No, it’s not like me to post someone else’s work. But, frankly, I couldn’t have said it better myself. So I didn’t try.

Obama’s ‘Where’s Waldo?’ presidency

Wednesday, March 2, 2011; 12:00 AM
 

He didn’t want to get mired in legislative details during the health-care debate for fear of repeating the Clinton administration’s prescriptive, take-ours-or-leave-it approach. He doesn’t want to go first on proposing entitlement reform because history teaches that this is not the best route to a deal. He didn’t want to say anything too tough about Libya for fear of endangering Americans trapped there. He didn’t want to weigh in on the labor battle in Wisconsin because, well, it’s a swing state.

Yet the dots connect to form an unsettling portrait of a “Where’s Waldo?” presidency: You frequently have to squint to find the White House amid the larger landscape.

This tough assessment from someone who generally shares the president’s ideological perspective may be hard to square with the conservative portrait of Obama as the rapacious perpetrator of a big-government agenda. If the president is being simultaneously accused of overreaching ambition and gutless fight-ducking, maybe he’s doing something right.

Maybe, or else Obama has at times managed to do both simultaneously. On health care, for instance, he took on a big fight without being able to articulate a clear message or being willing to set out any but the broadest policy prescriptions. Lawmakers, not to mention the public, were left guessing about what, exactly, the administration wanted to see in the measure and where it would draw red lines.

That was not an isolated case. Where, for example, is the president on the verge of a potential government shutdown – if not this week, then a few weeks from now?

Aside from a short statement from the Office of Management and Budget threatening a presidential veto of the House version of the funding measure, the White House – much to the frustration of some congressional Democrats – has been unclear in public and private about what cuts would and would not be acceptable.

By contrast, a few weeks before the shutdown in 1995, Clinton administration aides had dispatched Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials to spread the message that cuts in education, health care and housing would harm families and children. Obama seems more the passive bystander to negotiations between the House and Senate than the chief executive leading his party.

He performs best on a stage that permits the grandest sweep. He rises to the big occasion, from his inspiring introduction to the public in his 2004 Democratic convention speech to his healing words in the aftermath of the Tucson shootings.

The president has faltered, though, when called on to translate that rhetoric to more granular levels of specificity: What change, exactly, does he want people to believe in? How, even more exactly, does he propose to get there? “Winning the future” doesn’t quite do it.

My biggest beef is with the president’s slipperiness on fiscal matters. Obama has said he agrees with some of his fiscal commission’s recommendations and disagrees with others. Which ones does he disagree with? I asked this question the other day of Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Here’s what I got: “The view espoused by some of the . . . commission that we ought to do Social Security 100 percent off of benefit cuts for sure he doesn’t agree with.” But of course, the plan that 11 of the commission members endorsed did nothing of the sort.

I was unfair to Goolsbee because I asked him a question he didn’t have the leeway to answer. You can’t blame the aide for ducking when the boss fudges.

Where’s Obama? No matter how hard you look, sometimes he’s impossible to find.

It’s no secret that I’m not the best true blue, through and through Republican. I’m not a tea partier. I’m not a bible thumper. I’m not that kind of Republican. I’m pro-choice,  pro-separation of church and state and frankly, I don’t care if goats marry each other, let alone homosexuals. That being said, don’t ever mistake me for a liberal. I’m pro-gun rights, pro-death penalty, anti-illegal immigration and, perhaps most importantly, I’m a fiscal conservative to the nth degree. To me, all those stances seem pretty reasonable. Fiscal issues mean a lot more to me than social issues so, of course, I consider myself a devoted Republican. Lately, however, I’ve been feeling like my party is sort of veering off the road and onto the shoulder.

Yesterday Sarah Palin (certified hottie and the nail in the coffin of John McCain’s campaign as far as I’m concerned) was speaking in Reno and, of course, she was pandering. She said, “Some of these politicians — the big wigs within the machine — they are driving me crazy because they are too chicken to come out and support the tea party candidates,” She went on to say, ”Some of you need to man up and spend some political capital to support the tea party candidates instead of waiting to see how everything is going to go.”  I get that Palin is a far right-winger and if it wasn’t for the Tea Party movement, she’d be moose hunting right now. But, do we really need to encourage moving the base of the Republican party farther to the right? Don’t we have enough 700 Club watching lunatics out there yelling about how Obama’s a Muslim and not a U.S. Citizen? I don’t think we need more crazies in our party. I stand by my comments from my earlier post about the Tea Party rapidly becoming the moveon.org of the Republican party. The only difference is the members of the Democrat machine, the ones that really want to win, know good and damn well that the 911 truthers and the moveon.org types are a joke and they are only to be appeased for the purpose of gaining votes.

The Tea Party started out strong enough. I attended the first Tea Party rally that was in Tampa. They were promoting lower taxes and less government spending. Hey, I want lower taxes and less government spending! It was a good rally. It was motivating. But, it all seems to be getting a little out of control. I can’t even watch Glenn Beck’s program anymore and that saddens me. What is happening to the thinking conservatives in the country? Are we dying off or simply being talked over? God knows how the liberal media likes to paint all Republicans as Tea Party crazies. The Tea Party shares my basic beliefs of smaller government and personal freedoms but, I don’t know if I can get behind candidates who scream and yell about the things that should be all but shrugged off as a non-issue like gay marriage.

Here’s a news flash: being a Republican means believing in personal freedom. Personal freedoms mean freedom of religion and I don’t think the government should be involved in religion in any capacity. If I want to bitch and moan demand that my kid be able celebrate Christmas in school, what’s to keep little Rashim’s parents  from demanding that their kid be able to celebrate Ramadan? Most far right Republicans would be less than cool with that idea. So, what do you propose? Make schools teach only Christianity? There’s a word for that. Discriminatory. It’s a simple concept, really, and yet it seems to elude my new favorite candidate, Christine O’Donnell. Christine O’Donnell does not ever fail to disappoint me. This week O’Donnell said “Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?” Of course, the Constitution does not literally say “separation of church and state” but, to think that the separation of church and state is not what is implied is, well, immature logic, at best.

Yes, I have always been tolerant of the far right in the party. I have attended Republican events that open with a ”in Jesus’ name we pray” sort of prayer and yes I’ve rolled my eyes but, I’ve had no real problem overlooking that kind of religious force feeding. Lately, however, it seems that I can’t overlook the crazy factor. It seems that the Tea Partiers are forcing us to be more about social issues and less about fiscal issues. That is the exact opposite of what this blogger thinks should be happening. The Democrats are the party of,  “of course we will fund this social program! Where’s the check book?” and that is ineffective governing. I don’t want to see us as a party become so focused on the social issues that we let fiscal issues take a back seat. America is a business. You can’t run a business by worrying about what’s going on in your employees bedrooms. Worry about their work product. Worry about the bills. This is Republican Party 101, people!

Some will tell you that middle of the road Republicans (i.e. McCain, Giuliani) lose elections. Maybe they are right.  And, make no mistake, I’m sure that I will be voting for whatever crack-pot, far-right, bible thumper that may end up on the ballot if that is the Republican nominee, but I won’t have to like it and I won’t stop preaching common sense and economics first to the religious right.

In Reagan’s name I close. Annnnnd scene.

The Messiah speaketh:

“People out there are still hurting very badly, and they are still scared. And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared,” Obama said at a Democratic fundraiser Saturday in Boston. “And the country is scared, and they have good reason to be.” 

Well, that’s a weird argument coming from the left, isn’t it? Did “hope” and “change” go the way of the buffalo already? The truth is “hope” didn’t even make it past the doorway of the oval office. Obama has been trying to scare the piss out of America since he got the job (well, in between still campaigning and having beers with police officers who acted “stupidly”, that is).  The Obama administration has been nothing but fear since day one. Please tell me what has not been scary from this administration. Was it the voting on Christmas Eve for a healthcare bill that America didn’t want but Obama insisted we needed because the system is so broken?  Was it bullying the Congress into a stimulus plan that clearly hasn’t worked and, again, America didn’t want? How about his constant rhetoric about the economy being the worst since the great depression? I’m not even going to mention the ice that should run through your veins at the mere mention of the names Van Jones or Rahm Emanuel… oopsy! I guess I did.  

Obama should be happy. Apparently, the American population agrees with him that the economy is in the toilet. The problem is, I think most Americans are pretty sick of hearing that Obama is still cleaning up W’s mess. When is it going to be okay to hold this administration responsible for the few things that they actually have done? When do the liberals of this country say to themselves that Obama has been a huge disappointment? Not today, I guess. Last night Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid likened Obama to the 33 Chilean miners who spent 69 days trapped underground. According to NBC News, Reid said that when Obama replaced George W. Bush in the Whitehouse he found himself in a “hole so deep that he couldn’t see the outside world. It was like the Chilean miners but he, being the man he is, rolled up his sleeves and said ‘I am going to get us out of this hole’.”

Yeah… that’s exactly what has happened. Thanks, Mr. Prez.

So, let me ask you this silly question, if that is actually how it went down, then why are we still hearing from the Whitehouse nearly everyday about how Bush screwed up the country and what a mess it is? And why, most importantly, are we as a country going to vote the Republicans back into office out of ”fear”?  Am I the only one who is lost? Right now, it appears that, barring some sort of catastrophe, the Republicans are going to clean up in this election season. That could be for many reasons. I’m pretty sure that the fact that statistically Republicans vote more than Democrats has something to do with it. Also having something to do with it is the fact that America knows it was dead wrong to believe the “hope” and “change” lie. The democrats are still denying that the writing is on the wall and I can’t fault them for that. I’m just hoping that after they do lose their asses and the congressional majority shifts back, they can admit that Obama isn’t the second coming and maybe, just maybe, they backed the wrong horse.

I should probably say something here about how it’s important to get out and vote for the Conservative candidates (yes, EVEN if you live in Delaware. And I better not catch any of you Floridians voting for Charlie Crist!). I should probably remind you also not to take it for granted that we’ve won any races yet. But, come on, if you are reading this then you already know that. And, frankly, I’m feeling kind of cocky about the whole thing so, I’ll just add some video of a monkey doing martial arts, instead.  

www.cafepress.com/handfulofvaluesstore

Follow handfulofvalues on Facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=157553476629

Christine O’Donnell, backed by the Tea Party and Sarah Palin, has won the Senate nomination in Delaware. If it was Kentucky or Oklahoma or even Iowa I would think this makes sense… well, as much sense as it can make. But, Delaware? I’m not going to lie to you, that freaks me out a little bit. I’ve always thought of the 15 Republicans who live in Delaware as being pretty liberal. Was I wrong? Or is the Tea Party becoming (gulp) the Republican main stream? The infighting of the Republicans between the old school GOP and the new school Tea Partiers is all but stomach churning.

The GOP is pissed. The Tea Partiers are pissed. I am pissed and I’m not sure if any of this is good for the country at a time when pseudo-socialistic politics are on the rise and being widely accepted by the ignorant masses. I don’t really care if O’Donnell was a devil worshiper in High School…

(the real scary part about that video is that anyone ever wanted Jamie Kennedy’s opinion on anything)

I don’t even care that she is apparently the masturbation Gestapo…

Man, I have the best comeback for her question at the end of that clip, but I digress.

The whole thing makes me fear for the conservative movement that has so much potential right now. We are in a blinking contest with socialism and I am very concerned that these Tea Party nuts are going to squander the sure bet that we have at re-gaining the White House and Congress. Can we really afford to do that in the name of some far right CBN watching movement? I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’m not the right Republican to ask. Recall that I don’t care if Mitt Romney is a Mormon or if Rudy Giuliani was openly cheating on his wife… draw your own conclusions about what that says about me as a Republican and a person but I never thought politics were about religious prejudices character judgments.

My fellow Repubs, let’s think of the big picture (I feel like I am making writing the McCain Pep Talk post all over again). Can we afford to have a fringe right-wing group hijack the “thinking” Republican party of this nation? I don’t want Delaware have to vote for some Neo-Con, Sarah Palin knock off but what’s the alternative? The latest poll has Democrat Chris Coons beating O’Donnell by double digits. Is that what you want? All in the name of some pro-life, anti-gay marriage agenda? Is that more important than stopping the Obama version of progress? I thought the Tea Party was supposed to be about lowering taxes and stopping wasteful spending– not about electing religious nut jobs who run on the Jerry Falwell platform. But, now we are stuck with this chick and I have my fingers crossed that she will win. Ugh.

I know that most of the Tea Partiers have the same basic fiscal conservative ideals that I do, but speaking as a middle of the road conservative, this Christian Coalition crap has got to stop. Do you know how many Independents and average Joes that this is turning away? The Tea Party is becoming the MoveOn.Org of the GOP. The Tea Party could turn the GOP into a caricature of itself! How did we go from electing McCain to run against Obama to letting these side-show acts get nominated to run for Senate? Is it Glenn Beck’s fault? Glenn, I’m looking at you. What are you doing to the greater good, my friend?

Some will say that losing the next 6+ years worth of elections is worth it in the name of revolution in the Republican party. I ask you this: if there is a far right revolution in the Republican party– where will those of us Republicans that still hold fast to Separation of Church and State vote? I shudder to think of it. The GOP has always had it’s fringe groups but we centrists tollerate them because the they don’t represent the whole party. I promise you that if the Tea Party moves the party farther right than it already is, it will not be a pleasant set of elections. Does anyone remember this hack?

Does anybody remember what happened when people took this hack seriously?

Why on earth are we allowing Congress to push and shove and force and cram and gang rape the American public into a change that the American public doesn’t want?  This reckless bill is not wanted by the American people. But, hey, who asked them? The American people are a bunch of morons who don’t know what is good for them, right? They don’t know what they need! You know who does know? The messiah we elected. Great news peeps! You don’t have to think anymore! That’s what we elected the Great One to do FOR US! Now that’s change we can believe in! Hey look Tiger Woods has more mistresses! Quick go to TMZ!

 The Congress of your United States is completely ignoring the fact that the American public does not want government-run healthcare. Why on earth would the American public think that something as wonderful and perfect sounding as socialized healthcare (I can hear the songbirds singing when I type it) would be a bad thing? It’s probably because they are all a bunch of stupid hicks from the midwest who think that Stephanopoulos is a character on Sesame Street. Or maybe because they are a bunch of fat cat Wall Street types that want all of the poor and sick that are weighing down the system to die, yes even the little orphans. That’s probably it. I mean, what else could it possibly be… except that maybe we don’t buy the fake numbers that the Obama campaign and now the Obama Whitehouse have been spewing? During the election Obama said that 46 million Americans are uninsured but now the number has magically changed to 30 million… seems like a lot of progress to me. Maybe he has John Kerry writing all of his statistics. That would explain it.

The truth is, there are programs out there for people who are uninsured. Lots of them. There is a  percentage of people who fall between the cracks. I know that and I believe we should do something to cover them but is doing away with the entire private healthcare system really the answer? Hardly. 

Maybe those crazy hicks and rich bastards are against it because they hate the idea of going to the doctor being about as personal as going to the DMV. That’s fun. Have you ever known the federal government to improve anything it gets involved in? One word: FEMA. I’m just saying.I don’t want to go to the DMV for my health care. Have you ever had the unfortunate luck of having to go to a “free” clinic? Go. Just walk in. I dare you. You will see my point. Nothing is free. In Canada people get hurt or sick and they drive to Buffalo to see a doctor because they healthcare standards are so poor and the wait time to be seen is so outrageous in their country. People don’t travel from America to England or Canada to have risky procedures. People come HERE. Who would want to be a physician in a country where being a doctor means being a government employee? Yeah, I bet you’d really want to spend half a lifetime in college so that you could get out and make 40 grand a year and punch a clock at a government clinic and write prescriptions from a metal desk. Super. Don’t you think maybe the brightest people would consider another field? Not to worry. There won’t be as many choices now that insurance companies are gone.

That brings me to my personal favorite crazy reason that the idiots out there in that useless waste of space between New York City and Los Angeles don’t want healthcare reform: all the jobs that depend on insurance companies. You remember jobs, don’t you Mr. Obama? It’s that thing that you are totally unconcerned about creating? No not National security, the other useless idea. Yep, how many people reading this have a job that depends on a great big evil insurance company that (it disgusts me to say it) cares about making money? I know I do. Many people have jobs that directly or indirectly depend on insurance companies. You know what we just have too many of these days? Jobs! Wait… was it jobs or was it social programs? I get the two so mixed up. Seriously, I don’t want to lose my job because there’s no private insurance company to give me work. They claim that there will be a private option for health insurance but who can compete with a company that no longer has to worry about profit (i.e. the federal government)? NO ONE! Not even an evil insurance company. I have a wonderful job and they take great care of their employees but I doubt even they would opt to pay out-of-pocket for health insurance if the government was handing it out like it was penny candy.

I am not saying that the system isn’t broken. We need to fix the issues, not burn the system to the ground and piss on the ashes. It’s absurd. Forget “death panels” forget the far right screaming about the state funded abortions. Just use your noggin and see the financial side of this. If you think unemployment is bad now, just wait. But if you love taxes, I mean if you really LOVE taxes, well, brother are you going to be happy!

I am angry and not at all surprised that this administration does not think that the American people are competent enough to know what they want. The Congress is voting at night and on Christmas Eve, they are paying off members of Congress and it is a travesty what is happening to our democracy. However, I have a glimmer of hope this Holiday season that there will be no healthcare reform. If the administration does with healthcare what it has done with EVERY other issue, we can all rest peacefully because the messiah hasn’t done a damn thing in office yet. Not one thing he said he would. A friend of mine told me recently something that was marvelous: “the Democrat party turned out to be like a vicious barking dog that once you let it outside all it does is wander around the yard and poop”. And this from a liberal. Brilliant.

Happy holidays to you and yours!

Well, at any rate, I could say that it’s not surprising that Obama won because he is, after all, the Messiah, and I’m not surprised that the whole world is puckering up to kiss his ass, but that would be a lie. I am surprised. Very. And, judging by the gasp heard round the world, so was everyone else including President Obama himself. Today he said, “Let me be clear. I do not view it as recognition of my own accomplishments but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations”.  Well, Mr. Rock-Star-Prez, let ME be clear,  this is not YOU winning the Nobel Peace Prize. This is George W. Bush NOT winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Does the world outside of America really need to keep telling us how much they hated Bush? Hey, you guys like the semi-socialist, pansy version of America. We get it already.

Let’s be honest, though. The Nobel Prize lost all validity the day they gave it to Yasser Arafat for “efforts to create peace in the Middle East”. Not to mention that crazy old anti-Semite, Jimmy Carter, back in 2002. The lack of validity was only furthered when everyone’s favorite pompous hypocrite, Al Gore, won in 2007. So, forgive me if I am not overly impressed by the clearly politically motivated award. They might as well put them in Cracker Jack boxes, as far as I am concerned. But, silly me, I did think that you would have to have more than a 1 page resume to “earn” one of those babies. Obama said the award was “deeply humbling,” and said he doesn’t think he deserves to be in such good company.

Ya think?!?!?

Obama had only been in office for 11 days when he had been nominated. Every other person who won this award has been nominated for their life’s work (fruitless and fraudulent as it may be) not their WEEK’S WORK! Last year when I was in Washington, D.C. I took a tour of the Whitehouse and I was there for a whole 30 minutes. Where the hell is MY Nobel Peace Prize?

“O-M-G! I have never heard of that prize but I’m sure it’s like, even more awesome that a MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARD!” All we need now in Kanye West interrupting this award with a “I’mma let you finish” speech and the transformation from Community Organizer to rock star will be complete.

View This Poll

If I had written this blog in December or even January, I would probably say something here like, “Prove me wrong, Mr. Obama. Prove us all wrong.” But, sadly, here we are in September and he is just making me more right everyday. In 9 months this guy has brought admitted communists to the White House to advise him, attempted to completely socialize the best health care system in the world and he hasn’t even stopped campaigning! Van Jones finally resigned this weekend which is good for him because I would hate to see what the “angry mobs” of conservatives would do if he didn’t… probably make big signs and peacefully protest somewhere and get no news coverage… oh, wait, that is already happening. What are we supposed to do? Bomb buildings? No thanks. That’s more Bill Ayers style and he is just a nut job terrorist… right, Mr. Obama?

I have a bumper sticker on my (Iraqi oil guzzling) SUV that says “How’s that whole hopey-changey thing working out for you?”  The “change” he making is scary change. So scary it is comical. Well, it would be if it weren’t true… what IS comical is that a (dangerous far right wing extremist) conservative like myself wishes EVERY DAY that Hillary Clinton was the president. But, no. Thank you people who never voted before and college kids and people who never EVER paid any attention to the world around them. Thanks so much for rolling out of bed before 2 p.m. for the 1st time in your adult life. You may now go back to not caring about any real issues. I waited in that voting line for 2 hours in the rain with people who said things like, “See? This is why I don’t ever vote.” Yeah. I’m sure that’s why. As if it was ever like that before the 2nd coming of the Messiah.

I’m not saying that all the people who voted for Obama are a drain on society. That is absurd. I’m not even saying they are all people who don’t care, but a HUGE portion of those people are people who know nothing about the world they live in and simply wanted to be able to say they voted for Obama because it was so “in” to do so. Look, I’m in favor of making history and the history that was made by electing the first black president is not lost on me. I think that aspect of it all is great. But, people, he was the WRONG GUY for the job! Oh, but McCain was… old. Yeah, look at him, he’s… old.

Well, you got your change. We have a dude in the White House that Hollywood-types seem to think we need to “serve”.  What the hell? He is supposed to SERVE the people! Not the other way around. I, for one, will sleep with 1 eye open to see to it that capitalism is not ignored and we are not just ”led to it” like the genius Bill Maher would like. My GOD I wish we had Hillary. Honestly, it doesn’t even make me shudder when I say it anymore. Now THAT is creepy.

Looks like the endorsements for Obama keep rolling in! Guess who is endorsing him now? Let’s see… oh, lookee there! It’s Castro! http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/05/26/castro-obama-cuba-markets-face-cx_ra_0526autofacescan05.html Turns out, if everyone’s favorite tyrant, Fidel Castro, had a vote in this election he would be voting for Obama. Well, there’s a shocker!

And just last week, grade-A madman, Kim Jong Il, endorsed our main man, Obama, too.  http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/ea_nkorea0256_06_19.asp

Those endorsements pretty much speak for themselves. I mean, if he is good enough for the world’s communists and crazies, then shouldn’t he be good enough to run the democracy of the most powerful country in the world? As far as I am concerned, the election is just a formality. Can’t we just make Obama the king or something? Or vote him the Messiah? If you believe the main stream media, Obama is pretty much Jesus, himself.

It’s not as if any of us should care about anything that Cuba’s former President has to say (unless it happens to be “Goodbye cruel world”) but, am I the only one who is just a little bit concerned by this? I guess you could argue that this is good news for Obama because it shows that other countries are eager to work with Obama. The part that scares me, however, it that Obama is eager to work with them. We have all heard it said that Obama wants to “sit down” with Iran. Is that supposed to be a good thing? Is it supposed to make me feel good that Obama doesn’t feel that it is necessary to visit our soldiers in Iraq, but he wants to go hug it out with Iran? He wants to bring validity to Iran’s government? Great! Let’s elect a dude who won’t visit our soldiers but has no problem having tea with terrorists! Let’s elect a guy who just figured out where the Senate men’s room was 6 months ago. Why bother? Why don’t we just elect Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn or one of those other Hollywood political geniuses? Maybe Obama can bring them along to Iran and they can all teach the world to sing.

We are talking about terrorists. They don’t care if you are black, white, Democrat or Republican. If you are American or Israeli they want you dead. Who does not understand that? They kill Americans. They KILL AMERICANS and the man who wants to be the President of the United States wants to go over and have talks with them! This is not Russia in the 80′s, Mr. Obama. This is not a civilized government with a sane leader that we merely disagree with! This is terrorism and they believe it is a Holy War. There is no negotiating with Charles Manson and there is no negotiating with Iran.

I am not saying that Obama is a terrorist sympathizer. I am not even saying that he is an idiot. I am just saying that he better hope that this election doesn’t come down to experience or foreign policy knowledge or anything of any relevance to the country. He better hope it comes down to who has the biggest rock star receptions and who is the dreamiest candidate. Because, that is a competition he could actually win.

I anxiously await Obama’s endorsement from Hugo Chavez… and CBS news.