LOL ::: TOTUS Goes on Florida Vacation with Obama – Video

Everybody needs a break, but it looks like the TelePrompTer never gets a rest.

Freedom's Lighthouse � TOTUS Goes on Florida Vacation with Obama – Video

Keeping It Classy ::: Liberals Start "F*ck Tea" Party Campaign/CBS News

This is really just unbelievable. Just what the nation needs. Sad.

Opponents of the Tea Party movement tried responding to the conservative grassroots movement nicely -- by creating the inclusive, deliberative Coffee Party.

But now they're ready to get mean.

A new progressive group called the Agenda Project has launched the "F*ck Tea" campaign. "Progress is the real American party," reads the campaign website's tag line.

"Set aside your good manners, your tolerance, your measured understanding of policy differences, and your earnest do-gooder ideas for a just a moment to join me in telling the Tea Party what you really think of them," Agenda Project founder Erica Payne said in a press release.

The Agenda Project describes itself as "a public policy organization dedicated to building a powerful, intelligent and well-connected political movement capable of identifying and advancing rational, effective, non-ideological ideas in the public debate."

F*ck Tea is one of several projects the group is advancing to push back against what Payne calls "the rhetoric over results paradigm that is holding our country hostage."

The campaign is selling products like mugs and t-shirts with "F*ck Tea" emblazoned across them and plans to sell other products like a "Glenn Beck Bowl Buddy."

While the Tea Party and the subsequent Coffee Party are grassroots, decentralized movements, Payne's Agenda Project is structured as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. Payne is a former Democratic National Committee official who has founded other organizations like the Democracy Alliance, a group of liberal donors whose partners have invested over $100 million in progressive organizations.

And I thought the right-wingers were the astroturf. (rolls eyes)

Liberals Start "F*ck Tea" Party Campaign - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

Memory Lane ::: President Bush Scuffles with Guards in Santiago, Chile

Bush had some pretty classic moments as president, and this one is still one of my absolute favorites.

YouTube - President Bush Scuffles with Guards in Santiago, Chile

Pat Condell Has At It Again ::: No mosque at Ground Zero

What I love the best about this release is how Mr. Condell ends with a railing against American decadence and laziness, like Alex Jones's rant ended a couple of weeks ago. It's an interesting theme.

(I still can't believe Jones's rant scored a Drudge link. Matt must've been in quite the mood that day. lol.)

One last thing before posting... I don't have anything against mosques being built in America, at all... but this one, by Ground Zero, really screams of "Victory Mosque". If those who wish to build it really wish to do so "to promote understanding and mutual respect" then they may do so in a location that does just that.

YouTube - No mosque at Ground Zero

Chavez Stalled In Bid To Seize Venezuela Food Firm : NPR

Good piece.

In Venezuela, socialist President Hugo Chavez wants the state to take over part of Empresas Polar, a food and beer conglomerate known to every Venezuelan.

Chavez has nationalized oil companies, cement makers and supermarkets during his 12 years in office. But plans to seize some of Polar's operations have run into a stiff opposition — and that's exposed the shortcomings in state takeovers of private industry.

Chavez has cast his fight with Polar as an epic struggle. Earlier this year, in a speech in the city of Barquisimeto in northwestern Venezuela — where the company has extensive operations — he mocked Polar and its leader.

The president said Polar's owner, Lorenzo Mendoza, one of Latin America's wealthiest men, would have to pack up and leave. Mendoza won't get to heaven because he is ricachon — so very rich, Chavez said.

So far, though, the government has only moved against Polar's warehouses in Barquisimeto. And Chavez threatened to nationalize all of Polar: 30,000 workers, 14 plants and 75 distribution centers.

But the expropriation order, signed in April, has garnered much attention nationwide because Polar is Venezuela's best-known company. One commercial touts the pre-cooked flour that Polar has made for 50 years. It's used for the cornmeal cakes that are a Venezuelan staple. Polar also makes beer, pasta and butter.

One of its key operations — a distribution point for beer and other beverages — is in an industrial zone of Barquisimeto, the country's fourth-largest city.

There, in vast warehouses, hundreds of workers load beer onto trucks. They have heard the government say it's the state that treats workers best. But they're not buying that argument.

Tacoa had once supported Chavez. But he, like other workers, says Polar provides good wages and benefits.Juan Tacoa, head of one of the two unions at Polar's warehouses in Barquisimeto, says the workers oppose the president. Tacoa says workers in nationalized companies have fared badly — unable to bargain collectively and seeing their wages slashed.

Chavez has reacted angrily to Tacoa. He has called Polar's union leaders lackeys of the rich.

"Who are they defending? Those who exploit the people, the bourgeoisie," he said.

Robert Bottome, the American-born editor of Veneconomia, a Caracas business journal, says the opposite is true.

"It sounds corny, but this is a company which has been treating its workers right for 70 years and it's been treating its customers right for 70 years," he says.

The controversy over Polar comes at an awkward time for Chavez and his socialist policies. Domestic food production has fallen during his tenure and imports have sharply increased. In a country that takes pride in being one of the world's major oil producers, food shortages have plagued some areas and high prices are pinching consumers.

Polar officials declined to talk about the struggle with Chavez and a presidential plan to replace the warehouses in Barquisimeto with apartment buildings.

But Polar workers told NPR that they feared what would happen to their jobs in a government takeover. They know that once an expropriation order has been signed the government can swoop in and seize property.

On a recent night, Yoh Guerrero settled in for a long night of dominoes with other workers. Guerrero said they would guard the gates all night long to stop the government from storming the warehouses.

"The workers fear for their jobs," he said, "And that's why they're prepared to defend them."

Chavez Stalled In Bid To Seize Venezuela Food Firm : NPR

If you missed this: Student, Online Terrorist Flunkie Arrested in Virginia | Danger Room | Wired.com

Pretty good piece, amusing even. This is the loon who threatened Matt & Trey/South Park with death. He's homegrown. Figures.

Of course, like the attempted Sooner Stadium bomber, he has the red alert beard:

(The writer of the piece is Spencer Ackerman. Isn't he one of the JournOlisters?) Student, Online Terrorist Flunkie Arrested in Virginia | Danger Room | Wired.com

When McCain picked Palin, liberal journalists coordinated the best line of attack | The Daily Caller

The best part of all of this is how these "journalists" called themselves Obama's "non-official campaign".

These are just a couple of excerpts:

The conversation began with a debate over how best to attack Sarah Palin. “Honestly, this pick reeks of desperation,” wrote Michael Cohen of the New America Foundation in the minutes after the news became public. “How can anyone logically argue that Sarah Pallin [sic], a one-term governor of Alaska, is qualified to be President of the United States? Train wreck, thy name is Sarah Pallin.”

Not a wise argument, responded Jonathan Stein, a reporter for Mother Jones. If McCain were asked about Palin’s inexperience, he could simply point to then candidate Barack Obama’s similarly thin resume. “Q: Sen. McCain, given Gov. Palin’s paltry experience, how is she qualified to be commander in chief?,” Stein asked hypothetically. “A: Well, she has much experience as the Democratic nominee.”

[snip]

Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation noted that Obama’s “non-official campaign” would need to work hard to discredit Palin. “This seems to me like an occasion when the non-official campaign has a big role to play in defining Palin, shaping the terms of the conversation and saying things that the official [Obama] campaign shouldn’t say – very hard-hitting stuff, including some of the things that people have been noting here – scare people about having this woefully inexperienced, no foreign policy/national security/right-wing christia wing-nut a heartbeat away …… bang away at McCain’s age making this unusually significant …. I think people should be replicating some of the not-so-pleasant viral email campaigns that were used against [Obama].”

Ugh. What a vile bunch.

Source: When McCain picked Palin, liberal journalists coordinated the best line of attack | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

IBD published an editorial on all this yesterday. It's a great read.

Rush Limbaugh Responds to JournoLister Wishing His Death

From Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters:

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has responded to reports that an NPR producer wrote gleefully about his death in an e-mail message to the now infamous JournoList.

As NewsBusters reported [0] Wednesday, the Daily Caller's Jonathan Strong published [1] some more of the liberal group's e-mail messages which included Sarah Spitz claiming that she would "Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out" as Limbaugh writhed in torment.

With this in mind, both the Washington Examiner's Byron York and myself asked Limbaugh for a response to this nonsense.

First, here's what Limbaugh told [2] York:

I can only surmise. I think most people on the left live in a world where merit is irrelevant. Theirs is a world in which connections, networking, kissing ass and obedient sameness are rewarded. I am the antithesis of all that. I am a legitimate, achieved and accomplished Number One and I've made it on my own and without them and without having followed their proscriptions. I think they are also jealous that I just sold my NY condo for a 125 percent profit while their homes are worthlessly underwater.

Funny thing....a number of my friends sent me the Daily Caller piece and the most shocking thing to them in the story was the advocacy of having government shut down Fox News. That the left wants me dead was not a big deal to them because it was nothing new to them. I think that's hilarious. And about that: how about the LAW professor who thinks the FCC can pull Fox's license? Fox does not have a license. The FCC does not grant Fox its right to exist. And this guy teaches law.

Moments after York's piece was published, I asked Limbaugh via e-mail if there was anything he wanted to add. This was his response:

And it is not just that they hate how I became who I am. They literally hate ME. They hate me because I am the most prominent, effective and unrelenting voice of conservatism and they have not been able to stop me. These people and their tactics are not new, we've seen them before in other countries and other times. They want to destroy contrary and opposition voices and views. They will climb over the law and the people to achieve their aims. Earlier in this administration, the president and his hacks targeted me, his party targeted me and their groups targeted me. They are all the same. They are leftists, disguised as lawyers, judges, scholars, professors, teachers, reporters, anchors, senators, representatives, legislative aids, congressional staff, federal bureaucrats, etc. There is NO Media. We know that now. There is just an incestuous relationship among all these various groups and a revolving door connecting them all.

Rush Limbaugh Responds to JournoLister Wishing His Death

Neofascist Morons: Liberal journalists suggest government shut down Fox News | The Daily Caller

The whole article is great, and I'll post Rush's reaction to parts of it in a bit.

We'll start with this:

Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, suggested that the federal government simply yank Fox off the air. “I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?”

And so a debate ensued. Time’s Scherer, who had seemed to express support for increased regulation of Fox, suddenly appeared to have qualms: “Do you really want the political parties/white house picking which media operations are news operations and which are a less respectable hybrid of news and political advocacy?”

But Zasloff stuck to his position. “I think that they are doing that anyway; they leak to whom they want to for political purposes,” he wrote. “If this means that some White House reporters don’t get a press pass for the press secretary’s daily briefing and that this means that they actually have to, you know, do some reporting and analysis instead of repeating press releases, then I’ll take that risk.”

Scherer seemed alarmed. “So we would have press briefings in which only media organizations that are deemed by the briefer to be acceptable are invited to attend?”

John Judis, a senior editor at the New Republic, came down on Zasloff’s side, the side of censorship. “Pre-Fox,” he wrote, “I’d say Scherer’s questions made sense as a question of principle. Now it is only tactical.”

Liberal journalists suggest government shut down Fox News | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

Alex Jones Rant Makes Drudge Report

Can't believe this made Drudge. LOL.

ALEX JONES: As United States Collapses, Media Worship LeBron James..

DRUDGE REPORT 2010�

I posted this on FR earlier, where it was pulled. BUT I got a personalized message, which was awesome. lol.

This thread has been pulled.

Pulled on 07/09/2010 9:41:55 AM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason: Sorry Anna, Alex Jones isn’t welcome here.

Coulter Kicks Kristol's Boo-Tay ::: BILL KRISTOL MUST RESIGN

This is an excerpt.

BILL KRISTOL MUST RESIGN
July 7, 2010

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele was absolutely right. Afghanistan is Obama's war and, judging by other recent Democratic ventures in military affairs, isn't likely to turn out well.

It has been idiotically claimed that Steele's statement about Afghanistan being Obama's war is "inaccurate" -- as if Steele is unaware Bush invaded Afghanistan soon after 9/11. (No one can forget that -- even liberals pretended to support that war for three whole weeks.)

Yes, Bush invaded Afghanistan soon after 9/11. Within the first few months we had toppled the Taliban, killed or captured hundreds of al-Qaida fighters and arranged for democratic elections, resulting in an American-friendly government.

Then Bush declared success and turned his attention to Iraq, leaving minimal troops behind in Afghanistan to prevent Osama bin Laden from regrouping, swat down al-Qaida fighters and gather intelligence.

Having some vague concept of America's national interest -- unlike liberals -- the Bush administration could see that a country of illiterate peasants living in caves ruled by "warlords" was not a primo target for "nation-building."

By contrast, Iraq had a young, educated, pro-Western populace that was ideal for regime change.

If Saddam Hussein had been a peach, it would still be a major victory in the war on terrorism to have a Muslim Israel in that part of the globe, and it sure wasn't going to be Afghanistan (literacy rate, 19 percent; life expectancy, 44 years; working toilets, 7).

But Iraq also was a state sponsor of terrorism; was attempting to build nuclear weapons (according to endless bipartisan investigations in this country and in Britain -- thanks, liberals!); nurtured and gave refuge to Islamic terrorists -- including the 1993 World Trade Center bombers; was led by a mass murderer who had used weapons of mass destruction; paid bonuses to the families of suicide bombers; had vast oil reserves; and is situated at the heart of a critical region.

Having absolutely no interest in America's national security, the entire Democratic Party (save Joe Lieberman) wailed about the war in Iraq for five years, pretending they really wanted to go great-guns in Afghanistan. What the heck: They had already voted for the war in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 when they would have been hanged as traitors had they objected.

The obsession with Afghanistan was pure rhetoric. Democrats have no interest in fighting any war that would serve America's interests. (They're too jammed with their wars against Evangelicals, Wal-Mart, the Pledge of Allegiance, SUVs and the middle class.) Absent Iraq, they'd have been bad-mouthing Afghanistan, too.

So for the entire course of the magnificently successful war in Iraq, all we heard from these useless Democrats was that Iraq was a "war of choice," while Afghanistan -- the good war! -- was a "war of necessity." "Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan!" "He got distracted by war in Iraq!" "WHERE'S OSAMA?" and -- my favorite -- "Iraq didn't attack us on 9/11!"

Of course, neither did Afghanistan. But Democrats were in a lather and couldn't be bothered with the facts.

The above complaints about Iraq come -- nearly verbatim -- from speeches and press conferences by Obama, Joe Biden, and Obama's national security advisers Susan Rice and Richard Clarke. Also, the entire gutless Democratic Party. Some liberals began including them in their wedding vows.

Read the rest here (it's well worth it): Welcome to AnnCoulter.com

Infuriating: Red tape keeps prized oil-fighting skimmers from Gulf, coastline | NOLA.com

Red tape keeps prized oil-fighting skimmers from Gulf, coastline

Published: Monday, June 28, 2010, 10:29 PM Updated: Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 7:28 AM

Just weeks after the oil spill crisis began to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, the French foreign minister volunteered a fleet of oil skimming boats from a French company, Ecoceane. A month later, in early June, Ecoceane Chief Executive Eric Vial met with BP and Coast Guard officials to present the idea.


Skimmers and prized because they are the primary means for attacking oil head-on and collecting it before it hits land.

But after that meeting, weeks went by with little contact as oil continued gushing into the Gulf. A frustrated Vial was able to get around the bureacracy last week only when his company sold nine of the oil collection boats to a private contractor in Florida, who could then put the boats to work.

Oil giant Shell was in negotiations to let BP use the Nanuq, a 300-foot oil recovery boat sitting idle in Seward, Alaska. But in recent weeks, BP declined to bring it to the Gulf.

"Nothing would prevent it from working right now in the Gulf of Mexico," said Curtis Smith, a spokesman for Shell Alaska. "It remains available in the event that BP reconsiders."

Everyone wants skimmers
As oil oozes inland, tainting marshes and fouling beaches, local response officials from Florida to Grand Isle for weeks have been begging for the oil-fighting tool that everyone wants but no one can get enough of: skimmers. They're the primary means for attacking oil head-on and collecting it before it hits land, yet local government agencies complain that the number of specialized skimming vessels out on the water is woefully lacking.

"We want all the skimming vessels in the world deployed," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. "This is an oil spill bigger than anything we've ever seen. It's a national disaster. We're at war. If you were at war and in charge, would you deploy everything you had to win the war?"


Some skimming systems can be outfitted onto fishing or offshore supply boats. The basic idea is to separate oil from water and collect it on board for disposal.

There are a wide variety of skimming systems: Some boats are specially designed to suck oil or lap it up from the surface using brushes or belts; other skimming systems can be outfitted onto fishing or offshore supply boats. The basic idea is to separate oil from water and collect it on board for disposal. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander for the oil spill, acknowledged recently that "Skimmers are our critical mass right now. We need to put those wherever we can get them. And we want to get them from wherever they are available."

'Anemic' response criticized
But federal response officials have been pressed for more than a week to streamline U.S. maritime restrictions that would allow more foreign skimming vessels to be put to work on the spill. And the Coast Guard and BP have been taken to task for not bringing more available U.S. skimmers to the Gulf spill.

According to the latest numbers from BP, 433 vessels are collecting oil in the Gulf, but less than a third of those are specialized boats designed specifically for oil skimming.

On the Senate floor last week, Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., pointed to a Coast Guard map detailing more than 850 skimmers available in the southeastern United States -- and more than 1,600 available in the continental United States.

"We are literally talking about more than a thousand skimmers that are available, but we only have 400 - if this number is correct -- at work," LeMieux said. "It is hard to believe that the response is this anemic; it is hard to believe that there is this lack of urgency or sense of purpose in getting this done."

[snip]

Read the rest here: Red tape keeps prized oil-fighting skimmers from Gulf, coastline | NOLA.com

Quotes For The Day: On Free Speech

Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.
– Colin Powell

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is afraid of its people.
– John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” – Oscar Wilde

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” – Benjamin Franklin

gordo on June 24, 2010 at 1:12 AM

The commenter was posting on this Hot Air article: Hot Air: Video: Cops arrest Christians for handing out gospel at Dearborn Arab festival? Update: Pushback

I Love Daniel Webster!! (Quotes)

This guy rocked. Here's his (fascinating) wiki.

I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. -- From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy.

The contest, for ages, has been to rescue Liberty from the grasp of executive power.

We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people.

There is no happiness, there is no liberty, there is no enjoyment of life, unless a man can say, when he rises in the morning, I shall be subject to the decision of no unwise judge today.

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

Do something to make this man proud today.

Daniel Webster Quotes/Quotations

Rant Of The Day!! :: Dumb and Dumber, First Obama Compares BP Oil Spill to 911, Then Goes Golfing | Scared Monkeys

Reposting the whole thing because it's all a must read. The last lines are sweet perfection. Enjoy.

More profiles in Leadership … Obama compares the Gulf oil crisis to 911.

ARE YOU SERIOUS … and the LEFT called GWB stupid? Welcome to “Dumb and Dumber, the Obama edition”. This President just cannot differentiate between Gulf and Golf.

Yesterday, President Barack Hussein Obama told the POLITICO that the Gulf Coast BP oil spill disaster was like 911. You heard that correct, Obama compared a oil spill, ecological accident to a premeditated terrorist act like September 11, 2001. I wonder how the families who lost loved ones on 9-11 feel about the President’s ridiculous comparison? Is it any wonder why Obama’s ratings are falling in the polls, he can get nothing right.

Sounding reflective as he heads into a bruising electoral season, President Obama told POLITICO columnist Roger Simon that the Gulf disaster “echoes 9/11” because it will change the nation’s psyche for years to come.

“In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11,” the president said in an Oval Office interview on Friday, “I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come.”

What Gulf crisis, it’s a golf crisis

So in other words, Obama wants to take advantage of this oil spill accident to push his socialist, Marxist, liberal agenda. Far be it from this President to let a good crisis to go to waste when he can push his socialist agenda of “Cap & Trade”.

BUT WAIT, IT GETS BETTER … OR SHOULD WE SAY WORSE.

Barack Obama so thinks about the BP oil spill and the Gulf crisis all the time, he takes up every waking moment of his time, it is so important to President Obama that what important thing do he do yesterday … PLAYED GOLF!!!

Who advises this clown? Seriously, the LEFT for eight years made a cottage industry out of calling GWB a fool. As reported at The Hill, Obama played golf for 4 hours. Thank you Mr. President for being so engaged and on it. Do you think at some point you could show the American people you actually care, rather than just spewing words in a speech read off a teleprompter? Is it any wonder why Americans give Obama a failing grade in dealing with the BP oil crisis, first he compares it to 9-11 then goes golfing … President Obama, “Lost in Smallness”.

President Barack Obama spent four hours on the golf course Sunday in temperatures that peaked in the low 90s.

The White House pool reported that they left Andrews Air Force Base as it started to rain after 4 p.m.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was among the group golfing with Obama.

Americans really need to ask the question, not whether you were born in the United States, but what planet you are from as obviously you have no sense of reality.

Gee Barack Obama, except for the fact that September 11 was a preplanned and premeditated attack against the United States of America where 3000 innocent people lost their lives orchestrated by terrorists who wanted to destroy the American way of life … other than that sir, it is just like the BP oil spill. UNREAL.

No one expects this President to suck the oil up with a straw, they just don’t expect Obama to suck as a leader. Maybe if you spent less time on a golf course you would have a better result in the Gulf coast.

BTW, I still can't believe Bambi uttered that "suck it up with a straw" line. What a putz.

Dumb and Dumber, First Obama Compares BP Oil Spill to 911, Then Goes Golfing | Scared Monkeys

Must-Read #2:: Dorothy Rabinowitz: The Alien in the White House - WSJ.com

This is just an excerpt of a well-worth-reading whole. Interesting vibe out there today.

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.

There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it 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.

Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.

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.

One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind. Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.

Dorothy Rabinowitz: The Alien in the White House - WSJ.com

Must-Read #1:: Obama fails the test of leadership - Keith Koffler - POLITICO.com

This along with the Rabinowitz piece I'll post in a second both tell, in a sense, the very same tale.

If Todd Palin was the First Dude, Obama is the First Dud. Ugh.

Obama fails the test of leadership By: Keith Koffler June 3, 2010 01:56 PM EDT

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted to the world recently that President Barack Obama had on his night table “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt,” Edmund Morris’s rip-roaring, Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the formative years of America’s most colorful president. Presumably, Gibbs was implying that the great man now occupying the White House was taking pointers from the great man who preceded him. Politicians just love to see themselves as leaders like Teddy Roosevelt or Winston Churchill — giants who trampled over obstacles with unyielding doggedness and even a kind of childlike insouciance. As Obama underachieves his way through the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis, Gibbs’s effort to link the president to Roosevelt makes the opposite point intended: Great leaders are a very rare thing, and the man in the White House today ain’t one of them — at least not yet. Obama’s detached performance with respect to this massive and growing crisis — the ripple effects of which could still be with us on Election Day 2012 — is generally portrayed as a PR meltdown and a simple failure to step up by an understandably beleaguered Obama. “It’s impossible not to feel sorry for President Obama,” writes Maureen Dowd in The New York Times, “pummeled by the cascading disasters, at home and abroad.” Well, it’s possible. Obama’s failure to convey any hint of genuine emotion, to rouse the American people to turn their hearts toward the Gulf and to assure them that their world — still built on the plentiful supply of fossil fuels — is not falling apart, is a profound failure of leadership. Instead of offering reassurance, the president is using the crisis to promote his political agenda, hankering for alternative energy and climate change legislation in Congress — though there won’t be any significant replacement of carbon-based power sources for years to come. Instead of an uplifting message of unity rallying the country to confront the horror and assuring all Americans that we will deal successfully, one way or another, with its disastrous effects, the nation is treated to petty lecturing of BP — even a refusal to let BP evildoers sully the stage the administration uses to discuss the latest failures. The very company the administration needs to work with to stop the bleeding is vilified and threatened with criminal prosecution. This separates Obama from the “bad guys.” But it also likely harms the stoppage effort by creating a climate of suspicion and forcing BP to focus on PR and legal CYA operations while trying to plug the well. The spill is becoming one of the great catastrophes the country has faced. Think of how other presidents have risen to the occasion under similar circumstances. Who can forget that moment when, touring the ruins of the World Trade Center, former President George W. Bush — with a spontaneity hard to imagine from Obama — grabbed a bullhorn and declared to the workers at ground zero that revenge was coming: “I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon! The nation — the nation sends its love and compassion — to everybody who is here.” Or remember President Bill Clinton’s emotional meeting in April 1995, a few days after the Oklahoma City tragedy, with the families of those killed in the truck-bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and his moving speech at the memorial service afterward. That moment helped the country work through its grief and began Clinton’s political rebirth after the massive GOP sweep of November 1994. And what do we get from Obama? A bloodless news conference at which even his description of his daughter beseeching him as to whether the crisis was solved was given with all the emotion of, say, Michael Dukakis. We get a trip to the Gulf — only his second since the crisis began — where he lands on a beach spiffed up in advance for his visit. The White House dutifully puts out a longish press release each night, detailing the latest effort in the Gulf and which, I can guarantee you, the White House press corps dutifully ignores or deletes in spin avoidance mode. Churchill is, of course, best known for becoming one with his country as he led it through World War II. But there’s a photo of him much earlier in life, as home secretary, intently directing a massive police siege on the hideout of a gang of criminals. He’d heard about the activity while in his bath, rushed to the office and, finding nothing to do, went directly to the theater of action. “I must ... admit that convictions of duty were supported by a strong sense of curiosity which perhaps it would have been well to keep in check," Churchill later modestly wrote. But while he got some bad PR for his move, Churchill was a fountain of ideas on the scene and may have saved lives. Roosevelt, of course, has a similarly long CV detailing his qualities as a man of action. As the de facto leader of the Navy Department, for example, he prepared the country for the Spanish-American War and then resigned his post to go fight it. The point is that great men such as these are congenitally incapable of not taking a hands-on leadership role during a crisis. Obama instead went to a sanitized beach. As of last week, he hadn’t even spoken to BP CEO Tony Hayward. He’s due to make his third trip to the region Friday, more than six weeks after the crisis began. If he’s actually reading that Roosevelt bio, he’d know that his predecessor would have been — when not himself knee-deep in mucky oil — immersed in the local population during strolls from his personal command post in New Orleans. Obama would be lucky if he was just having a PR disaster. Unfortunately for the country, he is failing the test of leadership. Keith Koffler, who covered the White House as a reporter for CongressDaily and Roll Call, is editor of the blog White House Dossier.

Obama fails the test of leadership - Keith Koffler - POLITICO.com

Jon Stewart Returns From Vacation: The Spilling Fields (Video)

Lolz aplenty.

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The Spilling Fields
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Video: The Spilling Fields | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

Maureen Dowd Admits Obama an "Invented" Man :- A Storyteller Loses the Story Line

Her whole article is worth the read (including the de rigueur jabs at Bush and Cheney), but this line killed me.

How does a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history lose control of his own narrative?

Sometimes the non-fiction aspects of life take precedence out in the real, non-fiction world, Maureen. Yeesh.

She goes on...

In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama showed passion, lyricism, empathy and an exquisite understanding of character and psychological context — all the qualities that he has stubbornly resisted showing as president. It was a book that promised a president who could see into the hearts of other people. But there’s so much you don’t learn about candidates in campaigns, even when they seem completely exposed.

a) "Dreams..." was more than likely ghost-written (by William Ayers?).

b) Did Candidate Obama "seem completely exposed"? By his fawning lapdog media? Not in anyone's dreams.

Op-Ed Columnist - A Storyteller Loses the Story Line - NYTimes.com

Ouch. Michelle Obama Does It Again As She Gets Down With Harry Reid

That some of these photos were released is almost criminal.

The plastic Boob Belt returns.

Who let her leave the house?

Caption Michelle Obama and Harry Reid