"The One" Tees Off--Fore!....
The gratuitous return of the Churchill bust to Britain. The slam of the Boston police officer who arrested Henry Louis Gates. The high-profile rebuke of the members of the Supreme Court at his 2010 State of the Union speech. The diplomatic snubs, petty as well as serious, of Gordon Brown, Benjamin Netanyahu and Nicolas Sarkozy. The verbal assaults on Wall Street "fat cats" who "caused the problem" of "10% unemployment." The never-ending baiting of millionaires and billionaires and jet owners and everyone else who, as Black Entertainment Television's Robert Johnson memorably put it on Sunday, "tried rich and tried poor and like rich better."
Now we come to the last few days, in which Mr. Obama first admonished the Congressional Black Caucus to "stop complainin', stop grumblin', stop cryin'," and later told a Florida TV station that America was losing its competitive edge because it "had gotten a little soft." The first comment earned a rebuke from none other than Rep. Maxine Waters, while the second elicited instant comparisons to Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech. They tell us something about the president's political IQ. They tell us more about his world view.
(I would have left Wall Street excess off the list.) Stephens then explains why the contempt Obama holds is there:
I suspect it's the same thing that so many run-of-the-mill liberals dislike: Americans typically believe that happiness is an individual pursuit; we bridle at other people setting limits on what's "enough"; we enjoy wealth and want to keep as much of it as we can; we don't like trading in our own freedom for someone else's idea of virtue, much less a fabricated concept of the collective good.
When a good history of anti-Americanism is someday written, it will note that it's mainly a story of disenchantment—of the obdurate and sometimes vulgar reality of the country falling short of the lover's ideal. Listening to Mr. Obama, especially now as the country turns against him, one senses in him a similar disenchantment: America is lovable exactly in proportion to the love it gives him in return.
Michael Barone offers more bad news for Obama to complain about: his 2008 victory coalition is collapsing. Obama's 53-47 win may not seem like much (he got 68 percent in the Electoral College tally), but, as Barone points out, only three Democratic Presidents in US history did better: Andrew Jackson, FDR & LBJ. Considering that the party's history dates to 1828, and thus covers 45 presidential contests this is a stunning data point. The Republican party, since its 1854 birth has garnered ten margins above 53 percent in 38 contests.
Obama will not be helped by anarchic "Occupy Wall Street" protests either. Perhaps what Bill Kristol aptly calls their "idiocy" can be summed up with this NYT-quoted advice from a veteran protester to a newbie arrival: ‘It’s about taking down systems, it doesn’t matter what you’re protesting,’ she said. ‘Just protest.’ ” This Washington Examiner editorial further details the mindless stupidity of the OWS crowd. Matt Labash at The Weekly Standard adds his deft comic touch, spotlighting dopey celebrities who gravitated to Zuccotti Park in search of an education, dopey journalists who think they are seeing Tahrir Square's Egyptian protest reborn here, and a collection of dopes who couldn't organize a one-car funeral. Someone should ask these folks what country they think is the world's most just and prosperous.
Yet The One continues to get a free ride from Mainstream Media on his demonizing the very bankers who gave huge sums to his Presidential campaign.
Mr. Gaffe. Whose the biggest gaffe machine of all? NOT Joe Biden. NOT any GOP candidate for 2012. Not former President G. W. Bush. Try BARACK OBAMA.
How so? March Thiessen collects Obama gaffes including this gem, a real beaut:
We used to have the best infrastructure in the world here in America. We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad.
Intercontinental? Try Trans-continental.
Theissen cites Andrew Malcolm's LA Times piece for more:
It's yet another humorous gaffe by the Harvard graduate, overlooked by most media for whatever reason. Like Obama saying Abraham-Come-Lately Lincoln was the founder of the Republican Party. Or Navy corpseman. Or the Austrian language. Fifty-seven states. The president of Canada. Etc.
Hmmm. George Bush got nailed for "Grecians" but "O" gets a pass for thinking Austrians speak "Austrian." Lincoln was in fact a Whig when the Republican Party was founded in 1854. "Corpseman" is "corpsman" and pronounced "core-man." And "O"'s 57 states were, in his campaign stump oratory, 57 of the lower 58, so credit him with finding 60 states. Canada, a former British colony, has a Prime Minister.
Our increasingly isolated President's presidency is collapsing. Expect an unending chorus of complaint splus gaffes galore from our chief executive.
Bottom Line. President Obama gets yet another pass from his liberal protectors. Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, G. W. Bush and countless other GOP pols, eat your hearts out.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Conservative Politics
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