Had a problem with a router and we were without internets for most of the day, but we’re back up and speedy, now.
Predictably, my email was all backed up, and I tried to get through it quickly, but one note made me pause, from reader Mark S., who wrote:
Between Obama not bothering to show up in Germany last week . . . and neglecting to name Reagan or Thatcher (I never thought he’d mention John Paul), and then his “shout out” after the Ft. Hood shootings, and now his DOJ preparing a show trial on the most serious of matters, and his apologizing for America and lying about Bush and Asia, I understand what you meant recently, when you said you felt like Brandon deWilde at the end of Shane. We have a petulant, grandiose child in the White House. Bush, for all his faults, was a man.
He wrote more -about how Obama managed to go to Germany when it was all about himself, last year, and how “infuriating” he found Obama’s bow and speech in Japan and this line in particular: “I know that the United States has been disengaged from these organizations in recent years.”
Mark is right. Obama is outright lying, there. In myriad ways, Bush was actually very attentive to our Asia and Pacific alliances, was swift and generous in aiding Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami (pdf), and -but it got no press- managed to forge an environmental agreement that went way beyond Kyoto:
“…joining five other nations – China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia — in a new pact that offers a refreshing and effective alternative route to tackling the problem of climate change.”
Last time I checked, all of those countries were in the Pacific. Last time I checked, India, in particular, was loving Bush. And Australia has been a strong alliance in our military coalitions, and elsewhere.
Malaysia says to Obama: Be Like Bush!
Obama certainly does like his straw men; he likes to indiscreetly bash the former president wherever he goes, whether his hammer is weighted with reality or make-believe. And the press, who detested that “arrogant cowboy Bush” and pummeled him every day for 8 years (without the White House declaring “war” on them, it must be said) they will not correct Obama; they seem to rather like the fact that he rewrites history to fit his incredible, ego-massaging script, every time he steps up to a podium.
The truth is whatever Barack Obama says it is, of a particular moment. He is consistent only in his self-referential and endless glorifying, his primping, pursed-mouthed sense of singularity, his boo-hooing about the “mess” left to him and his apologies for America. Mark calls him a “petulant child.” I think he’s just a monster of ego who knows he can say pretty much anything and get away with it, because the press -who spent every last dime of their credibility putting him into the White House- will dance as fast as they have to, to convince America they were right to do so.
Oh, and that botched and ummm…uncopied bow to Emperor Akihito, in Japan? I thought I might be the only person in America unsurprised by it, but Powerline sense the same thing I do:
He means to teach Americans to bow before monarchs and tyrants. He embodies the ideological multiculturalism that sets the United States on the same plane as other regimes based on tribal privilege and royal bloodlines.
Obama is going to show America how to bow, so that we can get it right, in due time. Or maybe he is just really confused about flag-salutes and allegiances?
In Obama’s speech, he also pays some lip service to human rights and human dignity. Because Obama is all about human rights and human dignity. And he digs China, you know that’s true. Somehow I doubt he’ll take China to task for the nightmarish forced abortions that are commonplace over there.
What really happens to a woman who doesn’t have a “birth permit” and has an “out of plan” pregnancy?
The answer is simple and brutal: A woman pregnant without permission has to surrender her unborn child to government enforcers, no matter what the stage of fetal development.
Late-term abortions are problematic, but the Chinese are nothing if not efficient. On one Web site for Chinese obstetricians and gynecologists, doctors recently traded tips in a dispassionate discussion titled: “What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?” ChinaAid provided a translation of a thread regarding an eight-month-old fetus that survived the procedure.
“Xuexia” wrote: “Actually, you should have punctured the fetus’ skull.” Another poster, “Damohuyang,” wrote that most late-term infants died during induced labor, some lived and “would be left in trash cans. Some of them could still live for one to two days.”
Hey, Obama is all about decreasing abortions and stuff. He said so. To the pope. So it must be true.
This is small potatoes, next to the human rights abuses in China, but one can’t help noticing that, Obama’s lofty words about human rights and human dignity aside, in his America, the right to not buy health insurance without being threatened with jail is apparently not a human one. Your dignity? Heh. Right.
I’d forgotten that I’d written the line about feeling like Brandon deWilde in Shane. I think it must have been a tweet. Either way, here is that ending. You remember the story of Shane, right? Classic American tale of a cowboy who rides into the middle of a town in trouble and takes on the bad guys, until he has to ride out of town again, and as his silhouette grows smaller in the distance, little Joey cries out, “Shane! Shane, come back!”
Ah, You Tube:
Btw, KSM will be given a civil trial in NY, but Bomber of USS COLE will be tried in mil tribunal. What, you expect consistency? Here is your consistency: the KSM trial is meant to indict Bush and Cheney, and America.
Related:
Bush remarks on Human Rights and China
Mark Steyn
Gateway Pundit: Dick Cheney Don’t Bow
Protein Wisdom: Reagan Don’t Bow
Ace
Althouse: It’s not hard to find instructions on bowing in Japan
American Digest: is Obama contemptuous of US?
J’s Cafenette: The Undeniable Bow
Wizbang: Not ready to lead (well, he wants to rule…)
Malkin: Holder’s Conflict of Interest
Musings: and their meanings
Baldilocks: Sand in the Tent
Jules Crittenden: Those who reinvent history
Climate Bills’s Emergency “provisions” Give Obama huge power
Insty: Obamacare in Canada
The Needs of Obama: outweigh others
Bush will soon have company. The Karzai bashing will increase, and Obama will use him as an excuse to run away and abandon the Afghan people to death and oppression.
Bush was a man of God and that makes all the difference.
Bender, Obama has to abandon the afghans. He covets the military budget to finance his 0topia. As well as the second and third stimulus bills he’ll use to bury his political foes.
“Obama has to abandon the afghans. He covets the military budget to finance his 0topia.”
Call it the surrender dividend.
“As well as the second and third stimulus bills he’ll use to bury his political foes.”
… a dividend already paid out in socialist schemes.
Perhaps our PiC (Prostrater-in-Chief)could use some sage advice from <a href="here“>Mr. Miyagi.
At this point, I just pity him. He’s got nothing else. People who can stand on their own two feet don’t need to denigrate others, let alone a whole country- the country they are supposed to be representing, but never mind.
I have read and enjoyed your column for quite some time. I just found out about the civilian trial of the 9/11 folks. It is the last straw for me. Yes, I must confess I voted for the “One” and I’ve grown to regret it daily. I just wrote my state senators to express my dismay at the planed trial, not that they can do anything, but at least they can take feedback. I’d send feedback to the president – but I grow more and more concerned that what I thought was just a conspiracy theory is actually true.
Even here in Seattle more and more people are willing to allow comments like “well, has he actually done anything?” and in this area, which is more and more like North Berkley, even a little questioning of “the One” is a surprise.
Being gay as the day is long – we’re supposed to vote for the demos. But it turns out the republicans are more in dealing with things I find really important – like economic conservatism and keeping America safe. And – gasp – who thought I’d miss George this much? Well, actually I miss Cheney more, but hopefully he is still sifting through intel daily. I didn’t know I was such a defense hawk!
I’m all for great debate with other Americans about American issues inside our borders – but I have zero tolerance for apologizing for America outside our borders. Just like everyone else, I want my home to be a safe place for my family and my neighborhood to be a safe place for my neighbors, with good public schools, and the country as a whole safe. I feel more unsafe as each day passes with so many large changes in government policy, so many “czars” doing this or that.
These announced trials are nothing but a political ploy. Also, consistently the president cannot seem to salute at the right time, or show up at the right event. He just seems so un-presidential and so unaware of history and what should be shown respect and what he should take responsibility for.
Anyway – this rant seems a bit disjointed, so just chalk it up to a ex-liberal who just can’t ignore that current events are looking more and more like 1984 and Animal Farm.
Thanks for the great blog. and, I’m heading to church tomorrow. It really must be the end of the world
[Say a prayer for me, Eric, and I"ll say one for you, too! -admin]
Can’t you just imagine it? “We’re not putting KSM on trial! We’re putting America on trial!”
Soon you won’t have to imagine it, because that’s exactly what they’re going to do—and try to get Bush and Cheney, in the bargain. Meanwhile, the defendants will have the opportunity to propagandize the infidels endlessly.
That trial is going to be a circus.
Eric said “…consistently the president cannot seem to salute at the right time, or show up at the right event. He just seems so un-presidential and so unaware of history and what should be shown respect and what he should take responsibility for.”
My theory on this is that it is because he spent several of his formative years growing up in Indonesia. It wasn’t like some military kid growing up on a military base overseas, like McCain did. Those kids are steeped in American culture on the base, attend American schools, etc.
Obama, however, was attending foreign schools in Indonesia, living a foreign lifestyle (not that there’s anything wrong with that) with an expatriate single mother who didn’t particularly like her native country.
During those early years, American kids are unconsciously absorbing a lot of lessons about what it means to be a patriotic American. Obama missed those classes. He doesn’t have a gut feeling about what it is to be an American. He has to fake it.
He’s been faking it all along, mostly pretty well, but every so often, he hits those false notes, like his shout out to Dr. Joe Medicine Crow before speaking about the Fort Hood terrorist attack. Or bowing to foreign leaders, failing to understand the significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism, etc.
It’s like a kid who moves from one school district to another in elementary school, and the other children have already been taught cursive writing, while he hasn’t. He’s behind the other kids and the odds are his cursive writing will never be very good. That’s how Obama is with being an American — his hurry-up catch-up lessons gave him surface but no depth.
Small correction: India is not in the Pacific. Rest of article was quite good.
God bless!
[Was bouncing off of the article I quoted -admin]
Rose’s comment at #2 tops ‘em all.
And Eric, welcome!
It is going to be a long, long, long 4 years.
There is plenty of blame to go around for electing Obama, but the biggest share goes to the independent voter, AKA the low-information voter, the kindest way you can put it. Slaves to the celebrity culture, independents chose the novelty of a multiculti con man over the elderly RINO. Some choice. But the deep-bowing O is shedding that support like a snake losing scales in spring. If a way can be found to keep the buffoonish GWB quiet on the sidelines so people can forget his tongue-tied administration, maybe we can hang on another three years. But think of the damage that will have to be cleared.
Here in MA, the voters are still enthralled with obama….and I fear they are not alone! As much as I detest obama, the voters, during a time of war, voted this weakling into office. A man who detests the USA and made it quite clear in his books that he has no regard for our Constitution….and the voters elected him!
He wasn’t bowing!
The poor guy…..
PRESIDENT OBAMA HIDES RARE MEDICAL CONDITION
Last time I checked, India was “in” the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific. I see your point, but, just sayin’.
[Was jumping off of the article quoted -admin]
Well said, Anchoress. The picture of Obama, aggrandizing himself by neglecting his responsibilities, rings true. Alas, it rings true wrt much of our fiduciary class, beginning with the Great Boomer Tantrum of the 1960s.
(I worked for a gifted narcissist who ran a perfectly viable business plan into the ground, doing material damage to investors and to employees who held start-up stock and options instead of being paid at industry scale. The dividends never come, and the BS never stops. Sound familiar?)
(And despite my very harsh assessment of the Bush Presidency, I agree that “Bush, for all his faults, was a man.”)
[Someone wrote this AM that the youtube clip depressed the hell out of her, that it felt like that was America, off in the sunset. I hope I did not depress too many. This is a big overreach by Obama and Holder. It will unite America in ways they're not expecting. admin]
On further thought, given that the defense will absolutely put America and especially Bush and Cheney on trial, perhaps the anti-Bush Holder miscalculated in that respect.
If the prosecution goes along with the Administration line that the enhanced interrogation was torture, some crucial evidence gets thrown out (and perhaps the entire case gets dismissed on grounds of prosecutoral/police misconduct). So, if they want to keep the evidence in, which they do, the prosecution will have to defend the actions of the Bush Administration.
As they have multiple times in court already, rather than merely shooting their mouths off at some podium, the Justice Department may very well end up arguing in court that everything that Bush did was entirely legal and constitutional (which of course it was).
[Bender, my sense of this, after mulling it for a day, is that this is a classic Democrat overreach. In fact, it is the MOTHER of all overreaches. It's going to blow up in their faces. Obama and Holder have already shown us that they do not understand who we are. I only hope that when it all goes ka-boom on them, it's merely a metaphor, and that more lives are not lost due to this showboating foolishness. Funny how the "mastermind" behind the bombing of the USS Cole is going to have a military tribunal, but not KSM, isn't it? -admin]
Thank you for the link!
it is the MOTHER of all overreaches. It’s going to blow up in their faces.
To be sure, at his press conference, Holder made these despicable and reprehensible remarks, “After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice.”
One of the first points of order for the prosecution will be to make Holder out to be an ass. The defense will claim a violation of KSM’s speedy trial rights, citing those “eight years of delay.” And Holder’s own Justice Department is going to swiftly respond that those same “eight years of delay” were entirely proper and justifiable.
How do we get such SFB people in high office?
[Let's see...schools do not teach critical thinking, we're a culture obsessed with the idiot box, therefore the press holds enormous sway, and can carry anyone they want into office? Mostly -admin]
“Funny how the “mastermind” behind the bombing of the USS Cole is going to have a military tribunal, but not KSM, isn’t it? -admin]”
I agree–expecially since Clinton was President during the Cole attack.
There is always another reason for their actions behind their stated reasons.
The confidence of some of the commenters here that KSM would be convicted and “Obama would be a hero… so there!” came to mind this morning as I heard Janet Napolitano say that Holder had carefully looked over the cases and picked the ones he thought could be convicted in civilian court. The light went on. They are banking on the above “Obama as hero” scenario, and willing to gamble everything for the political boost and are practically advertising that these are just show trials and the outcome is foreordained. I don’t know why I didn’t see it. These people are despicable.
Holder apparently is claiming that Obama was not involved in this decision, that Holder made it entirely himself and only informed Obama of the decision.
That assertion by Holder is patently fraudulent.
Currently, KSM, et al. are being held by the military and military commission proceedings are pending, albeit stayed. Obama is commander-in-chief. In order for KSM to be transferred out of military custody and jurisdiction, Obama as commander-in-chief has must necessarily release them to the Justice Department. Holder cannot do that himself. Holder cannot simply usurp Obama’s constitutional authority as commander-in-chief to detain KSM in military custody.
Obama as the State Senator who looked bloodlessly on babies dying in dirty linen closets after ‘unsuccessful’ abortions would have no problem with the Chinese ‘solutions’ to such live births.
The Obama Administration must also be feeling the heat from its horrific decision to try the 9/11 terrorists in NYC Civilian Courts cause DHS Sec’y Napolitano actually made an appearance on Fox & Friends this morning to defend the indefensible. She actually stated that the past terror trials were a good thing and a sound basis for conducting the proposed trials of KSM. However she failed to address all our intelligence information and operations that were severely compromised in those trials and how the prior trials had no deterrent effect on Al Queda.