Policia de Catalunya

Occasionally, Peggy Noonan is off the mark. But today she is right on about our country's collective psyche, and she's described it to perfection with delicious wit.
Her essay is called, "Special Assistant for Reality." By necessity rather than choice, she acknowledges, the president lives in a bubble. He has no idea what Americans are thinking and feeling because, well, he's so bubbled.
The solution? Read on. Her imagined dialogue hits the bulls eye.
____________________________
What a president should ideally have, and what I think we all agree Mr. Obama badly needs, is an assistant whose sole job it is to explain and interpret the American people to him. Presidents already have special assistants for domestic policy, for congressional relations and national security. Why not a special assistant for reality? Someone to translate the views of the people, and explain how they think. An advocate for the average, a representative for the normal, to the extent America does normal.
If Mr. Obama had a special assistant for reality this week, this is how their dialogue might have gone over the anti-TSA uprising.
President: This thing is all ginned up, isn't it? Right-wing websites fanned it. Then the mainstream media jumped in to display their phony populist street cred. Right?
Special Assistant for Reality: No, Mr. President, it was more spontaneous. Websites can't fan fires that aren't there. This is like the town hall uprisings of summer 2009. In the past month, citizens took videos at airports the same way town hall protesters made videos there, and put them on YouTube. The more pictures of pat-downs people saw, the more they opposed them.
President: What's the essence of the opposition?
SAR: Sir, Americans don't like it when strangers touch their private parts. Especially when the strangers are in government uniforms and say they're here to help.
President: Is it that we didn't roll it out right? We made a mistake in not telling people in advance we were changing the procedure.
SAR: Um, no, Mr. President. If you'd told them in advance, they would have rebelled sooner.
President: We should have pointed out not everyone goes through the new machines, and only a minority get patted down.
SAR: Mr. President, if you'd told people, "Hello, there's only 1 chance in 3 you'll be molested at the airport today" most people wouldn't think, "Oh good, I like those odds."
President: But the polls are with me. People support the screenings.
SAR: At the moment, according to some. But most Americans don't fly frequently, and the protocols are new. As time passes, support will go steadily down.
President: I've noted with sensitivity that I'm aware all this is a real inconvenience.
SAR: It's not an inconvenience, it's a humiliation. In the new machine, and in the pat-downs, citizens are told to spread their feet and put their hands in the air. It's an attitude of submission�the same one the cops make the perps assume on "America's Most Wanted." Then, while you stand there in public in the attitude of submission, strangers touch intimate areas of your body. It's a violation of privacy. It leaves people feeling reduced. It's like society has decided you're a meat sack and not a soul. Humans have a natural, untaught understanding of the apartness of their bodies, and they don't like it when their space is violated. They recoil, and protest.
President: But you can have the pat-downs done in private.
SAR: Mr. President, you don't know this, but when you ask for that, a lot of TSA people get pretty passive-aggressive. They get Bureaucratic Dead Face and start barking, "I need a supervisor! Private pat-down!" And everyone looks, and the line slows down, and you start to feel like you're putting everyone out. You wait and wait, and finally they get another TSA person, and they take you into the little room and it's embarrassing, and you start to realize you're going to miss your plane. It's then that you realize: all this is how they discourage private pat-downs.
President: I've wondered if this general feeling of discomfort might be related to a certain Puritan strain within American thinking�a kind of horror at the body that, melded with, say, old Catholic teaching, not to be pejorative, might make for a pretty combustible cultural cocktail. This heightened consciousness of the body might suggest an element of physical shame we hadn't taken into account.
SAR: Mr. President, the rebellion isn't shame-based, it's John Wayne-based.
President: I don't follow.
SAR: John Wayne removes his boots and hat and puts his six-shooter on the belt, he gets through the scanner, and now he's standing there and sees what's being done to other people. A TSA guy is walking toward him, snapping his rubber gloves. Guy gets up close to Wayne, starts feeling his waist and hips. Wayne says, "Touch the jewels, Pilgrim, and I'll knock you into tomorrow."
President: John Wayne is dead.
SAR: No, he's not. You've got to understand that. Everyone's got an Inner Duke, even grandma.
President: What should I do?
SAR: Back off. Say you spent a day watching YouTube. You're not giving in to pressure, you're conceding to common sense. "Free men and women have a right not to be trifled with. We'll find a better way."
President: If I don't?
SAR: Well, every businessman in America already thinks you've been grabbing his gonads. You'll continue that general symbolism.
President: Janet Napolitano won't like it. Drudge is always after her. He'll get all "Big Sis Bows Now." She might quit.
SAR: Oh God, yes. A twofer!
President: I'd look like I got rolled.
SAR: Then look strong. Fire her. She's been a disaster from day one. Now she's the face of the debacle.
President: Won't they think I'm weak?
SAR: No. They'll think you returned to Earth. They'll think ground control broke through to Major Tom. They'll think you took a step outside the bubble.

Labels: Barack Obama, Fondling, Groping, Janet Napolitano, Naked People Machines, Peggy Noonan, Privacy, Reality, Tsa

Obama's Summer of Bummers -- Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard. Four self-inflicted wounds.
Going Mad in Herds -- Maureen Dowd, NYT. She's lost all patience.
Repeal of Obamacare Can't Come Fast Enough -- J.C. Watts, Las Vegas Review-Journal. A substantive indictment.
Does Barack Obama Want to be Re-elected in 2012? -- UK Telegraph. Scathing. And I do mean scathing.
A "Move-it" Movement -- Michael Goodwin, NY Post. Mosque divide reveals more.
Crime (Sex) and Punishment (Stoning) -- Robert Worth, NYT. Arguing, weakly, that barbaric practices are just Islamic politics. Still, a must-read for folks like Colin Powell, who say "so what if ___________ (insert name of politician) is Muslim?"

Labels: 2012, Barack Obama, Barbaric Practices, Debacles, Islam, Muslim, Obamacare, Re-Election, Stoning

As in,
Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.Princeton professor Cornel West had a few other choice words to describe Obama, all too tangential to "deracinate" to be relevant here. Suffice it to say, Obama should have given West tickets to his inauguration. And returned his phone calls.
With professors like this, how can anyone seriously argue there's a bubble in higher education?
� 2011, .

Labels: Barack Obama, Bubble, Cornel West, Deracination, Higher Education, Princeton University

He thinks you should get drug-tested.
It hurts. I know. But he's only reflecting the President's mood. And that, my friends, is unlikely to change any time soon.
But there is hope. Until 2012, here's a helpful video on how to cope.

Labels: Barack Obama, Critics, Drug-Testing, Gibbs, Hope, Hurt Feelings, Narcissism, White House Press

I've never seen anything like this. It's the weirdest.
Fast-forward to 1:50 if you're in a hurry.

In, "From Audacity to Animosity," Peggy Noonan has it just about right.

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Democrats, Obama Walks Out Of Press Conference, Sui Generis

Bring it on!

This fat guy is the one to watch.

Labels: 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Chris Christie, Fat Guys, Presidents, Shakespeare, Thinking Too Much, Yond Cassius

My computer's afire. Oof. Pow! Punch!
Allahpundit writes:
Let me put this bluntly: virtually no one in America gives a damn what Barack Obama says about anything at this point. What could be more predictable, and less interesting, than Obama�s opinion on any given subject? Who wants to contemplate the economic wisdom of a guy who looted the Treasury for a trillion dollars, with less benefit than we could have achieved by stuffing hundred dollar bills into random cereal boxes?
Who�s excited to hear about the next plan to convert taxpayer dollars into Democrat campaign funds? Who�s hungry for another hour of tedious excuses about permanently broken markets and the titanic dead hand of George W. Bush? Who wants a lecture on ethical business practices from the titular head of the party that gave us Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters?
What use is another hollow foreign-policy speech from a man who sees no global adversary to rival the menace of Arizona? Even Obama�s supporters don�t hear anything he says any more. There�s nothing left to hear.And I thought this was scathing. Silly me.

Labels: Barack Obama, Doomsday, Economic Policies, Liberal Spenders, Scathing Critque, Shut Up Already, Super Stupid

Mondale says Obama's teleprompters are, umm, "idiot boards."
"I've seen places where he's done it. * * * But I think he -- he's very bright -- as a matter of fact, brilliant. And I think he tends to -- and he uses these idiot boards to read speeches on television and I think he loses the connection that he needs emotionally with American voters."
"You're talking about the teleprompters that he always has when he's delivering a formal speech?" Blitzer asked.
"Yes, right," Mondale said. (emph. supplied)He'll get no argument from Chris "Tingle":

Yowza.

Labels: Barack Obama, Chris Matthews, Connect, Connection, Disconnect, Disconnection, Idiot Boards, Leg, Mondale, Teleprompter, Thrill, Tingle

On Monday, I went to the post office and stood for thirty minutes in a line twenty-six people deep. Only two windows were open, while a third worker shuffled around aimlessly. To say there was no sense of urgency would be charitable.
Can you imagine walking into the post office and seeing government employees snap to, like the boss just walked in? Like they work for you? And aren't on tranquilizers? Just imagine.
So today it's my achey breakey heart. Again. His continued claims that he'll not run in 2012 are killing me.
Chris Christie is the only Republican contender who beats Obama in the latest Zogby poll, and rightfully so. Did you know we just added another trillion dollars to our national debt in the last seven months? We need someone with a heavy veto pen and that would be Christie.
If Christie doesn't run without good reason, well, then, he's a mean and spiteful man and I'll never speak of him again. But if he does run, and the Republicans refuse to nominate him, they deserve what they'll get: a big fat morally overgrown, bankrupt party.
And we'll all get a big fat bankrupt country.

Labels: 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Republican Party, Sarah Palin, Zogby Poll

Hooray for Henry Hudson, the federal judge who today ruled that Obamacare's individual mandate is unconstitutional.
Specifically, he said Congress's power under the Commerce Clause, while broad, is not unlimited. Congress cannot force people to buy a product in interstate commerce.
Congress can certainly regulate participants in interstate commerce. But it can't force people who do absolutely nothing into the stream of interstate commerce.
The Administration had a frightful argument to support the mandate. Here's the essence of it:
a) Every individual in the country will need health insurance at some time point in their life.
b) If every individual doesn't pay for health insurance, the health insurance market will fail. It will be unsustainable because the people who do pay for insurance will be forced to float those who don't, in the form of higher premiums.
c) Therefore, Congress can make everyone buy health insurance. The end.
Huh? That a market might fail means government intervention to force people to buy its products is, ergo, constitutional?
However much you might like the idea of health care for all and a chicken in every pot, the issue here is federal government's power over you.
Put the Administration's argument into other contexts.
Everyone in our country will need housing at some point. Some people will skip out on their rent, or mortgage, and the folks who stay and pay will ultimately pay more, to cover the landlord's or bank's losses. Therefore, Congress can make everyone rent an apartment. Or buy a house.
What about food? Transportation?
Congress's power is not plenary. Its power is limited and Obamacare goes beyond the outer limits of Congress's power under the commerce clause, said our hero Hudson.
But hold on, said Secretary Sebelius. This mandate is constitutional under the "Necessary and Proper" clause. Nope, said the Court. The "Necessary and Proper" clause isn't an independent grant of power. It just lets Congress pass laws to effectuate and implement Constitutional laws.
But wait, try this one on, Sebelius countered. The individual mandate is really a tax. And Congress can tax anything!
The judge was not buying. For one thing, about 500 million people in Congress and within the Administration said it was a penalty, not a tax. For another, it is indeed a penalty. And you can't penalize citizens for failing to comply with an unconstitutional law.
Judge Hudson did, however, decline to issue an injunction. He noted that his order granting declaratory relief to the Commonwealth of Virginia was the equivalent of an injunction because it dealt with the constitutionality of federal law. It was, he said, "sufficient to stay the hand of the Executive branch pending appeal."
To that, Robert Gibbs said, essentially, "In your eye!" Specifically, at today's press conference, he said,
I think it is safe to say that because there are several other cases in the pipeline and because of -- again, you�ve got disparate court rulings 115 miles away -- that the bill will continue to have its day in court.
I do think it is important that even this judge ruled that the bill continues to move forward in terms of its implementation.
Did not!
So it will be up the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether Congress stayed within its outer limits, or instead reconstituted another form of government: the one in England that we fled.

Labels: Aca, Barack Obama, Commerce Clause, Congress, Health Insurance Mandate, Judge Henry Hudson, Obamacare, Opinion Simplified, Outer Limits, Penalty, Plenary Power, Robert Gibbs, Tax, Unconstitutional

But don't worry, especially about Egypt.
In brighter news, the Muslim Brotherhood is largely a secular organization that eschews violence, decries Al Queda as a "perversion of Islam," and saves Sharia puppies. Those sorts of thing.
At least, according to Obama's National Intelligence Director, the confidence-inspiring James Clapper, who is apparently reflecting Obama's stance in the whole "go Brotherhood!" affair.
What's that, you say? The Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Anwar Sadat right after his peace accord with Israel?
Oh, pshaw! Get your priorities straight, people. Democracy is good. Any democracy is good. Settle down.

Labels: 000 Jobs Lost, 800, Anwar Sadat, Barack Obama, Democracy, James Clapper, Muslim Brotherhood, Obamacare

Photo credit: AP
But the coffee table? Has got to go. It's completely undignified.
For a complete look at the "before" and "after," go here.

Labels: Barack Obama, Makeover, Oval Office, Weird Coffee Table

Julian Assange, auditioning for the prehensile villain in Patricia Cornwell's new movie
Just kidding.
Had that been about to happen, we would have seen some heavy-duty action. Because that kind of thing is serious biz.
But hey, this is pretty good, no?
By releasing stolen and classified documents, Wikileaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals. We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.That "strongly condemns" stuff works, almost never always. Except that it's almost always after the fact.

Labels: Barack Obama, Burning Koran, Cables, Condemns, Demarches, Diplomats, Impotent, Jimmy Carter, Wikileaks

Watch as Biden grapples with complete nonsense Keynesian economics, and other fun stuff.

Labels: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Keynesian Economics, Recovery Summer

In a "gesture of appeasement," it appears they're going to build that pesky mosque somewhere else.

What a relief this will be for the Democrats.

Labels: Barack Obama, Ground Zero Mosque, Hamas, Life Boat, Mosque Plans Abandoned, Titanic

In a recent Rolling Stone Interview, President Obama said the Fox News "point of view" is "destructive" to America.
Obama: "[Laughs] Look, as president, I swore to uphold the Constitution, and part of that Constitution is a free press. We�ve got a tradition in this country of a press that oftentimes is opinionated. The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition � it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It�s a point of view that I disagree with. It�s a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world. But as an economic enterprise, it�s been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it�s that Fox is very successful."Hours later, his press secretary, man-boy Burton, praised Keith Olbermann, saying the President believes Olbermann and his MSNBC ilk are providing an invaluable service.
"And if you're on the left, if you're somebody like Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or one of the folks who helps to keep our government honest and pushes and prods to make sure that folks are true to progressive values," Burton continued, "then he thinks that those folks provide an invaluable service."Yeah, right. Watch this "invaluable" service.

Obama's panicked cat fight with Fox is undignified and unpresidential.
And it shows how utterly tone-deaf he is towards the general populace. According to a recent Pew survey, Fox News -- in August, alone -- drew far more viewers than did CNN and MSNBC combined.
It would be nice if Obama could focus his attention on real problems, like the bailed-out GM making political contributions when it still owes billions to taxpayers. Or the ever-expanding number of Americans living in poverty.
Something, anything, more productive than childish swipes at Fox News, would be an improvement. Then again, maybe not. Perhaps it is best for everyone if his attention is exclusively focused on beating up a cable news channel.

Labels: Barack Obama, Foolish, Fox News, Gm, Msnbc, Olbermann, Pew Poll, Political Contributions, Poverty, Stupid, Tone-Deaf, Unpresidential, War

Photo credit: Netizen
With arugula and stuff.

Labels: Barack Obama, How To Get Gadaffi, Niall Ferguson, White House