We Gotta Take the Bastards Down

It's a been a lovely couple of weeks in our recently dawned era of "new civility."

Courtesy of the internet, you can now find more videos than you'd want to see of public union supporters at demonstrations around the country spitting, screaming, punching, shoving, advocating violence, calling people who disagree with them Nazis, and engaging in other behavior your mommy would tell you isn't very nice.  That doesn't even include the ones making anonymous death threats against elected officials such as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, which I suppose would be considered felonies.

Last week at the Wisconsin rally a Boston band called the Dropkick Murphys played their latest song, called "Take 'Em Down".  Donning my music critic hat, I'd say they sound like the Pogues on a bad day without Bushmill's.  The song is essentially a folky rant that evokes the lovely specter of union goonism in all its glory.  The first line of the chorus is "we gotta take the bastards down."  Yeah, whatever.

Meanwhile from the White House we have Obama commenting about all this that " I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or when their rights are infringed upon."  My first impulse on hearing that is to say screw you, Mr. President, but I think there's much more involved here than people on either side of the issue expressing bad opinions about each other.

The White House recently let it be known that that they intend to raise more than $1 billion for Obama's 2012 re-election bid.  One problem with that is that many of the people who contributed to his campaign back in 2008 aren't so happy with how things have gone since then, and many are also unemployed, making them a lot less inclined to come up with some extra cash for the Big O.  The public employee unions at this point will be a vital source of funds for Obama's campaign.  Now that so many new Republican governors have come into office with huge state budget deficits to eliminate, and with the cost of employees being such a large share of state spending, the power of the unions and their ability to contribute to political campaigns is being threatened.  This is an intolerable situation for the White House, and they are almost openly leading the charge in favor of the unions, including VP Biden meeting with unions leaders at a conference in the White House, and the involvement of Obama's campaign wing Organizing for America in bringing out-of-state demonstrators into Wisconsin.

I can't think of any similar situation in presidential history, where a President has actually used demonstrations, disorder and sabotage of the democratic process to protect his political situation.  I can remember Nixon visiting some pro-war "hardhat" demonstrators in Manhattan around 1970, but that was as far as that went.  Maybe I'm going off on the deep end with this, but I think the most apt parallel in history for what the White House is up to is Chairman Mao riling up the students and Red Brigade against his own political enemies in the early part of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which plunged China into almost ten years of chaos.  That worked for a while for Chairman Mao, but not so well for China.

Clearly the larger public in the United States has had it with their governments being run by and for public employees and their political lackies, with the ever-escalating spending that comes with it.  Apparently the President and his party have no trouble employing a by any means necessary approach to holding on to power.  That may make them feel proud of themselves and very hopeful, but to me they're looking more and more like Napoleon the 14th. Guess what, Napoleon:  we're coming to take you away.

Bad Dog!

U.S. Constitution:  "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Obama:  "They talk about me like a dog."

This is some of what has gone on in the past week or so:  

Civil unrest in Tunisia and Egypt has spread throughout Middle East, and this weekend we have news of demonstrations in China.  Gas prices are going up almost daily, with food and commodity prices also on the rise.   The Obama justice department asked the Florida federal judge who ruled Obamacare to be unconstitutional for a clarification on whether or not his order allows the administration to crack down on states that are refusing to continue implementing the health care act.  The House Republicans have passed a "continuing resolution" for this year's budget with $61 billion in cuts, a good piece short of the $100 billion cut they promised in their "Pledge to America." Joe and Jill Biden are on vacation in Florida, while Michelle and the first daughters are skiing in Vail.  Finally, a mob in Wisconsin has shut down the legislature in protest against Governor Scott Walker's plan to help balance the budget by making teachers pay for part of their retirement and healthcare costs.  There have been threats of violence against the Governor and legislators, and members of the mob have gone through the capitol building pounding on windows and doors.  Enough Democratic legislators have fled the state to prevent a quorum that would allow the legislature to proceed with a vote on the matter, which Republicans have vowed they will pass.

Regarding this last item, President Obama has apparently come out in support of the mob, saying the bill the Governor is proposing "...seems like more of an assault on unions." The national Democratic Party through Obama's "Organizing for America" have participated in organizing the protest.  Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emmanuel have also lent their support. The idea that the President and other federal officials have no business whatsoever in an individual state's legislative deliberations seems to be alien to Obama and his compadres.

So we have here another all-out leftist binge shortly on the heels of the disgusting slander-fest that went on following the Tucson murders.  It's hard not to think that Obama and the left are seizing on any opportunity they can find in an attempt to nullify the results of the November elections, using chaos and disruption to halt attempts to reverse their agenda, and personal attacks on anyone who stands against them.

Now, after two years of Obama as President, we have this state of affairs:  a national economy on its back; massive unemployment; a foreign policy so clueless it would be funny, if the consequences weren't potentially tragic; historically large budget deficits; a bankrupt Social Security system; an energy policy intent on starving the country of energy; a healthcare plan that will help bankrupt the treasury, and drive thousands of doctors out of the profession; Islamic terrorist attacks on American soil, after which the administration refuses to utter the words "Islamic terrorism;" a Justice Department suing a state government for enforcing federal laws; and a President and First Lady who have a taste for high living that, in a time of economic distress and deprivation, borders on being obscene.  

I don't know where I would find the energy and imagination if I were President to screw things up as badly as President Obama has in only half a term.  He's made it look almost effortless, to boot.

The impeachment of a President is something that most people never want to see happen.  It has the potential to tear the country apart, and no one beyond a President's most bitter enemies would be pleased to see a President subjected to such a terrible humiliation.  I don't know of anything as yet that Obama has done that would technically be considered "...Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors," but he seems for all the world to be intent on destroying any institutions, traditions and people that stand in the way of his changing this country into whatever it is he imagines it should be. For instance, in pursuing his delusional theories about economics, he's caused immense pain in the lives of millions of people.  I doubt any prosecutor would take this up, but inflicting this sort of pain on one's own countrymen in pursuit on an ideological agenda must be some sort of crime, I think.

I can't recall another presidential administration (exception, Nixon) where I thought things had gotten so bad that there was any reason at all to think of removing the President from office before his term was over.  I feel differently about Obama.

Obama has been so creative in finding ways to make things worse that I can't possibly envision what exactly he might do, but I think we should be prepared for him at some point to overstep the legal bounds of his authority. He's shown little regard for the authority of the federal courts, for instance, first in defying court orders about banning oil drilling in the Gulf; lately the administration seems to be pretending that the decision striking down Obamacare didn't really happen.  Not that they aren't busy enough already, but I think that Republicans in the Congress would do well to ponder once in a while the possibility that they might need to remove this President from office before his term is over; and that if things come to that, time might be of the essence in protecting the Republic from permanent harm.

Life Imitates Art

Just weeks after I made a guess at what sort of flak Rep. Darrell Issa might run into in his investigations of the super-transparent Obama Administration, some of Obama's political allies are wasting no time in gearing up an effort to discredit Issa and slow him down.

This week we have news from Politico that a group of Californian political operatives and others have formed an organization called "The Third Lantern" to investigate Issa and publicize their results.  The "Lantern" has been set up as a non-profit, and according to the Politico story there is no legal requirement to publicly disclose funding sources, which so far they have refused to do.  It sounds to me like they're almost begging some conservative organization to take up its own investigation of the "Lantern."  It's anybody's guess at this point who might be the moneybags behind all this--George Soros?  Bill Clinton? Kim Kardashian?  Who knows, this could even develop enough momentum to become a third rate Washington novel and a fourth rate movie, produced and directed by Sean Penn, with Charlie Sheen making a big-screen comeback as Issa.  I can already imagine myself not watching it.

As for Issa himself, he's not wasting any time either.  His committee has already begun writing subpoenas to obtain documents relating to the "Friends of Angelo" Countrywide mortgage scandal, which will no doubt generate all kinds of overdue anxiety among some current and former public officials, including Chris Dodd.  How sad.

Oh I'd Like To Be a GOP Leader, That Is What I'd Truly Like To Be

It seems the Republican leaders in Congress have a liking for getting hit over the head with two-by-fours. Fresh off of doing the right thing by repealing Obamacare in the House and forcing Senate Democrats to go on record against repeal, we have news that the Republicans in the House have yet again reverted to form by offering a budget bill that falls short of their wimpy pledge of cutting $100 billion dollars, and way short of Sen. Rand Paul's proposal to cut $500 billion.  Once again fiscal conservatives and Tea Partiers are incensed.  And out come the two-by-fours...

Two Republicans in the House Appropriations Committee voted against sending the bill to the floor, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Arizona's truth-telling hero Jeff Flake, arguing that the cuts are inadequate.  It's too bad there aren't more like them in the Congress.  I don't know anything about Cynthia Lummis, but I am familiar with Jeff Flake's battles over the years at getting Republicans to live up to their proclaimed ideals of smaller government and lower taxes. I think that if they had paid attention to his arguments in the last six years we'd be in much better shape now, not having to fight our way out of the leftist swamps Obama & Co. have driven us into.

Article of Faith

A couple of disclosures about who I am will probably be a good start for this post. First, when it comes to religion, I am about as serenely faithless as you can be this side of the foxhole.  I have my own ideas about what is or isn't plausible in the universe, but I certainly don't imagine I have any special insight into spiritual matters.  Second, I have absolutely no expertise in the history or politics of Egypt--and unless you are a highly-paid reporter for a major media outlet, you probably don't either.

Last week our hero made an appearance at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, where he made a point of restating the Christian faith that he and the first lady share.  He did sound a bit aggrieved that some have questioned his sincerity about this, but who knows if that's what he really meant.  My reaction to all this:  whatever.  If he's actually sincere in his statements about his beliefs, wonderful.  If instead this is part of a strategy to position himself in a better light with religious voters, I'd say, good luck with that.  I think that with a lot religious people, actions speak louder than words.

Meanwhile the turmoil in Egypt has continued, though Mubarak at this writing has survived longer than many thought he would after the first week of the crisis.  Apparently the Muslim Brotherhood, the grandaddy of radical Islamist organisations, has become a major player in this, and they may become a big part of the government once things have been worked out, if they don't completely take over.  Of course, as has been plain to see in the cases of Afghanistan and Iran, if you put Islamic radicals in charge of your country, you'll be on the fast track to increased poverty, oppression and misery, with no easy way out--especially not through the ballot box.

His pathetically weak reaction to the 2009 unrest in Iran was an early sign that Barack Obama is not to be counted on when it comes to standing up for anyone's freedom, and I can't recall anything about his presidency since to contradict that perception.  Somehow we ended up on the same side as Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro during the Honduras situation, and just lately we've found out that Obama has yet again stuck our old friends the Brits with another shiv, this time being the newly discovered requirement (in the newly enacted START treaty) that the United States report to Russia the number and identity of nuclear missiles that we sell to Britain.  His performance during the current Egyptian crisis has been true to form.  At first he was seemingly oblivious, then he called for all sides to calm down, and finally we have been left scratching our heads as to what the hell it is he actually wants to happen.

Well, as I said at the beginning of this post, I don't have many articles of faith that I subscribe to, but after two years of watching this administration, I think I have found one I can rely on:  No matter what Obama becomes involved in, he will make it worse.

What, Me Worry?

According to Robert Gibbs on the live feed from the White House press room, as of 1:30 (Mountain Time) President Obama hasn't spoken to the leaders of any other countries about the situation in Egypt. 

I'm wondering if Hillary made any calls around 3 am...

Changesobama

First, a little pop music history for you. Most of you are familiar with the work of David Bowie.  He has done some acting through the years, but he is of course best known for his music.  Aside from the music itself, there are some things that have distinguished his career, especially in his glory days. He has an unusual talent for self-promotion, and has been able to gather a large audience that will at least give a listen to whatever his latest musical phase might be.  Probably what most distinguishes him though has been his relentless pursuit of change in his musical styles and his image.  His records are always different than the ones before, sometimes very different. He also frequently revamps his appearance from year to year, to the point where it is a cliche by now to call him a "chameleon." Ideas about what has driven him in all this vary, but by following this strategy he has undeniably produced a large, diverse body of work, some of it very good.  

So there we have an example of one man's pursuit of "change."  Let's look at another.

The hero of this blog as a candidate somehow made his vacuous promises of  "hope and change" into a mantra for enough voters to sweep him to victory. Once in office he brought about a number of ill-advised changes, mainly in the form of massive spending and a bizarre foreign policy, to say nothing of healthcare "reform."  After two years of his administration, we now have continued high unemployment joined with various scary as hell economic threats looming on the horizon, including hyperinflation, the continued collapse of housing markets, and the coming bankruptcies of state and local governments.  The "hope" part of his presidential plank doesn't have much currency at this point, so apparently after the electoral rout by the Republicans in November, he and his advisors have decided to go with the "change" end of it for the time being.

For about the first month after the November elections Obama and his crowd were in a bit of a fog as to how to proceed, and they went from one misstep to another as they attempted to find an avenue of attack to reverse their electoral fortunes.  Somehow out of the aftermath of the murderous rampage in Tucson they've found a tactic on which they can all agree, which is to defame and marginalize anyone who disagrees with them as inflammatory or even inciting violence and murder.  In the last three weeks we've had a surge in employment among the speech police, to the point where I won't be surprised to see pending legislation somewhere banning martial imagery in political speech.

Obama's pose in all this has been "The Healer," quite a stretch for someone who only months ago was telling Latinos to "punish their enemies," and has advised his followers to "get in their faces" and "they bring a knife, we bring a gun."  Lately he's made a few noises about his strange new respect for Ronald Reagan, only to make a State of the Union speech that details his further plans for more, more, more and better expansions of the federal government and spending programs, including squandering untold amounts of money to blanket the country with high-speed railways, something so implausible it wouldn't even give a hobo a hard-on.

The White House has announced it will begin fundraising for the 2012 re-election bid in March or April, but to my eye this President has never stopped campaigning since he was elected.  I'd say that if he wants to bring about change, he could actually act like a serious President for once by putting the future of the country ahead of fulfilling his infantile, bankrupt leftist vision. If he did that, he might someday be able to retire with a record at least half as good as Ziggy Stardust or Heroes.

Clean Up Man

Darrell Issa is the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and he's promised to use his power to take an in-depth look into what exactly the Obama Administration has been up to behind the scenes.  In an October blog post here, I mentioned Issa's stated intention to do this once the new Congress was in session, and I speculated about the extent to which the Obama-friendly media might go towards distracting attention from his investigations by focusing attention on Issa himself.

Not exactly an amazing prediction there, but it seems that it is beginning to come true only weeks after the turnover of power in the House.  In the latest New Yorker magazine, Ryan Lizza gives us a profile of a congressman with quite a few admirable qualities and accomplishments, and also a bit of a past. Earlier this week I listened to an interview of Lizza on the Hugh Hewitt radio show.  Hewitt spoke highly of Lizza's journalistic abilities and general fairness, and in the interview Lizza did seem to me to be reasonable enough.

It turns out that in his younger days and on the way to making millions selling car alarms, Issa and his juvenile delinquent older brother got themselves into a few situations involving cars that attracted police attention; and he played a little hardball with his early business associates, part of which may have involved showing off a pistol.  Probably the worst of it is a fire at his car alarm factory that may have been a case of arson, in the aftermath of which there was a lot of bad blood and accusations between Issa and his former business associates (though no criminal charges were ever brought against any of them).  From what I read in the article, I don't see how it would have been in Issa's interest to burn the factory down, but all I really know about arson is what I've seen on shows like Kojak.

At this point all this is over 20 years in the past, and has been brought out before the voters in Issa's previous campaigns in California.  If I read Lizza's article correctly it seems the colorful part of Issa's life is now behind him, and he has in the last two decades been cleanly pursuing the life of a successful businessman and politician.  The Lizza article isn't an attack piece, but I suppose it does provide a road map for anyone who might want to attack Issa in the future if his inquiries do root out anything troublesome to the Administration.  Certainly the likes of Bill Maher or the harpies on The View will gladly seize on this sort of thing if Issa becomes controversial.

So we'll see soon enough what investigations Issa has chosen to undertake. What the reaction of the left and its sympathizers in the media will be is still up in the air.  If things heat up, I think Issa would be wise to expect anything up to and including the sort of fury we saw in the past two weeks after the shootings in Tucson.

A Tale of Two Dinners

Yesterday President Obama, recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, hosted an elaborate White House state dinner for Hu Jintao, current leader of China.  The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo, who has been imprisoned since 2009 by China for his activities in support of human rights. When Mr. Jintao visited President Bush in 2006 all he got for his trouble was lunch, which was widely seen as a symbolic comment by the President against China's unabated oppression of dissidents.

You can read the menu for the state dinner below.  I haven't been able to find any reports as to what was on Mr. Xiaobo's menu.

First Course:
D'Anjou Pear with Farmstead Goat Cheese
Fennel, Black Walnuts, and White Balsamic
Second Course:
Poached Maine Lobster
Orange Glaze Carrots and Black Trumpet Mushrooms
Wine: DuMol Chardonnay "Russian River" 2008
Lemon Sorbet
Main Course:
Dry Aged Rib Eye with Buttermilk Crisp Onions
Double Stuffed Potatoes and Creamed Spinach
Wine: Quilceda Creek Cabernet "Columbia Valley" 2005 
Dessert: Old Fashioned Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream

Tucson

We're all familiar with the pattern of events like the massacre in Tucson last weekend. A horrific incident takes place, and word goes out through the media that something is going on, but little else is known. Quickly there is an orgy of speculation about who did it and why, with many expressing conclusions that reflect personal biases, based on little or no evidence. Once the details become known, we hear no apologies or recanting from those who were so vocally wrong, and there seems to be little reflection on the dubious wisdom of drawing conclusions too early. Lately we have seen this in Mayor Bloomberg's pronouncement that the Times Square would-be bomber was probably a tea partier or someone opposed to Obamacare. As you'll remember, he was a Pakistani radical Islamist attempting to commit jihad. I haven't heard if anyone asked him what he thinks about Obamacare.

The aftermath of the shootings in Tucson last Saturday was a vivid example of this.  Within hours of first reports and well before anyone knew anything at all about the killer, many of our liberal friends were suddenly on a mission to declare that this was the result of vicious election year rhetoric and a culture of violence on the right.  The Tea Party, Republicans, gun rights advocates, and most of all, Sarah Palin, were virtual (if not actual) accomplices to the murder and injuries of the innocent victims in Tucson. The fact that the killer apparently is mentally ill, politically apathetic, and has been scaring the hell out of people for years didn't do much to quiet the accusations.

The rampage in Tucson was inhuman and disgusting like all such events are, and reactions to it have been understandably very emotional.  Given that, the high level of partisanship in much of the anger expressed is unusual and disturbing, even for incidents like this.  Other mass murders such as at Columbine or the University of Virginia have generated a certain amount of finger-pointing and theorizing that lays the blame somewhere, but in general the reaction to incidents like those has been horror and bewilderment, sometimes followed by serious efforts at understanding the problem.

What is going on here?  Is it because the main target of the killer is a Democratic Congresswoman?  Whatever her politics, Gabrielle Giffords clearly is someone who would make any parent proud.  She's young, newly married, and has much potential for her future.  Is it just normal sympathy for her and the other victims that is driving the reaction, or is there something else involved that is making this so politically explosive?

I think there is, unfortunately.  We all know that the Democrats, especially very liberal Democrats, were soundly rejected in the elections of November 2nd. Things have not been going well for them or for the President, and there is little on the horizon to make anyone think their prospects will improve. Some have offered ideas on how to improve this situation, among them Mark Halperin of Time Magazine:

No one wants the country to suffer another catastrophe. But when a struggling Bill Clinton was faced with the Oklahoma City bombing and a floundering George W. Bush was confronted by 9/11, they found their voices and a route to political revival.

One of the long-standing tactics of the left has been character assassination, for the purpose of tarnishing the reputations and credibility of their opponents so they will become timid and fearful of further abuse--essentially, to silence them. Being accused of bigotry is something that can easily throw anyone offstride, floundering in denials and attempts at damage control, and ultimately disarmed and defeated.  Claiming that a person or group has been complicit in enabling mass murder is as serious a charge as you could make in any political environment.  I doubt that we're going to find a "Journolist" style coordination of the message in all this, but I find it hard not to conclude that many on the left have seen this massacre as a tempting chance to wreak damage on their enemies.  And since Sarah Palin has apparently become Public Enemy #1 for many liberals, the attacks against her have been especially fierce--all without merit, to my eye.

I've found the actions of President Obama in all this to be unimpressive at best. He was for the most part silent on the matter until Wednesday, though he did make a sort of standard announcement of his sadness at the tragedy over the weekend.  As the controversy boiled over one of the questions that came to dominate the media was: Is this the moment for Obama to recover his balance? Can this be his Oklahoma?

Well, it sure as hell looks to me like he thinks it is.  In the speech he gave at the Wednesday memorial in Tucson he counseled us that we need to tone down the rhetoric and usher in a new era of civility.  Why?  Is he saying then that political speech was responsible for the killer's actions in Tucson? By what proof?  Will he hold his own party to these standards in the future? I would take him more seriously in this if he had bothered to take a moment to tell the nation that no one is responsible for these murders but the killer himself--not Sarah Palin, not Rush Limbaugh, not the Tea Party.  Instead I have my suspicions that he was perfectly content to let the accusations fly and do whatever damage could be done, setting the stage for his descent from Olympus to comfort his mortal subjects.

People express their emotions in different ways, and I suppose it could be that the way Obama feels most comfortable expressing his sadness about such a terrible event is to speak in front of 20,000 people wearing "O" t-shirts and applauding him after every paragraph.  Maybe, but I think what we really witnessed at the Tucson memorial on Wednesday was the first campaign stop for Obama's 2012 re-election bid.