What Is This World Coming To?

Tim Reid summarized the Obama administration succinctly in the lead column of his London Times Online article discussing the Olympic Committee’s decision to eliminate Chicago from consideration for the 2016 Olympics despite his controversial trip to Denmark:

“There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing with his grandiloquence.”

The president’s grandiloquence was exceeded only by his wife’s.  She made headlines lamenting the ’sacrifice’ she was making in order to help make Chicago’s dreams come true:

“As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days,” the first lady told a crowd of people involved in the Chicago project, “so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home.”

One wonders what people were discussing the sacrificial nature of the Obama’s multimillion-dollar tax-payer funded boondoogle to Denmark on?  Just the flight on Air Force One cost somewhere between $800K and $1.2 million.  And that doesn’t include the First Lady, her entourage, and Cabinet officials who travelled separately at public expense.   Figure a couple of million, at least.  That’s pretty sacrificial. Especially in a recession with unemployment tapping 10%.

Could it be the sacrifice made by the environment that absorbed the enormous carbon footprint (8,379 metric tons) left by the Obamas and their entourage in getting there?   That’s pretty sacrificial, considering the President deposited as much CO2 into the atmosphere in two days as 430 American families generate per year.  Especially given that Obama is so dedicated to “cleaning up the environment” that he advocates skyrocketing energy bills for the rest of us to pay for it.

Iran is just about ready to announce it’s entry into the Nuclear Club.   General McChyrstal, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, met with the President for the first time in seventy days — and the last time was by videoconference.

McChyrstal made the stunning admission on “60 Minutes” in the context of discussing the fact that without the immediate injection of more troops, the war will soon become “unwinnable.”   By my informal count, 49 US troops have died in Afghanistan since McChyrstal requested the reinforcements.   

Boston.com’s Political Intelligence column reported that Obama was able “to squeeze in his first face-to-face meeting” with the General:

McChrystal was summoned from London, where on Thursday he gave a speech warning that the militants are gaining strength and more troops are needed to “buy time” for the Afghan military and police forces to prepare to take control of the country in 2013. He said there is a “huge risk’’ al Qaeda terrorists will again find safe haven in Afghanistan unless new tactics are put in place in the near future.

Obama has given more than 120 major speeches pushing his health care bill.  He’s given countless interviews and talk shows — but he’s never met with General McChyrstal? Ever?  Are you kidding me?

It appears that the administration fears Afghanistan will become another Vietnam, so they are doing all the same things that made Vietnam the foreign policy equivalent to the Boogey-Man.    Johnson and Nixon ignored their commanders and ran the war from Washington.  And lost it.

Come to think of it, historians say that Nazi Germany would have won World War II if Hitler had listened to his commanders instead of playing armchair general from Berchtesgaden.   But he didn’t, (thank God) and he lost, too.   But the lesson is obvious.

While all of this was going on, Barack and Michelle were off to Copenhagen, Oprah Winfrey in tow, all of them sacrificing themselves to bring the Olympic circus to Chicago.

Giving rise to my favorite headline of all, the Drudge Report’s:  “The Ego Has Landed.”

In another in a long line of broken campaign promises,  the Obama administration admitted today that it cannot meet the arbitrary January 22nd deadline to shut down the terrorist (oops, I mean ‘man-causing disasterists’) detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

Noted a disappointed CNN:

They cited legal complications for the delay, but said they were still optimistic about shutting the detention facility for terrorism suspects soon.

The announcement represents a blow to the president, who signed an executive order and set the deadline with great fanfare during his first week in office.

During a signing ceremony at the White House on January 22, Obama reaffirmed his inauguration pledge that the United States does not have “to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals.”

The president said he was issuing the order to close the prison camp in order to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism.”

The delay may provide fodder for Republicans such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has argued that shutting the Guantanamo prison would make the United States less safe. He said Obama should have had a detailed plan in place before signing the order.

Ya think?

Red and yellow, black and white, all are equal in his sight . . . Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, Barack Hussien Obama!  God help us.

Who said the entire government was corrupt? The Census Bureau, in the wake of yet another ACORN scandal, has cut ties with the community organizer’s group.

The Census Bureau earlier this year signed up the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, one of the nation’s largest community groups, as a national partner for the decennial census, a role that entails helping to publicize the importance of the count and encouraging people to participate.

In a letter to Acorn President Maude Hurd, Census Director Robert Groves said Acorn had become a distraction.

Acorn’s deputy national director, Brian Kettenring, said the organization won’t stop promoting the 2010 Census. “We will continue to do what we’ve said we’ll do, which is encourage people in communities to participate fully in the census,” he said.

Acorn released a statement earlier Friday saying that the videos were made to “misinform the public about Acorn housing.”

“All Acorn housing staff members undergo rigorous training and are expected to comply with high standards for ethical behavior and compliance with the law,” said president of Acorn Housing Alton Bennett and Executive Director Mike Shea.

ACORN was probably astonished to discover that prostitution was illegal.

Byron York of the Washington Examiner says if the plan envisioned by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats is enacted, the primary federal bureaucracy responsible for implementing and enforcing national health care will be an old and familiar one: the Internal Revenue Service.

Under the Democrats’ health care proposals, the already powerful — and already feared — IRS would wield even more power and extend its reach even farther into the lives of ordinary Americans, and the presidentially-appointed head of the new health care bureaucracy would have access to confidential IRS information about millions of individual taxpayers.

In short, health care reform, as currently envisioned by Democratic leaders, would be built on the foundation of an expanded and more intrusive IRS.

Noted John Stossel at TownHall

The economic illiterates in Washington are so impressed with the “success” of Cash for Clunkers that they’re readying Cash for Clunker Appliances. The ludicrous “stimulus” bill gave $300 million to the Department of Energy to provide rebates for 10 types of appliances that have been rated energy efficient.

Before government extends Cash for Clunkers to more products, it might be a good idea to examine the original. The fact that Washington and the buyers who took advantage of Cash for Clunkers are gaga is hardly evidence that it was in the public interest.

According to most published reports, the Cash for Clunkers program ‘ran out of money’ — and somehow, managed to do so before it even paid off any of the dealers.

Fritz Hitchcock, who owns three Toyota dealerships and two BMW stores in Southern California, said he sold about 450 vehicles under the program and is owed almost $1.9 million in reimbursements. He stopped doing clunker deals Thursday night and has turned in all of his paperwork but has yet to receive any checks from the government. “We’ve got to see some money in the next two weeks,” he said. “We’ve got payrolls to meet.”

. . .

Each application takes about 20 minutes to file online, and about 80% are rejected and have to be resubmitted, Wood said. The Transportation Department website has had three major crashes since Friday, he said. On Monday, more than 2,000 dealers contacted the association complaining about problems submitting their applications.

The United States under President Barack Obama has switched sides and is now joining Russia in opposing international economic sanctions against Iran.

Former US President George W. Bush was the international community’s chief proponent of strong economic sanctions against Iran, but Obama has doggedly stuck with a much softer approach since being elected last year, despite continued Iranian defiance and provocation regarding its nuclear program.

European and other industrialized nations recognize how dangerously close Iran is coming to acquiring nuclear weapons, and what the recent post-election crackdown in Tehran says about the mentality of its government, and want to introduce new sanctions at Wednesday’s G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy.

But US officials have said Obama will actively oppose any new sanctions, and an Italian newspaper cited Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as saying he wholeheartedly backs the US president in that endeavor.

Meanwhile, Israeli government officials told The Washington Times on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is increasingly hesitant about asking Obama for a green light to strike Iran, fearing that an outright rejection of the request could put an end to the military option.

London’s Sunday Times reported earlier this week that ultimately, Israel may not need America’s go-ahead to strike Iran. According to the report, Saudi Arabia, which stands to lose nearly as much as Israel if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, is willing to turn a blind eye to Israeli aircraft passing through its airspace.  From Israel Today Headlines

The Jerusalem Post cites anonymous sources in reporting that six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi have been hanged in the holy city of Mashhad. The report has not been confirmed independently.

The sources said the hangings occurred Monday after the country’s top legislative body upheld the victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Earlier today, Mousavi reiterated his demand for a revote and said he was working to help organize a group to defend citizens’ rights. He said the committee would release documents “proving fraud and irregularities in the election.”

The Basij militia wants him prosecuted, accusing him of “disturbing the nation’s security” in a letter to the country’s top prosecutor, the Guardian reports

The Times of London has a profile of Mousavi.

Former president Mohammad Khatami delivered a strong attack against what he termed the “coup” on democracy. He criticized the outcome of the June 12 vote and called for the release of hundreds of opponents who have been arrested in demonstrations and at home.

An influential Iranian cleric told worshipers Friday that those stirring unrest in connection with the recent election should be punished “ruthlessly and savagely” and convicted for waging war against God, a crime that under Shiite Islamic law is punishable by death.

The sermon at Tehran University by Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami was broadcast live on state television, amplifying the ominous tone the state has adopted this week toward the tens of thousands of demonstrators who have massed in the streets to question the results of the June 12 presidential balloting. The government has declared the gatherings illegal.

“I want the judiciary to . . . punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson,” said Khatami, an influential cleric close to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “Based on Islamic law, whoever confronts the Islamic state . . . should be convicted as mohareb. . . . They should be punished ruthlessly and savagely.”

Meanwhile,  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went after Barack Obama, demanding an apology or else.  Or else what?

“Do you want to speak with this tone?” Ahmadinejad said Thursday, addressing Obama. “If that is your stance, then what is left to talk about?” “I hope you avoid interfering in Iran’s affairs and express your regret in a way that the Iranian nation is informed of it.”

He asked why Obama “has fallen into this trap and repeated the comments that Bush used to make” and told the U.S. president that such an attitude “will only make you another Bush in the eyes of the people.”

Candidate Obama ridiculed John McCain in October for proposing the imposition of a tax on existing health benefits.

President Obama proposed during his free, unopposed ABC infomercial that he will have to tax existing health care benefits in order to pay for health care reform, but only the really expensive “Cadillac” plans — like the health care plans negotiated by the big unions.

Is this a flip-flop? When circumstances and reality forced George Bush to renege on a campaign promise it was. But this is Obama! Here’s how the liberal media frames an Obama flip-flop:

“It was the latest in a series of signs of presidential flexibility.”

Candidate Obama insisted that he would meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions.   Then Ahmadinejad stole the election and the ensuing public uprising threatened to bring down his regime.

This was the perfect opportunity to support the demonstrations and overthrow the most malignant regime on the face of the earth today.   But Obama promised he would meet with Ahmadinejad without preconditions so he did NOTHING for eleven days before finally issuing a somewhat tepid ‘condemnation’ as the Iranian uprising begins to fizzle.

Is it a case of too little, too late that failed to capitalize on a golden opportunity?   Or is it,  as CNN sees it, another example of presidential flexibility?.

But President Obama is nothing but a realist. In taking a cautious approach to the crisis, he is also maintaining flexibility to preserve his stated policy of engaging with Iran, in particular the prospect of direct negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program.

That Obama!  What a guy!

“And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” Revelation 13:4