War Within a War

The Native Tongue
Years ago it was a joke in New York City that you could not get a native born American cab driver. It is such a fact of city life now that it is no longer elicits even a faint smile. New Yorkers accept it and for New Yorkers to accept something it has to mean that the system works. The immigrant cabbies speak passable English, know where things are and can get you where you need to go, albeit with some occasionally exciting rides.

Doing field research in Philadelphia this past weekend we had a different experience. Namely, the cab drivers do not speak English, at least not enough to communicate. Second, they do not seem to know the streets or landmarks of an historic city. We had an exciting adventure wherein the first cabbie of Middle Eastern origin drove us around for fifteen minutes unable to find our destination. Eventually he flagged down a fellow cabbie, of African origin, who also took us on an unintended tour of the city. 

So is this the state of the country today? We allow in people who cannot speak the language and cannot even do the jobs for which they are hired. Yeah, we certainly need immigration reform. But not the kind that Liberals imagine. 


Unguarded
This week, as Mr. Obama confronted a scandal frenzy unlike any he has faced, he let his guard down during fund-raisers in New York. “My thinking was after we beat them in 2012, well, that might break the fever,” he told donors. “And it’s not quite broken yet.” (NYT, 5/15/2013)

This is the secret narrative of Obama. Absent a super-majority he has neither the talent nor the will to get anything done. No recent president - not Clinton, not Bush - spent as much time complaining about how he is so hamstrung by having to deal with the other side. Obama is a weak and ineffectual leader. 

(You know things are bad for the president when the New York Times puts a story on the Obama scandals ahead of their 60-part series on sexual assaults in the military.)


Angry
President Obama announced Wednesday that Steve T. Miller, the acting commissioner of the IRS, had resigned in the wake of the controversy over the IRS's targeting of conservative groups. In an angry statement in the White House, Obama said the IRS’s actions were “inexcusable and Americans are right to be angry about it and I’m angry about it.” He added, “I will not tolerate this type of behavior in any agency but especially the IRS given the power it has and the reach it has.” (Washington Post, 5/15/2013)

Make no mistake about it. The president is.....angry. 

Previously he was outraged.