Posts Tagged ‘obama’

Two thumbs up for Obama…

Posted: September 15, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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The first is for the hit on the Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan.

Navy Seals from US Special Operations Forces conducted a raid in southern Somalia on Monday that killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, one of 4 co-conspirators wanted in the 2002 bombing of an Israel owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, two senior U.S. military officials told Fox News.

Ten days ago President Obama signed the Execute Order for Nabhan, who since 2006 was on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists. He was also wanted for the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Kenya in 1998.

Even Dan Riehl is impressed.

The second is his signing an extension to the Cuba embargo:

In a largely symbolic act, on Sept. 11, President Barack Obama signed a one-year extension of the law used to impose the embargo on Cuba in the 1960s. The Act was due to expire on Sept. 15, which was when the signing was announced. The Miami Herald reported that no reason was given for the delay.

In one respect this actually helps Cuba in the sense that it preserves an excuse for their failure as a nation.

And it looks like he will maintain his spine in Afghanistan:

Obama seems to have learned the right lessons from the Iraq surge, which is not necessarily to send more troops, but that failure cannot be a policy.

The Democrats in Congress who declared Iraq lost and the surge sure to fail (including Obama himself at the time) cannot be trusted with national security now anymore so than in the past. The Democrats in Congress still are fighting George Bush. The rest of us are fighting against an ideology of death.

The supporters of the people who flew planes into the World Trade Center would do it again in a heartbeat if given the chance. At least Obama seems determined not to give them that chance, and for that he deserves our support.

I still say the War on Terror is the #1 issue, economy not withstanding. Even if all the nasty stuff he is pushing domestically passes if he continues to fight the wars to victory his presidency can be considered successful.

You can always repeal a law or even a constitutional amendment, you can’t unlose a war.

Obama a Jihadi Must read

Posted: September 10, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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I’m sorry just can’t make this stuff up:

So we now know the most popular read material among the Guantanamo prisoners. The three most requested book, followed up by a string of Muslim religious volumes, are apparently:

1) The Harry Potter novels

2) Cervantes’ Don Quixote

3) Barack Obama’s Dreams from my Father

Make of that what you will.

What the purpose of the speech was

Posted: September 10, 2009 by datechguy in baseball, opinion/news
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Ok before we say what the president’s speech was, lets talk about what it was not.

It was NOT an attempt to persuade the American people. I suspect they tuned out in droves, with 100 channels out there and Fox putting out regular programing, and plenty of baseball out there, not to mention millions of TV’s across the land devoted to day one of Beatles Rock Band I suspect only the junkies like me were watching.

It was NOT an attempt to bring Republicans on board, republicans in the house and senate are not only able to count votes in congress but can count votes in their districts and they know that their seats depend on their opposition to this bill.

This speech had one purpose, it was designed to give the democrats that Jane Hamsher might target cover to support some kind of plan, any plan to make sure he can say he passed “health care reform”. That is also the purpose of this CNN poll. I suspect they will push these results:

What was your overall reaction to President Obama’s speech tonight – very positive, somewhat
positive, somewhat negative or very negative?

Sept. 9, 2009
Very positive 56%
Somewhat positive 21%
Somewhat negative 12%
Very negative 9%
Both/mixed (vol.) 2%
No opinion 1%

Without emphasizing this polling sample:

18% of the respondents who participated in tonight’s survey
identified themselves as Republicans, 45% identified themselves
as Democrats, and 37% identified themselves as Independents.

Soooo less than 1 in 5 polled were republicans and almost 1 in 2 who were polled were democrats.

The president’s emphasizes were specifically aimed toward blue dogs, no additional costs, no illegal immigrants, no abortion. These promises were made to give those blue dogs cover.

I wouldn’t bet the farm on it from the reaction such as this:

I don’t know how others will read this, but I was looking for something to show the President understood his credibility with Democrats has been badly damaged by precisely this kind of ambiguity. The fact that he continues this mode means he and those around him don’t get it or they don’t think it matters.

The next week will tell.

Update: The Anchoress proves me right in spades.

Tepid political theater is no match for a good ballgame. And if I have a choice between looking at Nancy Pelosi or looking at Derek Jeter, who do you think I’m going to choose?

and she saw history being made.

BTW that represents hits as a Yankee. Wade Boggs, Rickey Henderson, Dave Winfield and Paul Warner are all members of the 3000 hit club and former Yankees. If Jeter gets to 3000 hits he will be the first person to get 3000 hits in a Yankee uniform.

Update 2: Hot air headlines notices the poll sample

Writers block, nothing to say

Posted: September 8, 2009 by datechguy in local stuff, opinion/news
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You know I been thinking and thinking and I can’t think of a think I feel like saying about anything else right now, but some other people have interesting things to say today.

VDH has some great comparisons between past the present concerning President Obama:

Once upon a time, Candidate Obama also assured skeptical voters that he would show us how to transcend race. He was no Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, who used skin color and white guilt for careerist purposes. The Reverend Wright, “typical white person,” Michelle Obama’s “downright mean country,” and the Pennsylvania “clingers” remark were mere aberrations of the exhausting campaign, hyped by the shameless right wing.

But soon the people got the attorney general of the United States calling them racial cowards and dismissing voter-intimidation suits against club-wielding Black Panthers who had swarmed voting booths. Cambridge police were relegated to Neanderthal profilers who stereotyped the innocent, such as Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. Environment czar Van Jones warned of white conspiracies to pollute the ghetto and bragged that blacks, unlike whites, did not go on public-school shooting sprees. The nation’s most powerful politicians, like House Ways and Means chairman Charlie Rangel and New York governor David Paterson, for some strange reason, were suddenly victims of racial bias, which alone explained their travails. All this was not supposed to happen in the age of Obama.

Jay Nordlinger expands:

They say that “hate” is rearing its head, and that President Obama and the Democrats are the victims of it. Let me make a couple of predictions: I predict that the chairman of the Republican National Committee will never say, “I hate the Democrats and everything they stand for. This [politics, basically] is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.”

Howard Dean said that about the GOP: “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for. . . .”

I predict that an editor of a conservative magazine will never write a piece called “The Case for Obama Hatred,” beginning, “I hate President Barack Obama.”

A New Republic editor did this, about Bush.

Byron York continues to show why his loss is painful for National Review:

The first words of the Times’ story on Jones’ resignation were, “In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration’s conservative critics. …” One news anchor suggested Jones was “the Republican right’s first scalp.” Other coverage called the Jones affair a victory for Glenn Beck, Fox News, right-wing blogs, and even Sarah Palin, who played no role in the matter.

If you throw in Rush Limbaugh, you have all the bogey-people of the conservative world. To some on the left, including some journalists, denying them a victory was a top priority, no matter what Van Jones had said and done.

There was a day, not too long ago, when the Times and other influential news organizations could kill a story — could deny the bad guys a win — simply by ignoring it. Sometimes they still try. But it just won’t work anymore.

Just one Minute highlighted a Firedog post that rolled my eyes:

Now he’s been thrown under the bus by the White House for signing his name to a petition expressing something that 35% of all Democrats believed as of 2007 — that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11. Well, that and calling Republicans “assholes.” I’m pretty sure that if you search through the histories of every single liberal leader at the CAF dinner that night, they have publicly said that and worse.

Jane in case you haven’t figured it out those facts are BAD things.

Speaking of Bad things:

And since the blogosphere is ranting and raving about Truthers right now, and how horrible and evil they are (a position with which I agree), let’s take a little look at who’s behind the Cincinnati Tea Party, shall we?

One of the main organizers, and a featured speaker, is Jason Rink…

…Lovely! A highly placed Ron Paulian, and an associate of racist paleocon Lew Rockwell!

And Rink is also … you guessed it … a Truther.

I’ve attended a tea party and agree with their goals but this type of thing is very bad and has to be nailed at once. If they become Ron Paul rallies this is a very bad thing and overrides the legit message.

and finally via Glenn an Ann Althouse commentator has the best take on it all:

“Ha, this will play out exactly as I thought it might. My son adores Obama – entirely from things he’s heard at school. By the end of this, he’s going to think of the dude as just one more boring windbag.”

Those guys are doing better than me.

Oh and there will be larger police presence at my kids school today due to the murders in town.

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