Posts Tagged ‘obama’

President Obama: Some observations

Posted: January 20, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Just back from running errands, putting away groceries etc. Some thoughts.

The line at the post office was long since the stamp machine was broken. I couldn’t help but notice the photos of then President Bush and VP Cheney in the entrance way. I don’t know if those came down at Noon but they were up as of 11:15 and some people in line didn’t like it.

Noticed that Biden was sworn in first with a flourish in the middle so technically for about 5 min Bush was president with Biden as his VP.

To answer the question I was at a traffic light eating a Big Mac.

John Roberts is a great jurist and a fine supreme court justice but COME ON how do you blow the oath of office? He won’t live that down in a hurry.

I stayed parked at Romano’s mkt listening to the speech, not bad some minor weak spots but not bad.

Thought the crowd might Boo when he thanked President Bush.

I noted that the snow drifts didn’t instantly melt nor did the ground open up and swallow the country whole. This must have been a great shock to two very different groups of people.

Watching the dinner on C-Span, boy Ted Kennedy has lost a ton of weight, dying tends to do that to you. I don’t much care for his politics but its sad to watch a person die like that.

The two local stations didn’t carry Rush’s critique or Rush at all. I would have been interesting to hear it in real time but I’ll have 4 years at least to hear and or Join in Rush’s Critique of President Obama.

Joe Biden’s wife is really good looking, I can’t help but like the man. He’s wrong on a lot but I bet o na personal level he can be counted on.

Has a mother-in-law ever moved into the White House?

Obama is greeting McCain and Gore. McCain doesn’t seem upset that he lost, you can still see resentment on Gore’s face. (Saw that on Kerry’s wife’s face to in the crowd.)

Watching him work the crowd he looks good and confident. I don’t care for the idolatry of his fans in the media but he SHOULD be confident he can make a difference. If he wasn’t he wouldn’t be going for the job.

Starting tomorrow the rubber hits the road we will now see if he can cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with a Herring govern.

If he can win the war on terror and turn the economy around he’ll be a winner in my book.

Please may this be wrong

Posted: January 20, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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They are reporting that George Mitchell may be named as a middle east envoy:

George Mitchell, the former Senate Democratic Majority Leader, is under serious consideration as the Middle East envoy for the Obama administration, Obama officials confirmed on Monday.

Mitchell is highly regarded as a negotiator for his work in the successful Northern Ireland peace process, and his selection would put a clear stamp on the Middle East as a top priority. In keeping with the tradition of presidential transitions, President-elect Barack Obama has said very little about the ongoing violence in Gaza in recent weeks, but is preparing to assume responsibility for foreign policy at noon on Tuesday.

This is a really bad idea right now. Not the choice of Mitchel per-se but the timing. Politically I can see why it would be done but Hamas will wrap him around their finger at this time. It will give them cover if they choose to launch rockets again since his main job will be to restrain Israel.

If it was given a month before this took place that would be a different story. Right now I think not.

Oh and BTW Israel actually had a 24 hour period without rockets. The Muqata stopped liveblogging Israellycool didn’t figuring that the ceasefire won’t hold we will see who is right.

Update: The Muqata has decided to start liveblogging again that might be a bad sign. They have this message for the new president:

Today is Barack Obama’s Presidential inauguration. Good Luck America. We hope that the Obama administration doesn’t start turning thumbscrews on Israel to negotiate with Palestinian terror organizations like Hamas and Fatah.

This might be a forlorn hope.

My Pledge

Posted: January 19, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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I’ve already mentioned Hollywood’s hollow presidential pledges and Andrew Breitbart’s superb answer (which you should read at once if you haven’t already).

Here is my pledge as one who held a McCain Palin sign at my polling place for hours on election day:

  • I pledge to support the president when I think he is right and oppose him when I think he is wrong.
  • I pledge to respect and support our troops, our country, its system and its honor in the same way I did during the Bush years.
  • I pledge to show the office of the presidency the respect it deserves.
  • I pledge to give Barak Obama the man the respect due to any man.
  • I pledge when his term is over to judge Obama place in history based on actual history not hysterics as our friends on the left are currently judging President Bush.

Any questions?

Update Huge Whoops dropped words in the sentence above now corrected it. Thanks to Renee for the catch, totally missed it. Must be the John Roberts in me.

Ve haf vays of keeping you silent!

Posted: January 19, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , , ,

We opined a couple of days ago about the hell and censorship and short sheeting of beds that the left suffered under the evil Bush-Hitler-Satan-Sauren et-al last week. You might remember this bit we quoted from the wall street journal:

As far as The Nation is concerned, just about every progressive bookstore, musician, theater troupe and mime is committed to fighting the stranglehold of censorship. Except, well, they don’t actually get censored

There was actually plenty of censorship going on during the Bush years, but not in America. I wrote about it often in the old HiWired blog before we went under. One example:

While the Net Neutrality debate continues in the USA, China shows the world how censorship is actually done:

On Monday authorities blocked the search engines of Sina.com and Sohu.com to try to upgrade their censorship capabilities, website staff said.

We all know how important upgrades are to a system.

She refused to specify what aspects of the search engine had been inspected. But on Tuesday Sina staff said the government was seeking to enhance the censorship capabilities to better preempt “unhealthy” content.

Yup; got to make sure those nasty words like Democracy and freedom are blocked properly…

…Back in the 80’s I had a co-worker whose family had been able to get out of the Soviet Union during the cold war. He had the gift of perspective that some lack.

Well we are still 15 hours away from the start of the Obama era and we are already seeing interesting stuff:

Exhibit A: Rap lyrics suddenly cleaned up can’t say boo to the CIA when it belongs to the one:

This politic bit of self-censorship is another, although I admit, I didn’t expect the agency that plays Snidely Whiplash in so many lefty fantasies to be absolved so soon. Then again, even by the standards of most Obama cultists, will.i.am’s always been unusually devout; if the avatar of Change asks you to suspend your criticism of the government in the interests of Hope, how do you tell him no

Not to worry commenter Scott explains all:

Has it occurred to anyone that will.i.am simply had the common sense to realize that under the circumstances, he needed to tone the song down? Or do people just assume he’s not that smart?

Posted By: Scott | January 19, 2009 at 04:59 PM

Right we all know how the left practiced decorum during the Bush years. Wasn’t there a disruption of a Rick Warren’s Martin Luther King Day Sermon just today?

Exhibit B Controversial items dropped from broadcasts and “speaker malfunctions“:

It turns out, Obama and his transition team didn’t want Robinson in the broadcast. His invocation was specifically referred to as part of the “pre-show” not included in the broadcast, which was again sold to HBO limiting the audience of it from the beginning.

That doesn’t even mention the fact that a large portion of the audience in attendance didn’t even hear the prayer because of a “speaker malfunction.” (From GetReligion.org contributer and Gannett reporter in Washington Mollie Ziegler: Friends who went down to the Lincoln Memorial reported that the microphone cut out just as Robinson began his prayer and only came back on as he said “Amen.”)

After all middle America that was fed pablum from the mainstream press is now paying attention. Can’t have them see his supporters saying the real stuff.

Exhibit C: Comedians can’t find anything funny about Obama:

Dan Gregor, the screenwriter, volunteered for the Obama campaign, working on phone banks with many comedians. “We felt, like, actual ownership of the political process in some way,” he said. “This felt like the right way to cap that off.”

That sounds awfully sincere. “It’s the death of comedy,” Mr. Gregor said. “We’ve entered the era of sincerity. That’s unfortunate because sincerity is pretty bland. But if it makes the world better, I’ll give up sarcasm.”

After all can’t bite the hand that they supported. Self censorship for political reasons. So much for the truth to power theory. After all they are too busy suddenly deciding that we are all Americans now and pledging to do all those good thing that they just couldn’t bring themselves to do with Bush in Office.

Andrew Breitbart answers them bluntly:

Remember this video: It is a instructive relic of the era of celebrity decadence and boutique anti-Republican activism under President Bush. It is a sickening display that they want fast and easy absolution for having comported themselves like ill-behaved children for eight difficult and war-torn years.

Good luck, President Obama. The rest of you can go to hell.

Exhibit D: The real thing officially announced by authorities:

Mason school officials said they are taking a proactive educational approach in advance of next week’s planned Inauguration Day activities.

“Inappropriate comments that may make other students, staff or families feel unwelcome or uncomfortable in school or on the bus will not be tolerated,” Superintendent Kevin Bright said in an e-mail sent to parents Monday, Jan. 12.

After all this is the one, not a conservative president or candidate. Was it only just 4 months ago that my son and I saw a school superintendent standing with students at a Palin appearance in NH as they screamed she was a bad mother because her daughter was unmarried and pregnant?

I suspect we will be seeing a lot of this stuff. And the media will entourage us conservatives to be quiet and go along.

Like Hell!