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Musings on a Sunday — 54 Comments

  1. I’ve always felt that the election contests in American politics for any particular political office are deeply flawed. What you end up with at the top are those who’re especially good at campaigning. Imagine someone really really good at selling cars, trying to fix a car. Doesn’t make sense does it?

  2. Amen.

    Remember the glib, nimble, cheap-shot that Obammy cut Mitt with in the foreign policy debate about wars not being fought with those old fashioned tanks and ships and stuff. Soooooo yesterday and sooooooooooooooooo naé¯ve of Mitt to be stuck “back there”. I remember Romney looking utterly stunned at that cheap ignorant shit, as was I in a hotel room in The Great Smoky Mtns of N.C.

    That election day, 2012, seems like a decade ago. I came home from our Winter Park, Florida, polling place filled with guarded confidence and a
    quiet feeling that the voters were turning out to get this country back on a sane track. Seems I was terribly young and naé¯ve back then.

    Mitt Romney was a hugely experienced leader, business executive, problem solver and realist. We would have been well into the solution now and the world(presently on Fire)would have been a far safer place.

    I fear for my country as I never ever have before. The inmates of Shady Oaks Asylum are unleashed en-masse and we are populating ‘a world turned upside down.’

  3. I do not understand how invoking “politics” gets us anywhere. Is politics just a dirty word, nothing more? Does politics mean making sordid deals with the unsavory and the corrupt, nothing more? Is politics just pandering to the lowest of the LIVs, nothing more?

    If Hussein al-Hawaii and his White House are only politically driven, how is it they please an alleged almost “no one”? (Which overlooks his amazing 40% approval rating).

    I have many bad descriptors for Baraq, but I will not hang “political” on him as a pejorative.

  4. My expectations for Obama and his leftist supporters is so low, I’m happily shocked that Obama is doing anything at all to prevent genocide against the Yazidis especially since his best friend for life, Erdogan, can’t be happy to see the Kurds’ Persmergia survive. Perhaps he is probably more inclined to protect the refugees since they are Yazidis and not those despised Christians.

  5. The media has always been in the tank with the democrats. Now the corrupt media are part of the DNC. Look at all the media types that used to work for democrats.

  6. “He ends up pleasing no one, however.”

    . . . except for that species of sentient mammal who honestly exult in every- and any-thing on which His Wonderfulness embarks. Pretty discouraging when considering how substantial a proportion of the citizenry these people are — and how so many of *them* consider *us* to be lesser evolved mammals.

  7. Kit: “Obama . . . is rancid to the bone.”

    Why, yes. Yes, he is and so are his supporters.

  8. Don Carlos, I think the point is that Obama’s motivation is dominated by politics, specifically furthering the Democrat agenda. His policies on other things, like foreign policy, are driven by domestic political considerations. Bush’s foreign policy, warts and all, was driven by a coherent agenda to further America’s interests.

  9. Scott Johnson at Powerline sums it up very well:

    Obama’s dishonesty is blatant and habitual. It seems to me to reflect a bad character allied with great confidence that he can get away with it.

    I think it’s that last part that’s the most damaging to our country — his in-your-face confidence bolstered by the fact that he knows the MSM won’t do its job.

  10. Obama’s Middle East policy is quite obvious, he always chooses the side of the Muslim Brotherhood. It happened from the beginning when he went to Cairo to give his speech on the ME and insisted that the MB be invited over the objections of the Egyptian government.

  11. The appealing part of Romney is that he gets it. The unappealing part is that he does not get it.

    His decency seems to be genuine except when it does not, and his obvious honesty is offset by his lack of political integrity.

    He is highly intelligent, certainly more-so than most, with the lack of realism which is the downfall of so many highly intelligent. By lack of realism is meant, too theoretical and calculating to see some important things.

    He is very much a George Bush type of guy, certainly no “conservative.” A noblesse oblige type of guy.

    He might very well nominate a perfect jurist for the SC, Bush-like, noblesse-oblige like (his conscience telling him hoi polloi deserve something).

    Problem is, the SC sop, as great and desirable as that could be, is small hope for a lost civilization.

    My heart likes the man, and I don’t think I am being taken in.

    He may be the best option, and that is sad.

  12. Tonawanda, while I’m probably a little more positive on Romney than you are those are some trenchant observations.

  13. “there’s no evidence of a true change of heart or mind on their part.”

    That’s for sure. Only one thing changes their mind.

    “(believe it
    or

    not)you
    told him:i told
    him;we told him
    (he didn’t believe it,no

    sir)it took
    a nipponized bit of
    the old sixth

    avenue
    el;in the top of his head:to tell

    him”

  14. We will be paying a huge price for years for Obama’s foreign policy disasters.

    One thing for sure: Iran can’t get nukes.

    Bibi will probably have to do it.

  15. davisbr…

    Luttwak missed it: the proximate Red Chinese target is Russia.

    Everything he’s adduced is correct if you substitute Russia for America.

    The reason that Red China is moving east is to stay away from raising Moscow’s ire.

    It’s all counter-direction.

    Leading with the east (Japan) — to strike (by entanglement) to the west (Russia)

    America is STILL too distant, too staggering a goal.

    Very much in the manner of the Imperial Japanese, the Nazi Germans and Soviet Russia the impulse is to grab all of the loose marbles first — after which Big Red can go “all in” with Great Blue.

    Beijing realizes that Barry is a passing fantasist. His time is for training and indoctrinating the proles (Han) in the correct path.

    The naval Armageddon must await a navy.

    Luttwak might be cheered up by the knowledge that Red China already has more atomic throw weight than all other atomic powers combined.

    Think about that.

    Now, do you wonder why Putin is using the proxy war in Ukraine as his rationale for ramping up his own atomics?

    Like Beijing, he’s feinting west when his real strategic concern is to his east.

    Hence, he’s kissing the hand he dares not bite.

    Luttwak’s problem is that he sees everything from a DC centric viewpoint. Like most, he thinks that the major players are actually crazy enough to jump straight at the Colossus of the West — as if they were advancing their first pawn.

    Sheesh.

    No, America is an END GAME play. Cleaving America away from Japan and Europe must be the epic geopolitical move for all time.

    The single most likely outcome — long after all here are dead — is that the schism devolves into a flaming race war: Moscow against all of its impulses will fall into the White orbit — and not as its master. Instead, Russia will find itself as a front line state in the ultimate war of defense — from the east — same as it ever was. (cf Mongols, Turks, Huns,…)

    The ONLY prospect for Beijing is to dominate the World-Island FIRST. Only after that is obtained — at no serious expense — can Beijing lock horns with the Western Hemisphere — what, with its moat and all. AKA the Island Continent.

  16. Tonawanda,

    With all that, do you believe that Romney, if it came down to it – where the rubber meets the road, metal hits the meat, the 3 am call – do you think he would make the harder right call?

  17. NeoConScum Says:

    (August 10th, 2014 at 4:15 pm )

    As a practicing Muslim, Barry knows and believes that all wars are fought with lies and deceit.

    Towards that end, Barry feels over equipped.

    &&&

    The Muslim way of war does not involve heavy industry — just heavy manipulation, deceits, double crosses and all of the rest.

    If you wonder why you can’t get a straight word out of the ISIS war from Sunni, Kurd or Shi’ite — it’s because they’re all Muslims.

    VICE TV has some terrific footage from the Kurdish/ ISIS battle front. The poor redheaded infidel can’t get the straight dope from anyone, even when it’s as plain as day to his own eyes.

    Yes no answers turn into Axelrod’ian spin fests.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RojiK_l45hY&list=PLw613M86o5o4JICWHCJsmzLy4NVtWKu8z&index=1

    And for a retrospective on Aleppo:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg5UEz_Ao0g

    ZARDOZ strikes again!

  18. Eric-
    Of course Romney can make the right call. Doing the right thing is really not very hard. The question is whether or not one is willing to do the right thing. it is usually pretty obvious. Most POTUS decisions are not of the Truman “Shall I drop the A-bomb?” magnitude. It is all the more remarkable that Baraq has done zero things rightly. Proves what he is:evil.

  19. And in Other News:

    Al-Maliki is staging a coup against his own nation.

    Obviously corrupt — and massively so — al-Maliki can’t bear his departure — since any audit of his withdrawals will exposed him to ‘put-backs.’

    &&&

    We need a retirement program for absolute despots.

    I nominate the south of France: it’s worked before.

    Then there’s KSA. It was Idi’s choice. (But such a phone bill !)

    $$$

    It seems that we’re going to have to send in Captain Willard.

    Al-Maliki can’t take a hint.

    A Klink who thinks he’s Napoleon.

    Well, even Nappy could take a hint… and a l o n g ‘vacation.’

  20. his in-your-face confidence bolstered by the fact that he knows the MSM won’t do its job.

    They are doing their job. This is what they are paid to do, always has been.

    Those that think otherwise, place too much faith on their Authorities telling them what to do and when to do it.

  21. You are, of course, astonishingly wrong.

    The correct policy toward the middle east is to do nothing.

    The vomiting of ther state of Isreal on the people of Palestine was, of course, the biggest error since WWII.
    It should not be compound.

  22. Wow! Bill, would you object if I proved the funds to parachute you into the ISIL front line attacking the Kurds? Are you willing to resist the pressure to convert? Of course you are not. Enough said. You are rancid vomit. There are no Palestinians and for eons no Palestine. There are just arabs hating jews because allah told them so. When you believe in things you do not understand you make other people suffer. FOAD. Let me know if I can be of obsistence.

  23. The Emperor of Rome renamed the province of Judea to Palestine, because the Jews kept revolting.

    Every day uneducated ignorant Americans go to work, they do nothing.

  24. Neo, you said,
    He ends up pleasing no one, however.
    I have to disagree on that.
    He is pleasing the far left.
    He is pleasing those who wish to see the destruction of this republic.

    He promised to “fundamentally change this country” and that
    is exactly what he is doing. With laser like focus.

    From the weaponization of the federal bureaucracy against domestic political opposition, to the dismantling of the borders, to the financial destruction of our economy, to the decimation of our military, to the destruction of constitutional government and the debasement of elections, to the willful abandonment of our allies and the embrace of our enemies, to the arming of criminal gangs.

    This is not mere incompetence. Incompetence on that scale would be beyond breathtaking. This is the culmination of the rancid bile which has been supported by the American left for several decades now.

    Some are pleased, some are very pleased.

  25. Well, I think we’re seeing that the Pinkos (and certainly the Reds) are all onboard the socialist train, and as long as it’s chugging merrily along, never mind who’s on the tracks, they’re happy. We’re also seeing that the Pinkos don’t give two hoots in Hades about all those bloody foreigners. The Reds, of course, have their own Agenda, as ever.

    But you all might enjoy this video: a bunch of Paleos and Pinkos went to New York’s Diamond District to yell at the Jews and shout praise for Hamas — but what happened next was epic:

    http://preview.tinyurl.com/mdaf8kz

    (Remember, all the diamond dealers are ‘packing heat.’)

  26. Tim P:

    Actually, he is not pleasing the left. If you go on leftist blogs and read leftist opinion pieces, many of them are quite disturbed by him at this point because they think he’s not leftist enough. And they don’t like his bombing in Iraq, either. They also were quite upset by the incompetence of the Obamacare rollout.

    In fact, I wrote a post about the phenomenon.

  27. Just a bit back on topic: my take on Romney is that he is intelligent, generally conservative, and way too much of a decent fellow. Like, McCain, he refused to go mano-a-mano with Obama, and so he lost. Rather than having a “I paid for the this microphone” moment when BHO and Crowley blindsided him, he was stuck in the meme that someone would actually play dirty on a national debate, and so couldn’t react properly. That moment really crystallized his whole campaign. Like I said, too nice of a fellow.

  28. I think the world is getting a sharp lesson on what happens when no adult is in charge in the White House.

    Worst. President. Ever.

  29. Eric – – would Romney give the right answer to the 3AM call? He seems to have proven at least two things: he understands the importance of being well informed, and he is capable of organizing a successful response to complicated problems.

    Tim P and Neo regarding left approval of BO: there are questions of competence, questions of ideology, and questions of hidden motives.

    The Left ought to be happy – – giddy – – about BO. If BO’s actual incompetence makes the Left look bad, and thus makes the Left unhappy, it hardly matters. BO has brought about faster and more destructive “change” than could have been imagined, even by those who understood he was a marxist.

    As Neo points out in the post she linked to (and wrote 8/4), there is no indication that Left unhappiness has to do with ideological matters. There is no dawning realization (for example) that cost/benefit is relevant to anything, that government is inherently problematic and must be used with caution, or that destructive unintended consequences increase with change which is not organic and modest.

    To ride my own hobby horse once more, I don’t believe BO is all that concerned about pleasing anybody (other than himself and Valerie Jarrett). He pleases only to the extent he does not want to give the game away, the game of transforming this evil America.

    He will get away with whatever he can.

    BO sees himself as a world-historical figure, the man who brought down Rome.

    The man who can not change a tire, write a legal appeal, or manage a hamburger stand, can nonetheless destroy a nation. Read Kershaw’s and Toland’s biographies of Hitler to understand the gross incompetence of the highly successful national socialist.

    It is audacity, not competence, which can make the difference. The blithering, robotic sing-song non-sense of any BO statement and the “puzzling” incoherence of his administration belies the audacity of his enterprise.

    Regardless of who he pleases, he has succeeded quite well and continues to do so. Is there anyone who believes a Republican Senate, as welcome as it is, will make more than a marginal difference?

  30. “And yes, it’s long been apparent that Obama is far worse than Nixon ever was. He’s just protected in a way that Nixon never was–au contraire.”

    I had the misfortune to choose to listen to a segment on NPR with some liberal “news-maker” that was a cub reporter during Watergate. I was amazed that be blathered on about how corrupt the Nixon administration was and how he wanted to use the IRS against his “enemies” When the lackey host ask him which administration was worse O’s or Nixon’s, without a pause the now aged cub reporter said- O’s administration is in the minor league compared to Nixon. At that point I had had enough “dialog” with the other side and turned back to the infomercial on a commercial station. The pity here was the speaker actually believed the tripe he was saying. 🙁

  31. Neo,

    I think you are largely correct, however, I was not saying the entire left. I said “He is pleasing the far left.
    He is pleasing those who wish to see the destruction of this republic.”
    As you said, their main complaint seems to be that he hasn’t done enough.

    Also though, despite their complaining, I think once many on the more mainstream left realize the full extent of the damage done, and its ramifications, they will be pleased. After all, they themselves have said that the only way socialism will come to this country is after the capitalist system (or what’s left of it) is destroyed.

    As for the incompetence, I don’t expect much in the way of competence from the left, never did. As I believe it was Emma Goldman who complained about the Soviet Union, nothing works.

  32. Jihadists Systematically Behead Christian Children in Iraq
    When liberals screech that Christianity is “just as threatening” as Islam, they are siding with Islam, just like our president who vowed to “stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” That is, they are siding with this:

    http://moonbattery.com/graphics/christian-kid-isis.jpg

    compliments of moonbattery

  33. The complaint that Obama is a worse President than Nixon ever was bothers me. To whom is such comment directed? To Leftists? To what purpose? To remind us of Watergate? Bob Woodward lives, and is still coasting on that, 50 years later.

    If one wants to talk about material Nixon decisions, let’s talk of the wage-price freeze, the death of the gold standard, the establishment of the EPA, opening the China door. As bad as these were, do they stack up to Baraq’s deeds? Did Nixon puke on the Constitution or the American people? He did not.

    I suggest we put Baraq up against Wilson and FDR as negative transformers whose damage endures, and relegate Nixon to the JV.

  34. @neo-neocon, 12:59:

    When you strip away the BS, what leftists are angry about is that Obama is a failure and is making the political left look bad.
    Remember the fundamental theorem of leftism: the only thing they care about is power.

    Which is actually misplaced: leftists are angry at themselves, though they don’t realize it.

    They gave Obama an agenda based on unicorns and fairy dust, and then said “make it so.” When he inevitably failed, it discredited the fantasy.

    What a pathetic bunch of losers.

  35. Neo Neo Con, regarding your description of Obama and ISIS, I’d like to point out what I think is the actual dynamic involved. Obama wanted out of Iraq. But he couldn’t afford to have the Baghdad government collapsing on his watch. He wanted to withdraw, but he couldn’t afford to have ISIS rolling into Baghdad on his watch, since he had claimed that he had the jihadis on the run.

    The problem was that Obama did not know or did not care about the incapacity of the Iraqi army. I’m sure there were people in our military who knew how hollow Maliki’s army was. They were either not consulted or not heeded. And now Barack Milhouse Obama is looking for peace with honor. A decent interval, as Henry Kissinger famously put it. Which in this case means an interval long enough for Marine One to lift off from the White House carrying Obama into retirement before the last chopper lifts off from our embassy in Baghdad carrying the last few Marine guards and maybe a few lucky refugees.

    At the moment we seem to be launching a few pinprick air strikes in order to be seen doing something about the massacre and horror that ISIS is committing. That’s not to say that what we’re doing is likely to have much material effect on ISIS, but it’s the visuals that count. It’s always the visuals. Space prevents me from going into a detailed discussion of Obama’s actual options on Iraq. But right now his goal seems to be to look like he is doing something, and to postpone Iraq’s death agonies until Hillary, or whoever, is in office.

  36. @physicsguy, 8:28:

    Romney seems like many older Republicans. He remembers a time when Democrats were at least Americans first.
    They’ve never made the cognitive leap to the fact that we’re in a culture war, not a disagreement. So they’re flummoxed by the left’s intransigence.

    If you look at the current left as America haters, it explains most of their actions. Until we get leaders that act accordingly, there won’t be any progress (for lack of a better word).

  37. VDH
    best paragraph..

    We assume that every Obama speech is an exercise in the use of the first-person pronoun. Every tired emphatic (“let me be perfectly clear,” “make no mistake about it,” “in point of fact,” “I’m not kidding”…) is proof of just the opposite. Equivocation, not clarity, is the goal of an Obama speech. In lieu of candor, there is always a macho brag that proves empty; always a straw-man, Emmanuel Goldstein-style enemy whom we are supposed to hate collectively; always some clueless clinger, devious capitalist, old Tea Party guy, or carbon polluter who is the source of all our problems. We assume that when the president gets off the teleprompter his speech will be incoherent and laced with “uh uh uh” – as the press gushes that it is Lincolnesque.

  38. It’s a very long time until the 2016 election. There very well maybe, neh, likely will be a number of completely unexpected events. Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns.

    In which case a familiar face (Romney or maybe Perry) may be the ticket. Would I like a more classically conservative candidate? Of course. But given the damage Obama will have done by then any decent Republican will do

  39. @Tonawanda, 9:50:

    1) Romney doesn’t understand that the left are not just opponents, but enemies. If elected, he would’ve governed at least responsibly, and probably well. None of that would’ve mattered.
    The left would’ve hit him with all the dishonest, slimy tactics they’ve been using over the past decade, and Romney’s agenda would’ve been derailed. Then, of course, they would’ve blamed him for the failure and by implication, the conservative agenda.
    Better to let Obama take the blame for his own and the left’s failures.
    As GB and I have often said, it’s the voters that are the problem. THEY are the ones that need to be educated.

    2) The left’s worldview is based on a fantasy: that America is the source of the world’s ills, and if our influence decreases, the world’s problems will also decrease.
    They got the decreased influence part, but it hasn’t had the desired results.
    What they’re now experiencing, and trying desperately to deny, is cognitive dissonance.

    3) Whether Obama is a fool or knave doesn’t matter. Whether he views it as a success to diminish American influence, in the long-run, doesn’t matter.
    What he’s actually doing is discrediting the leftist worldview. This will become especially apparent if his successor is a Republican, and starts “unexpectedly” solving those problems that were “intractable” under Obama.
    America rose to greatness because of right-thinking. If we abandon leftism, there’s no reason we won’t be back on top of the world within 8 years, IMO.

    4) The establishment Republicans are, IMO, cowards. If we get a good, conservative president they will fall in line. I expect Rs to retake the Senate in 2014, then to demonstrate their fecklessness in the intervening two years. 2016 is where the leftist agenda will either be reversed or entrenched.

  40. ” … have you noticed that even a few liberal papers have called Obama on his seeming lack of a plan in his foreign policy? Their criticism is way too little, too late, and temporary, of course; there’s no evidence of a true change of heart or mind on their part.”

    Like the friends you mention, there is nothing, nothing in the world that could radically change their minds about either the Obama of their dreams, or their underlying assumptions.

    If it turns out that Obama is in practical terms wrecking even their own lives and prospects, it will be said to be the case that what is called for as a corrective is a better Obama or an even more radical Obama; not a not-Obama.

    He emotionally satisfies them, validates their aspirations and images of themselves, and promises fulfillment in the form of the enveloping warmth of the collective.

    How can liberals and non-liberals reason about the efficacy of means or of agents, when the respective ends sought are so completely different?

    One of the most stupefying while yet enlightening things I have read in recent months was that Jonathan Haidt research piece on libertarians: wherein he comes to the conclusion that liberty actually is, by gosh, seen as a primary value in itself by those libertarian types. They seem, you see, to think that liberty (negative liberty, that is) is not useful merely in order to get something else that you want, but as a ground level psychic pre-condition for having a satisfying existence.

    1. He was amazed to discover it. 2. I was amazed that it needed to be discovered.

    That the former point should come as news to educated American liberals, and that second, the fact that it was news to liberals should come as a shock to libertarian leaning types like myself, tells you that we are for all intents and purposes, different moral species.

    For the liberal, there is no alternative to Obama (as idealized) as a means of attaining the world they “dream”.

    They don’t dream liberty. They dream inclusion. Obama is what is needed to get them there.

  41. blert…7:46pm, Aug. 10th… INNOCENT!! I made no such comment. Must’a been somebody else. Nor is it my belief. ((-:

  42. As a “conservative” back in the day, I despised Nixon because of his pro-government and absurd policies (as Don Carlos specifies at 12:39).

    I especially resented the fact that the unfair and tawdry vilification of Nixon reflected on folks (conservatives) who did not agree with Nixon on much of his politics or policy, and that actual conservatives were the ones defending Nixon against the unfairness, a thankless, futile and self-defeating job.

    The liberal Republican did the dirt, but it was conservatives who were splattered politically.

    But Nixon did not contest the 1960 election, and he resigned office, both honorable acts which showed love of country. He was not reprehensible, and in some ways he was admirable.

  43. Matt @ 1:50 – – your points are well taken.

    With respect to the cowardice of the Republican Establishment, I am guessing there is no little influence of outright blackmail on not a few Republicans.

    Blackmail is an almost never discussed aspect of politics, but I am guessing the Democrats are experts.

  44. and that actual conservatives were the ones defending Nixon against the unfairness, a thankless, futile and self-defeating job.

    It’s just like patriots defending Bush II’s policy in Iraq, even while losing the moral high ground. All of them are merely casualties of the Left’s psycho warfare.

    The key difference between Nixon and the FBI sub director that engineered the coup, was patriotism. Same for Bush II vs Ted Kennedy/Feinstein/PillowC. Patriotism.

    The Left may believe in something, but their God is more of a Gaia death cult than a proper religion. Very similar to Islam. Which is why Islamic Jihad is their ally, after all.

  45. What bothered me most about Romney was the debate. Surely, he knew what he was up against. His staff and handlers knew Obamas background, and knew that the press and moderator was in the bag for him. He was Governor Of Massachusetts when I lived there. State and City government is chock full of Obamas, many with the same connections as his opponent. Why didn’t they go after him?, with so much low-hanging fruit? That’s what makes me uncomfortable about Mitt. Yeah, he’d rather have been a gentleman, but if I knew what he was up against, why didn’t he/they?

  46. Robin Williams is America, America is Robin Williams. It just hit me. I loved Williams, but it fits. It really fits. America is drunk with the desire to destroy itself. Look up the history of Troy and the dozens of city-states spread like a necklace of emeralds across the Anatolian plain between present-day Izmir and Yerevan. They all very suddenly, in the span of less than 50 years, fell and were destroyed utterly. Yet not by any outside force; they destroyed themselves through civil war, disease, & starvation. Troy was the last left standing, and a few years later, in 1192 was itself destroyed by a temporary Greek confederation of city-states. What drove Anatolian civilization to destroy itself? Look at America today, what do you see?

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