Posts Tagged ‘double standards’

The cult of Obama: out censoring the censor

Posted: February 20, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Dan Greenberg uses that term to describe President Obama:

In his day, Ronald Reagan was called “the teflon President” by his detractors, because they felt that criticisms never stuck to him, but somehow always slid off into oblivion. Well, we are now witnessing the birth of a new concept, that of “the SuperTeflon President”, whose very existence repels all criticisms before they even come near him, and vaporizes them out of popular consciousness. It is a remarkable phenomenon.

It’s not super teflon its something worse:

Item via Baseball Crank: Reporters complaining about any critique of the president:

Mike Lupica had a column this morning weeping bitter tears over his shock and hurt that people are criticizing Barack Obama. Amazing, when you think about it, that the President of the United States should receive criticism. It’s such a novel concept.

This was probably the funniest line in the piece:

Once, 100 days was the mythical grace period for a new President. This one doesn’t get five minutes. In the process, he finds out that Washington is even lousier and meaner with partisanship than he knew before he got there.

You would almost think, from reading this, that Obama really did just get there. Not that he’d been a United States Senator the last four years

Item via Big Hollywood : Comics unable to joke about him:

Alex Rodriguez (Letterman, Leno, Kimmel), the recession (Letterman, Leno, Ferguson) and the octuplets (Letterman, Leno, Kimmel) are the most popular topics right now. Meanwhile, the shows still struggle to find a handle from which to grab the new administration.

Leno hit one fairly squarely: He said that Congress commemorated George Washington throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac by tossing $700 billion down a rat hole. Conan and Kimmel only told one political joke. Granted Conan is closing down “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” (his last show is this Friday), and much of the show was devoted to running old clips, tearing up the set, and saying goodbye to the masturbating bear. Jimmy Kimmel said that Obama thanked Republicans for their support on the stimulus package by sending a jar of peanuts to each of them — and this is how many of the Late Nights seem to be approaching the administration right now, by making jokes about Republicans trying to ruin it all.

Item: via Gateway Pundit: A person with an anti-obama gets special treatment in OKC:

…don’t criticize Dear Leader or you may get arrested.

An Oklahoma man was pulled over for taping an anti-Obama sign on his vehicle.
Later, the secret service searched the man’s home because of his blasphemous sign against His High Holiness.

Item via Instapundit: Criticism of the president disappears from stories:

So I linked to a story on high school students skeptical about Obama’s stimulus speech. Now the story has the same headline, but the quotes are missing, replaced by a bunch of feelgood talk about how excited everyone was to have Obama in town. But you can find the original story here. And here’s the Google Cache. Some difference, huh? I emailed the reporter, Hayley Ringle, to ask what happened. (Bumped).

UPDATE: The Google Cache now shows the new story. No response to my email yet. I saved screenshots, though, and of course there’s the Drudge capture.

Item via Michelle Malkin: Protests in Seattle, Denver and Mesa against the president drawing hundreds and thousands of people but no media:

My syndicated column reports on the growing, grass-roots movement against porkulus/spending binges/the entitlement culture from Seattle to Denver to Mesa, Arizona and beyond. Why aren’t you hearing about it in the MSM? Because it doesn’t fit the victim mentality/government savior narrative. We don’t exist, remember?

Well, more of you non-existent rebels will be gathering in Overland Park, Kansas tomorrow, Saturday, at Rep. Dennis Moore’s office (D-KS) at 10 am.

What is most scary is the mentality behind this. It reminds me of a line from one of C. S. Forester’s Hornblower books Flying Colours

Hornblower bowed, but as the Colonel remained unbending he stiffened to attention. He could recognize that type of man at once—the servant of a tyrant, and in close personal association with him, modeling his conduct not on the tyrant’s but on what he fancied should be the correct behaviour of a tyrant, far out-Heroding Herod

I can’t really see the difference between this cult of personality, the Legionaries of Christ one or the Fr. Kennedy in Australia.

How long can this be kept up? Well how long did the media pretend that the John Edwards story didn’t exist?

Some risks are more worthy than others

Posted: February 18, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: ,

Liz Fairley comments on Australians who choose to live in areas vulnerable to fire:

…to inhabit the bush, especially as climate change takes hold, is to make yourself fuel.

Certainly, we should feel compassion. And certainly, there should be regulations. Quite probably there should be more assiduous back-burning. But to blame green policies – to cull already endangered shark species, to reduce tree cover – is to blame nature for human folly.

Liam Sheahan might disagree she goes on:

Some have to live in bush, or swim at dusk. But bush suburbs and forested hamlets are voluntary, designed for the illusion of paradise on earth. It works, too, like any bubble, until it doesn’t.

Tim Blair contrasts her suggestion to avoid one voluntary life threatening risk to the numbers on a different one:

So they should live elsewhere; make different “lifestyle choices”. Farrelly is dismissive of tactics (“Cut the trees! Burn the undergrowth!”) that would reduce the risk of living in the country, preferring that people simply live elsewhere, contrary to their preferences.

Yet more than 6700 people died of AIDS in Australia from the beginning of the epidemic until mid-2007 – a far greater number than were killed in bushfires during the same period. Imagine if Farrelly had written in 1989 that those at risk of AIDS should stop being gay (“To inhabit the bath houses, especially as AIDS takes hold, is to make yourself HIV positive”). Instead, sensibly, medical and social solutions were sought (“Kill the virus! Use the condoms!”) in order to preserve human freedom and human lives.

Funny how numbers can put some things in perspective.

Obama the Nixonian

Posted: February 15, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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You know it took decades for Nixon to get his reputation as a liar. This president is managing it pretty quick.

You might recall candidate Obama promised to use public funding. That was a lie.

The congress had voted to allow 48 hours before the vote took place, democrats refused, a lie:

Instapundit reminds us of the promise to not write legislation behind closed doors. A lie.

Hotair reminds us that President Obama promised that there would be a 5 day comment period before signing a bill. He is planning to sign it tomorrow. If he does it will again be a lie.

And don’t forget the rendition discussion, a matter important to the left.

Don’t forget the Caterpillar plant double speak either.

Nick Guariglia asks why anyone is the slightest bit surprised:

What could anyone have possibly expected from a young, overtly leftist Chicago upstart who had accomplished precisely nothing of significance throughout his short career — and yet still promised the world, and more, to his loyal adherents?

Consider his campaign pledges: It wasn’t too long ago that Obama promised to “tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over.” Ah, the corporate lobbyist, every candidate’s favorite whipping boy. “They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president,” Barack once swore to his sea of idolizing worshipers.

That was then; this is now. President Obama has allowed seventeen exceptions to the no-lobbyist rule. And remember that “sunlight before signing” pledge, giving citizens enough time to read a bill — and offer their opinions on it — before it is signed into law? Well, that’s gone to the wayside, too.

I forgot the lobbyist promise, his conclusion:

During last year’s campaign, critics of Barack Obama contended he was too inexperienced, too leftist, and in a sense, too good to be true. He was, we observed, just another politician — in fact, one uniquely entrenched with Chicago corruption and archaic tax-and-spend philosophies. In other words, a less noble Jimmy Carter.

My take: I think you could see who this guy was a mile away and people just didn’t want to see it. So as always we get the government we deserve.

UPDATE: Sweetness and Light lists 7 broken promises.

$600 won’t help, $676 will however

Posted: February 12, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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What is the difference between stimulus that won’t make a difference and stimulus that will save the economy? Apparently $76 bucks a year.

Via the Anchoress Michelle Obama July 11th 2008

“You’re getting $600. What can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything. But maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn’t pay down every bill every month..

Barack’s approach is that the short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good. And it may even feel good that first month when you get that check. And then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings.”

Apparently this is no longer the case:

Here is our 800 billion dollar stimulus mostly-spending bill we must see passed, and we must gratefully accept as the only possible solution to our “catastrophic” problems and our growing malaise. The ONLY solution.

This other one, over here, brought up by another Democrat? Ignored. Just ignored.

I just have one thing to ask:

What does Michelle Obama suggest we do – how we will stimulate the economy with our $13?

The $13 a week adds up to $676 a year. There are a lot of people who don’t think this will help, I don’t think it will hurt, but I think a lump sum would have a bigger economic effect.

It’s amazing what $76 dollars will do for an economy. Michelle Malkin notices this too and asks:

What sayeth Mrs. Obama now?

Apparently she was against this before she was for it.

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