White House Confirms: Obama to Attend Choom Gang Reunion

At Pains
For President Obama, any decision to reinforce the Iraqis or Kurds will be painful. On Thursday night he still took credit for removing all U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011. He was at pains to reassure Americans that the U.S. will not fight another war in Iraq even as he committed U.S. air power to the war that continues in Iraq.

It's clear now that his decision to withdraw all U.S. troops in 2011 was a strategic and increasingly a moral disaster. The President—which is to say the United States—bears responsibility now for the humanitarian catastrophe occurring in Iraq... (Wall Street Journal, 8/8/2014)

So Obama takes credit for withdrawing from Iraq which emboldened Islamic terrorists to commit atrocities which now requires Obama to reengage in Iraq. Only Liberals can see the logic of Obama's thinking.


Low Tide
As he explained himself to a national television audience, Mr. Obama made a point of reassuring a war-weary public that the president who pulled American forces out of Iraq at the end of 2011 had no intention of fighting another full-scale war there. Yet his presence in the State Dining Room testified to the bleak reality that the tide of events in that ancient land have defied his predictions and aspirations before. (New York Times, 8/8/2014)

At Iraq to the list of things that have disappointed Obama. 


Sorted
... Mr. Obama managed to condemn "torture" while simultaneously lecturing Americans not to be "sanctimonious" against CIA officials doing their "job." Sort through that one. (Kimberley A. Strassel, Wall Street Journal, 8/7/2014)

Like most presidents Obama has discovered that it is much easier to throw darts at the decisions of his predecessor when you are a candidate. The small voice in the back of his head must torture him everyday as it reminds him that Bush/Cheney were right.

And then there is this, also from Strassel's column:

All this started when Nancy Pelosi claimed in 2009 that the CIA failed to brief her in 2002 about its enhanced-interrogation program. Details then flooded out, including embarrassing facts about just how repeatedly and thoroughly Democratic leaders and Intelligence committee members in both chambers had been briefed—including Mrs. Pelosi. 


Gain and Loss
Mr. Abu Marzook said Hamas had gained popularity, remained able to fire rockets at Israel, and could re-establish its network of tunnels under Gaza.

For agreeing to the cease-fire, he argued that Hamas should receive relief from the blockade on its territory. “The Palestinians should gain something out of these battles,” he said. “They want the siege to end; they want all the gates to open.” (New York Times, 8/6/2014)

A Hamas spokesman argues - incoherently - that Hamas should be rewarded for their actions and that things have just gone swimmingly for them. THIS is why there is no peace.


Deadly
The 72-hour truce came after 29 days of fierce fighting that left more than 1,800 Palestinians dead, many of them civilians. On the Israeli side, 64 soldiers and three civilians were killed. (New York Times, 8/8/2014)

A Fox commentator noted recently that Hamas never announces the deaths of its own. All we ever hear about are the deaths of women and children.


Just Business
Promising a major change in the “way the V.A. does business,” President Obama traveled to this Army base outside Washington on Thursday to sign a bill that will expand access to health care for veterans and strengthen the powers of the Department of Veterans Affairs’s new leader to clean up abuses in its troubled network of hospitals. (New York Times, 8/7/2014)

Obama bails out Bernie Sanders. 


Train to Nowhere
High-speed rail was supposed to be President Obama’s signature transportation project, but despite the administration spending nearly $11 billion since 2009 to develop faster passenger trains, the projects have gone mostly nowhere and the United States still lags far behind Europe and China. (New York Times, 8/6/2014)

Obama continues to waste your tax dollars. How does that make you feel?

Music from a Farther Room

Random Thoughts
If you still do not believe that the Legitimate Media is biased (how is that possible after 5 years of RedStateVT?) watch the Chris Matthews interview with President Obama. It is embarrassing, fawning and cringe-inducing. 

Sample Liberal interview question for George Bush: "What do you have to say to the mothers of soldiers maimed and killed in Iraq?" Sample interview question for Barack Obama: "How do you stay focused on your transformative agenda given the ceaseless attacks by Republicans?"

So President Obama's uncle, in this country illegally for decades, is officially allowed to remain. That's fine, but where is the wall-to-wall coverage from the Legitimate Media? You know, like we got about Bristol Palin....


Drawn and Quartered
The Obama administration said Friday that the enrollment records for roughly a quarter of all the people who signed up for health insurance on its website in October and November could contain errors, raising questions about whether those consumers would get coverage in time to pay for their medical care next month. (NYT, 12/6/2013)

A White House spokesman said that the administration would undertake a "tech surge" and move with "private sector speed" to ensure that these "glitches" involving the enrollment records were corrected for "a vast majority" of website users by January 31st. The spokesman reminded the public that Obamacare is "more than a website."


Multiplicity
Multiple Democrats on Capitol Hill are worried that House Democratic leaders are close to joining with House GOP leaders to support a bipartisan measure that could undermine the White House’s efforts to reach a long term deal curbing Iran’s nuclear program... (Greg Sargent, Washington Post, 12/6/2013)

See, Republicans are perfectly willing to work with Democrats in a bi-partisan fashion. 


Chat It Up
The chattering class is conducting one of its periodic evaluations of Michelle Obama, and is, as usual, finding her wanting. Before, she was too outspoken; now, too demure. A month ago, the New York Times reported that she has been “derided by critics who hoped she would use her historic position to move more deeply into policy.” Then came Politico’s headline calling her a feminist nightmare. (Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 12/6/2013)

Milbank's column is about feminist criticism of Michelle Obama. Such criticism which runs to Mrs. Obama should play a larger role in policy decision-making. Here is the sad truth and it is blunt and graphic:

Feminists would not be happy with Michelle Obama unless she were to volunteer her time by working in an abortion clinic. 


Bait and Tackle
Assisting is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose only planetary function these days is as left tackle for the White House. (Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 12/5/2013)

Just quoting this because it is a killer line!

Old Fiddle Tune

Two Times Two
But on a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials twice declined to answer questions about whether Kathleen Sebelius, Mr. Obama’s health secretary, knew about the problems. Asked if Marilyn Tavenner, the agency’s director, or anyone else had alerted Ms. Sebelius, an official cut off a reporter.

“Next question,” he said. (NYT, 10/25/2013)

The most transparent government ever....


Down Beat
Some Democrats said that, given the Republican assault on the measure, the White House was right to deliver upbeat presentations promoting it.

“To downplay expectations would have fed into the Republican narrative,” said Jim Manley, a former top aide to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, who attended a session in the Roosevelt Room of the White House with other allies of the administration. (NYT, 10/25/2013)

So just to be clear, Democrats were justified in their optimism about Obamacare because Republicans were pessimistic. You can't make this stuff up. 


Undone
A flurry of recent attacks by al Qaeda-linked militants in Iraq—strengthened by their alliance with jihadist fighters in Syria—is threatening to undo years of U.S. efforts to crush the group, widening sectarian conflict in the Middle East.

The chaos across the border in Syria and Iraqi Sunnis' feeling of discrimination under the Shiite-led government has reignited the kind of intense sectarian strife that brought Iraq to the verge of civil war in 2006-2007. A security vacuum left by the withdrawal of American combat troops in December 2011 is also helping the fighters regain a foothold. (WSJ, 10/25/2013)

So we already have the answer to the question that will eventually be asked: 

Who lost Iraq?  

Barack Obama lost Iraq. 


Stacked
Jeanne Shaheen doesn't sound like a Democrat who just won a government-shutdown "victory." Ms. Shaheen sounds like a Democrat who thinks she's going to lose her job.

The New Hampshire senator fundamentally altered the health-care fight on Tuesday with a letter to the White House demanding it both extend the ObamaCare enrollment deadline and waive tax penalties for those unable to enroll....CNN reports that all 16 Senate Democrats up for re-election are expected to support Ms. Shaheen's proposal. In the House, Democratic members are stacking up behind all of these ideas, and more. (Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 10/24/2013)

Even before the most recent Obamacare troubles, it was difficult to find a Democrat who would run for election or re-election touting their support of the law. Why is that do you think? 


Like This
Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin will propose a new law next week called: "If You Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It Act."

“One of the most important promises made by President Obama and Democrat congressional leadership to promote the Affordable Care Act was that Americans who were satisfied with their health plans could keep them.  That promise has been broken.  More than a million Americans have been notified that the plans they like with the coverage they have chosen have been canceled.  Millions more Americans will have the plans of their choice canceled in months to come,” says Senator Johnson in a statement. (Weeklystandard.com, 10/25/2013)

Like the Republicans' call for all in government to live under Obamacare, this is a pretty sensible proposal. 

Of course, it doesn't stand a chance.


He Spies
Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is calling National Security Agency electronic surveillance of some of America's closest allies "outrageous."

The left-leaning independent wrote to President Barack Obama to express his views after reports that the NSA spied on heads of state in Brazil, Mexico, France and Germany. (Burlington Free Press, 10/25/2013)

Sanders went on to blame the problem on George Bush.

By the way, note the description of Sanders as "left-leaning." The BFP gives us the under-statement of the century!

Silence the Critics

Devil's Due
The education proposal reflects the Obama modus operandi. First, identify an American industry that long ago made a Faustian bargain for federal support, such as hospitals and housing. Then describe the subsidy-dependent industry's inevitable bloat and inefficiency in images so stark no reasonable person could disagree. "Burdened with tens of thousands of dollars" in student debt, Mr. Obama said at Binghamton University in New York, "they have to put off buying a home, or starting a business, or starting a family." [Footnote: That was federal student debt.] Then after getting buy-in from the mortified industry, he imposes the solution—on his terms. (Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 8/28/2013)

This is brilliant analysis. We have nothing to add. 


Cause and Effect
Here’s how deterrence works in the Middle East. Syria, long committed to the destruction of Israel, has not engaged Israel militarily in 30 years. Why? Because it recognizes Israel as a serious adversary with serious policies.

This year alone, Israel has four times conducted airstrikes in Syria. No Syrian response. How did Israel get away with it? Israel had announced that it would not tolerate Assad acquiring or transferring to Hezbollah advanced weaponry. No grandiloquent speeches by the Israeli foreign minister. No leaked target lists. Indeed, the Israelis didn’t acknowledge the strikes even after they had carried them out. Unlike the American president, they have no interest in basking in perceived toughness. They care only about effect. They care about just one audience — the party to be deterred, namely Assad and his allies. Assad knows who did it. He didn’t have to see the Israeli prime minister preening about it on world television. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 9/5/2013)

Speaking of brilliant analysis, we have Charles, yet again. 

By the way, for a hoot be sure to read the reader comments in the Washington Post whenever Krauthammer or George Will write. The Liberals go crazy. Usually the commentary runs to personal attacks and complaints that Krauthammer/Will cannot be taken seriously because they never liked Obama. Liberals will NEVER argue based on the facts.  


Torn and Frayed
Congressional Democrats, torn over involving the United States in another unpredictable Middle East war, are emerging as a major barrier to President Obama’s plan to strike Syria. (NYT, 9/4/2013)

Further fueling discontent were Mr. Obama's Wednesday comments that Congress's "credibility" is at stake. Democrats were already frustrated that Mr. Obama had demanded they share his red line. It is one thing for a president to ask his party to support him in a tough moment, but it is quite another for that president to tell voters it is congressional Democrats—not him—who now own his foreign-policy mess. The steam was practically rising from Capitol Hill. (Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 9/5/2013)

After months (years?) of hearing about divisions within Republican ranks, it is interesting to hear the same about Dems.


Tick Tock
He chose his home state as the venue, and did not refrain from ticking off several problems he saw with the law. But former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday made a meticulous, if wonkish, case for Americans of all political leanings to embrace the Obama health care law.
...
Mr. Clinton made the speech at the request of the White House, but on his own terms. He chose to deliver it at the glass building in downtown Little Rock that houses his presidential library. The venue allowed him to lend a hand to Senator Mark Pryor, a Democrat who is facing a difficult re-election fight here...
...
Mr. Pryor did not attend the event for risk of being too closely associated with the health care law, according to one person with knowledge of his plans, but who was not authorized to discuss them publicly. A campaign spokesman has said that Mr. Pryor had a scheduling conflict. (NYT, 9/4/2013)

This is priceless! Clinton endorses Obamacare while lending support to a local politician. Such politician who does not want his support for Obamacare to be widely known in a state where the law is not popular. And who does not show up for the event.


Slights
The nation’s employers added 169,000 jobs in August, slightly below what economists were expecting, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.3 percent from 7.4 percent. (NYT, 9/6/2013)

More proof for all you cynics out there that the Obama economic plan is working. Unemployment is now projected to be below 5% sometime during Obama's fourteenth term.


Of Course
Just in case you missed it, the New York Times features a story today called "Putting the Sex Back in Homosexuality." Actually you cannot miss it because it is a featured story with a photo in the INSIDE NYTIMES.COM section and then the lead story in the Arts Section and also the lead story in the Movie Section. The Times continues to be the paper of record for the .01% of the population that is homosexual.

Central Plank

Trashy
President Obama is a gifted politician, but sometimes he tries to exceed even what his spinning can accomplish. Witness this week's spectacle of the President denouncing his own antiterror policies.

Mr. Obama renewed his vow to shut down Guanatanamo during his Tuesday press conference, and to transfer or release the 166 military combatants still held there, details to follow. Then he trashed the larger antiterror program that he continues to execute using the rhetoric of a rookie ACLU lawyer: "The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are," he said. "It is contrary to our interests and it needs to stop." Note the passive voice. (WSJ, 5/1/2013)

We actually disagree with the Journal's contention that Obama is a "gifted politician." The Journal's Taranto, we believe, has it right (see below). 

Obama has been called out in the past on his use of straw men to advance whatever argument he is trying to make. Sometimes he is his own straw man!

On another note, we did some channel surfing last night. There was lots of coverage of the new suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing as expected. Until we got to CNN which decided instead to highlight Guantanamo! Christiane Amanpour had her large violin out for the gentle souls in Gitmo who are on a principled hunger strike against their detention. She attempted to bully Rudy Guiliani by guffawing and talking over him. 

You don't bully Guiliani.

Mr. Mayor laid out the case in simple and stark terms. Some released prisoners have returned to the battlefield and killed Americans. Indefinite detention may be unfortunate, but the solution lies not with America, but with the larger Muslim world. It was a bravura performance. Amanpour was left whimpering. 


Adversarial
Every time we write a column making note of Obama's deficiencies of political skill, our small gaggle of fanboy adversaries on Twitter honk away at the "obstructionist Republicans" they believe are to blame for all that is wrong. Of course one man's obstructionist is another's valiant defender of the republic, but to insist on the former designation begs the question anyway. The Republicans in 1995 were no less "obstructionist" than today's, but Clinton was able to master the problem. (James Taranto, WSJ, 5/1/2013)

A fellow blogger constantly chides us about "Republican obstructionists." (By the way, these are the same as "obstructionist Republicans.")  Our response usually includes some combination of the following:

- We don't recall Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi being noted for their willingness to advance George Bush's agenda.
- Obama has demonstrated time and again that he has little interest in working with the other side; indeed his expectation is that the other side should agree with him.

The larger issue, of course, is that Obama is now into his fifth year as president and continues to beat the same drum: blame Republicans and tax the rich. This is what his presidency has become. (Forget the "transformational presidency.") It's official. Obama fatigue has set in.  


Anticipation
"Obamacare is extremely problematic, it is expensive, it is a $500 billion [higher] cost than we originally anticipated, it's cutting into Medicare benefits and it's having companies lay off their employees because they are worried about the cost of it. That is extremely problematic, it needs an enormous fix." (South Carolina congressional candidate Elizabeth Colbert Busch quoted by Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 5/1/2013)

Never mind not campaigning with Obama, Democrat candidates are now campaigning against Obamacare.  

900 Posts!

Gains and Losses
Bolstered by a healthier private sector, the United States economy gained 236,000 jobs in February, well above what had been expected, while the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, its lowest level since December 2008.
...
While many economists were encouraged by the report, some noted that the size of the labor force contracted by 130,000. Some of that was because of retirements, but some was also a result of discouraged workers giving up the search for jobs. As a result, the labor participation rate sank to 63.5 percent, a low for the current economic cycle.
...
The unemployment fell from 7.9 percent in January. (NYT, 3/7/2013)

Unemployment at Four-year Low as U.S. Hiring Gains Steam screams the New York Times headline. We don't have to read very far to learn that labor participation rate is at a low and that the unemployment rate shrank a whopping 0.02%. 

Stock headline had a Republican been president? 

Unemployment Remains Stubbornly High, Millions Abandon Job Search.


All Over Again
Mr. Obama is making the same mistake he made four years ago. We are in a jobs crisis and he does not see it. He thinks he's in a wrestling match about taxing and spending, he thinks he's in a game with those dread Republicans. But the real question is whether the American people will be able to have jobs. (Peggy Noonan, WSJ, 3/8/2013)

While we agree with Noonan, we also point out that Obama's first term mistakes cost him very little. Will it be different in his second term? It is hard to say, but consider this. If Obama leaves office with an unemployment rate of - let's say 5.5% - can anyone say that his was a successful presidency?


Drip Drip
The government gave a $3,700 grant to build a miniature street in West Virginia—out of Legos. It shelled out $500,000 to support specialty shampoo products for cats and dogs. A San Diego outfit got $10,000 for trolley dancing. The feds last year held 894 conferences that each cost more than $100,000—$340 million altogether. But Mr. Obama is too broke to let American kids look around the White House. (Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 3/7/2013)

We wrote about this yesterday and note again that Republicans are winning the battle for the hearts and minds on the sequester. Given the way that Washington wastes our tax dollars, they have righteousness on their side. The sooner that Obama gets the White House tours up and running again the better for his approval ratings. 


Fall in to the Gap
...Medicare's long-term "unfunded liability"—the gap between promised benefits and the program's ability to fund them—is roughly $42.7 trillion. When Republicans say they want to reform Medicare, they mean they want to make durable changes to the program's structure and operations so that this gap narrows over time while achieving the same or better results. They don't want to cut for the sake of cutting or "austerity." They want to solve Medicare's problems. (WSJ, 3/7/2013)

Remember this brief and articulate snippet the next time that Colonel Bernie Sanders starts lying about how Republicans want to destroy entitlement programs. 


The Best Defense
Former President Bill Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 barring federal recognition of same-sex weddings, called on the Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn the law.

Just weeks before the court takes up a case challenging the law, Mr. Clinton said he had come to believe that the law is unconstitutional and contravenes the quintessential American values of “freedom, equality and justice above all.” In doing so, he joined President Obama in arguing that the law be overturned.

“As the president who signed the act into law, I have come to believe that DOMA is contrary to those principles and, in fact, incompatible with our Constitution,” Mr. Clinton wrote in an op-ed article posted on the Web site of The Washington Post on Thursday evening. (NYT, 3/7/2013)

Another Democrat flip-flops.....er, evolves! Bill Clinton is a bigot and a homophobe no more.

And the New York Times finally comes clean and admits that it was the Big Dog, Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA in the first place.