U.S. Changes Course on Eastern European Nuclear-Missile Shield

U.S. Changes Course on Eastern European Nuclear-Missile Shield
Obama Says Redesign to Strengthen America's Defenses
By PETER SPIEGEL

WASHINGTON -- The White House is scrapping a Bush-era plan for an Eastern European missile-defense shield, saying a redesigned defensive system would be cheaper, quicker and more effective against the threat from Iranian missiles.

"After an extensive process, I have approved the unanimous recommendations of my secretary of defense and my joint chiefs of staff to strengthen America's defenses against ballistic-missile attack," President Barack Obama said in an announcement Thursday morning.

"Our new missile defense architecture in Europe will provide stronger, smarter and swifter defenses of American forces and America's allies," Mr. Obama said. "It is more comprehensive than the previous program, it deploys capabilities that are proven and cost effective, and it sustains and builds upon our commitment to protect the U.S. homeland."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the decision to abandon the Bush administration's plans came about because of a change in the U.S. perception of the threat posed by Iran.

Mr. Gates said intelligence experts concluded the short- and medium-range missiles were "developing more rapidly than previously projected" in Iran. The findings are a major reversal from the Bush administration, which pushed aggressively to begin construction of the Eastern European system before leaving office in January.

Mr. Gates said the previous administration's plans will be changed, moving away from the installation of a missile-defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland in the near future. He said a second phase to begin in 2015 could result in missiles being placed on land in Eastern Europe.

Russia on Thursday welcomed the news but said it saw no reason to offer concessions in return. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened last November to station tactical Iskander missiles on Poland's border if the U.S. system was deployed.

"The Bush plans on the missile defense as we knew them until now were nothing more than a provocation of security in the European region," said Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in a phone interview.

Jan Fischer, the Czech Republic interim prime minister, said he got a phone call from Mr. Obama just after midnight Thursday about the plans.

The Polish government doesn't plan to make an immediate statement on its Thursday meeting with U.S. officials on the missile shield, Foreign Ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski said.

The Bush administration proposed the European-based system to counter the perceived threat of Iran's developing a nuclear weapon that could be placed atop its increasingly sophisticated missiles. There is widespread disagreement over the progress of Iran's nuclear program toward developing such a weapon, but miniaturizing nuclear weapons for use on long-range missiles is one of the most difficult technological hurdles for an aspiring nuclear nation.

The Bush plan infuriated the Kremlin, which argued the system was a potential threat to its own intercontinental ballistic missiles. U.S. officials repeatedly insisted the location and limited scale of the system -- a radar site in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland -- posed no threat to Russian strategic arms.

The Obama administration's assessment concludes that U.S. allies in Europe, including NATO members, face a more immediate threat from Iran's short- and medium-range missiles and is ordering a shift toward the development of regional missile defenses for the Continent, according to people familiar with the matter. Such systems would be far less controversial.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the U.S. decision is a positive step and would improve the involvement of all NATO nations. Mr. Fogh Rasmussen said he had talks with the U.S. top envoy to the alliance on Thursday morning, adding the full alliance would be debriefed later in the day.

Critics of the shift are bound to view it as a gesture to win Russian cooperation with U.S.-led efforts to seek new economic sanctions on Iran if Tehran doesn't abandon its nuclear program. Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has opposed efforts to impose fresh sanctions on Tehran.

Security Council members, which include the U.S. and Russia, will meet with Iranian negotiators on Oct. 1 to discuss Iran's nuclear program.

Current and former U.S. officials briefed on the assessment's findings said the administration was expected to leave open the option of restarting the Polish and Czech system if Iran makes advances in its long-range missiles in the future.



The decision to shelve the defense system is all but certain to raise alarms in Eastern Europe, where officials have expressed concerns that the White House's effort to "reset" relations with Moscow would come at the expense of American allies in the former Soviet bloc. "The Poles are nervous," said a senior U.S. military official.

Earlier, a Polish official said his government wouldn't "speculate" on administration decisions regarding missile defense but said "we expect the U.S. will abide by its commitments" to cooperate with Poland militarily in areas beyond the missile-defense program.

Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he expected the Obama administration to drop the missile-defense plans. He said that Moscow wouldn't view the move as a concession but rather a reversal of a mistaken Bush-era policy.
Still, the decision is likely to be seen in Russia as a victory for the Kremlin. Mr. Medvedev will meet with Mr. Obama at next week's meetings of the U.N. General Assembly and Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations.

Although a center-right government in Prague supported the Bush missile-defense plan when it was first proposed, the Czech Republic is now run by a caretaker government. A Czech official said his government was concerned an announcement by the White House on the missile-defense program could influence coming elections and has urged a delay. But the Obama administration has decided to keep to its original timetable.

European analysts said the administration would be forced to work hard to convince both sides the decision wasn't made to curry favor with Moscow and, instead, relied only on the program's technical merits and analysis of Iran's missile capabilities.

"There are two audiences: the Russians and the various European countries," said Sarah Mendelson, a Russia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The task is: How do they cut through the conspiracy theories in Moscow?"

The Obama administration has been careful to characterize its review as a technical assessment of the threat posed by the Iranian regime, as well as the costs and capabilities of a ground-based antimissile system to complement the two already operating in Alaska and central California. Those West Coast sites are meant to defend against North Korean missiles.

The administration has also debated offering Poland and the Czech Republic alternative programs to reassure the two NATO members that the U.S. remains committed to their defense.

Poland, in particular, has lobbied the White House to deploy Patriot missile batteries -- the U.S. Army's primary battlefield missile-defense system -- manned by American troops as an alternative.

Although Polish officials supported the Bush plan, U.S. officials said they had indicated their primary desire was getting U.S. military personnel on Polish soil. Gen. Carter Hamm, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, said Washington has begun talks with Polish officials about starting to rotate Europe-based American Patriot units into Poland for month-long training tours as a first step toward a more permanent presence.

"My position has been: Let's get started as soon as we can with the training rotations, while the longer-term stationing...is decided between the two governments," Gen. Hamm said in an interview.

For several years, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency has been pushing for breaking ground in Poland and the Czech Republic, arguing that construction must begin so the system would be in place to counter Tehran's emerging long-range-missile program, which intelligence assessments determined would produce an effective rocket by about 2015.

But in recent months, several prominent experts have questioned that timetable. A study by Russian and U.S. scientists published in May by the East-West Institute, an international think tank, played down the progress of Iran's long-range-missile program. In addition, Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an expert in missile defense and space-based weapons, said in a speech last month that long-range capabilities of both Iran and North Korea "are not there yet."

"We believed that the emergence of the intercontinental ballistic missile would come much faster than it did," Gen. Cartwright said. "The reality is, it has not come as fast as we thought it would come."

It is not an assessment that is shared universally. Eric Edelman, who oversaw missile-defense issues at the Pentagon as undersecretary of defense for policy in the Bush administration, said intelligence reports he reviewed were more troubling.

"Maybe something really dramatic changed between Jan. 16 and now in terms of what the Iranians are doing with their missile system, but I don't think so," Mr. Edelman said, referring to his last day in office.

There is far more consensus on Iran's ability to develop its short- and medium-range missiles, and the administration review is expected to recommend a shift in focus toward European defenses against those threats. Such a program would be developed closely with NATO.

—Marc Champion in Moscow and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
________________________________________________

So... It looks like all the work we did on D-Day and all the preparations we accomplished for world peace since, have been thrown away...

Iran can simply move it's missle bases to the NorthWest corner of it's country and easily reach Israel and most of Eastern Europe...

Obama wants the US to be 'buddies' with Russia and Iran... NOT with Israel or emerging European Democracies...

EDIT:
Eric Cantor, the Republican Whip had this to say...

“I am extremely disappointed to learn about the Administration’s decision to abandon an important foreign policy commitment to two of our key allies. Scrapping our missile defense effort in Europe has severe consequences for our diplomatic relations and weakens our national security. Our allies, especially Poland and the Czech Republic, deserve better and our people deserve smarter and safer."

“The Administration’s misguided action will cause our eastern European allies to question our commitment to their people and security, while heightening concerns in Israel. The European deployment is the only system that can protect both the U.S. and Europe against the common threat of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them. I will work to overturn this wrong-headed policy.”

The Power & Danger of Iconography

9/12 Was A Transformative Event

9/12 Was A Transformative Event
From American Thinker
By Clarice Feldman & Rosslyn Smith

Sometimes an event occurs which is transformative in a way that everyone who sees it or participates in it instantly is aware of. Yesterday's(Sat.)demonstration in Washington DC is one of those rare happenings in my opinion.

The Daily Mail said 2 million Americans participated. (See below)

My friend Charlie Martin extrapolated from the pictures an attendance figure of 2.3 million. Here is a time lapse of the parade portion of the event so you can get a feel for yourself of the size of the crowd. Whatever the actual number it is sure to be seriously underestimated by the Obama-besotted members of the press corps who are also likely to misrepresent the participants and their views.

But as a participant, I want you to know the attendees were wonderful people, civil and polite. They showed their respect for the Capitol and the event by leaving no mess behind when they were through, in marked contrast to the inauguration and the usual left wing demonstrations here.

The feeling I have is that this is a wretched political class, as full of itself as it is idea-less and talentless and the people know it. They are disgusted enough with the new American elitism to travel on their own dime by any means available to come here to let Congress and the President know that they will use every legal means at their disposal to overthrow them. And overthrowing them is precisely what they intend to do.

Congress is up for election in 2010. They can rely on the grossly inaccurate press accounts if they choose. But I'm telling them it would be a major error to do so.
- Clarice Feldman


We are witnessing a very rare phenomenon, the genuine, broad based spontaneous political movement with no visible charismatic leaders.

Right after the stimulus bill passed, I got an e-mail from a woman I had once met at a local Republican event inviting me to participate in a small noontime demonstration in nearby Asheville. A couple dozen people showed up with banners and American flags to protest the spending. The person who had invited me was a concerned housewife. When the local Republican Party showed up with refreshments, they were, for the most part coolly received.

On April 15, I was at a much, much larger demonstration, organized in part by the same housewife, a veterinarian and a former sixties radical. Perhaps as many as 1,500+ people showed up, again with homemade signs, American flags and now a large smattering of Gadsden flags. A few local Republican elected officials showed up, but they were at the side of the crowd, not on the speaker's platform. We the People were the main event.

All around the nation, elected officials and pundits did not quite know what to make of the "Tea Parties" held on April 15. Pajama's Media estimated that the total participation in large metropolitan areas and small county seats all around the nation may have been in the hundreds of thousands.

On the Fourth of July, many of those who had organized the April 15 events, organized a further round of demonstrations. Later in July and throughout the August Congressional recess, further small demonstrations were held outside the local offices of Representatives and Senators. When some Democrats packed their town halls with handpicked supporters, there were often demonstrations being held outside.

I was not able to attend the September 12 rally in Washington, DC. I watched it on TV with several dozen other supporters at a local rally for those who could not make the trip. As I review the accounts and looks at the images several facts are apparent. Estimates as to crowd size vary by so much as to be meaningless, but the attendance certainly exceeded the organizer's expectations of perhaps 50,000. So many people showed up that they had to start marching early. The staging area simply couldn't contain them.

Once again, they brought their own signs, their own flags and their own unique attitude. They came from many states, many as from as far away as Texas and California. The crowd also contained a great many immigrants who are upset that America seems ready to adopt the failed policies they had been trying to escape. At its peak, it was wall to wall people. (Watch time lapse video, here).

Most significantly of all, those in attendance had not relied in any way on members of the current political class to get them there, nor had they showed up because their livelihood would be in jeopardy had they not agreed to demonstrate, as is the union way.

As I read the many reports on the Internet, I think this one, from Mark Hemmingway at NRO, says it best

"I asked one guy, who came up from South Carolina with 160 people on three buses, who put his trip together. He laughed and said, 'My neighbor.'"

Washington, DC appeared to be a most neighborly place on Saturday.

The political class often operates on the assumption that only those people who constantly tell other how smart they are actually are have brains. That if you don't relish life in the artificial confines of the District of Columbia and haven't come by to kiss their rings, you therefore must be lacking in the skills needed to govern.

Last year a young Governor who had been more concerned with raising her family than polishing her resume with the right schools and the right career path let the political class know that she was not in the least impressed with their inside the beltway criteria for leadership. On Saturday a whole lot of people just like her showed up on their own time and their own dime to say it is time to end business as usual in the fetid, corrupt swamp that is Washington, DC.

Everyone in the political class, journalists, consultants, elected Democrats and Republicans alike, needs to know this: Those countless little-known people who established the local e-mail lists, organized first one, then two, then three or more chartered buses, held sign-making parties and packed box lunches, are not going to go away any time soon. Continue to enact legislation that we cannot afford and they will be back, perhaps in even greater numbers.

The Democrats need to realize these demonstrators are beholden to no one. The Republicans need to realize that they still are not trusted. Why should they be when each day seems to have another story of compromise on core principals and going along to get along with spending their children cannot afford?

While the media is concentrating on the anti-Obama aspects of the demonstration, there was also a message to the Republican establishment: Lead, follow, or get out of our way.
- Rosslyn Smith
_________________________

A New America Is Being Formed...
But WITHOUT OBAMA and his Marxist friends!

CONSERVATISM Is Alive & Well!

Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama's spending in 'tea-party' demonstration

Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama's spending in 'tea-party' demonstration...
From The UK Mail Online

Up to two million people marched to the U.S. Capitol today, carrying signs with slogans such as "Obamacare makes me sick" as they protested the president's health care plan and what they say is out-of-control spending.
The line of protesters spread across Pennsylvania Avenue for blocks, all the way to the capitol, according to the Washington Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

People were chanting "enough, enough" and "We the People." Others yelled "You lie, you lie!" and "Pelosi has to go," referring to California congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.


Demonstrators waved U.S. flags and held signs reading "Go Green Recycle Congress" and "I'm Not Your ATM." Men wore colonial costumes as they listened to speakers who warned of "judgment day" - Election Day 2010.

Richard Brigle, 57, a Vietnam War veteran and former Teamster, came from Michigan. He said health care needs to be reformed - but not according to President Barack Obama's plan.

"My grandkids are going to be paying for this. It's going to cost too much money that we don't have," he said while marching, bracing himself with a wooden cane as he walked.

FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House of Representatives Majority Leader Dick Armey, organized several groups from across the country for what they billed as a "March on Washington."
Organizers say they built on momentum from the April "tea party" demonstrations held nationwide to protest tax policies, along with growing resentment over the economic stimulus packages and bank bailouts.


Many protesters said they paid their own way to the event - an ethic they believe should be applied to the government.

They say unchecked spending on things like a government-run health insurance option could increase inflation and lead to economic ruin.

Terri Hall, 45, of Florida, said she felt compelled to become political for the first time this year because she was upset by government spending.



"Our government has lost sight of the powers they were granted," she said. She added that the deficit spending was out of control, and said she thought it was putting the country at risk.

Anna Hayes, 58, a nurse from Fairfax County, stood on the Mall in 1981 for Reagan's inauguration. "The same people were celebrating freedom," she said. "The president was fighting for the people then. I remember those years very well and fondly."
Saying she was worried about "Obamacare," Hayes explained: "This is the first rally I've been to that demonstrates against something, the first in my life. I just couldn't stay home anymore."





Like countless others at the rally, Joan Wright, 78, of Ocean Pines, Md., sounded angry. "I'm not taking this crap anymore," said Wright, who came by bus to Washington with 150 like-minded residents of Maryland's Eastern Shore. "I don't like the health-care [plan]. I don't like the czars. And I don't like the elitists telling us what we should do or eat."

Republican lawmakers also supported the rally.
"Republicans, Democrats and independents are stepping up and demanding we put our fiscal house in order," Rep. Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said.

"I think the overriding message after years of borrowing, spending and bailouts is enough is enough."



Other sponsors of the rally include the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform and the Ayn Rand Center for Individuals Rights.

Recent polls illustrate how difficult recent weeks have been for a president who, besides tackling health care, has been battling to end a devastatingly deep recession.

Fifty percent approve and 49 percent disapprove of the overall job he is doing as president, compared to July, when those approving his performance clearly outnumbered those who were unhappy with it, 55 percent to 42 percent.

Just 42 percent approve of the president's work on the high-profile health issue.
The poll was taken over five days just before Obama's speech to Congress. That speech reflected Obama's determination to push ahead despite growing obstacles.

"I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than to improve it," Obama said on Wednesday night. "I won't stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are.

"If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we'll call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution."



Prior to Obama's speech before Congress U.S. Capitol Police arrested a man they say tried to get into a secure area near the Capitol with a gun in his car as President Barack Obama was speaking.

Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said Thursday that 28-year-old Joshua Bowman of suburban Falls Church, Virginia, was arrested around 8 p.m. Wednesday when Obama was due to speak.


___________________________

Let's Hope Washington Got The Message!

Anti-Government Protests Draws Tens of Thousands to D.C.

Anti-Government Protests Draws Tens of Thousands to D.C.
By Emma Brown, James Hohmann and Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 12, 2009 5:11 PM

Tens of thousands of conservative protesters crowded outside the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, a massive demonstration aimed at stopping what organizers called the over-expansion of the federal government under the Obama administration.

"Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored," declared Andrew Moylan, head of government affairs for the National Taxpayer Union, urging protesters to call their representatives. "You're being ignored today by the media and some politicians."

The crowd -- loud, rambunctious and sprawling -- gathered at the foot of the Capitol after a march along Pennsyvania Avenue from Freedom Plaza. Invocations of God and former President Reagan by an array of speakers drew loud cheers, echoing across the Mall. On a windy, overcast afternoon, hundreds of yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags flapped in the breeze, mingled with U.S. and Texas state flags.

"We own the dome," the crowd chanted loudly, pointing at the Capitol.

About 30,000 people registered online for the march, according to one of the rally's sponsors, FreedomWorks, a Washington-based group headed by former House majority leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.). FreedomWorks and other sponsors, including Tea Party Patriots and ResistNet, comprise a loose coalition of conservative groups that helped organize several health-care and anti-tax rallies during the spring and summer.

The crowd surrounded the Capitol Reflecting Pool, spilling across Third Street and onto the Mall. The sound system was inadequate to the throng; speakers on stage, at the Capitol's West Front, were too distant to be intelligible to anyone near the edges of the rally.

"You will not spend the money of our children and our grandchildren to feed an overstuffed government," Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) said of the Obama administration, drawing loud cheers from the throng.

"Our history is decorated by those who endured the burden of defending freedom," Price said. "Now a new generation of patriots has emerged. You are those patriots."

The protesters descended on Washington with a long list of grievances against a government that many complained is racing toward socialism. "Health care is not listed anywhere in the Constitution," said Brian Burnell, 45, who owns an insurance company on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

"How Is That Hopey Changey Thing Workin' Out For Ya?" his placard read.

"You want socialism?" said Susan Clark, a District resident marching with a bullhorn. "Go to Russa!"

Participants in the demonstration spanned the spectrum of conservative anger at Obama, including opponents of his tax, spending and health-care plans and protesters who question Obama's U.S. citizenship and liken his administration to the Nazi regime. By 11 a.m., the route between Freedom Plaza and the Capitol was a sea of demonstrators chanting "USA!" and carrying signs such as, "Taxed enough already," "The audacity of dope" and, "Czars belong in Russia."

Most signs were handmade: "Socialism is UnAmerican," "King George Didn't Listen Either!" "Terrorists Won't Destroy America, Congress Will!" "The American Dream R.I.P."

Many protesters carried the now-familiar poster of Obama made up to look like the Joker, captioned "Socialism." One man's sign read, "Having government manage your health care is like having Michael Vick watch your dog."

Another sentiment: "Cash for Clunkers! Trade in your congressman!"

"We're all endangered!" shouted a passerby, Dave Rue, 67, a retired Mobil Oil employee who had traveled from New Jersey. "We're endangered because they're pushing socialism on us."

Some came to protest what they see as government interference with gun ownership. Shaun Bryant, 40, a leadership trainer, was among eight people who flew in from Salt Lake City. They fashioned a sign with a drawing of an AR-15 assault rifle and the words "We came unarmed from Montana and Utah . . . this time!"

At the Federal Triangle Metro stop, demonstrators emerged from packed trains and broke into a rendition of "God Bless America" as they rode escalators to the street.

"Nobody's standing up for us, so we have to stand up for ourselves," said Phil Chancey, 66, who drove to the District from Clinton, Tenn., for the rally. The sign he carried, deriding the president's health-care reform plan, read, "Obamacare Makes Me Sick."

Debbie Wilson, 51, of Apollo Beach, Fla., flew to Washington last Sunday to make a week out of the protest. She drove to colonial Williamsburg in a rented car.

"We want our country to go back to the roots of doing what our Founding Fathers wanted us to do -- less government in every aspect of my life," she said. "We walked the streets of Williamsburg, and it felt like we were learning how to be a patriot."

Dozens of signs mentioned Rep. Joe Wilson, (R-S.C.), who jeered at Obama during his health-care speech to Congress on Wednesday night. Dee Meredith, 62 of Callao, Va., said she had never heard of Wilson before he shouted at the president, "You lie!" At the rally, Meredith waved a placard: "Thank You Joe Wilson."

"We're the forgotten people, and he's given us a voice," she said.

When Armey, in his address to the crowd, referred to Obama having pledged to uphold the Constitution, the protesters shouted at the president in absentia: "Liar! Liar!"

Jeff Mapps, 29, a stagehand and labor union member from South Philadelphia, left home about 6 a.m. to come to the protest. He said he hadn't been involved in previous Tea Party demonstrations, but he watches Fox News host Glenn Beck "all the time" and he wanted to be a part of something he thinks will be historic. Beck has been drumming up support for the march.

Holding a sign that said "Preserve, Protect, Defend" on a Red Line Metro train packed with conservative activists, Mapps fretted over a "blatant disregard for the Constitution."

"We've been watching it for six to eight months," he said. "It was finally an opportunity to get involved. It's been boiling over . . . It's not just about health care. It's about so much more than that."

Anna Hayes, 58, a nurse from Fairfax County, stood on the Mall in 1981 for Reagan's inauguration. "The same people were celebrating freedom," she said. "The president was fighting for the people then. I remember those years very well and fondly."

Saying she was worried about "Obamacare," Hayes said: "This is the first rally I've been to that demonstrates against something, the first in my life. I just couldn't stay home anymore."

Like countless others at the rally, Joan Wright, 78, of Ocean Pines, Md., sounded angry. "I'm not taking this crap anymore," said Wright, who came by bus to Washington with 150 like-minded residents of Maryland's Eastern Shore. "I don't like the health-care [plan]. I don't like the czars. And I don't like the elitists telling us what we should do or eat."

________________

I wonder if anybody was listening?

Obama, the Mortal

Obama, the Mortal
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 4, 2009

What happened to President Obama?
His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford (post-Nixon pardon)?

The conventional wisdom is that Obama made a tactical mistake by farming out his agenda to Congress and allowing himself to be pulled left by the doctrinaire liberals of the Democratic congressional leadership.

But the idea of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pulling Obama left is quite ridiculous. Where do you think he came from, this friend of Chávista ex-terrorist William Ayers, of PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, of racialist inciter Jeremiah Wright?

But forget the character witnesses.
Just look at Obama's behavior as president, beginning with his first address to Congress. Unbidden, unforced and unpushed by the congressional leadership, Obama gave his most deeply felt vision of America, delivering the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president. In American politics, you can't get more left than that speech and still be on the playing field.

In a center-right country, that was problem enough. Obama then compounded it by vastly misreading his mandate. He assumed it was personal. This, after winning by a mere seven points in a year of true economic catastrophe, of an extraordinarily unpopular Republican incumbent, and of a politically weak and unsteady opponent. Nonetheless, Obama imagined that, as Fouad Ajami so brilliantly observed, he had won the kind of banana-republic plebiscite that grants caudillo-like authority to remake everything in one's own image.

Accordingly, Obama unveiled his plans for a grand makeover of the American system, animating that vision by enacting measure after measure that greatly enlarged state power, government spending and national debt. Not surprisingly, these measures engendered powerful popular skepticism that burst into tea-party town-hall resistance.

Obama's reaction to that resistance made things worse. Obama fancies himself tribune of the people, spokesman for the grass roots, harbinger of a new kind of politics from below that would upset the established lobbyist special-interest order of Washington.

Yet faced with protests from a real grass-roots movement, his party and his supporters called it a mob -- misinformed, misled, irrational, angry, unhinged, bordering on racist.

All this while the administration was cutting backroom deals with every manner of special interest -- from drug companies to auto unions to doctors -- in which favors worth billions were quietly and opaquely exchanged.

"Get out of the way" and "don't do a lot of talking," the great bipartisan scolded opponents whom he blamed for creating the "mess" from which he is merely trying to save us. If only they could see. So with boundless confidence in his own persuasiveness, Obama undertook a summer campaign to enlighten the masses by addressing substantive objections to his reforms.

Things got worse still. With answers so slippery and implausible and, well, fishy, he began jeopardizing the most fundamental asset of any new president -- trust.

You can't say that the system is totally broken and in need of radical reconstruction, but nothing will change for you; that Medicare is bankrupting the country, but $500 billion in cuts will have no effect on care; that you will expand coverage while reducing deficits -- and not inspire incredulity and mistrust.

When ordinary citizens understand they are being played for fools, they bristle.

After a disastrous summer -- mistaking his mandate, believing his press, centralizing power, governing left, disdaining citizens for (of all things) organizing -- Obama is in trouble.

Let's be clear: This is a fall, not a collapse. He's not been repudiated or even defeated. He will likely regroup and pass some version of health insurance reform that will restore some of his clout and popularity.

But what has occurred -- irreversibly -- is this: He's become ordinary. The spell is broken. The charismatic conjurer of 2008 has shed his magic. He's regressed to the mean, tellingly expressed in poll numbers hovering at 50 percent.

For a man who only recently bred a cult, ordinariness is a great burden, and for his acolytes, a crushing disappointment. Obama has become a politician like others. And like other flailing presidents, he will try to salvage a cherished reform -- and his own standing -- with yet another prime-time speech.

But for the first time since election night in Grant Park, he will appear in the most unfamiliar of guises -- mere mortal, a treacherous transformation to which a man of Obama's supreme self-regard may never adapt.
_________________________________________________________

Charles, I do so much reading your columns!
Thank you for being such an articulate voice of reason!

Why Parents Don't Trust the Educator-in-Chief and His Comrades

Why Parents Don't Trust the Educator-in-Chief and His Comrades
By Michelle Malkin

They think we're crazy.
"They" are the sneering defenders of Barack Obama who can't fathom the backlash against the president's nationwide speech to schoolchildren next Tuesday. "We" are parents with eyes wide open to the potential for politicized abuse in America's classrooms.

Ask moms and dads in Farmington, Utah, who discovered this week that their children sat through a Hollywood propaganda video promoting the cult of Obama. In the clip, a parade of entertainers vow to flush their toilets less, buy hybrid vehicles, end poverty and world hunger, and commit to "service" for "change." Actress Demi Moore leads the glitterati in a collective promise "to be a servant to our president." Musician Anthony Kiedis pledges "to be of service to Barack Obama."

The campaign commercial crescendos with the stars and starlets asking their audience: "What's your pledge?"

This same "Do Something" ethos infected the U.S. Department of Education teachers guides accompanying the announcement of Obama's speech -- until late Wednesday, that is, when the White House removed some of the activist language exhorting students to come up with ways to "help the president." Education Secretary Arne Duncan had disseminated the material directly to principals across the country -- circumventing elected school board members and superintendents now facing neighborhood revolts.

O's bureaucrats can whitewash offending language from the Sept. 8 speech-related documents, but they can't remove the taint of left-wing radicalism that informs Obama and his education mentors. A spokesman maintained that the speech is "about the value of education and the importance of staying in school as part of his effort to dramatically cut the dropout rate." But the historical subtext is far less innocent.

Obama served with Weather Underground terrorist and neighbor Bill Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge education initiative. Downplaying academic achievement in favor of left-wing radical activism in the public schools is rooted in Ayers' pedagogical philosophy. Obama served as the program's first chairman of the board, while Ayers steered its curricular policy.

The two oversaw grants to welfare rights enterprise ACORN and to avowed communist Michael Klonsky -- a close pal of Ayers and member of the militant Students for a Democratic Society. SDS served as a precursor to the violent Weather Underground organization.

As investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz reported, Klonsky and Ayers teamed up on the so-called "small schools movement" to steer schoolchildren away from core academics to left-wing politicking on issues of "inequity, war and violence."

A cadre of like-minded educators and national service administrators across the country share the same core commitment to transforming themselves from imparters of knowledge to transformers of society.

The "change" agenda trains students to think only about what they should do for Obama -- and rarely to contemplate how his powers and ambitions should be limited and restrained.

Ayers preached his education-as-"social justice" agenda to his "comrades" at the World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela, three years ago:

"This is my fourth visit to Venezuela, each time at the invitation of my comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice. Luis has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President (Hugo) Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I've come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle -- I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane."

Ayers continued:

"I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position -- and from that day until this I've thought of myself as a teacher, but I've also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: You can change your life -- whoever you are, wherever you've been, whatever you've done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: We must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!"

This is why informed parents do not trust the Educator-in-Chief and his "comrades." You can take Obama from the radicals in Chicago.
But you can't take the Chicago radicalism out of Obama.
________________________

If I had children in school, I would insist that they stay home Tuesday... and I have advised my kin that do have children in school to do so.

This charlatan is far too skilled in the dark arts of neuro-linguistic programming and The Delphi Technique to allow him to influence young minds...
We do NOT need to be changed!
Nothing is broken except The Government!

Forget 'Peak Oil' — Drill, BP, Drill

From Investor's Business Daily...

Energy Policy:
Ignoring peak-oil Cassandras, BP has made another giant oil find in the Gulf of Mexico. We're not running out of oil. Our government just doesn't want us to look for it.

The world is running out of oil and good riddance. That's the environmentalists' mantra. But since the first well was drilled near Titusville, Pa., 150 years ago, the prophecy has gone unfulfilled. Trouble is, those darn greedy oil companies keep finding the stuff.

Oil has been produced in the Gulf of Mexico since the first well was drilled by Kerr-McGee Corp. in 1947. Some of the wells are pretty well played out by now, except that over the past two decades or so, oil explorers began to notice a curious thing. Shallower wells that were thought to be exhausted seemed to be filling up again.

This, and the discovery of vast natural-gas deposits at depths greater than 10,000 feet, mean that either (1) we haven't been drilling deep enough or (2) oil and gas are not finite resources deposited long ago, but rather the result of still-functioning processes deep within the earth. Either way, there's much more to be had.

So British Petroleum went looking for it at depths that had never been plumbed. The spot where it hit black gold is in a place called the Tiber Prospect about 250 miles southeast of Houston. The Tiber well was drilled to a depth of 35,055 feet, which is greater than the height of Mount Everest.

BP, whose partners include Conoco Phillips and the Brazilian company Petroleo Brasilero SA, says the discovery may hold as much as 3 billion barrels of oil. That equates to about a year's worth of output from OPEC giant Saudi Arabia.

As Bloomberg notes, Tiber is BP's second discovery in three years in a geological formation in the Gulf known as the lower Tertiary that consists of a layer of rocks created 24 million to 65 million years ago.

Geologists and engineers didn't know if oil could be recovered at such depths until Chevron drilled a well into its Jack Prospect in 2006. Chevron drilled in 7,000 feet of water and more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor.

Its Jack No. 2 well, in deep water 270 miles southwest of New Orleans, tapped a field with perhaps 15 billion barrels of oil.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that, all told, offshore areas off-limits to U.S. drilling contain upward of 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The oil is there and oil companies are willing to go after it if we let them. Think of it: American oil creating American jobs while lowering gas prices. Congress, however, continues to place most of the Outer Continental Shelf, the Arctic riches of the Chukchi Sea and ANWR, and the shale-rich Rocky Mountain West off-limits. In other words, it doesn't know Jack.

If Brazil had copied America's current energy policy, it wouldn't have discovered in December 2007 the Tupi field, estimated to contain 5 billion to 8 billon barrels of crude, or its Carioca offshore oil field that may hold up to 33 billion barrels.

Much was made of the U.S. Export-Import Bank sponsoring a $10 billion loan to Brazil's Petrobras to develop its offshore fields. That will help increase the world's oil supply and further disprove the peak oil nonsense.

But we need to be doing more in our waters and on our land.

The BP project shows that our resources may be limited only by technology and will. It shows the kind of expensive technology required and what oil companies do with their profits — look for more oil. Drilling seven miles into the seabed is not what you do when, as the anti-oil crowd often charges, you are hoarding supplies to drive up prices.

So... Drill Here... Drill NOW!

Don't Understimate America!

Man collapses with ruptured appendix... three weeks after NHS doctors 'took it out' !

Is this kind of 'healthcare' in our future?

What would happen if this man were living in America under Obama's healthcare plan?
Could he sue the government?

What do YOU think???

Man collapses with ruptured appendix...
three weeks after NHS doctors 'took it out'!
By Daniel Bates

After weeks of excruciating pain, Mark Wattson was understandably relieved to have his appendix taken out.

Doctors told him the operation was a success and he was sent home.

But only a month later the 35-year-old collapsed in agony and had to be taken back to Great Western Hospital in Swindon by ambulance.

To his shock, surgeons from the same team told him that not only was his appendix still inside him, but it had ruptured - a potentially fatal complication.

In a second operation it was finally removed, leaving Mr Wattson fearing another organ might have been taken out during the first procedure.

The blunder has left Mr Wattson jobless, as bosses at the shop where he worked did not believe his story and sacked him.

Mr Wattson told of the moment he realised there had been a serious mistake.

'I was lying on a stretcher in terrible pain and a doctor came up to me and said that my appendix had burst,' he said.

'I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told these people I had my appendix out just four weeks earlier but there it was on the scanner screen for all to see.

'I thought, "What the hell did they slice me open for in the first place?"

'I feel that if the surgery had been done correctly in the first place I wouldn't be in the mess I am today. I'm disgusted by the whole experience.'

Mr Wattson first went under the knife on July 7 after experiencing severe abdominal pain for several weeks. He was discharged but exactly a month later he had to dial 999 after collapsing in agony.

Following the second operation his incision became infected and he was admitted to hospital for a third time for treatment.

He said: 'I had a temporary job at a sports shop but when I took in two medical certificates saying I had my appendix out twice they didn't believe me.

'Now I'm helpless. I can't go out and find a job, I can't go to interviews, I can barely walk and am in constant pain. Before the first operation they told me I had to have my appendix removed and when I woke up afterwards they said it had been a complete success.

'But then I keeled over in agony one month later and when they did some tests at the hospital we could see the appendix was still there on the scans.

'As far as I was aware they took my appendix out and no one told me any different.

'I have no idea what they did take out, but I want to find out what went wrong.'

A spokesman for Great Western Hospital confirmed that a representative had met Mr Wattson and that an investigation had been started.

He was unable to confirm what, if anything, was removed in the first operation.

Paul Gearing, deputy general manager for general surgery at Great Western Hospital NHS Trust, said: 'We are unable to comment on individual cases.

'However, we would like to apologise if Mr Wattson felt dissatisfied with the care he received at Great Western Hospital.'

- Compensation payments to NHS patients have risen by 20 per cent in the past year to a record high of £769million. At this rate more than £2million a day is being paid over claims against the Health Service.

Socialized Health Care At It's Finest!

Sportsman Groups Push for Sunstein Defeat

From The Outdoor Wire

FEATURE

Sportsman Groups Push for Sunstein Defeat

Editor's Note: Yesterday, fourteen outdoor groups sent a letter asking that the United States Senate block the nomination of Cass R. Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Today, an explanation of that opposition as written by Greg R. Lawson, Director of Communications for the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance.

Sportsmen Need to "Man the Battle Stations" and Block the "Czar"

Battle lines between sportsmen and anti-hunting extremists seem to be hardening with each passing day. Frighteningly, it looks to get worse as a major anti-hunter is on the verge of setting up residence in a federal office with the power to block pro-sportsmen regulations for years to come.

Cass R. Sunstein may not be a household name, but make no mistake, in academic and legal circles he is a rock star. His nomination by President Obama to serve as the head of the powerful Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), otherwise known as the "Regulatory Czar", appears on track and has received a lot of accolades from those who make a living inside "the Beltway" of Washington, DC.

Unfortunately, Sunstein's record outs him as a rabid animal rightist who has gone so far as to state that animals may deserve the right to sue and, for sportsmen, most chillingly, that "we might ban hunting altogether, at least if it's sole purpose is human recreation."

While these views may set the hearts of Ivory Towered intellectuals, government bureaucrats, and folks like PETA aflutter; in the real world, they are just plain absurd. However, the very fact that the U.S. Senate is probably going to vote to confirm this person to a post overseeing all federal regulations including those concerning hunting, fishing, and trapping should raise more than a casual shrug. It should raise serious "red flag" by America's sportsmen.

After all, America's sportsmen are the nation's number one conservationists. Yet now, these true conservationists may have to battle an unelected force in order to continue to defend their time honored traditions. Simply put, this is wrong.

The Obama administration is already crowded with people who hold similar viewpoints as Sunstein. It is common knowledge that Attorney General Eric Holder is a champion for gun control. Also with sordid conservation pasts are Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack who vetoed a bill to allow dove hunting when governor of Iowa and Lisa Jackson, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who worked overtime as a New Jersey bureaucrat to stop bear hunting in the state.

And we may soon be adding Cass Sunstein's name to the list of people whose views are well outside the real mainstream of America. It would be tragic to allow these views to be imposed without a fight.

To that end, the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance has been leading just such a fight to block this nomination and worked with several US senators to stop the nomination from moving forward. Unfortunately, the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D- NV), is bound and determined to have a vote when the Senate reconvenes after Labor Day.

This means that the clock is ticking. Sportsmen need to "take up their arms" and, using their voices, work hand in hand to block this "Czar." Sportsmen should call both of their U.S. Senators today and express outrage that a man who has explicitly pushed radical animal rights views might be given the power to impose these views on all of us and destroy our collective heritage.

-- Greg R. Lawson

ObamaCare: McCain To The Rescue?

From Investor's Business Daily

McCain To Rescue Of ObamaCare?

Health Care: "First, do no harm" is never the maxim of Washington politicians. With a public uprising killing ObamaCare, Sen. John McCain wants "to sit down with the president" and resuscitate it.

At a town hall in Sun City, Ariz., on Tuesday, the defeated Republican presidential nominee displayed a chart featuring some good health care reform ideas. They included tort reform to reduce the $200 billion a year added to health costs thanks to medical malpractice awards; a sizable tax credit to pay for insurance; and allowing Americans to cross state lines to purchase the health insurance of their choice.

There seems to be a disconnect in McCain's head, however, between getting good reforms and what he knows the Democrats will do as the majority. McCain described himself as "very worried" about and "unalterably opposed" to using budget reconciliation rules to ram through reform. Such a ploy would take away Republican senators' right to filibuster.

McCain said he watched "every single meaningful" Republican amendment turned down by the Democrats in committee mark-up. He recited the Mayo Clinic's remarks opposing ObamaCare, making it obvious that the administration was misleading Americans into thinking that esteemed institution had endorsed liberal Democrats' radical approach.

So the senator knows that his Democratic colleagues always play dirty. Yet he told his skeptical audience of seniors that "to do nothing is not the answer either." Two days earlier, on ABC's "This Week," this was Sen. McCain's response to President Obama's accusations that the GOP preferred gridlock:

"I look at this as an opportunity right now . . . . Now, wouldn't it be a good idea for us Republicans and Democrats to sit down with the president? . . . There's so many areas that we are in agreement on."

The answer to that question is "No." McCain may insist that "one of the fundamentals for any agreement would be that the president abandon the government option," but things may not work out that way in a final package. McCain is echoing the president's erroneous contention that a radical transformation of the greatest health care system in the world is preferable to "gridlock."

But accepting the status quo, as the president disparagingly likes to put it, is far preferable to the health care revolution he and Democratic congressional leaders are hoping for this year.

Does Sen. McCain really think that with the Democrats enjoying a comfortable majority in both houses of Congress he can get the kind of freedom-oriented medical reforms that Republicans propose?

The American people, already spooked at this year's government spending spree, are rightly scared to death at the costs of Obama-Care — another matter on which the administration has been deceptive. Tuesday, new numbers showed that the federal budget deficit will be far higher than expected — nearly $1.6 trillion for the year, amounting to more debt than since the aftermath of World War II.

After a $787 billion politicized stimulus package, and unemployment still headed to double digits, the people are letting their representatives know in person that enough is enough. And their voices are being heard. Even liberal Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a strong proponent of government-managed reform, pronounced Obama-Care dead for the year before a large Wisconsin crowd last week.

"Nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas, and maybe not even then, if this ever happens," said Feingold. "The divisions are so deep," he added, and he has "never seen anything like that."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent who is moderate-to-conservative on national security, but liberal on almost all else, told CNN last weekend it would be "a real mistake to try to jam through the total health insurance reform" at a time when "the public is either opposed to or of very, very passionate mixed minds about" it.

Key Democrats now admit that a popular uprising has succeeded in derailing the radical health care revolution that Democrats have in mind. Even left-wing politicians now see that Americans prefer standing pat to socialism. Why does Sen. McCain want to get us back on such a dangerous track?

I TOLD YOU!

DO NOT TRUST THIS GUY!

McCain IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE!

He is not a Republican!

McCain MUST GO!!!

Busy Weekend...

From The Outdoor Wire

FEATURE

Busy Weekend

Machinists Union members in Fond du Lack, Wisconsin have voted "overwhelmingly" to reject Mercury Marine's latest wage and employment offer. Mercury, reeling from two years of tough industry times, has already cut operations across all their manufacturing by fifty percent, and says the latest round of wage concessions was their last attempt to keep their facilities in Fond du Lack. Instead, officials said after the vote yesterday they would immediately start their relocation to MerCruiser manufacturing facilities in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

The Stillwater facility is non-union.

"This has been a very difficult and stressful process for all involved," Mark Schwabero, president of Mercury Marine, said in a statement. "We will work closely with our team in Fond du Lac to develop and communicate a transition plan for this 24-36 month process."

Meanwhile, officials in Fond du Lack and the state capitol are encouraging Mercury and the union to come back to the bargaining table. Governor Jim Doyle says he's hopeful, but Mercury says their final offer is, indeed, their final offer.

There are between 1,900 and 2,000 people working for Mercury in the manufacturing and corporate headquarters in Fond du Lack. The company has been headquartered in the area for seven decades.

Should the company relocate both the 850 manufacturing and 1,100 corporate positions, the local economic development corporation says the impact would be more than $350-million annually, with as many as an additional 5,900 jobs lost because of the impact on suppliers, government and area businesses.

Meanwhile, the union says the concessions, which included wage freezes for the next seven years and reduced insurance and retirement benefits for current workers, and would mean a wage reduction of nearly thirty percent for new or recalled workers made retirement "unaffordable".

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Meanwhile, Seattle gun owners are saying they delivered a clear message to whomever will be their next mayor: don't mess with firearms rights. The message was delivered by the defeat of two-term incumbent Seattle mayor Greg Nickles. Nickles finished third in a "best two" primary election, meaning he has no chance at returning for a third term.

Nickles has been firmly anti-firearms, and irked all gun owners when he announced he would ban legally-carried firearms from city property. That would have defied Washington's preemption statute, forbidding local laws to preempt a state statute.

Rather than go to court on the position, Nickles instead included gun prohibitions in use contracts for the Seattle City Center and other venues.

Nickles said in his concession speech that he'd gotten the message that Seattle voters wanted to head "in a new direction."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In Arizona, genuine concern that a growing mountain lion population is hammering attempts to restore the Kofa bighorn sheep herds. New research presented to the Arizona Game and Fish Department showed that a single mountain lion was averaging killing one bighorn sheep every ten days.

By comparison, the annual recruitment of Kofa bighorns from the National Wildlife Refuge herd is only thirty-nine animals.

Biologists the predation is an even larger problem than water availability, disease and human disturbance.

The Kofa bighorn sheep herd was once one of the nation's most robust. Surveys estimated the populations at 600-800 animals prior to 2006. That year's survey showed a historic low of only 391 animals. The latest surveys showed an estimated 460 in 2007 and 436 in 2008.

A new survey is scheduled for October.

Is Obama creating a civil war in America?

Inside The Beltway column
The Washing Post

By Jennifer Harper

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

A Hollywood conservative has headed East.

It's "Freedom Concert" time for Jon Voight.

The Academy Award winner will join Sean Hannity in Cincinnati and Atlanta this weekend to honor fallen soldiers and present college scholarships to surviving children. Mr. Voight -- a warrior himself in many ways -- has been cogitating about the state of America, meanwhile.

"There's a real question at stake now. Is President Obama creating a civil war in our own country?" Mr. Voight tells Inside the Beltway.

"We are witnessing a slow, steady takeover of our true freedoms. We are becoming a socialist nation, and whoever can't see this is probably hoping it isn't true. If we permit Mr. Obama to take over all our industries, if we permit him to raise our taxes to support unconstitutional causes, then we will be in default. This great America will become a paralyzed nation."

Be outraged, Mr. Voight advises.

"Do not let the Obama administration fool you with all their cunning Alinsky methods. And if you don't know what that method is, I implore you to get the book 'Rules for Radicals,' by Saul Alinsky. Mr. Obama is very well trained in these methods," he continues, citing a television campaign critical of the Republican Party and contentious town-hall meetings about health care reform."

Right on Jon!

A Fundamental Disconnect

From American Thinker...

A Fundamental Disconnect
By Ron Lipsman

Hollywood and the media routinely offer up two standard portrayals of government officials -- inept and comical idiots or sinister characters. The latter is especially true of media depictions of NSA, CIA, and FBI employees, but both are quite typical of the reigning liberal elite's opinion of all government agencies and their employees: bureaucrats are either hilarious nincompoops or dangerous evil-doers, and amazingly enough, sometimes both at once.

Hollywood seems to think that the government is either screwing up the country because it doesn't know what it is doing or it is destroying the country because it is trampling on the rights of its citizens.

However, the people who hold these convictions are the exact same people who want to turn over the operation of all the key components of the country to the government to manage. Health care, energy, education, the economy itself -- these and dozens of other critical features of American society should be directed, according to the Left, from the hallowed halls in which the bumblers and betrayers work.

These liberal elites, who are now in positions of great power in the nation, seem to believe that the politicians and bureaucrats who populate the federal government, are on the one hand part fumbling meatheads who can't tie their shoes and part evil plotters who want to screw John Q. Public. At the same time the left believes that those who run the bureaucracy should be entrusted with the management of virtually every aspect of American society.

Is there not a fundamental disconnect here?
What could possibly explain this self-contradictory faith in the power of the government to successfully solve the nation's problems? I will offer three explanations and then speculate as to which applies to the celebrity who now occupies the White House.

The first explanation is ignorance.
The people of our nation have been subjected to an intense liberal indoctrination for so long that there are a huge number of them for whom the tenets of liberalism are so deeply ingrained that they accept without question the proposition that the government must address any problem that arises anywhere in America.

Under a relentless assault from the liberal dominated media, educational establishment, legal profession, arts community, foundations, and even segments of the business and religious communities, many have succumbed to the brainwashing.

Consequently, they believe:

•FDR's New Deal saved us from the Depression rather than prolonged it;

•The Great Society helped to lift minorities out of poverty, rather than institutionalizing it;

•Capitalism creates unjust, inequitable outcomes in the US, ignoring the fact that it has powered our economy to unimagined and unequaled heights of prosperity;

•Government creates jobs by spending the tax payer's money, rather than preventing their creation because of the tax dollars pilfered from entrepreneurs;

•Government regulations improve the functioning of our economy, revealing obliviousness to the enormous drag they impose;

•The rich don't pay their fair share, whereas in fact the "rich" pay the overwhelming majority of the income tax that Uncle Sam extracts, while the lowest 40% of income earners pay virtually nothing;

•The Constitution is a malleable document that serves as a guide to the making of law -- in fact, it is a binding document that can be changed only by a demanding Amendment process and the American republic has survived and prospered precisely because continuing generations have agreed to abide by the deal struck by our founders with the people;

•Radical change not adherence to tradition, is the American way.

I venture that a large proportion, perhaps a substantial majority of the folks who voted for Obama fit into this category -- especially young people.

It is legitimate to ask how such hoodwinked people can accept the portrayal of the government as bumbling or sinister or both -- laugh at it if it is the former, be mortified by it if the latter -- and why does it not occur to them that it is lunacy to entrust their welfare to the bumblers and evil-doers?

I think the answer is to be found in the attitude teenagers exhibit toward their parents and teachers. The kids often see their elders as at best hopelessly square, out of it and even stupid and at worst as manipulating, tyrannical, and unfair.
Most -- not all -- do not question the fundamental authority of their parents and teachers.

The kids expect the adults to remove the obstacles that the youngsters encounter and the kids are willing to put up with the rules laid down by the adults because it is expected of them, because it is the natural order of things, and besides there is no choice.

So too does the juvenile mass of brainwashed citizens view the authority of the federal government. They deride and lambaste it for its incompetence; they fear it for its omnipotence; but they accept unquestioningly its "legitimate" authority to control their lives.

The next explanation might be characterized as arrogance.
Its practitioners understand that the government doesn't have a particularly good track record of solving the nation's problems. They recognize that previous government forays into health care, agriculture, housing, etc. have resulted in mismanagement, excessive waste, deleterious effects on the economy, fraud, and corruption.

Nevertheless, they believe that the federal government is the correct mechanism to address the nation's problems and under their tutelage one (or both) of two things will happen.

First, they will do it better. They will bring better design, planning, execution, and supervision. Or, it won't work any better, but they will profit personally from the results. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is chock full, from top to bottom, with these types -- the naive ones who think they will execute the liberal agenda more perfectly and the corrupt ones who intend to profit from the agenda, however it is implemented.

The third explanation is malevolence.
This characterization applies to the hard core leftists who believe the classic American political, economic and cultural systems are rotten and must be overthrown. I am thinking of revolutionaries like Saul Alinsky, George Soros, Michael Moore, and, yes, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

They don't care that the government to which they wish to assign more and more responsibility is a combination of ineptness and corruption. So much the better; it will bring the system down more quickly.

Radicals like these thrive on a crisis atmosphere (as admitted by Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel). They seek to create a perpetual crisis, which leaves the people panic-stricken and easily manipulated by those who, under the guise of addressing the dangerous ills they have identified, will divert more power to the government, and who are in fact at work destroying the system under the false cover of crises like climate change and health care.

If they can enact universal, federally-controlled health care and the business-crippling cap and trade bill, their malevolent objective might be attained -- America could be so fundamentally changed that there will be no hope of returning to republican principles.

I believe the vast majority of Americans on the left fit into category 1, a substantial number fall under 2 and a small, but dedicated cadre occupies the third position. Into which category does the guy in the White House fit?

Like most of America, my acquaintance with President Obama is recent and superficial. That he occupies the White House is a testament to the uncharacteristic recklessness of the American people, who have installed therein a person they know precious little about. Is he the leftist radical his voting record suggests or the relatively moderate politician he seemed to be during the campaign? Everyone who interacts with him insists he is very smart. If so, it is impossible that the rationale for his leftist mentality lies in the first explanation: ignorance.

Throughout the campaign, my impression was that he was a number 2: arrogant. Yes, there was no denying his far-left voting record -- but he tacked right during the election and then he appointed a number of relatively moderate cabinet officials (to go along with the hard core leftists he selected as advisors and czars, to be sure).

But since the inauguration, the gloves are off and the trend is clear. President Obama is a leader of the malevolent, revolutionary forces in America who want to overthrow the system and replace it with a Euro-socialist, nanny State that repudiates much of American history, including the Constitution.

What is the evidence? Many of his opponents would cite: his promotion of cap and trade, which surely would cripple our economy; his drive for universal, government-controlled health insurance, which would make virtually all of us wards of the State; his foreign policy of appeasement and repeated apologies for American behavior; or his reckless spending, borrowing and taxing that will bankrupt our children and grandchildren.

For me it is as simple as this. I see no evidence that he loves America, that he (or his wife) takes any pride in the achievements of our country, that he subscribes to the idea that America, unlike any other nation, is founded on a political idea and is called to be a beacon of freedom to mankind.

That is not Barack Obama's America. His new America will be a bizarre combination of France, the Soviet Union and Canada.
_________________

Man - I sure wish I could write like that!
Nicely put Mr Lipsman!

Pelosi: "I'm a Fan of Disruptors!"

Nazis for Me, but Not for Thee

From National Review Online...

Nazis for Me, but Not for Thee
Why shouldn’t socialized medicine prompt comparisons to National Socialism?
By Andrew McCarthy

It’s this week’s fashion on the left, and among such fashionably contemplative moderates as Mort Kondracke, to blast Rush Limbaugh for comparing Democrats to the Nazis.

It’s no surprise that the Obama hardcores are misrepresenting the sequence and substance of events, but I would have hoped that Kondracke would at least have noted that Rush’s comparison — even if Kondracke thought it unwise — was neither gratuitous nor demagogic.

To recap, the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, started this episode by comparing American citizens who oppose Obamacare to the Nazis and asserting that her political opponents were donning “swastikas.” -
(Sen. Barbara Boxer simultaneously ripped Obamacare dissenters for their Brooks Brothers suits — it’s not altogether clear where on the twill the swastika goes.)

Pelosi’s tactic was the shopworn smear we on the right have dealt with for six decades. There is no conceivable substantive connection between opposition to Obamacare and German National Socialism — they are antithetical. By invoking the Nazis, Pelosi was patently slandering dissenters as racist thugs.

Rush responded, and the response did not smear Democrats.

He repeatedly and explicitly qualified that no one was saying Obama was Hitler, that Pelosi was Goebbels, or that the Democrats were engaged in the genocidal barbarity of the Third Reich.

The comparison he drew was a substantive one: between the Democrats’ proposal for socialized medicine and the German installation of socialized medicine beginning with Bismarck and reaching its shocking apotheosis with Hitler’s National Socialism. (A transcript of what he actually contended is here, and his website has other relevant transcripts, since the argument was reiterated other times during the week.)

The point was to show that if Pelosi wanted to engage in Nazi comparisons, the health-care policies of Nazi Germany had far more in common with the health-care policies of the Democrats than with those of the conservative opposition, which wants health care kept private and reforms to be market-based.

Whether you agree with that or not (I happen to think it’s undeniable), Rush was also making a larger point that is not only fair argument but essential argument.

There is a trajectory of socialism, regardless of the good intentions of many socialists.

As he framed it, you take things such as health care, things that are traditionally understood as within the ambit of individual liberty and free choice; you move such things into the ambit of state responsibility as the welfare state emerges and grows, on the theory that it is government’s responsibility to provide for everyone’s needs (by redistributing resources); as more things are moved from private to public control, the state by definition becomes totalitarian; and, inexorably, the totalitarian state gets bad leaders and the society comes to reflect the policy choices of those leaders.

Now, we can argue until the end of time about whether that trajectory really exists and whether it is inevitable. But however you come out, it is an argument very much worth having. It goes to what kind of society we are going to be, to what the proper relationship between the citizen and the state is.

Nazi Germany is a useful historical example of socialism run amok. The genocide and terrorism ultimately practiced by the Nazis were horrible — that goes without saying.

But National Socialism went on for a dozen years, it was the last stage in a progressive nationalization of German society, and there was a lot more to it than genocide and terrorism. It cannot be that because there was genocide and terrorism, the socialist aspects of National Socialism are outside the lines of acceptable political discourse.

Given the immense popularity of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, one of the most important political books of the last quarter-century, it doesn’t look like Americans are as convinced as Mort Kondracke seems to be that these comparisons are verboten.

Let’s put aside the Left’s propensity to slander conservatives with comparisons to Adolf Hitler, who was patently a man of the Left.

Earlier this year, one New York Times writer seemed to find comparisons to National Socialism quite worthy when — at least in the telling — those comparisons worked in the Left’s favor.

While Americans were hotly debating the merits of the Obama “stimulus” in April, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto called attention to a very interesting economic analysis offered by David Leonhardt. Leonhardt wrote:

In the summer of 1933, just as they will do on Thursday, heads of government and their finance ministers met in London to talk about a global economic crisis. They accomplished little and went home to battle the crisis in their own ways.

More than any other country, Germany — Nazi Germany — then set out on a serious stimulus program. The government built up the military, expanded the autobahn, put up stadiums for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and built monuments to the Nazi Party across Munich and Berlin.

The economic benefits of this vast works program never flowed to most workers, because fascism doesn’t look kindly on collective bargaining.

But Germany did escape the Great Depression faster than other countries. Corporate profits boomed, and unemployment sank (and not because of slave labor, which didn’t become widespread until later). Harold James, an economic historian, says that the young liberal economists studying under John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s began to debate whether Hitler had solved unemployment.

After all due qualifiers about how terribly uncomfortable he felt about invoking lessons from the Nazis, Leonhardt somehow summoned the inner fortitude to make the obvious explicit:

Here in the United States, many people are understandably wondering whether the $800 billion stimulus program will make much of a difference. They want to know: Does stimulus work? Fortunately, this is one economic question that’s been answered pretty clearly in the last century. Yes, stimulus works.

As Taranto correctly observed, whatever you may think of the merits of Leonhardt’s argument, it was appropriate for him to make it: The wisdom vel non of policies adopted during over a decade of Nazi socialism cannot be off the table simply because, in the end, the Nazis were monsters.

We may find the seeds of their monstrousness in those policies, or we may not. But the thought that we should not talk about them is absurd. Notably, Leonhardt’s piece ran without any teeth-gnashing from Mort Kondracke and our other Beltway chaperone's.

National Socialism is banned from the Right’s case against socialism, but is somehow acceptable when leftists use it as a smear or when the Left’s nuanced geniuses, after their very thoughtful consideration, decide its invocation is suitable for mature audiences?

I don’t think so.

Neither do I Andrew..
The liberal left will always use whatever tactic they can find to smear, besmirch and defame anybody that disagrees with their views. It REALLY IS a mental disorder, you know... Liberalism...