…remember that Legal Insurrection is the go-to place.
Snowden is starting…
Surprise: the presidency actually requires some skills
We in America have been pretty lucky for quite a long time. Despite the fact that our method of electing presidents hardly guarantees greatness or even competence, we’ve mostly had presidents who displayed at least the latter, competence. And we’ve even be blessed with quite a few who might merit the former: greatness.
So perhaps this got too many of us to thinking that the presidency isn’t such a difficult job after all, and doesn’t even necessarily require a lot of skills that any relatively savvy person would lack.
The unrelenting Bush-bashing was evidence of that, in a sort of twisted way. After all, if under this absolute idiot (village idiot, if I recall correctly), the country still survived, then how hard could it all be?
So for the majority of people, voting for Barack Obama for president seemed like a nifty idea. He appeared to be smart, personable, gave an inspiring speech, wanted to bring us together, wanted to treat other countries right, all that good stuff. So what if he lacked managerial, governing, really almost all national or even local leadership experience except oratory? In the immortal words of Hillary Clinton (although most definitely not on the same subject), what difference did it make?
Put aside for a moment your antipathy to Obama’s leftism or lies or mannerisms or whatever part or parts of his politics and persona you hate. Put aside even the fact that that Obama probably wants to weaken the US on the world stage. I’m just talking about basic skills here: negotiation, managing, communicating, knowledge of the nature of other countries.
Western Europe has gotten used to American competence, too, and started out in 2008 by thinking not only that Obama’s inexperience didn’t matter but that he would be a superior president because of his attitude, with which they could identify and which seemed more like theirs. The Soviets and Chinese probably were more aware of the significance of his lack of skills, but for them his inexperience would be a good thing. And the Arab world was probably dancing with glee, after Bush.
Well, here we are. Even most of Obama’s supporters are either angry at him or somewhat embarrassed for him by now, which can’t possibly be what he intended. They’re not angry about Benghazi, which has gotten the goat of only the right. Nor was it the IRS scandal, which to a lot of people so far seems to be about big government in general and the IRS in particular rather than pinned directly on Obama (and besides, since the targets were on the right, many on the left applaud the IRS’s behavior in the matter).
It’s the NSA story that seems to have been the thing that has upset the left as well as the right. Most of Snowden’s revelations are of things that are not too different from what Bush did, or of what the left thought Bush did. But they had thought better of Obama. And still another thing that has highlighted this more widespread and bipartisan sense of Obama’s incompetence has been the spectacle of Obama impotently asking Russia et al to be nice and help with returning Snowden, as John Hinderaker points out here (also see this).
We’ve had other inexperienced and even somewhat incompetent presidents, especially in certain areas (for example, governors virtually never have prior international experience). But we’ve been fortunate in that for the most part they’ve tended to be aware of their own inexperience, and tried to appoint people to positions in foreign policy who are the opposite from them in having both knowledge and experience. Obama has very different criteria for his appointees; he prefers the inexperienced and/or easily controlled.
For all you American history buffs out there: has any other president whose only previous national experience was a single term as senator (one he essentially left in order to campaign) appointed as his Secretary of State another senator with foreign experience only marginally greater than his own (Hillary Clinton)? I certainly can’t think of one.
You may argue that this essay is predicated on the idea that Obama would do better if he could, and that he has the US’s best interests at heart in the foreign arena. But as I said before, I think he does not, but that doesn’t really change the points I’m trying to make, which are that (a) Obama has a very high opinion of his own foreign policy skills despite his utter lack of experience (he made that crystal clear during the 2008 campaign; see this); (b) he doesn’t want the world to see him as incompetent; (c) he prefers equally incompetent advisors; and (d) lulled into a false sense of security, American voters failed to see his lack of experience coupled with his hubris as a huge red flag, although they should have done so.
It’s (d) that worries me the most, because even if we survive Obama’s two-term presidency it does not bode well for the future, and says nothing good about the judgment of the American people. I began this essay by saying Americans have mostly been lucky in their previous presidents. But maybe it was a luck informed by a certain amount of common sense and even knowledge. I don’t think that someone with Obama’s background would have been elected just a decade or two ago, and certainly not before. And by the word “background” I am not talking about his race, I’m referring to all the facts about Obama that were in the public domain before November of 2008 (and most definitely by November of 2012): his lack of managerial experience and foreign policy knowledge, his tremendous arrogance and narcissism, and his leftist ties and previous leftist statements.
Down Where the Drunkards Roll
I enjoy comparing different versions of songs I like, especially ones that highlight changes with the passage of time, and the variations among interpreters. Here’s a “compare and contrast” of three versions of Richard Thompson’s “Down Where the Drunkards Roll” (lyrics here).
The first version is the oldest. Here’s the original original, with Richard Thompson doing guitar and back-up singing and spotlighting his then-wife Linda, back in the mid-70s (they endured a bitter divorce a few years later). This is not my favorite version of the three, which is odd because I usually like the originals best. Not this time (I’ve saved the best, IMHO, for last):
Here’s a fairly recent double-Wainwright version (Loudon III and son Rufus). I like it about as well as the first one; the song has a more bitter and less plaintive quality when sung by men. Loudon is a friend of Thompson’s, and he was also married to a famous singer, in Wainwright’s case Kate McGarrigle of the Canadian group the McGarrigle sisters. They had a very bitter divorce, too, in the mid-70s. Rufus is one of two offspring of that union, and he is now a more famous singer than his dad ever was, although I prefer the old guy’s stuff:
And here’s my absolute favorite, with really no competition. The master, composer of the song, and still undisputed champion—Richard Thompson, in a 2011 performance (note that Loudon Wainwright is backing Thompson up here). From the moment he opens his mouth, Thompson rivets me with his intensity, sorrow, and bite:
Meanwhile, back in Egypt…
…protests against the Morsi government rise to a new level.
It’s always somewhat difficult to estimate the strength of demonstrators in terms of how much they can really undermine a government willing to play hardball with them: how tough that government is willing to become to shore up its rule, and what percentage of the general population is sympathetic to the protestors or to the government. But the level of protest here in terms of sheer numbers seems formidable so far.
As for Obama’s role, although I deeply respect John Hinderaker, I submit that in this case he doesn’t quite get it. Hinderaker writes:
What is bizarre is that Obama hasn’t just tolerated the Brotherhood’s rise to power, he has abetted it. It would be defensible to argue that we have little power to influence events in Egypt, and, moreover, attempts on our part to exercise influence are likely to backfire; therefore we should stand aside and do nothing. But why Obama would consider it a good idea to put America’s thumb on the scale on the side of the Brotherhood is beyond me.
I can only speculate why it might be that Obama favors the Brotherhood’s rise to power. But I do have some theories, offered in order of escalating perfidy.
The first is naivete: Obama believes his own rhetoric (and Brotherhood propaganda) that the Brotherhood has softened in recent years and is no longer the fire-breathing anti-Western anti-American entity it always has been (which to me is something like believing Hamas is now just an altruistic social service organization). The second is hubris: Obama believes that his own influence should have been enough to magically stop a Brotherhood takeover from happening. The third is intent: that Obama actually favors the existence of an Islamic regime in Egypt.
Now, why would Obama support such a thing? Once again, I can only offer theories: he wants to weaken US influence in the region and the world. He is sympathetic to Islam (hates Jews? memories of his Indonesian childhood?).
And by the way, Obama can be sympathetic to Islam without actually being a Muslim. Even though FactCheck is not my favorite site, I long ago independently researched a lot of those quotes that supposedly show that Obama is a closet Muslim and found them to be deceptively truncated, much as FactCheck details in this piece.
One thing is for certain, though: Obama ought to have known that the most likely outcome of the overthrow of Mubarak would be the rise of the Brotherhood in Egypt. Even I—most assuredly no expert on Egypt—saw this from the very moment the original protests began, about two and a half years ago. And although Obama and the left assured us this rise of the Brotherhood would not happen—or, if it did, the Brotherhood was actually nothing to fear—it was also crystal clear that they were most likely wrong in the assertion that the Brotherhood was now a tame and docile force (see this for a long post I wrote way back when as to why this was so).
John Hinderaker has also posted this photo from the most recent protests, which he found at Bret Baier’s site:
The protestors, at least, seem to get it. And isn’t this tendency of Obama’s what many of us recognized long ago, what might be called the Obama Doctrine? To refresh your memory:
[O]ffend our allies and friends, and cozy up to our enemies.
So far it’s been playing out as expected. The real question is whether the resistance in Egypt in strong enough to stop the effects of Obama’s influence.
[NOTE: And I missed the part where Obama calls for Morsi’s resignation, like he did with Mubarak. Actually, he’s explicitly refusing to do so.]
For those who think Snowden’s a hero…
…here’s what your hero has been up to lately.
With more to come from that team of modest, self-effacing patriots, Snowden and Glenn Greenwald; and their mouthpiece of choice, the leftist Guardian; who only have our very best interests in mind.
For those who might want a refresher course in my opinion on the subject, see this and this.
[ADDENDUM: From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:
All nations collect intelligence on as wide a selection of allies and enemies as possible ”” and everyone knows it. Once it gets out into the open, though, each government has to express its outrage so as to keep their own citizens from asking tough questions, such as how their nation wasn’t smart enough to encrypt their own fax machines rather than buy off-the-shelf encryption.
As for Snowden, this puts a different spin on his actions. Instead of being a freedom fighter against Big Brother, this looks more like animus against the US, and a revelation that serves no other real purpose than embarrassment.
Actually, I disagree with Morrissey in one respect: this revelation doesn’t put a “different spin” on his actions. From the very start, it was clear he was going to reveal sensitive information about US non-domestic spying operations on other countries, both enemies and friends. The only thing different is that this information was published, and the information he gave to enemies has been privately tendered. But Snowden’s motives have been clear for quite some time, and they are not good. And it is my opinion that on balance, what he has done will do more harm than good.]
[ADDENDUM II: The heroics continue, as Snowden plays a cat and mouse game with Putin.
Oh, by the way, Snowden’s the mouse. My contempt for this man knows no bounds. What did he think would happen?]
On immigration, Democrats have some kindly advice for Republicans
Have you noticed the spate of concerned statements by Democrats giving Republicans advice about the immigration bill?
It always makes me chuckle. How helpful! Such altruism and magnanimity on their part! Which is only what we would expect from the ever-kindly folk who choose to become Democrats:
“The [Republican] senators know it’s important to win statewide”“ to have Hispanics and other immigrant populations”“ supporting them. Hopefully, they can persuade their colleagues in the House” [said Nancy Pelosi]….
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had a similar message on Fox News Sunday. “The national Republican leadership will tell John Boehner, if you don’t pass a bill, we’re going to be a minority party for a decade,” [he] told host John Roberts, filling in for Chris Wallace.
But that mean old Republican (is that redundant?) Trey Gowdy, he of the strange hairdo and sharp tongue and mind, isn’t buying it:
“I was moved, almost to the point of tears, by Senator Schumer’s concern for the future prospects of the Republican party,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., told Fox News Sunday, “but we’re going to not take his advice.
Rank and file Republicans, as well as on-the-fence conservatives who say they just might bolt the Party in upcoming elections if they don’t like what House Republicans do with this bill, are watching like hawks. One can only hope that Republicans in the House are aware of this and act accordingly.
“Act accordingly” means making sure that the border security can is not kicked down the road once again in favor of some sort of ill-considered appeal to the Hispanic vote. The Hispanic vote is not going to win elections for the Republicans or for conservatism. Maybe some day, way way down the line—at a time when more of the relatively newly-arrived Hispanic population has been assimilated into traditional American values (if such a thing survives the leftist onslaught)—that will be true. For now, border security comes first.
Arizona conflagration
“Brave” doesn’t even begin to describe the men who voluntarily sign on to do this job:
The 19 firefighters killed Sunday in Arizona were part of an elite crew known for working on the front lines of region’s worst fires, including two this season that came before the team descended on the erratic fire that claimed their lives…
Hotshot crews – there are more than 100 in the U.S. – often hike for miles into the wilderness with chain saws and backpacks filled with heavy gear to build lines of protection between people and fires. They remove brush, trees and anything that might burn in the direction of homes and cities…
State forestry spokesman Art Morrison told the AP that the firefighters were forced to deploy their emergency fire shelters – tent-like structures meant to shield firefighters from flames and heat – when they were caught in the fire.
The article closes with the Prescott Fire Chief saying that “under certain conditions there’s usually only sometimes a 50 percent chance that they survive…It’s an extreme measure that’s taken under the absolute worst conditions.”
I assume some sort of investigation will be launched into what went wrong in Arizona on Sunday, but my first guess would be that, in this particular fire, those “certain conditions” prevailed and it was simply unsurvivable.
Condolences to their families, friends, and communities.
History and immunity
America has been so fortunate, and in many ways so outside of history’s darker corridors, that we have forgotten what we should have known, and neglected to teach it to our children. It’s like a population (think Native Americans before the coming of Europeans) that’s not been exposed to certain illnesses and is therefore less able to defend against them.
Too many of us—and especially our younger people—don’t know what to look for and guard against. We’re not sensitive enough to the signs, and our children are especially naive. We have not learned history not just because we don’t teach much of it, but because in recent years we haven’t thought we needed to, and we haven’t lived it in the way that eastern Europeans have, for example.
That “we” isn’t all of us. But it’s quite a large chunk. Meanwhile, the left has taken over a great deal of the teaching of history in this country, and most people who might have objected were either unaware it was happening, ignorant of the importance of the effects, or somehow powerless (or felt powerless) to stop it. So now we have a population that cannot recognize demagoguery when they see it, doesn’t understand how tyranny can take over in subtle steps that aren’t always recognizable, and is unaware of what the Founders had to say on the matter and why they built certain structures into the system to prevent it.
It’s not just the left’s doing; the left merely takes advantage of certain truths about human nature that ensure that people will always be susceptible to its siren song. That’s why education about the past is so important.
I’ve mentioned before (and sometimes I might write a longer post on this) that the thing that gave me pause, and kept me from being a leftist back in the late 60s when I entered college and leftism was so rampant, was a course I took with the seemingly innocuous title of “Russian Intellectual History.” I signed up for it because I liked Russian novels and Russian lit. And yes, we did read a number of novels in the course, as well as other Russian writers mostly of the 19th century (Herzen and Bakunin, for example). That course unexpectedly turned out to be what was probably the most formative one of my life.
It was there I learned—without anyone ever telling me directly—that in the 60s we were reliving those long-past Russian years in an altered, Americanized form. No, my generation was not unique; that was clear. No, we were not inventing something that had never been tried, going down some wonderful path that had never been trod. We were going somewhere that in the past had led to nothing good.
I could see it for myself; all I had to do was read, and think. If we don’t learn history we are indeed condemned to repeat it. And even if we do learn it, we may be condemned to repeat it anyway.
Here’s what David Horowitz (leftist turned conservative) had to say on the matter in his book A Point in Time. He uses the example of Dostoevsky, one of the great Russian authors who was a leftist in his youth and underwent a political change experience:
Despite Dostoevsky’s efforts to warn others, despite the fact that he [became] a national figure regarded as a prophet, the nihilistic idea that had captured his youth and nearly destroyed him became an inspiration for the next generation to lay waste his country and make it a desert:
“Even in 1846 Belinsky had initiated me [Dostoevsky] into the whole truth of this coming “reborn world” and into the whole sanctity of the future communist society. All these convictions of the immorality of the very foundations (Christian ones) of contemporary society and of the immorality of religion and the family; of the immorality of the right to private property; of the elimination of nationalities in the name of universal brotherhood of people and of contempt for one’s fatherland as something that only showed universal development and so forth—all these things were influences we were unable to resist and which, in fact, captured our hearts and minds in the name of something very noble.”
Nihilism in the name of something noble. And so it continues to this day, more than a hundred and fifty years later.
Yahoo has become Kafkaesque
Or maybe it always was.
Although I’ve had a Yahoo email account for years, the worst thing they ever did before to me was a forced-choice change to a new format I didn’t like. And even then, they walked it back, sort of like Coke Classic—they allowed users to choose to return to what they called Yahoo Classic.
Now they’re forcing the same choice again, and this time they seem to mean business. Will there be another reprieve and a third act for Yahoo Classic? Don’t think so, but we’ll see. I forget when Yahoo says that the final transition is going to be complete and Yahoo Classic will be no more, but it’s pretty soon, and in the meantime they keep “helpfully” asking me to switch almost every time I sign in.
And don’t tell me to go to Gmail. I already wrote about the problems there, and at the moment I still prefer to take my chances with Yahoo.
But worse, the autofill feature of Yahoo email suddenly stopped working on my computer the other day when they redesigned the sign-in page, although autofill works for me at every other site, and autofill is enabled for Yahoo. I don’t like to keep myself signed in all the time because I have more than one Yahoo account (personal vs. blog, for example) and so that autofill feature was a very handy thing to have when switching back and forth.
But just try to contact Yahoo about it. Ha! I know, I know, Yahoo is no different in this respect from any of the big computer powerhouse companies these days; “customer care” is not just a joke, it’s an ironic joke. “Help” pages take all day to navigate, and you can’t find the answer to your question there anyway, ever.
Emailing Yahoo about it is an exercise in Kafkaesque futility, an endless merry-go-round where I get one of about five standard emails that rotate around and make the same 5 suggestions over and over and over. Two of those suggestions involve calling two different phone numbers. On calling the first, one gets a message (after the old “Yahoo” sing-song yodel, which becomes surprisingly irritating under the circumstances) that says that, due to heavy volume, they cannot answer calls. At the second, it merely says “You have reached a number that is no longer being supported.”
So on and on we go. I no longer expect an actual answer. Now, I’m just interested in the process—it’s the journey, not the destination, right? And yes, I’m aware that the “people” answering me are not people at all, despite their cutesy little names (each email is signed with the first name of a different person such as “Ashley” or “Eric,” to give it that oh-so-personal touch).
Now it’s come down to wondering how the program will respond to different challenges I set up for it, such as my most recent missive:
You keep sending me messages you have already sent me, over and over. I have tried ALL your suggestions and they do not address the problem. Rather than just keep repeating yourself, I need to talk to someone on the phone. You have given me two phone numbers that do not work because no one answers the phone. I need a number that works and where someone answers the phone and talks to me.
You can say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not really expecting a solution to the problem. Maybe when I almost inevitably switch to the new format, which they will force me to do some day, the problem will go away (and the new problems will show their annoying faces). And don’t tell me to switch temporarily and see what happens; I already did switch one of my accounts. I hate the new format (and autofill doesn’t work with it, either), and there’s no way to switch back.
I know that in the larger scheme of things these problems are so small as to be almost non-existent. But there’s that steady drip, drip, drip of small annoyances that one has to shrug off as one goes forward into this brave, brave new world. Back when we first started using computers, I don’t think there was anything like autofill, and we did just fine, although you used to be able to have a quick meal while waiting for a site to load. But now we’ve become accustomed to all the bells and whistles, speed and convenience and the fact that our computers remember just about everything we do and anticipate our every need.
Hmmm. It’s not hard to see a problem with that, either, when the government knows those things too.
What’s up…
…with the Zimmerman trial?
The State seems to have suffered the most destructive of its own witnesses to date in calling John Good to the stand.Good was composed, coherent, and direct through his extensive testimony, the entirety of which was entirely consistent with the defense’s theory of lawful self-defense.
Indeed, as has become the pattern in this trial, the longer the State’s witness was in the stand, the more damage he did to the State’s theory of the case.
It seems as though with most of the witnesses the prosecution has been calling, they’d do better to have called none at all, so damaging has their testimony been to the prosecution’s own case.
The only conclusion to come to is that they have no case. They have no better witnesses and no better evidence. And yet they feel they must go ahead with the trial because of political reasons.
An even more chilling thought is that they will succeed, and that perhaps they even already know they will succeed. Maybe they think the jury will feel the risk of not finding Zimmerman guilty would simply be too high because there will be riots in the streets. Maybe the prosecution knows it therefore can just phone it in. Or maybe those who stand to gain from this case feel it’s a win-win situation for them either way: either Zimmerman is convicted, or he is acquitted and race riots will ensue, and it’s all good.
It is difficult to get cynical enough these days, because events keep racing ahead.
To those who still think Snowden is a hero
I already wrote one post about this today, but it turns out I have more to say.
There are a few people in the comments section here, there, and everywhere who still think Edward Snowden is a hero. I cannot state in strong enough terms that I think they are about as wrong as a person can be.
Virtually everyone who thinks that Snowden is a hero is glad he exposed the NSA domestic data-gathering efforts. To them I say that he didn’t really expose much of anything. Very little of his information was new; you just weren’t paying attention to the efforts of previous NSA whistleblowers. Read this if you want to get up to speed on what they revealed prior to Snowden. He’s getting the attention because he focused the attention on himself in dramatic fashion by his flight.
But if that had been all he had done, I most assuredly would not be writing these posts calling him a spy and saying that his actions have endangered US security, although it’s possible that in talking about the data-collection programs Snowden all these earlier NSA whistleblowers (I don’t call Snowden a whistleblower; I call him a leaker, and that’s actually the kindest thing I call him) have indeed endangered national security somewhat. But as a tradeoff, they exposed something we really do all need to know about, a program that was and is ripe for being abused by the government.
But Snowden by no means stopped at that. He took a great deal more information with him when he left his job at Booz, a job he only took in order to get information to leak. Not only has he sought and received shelter in and/or communicated with countries that are enemies of the US and enemies of liberty, but he has given them sensitive intelligence information that almost certainly will endanger our security and the liberty he supposedly loves so much, both here and elsewhere.
There is simply no reason for him having done that that could rationally be described as laudable. Those of you who still consider him heroic are only looking at a tiny part of what he’s done: the data-mining, phone- and email-records part of it. But that is the proverbial tip of a very large and unseen—almost certainly extraordinarily dangerous—iceberg that Snowden has unleashed.