Posted on 2/8/2009, 5:06:30 AM by Nachum
President Obama has had, by general consent, a torrid First Fortnight. To put it another way, it has taken precisely two weeks for the illusion that brought him to power to be exposed for the nonsense that it so obviously was. The transformational candidate who was going to sweep away pork-barrel politics, lobbyists and corruption has been up to his neck in sleaze, as eviscerated here by Charles Krauthammer. Despite the fact that he came to power promising to ‘ban all earmarks’, his ‘stimulus’ bill represents billions of dollars of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections -- which have nothing to do with kick-starting the economy and everything to do with favouring pet Democrat causes.
He has been appointing one tax dodger, lobbyist and wheeler-dealer after another. After appointing one official,Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who had unaccountably forgotten to pay his taxes, he then watched his designated Health Secretary Tom Daschle fall on his sword because he too had taken a tax holiday. Daschle was furthermore a prominent actor in the world of lobbying and influence-peddling. Leon Panetta, Obama’s nominee for Director of the CIA has also, according to the Wall Street Journal, consulted for prominent companies and sat on the board of a public affairs firm that lobbies Congress. The Weekly Standard reports that Secretary of Labour nominee Hilda Solis was not only involved with a private organization lobbying her fellow legislators on a bill that she helped sponsor, but she apparently kept her involvement secret and failed to reveal a clear conflict of interest.
In foreign policy, Obama has started by trashing his own country through grossly misrepresenting its history and grovelling to America’s enemies such as Iran, which has flicked him aside with undiluted contempt. He has gratuitously upset America’s ally India by suggesting that America should muscle in and resolve the Kashmir question.
His right hand doesn’t seem to know what his left hand is doing. He reportedly asked retired Marine General Anthony Zinni to be US ambassador to Iraq, but then abruptly withdrew the appointment without explanation after it had been confirmed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And the precise role he is offering Dennis Ross – special envoy to Iran? Special adviser to Hillary? Special adviser to other special advisers? – remains mired in confusion.
I have argued before however that, given Obama’s radical roots in the neo-Marxist, nihilist politics of Saul Alinsky, it is the undermining of America’s fundamental values that is likely to be this President’s most strategically important goal. I have also suggested that, since this agenda is promoted through stealth politics which gull the credulous middle-classes while destroying the ground upon which they are standing, his second-tier appointments should be closely scrutinised.
And here’s a humdinger. Obama has picked a man called David Ogden to be deputy Attorney-General. Ogden has made his legal career from representing pornographers, trying to defeat child protection legislation and undermining family values. As FoxNews reported this week, he once represented a group of library directors arguing against the Children's Internet Protection Act, which ordered libraries and schools receiving funding for the Internet to restrict access to obscene sites. And on behalf of several media groups, he successfully argued against a child pornography law that required publishers to verify and document the age of their models, which would have ensured these models were at least 18.
The Family Research Council has more examples of his contribution to upholding American and western values. In one such case, he expressed the view that abortion was less damaging to a woman than having children:
In sum, it is grossly misleading to tell a woman that abortion imposes possible detrimental psychological effects when the risks are negligible in most cases, when the evidence shows that she is more likely to experience feelings of relief and happiness, and when child-birth and child-rearing or adoption may pose concomitant (if not greater) risks or adverse psychological effects ...
In another, co-authored brief, he argued that it was an unconstitutional burden on 14-year old girls seeking an abortion for their parents to be notified -- because there was no difference between adults and mid-teens in their ability to grasp all the implications of such a decision:
There is no question that the right to secure an abortion is fundamental. By any objective standard, therefore, the decision to abort is one that a reasonable person, including a reasonable adolescent, could make. [E]mpirical studies have found few differences between minors aged 14-18 and adults in their understanding of information and their ability to think of options and consequences when asked to consider treatment-related decisions. These unvarying and highly significant findings indicate that with respect to the capacity to understand and reason logically, there is no qualitative or quantitative difference between minors in mid-adolescence, i.e., about 14-15 years of age, and adults.
And how did the 44th President react to the growing public dismay over the mess he was making? He threw his toys out of the pram -- or perhaps that should read, he got into the pram. For he fled the scene of the disaster and sought the company of seven year-olds instead. As the Telegraph reported:
‘We were just tired of being in the White House,’ he told a group of excited seven-year-olds before discussing Batman and reading them a book.
Tired of being President – after two weeks!
Tax cheats, pork-barrel politics, ancillary child abuse, incompetence, chaos, treachery and infantilism. America – what have you done?!
First president not to attend The Inaugural Medal of Honor Ball
5 exectutive orders the first week in office
Insults China
First interview, with foreign news outlet- for Muslims
Talks about his muslim family
Picks fight with Limbaugh
Won't take question from press
Allows to FDA approve first human embryonic stem cell safety trial (3 days after Pres. Bush left)
Excludes any compromise with GOP on Stimulus bill Massive pork in stimulus bill
5% of stimulus bill to actually go to infrastructure
Offers to negotiate directly with Iran
Puts 5 millionairs on his cabinet
Makes a tax cheat the Sec. of the Treasury
Bombs Pakistan
Argues with the Pope on abortion
Signed the SCHIP bill, that gives health care to illegals
Won't allow a video of his retaking of the oath of office
Ordered the closure of Gitmo
Halts all pending Bush regulations
Second week:
Appoints extremist Samantha Powers to head foreign policy team
Secret nuke talks with Iran/Syria
Appoints tax cheat for commerce secretary
Illegal alien aunt, granted a "stay" of deportation Daschle the tax cheat/lobbiest proposed as secretary for health care
Nancy Killefer for candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for federal government fails to pay household help taxes ...withdrawn
12 lobbyists (or more) appointed to high gov't positions within the first 14 days of his administration (up to 17 by another source)
Administration demands defense cuts of 10% during wartime
Obama envoy George Mitchell tells Palistinians " they believe can extract from Israel concessions reaching "much further" than during talks held under the previous administration
The European Union warns the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting Obama's “Buy American” policy, intensifying fears of a trade war Obama immediately backs down from policy
After stating her priority would be "mum-in-chief", Michelle Obama goes on listening tour and then makes political speeches with her husband not yet one month in office...
George Mitchell resigns from a Saudi Lobbying firm, two weeks into his appointment as "Special Middle East Envoy" Obama administration says it will cancel 77 drilling leases near Utah parks
Ogden, President Obama's pick for deputy attorney general, used to represent Playboy
Steven Chu, Obama's secretary of energy (not a climatologist) states: California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming
Obama names “most fined” Washington State bureaucrat Ron Simms to the #2 position in HUD
Hilda Solis, Obama's pick for labor secretary's husband is found to be a tax cheat just before the confirmation vote
Directed military prosecutors to revoked charges pending against mastermind of USS Cole bombing: Al Nashiri
Keep the list... it’s going to have many infamous additions.
Keep up the good work, Barry. You're doing a heckuva job!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Is that all?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Nice work Nachum. Pingo!
Here is the corrected version.
The List
First president not to attend The Inaugural Medal of Honor Ball
5 exectutive orders the first week in office. Including one that allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States.
Insults China
First interview, with foreign news outlet- for Muslims
Talks about his muslim family
Picks fight with Limbaugh
Won't take question from press
Allows to FDA approve first human embryonic stem cell safety trial (3 days after Pres. Bush left)
Excludes any compromise with GOP on Stimulus bill Massive pork in stimulus bill
5% of stimulus bill to actually go to infrastructure
Offers to negotiate directly with Iran
Puts 5 millionairs on his cabinet
Makes a tax cheat the Sec. of the Treasury
Bombs Pakistan
Argues with the Pope on abortion
Signed the SCHIP bill, that gives health care to illegals
Won't allow a video of his retaking of the oath of office
Ordered the closure of Gitmo
Halts all pending Bush regulations
Second week:
Appoints extremist Samantha Powers to head foreign policy team
Secret nuke talks with Iran/Syria
Appoints tax cheat for commerce secretary
Illegal alien aunt, granted a "stay" of deportation Daschle the tax cheat/lobbiest proposed as secretary for health care
Nancy Killefer for candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for federal government fails to pay household help taxes ...withdrawn
12 lobbyists (or more) appointed to high gov't positions within the first 14 days of his administration (up to 17 by another source)
Administration demands defense cuts of 10% during wartime
Obama envoy George Mitchell tells Palistinians " they believe can extract from Israel concessions reaching "much further" than during talks held under the previous administration
The European Union warns the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting Obama's “Buy American” policy, intensifying fears of a trade war Obama immediately backs down from policy
After stating her priority would be "mum-in-chief", Michelle Obama goes on listening tour and then makes political speeches with her husband not yet one month in office...
George Mitchell resigns from a Saudi Lobbying firm, two weeks into his appointment as "Special Middle East Envoy" Obama administration says it will cancel 77 drilling leases near Utah parks
Ogden, President Obama's pick for deputy attorney general, used to represent Playboy
Steven Chu, Obama's secretary of energy (not a climatologist) states: California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming
Obama names “most fined” Washington State bureaucrat Ron Simms to the #2 position in HUD
Hilda Solis, Obama's pick for labor secretary's husband is found to be a tax cheat just before the confirmation vote
Directed military prosecutors to revoked charges pending against mastermind of USS Cole bombing: Al Nashiri
America, what have you done, indeed!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
>>>approval ratings have plummeted to 37%, a hair above the departed Bush’s last recorded approval rating.
No, but the misunderstanding isn’t your fault. The posts on this have been misleading.
The 37% is just subtracting the Strongly Disapprove from the Strongly Approve. Going by the conventional 1 to 100 approval scale, Obama scores 60% approval, which not many presidents would say was bad. Still this is down from the mid 80s approval of a few weeks ago.
Please post your comment over on Dan Riehl’s site, he has this article up.
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/
Excellent thread! This needs to have all the ping lists pinged!
If you start a ping list, to notify us of additions to your list, please add me to it.
Bump!
Don’t blame me, I voted for Sarah Palin!
ping me
Barack Obama is nothing but a tool. Of course he is an anti-American Marxist, but he is in the White House because of the efforts of the people who have been working for over a century to destroy this nation. They brought this guy from nowhere, helped him get into Harvard and into the Illinois legislature.
From there he went to Congress and then, astonishingly, into the most powerful office in the world. Now that he is there it is becoming clear that he is a buffoon who steps in it every time he makes a move.
He can’t put a cabinet together without embarrasing himself. He doesn’t know that he should not be acknowledging the existence of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, not sniveling about them publically.
Obama is incapable of being president. Pelosi and Reid do not respect him. Hillary hates his guts and the American people are becoming aware, after just weeks of his presidency, that he doesn’t know what he is doing.
He can and he will damage America severely. He is anti-American and resentful of the role America has played in world affairs. Remember that Obama spent his formative years in the third world.
I don’t know whether America will survive this guy. I do know that this country is in grave danger with him in the White House. Hey! I wonder what David Rockefeller is up to these days.
yep. well said.
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