Via Instapundit: This is your life.
Actually, it sounds more and more like it’s not your life, but the government’s…
Updates from March, 2009 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Jehuda
-
Jehuda
Happens to Presidents all the time: Will Obama Be a President Defined by War?
-
Jehuda
Time’s Michael Scherer agrees with me, sort of.
Didn’t see that coming…
-
Jehuda
RNC chairman Michael Steele’s biggest problem might just be himself: Steele sits idly by as an interviewer compares GOP to nazis.
Via HoosierAccess.
-
Jehuda
WSJ’s Bret Stephens: In Praise of Mexico’s War on Drugs.
Bret – as some of you may or may not know – was raised in Mexico. He has a unique perspective on the topic that will be hard to find elsewhere in American journalism.
-
Jehuda
I just heard Rush offer to debate the President. It will never happen, but I think I know what Rush is doing here: he’s making the President look smaller - at the least – and perhaps hoping to distract the administration from its goal of cowing Republicans, at most.
The making-Obama-look-smaller part should be easy to do. The President is not the government or America. He is one American who heads one single branch of the government. Rush knows that. That’s why he can comfortably say – and mean – that he wants Obama to fail in his endeavor of transforming America into just another socialist corporate state.
Whether Rush succeeds at the other task or not, I think Obama clearly underestimated the risk of targeting Rush. The President might as well be Truman going after Elvis (not that Truman would ever do that). Obama may be a big deal, but so is Rush. The difference is that Rush is not a politician, so Obama is at a disadvantage here: Obama and his team can’t always say what they really want to say, while Rush is all about saying what he wants to say.
At any rate, it should be fun to watch. The reactions on his show from shaken Obama supporters were worth it.
UPDATE: Dan Riehl links. Thanks!
ANOTHER UPDATE: Transcript of Rush’s debate offer this morning.
MORE (via Drudge) – VIDEO: Gibbs admits targeting Rush has been counterproductive. Backing off so soon? You can bet that’s not what he was supposed to say. He’s probably getting a talking to from Emanuel right now…or at the least is being submitted to a Dance Off!
ONE MORE: Ed Driscoll: Rush Makes Obama An Offer He Can’t Accept.
STILL MORE: Will Rush grant the GOP “temporary amnesty” to stop being a distraction?
-
Jehuda
Obama should sit down with a neutral economist and read the writing on the wall:
For all of its occasional tedium, one of the nice aspects of economics is that markets often let you keep score in real time. And markets seem to be sending an unambiguous signal that the U.S. economy is now headed in the wrong direction…
But Obama and his supporters won’t listen to Jim Cramer, or give the stock market its due. Well, they don’t have to rely on any erratic “gyrations” (since when is a dive a gyration, anyway?). They can look for more accurate signs elsewhere and still find them equally ominous:
Fortunately, there are other markets that give a cleaner reaction. In particular, one can look at the government bond market, which is now giving the Obama plan a decided thumbs-down.
Read the whole thing…
RELATED: “Capital, bluntly put, has gone on strike. Those who own wealth are pushing it to the sidelines, as a young and inexperienced president tries to jam through the most sweeping economic changes in over 70 years”. Yup. Capital goes where it’s needed and it stays where it’s well treated. That’s Mr. Obama’s – and everyone else’s – problem right now.
More: “Our leader wants the country to be run by its national government. ‘Run by’ isn’t the same as ‘owned by’.” Exactly…
UPDATE: Demonizing the investor class? (if not, at least forgetting how much the middle class overlaps with it).
-
Jehuda
Clive Crook feels like apologizing to Republicans, but don’t add his name to the Rubes list for the week just yet. He says of Obama that “his outreach to Republicans is no sham; his civility, I think, is not a front. He respects people who disagree with him, is capable of liking them, and is always willing to listen”.
I wonder if he’s ever heard of Rush Limbaugh, Jim Cramer, or Rick Santelli.
ha-HA!: A rube support group? (via Ed Driscoll.com)
-
Jehuda
Talk about failed policies of the past! Obama channeling Nixon? Didn’t see that one coming.
Dan Riehl connects the dots: Did the order to hit Rush come from the top?
Well, the President did single out Rush by name from the start, just a couple of days after the Inaugural. And it would be silly to think that Obama would not arrive in the White House with at least the intent to neutralize Rush as soon as possible. The President could not forget about Rush. Not Barack Obama of the Chicago Way.
Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t Obama’s idea, but at the least he had to be in on the plan.
I wonder who else is on Obama’s enemies list? Santelli? Cramer?
UPDATE: Politico says it’s a fact: Inside the Dems’ Limbaugh Plan (via Drudge)
-
Jehuda
All Virgin Megastores in US to close by summer.
I’m surprised they survived this long after Amazon launched. They were doomed to fail after the dawn of e-commerce and the rise of the MP3.
-
Jehuda
I does look like that to me. And I’m sure it’s looking that way to many others who pay attention to such things.
(H/T: Instapundit)
-
Jehuda
Red State: Her name is Shauna Daly and she seems bent on making J. Edgar Hoover look like a lamb.
-
Jehuda
-
Jehuda
Well, return to the headlines anyhow: he’s pleading not guilty.
-
Jehuda
With a crashing currency, the disappearance of foreign capital, greatly decreased energy revenues and currency reserves flying out of the bank, the Western perception is that Russia is on the verge of collapsing once again. Consequently, many Western countries have started to grow complacent about Russia’s ability to further project power abroad.
But this is Russia. And Russia rarely follows anyone else’s rulebook.
Read the whole thing…
-
Jehuda
-
Jehuda
Another day, another stock market dip. And Bernanke says that recovery depends on propping up the markets, but the White House does anything but:
[A]fter five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.
Instead, we get more ObaMcCarthyism. Who’s the enemy of the week? A talk radio host! Admittedly, not just any talk radio host. But that’s my point: does the administration realize how silly they look going after Rush? Doesn’t it belie a certain substantive hollowness to Obama’s agenda that he must keep looking for someone to blame, rather than focus on the business of governing?
Makes me wonder, with all due respect, how Peggy Noonan can perceive Obama as presidential as this? If Obama were being presidential, he would inspire confidence. That he feels he has to go after Rush to control the debate does not.
UPDATE: No, the stock market is nothing like a campaign tracking poll, Mr. President. Watch the market dip further as investors get an earful of this new pearl of presidential wisdom.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I just heard Rush on the radio ask “where is the evidence that taking on Limbaugh works? Clinton tried it three times.” And then the Republican Revolution of 1994 happened…
MORE: Jonah Goldberg: The tired war on Rush Limbaugh. With a reminder: “Just because the Democrats’ shtick is old and often dishonest doesn’t mean it’s tactically dumb.” No it does not, but it’s not the bill of post-partisan goods Obama peddled during the campaign, either. Not being able to rise above Limbaugh makes Obama look small. And that can’t help him.
ONE MORE: “Are you now, or have you ever been, a fan of Rush Limbaugh?” (via Insty) As I’ve been saying, there’s a McCarthyist tinge to the administration’s whole attitude!
Insta-lanche! Thanks for the link, Prof. Reynolds.
-
Jehuda
“Washington has told Moscow that Russian help in resolving Iran’s nuclear program would make its missile shield plans for Europe unnecessary.”
We give up the shield and Russia helps us put the brakes on Iran’s nuclear program? That assumes that Russia doesn’t want the US to have to worry about Iran. And that’s assuming a lot. The more strategic preoccupations there are out there for the U.S., the better for Russia.
Let’s see how this goes. If Obama gets punked by Medvedev on this one, we won’t find out until it’s too late. I hope Obama at least is thinking “trust but verify”.
UPDATE: I rest my case.
-
Jehuda
Michael Barone says the whole Coleman-Franken battle could end up with SCOTUS…or go to a revote!
-
Jehuda
Anne Thompson links, plus shares her own impressions.
Seems that she didn’t quite like it and sometimes she didn’t quite get it, but she’s definitely not the audience. Also, taking on the movie without having read the book must not be easy.
It might be hard to accept, but the movie’s audience could very well be Watchmen
fans only. That’s a little counter intuitive for an event movie. I’m sure that’s not what the studio wants, but I don’t see it playing to a broad demo, especially if it’s as violent and as confusing as Anne makes it sound.
I’m not even sure it will play internationally that well, either. Hopefully there are enough fanboys and fangirls to turn out a nice profit for the studio; and if not at the box office then on DVD.
-
Jehuda
Calling it like it is: Karl Rove last week may have seen a thread of straw men running through Obama’s rhetoric, but I think he fell short of really elucidating Obama’s quasi-McCarthyite M.O. (via Instapundit) of eschewing policy arguments for political bogeymen.
It is cheap and lazy from the President to try to communicate his policies in that way, considering that he has to be capable of making better arguments. He was a law professor for Pete’s sake!
There will always be a constituency out there that really responds to political bogeyman tales, but the campaign is over; and the President should remember that he is – or at least should aim to be – everyone’s President.
Pitting Americans against each other for the sake of political expediency is despicable; and I’d like to believe that the President is being an incompetent communicator rather than practicing ObaMcCarthyism. Talking us down á la Carter is one thing. But applying the old maxim of Divide and Conquer to the American people while in office is another. Wedge issues should not be part of the Oval Office’s leadership toolkit.
-
Jehuda
Kathleen Parker wonders what they did with the real Bobby Jindal.
I’ve heard Gov. Jindal be interviewed before and he is usually much better than he was on his response last week, but I didn’t think he was that bad either.
Anyway, it’s not the end of the world. He has time to bounce back. Maybe he’s better at spontaneous communication than at carefully staged speeches. Who knows?
I’m sure he’s thinking about it right now and next time he’ll be a lot better. Hopefully he’ll sack whoever his handlers were for the response.
-
Jehuda
The executive producer of Watchmen
, and The Dark Knight
: A Producer of Superheroes.
Yes. He digs comic books…
Plus: Is Watchmen a literary classic or not? I tend to think yes. You need to read it to see. It contains meaning at so many levels that it is not merely a comic book story. In fact, I’m betting the movie will be unable to translate its entire meaning, but then again you always get a little bit of that every time you adapt a literary work to film.
-
Jehuda
Hmm. The Jonas Brothers in 3-D not delivering for Disney? Weird. Tyler Perry beat them for the #1 spot (again!). Slumdog, Taken, and He’s Not That Into You round out the Top 5.
Nikki Finke has the numbers and analysis.
-
Jehuda
Sounds like fun, although referring to Maher as a “political heavyweight” or a “mind that moves the world” is a little bit much…
Via BigHollywood…
-
Jehuda
How did schematics for the President’s helicopter end up in an Iranian computer?
Sounds like a hoax to me, but I guess anything of this sort happening is really never far from possible.
-
Jehuda
The European Union and the Euro: Being torn apart by the economic crisis?
Via Drudge.
Meanwhile, Brown and Obama discussing a Global New Deal?
Sounds awful…
-
Jehuda
-
Jehuda
John Nolte remembers Paul Harvey.
-
Jehuda
Via Instapundit: the demographic divide that could split the current Democratic coalition.
Well, it is true that the Democratic tent has always housed too many constituencies with potentially conflicting agendas. Environmentalists are clearly one of them. The movement has a strong anti-suburban component (the “urban sprawl” haters) and an anti-industrial – and thus, anti-growth – component, neither of which will gel real well with many folks who live and work in between the two coasts.
Do the math and you’re looking at an incentive for the rise of this century’s Reagan Democrats. As that bumper sticker said: it takes a Carter to get a Reagan!
-
Jehuda
WSJ: Obama vindicates Bush with his commitment to a U.S. transitional force in Iraq.
I heard the President’s address to the troops on Friday and was also pleasantly surprised, although I am doubtful – as are others – that trying to engage Iraq’s troublemaking neighbors Syria and Iran will do much good, if any.
-
Jehuda
Anne Thompson has Twitter fatigue.
Plus, Twitter fraud spotted!
