A friend of mine asked me what I thought about Donald Trump this weekend. The truth is, I’d rather not think about Donald Trump. He’s the canary in the Republican well. Or should I say “toucan”? He‘s Toucan Sam, the Kellogg’s cereal mascot who can sniff out “Froot Loops”—if Toucan Sam had been exposed to poisonous mineshaft fumes.
The American people are so starved for anyone—anyone—to tell them the truth, that they’re willing to give an unprincipled, shameless, self-promoting (but successful) buffoon traction. Why? Because he’s uncensored. He says what he wants, and he’s not scared of anyone. And sometimes what he says sticks it to the establishment’s rodeo clowns (i.e., the biased media) who are paid to distract an angry public from the country’s real problems.
The fact that Donald Trump has any serious following at all should tell us how diseased our culture and our political class have become. It says even worse about the Republican Party, which is short on Paul Ryans and heavy on hucksters selling little more than smoke and mirrors—when what’s really needed are answers to our most pressing economic problems. Take a look into what Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are going to cost the nation over the next ten years. Take a look at what the interest alone on our national debt will mean for the nation. And then listen to politicians who try to convince you that “taxing the rich” or eliminating “fraud, waste, and abuse” will even come close to fending off the economic judgment day approaching.
America doesn’t need a corporate clown from the 80s to run it. Where do has-beens who often don’t realize their best days are behind them wind up? Reality TV. If America were to elect Trump it wouldn’t take a tweed-jacket wearing professor to tell us that it’s all but over — we’d know it. And, while it’s better to be a has-been than a never-was, I can’t help but think that there’s an inspirational leader out there who could remind America what made it exceptional in the first place: free markets, limited government, individual liberties, a strong national defense, and traditional American values.
Thanks for telling us that we’re surrounded by Froot Loops, Trump. Now get back to dealing with some more of them on NBC, where they need you.
Crazy is patient. Don't be lulled into a false sense of security because of the success of Stuxnet.
If the mainstream media hadn’t just tried to link the acts of a random madman to a peaceful movement aimed at restoring limited government and fiscal responsibility I’d say we couldn’t accuse them of not having good intentions… However, one thing the Rep. Giffords tragedy has show is that liberal media outlets often want so badly for something to be true that they’re willing to run with it with just a few indictors to go on. I’m worried that this is going to be the case with Iran now that Stuxnet has generally accomplished its goals:
Identified in June, Stuxnet is being called the most sophisticated cyber weapon ever unleashed, because of the insidious way in which it is believed to have secretly targeted specific equipment used in Iran’s nuclear program.
Computer experts have examined the worm for months, and many believe Stuxnet was created by Israel or the United States as part of a covert effort to hamper Iran’s alleged drive for an atomic weapon. But the extent to which the operation succeeded had remained unclear.
In recent weeks, however, a rough consensus has emerged that Stuxnet has had a measurable effect. In addition to the remarks from U.S. and Israeli officials, the Institute for Science and International Security, an independent think tank, judged in late December that Stuxnet appears to have “set back Iran’s progress.”
Stuxnet “will undoubtedly reshape international security and foreign policy forever,” said John Bumgarner, chief technology officer of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit research organization that studies cyber conflict. “It’s a tipping point that will usher in a cyber-defense revolution in military affairs.”
While Stuxnet is an incredibly awesome story, and it’s fun to think of Iranian mullah-nuts pulling their beards out for months trying to wonder why their centrifuges were all playing suicide bomber…it ultimately doesn’t change their will or desire to obtain nuclear weapons.
What I’m afraid will happen now is that liberals at the Los Angeles Times will become obsessed with “breathing space.”
After years of warning that an Iranian atomic bomb is right around the corner, Israeli officials now say Iran is at least four years away from deploying a nuclear weapon, maybe more. And Obama administration officials agree, although they shy away from endorsing a specific time frame. “We’ve gained some breathing space,” a senior U.S. official told me last week. “The good news is that we have slowed down the nuclear clock.”
Breathing space is fine, but it really all depends on what one plans on doing with that extra time. Is the goal to slow the clock down or is it to destroy the clock? What if Stuxnet hadn’t worked? What then?
Crazy is patient. Crazy outlasts politicians and sanctions and the weak-kneed will of bureaucrats at the United Nations who all talk a great game—until the s**t hits the fan.
Do a little research on who has done all the heavy lifting in Afghanistan over the years. Afghanistan was one of those wars the United Nations was supposedly on board for, yet there are a lot of nations that are perfectly capable of helping out that have been MIA for years.
In short: The United Nations as it currently exists is painfully useless. Anyone expecting it to play a productive role in ultimately bringing the Iranian nuclear standoff to a peaceful end should probably not take a vacation to Las Vegas anytime soon.
Holland Reynolds has something to teach all of us. However, I implore conservatives to take a good hard look at her story; it's a metaphor for the kind of American we seek to create.
California isn’t a lost cause after all! Sure, most of us look at the sad liberal mess it’s become and shake our head (these days it’s only good at exporting jobs to its neighbors, and the worse their self-imposed financial disaster gets the more they stick to the same mentality that caused it). However, the California State Cross Country Championships—and more specifically the tale of Holland Reynolds—is inspirational for a number of reasons. It’s also a great metaphor for the kind of world conservatives seek to create.
In short, Holland collapsed on the home stretch to the finish line. Anyone who has seriously run Cross Country knows what it’s like to completely empty your tank—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. However, many runners know that most of the time when people think they’ve dug deep down inside and have nothing left to give…that there is more to give. And Holland’s story proves it.
Who would have blamed this young girl after her collapse if she just closed her eyes, rolled over, and waited for coaches and trainers to give her medical attention? No one. But something inside said to ignore the pain and soldier on because her teammates were counting on her. It often doesn’t make sense to the casual spectator why someone who has tumbled to the ground would rather crawl on their knees than to be carried off the field of play when injury strikes. The runner, however, knows better.
The fans on the sideline never saw the long lonely miles or the pre-dawn runs that helped propel her to the state championships to begin with. They could never know of the time, dedication, patience, and isolation that it takes to be an elite long distance runner. They could never see the sacrifice it took behind the scenes to reach that level of success…
Imagine if we lived in a world where the kind of grit and determination demonstrated by Holland Reynolds was instilled in men and women across the country, and then applied in every aspect of their lives. Imagine if all those random knock downs and blow backs we face in our professional or personal lives triggered a response that said to buckle down, focus on the goal at hand, and move forward. Imagine if we thought about the coaches and mentors and loved ones who invested in us when we considered calling it quits—and then found a hidden supply of inner fortitude because it would hurt even more to let them down. Such a place would be a pretty nice world to live in, wouldn’t it?
The novice runner hits a wall and stops to catch their breath. The experienced runner (or people with the Holland Reynolds gene) knows that there is a second wind to be had. We can go faster and farther than we ever dreamed. We just need to cast off the mind forged manacles of ideologies that blame others for our problems, abdicate individual responsibilities to nameless and faceless third parties, and encourage sloth and apathy through perverted public policy.
Were there people ready and waiting to help Holland if she truly needed it? Of course. But those very same people knew that sometimes we can achieve great heights despite pain and suffering, and that perhaps the character built through such tribulations is far more valuable than the comfort that comes from having caretakers too quick on the draw.
Liberalism is a crutch that’s eager to be used and willing to convince even the able-bodied citizen they’d be better off with a cane. Conservatism is the coach that’s always there by your side in an emergency, but willing to watch you fall down because a.) it’s a part of life and b.) there’s a mettle inside most of us we’ll never realize is there unless we’re given a chance to find it.
Conservatives aren’t cold hearted, just as Holland Reynolds’ coach wasn’t when he watched her crawl over the finish line. In fact, the life lessons Holland will take away from that state championship race will stay with her the rest of her life.
While I can’t claim to ever have run with the elite, those are the gifts I took away from the sport years ago. It baffles my mind that so many runners out West are liberal, but perhaps conservatives like me have just been silent for too long. Regardless, I tip my hat to Holland Reynolds because she has something to teach all of us.
China's full potential will never be realized until it trusts its own people.
Perhaps one of the reasons 10 Russian spies were apprehended (and quickly released) by the U.S. government is because the Chinese government is too busy spying on its own people to send agents here. Okay, maybe not—we all know that Chinese agents are here in droves… However, it’s interesting to remind everyone that Commies are always just as terrified (if not more) of their own people than foreign powers. It’s really hard to “plan” economies if you can’t control the behavior of human beings, each with their own individual wants, needs, concerns, and desires. China hasn’t gotten the memo:
BEIJING — A Chinese government-backed think tank has accused the U.S. and other Western governments of using social-networking sites such as Facebook to spur political unrest and called for stepped-up scrutiny of the wildly popular sites…
“We must pay attention to the potential risks and threats to state security as the popularity of social-networking sites continues to grow…We must immediately step up supervision of social-networking sites.”
One of the reasons why our little experiment in self governance is the best thing to ever happen to the world, was covered at the start of the summer movie season:
“The Christian elements of our nation’s founding guarantee that the innate creativity of man is encouraged to blossom. God gave each of us gifts, and wants us to take full advantage of them. Capitalism, Science, and The Rule of Law fused in America to produce a system that churns out ideas and innovation and entrepreneurs at an astounding rate—when the government gets out of the way.”
As long as China views its own people and the free flow of information as a “security” concern, their full potential will never be realized. I suppose their ruling elite’s attempts to create a nation of semi-automous drones has worked well enough to grow its economy, but it’s still sad. And, like I said, their full potential is so much more; anyone who understands freedom and liberty knows that. Sure, there will always be free people who will squander their talents spending obscene amounts of time trying to “know” narcissists like Lebron James, but many more will take advantage of a chance to tap the entrepreneurial skills inside them if given the opportunity.
“A mystery with the name Specreman…He’ll save the human race, yet they’ll never know the face of Specreman! We will never know the source of his power and his force as he guides this planets course!”
I’ll take the individual creative genius who loves his country (while maintaining his own distinct personality) over a no name force acting on the behalf of the collective any day of the week. If you’re an American and you’re finished reading this, go out there and Kick Ass. If you’re from China: think about why this page will probably be blocked tomorrow…and then do something about it.
The United States has characters like Iron Man because we love entrepreneurs and innovators. China is more in line with nameless cyborg Japanese creations like Spectreman. Have a little more respect for yourself and a little less censorship, guys...
Because Iran hasn’t perfected its nuke program (yet) it still has to deal with Western diplomatic pressure and “ugly hostility” to things like stoning women to death:
“The hue and cry that the West has launched over this case will not affect our judges,” [Mohammed Javad Larijani] said. “The implementation of Islamic regulations like stoning and the headscarf have always been faced with their ugly hostility and opposition.”
Indeed. And once upon a time the Brits had an “ugly hostility” to suttee (i.e., the Indian tradition of turning widows into flesh-flavored roasted marshmallows by throwing them on a funeral pyre).
The funny thing about liberal muti-culturalists is that even though they
Liberal American feminists care more about what Sarah Palin says on Facebook than fighting for the rights of women who are actually oppressed. Telling.
spend their days on American college campuses bashing the pillars of Western Civilization (while thinking of ways to liken the cave doodles of random tribes to the works of Shakespeare), the uglier aspects of other cultures are never mentioned.
What’s also interesting is the deafening silence among American liberal feminists and their allies in academia on the affronts to individual liberties faced by women in the muslim world. They seem to get more bent out of shape about what Sarah Palin writes on Facebook on a daily basis than muslim clerics who are trigger happy to declare holy war on the social networking website.
The left likes to say that the conservatives seek a perpetual state of war, yet the “war” over women’s rights was largely won (in the United States) a long time ago. So why then do they continue to treat Middle America as the main theater for a cultural battle that needs to be fought overseas. Why aren’t liberal “feminist cultural warriors” parachuting into Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Indonesia? Perhaps because:
They’re not the 101st Airborne Division
They would be “stoned” to death, which is somewhat related to not being an American infantryman, but mostly due to the fact that air conditioned meeting rooms on college campuses with brown bag lunches provided gratis is preferable to getting slammed in the face with boulders until you die. Why actually engage in a real cultural battle when you can convince yourself the one that was won long ago is still going on?
The next time your liberal college professor tries to tell you that the United States doesn’t have any more or less moral clout than a nation that stones women, ask them if they think Iran isn’t really stoning women to death, but training them for international dodgeball competitions using Patches O’Houlihan inspired training techniques—only instead of saying “if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball,” they say, “if you can dodge a stone…”
If they say “no”, then bust out with your own rendition of Team America’s classic America, F**k Yeah! Even with all its flaws, America is the greatest country in the world, in large part because of our acknowledgement and protection of God given rights. Period.
Iran isn't killing women, it's secretly training them to be international dodgeball stars...
Have you seen the promotional campaign for Christopher Nolan’s new movie,
I only chuckle along to Ellen's inane diatribes because to do otherwise would expose me as the guy who makes a killing reading other people's thoughts without ever having an original one of my own.
Inception?The strategy is fittingly outside the box: Joseph Gordon-Levit shuffles and laughs along as Ellen Page shows the world what a self-righteous joke she is—when she should be promoting the movie. Maybe it’s awkward for Joseph because the liberal costar sitting next to him revels in everything he claims is “distasteful” :
“I guess I was paranoid that people would treat me differently, or in an unfair way, because of my job. Even back then, I really didn’t like the whole idolatry that goes on with actors and found the celebrity thing distasteful. I still do.”
Hey Joseph, what do you think of Ellen Page maximizing her own piece of the idolatry pie by waxing political during an interview for Inception? Do you think Ellen comments in an “unfair way” when she links Dick Cheney to “fear that seems to be creating a lot of ignorance and thus passing on that fear to a lot of people and causing a lot of problems,”? (Apparently no one passed on the gift of eloquence to Ellen…) The last time I checked, Dick Cheney’s tenure as Vice President saw jihadi nutbags turn cross-continental airplanes loaded with jet fuel into giant missiles in downtown Manhattan (not too far away from where Joseph went to college, if I’m not mistaken). And the last time I checked, jihadi clowns were still trying to create a market for body-bag makers in downtown New York City—after the Hopeandchange Express rode into town. Ellen? She just sings woefully out of tune with Jason Cera and somehow thinks it gives her the intellectual license to lecture the rest of us in monotone liberal platitudes.
The funny thing about most celebrities is that without their memorized scripts, all their “deep” thoughts end up sounding like vague, meaningless drivel you might see on cardboard signs during local news coverage of a high school “walk out,” (or a Joseph Gordon-Levit movie).
Joseph may have been a star on the show 3rd Rock from the Sun,but grunting and huffing in agreement with a liberal actor who’s as smart as a box of rocks isn’t going to win him over new fans. I’m going to see Inception because Christopher Nolan directed it, but I’ll think twice about contributing to the word of mouth because Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page want to act like partisan tools when they’re supposed to be selling me on the movie. Smooth move, geniuses.
I've adopted the smug monotone delivery when I'm preaching liberalism from the promo-circuit because some people forget that I'm a Canadian actor with zero public policy pronouncement credentials when I do so.
Janeane Garofalo refuses to go away. It really doesn’t matter how many times she’s given the Magnum PI treatment, because liberal media outlets will keep anyone with a modicum of “celebrity” status on career life support if they’re willing to spew partisan spittle on cue:
AVC Interviewer: Do you feel like you’ve become better known for the non-funny things you say about politics than for your comedy?
Garafalo: I don’t know. I don’t know how well known, really, I am at all at this point. And I’m not saying that as a “poor me” thing. I’m just saying, you know, I have no web presence, and I don’t know that there’s many people who really do know me that much anymore…
Janeane is partially right. Most people today don’t really know
Janeane Garafalo feels as though she's a "statesmen." She's kind of like Winston Churchill...if he was a perpetual whiner and a quitter.
her for any sort of cinematic or comedic flashes of brilliance, but for her Pavlovian partisan yip yaps at the behest of producers and editors hoping to snag the lowest common denominator of liberal true believers. Case in point:
AVC Interviewer: …I suppose the presence of minorities in [Tea Party] videos and such is their way of showing that they aren’t racist.
Garofalo: And I would say those people suffer from Stockholm syndrome.
In Garafalo’s mind, people who disagree with her don’t do so because they have legitimate public policy alternatives that might be more beneficial to the country’s long term economic health—they have Stockholm Syndrome! And in Garafalo’s mind, if it gets under your skin listening to someone with no discernible qualifications to offer public policy pronouncements (other than a bottomless quiver of flimsy intellectual arrows), it’s because you’re a misogynist:
Garofalo: The teabagger thing and the right-wing thing—they pick easy targets, and a female in the entertainment industry is low-hanging fruit. It’s very easy to mock and marginalize people in general who are in the entertainment industry, for some reason. But then definitely there’s the double standard and the misogyny that goes through it as well. They’ve got no problem with Will Ferrell or Alec Baldwin or Viggo Mortensen, but they tend to take issue when a female says something.
Actually, Janeane, I’ve mentioned the Funny or Die Liberalism of Will Ferrell before, but he gets less attention because he’s not on Keith Olbermann’s rolodex of reliable liberal guest appearances. And perhaps that’s because, unlike you, he still has the ability to make people laugh:
AVC Interviewer: How do you deal with situations like what happened at last year’s Latitude Festival while staying sober? [After a poor reception from the audience, Garofalo left the stage 10 minutes into her set. —ed.]
Garafolo: It’s terrible! It’s honestly mortifying. It’s just personal failure. I’ve no one but myself to blame. There is no way around that. I failed, and it wouldn’t have helped to be drinking. Or maybe it actually would have, if I drank beforehand. I might have been like, “Oh, I can do this.” I might have had false confidence…And I am very sorry about it, and I wish that did not happen. I wish that I had had the confidence to do it, and been more mature, and powered through my sense of dread.
I find it interesting that the same person who bailed ten minutes into her failing gig also applied that same mindset to the Iraq War not too long ago…and yet, she’s still perfectly at ease referring to herself as a “statesman”:
AVC Interviewer: There’ s a whole younger generation now that’s been raised on and inspired by your comedy. Do you get that sense that you’ve become an elder statesman? Do you recognize your own impact?
Garafalo: I definitely get the sense that I’m an elder statesman, but I don’t know if there’s an impact—and I’m not saying that in a naïve way. I don’t know. I think anybody who’s been doing it for 25 years is going to be considered an elder statesman. But I don’t know if I’ve impacted anyone.
The last time I checked, most people who are elevated to the level of a “statesman” are also recognized as having some sort of influence over how events unfolded during their tenure. One might say that in this instance Janeane was simply being humble, but I think deep down she knows that she’s a contributor to chattering class white noise and little else. She wants to be considered a statesman of…something…in some field, but the same person who burst on the scene with Ben Stiller has more in common in terms of career-trajectory with liberal guys like Andy Dick. And what do liberal artists turn to when their career heads south? Political pot shots at conservatives. There’s always an opportunity to make waves as long as the ladies of The View and liberal media outlets exist. They’ll give anyone a shot at resuscitating their career if they’ll liken conservatives to dim-witted, racist, homophobic, bigoted boobs. The problems liberals are facing now are little things like the internet, talk radio, social media platforms, and emerging technologies that allow the rest of us to point out how bitter, sad, angry and (most importantly) wrong people like Janeane are.
Janeane Garafalo: a “statesman” in the vein of Winston Churchill…if Winston Churchill was a whiner and a quitter.
Winston Churchill: “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
Chris Matthews:I don’t know who you’re going to vote for, by the way. I’m absolutely convinced I don’t know who you’re going to vote for. I can’t tell.
Peggy Noonan:I’m thinking it through…it has been a long and winding year.
She’s also wrong in her analysis regarding the “relative peace” of Bill Clinton’s time in office:
Mr. Carter’s opposite was Bill Clinton, on whom fortune smiled with eight years of relative peace and a worldwide economic boom. What misfortune Mr. Clinton experienced he mostly created himself. History didn’t impose it.
There wasn’t a “relative peace.” It was all an illusion. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but a truck laden with explosives was used in an attempt to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993. One of the opening salvos in the War for Western Civilization occurred on February 26, 1993 and the President of the United States
The same person lulled by "hopeandchange" (one word) also thinks there was "relative peace" in the 90's. Wrong. The War for Western Civilization began. You just didn't realize it.
treated it as a simple law enforcement matter. History called on President Bill Clinton to address the growing threat of Islamic terrorism as it began morphing into a whole new monster in the void created by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he forwarded that call to a future administration.
I highly suggest people look into the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania, or perhaps the USS Cole bombing in Yemen as well. The fact of the matter is this: The size, scope, and complexity of terrorist organizations and their operations grew throughout the 1990’s. It culminated in the horrific images we saw on 9/11, with people hurling themselves out the windows of the World Trade Center towers. The choice that day: free fall for a few harrowing seconds to your death, or burn alive in an inferno of jet fuel and twisted metal.
War was declared on Western Civilization years ago. Our political leaders just decided to ignore it. The federal government’s primary job is to protect its people. When a threat exists worthy of preparing for war footing, it is our elected officials job to educate the citizenry of the nature of the threat, and to mobilize the country for the task at hand. Do I blame President Clinton for 9/11? Of course not. But I refuse to accept the premise that “relative peace” existed in the 90’s because…it did not.
History will judge George Bush much more kindly than the know-it-all academics, cultural elites, and talking heads on cable news because he realized the threat Islamic terrorism posed—not just to the nation—but to the pillars of Western Civilization. As a nation, liberalism allows societies to slowly sink into a morass of moral relativism and a quick sand pit of multi-culturalism. By the time the danger of those who seek to undermine freedom of speech, individual liberties, and the rule of law makes itself clear…it’s often too late. Ask most of Europe. Or read Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone.
Peggy Noonan is a gifted writer, but she has proven she is susceptible to the foibles of Elitist Conservative circles. There’s a small part of me that thinks errors of “relative peace” are not errors at all because the cultural elite—those who attend cocktail parties with a mix of environmentalists eating foi gras and “conservatives” who distain the “small people” when the cameras aren’t rolling— should have recognized emerging threats in the 1990’s…but didn’t. If they mention that our elected officials were asleep at the wheel (or partying it up inside The Beltway) during a decade of plotting, planning, and terrorist attacks by new enemies, it’s hard not to conclude our investigative journalists, newsmen, and “experts” were just as negligent.
One of the reasons why the United States Kicks Ass is because it’s habitually in the position of having to control its border to stop millions of people who want to enter the country, while
Kim Jong Il is probably a huge fan of Matt Damon's national self flagellation flicks for self loathing liberal Americans.
countries like North Korea have troops at the border to stop people from leaving. The United States has actors and directors who go around the world bashing the freest country in the world, while North Korea hires actors to put a happy face on a regime that runs gulags like a successful fast food chain restaurant.
That’s why I find it interesting that Robert Rodriguez and his liberal Hollywood friends spend more time stoking cultural fires within their own country instead of pointing to the dysfunctional dictators who really pose a threat to the freedom, liberty, and civilized societies throughout the world.
Likewise, it’s very telling that satirists and comedians around the world feel perfectly at ease mocking Christians when they’re desperate for an easy laugh, and yet they now openly acknowledge that “speaking truth to power” doesn’t include mocking Islamic terrorists because…that might actually require some inner fortitude. Today’s liberal “thinkers” (or wannabe “thinkers”) talk tough to talk show hosts…but clam up when it comes to the guy who wants to chop your head off, brunoise the First Amendment, and serve it to his jihad buddies for dinner.
While I’ve already let it be known how I feel about Robert Rodriguez, I still can’t let the issue go. I want so badly to believe that I’m not living in The Twilight Zone, but every day I’m reminded how Hollywood shuns real life American stories of Audie Murphy-type heroism in favor of filmic self flagellation on a national scale.
When someone with Robert Rodriguez’s skills finally decides to highlight how great this nation is within the confines of an awesome action flick…they’re going to make a lot of money.
I wonder if Machete will ever work his way into North Korean gulags to kill the Commie caretakers of the closest thing to hell on earth. Oh...wait...Robert Rodriguez is too busy stoking cultural fires in the freest country the world has ever known. You rock, Robert!
I turns out that the Washington Post is shocked (shocked, I tell you!) that people actually expect Barack Obama to deliver the goods on a wide range of public policy issues that he…ummm, campaigned on. And the Washington Post is shocked (shocked, I tell you!) that the guy who doesn’t sweat is suddenly sweating it big time when it comes to that big messy earth-pore gushing junk at the bottom of the ocean:
Why can’t he . . . well, you get the point. Obama, it turns out, is not Superman. In (unhappy) truth, no president is, no matter how politically gifted and no matter how many people, in this country and around the world, root for his success.
Wait a second…so it turns out that giving someone a Nobel Peace Prize before they’ve ever actually achieved tangible results isn’t a really clever way to trick dictators and despots into being “swell” guys? You mean the candidate who claimed electing him would be “the moment…when the rise of the oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal”suddenly finds himself presiding over rising (oily) tides caused by a hemorrhaging hole in the earth? You don’t say.
I have an idea: Why doesn’t someone find that huge set of Greek Pillars Obama used for his Denver convention speech and use it to plug the hole in the Gulf? One would think that a Greek Temple created to symbolize the greatness of The One would be big enough to put a stop to all of this. That is…unless they were fake imitations of the real thing. Hmmm.
It is only at the end of the piece that—in passing—that the author acknowledges Barack Obama’s own culpability in the credibility gap he now experiences:
Obama, fairly enough, is reaping what he sowed in assigning himself an impossible mission as a global savior. But Americans are his culpable enablers. Few people want to hear this, but he’s doing the best he can, considering the difficult circumstances that he and the nation face. And what he needs most from the public is a quality that distinguishes adults from children: patience.
George Bush was going to go "Old School" on your grandpa using the Patriot Act, but Obama is "doing the best he can"? Hypocrites.
I don’t really remember calls for “patience” when George W. Bush was trying to figure out how to secure victory in Iraq. I do remember Harry Reid literally surrendering to our enemies.Regardless, this sets the stage nicely for Democrats to call for extensions of Obama’s Afghanistan timeline since the reality on the ground doesn’t seem to be cooperating with his previous rhetoric and artificial pullout dates. Obama’s doing “the best he can…considering the difficult circumstances that he and the nation face.” That’s so weird, because in a post 9/11 world it seemed like that’s exactly what George W. Bush was doing, and the left was trying to convince us that he was going to go Old School on your grandpa with federal agents using the Patriot Act, make himself King George by fiat, and say “FUDGE IT!” to the U.S. Constitution. But that didn’t happen. Instead, he’s making Facebook videos with a bit of the same charm and grace he showed in office (albeit with an awkward green screen viewers can do without).
When it comes to Afghanistan, I’m willing to give the president all the time he (and the nation) needs in order to succeed. I will never play politics with national security or go down in history like Harry Reid, 21st Century Retreat Monkey. It’s just annoying how the appeals for “patience” only happen when a Democrat is in office.
My name is Douglas Ernst, and I hereby endorse The Axl Rose Doctrine in times of war.
The "Axl Rose Doctrine " apparently only applies to the nation when a Democrat is in office during a time of war. For those of you without a MA in AxlRosian thought, we're talking about "Patience."
Douglas Ernst Blog 