Posted on 05/23/2013 7:39:03 AM PDT by Kaslin
How does President Barack Obama, a man of such keen intelligence, with such promise to "change" America, find himself in so much serious trouble?
From the IRS targeting conservatives to the continued confusion over what happened at Benghazi to provoking a battle with The Associated Press by subpoenaing phone records that could involve as many as 100 reporters, what went wrong?
The answer is simple: arrogance, aided and abetted by a compliant, adoring "news" media.
CNN's Roland Martin urged the president to "go gangsta" on conservatives who wouldn't confirm his political appointments. Supporters like MSNBC's the Rev. Al Sharpton publicly said they will not criticize Obama -- on anything. Even though Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., called the then 15.9 percent black unemployment rate "unconscionable," she refused to publicly criticize the President. Politicians, Waters candidly told a Detroit town hall audience on unemployment, want to get re-elected: "If we go after the President too hard, you're going after us. When you tell us it's all right and you unleash us and you're ready to have this conversation, we're ready to have the conversation." So why shouldn't Obama feel that he operates under different, special rules, and can do so without risking loss of support?
By refusing to hold Obama to the same standard they would hold any garden-variety Republican, the media now face the monster they created.
With a straight face, Obama used lines like he's going to "save or create" 3.5 million jobs. What does that even mean? How do you measure whether a given policy "saves" a job?
"The inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction," wrote William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal. "Never mind that no one -- not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- actually measures 'jobs saved.'"
With a straight face, Obama told us over and over how his mother, as she lay dying from cancer in a Hawaii hospital, fought with her insurance carriers over paying her medical and hospital bills. But according to the book by Janny Scott, a former New York Times reporter, the sole dispute was over a disability policy his mother had taken out. Her bills were paid promptly and without dispute. To date, not one reporter has asked the President about this false narrative he used so effectively to personalize his fight for ObamaCare.
With a straight face, Obama told us that under ObamaCare the "cost curve" would "bend down"; that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor; and that nobody will be worse off under ObamaCare. Yet premiums are going up. Employers are dropping plans and cutting hours to shed the number of "full-time workers" for whom employers must provide a health care policy or pay a fine.
With a straight face, Obama told us that the soaring annual deficits come from "two wars we didn't pay for" and "tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that were not paid for." Did his suck-up media do the math? If you take the generally accepted estimate of the costs of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- over the 10 years from 2001 to 2011 -- they annually accounted for 10 percent of the then-deficit. As to tax cuts for the rich, Obama put the "cost" at $700 billion over 10 years and has said, "We need to get rid of ... tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and ... corporate jet owners." But $700 billion over 10 years is $70 billion per year, a small fraction of the current deficit.
With a straight face, then-Sen. Obama, the Un-Bush, said he opposes any military intervention unauthorized by Congress unless the country faces imminent risk of attack. But as President, Obama joined with France and Britain in bombing Libya, a country that posed no imminent threat to America. Libya's then-leader, Moammar Gadhafi, had long before surrendered his weapons of mass destruction to the Bush administration. President George W. Bush obtained congressional approval for Afghanistan and Iraq. Not so with Obama and Libya. President Obama paid no political price for what Sen. Obama would have opposed.
Newsweek, after the passage of ObamaCare, published a gushing cover story: "We Are All Socialists Now." Somehow the piece failed to note economists like UCLA's Lee Ohanian, whose peer-reviewed work shows that FDR's New Deal lengthened and deepened the Great Depression -- the opposite of what most Americans learn in high school. But to Newsweek, the question has been settled. A bigger, activist government is simply right and proper and just. If it takes thuggery on the part of Obama to get us there, well, so be it.
Obama's arrogance flows from our fawning, gushing, Bush-hating "news" media, which shirk their responsibility to fairly report the news. The media's fecklessness creates overconfidence. With good reason, Obama expects his media cheerleaders to look the other way, accept excuses without much challenge and turn the President's critics and whistleblowers into enemies.
“with such ‘keen intelligence’”?????
The author tips his hand right there, while answering his own question.
And it doesn’t help that the Man-Who-Would-Be-Dictator is also a doctrinaire Marxist at a time in history during which the abundant flaws of that benighted political philosophy are already so well documented.
and what is he doing today ,rolling out the good old GITMO DISTRACTION
This article is off to a bad start . . . there is NO evidence that this man is necessarily intelligent . . . no evidence whatsoever . . . no school record . . . no evidence of intellectual accomplishments, etc. He has to be scripted by his handlers and has to read a teleprompter. If the teleprompter doesn't work, he fumbles and stumbles all over the place.
The media put this “fellow” into office, (I sure did NOT), and now that they found that they cannot control him, they start screaming! They made this “Frankenstein”, so they are going to have to start figuring out how to “turn him off”.
( I have a thousand ideas, but I will only allow those with psychic or remote viewing capabilites, to see what I envision!)
Folks......every dog has his or her day!!! “Whatever goes around...comes around!!! When Obama falls....and he will....many people are going to be in the wilderness for many years to come!!!
Tagline!
I took the “keen intelligence” as a bit of back-handed sarcasm. Of course he is not a person of “keen intelligence.” The whole point of the article is that he’s an unqualified arrogant prima-donna who has been given a pass by the media. Thus, my conclusion that the statement drips sarcasm.
I think we give the Democrats too much credit when we think of them as just misguided people who don’t really understand the dangers of socialism and the Moslems. I think they are just a bunch of thieves out to loot the public treasury for themselves. Does Pelosi live like a real socialist? Does Harry Reid live like a Moslem supporter? It’s easy to just write them off as well-intentioned but misguided Americans. They are thieves out to loot the public treasury for their own benefit. They want us to think that they are misguided socialists and Moslem sympathizers. That means that we base our strategy and tactics to defeat them on improper assumptions. We work to defeat socialists and Moslem-sympathizers who are really just common thieves. Our strategy to defeat the Democrats must be based on defeating opponents who are con men and thieves. Trying to defeat make-believe Democrat socialists and Moslem-sympathizers is like trying to fight with shadows. The real people are going to kick your behind.
My father, who was 14 years old when FDR was elected and lived through FDR's programs (WPA= We Putter Around and all the rest), argued the same thing. He also served in the U.S. Navy in some of its hottest battles in the Pacific.
He also injected me with the same spine to argue against that official propaganda line with facts that embarrassed many of my government teachers from elementary school through college. Facts that were so logical that some of them even had to admit I was right.
God bless Dad's memory for giving me that clear vision at such a tender young age.
They made this “Frankenstein”, so they are going to have to start figuring out how to “turn him off
They made him, and turned him loose on us to reek destruction....
Maybe Larry was being sarcastic?
Very well said
After he is out of office, nobama can make a lot of money going around the country giving a lecture entitled, “How I Wagged the Dog in Your Face on Multiple Occasions.”
The lecture will also feature the newest and best shiny objects for sale.
Boy, I hope so!
If you read the text with Larry Elder’s voice you can hear the intent.
the media and Obama; just the tip of the iceberg, it does not delve deeper into the bowells of the administration:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/w/White-House-Media-Relations-052013.htm#.UZ5fYcqCVac
With Larry Elder, it is definitely sarcasm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.