Abu Wabu

Via Ace:
The worst oil splooge in history was both caused and worsened by progressive ideology.

And it's still splooging.

What a dick: Biden Calls Manager Who Told Him To Lower Taxes A "Smartass"

November 2010.

Is that what they call that? An "economist"?



Now that there's a side of Neil Cavuto I haven't seen before. I like it very much.

Allahpundit has the story.

Mark Levin says yes in Why Gen. McChrystal & His Staff Mocked Obama & Biden:

This White House trashed our military in leaks to the leftist Jonathan Alter, who used their quotes in his book, which was intended to make the military look bad. This is NOT how a commander-in-chief is supposed to conduct himself.

So McChrystal is out and a legendary military leader inherited from the Bush administration is in.

With all the commentary that will follow from the MSM about the splendor of Obama's decision, let's remember all the baseless, despicable scorn, lies, character assassination and slanders Obama and his fellow Senate Democrats heaped on General Petraeus during the hearings on the Surge, a plan they all said wouldn't work and for which they called him a liar for even suggesting it would.

Rather than burnishing Barack Hussein Obama's presidential cred - he has none - all this whole affair has done, at this point, is prove once again what a bunch of lying sacks of shit the Democrats were in their attacks on Petraeaus and the military at the outset of the final surge and rescue of Iraq. Obama, Durbin, Reid, Biden, Clinton, Kennedy, Dodd, Kerry, Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi, Levin, Schumer, Frank, all of them, from top to bottom. It had failed before it had even begun, they said; the war was lost, and only a lying Bush military lackey like Petraeus would try to suggest otherwise. And today it is proven once and for all that it was all politics, for nothing but their own benefit, regardless of the cost to the country, its military and its image around the world, all of which they were prepared to sacrifice on the altar of political power.



And now they must turn to the very man they accused of lying, of having failed before he had even begun, in the hope that he can now replicate his historic success in Iraq by taking charge in Afghanistan. How rich that these shameless miscreants are all now forced to crawl back to Petreaus to save their sorry, treacherous, undeserving asses for just a few more months.

ALSO
Via Glenn Reynolds, this roundup:

Time for another Moveondotorg airbrushing. Only an ideological dunce would buy into that crew. And he did.

Recalling Hillary's harangue:



Victor Davis Hanson:

It is one of the ironies of our present warped climate that Petraeus will face far less criticism from the media and politicians than during 2007–8 (there will be no more “General Betray Us” ads or “suspension of disbelief” ridicule), because his success this time will reflect well on Obama rather than George Bush. It is a further irony that Obama is surging with Petraeus despite not long ago declaring that such a strategy and such a commander were failures in Iraq. And it is an even further irony that he is now rightly calling for “common purpose” when — again not long ago, at a critical juncture in Iraq — Obama himself, for partisan purposes on the campaign trail, had no interest in the common purpose of military success in Iraq.

Flashback: Republican National Committee chairman Mike Duncan, Friday, September 21, 2007:

Senators Clinton and Obama need to decide whether they’re running for America, or running for MoveOn.org. If Clinton and Obama cannot bring themselves to take a stand against a vicious attack on the man leading our forces in Iraq, why should American voters believe they are capable of demonstrating the leadership we need in a commander in chief?

Claudia Rosett: Getting To Know The General:

If only Obama had been as eager to clear time on his calendar for McChrystal back in 2009. That’s when really getting to know the general — the man entrusted with winning the war in Afghanistan — should have been one of the top priorities of the new president.

I’m not suggesting that with earlier close acquaintance Obama might have spotted the seeds of McChrystal’s “enormous mistake” — as White House spokesman Robert Gibbs described it at press briefing Tuesday. I’m suggesting that better leadership from Obama himself would have averted this mess altogether. Whatever comes next for McChrystal, the biggest lesson here is one the commander-in-chief himself has yet to master.

And Daniel Foster at NRO has excerpts from the NYT chronicling Obama's idiotic proposal for withdrawing from Iraq, along with video (if you can stand to watch it) of Obama demagoguing the surge hearing.

Remember, for Obama, even the prospect of genocide in Iraq was not enough to merit taking down Saddam, and he proudly declared in the Surge hearings that he never supported the rescue of Iraq.

So Obama has never had any use for a genuine national hero like General Petraeus. Until now.

Daniel Pipes writes at NRO on the left's new target for worldwide revolution: an imaginary construct labelled "Empire." Once again, we see the confluence between the left and Islamofascism; as usual, the bad guys are America and Israel, and as usual the proposed solution is meant to be the final one.

Pipes references Ernest Sternberg, who teaches at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. The author of Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For,

[Sternberg] then asks the vital question: Will the Left’s latest incarnation once again turn totalitarian? He finds it too early to answer definitively but points to several “totalitarian warning signs,” including the dehumanizing of enemies and accusations of mass murder. He warns of an inflection point when left-fascists “stand true to their cataclysmic rhetoric and strap on suicide belts or take up arms to become martyrs.” In other words, the dangers are real and present.

Daniel Pipes: The Left’s New Enemy: ‘Empire’
Ernest Sternberg: Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For
Ernest Sternberg: A Revivified Corpse: Left-Fascism in the Twenty-First Century

Via Power Line
Eric Holder embarrassed himself last month in front of the House Judiciary Committee and the world when he simply could not bring himself to admit the reality of radical Islam and Islamofascist terror. Unfortunately for those in the administration who would pass off jihad as a beautiful thing, the very creature whose existence Holder and Obama would deny actually set the record straight from a U.S. District Court in Manhattan yesterday:

Calling himself a Muslim soldier, a defiant Pakistan-born U.S. citizen pleaded guilty Monday to carrying out the failed Times Square car bombing and left a sinister warning that unless the U.S. leaves Muslim lands alone, "we will be attacking U.S."

Wearing a white skull cap, prison smocks and a dark beard, Faisal Shahzad entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Manhattan just days after a federal grand jury indicted him on 10 terrorism and weapons counts, some of which carried mandatory life prison sentences. He pleaded guilty to them all.

U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum challenged Shahzad repeatedly with questions such as whether he had worried about killing children in Times Square.

"One has to understand where I'm coming from," Shahzad calmly replied. "I consider myself ... a Muslim soldier."

Scott Johnson concludes,

Now that may not be clear enough for Attorney General Holder. It probably isn't. Holder would probably take issue with Shahzad concerning the basis of his actions. But it should do for the citizen of average intelligence.

And Obama administration counterterror adviser John Brennan will undoubtedly want to instruct Shahzad in the correct understanding of Islamic doctrine. But in the meantime Shahzad has given anyone who is paying attention an important clue.

Obama can send all the talking heads he wants to accuse Senator Kyl of lying, but the bottom line is that Kyl is telling the truth, a fact confirmed by the White House's very own response, which communications director Dan Pfeiffer wrote on the White House blog:

"There are more resources dedicated toward border security today than ever before, but, as the president has made clear, truly securing the border will require a comprehensive solution to our broken immigration system (Emphasis mine).

This is not a passive situational observation; this is Obama "making it clear" to the state of Arizona that "a comprehensive solution", meaning amnesty for illegals, is Obama's condition for performing his Constitutional duty and securing the border. It could not be more clear, especially taking Obama's other actions into account.

Byron York: Obama declares war on Arizona:

The Justice Department is preparing to sue Arizona over its new immigration law. The president has stiffed Gov. Jan Brewer's call for meaningful assistance in efforts to secure the border. And the White House has accused Arizona's junior senator, Republican Jon Kyl, of lying about an Oval Office discussion with the president over comprehensive immigration reform. Put them all together, and you have an ugly state of affairs that's getting uglier by the day.

Rolling Stone has revealed that General Stanley McChrystal and his staff talk about the administration the way Obama and his staff talk about others, except mayhaps with fewer profanities.

Obviously a giant divide exists between the military and the Community Organizer in Chief, who did nothing but antagonize them and insult their integrity during the Bush years and was characterized by McChrystal as completely unprepared for their first face-to-face meeting.

Am I defending McChrystal? Of course not; he's in charge over there, and he should refrain from publicly criticizing the Commander in Chief. On the other hand, as the Post's Jackson Deihl declares (via Ed Morrissey), Obama has only himself to blame:

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal should not lose his job because of the article about him in Rolling Stone magazine. If anyone deserves blame for the latest airing of the administration’s internal feuds over Afghanistan, it is President Obama.

For months Obama has tolerated deep divisions between his military and civilian aides over how to implement the counterinsurgency strategy he announced last December. The divide has made it practically impossible to fashion a coherent politico-military plan, led to frequent disputes over tactics and contributed to a sharp deterioration in the administration’s relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. …

Nor is McChrystal the only participant in the feuding who has gone public with his argument. A scathing memo by Eikenberry describing Karzai as an unreliable partner was leaked to the press last fall. At a White House press briefing during Karzai’s visit to Washington last month, the ambassador pointedly refused to endorse the Afghan leader he must work with.

Biden, for his part, gave an interview to Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter in which he said that in July of next year “you are going to see a whole lot of [U.S. troops] moving out.” Yet as Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates tartly pointed out over the weekend, “that absolutely has not been decided.” Instead, Biden was pushing his personal version of the strategy Obama approved, which calls for the beginning of withdrawals next year, with the size and pace to be determined by conditions at that time.

The real trouble is that Obama never resolved the dispute within his administration over Afghanistan strategy.

Compounding that mistake, he never went after any of the other players leaking to the press to hold them to account the way he now appears ready to do with McChrystal.

The question now is what will Opey do with his irreverent C.O.? Trash talk him? Fire him? Set up a slush fund out of McChrystal's military pension to pay for claims against the military by Afghan citizens? It doesn't seem that he can do much without unleashing a slew of unintended consequences, none of which would be good for the war effort but, more importantly to Obama, none of which would be good for Obama, either. Daniel Foster opines at NRO:

The fact is that McChrystal has more credibility on Afghanistan than Obama does. And to the extent that Obama has credibility there at all (and higher approval ratings for his Afghanistan policy than his presidency generally), it is credibility imported from McChrystal. As such, I figure that firing the general would be disastrous for Obama, not just on substance but politically. Fairly or unfairly, it would make his administration look petty and prideful, willing to let an (admittedly serious) breach in decorum set back our best chance for success in the longest war in American history.

Obama's best bet is probably to have McChrystal prostrate himself before the national-security principals, explain himself, and move on. It looks like that is exactly what he is preparing to do.

That observation aside, I am leaving the door open to Obama capitalizing on this affair to wreak further damage on his country. One way or another, that always seems to be the play.

The White House sent Rahm Emanuel out to the Sunday show circuit to cover for his inept boss by doing what he does best: attacking political opponents with a flurry of lies. It's the oldest diversionary tactic in the world and it comes not a moment too soon, because the truth about the administration's knowledge and mishandling of events leading up to the Deepwater Horizon explosion is finally emerging, as toxic as the gusher itself, and heading straight for Obama.

First the Ballerina lied about Joe Barton's "shakedown" comment as thoroughly as anyone possibly could, before spilling it that the government under his boss "hadn't done its job." Joe Barton is a decoy; Obama's dereliction of duty for any and every political gain is the target that decoy is designed to protect.

BP is a major Democrat supporter, most importantly and germainly of Cap and Trade legislation, the imposition of which would be a boon to BP and a blow to the American economy. BP bet its single biggest political contribution ever, a million dollars, on Obama's presidential election campaign in support of his own Cap & Trade aspirations, and no doubt in informed anticipation of other favors. That's how it works with Obama, a fact BP apparently knew very well when it wrote that big fat check.

Which by the way Obama should give back to BP's shareholders or pay into the 20B fund.

Oh yes: Deepwater Horizon Inspections: MMS Skipped Monthly Inspections On Doomed Rig

Now the Democrat vermin are flooding in on BP's behalf. Start with Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta, who is head of the Center for American "Progress" bought and paid for by George Soros, was chief of Bill Clinton's impeachment trial staff and director of Obama's transition team. Tony is working with the Queen of Doom herself, Jamie Gorelick, whose famous Wall helped enable the 9/11 attack and whose plundering of Fanny Mae set a record for brazen taxpayer embezzlement.

There are GOP players as well, but they are tokens on the periphery. This is all about the big Democrat fish hoarding to feed on the chum Obama is throwing their way.

Instapundit: WHY WON’T OBAMA waive the Jones Act? Because union interests are more important than the coastlines of red states?

Obama got record donations from BP while BP got a free ride from federal regulators.

Meanwhile, how about that double-digit unemployment rate about which Obama has done NOTHING?

Via Nice Deb, who has the video.

Obama wants amnesty for illegal immigrants first, in exchange for promising to secure the border later. And he urged AZ Gov. Jan Brewer to be a "partner" in his scheme.

Perfect.

Quote of the Week goes to Ann Coulter, writing on the Democrats' puzzlement and suspicions of Rovian chicanery at the bizarre election of Alvin "Chauncey the Gardener" Greene:

Yes, how could a young African-American man with strange origins, suspicious funding, shady associations, no experience, no qualifications, and no demonstrable work history come out of nowhere and win an election?

"It's Not My Fault"
Byron York looks at one of the most glaring moments in Captain Kickass' Oval Office lamefest, when he claimed he was assured that deep drilling was "absolutely safe". Which "expert" did he rely on for that obvious delusion, Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu? Ken Salazar? Carol Browner? As York points out, no-one knows. And probably no-one ever will, because no-one in a position to evaluate such things would ever reach such a ridiculous conclusion. It's an invention designed to let Obama off the hook.

The bottom line is that Obama can't blame the Big Spill on the last administration or Republican obstructionism or any of the other lame-ass excuses he so tirelessly, and tiresomely, employs to deflect responsibility for his latest failure to lead. Now there is only one person to blame: a nameless, faceless "assurer" who was just - darn Obama's luck - wrong! And what a tragedy: Obama believed him, whoever "he" might be.

So hey, it wasn't Captain Kickass' fault. Just so you know.

But what if it's worse than that? Read on.

America As Texas vs. California
The Enterprise Blog shows that Americans looking for opportunity are voting with their feet in a real-life exercise in the eternal struggle between liberty and tyranny.

Green Fuels
They're still today what they've always been: better than enything the environazis would have you believe. Jonah Goldberg makes the overwhelming case.

The Old Bait And Switch
Also from Jonah, Obama's phony pledge to "return science to its rightful place" apparently involves fraudulently misrepresenting science for political ends:

Needless to say, there is something ugly and hypocritical about glorifying the absolute authority of scientists and sanctimoniously preening about your bravery in “restoring” that authority — and then ignoring the scientists when politically expedient.

But it is bordering on the grotesque to handpick scientists to give you an opinion and then lie about what they actually said and implement a policy they don’t endorse.

Tom Maguire has a very good reason for not listening to Captain Kickass' gormless Oval Office speech for which, amazingly, he took his feet off the President's desk for once, apparently to draw more attention to his bizarrely purposeful gesticulations. As for the substance, well:

Obama launched Operation Blame BP from the Oval Office in an attempt to project command of the gulf leak debacle. I did not watch the speech myself. Here's the reason. Because my experience is, when you listen to a guy like a professional politician, he's gonna say all the right things to me. I'm not interested in words. I'm interested in actions.

There's much more juicy red meat, so over to TM for all that and Chaos In The Gulf.

Oh but that's not all. Here's Ed Morrissey on Obama's Disaster of a Disaster Speech:

Obama didn’t even offer an original thought for spitballing. In his short presidency, Obama has had two responses to any issue: appoint a czar or create a commission. The auto industry got a czar, for instance, and the deficit that Obama’s spending has driven out of sight got a commission. Last night, Obama wanted people to know he was taking this seriously by appointing a czar and a commission, the latter of which had been announced weeks ago. That was the sum total of his substantive response last night. Small wonder Obama chose an Oval Office speech rather than face another press conference.

Oh but that's not all. Read Nick Gillespie's Icarus Descending.

Oh but that's not all. Read and watch Sarah Palin: Obama hasn’t shown us his top priority is stopping the leak

Oh but that's not all...

Conservative activist Janine Turner has launched Constituting America, a brilliant website promoting awareness of the United States of America's founding documents. After seeing her talk about it on Faux! News I went to http://www.constitutingamerica.org/ and found everything there is to learn about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the marvelous Federalist Papers. Two huge thumbs up.

Take for example this nugget from the Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 1 by Alexander Hamilton:

History will teach us that... of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

True.

NRO's Ralph Reed:

If one wants to know what is going to happen in November, the surest sign of which way the winds are blowing is primaries in the spring and summer. The Democratic landslide of 2008 was presaged by Obama’s startling defeat of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary. In 1994, the victories of Senate candidates like Oliver North in Virginia, pro-life Mike DeWine in Ohio, and Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania in GOP contests foreshadowed a conservative wave at the polls.

The same phenomenon is unfolding now. What began as a tea-party surge now has an interesting wrinkle: this just might be the year of the conservative woman.

And Sarah Palin is just getting started.

Via Jim Geraghty, Hot Air's Allahpundit pundits on the astonishing news that Captain Kickass has not spoken with BP CEO Tony Hayward since the spill happened 51 days ago:

The One’s logic, such as it is, is that it’s not worth talking to Tony Hayward because he’ll only end up giving him the runaround — a curious position coming from a guy who campaigned on the virtues of “dialogue” and who’s been locked in halting negotiations with Iran for fully 16 months. Even Lauer is openly incredulous. Captain Kickass has nothing to say to a guy who potentially holds the fate of his presidency in his hands?

Geraghty in Morning Jolt notes a pattern:

Permit me a moment of sympathy for Obama; I’m not quite sure what would be gained by a presidential call to the CEO of BP. I presume somebody — Thad Allen? — is talking to BP’s highest levels regularly. Perhaps I’ve grown so underwhelmed with Obama’s talks with other CEOs, or Hugo Chavez, or Medvedev, or Cambridge cops that I’ve been conditioned not to expect anything to come from them.

Tick tick tick tick tick.

Dorothy Rabinowitz nails the Manchurian President.*

[I]t was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.
...
A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.
...
It is a White House that has focused consistently on the sensitivities of the world community—as it is euphemistically known—a body of which the president of the United States frequently appears to view himself as a representative at large.
It is what has caused this president and his counterterrorist brain trust to deem it acceptable to insult Americans with nonsensical evasions concerning the enemy we face. It is this focus that caused Mr. Holder to insist on holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan, despite the rage this decision induced in New Yorkers, and later to insist if not there, then elsewhere in New York. This was all to be a dazzling exhibition for that world community—proof of Mr. Obama's moral reclamation program and that America had been delivered from the darkness of the Bush years.
...
They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.

The truth about that distance is now sinking in, which is all to the good. A country governed by leaders too principled to speak the name of its mortal enemy needs every infusion of reality it can get.

*The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists

I know, I know, it's not the time to say "I told you so".

It never is with the left.

Meanwhile the people of the Gulf are saying just that thanks to stories such as this:

BREAKING: MILES OF OIL CONTAINMENT BOOM in Warehouse- Just Sitting- Waiting For BP or US to Collect (Video!)

This just in via wireupdate.com:

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) — Hearst Newspapers White House reporter Helen Thomas on Monday announced she will retire after her controversial anti-Israel remarks caused an outrage.

She should have been put out to pasture long ago, as Jonah Goldberg relates:

She's been full-spectrum awful. I've known a few people who knew her 40 years ago, and she was slimy then too. One small example can be found in James Rosen's excellent book on John Mitchell, The Strong Man. Mitchell's wife Martha was a mentally unstable alcoholic who would call reporters to vent sad, paranoid, fact-free theories and diatribes. At first, many reporters were eager to hear her out, but over time it became obvious that Martha Mitchell was not well and it was cruel to exploit her. Obvious, that is, to nearly everyone but Helen Thomas who continued to milk Martha Mitchell for damning quotes and nonsense.

Fascinating: PJ Media: The Washington Post Hides The Decline, in which the MSM is once again, as in the Van Jones fiasco, caught having to report on the firing of a left wing idiot (and really, is there any other kind?) after attempting to bury the original transgression.

Anyway, thanks to Helen Thomas for lifting the veil on the left's anti-Semitism. Now off with the old bigot.

The New Final Solution

Drew M.: Ugly on so many levels.

Next from Helen Thomas: Ship all the Negroes back to Africa!

Here's a little history lesson for this hateful old coot.

UPDATE:
She's lying, of course. Allahpundit:

I’m satisfied. Who among us hasn’t innocently stumbled into a statement of support for ethnic cleansing when we didn’t really mean it?

Res Ipsa Loquitur

Via Hot Air, From Kevin Kristy at PolitiPage comes this video demonstrating Obama's singularly focused response to the Gulf oil spill that is now at Day 45 and counting.



Ed Morrissey gives us the numbers:

Just to remind people of the unofficial count:

- Two days of media events (White House Correspondents Dinner and a tête a tête with Bono)
- Three days of fundraising
- Four commemorations (graduations, Cinco de Mayo, etc)
- Six days of vacation
- Six days of campaigning
- Six sports events
- Seven days of golf

In comparison, how many days did Obama spend at the Gulf? Three, during this span of time, and he’s back again today.

Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.

Armando Gallaraga and umpire Jim Joyce meet at home plate the day after Joyce's controversial blown call:


If you can't play the video, you can see it here.

HT AoSHQ

By the brilliant Michael Ramirez:




HT Power Line

What a delight from Jay Nordlinger.

Mark Tapscott: Will journalists wake up in time to save journalism from Obama's FTC?

Release of the Federal Trade Commission's working paper on "reinventing journalism" makes it clear that there is no more time for diplomacy about this issue: President Obama is determined to federalize the news industry just as he has banking, autos, and health care.

Everybody who wants independent journalism had better wake up to these three facts about what is going:

* Journalists must understand that there is no way the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press will survive if the federal government regulates the news industry as envisioned by the FTC. Those who accept at face value protests to the contrary or the professions of pure intentions by advocates of government takeover of the news business are, at best, incredibly naive.

* Journalists who remain silent or apathetic about what is being prepared by the FTC for their profession become unintentional accessories in the strangulation of independent journalism.

* Journalists who support or assist, for any reason, the FTC process are accomplices in the strangulation of independent journalism.

Those in the administration who clearly view independent journalism as an obstacle to "change we can believe in" and their numerous allies in the old media, non-profit, and academic communities who either share a similar ideological vision or see the FTC process as their salvation against the Internet, will no doubt dismiss my assertions as extemism or alarmism.

Fine, call me whatever, but what they cannot deny is what is clearly written in the FTC document and what it reveals about the intention behind the initiative, which is to transform the news industry from an information product collected by private individuals and entrepreneurs as a service to private buyers, to a government-regulated public utility providing a "public good," as defined and regulated by government.

Oh but don't worry.