirit seen when lightning strikes dry wood. The theory could have applications in areas as diverse as food preparation, illumination, and religious ceremonies."

"Stay with Time magazine for all the most recent breaking news."

[Rob Crawford]

LUN: The establishment left is funding a domestic terrorist.

More evidence that the left deeply loves violence. They cannot bring themselves to condemn this creep, and actually fund him.

[Terrye]

Some people are slow learners. It is amazing that it took this long for these people to see that Obama can not do what they thought he could do.

[Ignatz]

Barbara Boxer, Alcee Hastings, Barbara Lee, Steny Hoyer, Barbara Mikulsky, Chris VanHollen, John Dingell, Chuckie Schumer, Pat Leahy and Patty Murray.

That's not just a list of the most left wing military hating yo yos in congress, it's also a list of commies endorsed by the VFW. That organization is in dire need of a coup.
I know it's been referenced before here but it needs to be remembered just what that outfit is up to.

[JM Hanes]

Wright:

That's just SOP. Folks like Halperin have to include such disclaimers to avoid being excommunicated by their fellow liberals for insufficiently toeing the orthodox line -- whether they believe the required provisos or not. As many may recall, any remotely positive observation about the U.S. mission in Iraq during the Bush Administration had to include some variant of "the worst foreign policy disaster of all time" in order to pass liturgical muster.

That familiar formulation is a real tell. Anyone who still wonders about whether or not Ross Douthat has sold his conservative soul to the NYTimes, for example, need only check out the piece TM just linked to. Douthat dispenses his disclaimer right off the bat:

Davis Guggenheim offers a critique of America’s public school bureaucracy that’s manipulative, simplistic and more than a little bit utopian.

None of which he actually attempts to demonstrate in the column that follows. To the contrary, Douthat seems almost entirely sympathetic to the author's "propaganda;" he just thinks that "Guggenheim’s cinematic call to arms" should have come with a cautionary label, warning folks not to get their hopes up. He suggests that this could easily be accomplished, in a fairness doctrine sort of way, by handing out his own favorite Frederick Hess essay at the door. Alas, poor Douthat! The pamphlets carpeting the post-screening theatre floor would make it pretty clear who deserves the Utopian prize.

[JM Hanes]

Jane: "SO what is it exactly?"

Swearing allegiance to the flack.

[Janet]

Really, the VFW-PAC story reminds me of a lot of other organizations....
State Dept. employees representing their assigned country rather than the interest of the USA.
Church higher-ups toying with academic & political ideas & trying to foist those off on local congregations.
VFW-PAC selling the government to their VFW members, rather than representing the VFW members to the government.

The leadership of all these organizations becomes disconnected from their basic purpose....representing government to their organizations rather than representing their organizations to government.

[Frau Soldatenfreund]

What will Halperin say when he returns from *his* visit to the WH? Brookes certainly changed his tune after seeing Rahm nude in the guest bathroom His Imperious Majesty Barack the First, President of America, Protector of the People as Long As They Know Their Place and Belong to The Right Unions, Defender of the Privileges Accrued by Attending the Right University, and Scourge of the Rich If They Don't Contribute To The Democratic Party.

[Pagar]

"We all suspected that this was the case by the way that the fire was fought."

Barbara, it's not just firefighting. Apparently the reason large areas of public land in America are controlled by the illegals is that the Bureau of Land Management will not let the Border Patrol perform their duties.

“As the Committee of jurisdiction over the majority of our federal lands and considering the gravity of the current situation, we believe it is this Committee’s duty to act to ensure that both public safety and environmental protection are achieved on public lands by taking the steps necessary to fully secure the border against cartels and criminals. The American people deserve straight answers from the agencies responsible for protecting our borders and public lands. There is simply no excuse for allowing government policies to continue that hamper the Border Patrol and create paths of access to violent criminal activity. This situation is what led Republicans to introduce a legislative solution (H.R. 5016) that very simply ensures the Border Patrol has the authority to achieve operational control of the border on public lands.”

Another site I saw said there were thousands of illegals entering thru these US Border Patrol restricted areas.
It's like telling Police that they have to investigate murders where they can not have access to the site where the murder took place.

[Pagar]

Ignatz, please move this Congresswoman to the top of any list of people we do not want the VFWPAC to Endorse.

In fact, we don't want them in Politics Period.

[Rick Ballard]

Ras Generic +8, Gallup +12-+17

I can see a 75 seat pick up from my house.

[Extraneus]

Halperin is a hack; they're just still working on the excuse. It's never the policies, so if they can't blame "messenging" like they've done in the past, then it's got to be something else. Evil "Bush operatives," Chamber of Commerce bake-sales, pumpkin festivals, kids' talent contests -- or if all else fails, maybe even the lightbringer himself. Definitely not the policies, though, that's for sure.

[Army of Davids]

Political games are up w/ the foreclosure process. Electioneering?

These have the potential to be a serious problem.

It should be in the courts' hands and NOT in the hands of politicians and the media.

[Appalled]

The root to the Democrats electoral problems is (i) they passed the stimulus bill in a haphazard and partisan manner, which spent a ton of money and did seemingly little about jobs; (ii) they then said "Mission Accomplished" on the economy; (iii) the party then pushed its multi-generational healthcare obsession on a nation not especially thrilled over the idea; (iv) the economy did not get better, but the healthcare push continued; (v) A year went by, and, in the face of obvious popular opposition, and by a very dramatic display of political muscle, the Dems got their dam healthcare bill; and (v) the economy still didn't get better.

There's a lot of blame for Obama, but the fault is in the Democrats inability to recognize that few Americans wanted the Healthcare bill enough to pay the price for it. The party is what is going to take it on the chin in November, and try to blame Obama for it. But they really need to balame themselves.

[Chubby]

((Halperin and Soros writing and talking about President BOwser like this on the same day is rather telling))

not to mention Stanley Crouch hammering him for his regressive ipod choices (choices that do a lot of harm to black youth)

[narciso]

Appalled, what you fail to understand is they didn't write the bills, so the curiosity as
to what's in them, is limited when it isn't your product, other outfits like the Apollo
Alliance did the gut work

[Chubby]

It's odd that Halperin credits Obama with TARP seeing as so many Dem commenters slam TARP as the last major blunder of the Bush admin, and as part of the dismal economic legacy that poor widdle Obammy has to contend with.

[gmax]

I see the Democrat Party is about to play a simple game of "pin the tail on the donkey". The humming you hear, is the chorus tuning up to full throated blame game.

The viciousness that lefties save for lefties who disappoint, is going to be on display. And it has to be somebodies fault.

Still to see Halperin give up his lip lock on the backside of Zero, and Time magazine to print a devastating piece that at once calls Zero INCOMPETENT and ARROGANT, really is a sight to behold given that not so long ago, we were told the guy walked on water...

[Rick Ballard]

Appalled,

Nobody could ever accuse BOzo of having the level of competence required to be responsible for anything more difficult than finding his way out of a phone booth but you're painting a bit broadly when you ascribe the problem to "the party". That phrase would include the Blue Dogs sacrificed on the proglodyte altar this year and I doubt that they had much input in the development of the dorm room hash haze "strategic planning".

I would credit the cabal assembled by Howard Dean after his defeat in '04 with the impaired vision which led to signing the Mephistophelian bargain with Soros &c, with HRC being the "strategic aim" due to Dean's idiotic obsession.

Watching the proglodyte mini-horde turn BOzo into their Corn King is going to provide a couple years of entertainment - and lasting evidence of the shallowness endemic among the weak minded who embrace the leftist fantasies.

[Captain Hate]

not to mention Stanley Crouch hammering him for his regressive ipod choices (choices that do a lot of harm to black youth)

Crouch is such a bullying POS on so many levels that you almost forget that he's authored some of the most devastatingly articulate smackdowns of rap. Btw, does anybody believe that Jugears McFly really did nothing more than give the tools at Rolling Stone exactly what he thought it would be "cool" to say? My bullshit detector is accurately calibrated to detect the "hobbyists" from the people that are down with different genres of music and I can tell you, even as somebody who doesn't have much use for rap, that the Indonesian Imbecile dropped a steaming pile on them.

[Melinda Romanoff]

I can't keep up with all the new twists in the ForeclosureFraud Story, this is going to be the REAL October Surprise.

Yves Smith is valiantly trying to keep ahead of the wave.

Commercial mortgages are involved and now we know that MERS has NO employees. It's a shell company.

I tell you I'm getting dizzy from the firehose information flow.

Biggest Financial Fraud ever!

[Danube of Thought]

His opponents haven't put forth specifics of their own

Extend the Bush tax cuts? Reduce all discretionary spending to 2008 levels? Paul Ryan's Roadmap?

[Neo]

“They [The Chamber of Commerce] can put this to rest,” said Joshua Earnest, a White House spokesman. “They have the keys to the file cabinet.”

Isn't this the essence of "birtherism" ??

[Chubby]

Cap if he's being slammed for stuff he made up, that's even sweeter.

[MayBee]

Jake Tapper addresses the "birtherism" comparison in an interview with Axelrod:

TAPPER: Isn't that like the whackjobs that tell the president he needs to show them his full long-form birth certificate so he can put to rest the questions that have been raised?

AXELROD: The president’s birth certificate has been available to people.

TAPPER: The long form?

AXELROD: Someone once in the course of this debate about whether we should have a law to force these organizations to disclose where they’re money is coming from in the campaigns, someone said, and I think they’re right – “the only people who want to keep things secret are folks who have something to hide.” If the Chamber doesn’t have anything to hide about these contributions, and I take them at their word that they don’t, then why not disclose? Why not let people see where their money is coming from?

step-ball-change jazzhands!

[Extraneus]

This close to the election, the Democrats have NO strategy. Amazing. They're just flailing.

SCHIEFFER (to Axelrod): Do you...? (groans) I guess I would put it this way: If the only (chuckles) charge three weeks into the election that the Democrats have make is that somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?

"Surely they'll mount some kind of surge at the end," I thought. But no, it looks like they're going down in real, actual flames.

[Sargon]

"Keynes wrote about the mysterious "animal spirits" that prompt business folks to hire, invest and expand, but, although they could pass as Keynesians we don't notice Barack, Nancy and Harry doing much to promote "the auld confidence"."

'Confidence' is the correct term if it is in the context of "confidence man" or Con Men to y'all.

The Republican 'No' machine has been advising them to wait until they wrest power
back by using the same 'auld lang syne' of
failed policies beginning with RWR.

But, cynical as they are about lies becoming truth, repeated oft enough, it bespeaks the faux patriotism of the Right.

The genuine patriots are using what tools they can to back us out of the Republican Ditch. Regressives are feverish about re-gaining their control freakism BEFORE these new ideas emerge with positive results so they don't have to explain how their ideas have not been fully repudiated.

[Pagar]

Mel, Not only is this going to make the Madoff affair look like stealing peanuts,
Zero Hedge says these vice presidents of MERS (who don't work for MERS because MERS has no employees) got President Obama not once, but Twice.

President Obama falls victim-another Robo-signer.

And people thought he got upset when someone reviewed his student loan record.
There is no way we're going to have enough popcorn.

[matt]

Time: sometime in early 2011
Location: The Oval Office

Obama: "Hello? Is anybody out there?"

secretary: "I'm sorry Mr. President, but they all seem to be on Capitol Hill today.

Obama: "how can that be?"

secretary: "Well, Attorney General Holder is at the Joint Corruption Investigation and the new NSC Advisor is in front of the House Defense Committee explaining why General Petraeus didn't really mean the things he said, and your czars have all been deposed because of the Supreme Court ruling separating the powers of the executive, legislative and the judiciary branches.

Obama: "Well then, can you get me Princess Shopping Cart on the house phone?"

secretary:" Sir, you know she's been out in Montecito with Oprah for the past 7 weeks." snickers.

Obama: "well then, where's Bo?"

secretary: "you don't remember sir? after that last accident, you gave him to the Bidens."

[Cecelia]

Poor Halperin. He's sure to face THE WRATH OF MIKA...

yikes!...

[RichatUF]

Rick-

In re: Halperin and Soros. Not sure why that wing of the Democratic party would be squacking now. Soros is getting mostly what he wants-weak dollar, lots of money for Petrobras, an insane energy policy which is keeping the US from drilling.

Strange. I also saw a bit of his interview with Bartoromo earlier and he was yammering about letting the Bush tax cuts expire and a Republican congress.

I'm also stumped on foreign money being a campaign issue-seems like a dangerous issue to bring to the fore with an aggressive Congress to be seated in January.

[Captain Hate]

Chubby, Crouch has infuriated me a number of times with the musical choices he's made, pro and con, but they're ultimately subjective decisions that you have to shrug your shoulders about and move on from. I know his MO though and for him to write that, after giving him cover by blasting all his opponents in the past, indicates a fairly high level of disappointment. Nat Hentoff has caught a lot of flak from the libs in jazz publications for registering a profound disappointment with Ear Leader. I wish one of those idiots at Rolling Stone had asked him a followup question on his mention of Coltrane; like what period Coltrane did he like: The early stuff on Prestige like "Tranin' In", the Atlantic stuff, the Impulse classic quartet plus Dolphy, the following groups with Rashied Ali and Pharoah Sanders, "Interstellar Space", or the latter stuff that Alice ruined with her overdubbed garbage? It would be load up the 'prompter time.

[Pagar]

From Mel's Yves Smith Link.

Bank disinformation-Banks attacking rule of law frontally.

Is this the US or Venzuela?

[Tiglath-Pileser]

Announcing that the president "is being politically crushed in a vise," Mark Halperin delivers an extraordinarily condescending scolding in Time this week. The interesting part is that Halperin's obituary for Obama, penned on behalf of Washington, D.C. "elites" who all know the president is cooked, comes in the wake of Obama's polling rebound last week. (See here and here.)

But Halperin makes no mention of that fact. He's too busy telling us what all the really, really smart people know: Obama is in over his head. Worse, he's "clueless" as to "how to get along with or persuade members" of the media! So Halperin rolls over every conceivable RNC, anti-Obama talking point.

But this one to me seemed just bizarre:

Throughout the year, we have been treated to Obama-led attacks on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Congressman Joe Barton (for his odd apology to BP), John Boehner (for seeking the speakership -- or was it something about an ant?) and Fox News (for everything). Suitable Democratic targets in some cases, perhaps, but not worth the time of a busy Commander in Chief.

That's right, Obama, in the eyes of media elites like Halperin, is not allowed to fight back against his political opponents. Why? Because it's unseemly. Apparently it's not that unseemly when his opponents accuse him of being a racist and a Nazi and tyrant and a liar and a terrorist-sympathizer and foreign-born. It's unseemly when Obama answers his critics. It's unseemly when he defends himself.

'Unseemly'. Who wudda thot them publicans would have such thin crocodile hide.

[Extraneus]

What else do you think, T-P? Come on, you can tell us. It's ok.

[Tiglath-Pileser]

Ya cain't 'splain Calculus to people who barely add and subtract.

[Stone Bruise]

TIME 9/2/10

WHY ISRAEL DOESN'T CARE ABOUT PEACE

*
*
* 124diggsdigg

Heli and Eli sell condos on Exodus Street, a name that evokes a certain historical hardship in a neighborhood that suggests none at all, the ingathering of the Jews having entered a whole new realm here. The talk in the little office is of interest rates and panoramic sea views from handsomely appointed properties on the Ashdod waterfront selling for half what people are asked to pay in Tel Aviv, 18 miles (29 km) to the north. And sell they do, hand over fist — never mind the rockets that fly out of Gaza, 14 miles (22.5 km) to the south. "Even when the Qassams fell, we continued to sell!" says Heli Itach, slapping a palm on the office desk. The skull on her designer shirt is made of sequins that spell out "Love Kills Slowly." "What the people see on the TV there is not true here. I sold, this week, 12 apartments. You're not client. I tell you the truth."

The truth? As three Presidents, a King and their own Prime Minister gather at the White House to begin a fresh round of talks on peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the truth is, Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter. They're otherwise engaged; they're making money; they're enjoying the rays of late summer. A watching world may still see their country as being defined by the blood feud with the Arabs whose families used to live on this land and whether that conflict can be negotiated away, but Israelis say they have moved on. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)

Now observing two and a half years without a single suicide bombing on their territory, with the economy robust and with souls a trifle weary of having to handle big elemental thoughts, the Israeli public prefers to explore such satisfactions as might be available from the private sphere, in a land first imagined as a utopia. "Listen to me," says Eli Bengozi, born in Soviet Georgia and for 40 years an Israeli. "Peace? Forget about it. They'll never have peace. Remember Clinton gave 99% to Arafat, and instead of them fighting for 1%, what? Intifadeh."

Another whack for the desk. "The people," Heli says, "don't believe." Eli searches for a word. "People in Israel are indifferent," he decides. "They don't care if there's going to be war. They don't care if there's going to be peace. They don't care. They live in the day."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2015602,00.html#ixzz125zPj7mq

[Captain Hate]

It must be "internet night" at the halfway houses.

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

Do you believe that Soros is satisfied with a half-term wonder who can't find his ass with two hands and a map? I agree that he has received some short term benefit from his investment but NG is at $3.61 today and the BTU disparity with oil suggests that a correction is coming.

I believe that President BOwser has slipped his leash and is no longer of any value to the proglodyte community which selected him as their display puppet. I might be misreading the emergency evacuation of all WH staff incorrectly - we'll know when Valerie Jarrett is elevated to control of everything but assigning parking spaces at the WH.

[Extraneus]

Insty picked up that HotAir VFW link, with an appropriate conclusion.

APPARENTLY, THE LONG MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS HAS GONE PRETTY FAR: VFW endorses … Senator Ma’am? I’m guessing this is yet another institution where the leadership has gotten out of touch with the grassroots. . . .

[maryrose]

TP:
Presidents have CLASS and do not demean themselves by shooting their mouths off to people in a different plane then they are on.
EX; calling Boston policemen "stupid" or weighing in on a cable tv network-Fox- just because they aren't in the tank for him like MSNBC. Calling out talk radio hosts like Rush and dissing law-abiding citizens of the Tea Party movement. Obama is a divider,a polarizer and incompetent to boort. You sir are welcome to him; he's of no use to us.

[Sue]

MayBee,

step-ball-change jazzhands!

Indeed. I wonder if Tapper noticed?

[bgates]

Obama's polling rebound last week. (See here and here.)

See? He's polling better! It's all documented! See here! It's here, don't you see? Here it is, all the evidence of Obama's polling rebound you could ever want - here and here!

[Extraneus]

Don't know if anyone linked this already.

J. R. Dunne @ AT: The American Left Slides into Psychosis

Leftists have always believed that one clear shot, one opportunity to put their policies into play without opposition from "reactionary interests," would result in a political chain reaction, success leading to further success and finally absolute triumph as the New Socialist Jerusalem came into being with almost no effort on their part. This is childish fantasy, a wish-fulfillment daydream, transparent almost to the point of contempt. (It's also extremely ahistorical -- exactly such circumstances existed in 1933 and 1964 due to historical accident. Liberals botched things then exactly as they are doing now.) But for many years, it has been the only thing keeping the left going.

Leftists really believed that Obama embodied their moment.

[Chubby]

Hitler sounds off on the Robo-sign fraud

LUN

[Ignatz]

--Ya cain't 'splain Calculus to people who barely add and subtract.--

Says the moron who told us a negative times a negative was another negative, IIRC.

--The genuine patriots are using what tools they can to back us out of the Republican Ditch.--

Poor stupid cleo didn't get the memo that backing out of the ditch requires using "R" on the gear selector.
Fortunately fearless leader knows we need to be "D"riven further into it and has succeeded admirably.

[narciso]

Speaking of class in the LUN,

[Pops]

Obama is not out of the election.
Biden is proposing an Obama/Carter campaign tour.

From Malaise to Malice!

[Janet]

I’m guessing this is yet another institution where the leadership has gotten out of touch with the grassroots. . . .

Maybe it is time to cut them loose....like some Episcopal churches splitting from their leadership. Maybe some/most of the VFW groups need to split from VFW-PAC?

[Pops]

You get the feeling the mainstream media is starting to feel the heat for serving up Obama as a great leader and not mentioning his background, his best friends, nor his life long political philosophy.

The rats are jumping ship...

[anduril]

From Bruce Bartlett:

Hypocrisy Watch: Neocons Talk Tough On Deficit But Won't Budge On Defense Cuts

Establishment conservatives love to talk about the need to cut government spending, but they always seem to find an excuse whenever there is a serious effort to actually do it.

Last year, for example, they opposed cutting Medicare as part of health care reform. Now they are banding together to stop cuts in defense spending, which is a fifth of the federal budget, even as they also insist that the deficit is our most critical problem.

This hypocrisy was on full display on Oct. 4, as American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks, Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner, and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol penned a joint op-ed for the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page on why the defense budget should be totally off limits to budget cutters.

First, they claim the military is not the “true source of our fiscal woes.” No one is saying the defense budget is the sole source of the deficit, but the fact is that it has risen from 3 percent of the gross domestic product in fiscal year 2001 to 4.7 percent this year. That additional 1.7 percent of GDP amounts to $250 billion in spending — almost 20 percent of this year’s budget deficit. And according to a recent Congressional Research Service report, the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone accounted for 23 percent of the combined budget deficits between fiscal years 2003 and 2010.

Brooks, Feulner and Kristol then claim that “terrorism and piracy in sea lanes around the world,” potential future threats from a “nuclear Iran” or a China “that can deny access to U.S. ships or aircraft in the Asian-Pacific region” justify a defense budget only slightly smaller as a share of GDP than at the height of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear missiles targeted directly at the United States.

Tufts University foreign policy expert Daniel Drezner was underwhelmed by the argument. “Terrorism and piracy are certainly security concerns — but they don’t compare to the Cold War,” he said. “A nuclear Iran is a major regional headache, but it’s not the Cold War. A generation from now, maybe China poses as serious threat as the Cold War Soviet Union. Maybe. That’s a generation away, however.”

American University defense expert Gordon Adams was equally unimpressed by the trio’s rationalization:

It is little more than a façade to justify growing defense budgets as far as the eye can see, affordable or not. First, we are leaving Iraq as we speak and will be drawing down in Afghanistan starting next year… [which] frees up a considerable amount of military personnel. Second, anyone who thinks terrorists and pirates justify a $700 billion defense budget and a 2-million-person force (actives and reserves) has clearly drunk way too much Kool-Aid. These missions are important, but they do not drive anywhere near that number of forces. Third, …The U.S. has ample sea and air power to cope for decades with a rising China, whose economic pursuits pose a much more significant problem for the U.S. than their military pursuits.

The fact of the matter is that China spends half the share of its GDP on defense as the U.S. — less than $100 billion last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the primary source for internationally comparable data on military expenditures. That’s less than 15 percent of what we spent. According to SIPRI, the military budgets of every nation on earth other than the U.S added together would only come to 46 percent of the total. In other words, the U.S. defense budget is 54 percent of world military spending.

The idea that we need a defense budget almost 60 percent larger as a share of GDP than a decade ago is ludicrous. While it is true that the wars initiated by George W. Bush and a Republican Congress will impose a financial burden on American taxpayers for many years to come, that isn’t enough to justify spending more than half of the world’s military expenditures. Almost all our NATO allies get by spending well less than half what we spend as a share of GDP.

To their credit, many of the tea party candidates likely to be elected to Congress next month have made clear that Pentagon spending will be on the chopping block. Politico’s John Bresnahan recently quoted Tea Party Patriots leader Mark Meckler saying, “Everything is on the table. I have yet to hear anyone say, ‘We can’t touch defense spending,’ or any other issue ... Any tea partier who says something else lacks integrity.”

Tea partiers aren’t the only ones on the right taking aim at the defense budget. On May 18, Sen. Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, sent a letter to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform urging “due diligence on national defense spending.” He detailed a number of areas where savings could be achieved. Sen. Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire and a member of the commission, agreed that the defense budget needs to be looked at and suggested another base-closing commission to cut unnecessary spending.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, originally appointed to his position by George W. Bush, has taken the lead on finding $100 billion in savings over the next five years. But the magnitude of our budgetary problems requires much deeper cuts. And as a recent Congressional Budget Office briefing makes clear, deep cuts are impossible without scaling back our defense commitments.

As the painful process of deficit reduction moves forward next year, many conservatives are going to scream that our national security is being fatally undermined. They will need to be reminded that excessive national debt also undermines our national security — especially when much of it is owned by foreigners like the Chinese. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently warned:

Our rising debt level poses a national security threat, and it poses a national security threat in two ways. It undermines our capacity to act in our own interests and it does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable. And it also sends a message of weakness internationally ... It is very troubling to me that we are losing the ability not only to chart our own destiny, but to have the leverage that comes from this enormously effective economic engine that has powered American values and interests over so many years.

The only real alternative to deep defense cuts would be to strengthen our nation’s revenue-raising capacity. Historically, wars have always been financed in large part by tax increases, as I detailed in a column in Forbes last year. It was a tragedy that Republicans chose to put the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan on the national credit card, rather than asking the American people to sacrifice a little bit. As it is, the only people who have sacrificed are our armed forces and their families.

It’s easy to see why Republicans wanted desperately to avoid asking Americans to sacrifice — they would almost certainly have demanded that we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan long before now. According to a September New York Times/CBS News poll, 71 percent of Americans think the war in Iraq wasn’t worth it. That number would unquestionably be higher if taxes had been raised as a consequence.

As the great economist Adam Smith put it, Ch.3, Of Public Debts, “Were the expense of war to be defrayed always by revenue raised within the year … wars would in general be more speedily concluded, and less wantonly undertaken.”

So far, Republicans have been able to delude voters and perhaps themselves that the budget can be balanced without higher taxes, and by cutting only domestic discretionary programs. When reality finally sets in and they have no choice but to accept that this is impossible, establishment conservatives like Brooks, Feulner and Kristol must decide which is more important to them: opposing all tax increases or preserving the defense budget. We will then find out if they genuinely care about our national security or are what Thomas Paine called summer soldiers and sunshine patriots.

[Chubby]

Tigleth-P, I'll grant that at his inauguration 0 seemed politically invincible, but then once upon a time, so did the ancient Assyrians, and we all know what happened to them, nothwithstanding their primo blusterers like Sennacherib.

[Pops]

I think its important that Republicans reach out in the spirit of comprimise and bi-partisanship after this election. They could start by proposing an extensive, in depth investigation; with the Whites Houses full cooperation I am sure, into foriegn campaign contributions.

Particularly looking at the 2008 election...

[Melinda Romanoff]

So much for being on vacation...

[Danube of Thought]

Go fight it out with Halprin, T-P.

The brand-new Gallup generic ballot is out, and it's essentially unchanged: A 12-point gap with high turnout, 17 points with low.

[Pops]

anduril,

I take it by 'defense' budget, you actually mean the Obama 'war' budget which Obama tacked onto the Defense budget.

If Obama would stop fighting wars, we wouldn't need his 'war' budget.

Its a lot like putting Social Security payments into the HHS budget and then proclaiming the HHS budget is out of control.!!.

[Melinda Romanoff]

And the veneer pops off with continuous contact from the universal solvent...

[narciso]

This Gordon Adams, yeah we need more of that, honestly, in the LUN

[Obstreporous Infidel]

Chubby;

I assume yer moniker is meant to be ironic.

"It may not be long, but at least it's not fat."

[Extraneus]

That Dunn article is good.

Most recently, we have had the incident marking the full emergence of left-wing psychosis in all its mad glory: the "No Pressure" film released by the 10:10 group. Few AT readers can have missed discussion of this little gem, which features a series of vignettes in which anyone opposed to the "global warming" hoax is annihilated by a magic button that blows them to pieces on the spot. (Some may protest that the film is English -- the author, Richard Curtis, is noted for his genteel British comedies. But in truth, it's international -- Gillian Anderson is American, and if you were to further trace artistic and financial involvement, you'd find plenty more Yanks in the mix.)

This is as clear a depiction of left-wing psychosis as we are ever going to see. It is the yearning -- of an intensity beyond the grasp of sane, normal individuals-- to possess some means of total power, some instrument of near-divine retribution and punishment. Not for personal aggrandizement or sadistic pleasure, no, not at all...but simply to remove those stones in the path of progress: the Neanderthals, the troglodytes, the reactionaries, who are standing between the people and their righteous destiny. We'll use it just a few times, only against the really bad ones, and only to make an impression. And once we do that, we'll put it aside, and never, ever touch it again, we promise...

[maryrose]

Speaking of veneer; Obama used to be teflon -now he's a roach motel. The old rhyme I'm rubber, you are glue comes to mind.