Thanks (for nothing) Obama!

Obama insisted on pushing through nearly a trillion dollars of phony ‘stimulus money’ over a period of a couple weeks, and successfully wasted more money in the first month of a presidency than any of his predecessors.   The costs will be felt by generations of Americans, and Obama will likely  become a new word in the dictionary– as in ‘to pull an obama’, which means to do something colossally stupid while at the same time claiming it is very important and necessary.

Meanwhile, after telling voters he ‘had a plan’ with Afghanistan, he took several months to simply give the necessary orders to continue the fight that he called ‘a just war’ back when he was courting votes.  Yesterday he gave his long-awaited speech on his plans for Afghanistan.  I am sorry to quote someone else, but it is useful to realize that the people who just a year ago packed the fields near the Berlin Wall to cheer for Obama have a different reaction now.  You will read mild criticism in the US but have to go abroad to hear what people think about our president– someone who the rest of the world is quickly realizing is an amateur, an embarrassment, a weakling.  The followinig is from Der Spiegel:

Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic

By Gabor Steingart

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America’s new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric — and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.

One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama’s speech would be well-received.

Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond “enthusiastically” to the speech. But it didn’t help: The soldiers’ reception was cool.

One didn’t have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama’s speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan — and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war — and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.

Just in Time for the Campaign

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama’s re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.

The speech continued in that vein. It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the “world’s great religions.” He promised that responsibility for the country’s security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai — a government which he said was “corrupt.” The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But “America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars,” he added.

It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.

Obama’s Magic No Longer Works

But in this case, the public was more disturbed than entertained. Indeed, one could see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks: Obama’s magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker.

It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives — their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.

Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners — particularly those with a talent for oration — are fond of taking refuge. It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters, in an enormous tent called “Hope.”

In his speech on America’s new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places. It was two speeches in one. That is why it felt so false. Both dreamers and realists were left feeling distraught.

The American president doesn’t need any opponents at the moment. He’s already got himself.

The biggest tragedy of 2009 has been the death of the US news media.   How sad that our newspapers have become cheerleaders for the Left!  There are so many untold stories out there;  yes, they can be found on the internet with ease, reducing the power that the press once had over society.  I don’t know which came first– did the loss of media honesty lead to alternative sources of information?  Or did the presence of new ‘fact checkers’ lead the media to lose their sense of responsibility, assuming that they could report on whatever they chose, or more importantly NOT write on whatever they chose, and that someone ELSE would be in charge of the truth?  We are lucky that they both occurred at the same time, in any case.

Our embarrassing president is taking a break from preparing his smoke and mirrors speech about Afghanistan to attend a climate change meeting in Denmark.  This meeting occurs on the heels of a major story about the years of falsification of scientific data by environmental groups, showing very clearly that ‘global warming’ or ‘AGW” or whatever you want to call it is nothing but a political stunt.  The cast a can be divided between the true believers, AKA ‘useful idiots’ including the Hollywood celebrity/high school drop-out crowd, vs the people who manipulated data, covered up the truth, smeared the scientists brave enough to tell the real story…  I don’t know where Gore will come in, as he appears to be both- part idiot and part self-righteous manipulator and profiteer.

I encourage anyone who has not yet read the story go to the British press and read about Climategate.  There is one writer in particular who has  explained the situation very well– the type of writer we used to picture at our own newspapers.  He writes about the recent exposure of large-scale falsification of data by the global warming alarmists, and takes the reader through the raw data– before and after the outright falsification of the data by those trying to create the story of climate change.  As he points out, there is such a thing as ‘man-made climate change’– only the changes are made by men who are altering data points, not from changes in the earth’s temperature.

Then there is the story in Afghanistan.  Obama claimed to have a ‘plan’ for Afghanistan before being elected president—which was necessary, as only fools would elect a man without a plan to be the next president at a time of war.  But when our Generals asked for help, obama was clueless– and the media, save Fox, ignored the story.  We waited for months, and the cost has been huge.  If you want to learn about the costs, try the UK’s Telegraph, in a recent column that describes how obama’s inability to act decisively and mixed messages has cost support from our former allies and cost the morale– and lives– of our soldiers who have battled the growing Taliban forces using deficient support and planning.

You won’t read about these stories in the US media.

But again the good news…  the hacks at the NYT have put themselves out of business, as people have no need to read news that isn’t news, or pay to miss stories that are news.  And as the US public reads about the falling opinion of our country abroad, the falling status of the US currency under the reckless spending of the Dems in Congress and our fool obama, and the lack of decisiveness of our ‘commander’ in chief,  it becomes more likely that we will only suffer ‘change’ for 4 years, not 8.  And if obama continues to show utter contempt for the American people, his current Rasmussen poll numbers– negative 15 and falling– will look rosy in comparison to where they will stand next November!

Thanks (for nothing) obama!

And check out Warmal Globing– the lighter side of global warming alarmism!

Only 60 days after Generals asked for more help in Afghanistan, our fearless leader is ready to jump into action.  Some are concerned that 2 months is not near enough time to decide whether to commit to helping our soldiers pinned down by enemy fire, out-manned by the Taliban.  ‘What’s the rush?’, they say.   These are Americans dying– it’s not as if some poor guy with bombs strapped on his vest didn’t understand the Miranda rights being read to him!  These are just a bunch of American kids– war mongers who pillage villages for fun!  Take your time, Obama!

Obama himself worries that he is taking steps that are much more reckless than his usual course of action.  But he has asked his advisers, his Cabinet, and the Generals themselves, and they have given him the bad news that he can’t just vote ‘present’ and get back to fundraising parties.  Bummer!

Sometimes, Barack, life isn’t fair.  I myself can’t believe that after only… 1o months or so, you are actually being asked to DO something!  Did they actually believe you when you said you ‘had a plan for Afghanistan’ back when they voted for you?  I hear you– what idiots!  And now YOU have to do all the dirty work of choosing not only ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but even picking a number between one and 40,000!  That is a lot of numbers!  And if you pick too high, you got Rosie O’Donnell calling you on the phone;  pick too low and…  wait!  There’s an idea– pick too low and what, exactly?  Sure, the Taliban wins and our guys die, but that is really all Bush’s fault— not sure how, but the press will think of something for that to work.  How ’bout, ‘Bush went to Fort Hood and all those soldiers cheered for him, and that made them miss killing classes and so they lost the war’.  That’s pretty good–  ABC, CBS, and NBC would buy it.    Fox won’t, but they aren’t really ‘news’– (wink!).

OK.  I think we’ll be OK on this.  I do think that since you said you were ‘close’, you should come up with something in the next few months– you know how those press guys like to hound you for keeping your word  (I just laughed and milk came out my nose!!).

Keep it ‘real’!  (wink wink!)