Monday, July 28, 2008

DON’T JUMP

"Don’t jump it’s only politics" I cried out. I had become alarmed when I heard my wife crawling about on the 2nd floor roof of our house. I knew she had just finished her morning coffee while listening to the news and reading the newspapers with their fawning reports of Barack Obama’s triumphal procession through the Middle East and Europe, reports replete with excerpts of his messianic pronouncements. I feared she was going to jump off the roof. I was relieved when she called back, "What do you mean, I am only cleaning the gutters." While I was happy to hear she was only doing one of her normal household chores, I wondered if Michelle Obama ever does such chores at Obama’s multimillion dollar mansion in Hyde Park to save Barack from toiling like a commoner.

But to the point. Do the media elitists really swoon in Obama’s presence and spin the most banal, contradictory and incoherent pronouncements from Obama into pearls of wisdom and deeply profound enigmatic truths? Consider his: "We are the ones we have been waiting for," which was greeted like it had come from the Oracle at Delphi by the media and deeply analyzed and repeated as if it had some meaning. Read the quote again and think; doesn’t it sound like it came from a third rate sci-fi movie? Does the phrase have any meaning? In Berlin, Obama exclaimed, "Citizens of the world, this is our moment, this is our time!" At least we know the origin of this nonsense phrase; the rock star Bono used it in 2005 and it didn’t make sense even then. The elite media interpret Barack’s childish slogans as if they are revelations.

Obama’s gaffes, misstatements, historical errors, and general ignorance of America’s history, institutions and the U.S. Constitution are glaring. Yet the media in their obsequious coverage generally cover up his mistakes, by not reporting them, or explain them away as mis-speaks or by claiming that ‘he was tired’. But when the errors continue to pile up a reasonable person must ask if the candidate is really ready to engage in world class diplomacy with villains like Ahmadenijad of Iran, or Kim of Korea. These villains will not react like our gullible media elites or the star struck liberals.

Obama’s Berlin speech was great theater, magnificent oration and charismatic delivery. Unfortunately it was factually inaccurate, distorted history, and a betrayal of reason through the manipulation of emotion. Media reports glowed with gushing and gullible acceptance of Obama’s distortion of historical facts; can you imagine any other politician, especially a Republican, being unchallenged by the media when spouting such inaccuracies? The Nazis in WWII were defeated by the blood, sweat, toil and tears of American GI’s; not "the world coming together as one" as Obama claimed in his speech. On the Berlin wall, Obama gushes: " People of the world - look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." Balderdash and poppycock. President Ronald Reagan destroyed the Berlin Wall and drove a stake through the heart of the Evil Empire, the Soviet Union. Reagan, standing with Margaret Thatcher of Britain, and Pope John Paul II was virtually alone in standing up to world opinion that believed the way to peace with communism was appeasement. Instead of a "world that stands as one," according to Obama, hundreds of thousands of ‘world citizens’ protested against President Reagan and the U.S. and in favor of not provoking the totalitarian empire. In Bonn, Germany, not far from where Obama spoke, 400,000 protested. In world capitals, thousands also protested. The few, the right, the courageous led the quavering ‘world citizens’ to victory not a ‘coming together’.


It is obvious Obama learned little in school except rhetoric and bloviating; he must have been practicing oration when WWII was covered and the Cold War were covered. Barack also didn’t learn how many states there are (he thinks 57) or how long a presidential term is, or how close Kentucky is to Illinois, or the lesson learned too late by Neville Chamberlain, that you don’t negotiate "anytime, anywhere" with totalitarian dictators.

The Democrats are obviously planning their campaign around a handsome, energetic orator delivering spellbinding speeches. They ignore his embarrassing ‘off the cuff’ remarks, his deficiency in facts, history and experience. Abraham Lincoln’s said "You can fool all of the people some of the time and you can fool some of the people all of the time" and the Democrats have added a new ending "and that’s often enough."

Think of government with Barack Obama’s vapid but inspiring speeches and policies spoon fed to him by the power- crazed Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader. What will I tell my wife next time she crawls out on the roof? " Jump. Barack the Superman will save you!"

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

UNCOMMON FOLK

"Honey, I dropped my earring in the Arugula!" I imagine this tidbit of conversation between Michelle and Barrack Obama, the presidential standard bearers of the party of the ‘common man’, the Democrat Party. Speaking for the ‘common man’ will be the most elitist couple in presidential history; that at least was the opinion of the loser in the Democrat primaries for the presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. The Obamas are not quite "the same as you and I" to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald’s observation about the elites who move in different circles than the workers and toilers of the world.

First the earring. Last week Michelle Obama, thinking she was showing solidarity with working women, remarked about the stimulus rebate checks. "You're getting $600 - what can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything, but maybe it pays down a bill, ..... and then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings." Imagine the quandary of the audience of working women in Pontiac, Michigan. Should they clap and cheer wildly, as the script called for, or should they use their hands to cover up their earring-less ears so as not to embarrass Michelle. Or maybe they all had earrings purchased with their stimulus checks. It could be that working women in Michigan are not the same as Ohio working women who used their check for food , gas or a much need but long delayed household purchase. But Michelle does think she knows what would help working women in Ohio; in Zanesville, an economically depressed area, she urged women "move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry." It really is so tacky for women (and men) to actually work for wages and to better themselves as they support their families. I do wonder how a multimillionaire like Michelle got a stimulus check. I assume the $600 earrings went into her junk jewelry drawer.

Then there is the Arugula. A few weeks ago, Barrack campaigning in Iowa, getting to know the ‘regular folk’ and showing how he shares their pain remarked, "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and seen what they charge for Arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff." Again the crowd was challenged. Should they applaud and cheer Barrack’s being a man of the people or whip out the Blackberry or iPhone to find out what the heck Arugula is and where is the nearest Whole Foods store? Arugula is lettuce for snobs and the nearest Whole Foods store was 200 miles away in another state. I was in a Whole Foods once and it sort of creeped me out. Instead of grocery shopping you are supposed to have an ‘experience’. I was surrounded by exotic fruits and vegetables, organic produce, fair traded products, tasteful displays, well dressed (of course you ‘dress’ to grocery shop) but anorexic women, who yes, they were wearing earrings, glided about tastefully filling carts with politically correct products, many of which they will never really eat. Believe me, they were not the same as you and I in Fayette County.

Michelle Obama has similarly come under fire for saying her husband’s candidacy made her proud of her country for "the first time in my life". Now here they are running for First Couple of the United States and they have never really been proud of the United States! Elitists who have lived the privileged life from birth, had the best schooling in the Ivy League colleges, have never held a job that produced a single widget, farmed an acre of land or contributed to the growth of the Gross National Product - they have reservations about the United States! It has been uncovered via the internet and bloggers ( mainstream media rarely reveals unsettling details about ‘their’ first couple ) that the Obamas are opportunists who have ‘gamed the system’, consorted with radicals, been followers of demagogue preachers and profiteers in shady real estate deals. Yet they think America has not done enough for them!

I came across a line from a blogger: "A society of sheep will in time beget a government of wolves." Think about the performances of Obama’s supporters at his rallies. They shout, wave, faint and ‘baa’ like sheep. Think too about his verbal gaffs and mis-speaks that his followers don’t hear, but merely re-interpret as deep understanding and great oratory. They don’t hear, see or worry about an elitist, liberal, socialistic, pessimistic and out-of-touch, shallow character who is their choice for President. A plan to sponsor a Nascar team was proposed by Obama’s campaign team; it would have been a brilliant but disingenuous political move. But the deal fell through probably because his advisors concluded nobody who counts goes to Nascar events. Anyway, fans would be in for a sad awakening when they found out that Obama was not like them. Generally Nascar fans, like most Americans, are opposed to limitations on liberty and higher taxes to support a bloated government. However, Obama’s sheep, mostly elitists, liberals and students clutch onto a clueless hope for ‘change’ and don’t realize they are being led to slaughter. When the Alpha wolf from the White House enters their pen some dark, foreboding night, change will come. Hope will be lost. Obama, Obama. Baa, baa, baa.