Posts Tagged ‘obama’

“There is no press now”

Posted: February 2, 2009 by datechguy in arthur vs carter, opinion/news
Tags: ,

Victor David Hansen nails it with a column today President Hamlet:

Sometime around mid-2007, during its coverage of the Democratic primary, it ceased to be investigatory and chose to become an adulatory megaphone. A news story on the front pages of the New York Times or Washington Post, or a piece aired on NPR, or a feature in Time or Newsweek, is simply a disguised op-ed on yet another underappreciated moral or intellectual gift of Barack Obama. He has transcended the traditional doctrinaire support for liberal governance and become a sort of talisman that offers exemption to our elite from all sorts of guilt and anguish in matters ranging from race at home to multicultural sensitivity abroad.

The whole article is something Hanson bottom lines the choice for the president:

In the next year Obama can continue to run against George Bush and whine about the “mess” that “they” left him as he tries to turn the U.S. economy and government into copies of those in Spain and Greece. He can print money and label as “stimulus” a pork plan that is designed to empower Democratic constituencies at the price of leaving generations to come with decades of debt. He can use his formidable powers of rhetoric to talk of ethical progress while he allows Clintonian ethical regress. He can hope-and-change the world—and learn to his dismay that its thugs take such magnanimity for weakness to be ridiculed and indecision to be exploited. And he can end up a mediocre president who counts on historians to whitewash his presidency just as the media once ensured it.

Or President Obama can decline to be worshiped and instead stop the monstrous borrowing, unsustainable debt, and endless expansion of an increasingly incompetent government. And as solace, he can remember that his idol, Lincoln, was as hated by his contemporaries as he was worshiped by posterity—and that the latter is often predicated on the former.

The either or is the meat of the Carter/Arthur watch but I’m reminded of the Book I Claudius . Claudius goes on the how Caligula could have been Caligula the good , or Caligula the wise, but concludes of course if he was that type of person he wouldn’t have survived to rule. Same thing.

Update: Exhibit B at newsbusters and Michael Bates Blog.

Morning Joe: Joe is back and on fire

Posted: February 2, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , ,

Joe is back and hitting with all cylinders on the bill.

6:40 a.m. Mika reads Frank Rich strip saying that the Republicans are as clueless as Bush on Katrina. Bad timing for that example Frank.

6:44 a.m. Out comes the Obamameter and a promise broken rating on sunlight before signing, no word on rendition yet.

6:46 a.m. Mika face when asking how birth control fits on stimulus really is funny

7:07 a.m. Joe & Mika are agreeing on tax credits for people who don’t pay taxes. They’re again’em.

7:14 a.m. It’s up to Max Baucus on Tommy the tax boy. If he decides to let it go God help the democrats in 2010.

7:45 a.m. Mika is going through the list with Crammer they are really hitting this.

7:48 a.m. Aren’t lower house prices good for people to buy houses?

7:58 a.m. Podesta says Daschle will and should survive. Americans should hope it isn’t true, Parisian republicans hope it is.

7:59 a.m. Question we are giving tax breaks to people who don’t pay taxes: Podesta: “They pay other taxes. The Earned Income Credit was a Reagan creation.” This is the new talking point apparently.

8:02 a.m. Is the president willing to change the bill to attract Republicans? He is willing to talk but won’t make changes in fundamentals of the bill.

8:07 a.m. Crammer: Anything you do on energy is a joke without a Gas tax, Mika agrees. The very suggestion gives me gas.

8:15 a.m. It hits me that this is likely one of the only challenging interviews that Podesta is going to see outside of Fox.

8:41 a.m. Erin Burnett is pointing out that Japan did this stuff and it didn’t work

8:56 a.m. Mika promises more on the bill on the radio, I’ll be listening.

I have maintained in the past that although you have to do what you have to do in the war on terror it is important to question what is being done to keep yourself honest.

I have questioned the left’s insistence that Gitmo has needed to be closed and the left has misrepresented the place over and over.

I also maintain Waterboarding is not torture, but I can see why some have said so.

The use of prisons in other western countries is a little more iffy since we may not have control but the various western countries have rules to keep things in check.

Now of all the tactics used Rendition is the most iffy, its the one that leaves me the most queasy. Of the left’s arguments this one was the best of the batch. And Obama has decided to keep it and expand it:

Barack Obama exploited that outrage when he promised Hope and ChangeTM, and the Left squealed with joy over the Brave New Obama World in national security. Now they’ll have to squeal again as Obama has had a sudden revelation as President that renditions are more necessary than ever, if the CIA can’t hold these subjects at Gitmo or its own secret sites:

Moe Lane called out leftist bloggers on this but the most amazing thing is reported at Dissenting justice where he calls out Human Rights Watch:

Now that the L.A. Times reports that rendition will continue during the Obama administration, Human Rights Watch has apparently altered its position. According to Tom Malinowski, the organization’s “Washington advocacy director,” the risk of torture and other abuses does not mandate the prophylactic cessation of rendition. Instead (quoting the L.A. Times)

I haven’t seen such a double standard by a “human rights group” since…well every time any of em deal with Israel.

I give full marks to that blog on the left for doing so and being honest enough to be outraged. I actually liked the outrage on the left over Gitmo because although false it produced an irrational fear of the place to the newly captured that might have gotten them talking but now the choices have been reduced to bad ones.

Don’t you wonder what Obama saw in the briefings that changed his mind on this? I’ll give the last word to the Captain:

Frankly, I think the US does a better job of treating its detainees than anywhere a rendition program would deliver them, but without a Gitmo or CIA holding site, that’s the only way to ensure that we can get any intelligence that will protect the US. I’m not surprised that Obama has reached the same conclusion, now that he has the responsibility to keep the nation secure from foreign attack. It’s amazing how clarifying that responsibility can be, and Obama at least must have a little more comprehension of what Bush went through the last seven years.

Bingo!

Update: Whoa! My first Instalance and I didn’t even notice it. Hi. Take a look around, particularly if you are looking for remote tech support. or if you are a Fan of Morning Joe which I tend to liveblog a bit. See the shock of Iranian rejection and learn the ways of the internet scam. I write a bit about Religion, Israel, my current job search and a tad bit of baseball.

Oh and if you are a Doctor Who fan make sure you check out this blog. It isn’t mine but its awesome.

Update 2: Missed the link to Captain Ed at hotair, thanks to commenter Paul for catching it.

Update 3: I guess he gets an Arthur vote for this. Running total Jimmy Carter 6 Chester Arthur 3. An explanation of the Arthur Carter watch here.

Update 4: A disagreement in comments continues here.

You might think that I’m outraged over President Obama’s letter to the president of Iran.

You would be wrong.

Do I think it will help? Likely not. Do I think the Iranians will use it as a propaganda tool? Likely they will. Do I think that Iran will use this to demand concessions from us? Sure. Do I think that they will use any contacts to stall us while they build their bomb? Without question.

Then why no outrage?

Listen if anyone at all thinks that the president was going to take strong decisive action to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities you have been smoking something, in fact his actions suggest he won’t even support democratic movements in Iran. This is not even slightly a surprise and I don’t get outraged over stuff I already know.

Bush Derangement Syndrome means that the only way we can convince our liberal friends that this stuff won’t work is to let it be tried and fail. It still won’t convince some of them, in fact some may actually want Iran to have the bomb, but it will convince some and until reasonable people on the left get a chance to try things their way they won’t consider the alternative.

And hey anything is possible, maybe it works out.

I’m counting on Israel on this one. They know what is coming down the pike and they aren’t going to consent to become a glowing spot on the Mediterranean Sea just to make the rest of the world happy.

Hey we had an election, you pays your money and you takes your chances.