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Everyone knows Good Cop, Bad Cop.
You have gruff and uncompromising on one side, and then someone else shows up sweet as pie. The goal is to get something you want that they do not want to give up.
So is Mr. Obama’s compromise on stopping a tax increase part of the good cop bad-cop formula?
New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen chews up a large chunk of the Sunday Union Leader’s opinion page to sell us on president Obama’s START treaty with Russia. Most of the words revolve around suggesting this will enhance security, that it is a good deal for America, and that there are a busload of experts, past and current military, former Secretaries of State, ex-presidents and sundry others who agree that this Treaty should be ratified. But a few things stand between taking this at face value and moving forward on her recommendation.
First, Mr. Obama, a man who has excelled at degrading his own country, and minimizing its global influence, wants it real bad. Not a good sign.
Second, look at the context. What would we say if this was George Bush, wasting political energy and government time and resources, to advance something like this when we should have all our attention on the failure of the debt commission to agree to its own recommendations? Should we not still have all eyes and all hands dealing with a looming tax increase that could send the economy into a bigger tailspin just a few weeks from now? What about the deficit? Where is the laser like focus? Why not job growth polices–other than using the extension of unemployment benefits for class warfare against opponents who just want it paid for from some dark corner of Obama’s multi-trillion dollar budget or one of his many slush funds. Why START now?
Third, and this ties into the first, START is to strategic nuclear security what Obamacare was to Health care. Its pursuit appears almost Pyrrhic, as if the victory must come regardless of the cost. So this is not a strategic defense effort, it is just another feather in Obama’s agenda cap. And with the brakes now being applied to his agenda come January 3rd, he is more obsessed with the Obama of history than the one responsible for national, and based on how they are selling it, Global security.
But like everything else that comes out of the administration or the drooling mouths of the party lap-dogs assigned to promote it, this is predicated on their standard template. "We can’t just do nothing" and "Things could be worse."
If we search the landscape of the Obama Presidency however, neither of these ideas is compelling. If we actually look at what Obama is willing to pass off as ‘doing something,’ it looks as if he has just bowed to another foreign leader, only this time over a nuclear weapons treaty.
I just got this email from the President. (me an anyone else on that email list) Steve — When Michelle and I sit down with our family to give thanks today, I want you to know that we’ll be especially grateful for folks like you. Everything we have been able to accomplish in the last … Read more
Good to see that post election bounce…er, I mean…(what’s the opposite of bounce?) Courtesy of Zogby International with a H/T to Hot Air!
I stumbled across an open letter by (former?)’Young Democrat’ Douglas Lindner, a primary candidate for Manchester Ward 1 back in 2008. Lindner narrowly lost the primary (his words). Narrowly is 268 to 330,350 and 406 for three seats in Manchester Ward 1; I’m thinking he might not have been liberal enough.
But I believe he’s found a fix for that.
In his letter he first congratulates the Republicans on their victory (a very gracious set up), commends the Republicans for selecting the moderate train wreck John McCain in the past two presidential primaries, (even though it was the moderate/independents that swung those victories) and then proceeds to embark on a Palin bashing screed.
I told you he was trying to up his cred.
Jobs numbers are tricky things. Politicians will always tell you what you want to hear and leave out what they don’t want you to hear. So it is no surprise that we are getting the same old song and dance, that "the economy created private sector jobs again." That’s a nice thing to hear, but is it an improvement or are we still arranging deck chairs on the Titanic?
Deck chair anyone?
Unemployment is still at 9.6 percent and despite claims of job growth for ten months, unemployment has been at or above 9.6% for 20 months.
The numbers do not add up.
(H/T: RightWingNews)
In keeping with White House policy regarding unflattering news, (the economy could be worse), the Obama administration will announce that the number of casualties in Afghanistan–which have in 20 months under Obama exceeded the total from the previous eight years combined…could be worse. Things could be worse, after all, and that’s the only metric we … Read more
Needs no further commentary: (H/T: Kevin)
Watch and share. Senator John Thune gives you all the reasons you need to avoid democrats this voting season. The Obama experiment has failed.
Michael Totten at PJM points us to an article by Barry Rubin at Global Research in International Affairs in which Rubin alerts us that the newly elected leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has just endorsed a full blown Anti-American Jihad. Rubin explains the serious business that this is, with all the relevant consideration, but sums … Read more
Democrats continue to insist that they created jobs. To do this they extracted trillions from our economic future in an effort to create jobs that did not yet exist–that perhaps were not needed yet. Looking at similar exercises, cash for clunkers–which moved car sales forward a few months but has since resulted in a collapse in the market; the home mortgage bail outs, supports, credits, and the "home affordable" programs which improved home sales briefly but which have since collapsed (also to historic lows); and then there’s the stimulus, several public sector employee bailouts, bank lending infusions, small business bills, and everything in between including health care reform–many trillions spent, all made with claims that they would create, save, or incentivize job creation.
Lets concede the possibility that some jobs were saved or created with money from the future. Let’s also, for academic purposes, concede the number of 1.4 million-3.3 million jobs saved or created ( quote from Paul Hodes campaign if that matters). What happens now? Even if we can agree to these figures the mathematical reality is that despite these efforts, and at great expense, we still lost more jobs than we saved or created. Millions are still unemployed with hundreds of thousands more people working less, working shorter hours, or who have given up looking altogether just in the 12 months since someone declared the recession over. We got a net sum loss with the price of admission, and that debt is now looming over our ability to sustain or improve the job picture moving forward because of the Faustian fiscal political calculation the democrats made in what now appears to be a series of vote getting scams gone horribly wrong.
To use my sinking ship analogy from last year, for every 1000 folks he’s got bailing out the ship that were not helping before, ten thousand have slowed down or stopped bailing altogether. Paint all the rosy pictures you like, the end result is that the same. Obama’s economic ship is sinking faster.
H/T benhoweblog
The Obama disaster tour is on the road complaining about how the Republicans are going to cut education funding by 20%. First, let me clarify that federal education funding could get cut 100% and I’d start to feel better, but since 20% is what we have to work with let’s work with it.
Just becasue..
Keeping with the promise of Obama and the congress for openness and transparency, Human Events (HE) brings us Donald Berwick. Berwick is Mr. Obama’s recess appointment to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and according to Jason Mattera at HE he’s been less than accessible, refusing interviews and avoiding public comment in the three months since his ascension to the office, despite claims that he would address concerns that would have derailed any effort to get him there through the usual Senate confirmation process.
Derailed indeed.
H/T Hot Air
I am still looking for the link to the original, but I needed something light-hearted today, and this has to be it. Picked up via Pajama’s Media–over at Althouse, there’s was some speculation over why the President was not wearing his wedding ring at his press conference. You can read it here, but I’ll share … Read more
Separation of powers was meant to divide the authority so that a process of checks and balances was created to protect the people from abuses of power. This simple reality makes two things the democrats want you to believe impossible.