Home > obama
Projection
Sunday, October 18th, 2009 | Health Care, Media Behaving Badly | Permalink | 2 Comments |
Obama accused hundreds of thousands of Tea Partiers of being astroturf planted by the insurance and health care industries. Turns out it was Obama using astroturf health care outfits.
They concocted two groups — Americans for Stable Quality Care and its predecessor, Healthy Economy Now . . . . That’s as good an example of astroturfing as you’re going to find. There’s nothing illegal about it (unless campaign-finance laws were broken, for which we have seen no evidence), but it’s fundamentally dishonest. The White House orchestrated support, played to the support, and crowed about the support.
If our media wasn’t so ridiculously in the tank for Obama you’d hear about this on CNN instead of on blogs.
Obama is the wimpy reverse Wimpy
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | 1 Comment |
Reason - Shrewd, Gutsy, and Naive?:
To his legion of online supporters, Obama’s first foreign policy coup was caving to Russian pressure on missile defense, they claimed, in exchange for Moscow’s assistance in applying sanctions on Tehran. Brendan Nyhan argued that Obama didn’t “appease” Moscow because the move was “part of a quid pro quo in which Russia agreed to support tougher sanctions against Iran.” Ubiquitous liberal blogger Matt Yglesias scoffed that, contra Obama’s critics, in the “real world, Obama’s approach is working” by getting Russia behind the administration’s Iran policy. In Salon, Juan Cole argued that Obama “has been rewarded with greater Russian cooperativeness on Iran.” “The US right wing accused Obama of a failure of nerve,” Cole wrote, “But in fact his move was shrewd and gutsy, since he predisposed Russia to increased cooperation with the US in regard to Iran’s nuclear research program.”
Only now Russia is balking at supporting sanctions against Iran, who is their ally in trade, nuclear technology, and arms. Who didn’t see this coming? Other than the shameless Obama boosters above, I mean? From a post of mine in March, Obama throws Europe under the bus, prostrates himself to Russia:
In a three way cage match between Obama, Putin, and Ahmadinejad I’d put my money on anyone but Obama. They were in office before him and I’ll bet they’ll still be in office after he’s gone. All they have to do to come out ahead is to get the U.S. to provide concessions now in return for promised concessions that will come after Obama’s day is over. Ahmadinejad is already dreaming of being Iran’s Castro.
There was a Popeye character named Wimpy who promised “I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Like Putin and Ahmadinejad, Wimpy was conniving, but he wasn’t a fool. His deal gave him something immediate in exchange for a promise that he didn’t intend to keep.
Poor dumb Obama is giving away concrete concessions today in exchange for a promise of future cooperation from our enemies, a promise our enemies are naturally inclined to break. Obama is the reverse Wimpy who’s just wimpy.
Peace Prize - “Conservatives, you were right all along”
Monday, October 12th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | 2 Comments |
The Public Interest - The Public Interest:
I don’t care who’s president, and what party they belong to: no U.S. president has a list of accomplishments worthy of this award with less than a year in office under their belt. I’d say this even if that president personally discovered a cure for cancer during his first year.
The Nobel Committee cost itself a vast amount of legitimacy (the ultimate prize, according to the true reading of Niccolo Machiavelli’s 16th century work “the Prince”).
In the past decade I had justified to myself the reasons behind the Peace Prize award given to President Carter (he’s in my view one of the best ex-presidents we’ve ever had) and Al Gore (for playing the part of a necessary Cassandra on global warming). Now it’s evident the Nobel Committee is nothing more than a wing of the Democratic party. Awarding this so soon for so little measurable success on Obama’s part does nothing else but cheapen the award for future recipients.
So as much as it pains me to say it, conservatives, you were right all along about this one.
Did someone slip me a crazy pill or did Obama just win the Nobel Peace Prize?
Friday, October 9th, 2009 | Funny Ha-Ha, Politics | Permalink | No Comments |
Did you think it was April Fool’s Day when you heard Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize? I mean, he’s been president for less than a year and hasn’t done anything, right? Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo … same same.
I’m thinking maybe The Onion bought CNN in a leveraged buyout and is just pulling our leg. That at least would make sense.
Well, get ready to take some more crazy pills.
The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.
Two whole weeks? I reckon he deserves it for his journeyman work during his long tenure. It’s like a gold watch for the underperformer who’s put in 50 years of hard work. Sure, maybe Obama wasn’t a rockstar performer like Yassir Arafat or Henry Kissinger, but you’ve got to give it to him for sticking it out for 14 grueling days. For the peace.
Michelle Obama was quoted as saying, “For the first time in my adult life I’m proud of Norway.”
Bonus! Time magazine’s Mark Halperin rates Obama’s presidency to date. His grade? A-. Because unemployment is only 9.8% and the deficit is only $1.4 trillion. With those kind of numbers sainthood is right around the corner. Do you need some water to wash down those pills?
Obama throws the Dalai Lama under the bus
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | No Comments |
Roger L. Simon - Tibet: Now Obama loses the Richard Gere vote:
In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama’s summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month, according to diplomats, government officials and other sources familiar with the talks.
For the first time since 1991, the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington this week and not meet with the president. Since 1991, he has been here 10 times. Most times the meetings have been “drop-in” visits at the White House. The last time he was here, in 2007, however, George W. Bush became the first sitting president to meet with him publicly, at a ceremony at the Capitol in which he awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’s highest civilian award.
This is consistent with the Obama’s policy of ignoring Tibet because China told him to:
Thus for example, Clinton, on a first state visit to China, told reporters she would not say much about human rights or Tibet because “our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.” Amnesty International declared it was “shocked and extremely disappointed” by her words. Unfazed, Clinton moved on to Russia, where she glibly presented its dictator, Vladimir Putin, with a toy “reset button” even while the string of unsolved murders of independent journalists that has marked his reign continued to lengthen.
Meanwhile in the Middle East, Obama has cut off funding for an Iranian human rights organization, presumably so he won’t embarrass his buddies in the Iranian regime. I’m sure China and Iran will succumb to Obama’s withering charm offensive any minute now.
Claim: Bill Ayers admitted writing Obama’s “Dreams of My Father”
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | No Comments |
I say claim because it’s a conservative blogger who can’t substantiate it.
Examiner - Bill Ayers admits writing ‘Dreams’ to conservative blogger:
Ayers was in Washington, he told her, for a conference on education. “That’s what I do, education,” he said. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear about me… You know nothing about me.”
To which she responded, “I said, I know plenty–I’m from Chicago, a conservative blogger, and I’ll post this.” I bet his heart skipped a beat on that one.
But he didn’t scowl, and didn’t run off as he has been known to do. Instead, unprompted, he blurted out: “I wrote ‘Dreams From My Father… Michelle asked me to.” Then he added “And if you can prove it we can split the royalties.”
Anne responded, “Stop pulling my leg!”
But he repeated insistently, “I wrote it, the wording was similar [to Ayers’ other writing.]”
Anne responded, “I believe you probably heavily edited it.”
Ayers stated firmly, “I wrote it.”
We’ll see. If Ayers - the admitted terrorist bomber that Obama claimed was just “some guy in his neighborhood” - is the true author and is also the egomaniac the Examiner suggests I reckon he’ll make a public claim to being the author sooner or later.
Previously
CNN reduced to “fact-checking” SNL skits
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 | Media Behaving Badly | Permalink | No Comments |
It took Saturday Night Live 9 months to really criticize The Chosen One. Now CNN has a humorless “fact check” of that SNL skit. Their lips must have quivered in outrage watching a parody of Dear Leader.
Rich Hailey on Obama
Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | Quotes | Permalink | No Comments |
“Iran going nuclear, Afghanistan going to the Taliban, and the Olympics are going to Rio. Obama should try kicking ass instead of kissing it.”
– Rich Hailey on Facebook
Related: “The latest Fox News/Opinion Dymanic poll is chock-full of bad news for the president. But on foreign policy, the results are nothing short of stunning. On who they trust more to decide the next steps in Afghanistan, 66 percent say military commanders, while only 20 percent say the president. Even Democrats have more faith in the military commanders (by a 45 to 37 percent margin). On Iran, 69 percent say Obama has not been tough enough, including 55 percent of Democrats. Sixty-one percent favor a U.S. military action, if needed, to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Fifty-one percent think Obama apologizes for American too much.”
New Obama biography confirms Bill Ayers ghostwrote “Dreams of My Father”
Friday, September 25th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | No Comments |
I’ve blogged about Jack Cashill’s suggestion that Barrack Obama didn’t write his autobiography, Dreams of My Father. That it was instead written by admitted terrorist bomber Bill Ayers, a man Obama claims was just some guy in his neighborhood he barely knew. Cashill based his theory on similarities between Dreams and Ayers’ own biography, Fugitive Days. Now an Obama biographer says Ayers ghostwrote Dreams.
Ron Radosh - An Old Claim Arises Once More: Did Barack Obama Write ‘Dreams From My Father’?:
And now, Cashill picked up the new bestseller about Obama and his wife, Christopher Andersen’s Barack and Michelle:Portrait of an American Marriage. What he found simply threw him for a loop because, I suspect, it was the last thing Cashill expected to find. Andersen writes in his book that after Obama finally got a new contract to write a book, Michelle Obama suggested that her husband get advice “from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers.”
Obama had not as yet written anything. But he had taped interviews with family members. Andersen writes: “These oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers.” Look over those words. A man Obama said before the campaign — after conservative pundits continually raised the issue that he was friends with an “unrepentent terrorist” — that he knew only in passing as someone in the neighborhood. He was simply an acquaintance — not someone he had any real friendship or relationship with. Yet Obama evidently gave Ayers his notes, tapes, and the small amount that he had already written.
Finally, Christopher Andersen concludes: “In the end, Ayers’s contribution to Barack’s Dreams From My Father would be significant — so much so that the book’s language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similarity to Ayers’s own writing.”
Hat tip to Ace of Spades.
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act: The Next Generation
Monday, September 14th, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | 3 Comments |
During the Great Depression Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act:
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was a protectionist act signed by Herbert Hoover, which raised tariffs on 20,000 imported goods into the United States. Hoover signed the law into law on June 17, 1930. The act is thought to have been a major factor of causing the 1930’s Great Depression, and thus Herbert Hoover was largely blamed for the crisis.
Obama apparently thought the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act was such a awsum idea during the last depression that he decided to enact tariffs on Chinese steel pipe and tires. Ha ha, China! Take that, you stupid largest foreign holder of U.S. debt!
I want some of what Obama is smoking and/or snorting and/or injecting. A reasonable explanation for Obama’s decision is that he’s paying off the unions that help get him elected.
Obama will fight for you (except against lawyers, because they know Latin and Kung Fu)
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | Health Care, Politics | Permalink | No Comments |
CNSNews.com - Howard Dean: Democrats Left Tort Reform Out of Health Care Bill Because They Feared ‘Taking On’ Trial Lawyers
Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, a medical doctor who served as governor of Vermont, said at a town hall meeting on Tuesday night that Democrats in Congress did not include tort reform in the health care bill because they were fearful of “taking on” the trial lawyers.
“This is the answer from a doctor and a politician,” said Dean. “Here is why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that the more stuff you put in, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, and that is the plain and simple truth. Now, that’s the truth.”
Why did Flickr remove the Obama/Joker photos?
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 | Photos | Permalink | No Comments |
They claim it was due to copyright infringement, but anyone who might have a copyright claim swears they didn’t request the removal. Via Glenn.
Memo: Obama made backroom deal with pharma companies
Thursday, August 13th, 2009 | Health Care, Politics | Permalink | 5 Comments |
Via Ace of Spades, Huffington Post - Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma:
The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.
It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government’s leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada — and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.
In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: “Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion.”
Obama got cuts in exchange for not asking for more cuts. He also got the pharma companies to pledge $150 million in advertising to support the plan. (Which may well be illegal, as Ace notes.) That quid pro quoe seems like collusion against taxpayers and against citizens opposed to his healthcare plan, or even less generously like Obama was charging protection money to the pharma companies.
If this is happening before the government takeover of healthcare begins, imagine what’s going to happen later. We’ll see non-stop influence-peddling and influence-buying. That’s what happens when politicians control money and power.
UPDATE: Linda Douglas, the communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform, was on CNN August 13th. CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked her if the White House had struck a deal for pharma to cough up $150 million for advertising to support Obamacare. Douglass deflected the question. Blitzer immediately asked about the $150 million again, and Douglass again evaded the question. RealClearPolitics has the CNN transcript.
BLITZER: Did the White House make a secret deal with pharma, the pharmaceutical lobby here in Washington, that would limit how much cost reductions they would have going forward over the next 10 years?
DOUGLASS: Here is what — what happened. The White House, the pharmaceutical industry, the Senate Finance Committee agreed that the pharmaceutical industry would contribute $80 billion over 10 years — a very, very substantial sum of money that would lower the high cost of prescription drugs for seniors, who are paying exorbitant costs for prescription drugs. That was a crucial piece of this deal, as well as other steps that they would take to lower costs.
It’s an $80 billion agreement. That’s what the White House, the Senate Finance Committee and pharma have agreed to. And the final details are being worked out with the — with the Senate Finance Committee.
BLITZER: Did pharma, in exchange, make a promise of $150 million to pay for advertising to help the president’s plan go forward?
What — what you have, Wolf, is this deal that is $80 billion. And we are very pleased, obviously, that — that the pharmaceutical industry agrees with us, that there’s an urgent need for comprehensive health insurance reform that’s going to protect Americans from unfair rules, from rising costs. They agree with that. They’ve agreed with it from the beginning. That’s why they came to us and we worked out this agreement with the pharmaceutical industry. And they’re supporting health reform legislation. And that is good for the country.
BLITZER: So is part of the deal that they would support this legislation, go forward with $150 million in advertising?
DOUGLASS: You know, Wolf, part of the agreement here is that we’re all going to work together to bring comprehensive health reform. I mean, clearly, the pharmaceutical industry said we are going to support comprehensive health reform. And that’s what they’re doing.
Jim Treacher on the Gates/Crowley/Obama dustup
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 | Quotes | Permalink | No Comments |
“Obama is not a racist. He just judges people without having the facts, based on the color of their skin.”
– Jim Treacher
Making fun of Obama birthers
Thursday, July 30th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | 2 Comments |
There’s a fringe political movement of birthers: people who question whether Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and whether he’s a natural born citizen eligible to be president.
Don’t miss Robb Allen’s brilliant BREAKING NEWS!!!! Shocking proof that Obama was not born in Hawaii. Dan Rather wasn’t available for comment.
Random Nuclear Strikes asks the birthers, what are you going to do even if you’re right?
The campaign for John McCain, who faced similar challenges about his eligibility based on his being born overseas to military parents, investigated the claims about Obama. McCain’s team found the claims dubious and the people promoting them incompetent:
Continue reading the rest of this post right here ›››
The Obama-inspired gun-buying rush is over
Sunday, July 26th, 2009 | Guns | Permalink | 4 Comments |
Last November Barack Obama was elected president. Obama’s official platform included a renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and he was widely (and accurately) perceived as being anti-gun. His election set off a massive gun-buying spree that saw record numbers of gun purchases. That, in turn, led to empty shelves and inflated prices, not just for guns but for complementary goods such as ammunition.
Now people on The High Road are asking is the panic buying over? I think so. It peaked a month or two ago and now it seems to be going in the opposite direction. The best data I have for that is the Colt 6920, a popular AR-15 model.
Colt 6920 price history
A week before the 2008 election someone was selling thirty Colt 6920 AR-15s on Gunbroker for $1,200 a pop, which was a bit under the usual price. A few weeks after Obama won those same 6920s soared to $1,800 or more. (GunBroker’s auction search only goes back 90 days, but here ’s an April auction for $1,750.)
Since then I’ve been watching Clyde Armory, which lists Colt prices on its Web site. Over time I’ve seen the sticker drop to below $1,600, then to $1,449, then to $1,349 last week, and to $1,249 today. An identical gun on GunBroker sold for $1,050 a few weeks ago.
The Obama-inspired gun-buying panic is over. Everyone who wants an AR-15 rifle and can afford it has one, at least until another ban looms. (Well, except me, but I’m not all that fired up about buying an AR-15. I bought a lower and some 30 round magazines last fall as insurance against a ban, but I refused to pay those inflated prices for a complete gun.)
Glenn Reynolds on the Henry Louis Gates dustup
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 | Quotes | Permalink | No Comments |
“Perhaps, as we view this confrontation between an Harvard Prof who’s a friend of the President and a Cambridge cop, we can also have a national conversation about class?”
– Glenn Reynolds
Obama keeps healthcare execs’ names secret
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | No Comments |
LA Times - White House declines to disclose visits by health industry executives:
Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.
And yeah, I criticized Cheney for not revealing those energy execs, too. If you’ll recall Cheney eventually had to disclose the execs by court order.
Hat tip to Mark Peacock’s Facebook page.
CBO estimate of ObamaCare 2x expensive as generally reported
Thursday, July 16th, 2009 | Health Care | Permalink | No Comments |
A trillion dollars over 10 years? Nope.
Actually, it’s really a cool trillion over five years. Eyeball the graph Philip Klein posted this afternoon and admire the left’s sleight of hand. They’re using a 10-year timeline to create the illusion that the program costs $100 billion a year or so. In fact, it’ll be more than $200 billion once it gets going, which won’t happen until 2014, and that’s assuming that the cost projections aren’t wildly over-optimistic the way every other projection they’ve made this year has turned out to be. In fact, the trillion-dollar figure doesn’t even account for all expenses; as MKH notes, the CBO has yet to compute “administrative costs” of implementing the program or the effect it’ll have on other areas of federal spending. Still, give The One credit for consistency: Whether it’s borrowing from future generations to pay for the stimulus or hiding the costs of his health-care boondoggle by backloading them, he’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
Scary hockeystick graph of the Obamacare cost nightmare found here.
LATER: Obama healthcare bill would outlaw private insurance:
It didn’t take long to run into an “uh-oh” moment when reading the House’s “health care for all Americans” bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee. It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage.
Hat tip to Instapundit.
Obama’s diplomacy paradox: criticize allies and praise enemies
Monday, July 13th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | No Comments |
Forbes - Africa Vs. The Arab World - Why does Obama treat the two so differently?:
Speaking in Ghana on Saturday President Obama lectured Africans on local repression, corruption, brutality, good governance and accountability. The startling contrast to his June speech in Cairo was revealing. Stroking Muslim and Arab nations has become the hallmark of Obama’s foreign policy. In Egypt, he chose not to utter the words “terrorism” or “genocide.” In Egypt, there was nothing “brutal” he could conjure up, no “corruption” and no “repression”.
In Ghana, with a 70% Christian population, he mentioned “good governance” seven times and added direct calls upon his audience to “make change from the bottom up.” He praised “people taking control of their destiny” and pressed “young people” to “hold your leaders accountable.” He made no such calls for action by the people of Arab states–despite the fact that not a single Arab country is “free,” according to the latest Freedom House global survey.
Hat tip to Gabriel Malor.
Previously - Obama supports a nutty govt., this time in Honduras
New presidential license plate: ASSMAN
Friday, July 10th, 2009 | News | Permalink | No Comments |
Obama checks out 16 year old’s derriere. Drudge is pushing the story this morning, but Ace of Spades had it yesterday, with other photos of the president enjoying the view from the south: “He’s got all the tact of a country-born wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon.”
ETA: Preston Taylor Holmes beat me to the ASSMAN joke.
Maybe I should re-write The Beatles’ “Tax Man” to “Ass Man.”
John Stewart: That’s Great, Now Fix the Economy
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | No Comments |
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| That’s Great Now Fix the Economy | ||||
|
||||
“Barack Obama is an accomplished chef of Pakistani cuisine and reads the great Urdu poets — now he needs to fix the economy.”
Best summary yet of the Honduras situation
Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | Media Behaving Badly, News | Permalink | No Comments |
Macon.com - Who cares about Honduras?:
The Hondurans are so concerned about potential despots, that Article 239 of their constitution states that any president who proposes extending his term in office is automatically removed from office. Article 313 of the Honduran constitution allows its Supreme Court to deputize the Honduran military to carry out its orders, including removing politicians from office who seek to extend a president’s term.
Ignoring the constitution, President Manuel Zelaya, a man less popular in Honduras than George Bush was when he left office in this country, ordered a “non-binding” referendum be put to the voters on extending his stay in office.
Glenn Garvin wrote in the Miami Herald, “After the Honduran supreme court ruled that only the country’s congress could call such an election, Zelaya ordered the army to help him stage it anyway. … When the head of the armed forces, acting on orders from the supreme court, refused, Zelaya fired him, then led a mob to break into a military base where the ballots were stored.”
The Honduran Supreme Court, congress, attorney general and members of Zelaya’s cabinet opposed his move as unconstitutional. The supreme court ordered the military to remove Zelaya from office. Honduras has no impeachment process as we know it.
Yet Obama, who felt he couldn’t meddle in the affairs of another country when the Iranian mullahs stole an election, is calling for Zelaya’s return, has broken off military relations with Honduras, and is part of an effort to have Honduras ejected from the Organization of American States.
Better still, compare the description of events in Honduras above with NPR’s coverage:
She explains that in this case a civilian government took power, as opposed to a military government, and plans elections. Nunez adds Zelaya was an unpopular leader anyway. She charges he had violated the constitution by planning a referendum that would have been a first step toward extending his rule. She says he had to be stopped.
American diplomats told NPR that the United States strongly disagrees with that interpretation. So much so, that the ousted president’s wife and son are staying in the ambassador’s residence in Tegucigalpa.
The U.S. says the non-binding referendum would have posed little threat to the constitutional order. And those diplomats say there’s little evidence that Zelaya had violated the constitution.
The Honduran supreme court found that Zelaya’s move violated the constitution. You would scarcely know that from the NPR piece, since it’s stated as a mere claim by one person, rather than as a factual matter of public record. Yet there’s “little evidence” he violated his country’s constitution, according to the U.S. diplomats NPR quoted in the story. NPR is supporting Obama’s narrative by ignoring the facts.
Hat tip to Instapundit for the Macon.com link.
Obama’s “Abandonment of Democracy”
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | 2 Comments |
Wall Street Journal - The Abandonment of Democracy:
[E]ver since Jimmy Carter spoke about human rights in his 1977 inaugural address and created a new infrastructure to give bureaucratic meaning to his words, the advancement of human rights has been one of the consistent objectives of America’s diplomats and an occasional one of its soldiers.
This tradition has been ruptured by the Obama administration. The new president signaled his intent on the eve of his inauguration, when he told editors of the Washington Post that democracy was less important than “freedom from want and freedom from fear. If people aren’t secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay.”
If free health care and government cheese are more important than freedom, you can always move to Cuba. Or get arrested and go to prison where you can get three hots and a cot plus a prison dentist. And no, it doesn’t sound good to me, either.
Following his meeting with the Organization of American states in April, Obama told a press conference: “What we showed here is that we can make progress when we’re willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long.” His secretary of state echoed the thought: “Let’s put ideology aside,” she said. “That is so yesterday.”
This begs the question of exactly which ideologies are passé or whether all are equally so. Communism, which so roiled the twentieth century, is certainly on its deathbed. Democracy, on the other hand, has flourished and spread in recent decades as never before, to the point where more than sixty percent of the world’s governments are chosen in bona fide elections. To lump together these “ideologies” is gratuitously to belittle democracy.
Thus for example, Clinton, on a first state visit to China, told reporters she would not say much about human rights or Tibet because “our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.” Amnesty International declared it was “shocked and extremely disappointed” by her words. Unfazed, Clinton moved on to Russia, where she glibly presented its dictator, Vladimir Putin, with a toy “reset button” even while the string of unsolved murders of independent journalists that has marked his reign continued to lengthen.
The Kissinger era was marked by realpolitik, a term of art that indicates a surrender to bad governments that had to be negotiated with, particularly if they would form alliances of opportunity with the United States and against the Soviet Union. The catchphrase was that a dictator might be an asshole, but he was our asshole, a cynical attitude that led to the U.S. supporting tinpot dictators as long as they promised to be on our side and not Russia’s side.
Realism was paralleled by detente - a policy that the USSR would never, ever go away and would always be with us - a policy that would be proven wrong in the Reagan-Bush era.
The second Bush era was typified by neoconservatism - the idea that the U.S. should be in the business of spreading democracy rather than suppressing it in the name of expedient political alliances. History will determine if it was succesful or not, but it represents an improvement of ideological commitment over supporting and/or negotiating with some banana republic’s Supreme Dictator for Life du jour in the hope his country wouldn’t go Commie. ETA: or worse, propping up some banana republic’s Supreme Dictator for Life du jour because he is a Commie, which is more Obama’s MO.
Obama supports a nutty govt., this time in Honduras
Monday, June 29th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | No Comments |
From The Corner:
While the world wasn’t looking, Honduras’s left-leaning Pres. Manuel “Mel” Zelaya tried to trash every legal institution in his country In an attempt to open the door for re-election, Zelaya demanded a popular referendum. (Honduran presidents can’t be re-elected, so Mel needs to change the constitution). When every institution from the Electoral Tribunal to the Supreme Court said no, “Mad” Mel stepped on the gas.
On Wednesday, he drove straight for the military, demanding they support his personal poll. The head of the armed forces objected to carrying out the illegal order. Zelaya fired him.
The next day, the Supreme Court ruled the firing unjustified. Zelaya fired back: “We will not obey the Supreme Court. The court which only imparts justice for the powerful, the rich, and the bankers, only causes problems for democracy.”
Wouldn’t Want to Meddle in the Internal Affairs of Other Countries . . . except, of course, Israel and now . . . Honduras. A military coup appears to have ousted the Leftist government of Honduras, so the Obama administration has wasted no time joining Hugo Chàvez in condemning it. Further details here.
Right, because Obama sets one impossibly high standard for U.S allies and an unbelievably low standard for governments with an avowed hatred of the U.S. The standard isn’t based on the foreign government’s actual conduct. The standard is based on the government’s relations with the U.S. Perversely, Obama rewards governments that hate us or even threaten us. Needless to say, this is not a rational basis for U.S. foreign policy.
Search
Google Custom Search
Latest Comments
- Bleg: how to cut WordPress’s CPU usage? (8 comments)
- Test your color IQ (11 comments)
- My maternal grandparents’ wedding announcement from 1913 (1 comments)
- State govt. debt: Mass. highest, Tenn. lowest (2 comments)
- GDP grew at 3.5% - the recession is over! (1 comments)
A Word from Our Sponsors
Subscribe
RSS Posts Feed
Archives by Date
Archives by Category
- A&E
- Best Of
- Blogging
- Comic Books
- Dancing Baloney
- Dear Lazyweb
- E-commerce
- East Tennessee
- Economics
- Environment
- European Union
- Family Tree - Jones Side
- Family Tree - Moore Side
- Food & Drink
- Funny Ha-Ha
- Guns
- Health Care
- Holidays
- Home Life
- Johnia Berry
- Macular Degeneration
- Media Behaving Badly
- Middle East
- Misc
- Municipal Wi-Fi
- News
- Nifty
- Photos
- Political Survival Kit
- Politics
- Polls
- Population
- PSAs
- Quotes
- Rocky Top Brigade
- Science
- Social Security
- Star Wars
- Tech
- The Usual Suspects
- Travel
- True Crime
- Word of the Day
Blu-Ray DVDs
