Obama on healthcare: SOS

Realizing that his plans to "reform" the nation's healthcare system are, to put it mildly, in distress, Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress last night in a last ditch effort to pursuade the American people of the particular wisdom of his vision on health care.

How'd he do? He screwed the pooch. Basically, it was the Same Old Shit.

He simply repeated, albeit more forcefully, the same arguments that a majority of voters have already rejected as phony. Obama said, "nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have." As Pajamas Media's Vodkapundit Stephen Green correctly pointed out, "require" is one of those "weasel words." Yes, not "required" in the strict sense of the word, but once a public option plan is made available, that is cheaper than an employer's current offering, one can easily expect that the employer will pay the premiums (or penalties) and simply dump his employees into the public option. You can't keep your employer-sponsored health insurance if your employer no longer offers it.

As to how he was going to pay for the expanded coverage in his plan, Obama again offered nothing new:

[W]e've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system - a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. . . . In fact, I want to speak directly to America's seniors for a moment, because Medicare is another issue that's been subjected to demagoguery and distortion during the course of this debate. . . . The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies - subsidies that do everything to pad their profits and nothing to improve your care. . . . These steps will ensure that you - America's seniors - get the benefits you've been promised. They will ensure that Medicare is there for future generations. And we can use some of the savings to fill the gap in coverage that forces too many seniors to pay thousands of dollars a year out of their own pocket for prescription drugs. That's what this plan will do for you.

I see, Obama's going to waive his magic want, and convert fraud and abuse into untold riches which are going to pay for the expanded coverage in the plan. Vintage Obama, grand promises without any specifics that would make them meaningful. By the way, why do we need further legislation to trim fraud and abuse?

With respect to the public option, Obama said:

But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Let me be clear - it would only be an option for those who don't have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up.

Again, only until their employers stopped offering their own plans, that is. Obama is right that a "broad concensus exists" on things like prohibiting insurers from dropping sick people, or denials for preexisting conditions, or allowing an insurance market exchange, or for tax credits for those who can't afford insurance. If it were true that only 5% of American would sign up for the public option, which is the most controversial part of Obama's plan, why risk this broad concensus for this 5%? Unless this is, of course, a trojan horse by which the government will ultimately assert control over the entire health care industry (as Obama, Barney Frank, and other liberals have so franly admitted).

In the end, I don't think anybody was fooled. Obama promised greater coverage at no extra cost. He refused to walk away from the public option and only offered, incredibly, that it would have no effect on anyone else's quality or choice of care.

I don't see how he changed anyone's mind. The only question now, is whether Obama, Pelosi and Reid can muster enough votes to ram this down our throats through a reconcilliation process. We'll see.

Obama's make or break speech on health care reform

In case you live under a rock and haven't heard yet, President Obama will deliver a prime-time address Wednesday to a joint session of Congress aimed at regaining momentum in his push for universal health care coverage.

I think this speech will make or break him. If Obama says something new, breaks new policy ground, or charts a new path on achieving health care reform, his legislative efforts will be revived. But if he simply trots out the same old tropes (e.g., if you like your health care, you can keep it, even with a public option; were going to cover 50 million new people and reduce costs without rationing, etc.) he's finished.

The crux of the problem over at the White House appears to be that they think that the problems with health care reform thus far have been its packaging, not its substance. But as Charles Krauthamer said on Fox News, the problems is that "the dog won't eat the dog food."

In Sunday's New York Times, Jackie Calms writes:

In 1994, Democrats’ dysfunction over fulfilling a new president’s campaign promise contributed to the party’s loss of its 40-year dominance of Congress. Now that memory is being revived, and it is the message the White House and Congressional leaders will press when lawmakers return this week, still divided and now spooked after the turbulent town-hall-style meetings, downbeat polls and distortions of August.Republicans early on united behind the lesson they took from the past struggle, that they stand to gain politically in next year’s elections if Democrats do nothing. But the Democrats’ version similarly resonates with all party factions, giving Mr. Obama perhaps his best leverage to unify them to do something. In now-familiar financial parlance, this one is “too big to fail.”

Adding to this chorus is Joe Klein where he writes in the August 31, 2009 issue of Time that:

[H]onorable conservatives . . . have been overwhelmed by nihists and hypocrites more interested in destroying the opposition and gaining power than in the public weal. . . . The party's putative intellectuals [ouch!] are prosaic tactitians who make precious few substantive arguments but oppose health care reform mostly because passage would help Barrack Obama's political prospects.

(To digress for a moment, this statement ignores that the public option, which conservatives has been resisting for over 50 years, violates deeply held conservative principles. This statement also ignores the fact that in an August 31, 2009 poll, 51 percent of voters say that they oppose Obama's health care reforms. To paraphrase the February 7, 2009 cover of Newsweek, "We are all nihlists now.")

But in the Weekly Standard, Matthew Continetti writes:

For a while now, the message from Washington has been that we know what's good for the public, whether the public likes it or not. One after another, both parties have attempted to foist a series of grand reforms on a skeptical populace--in areas ranging from Social Security and immigration to energy and health care. Politicians have made decisions affecting millions of lives without accountability and oversight. The upshot has been more government, more debt, and--coming soon to a 1040 form near you--more taxes. No wonder the public is anxious.

* * *

As for the elites, especially the liberal elite: They remain deaf, dumb, and blind.

The White House is learning all the wrong lessons from Clinton's effort to reform health care 15 years ago. Those at the White House think that they will be punished by the voters for failing to reform health care.

But one of the reason voters revolted against the Democrats in 1994 was not that they failed to deliver on a campaign promise, but that their proposals scared the hell out of the American people. It's not that they failed, but they overstepped their mandate by trying to do far too much.The White House appears to think that the public generally wants its version of health care reform, it's just that the voters don't really know it yet. If Obama could just somehow find the magic words to turn things around.

In June, ABC News aired a one-hour special from the White House on health care reform. In July, Obama held a press conference on health care reform (where he made an unforced error by stepping into the Heny Louis Gates affair). Obama has also had numerous town halls, other speeches and conference calls on the subject. And now he's going to salvage the debate with yet another speech before a joint session of Congress?

The best advice for Obama (which I offer fully confident that he won't take it), is to seek passage for a plan that the American people can accept (no cancellation of policies for sick people, no denials due to preexisting conditions, vouchers for the poor, etc.) and ditching those they can't (public option, rationing, transfer of monies from Medicare), and declare at least a partial victory.

But because the White House thinks Obama can sell ice to eskimos and their refusal to see that their problems lie in the substance of health care reform, such moderation of the Left's health care agenda is not likely.

In the end, Obama will reiterate the same tired arguments he's been making for the past 3 months, soften or rename (but not eliminate) the need for a public option, make nice noises towards Republicans (although they already know that Obama thinks talk is cheap), and try to unify the Democrats saying that they'll pay at the next election if they don't do something now.

So get some beer, popcorn, nachos or other snacks to watch the President's address on Wednesday. This is going to be classic. He'll either save his bacon, or self-destruct. I'm betting on the latter.

Return here after the speech for my comments to see how I think Obama did.

They think your're too stupid to make health care decisions

Because they are losing the health care debate on the merits, Democrats have turned toward attacking the public, or at least that part of it who dares to question the annointed's vision of universal health care reform.

In yesterday's USA Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote:

However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue.

* * *

These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.

Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.

And, as I wrote on here on August 6 (below), White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed that the anger being displayed by people at town hall meetings toward Democratic legislators was "manufactured" by Republicans and special interest groups.


So we've gone from "dissent being the highest form of patriotism," (remember the Iraq War protests?) to dissent being "un-American," and repeatedly dismissed by the White House and the leadership in Congress as manufactured and inauthentic.

But who's really afraid of facts? Pelosi's concerns would ring less hollow if it were really true that she wanted Americans to "learn the facts." Pelosi and Hoyer also write:

The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice. It will allow every American who likes his or her current plan to keep it. And it will free doctors and patients to make the health decisions that make the most sense, not the most profits for insurance companies.

Reform will mean affordable coverage for all Americans. Our plan's cost-lowering measures include a public health insurance option to bring competitive pressure to bear on rapidly consolidating private insurers . . . .

But while this mantra is regurgitated ad nauseum by Obama and Congressional leaders, not even the liberals believe it. Just scan yesterday's blogs and op ed pieces and you will find that honest liberals understand that patient choice will be limited in that private insurance will ultimately be destroyed by the public option (as was its embarrassingly stated purpose caught on video by Barney Frank and President Obama himself). They also understand that costs savings will be obtained through rationing. Further, liberals also appear to understand that adding an additional 50 million patients, without increasing the number of health care professionals, will cause costs to increase.

But according to some, honesty is not a luxury we can afford if were going to get universal healthcare. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a left-wing Democrat and chief deputy whip from the north side of Chicago cited an insurance an insurance company spokesman as saying, "A public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer." to this she added:

My single-payer friends . . . he was right . . . This is not a principled fight. This is a fight about strategy for getting there, and I believe we will.

Clearly another who thinks the ends justify the means.

But there is also an element of elitist snobbery in the statements of Obama, Pelosi and Hoyer. Obama stated: "In don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of the talking." (Sorry, LBJ is dead). Pelosi and Hoyer also state: "Health care is complex." In other words: "You're too stupid to be trusted to make your own decisions. Just relax and enjoy it."

This condescending attitude of "we know better than you" is not limited to politicians. In Friday's Huffington Post Bill Maher wrote:

I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive.

* * *

Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.

* * *

And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls.

* * *

"Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway. And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.

I'll take whatever test Bill Maher wants to give me (before or after a few Long Island Iced Teas), but I doubt that he'll allow me to make any health care policy decisions because they're not the right ones. Now, as a card-carrying misanthrope, I too share the opinion that most people are stupid. But unlike Maher, I would not specifically single out Americans. St. Augustine, in an early 5th Century version of Jay-walking, would ask priests in the Roman Empire to cite 1 of the 10 commandments (which many could not do).

But ultimately, freedom is about making your own choices, be they right or wrong. Save Maher, most people would be happier making their own choices than having them foisted on them by the government.

The paramount objections to health care reform are not costs, but control. Whether each of us will retain the freedom to get an MRI or cervical cancer screening even if a doctor or government bureaucrat says it's unnecessary. It's not their body (where've I heard that before?).

The Democrats seem genuinely surprised (to the point of disbelief) that Americans would become so passionate about such small concerns as personal freedom. But they should be warned. Some Americans will always fight to preserve freedom. No matter what the cost.

Obama - Palin share some similarities: Bad advisors and thin skins

It occurred to me that President Obama and Sarah Palin share some similarities on at least two points: Bad advisers and thin skins.

This week, the White House, in another unforced error, decided to pick a fight with Drudge (full disclosure, he's a former client of mine) over Drudge's posting of a statement Obama made in 2007 where he concedes that a public option health plan will eventually lead to single payer (something Obama says in another 2003 video that he fully supports).

The White House immediately went on the offensive, stating that Drudge (although not mentioning him by name, even though it was clear that Linda Douglass, Communications Director for the White House Office of Health Reform, was pointing to a headline on the Drudge Report), took the "sentences and phrases out of context and cobbling them together to leave a very false impression."

Even if the White House were right, it would have been a serious mistake to pick a fight with Drudge. But given that Drudge had the goods on Obama, it was just plain stupid. Obama could simply have ignored Drudge, but as it turned out, he egged him on so that Drudge posted an uncut version of the 2003 video, and, you guessed it, it said just what Drudge represented it to be. It was Douglass (and by extension Obama) who were exposed as the liars.

But the White House didn't stop there. Douglass later told the public to report health care reform disinformation to her office. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed that the anger being displayed by people at town hall meetings toward Democratic legislators was "manufactured" by Republicans and special interest groups.

Is this wise? To dismiss the anger directed at sweeping changes in the healthcare system as partisan manipulation? To act as if the substance of what you're trying to accomplish is unimportant to voters? How insulting.

Other examples of ill-planned tactics includes Rahm Emmanuel's letters threatening governors to cut off stimulus funds because Republican senators (like John Kyl of Arizona) have the temerity to state that maybe Congress should reconsider how it will spend funds that have not yet been released. Maybe this stuff works in Chicago, but it's a real turn off everywhere else.

In 2006, Obama advisor David Axelrod told Obama that:

You care far too much what is written and said about you. You don't relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty. When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes attacked you, you flinched.

Then there's Sarah Palin. In no way do I mean this to be Palin-bashing. I wish her the best. I only hope that this might lead her to seek better advice than she was getting from the obviously not-so-ready-for-prime-time players in Alaska.

There is really no good reason for Palin to respond to every pundit or celebrity that criticizes her. She should have ignored David Letterman and Ashley Judd. (Although I applaud her response to a joke about her by Senator John Kerry saying in effect, of all the governors that could have disappeared (referring to Mark Sanford) why couldn't it have been the Governor of Alaska? To which Palin responded, "Hey John, Why the long face?") I also think she should adopt as her own the really cool nickname ("Caribou Barbie") given to her by Maureen Dowd.

Also, Palin's resignation announcement was a horrible act of self-inflicted cutting:

Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would beapathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow". Nah, only dead fish "go with the flow.

Oh I see. It is the people who finish their terms who are the quitters. And it is just the opposite for those who quit their terms.

Puhleez. Her advisers should never have either written that line or allowed her to utter it. It's as bad an example of Orwellian newspeak as Obama claiming to mean the opposite of what he plainly said.

I think he's too arrogant to learn from his missteps. I hope she's not. We'll soon see.

What would Lincoln have thought of Obamacare?

When President Obama took office in January, it was just weeks before the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, so even if the main stream media (why do we still call it that?) didn't hail the new President as the Obamessiah, comparisons to America's greatest president would have nonetheless been inevitable (so much so that CNN even morphed their faces).

In his earliest recorded speech, a 28 year-old Lincoln stated:

It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?--Never! Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.--It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.

Which brings us to Obamacare. Neither I, nor most Republicans, object to legislation that would prevent insurers from dropping sick people. I'd even be willing to consider legislation that did not allow insurers to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions if it would kill the public option. (Even this is like buying car insurance after you have an accident).

But as I have written previously, insuring the uninsured is simply a pretext for the creation(either incrementally or all at once) of a public option that would (as Barney Frank frankly admitted) inevitably lead to a single payer system.

This is where the "man of ambition" (you know who I mean) will not emancipate slaves (that's already been done) but "enslave[] freemen."

As Mark Steyn wrote in NRO, this would have the effect of permanently changing the political culture to a left of center one that would redefine the relationship between the citizen and the state in matters as personal and as basic to personal liberty as one's own body. Your health care choices would ultimately be left of to Congress, special interest lobbies and the courts. (One might have the unfettered right to an abortion, but could not get an MRI if she so wanted unless she went to Mexico or China). Are you really free if you can't get an MRI or some other medical treatment, regardless of its usefulness unless the government says so?

Toward this end, Lincoln also warned:

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

We will have committed suicide (both figuratively and literally) by failing to just say no to "free stuff" from those whose design it is to ultimately make us dependent on the government.

Gates', Obama's experiences not unique to black men

Depending on whom you believe, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s arrest was caused because he was either a black man standing up for himself, or, because he was disorderly to officers who responded to a call because a neighbor mistakenly believed that someone was trying to break into Gates' home (actually, Gates was trying to break into his own home).

Obviously, I wasn't there and won't comment on what may have actually happened. But President Obama weighed in on this matter (also acknowledging he wasn't there), saying that it was "stupid" for the Cambridge Police to arrest Gates. Undoubtedly, Obama was recalling his own similar experiences of being followed by security guards or stopped by police that he recounted in his book The Audacity of Hope.

Every black person in America needs to hear this: These experiences are not unique to blacks in America. As anyone can see by the photo next to this post, I am as white as they come. But, as a younger man, I had been pulled over while driving numerous times, for no apparent reason (I was never ticketed). I chalked it up to the fact that I was young, driving late at night.

Even today, if I enter an elevator alone with a woman, and I'm not either shaved or dressed as well as I could be, she almost always instinctively clutches at her purse. Again, this is not because I am black (I'm not), but bacause I'm a large man, who might not be dressed in a completely unthreatening manner.

Crime is an unfortunate fact in America. We should not have to apologize for our instinctive responses to protect ourselves and others (regardless of their race or gender).

Healthcare Obama's Waterloo?

Senator Jim Demint said that health care would be Obama's "Waterloo" moment. Maybe. It's possible that should Obamacare (and for that matter, Cap and Trade) fail to pass, Obama would be so weakened and drained of credibility that he woud become ineffective through the rest of his term. Given the extreme efforts the White House is making to win this one, they apparently share this analysis.

But I think that by thwarting Obama's healthcare amitions, Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans may actually be saving Obama from himself. If Obamacare were to pass, voters would certainly hold the resulting catastrophe against him. People would clearly be unhappy with losing thier employer-sponsored health care plans because they were dumped into a "public- option" plan. Obama would suffer a further loss of credibility because what he promised would not happen would have come to pass. People would also be unhappy about rationed care and a resulting increase in health care costs and the deficit. Not to mention the fact that the alleged need for immediate action on health care (to fix the economy) would have been exposed as phony.

By sweeping Republicans into office in 1994 the American People saved Bill Clinton from himself and he went on to a largely successful presidency. But the permanent damage that would be caused by the current health care proposals are too terrible to permit, even if their passage did ultimately bring Obama to his Waterloo.

Joker in the White House?

In November, 2008, with a severe economic crisis underway, the American people voted for Barrack Obama, largely because he was not a Republican like George W. Bush, whom they, in large part, blamed for the recession.

But clearly, almost no one expected under Obama, in a mere 6 months, a quadrupling of the debt, government takeover of large parts of the auto industry, onerous regulations on the financial service industries, and increasing unemployment now moving toward 10 percent with no immediate end in sight.

Neither could anyone reasonably expect a deeply flawed "stimulus" bill that was largely a liberal shopping list, and, if that weren't enough, a proposed carbon tax. Obama further proposes what would essentially end up being a government takeover of the health care industry that is conservatively expected to cost 1 trillion dollars. Obama's instinct to Bush's outrageous spending is to double down, expecting, like the definition of insantity, that you can contine to do the same thing and get a different result.

In The Dark Night, Alfred the Butler analyzing the Joker, tells Bruce Wayne:

"and in their desparation, they turned to a man they didn't fully understand."

I guess when desparate, it's true poeple may turn to a clown who claims to have all the answers.

This Fourth, Time to Reflect on Obama's "Transformation" of America

For many, this fourth of July, marking the 234th year of American independence from Britain, sees a sharp rise in anxiety and despair. Not because we are in a prolonged recession. The revolution, civil war, great depression and WWII show that we've faced, and weathered, tougher times.


The despair arises from the fact that we've seem to have collectively lost our way. In October, then-presidential candidate Obama said "we are . . . days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."


No lie there. But even the most strident of Obama's critics would have been surprised at the breathtaking scope of this "transformation."


Using the economic crisis as a pretext, Congress passed and Obama signed a "stimulus" package that is stimulative in name only. It was really little more than a liberal wish list of pork projects and transfer payments and projects that were anything but "shovel ready." Without stimulus, we were told, unemployment might go as high as 9 per cent, but with stimulus, would go no higher than 8. Unemployment is now at almost 10 per cent.


The Obama administration also quadrupled an already alarmingly high national debt in a mere 6 months, engineered the takeover the auto industry, foisted new onerous regulations on the financial service industries, and now seeks a ruinous carbon tax aimed at Americans' standard of living (oh, to be a poor person in Phoenix in the summer without air conditioning).

Add to that the attempted takeover of the health care industry, which is 20 percent of the economy. With the ultimate benefit of insuring only a marginally higher number of Americans and destroying an otherwise excellent health care system whose only real fault is access. If the Administration was really serious about insuring the uninsured, they would simply give the uninsured vouchers to buy insurance. (Clearly that could not cost any more money than they are already proposing to spend). But this, apparantly, would be insufficiently transformative. It seems we are on a one-way road to socialism that has already been discredited in Europe. Do we really want to follow Britain down this path?


Abroad, Obama has openly dimissed American exceptionalism (all countries are exceptional in their own way), went on a world-wide "American apology tour," sought to "engage" a sociopathic theocracy bent on obtaining nuclear weapons, and has beat a unilateral retreat in dealing with Russian agression against its neighbors by having his Secretary of State say he was going to "reset" its relationship with Russia. And his thanks, North Korea has launched two missles today, clearly to defy an American President Kim Jong Il regards as pusillanimous.


This I think is caused by naivete born out of arrogance. Obama apparantly believes that he has such a magnetic personality, (Newsweek said he was "sort of God") that if he were just put in a room with the Mullahs, Kim Jong Il, or the kleptocrats in the Kremlin, he would solve nuclear proliferation, and territorial issues with Russia.


The President also openly cavorts with dictators like Hugo Chavez, bows to the King of Saudi Arabia, and only reluctantly calls the Mullahs on the carpet (sort of) for stealing an election and then supressing protests with violence and murder (which White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs disgracefully called "robust debate.")


But the President does not hesitate to call the Honduran miliatary out on its ouster (pursuant to Supreme Court order) of a left-wing, would-be president-for-life who was seeking to extend his rule indefinitely. Or to "meddle" in Israeli affairs by criticizing settlements in the West Bank.


I'm sure I left something out, but the point here is that we appear to have a President who at his core is unamerican, or at least stands against everything that I believe is uniquely, and irretrievably, American. Like public policy based on common sense, protection of private property, the preservation of a capitalist system, the protection of individual rights against government encroachment, the rule of law, and freedom from excessive taxation. Abroad, Obama apparantly believes that America is not a "shining city on a hill," and is no more important to the world than either Greece or Britain, and coddles left-wing dictators and abandons those who shed thier blood for only the slightest incremental increase in freedom.


Yes, time to despair, but still cling to hope that America has the resources and resillience to correct itself before we are forever transformed in ways we and the world will forever ultimately regret.