Obama: "Hand to hand combat"

October 7, 2010 By

Just what kind of divisive, non-unifying, non-post-partisan, ego-riding fool is in our White House?

A Republican majority in Congress would mean “hand-to-hand combat” on Capitol Hill for the next two years, threatening policies Democrats have enacted to stabilize the economy, President Obama warned Wednesday.

Speaking on Michael Baisden’s syndicated radio show, Obama also made a direct appeal to African Americans about the importance of the November vote, even though he’s not on the ballot himself.
…
“Everybody in the barbershops, the beauty shops, and at work — everybody’s got to understand: This is a huge election; if we turn out in strong numbers, then we will do fine. If we do not, if we are depressed and decide, well, you know, Barack’s not running right now, so I’m just going to stay home, then I’m going to have my hands full up here on Capitol Hill.”

Oh, it’s all about him, isn’t it? Is the president suggesting that the only reason African Americans would bother to vote would be to support him? Isn’t that rather a crappy subtext coming from any president?

I wonder what Velma Hart would think of that subtext?

I suspect she wouldn’t like it. I know I don’t.

Obama goes on to blame Bush, of course, for the bad jobs numbers. Apparently he forgot that Obama’s own policies were supposed to prevent unemployment from exceeding 8%.

Of the GOP, this unifier, this post-partisan healer who–on the third day of his presidency–informed the House and Senate GOP leadership that “I won,” and allowed Nancy Pelosi to shut them out of writing any part of the Obama/Pelosi “stimulus” bill, had this to say:

“They are fired up. They are mobilized. They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate,” he said. “If they’re successful in doing that, they’ve already said they’re going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill.“

I guess he’d taken Fritz Mondale’s advice and left the teleprompter home? Because this was an incredibly unpresidential and amateurish thing to say.

What a president. The president of only half the country. Or, lately, not even that. The president of anyone who will continue to vote for him, and that’s all.

Can you imagine if, two years into his presidency, Bush had still been talking about Clinton (not that he ever did; others may have mentioned that 9/11 was planned during the Clinton “vacation from history” that included non-responses to repeated Al Qaeda provocations, but Bush never did) or if Bush had ever used this sort of stupid, unpresidential, hyper-partisan rhetoric, the sort of screaming we’d have heard from the Democrats and the mainstream press?

Remember when we were told Obama was the “enlighted” and “highly evolved” guy with the “first-class temperament.”

Now, he is President-Hand-to-Hand Combat with fellow-Americans and loyal opposition. Unreal.

Meanwhile, this unevolved moron showed how the president of all the people behaves.

I guess you’d call that President-Hand-to-Hand.

Allahpundit notes that Obama will not need “hand-to-hand” combat, as he seems to be planning an end run around the GOP if he must. This is not a president who cares about what the populace is telling him. Boy, remember when Bush was “arrogant” because he “didn’t listen”?

Related:
Obama to Dems Donors: Stop sulking!

Well, at least that’s not violent rhetoric

Deficit almost 1.3 Trillion for fiscal 2010

Allah: Hey, remember when questioning the timing was cool?

Hey, at least the audience is friendly

“Don’t make me look bad!”

20 months in 2 minutes

Who gets hurt when the Bush tax cuts expire?

Wait, what the what?

Filed Under: Barack Obama, Bush Good, Obama Bad?
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  • http://vita-nostra-in-ecclesia.blogspot.com Bender

    Obama goes on to blame Bush, of course, for the bad jobs numbers

    For the record, the recession officially ended in June 2009 — BEFORE any of Obama’s “stimulus” plans kicked in. But once they did kick in, it stopped any recovery dead in its tracks. Given that the recession ended in June 2009, every bad thing that has happened since is all on Obama.

    they’re going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration

    Does he mean the same Bush Administration during which the economy took a couple trillion dollar hit because of the attacks of 9/11, and yet the nation was able to swiftly recover due in large part because of those policies of the Bush Administration?

    Bush had to deal with the financial center of the world crashing down and brought us out of it just fine. Obama is handed a recovering economy in June 2009, and he proceeds to destroy it.

    Oh how people long to go back to the bad old days of five percent unemployment during the Bush Administration.

  • Klaire

    And how about that “fake fainting.” Who does he think he’s fooling, really. I’m wonder how much those “government workers” get paid?

  • Terrye

    Tacky little man.

  • JDC

    Bender, I find your take on the “success” of the Bush economic doctrine to be… a bit rosy, to say the least. But before I indicate where my view differs from yours and point out why I believe you to be in error, I was wondering if perhaps you could help me see how you’ve drawn your conclusions.

    For instance, when you say “swiftly recover,” (after 9/11) what economic indicators were you looking at?

    What makes you say with certainty that our recovery from the greatest financial collapse of our generation (and the one or two before us, depending) was “[stopped] dead in its tracks”?

    How well do you think the recovery was going before the stimulus hit, and why?

    I suppose Anchoress can also consider these questions addressed to her, since she also seems aghast at the current administration’s continued references to the origin of the monstrous downturn we’re still working on overcoming.

    One wonders how long the Great Depression warranted special mentioned after it ended. Or, in this case, after it started on its way back to normalcy.

    [I doubt we'll ever get to normalcy if our leadership continues determined to play the same tapes for years, refuses to work with the opposition and continues to engage in divisive rhetoric; I think we can agree that the president's rhetoric his divisive? I'll stand by my point, that Bush could very easily, and with some serious justification, spent a lot of time bitching about all that hadn't been done to address terrorism "in the last decade." But he never did. He just looked forward, not backward, and tried to do his job amid a great deal more skepticism and media grief than Obama has ever had, as he whines his way through his term. -admin]

  • KarenT

    So, how do you think all this tough talk fits with the appointment of mild-mannered Pete Rouse as interim chief-of-staff?

  • JDC

    Thank you for your input, admin. I regret that the questions I posed have gone unanswered. Nonetheless, I shall address yours:

    While I am no great fan of the man, I can’t say that I find Obama’s rhetoric to be any more divisive than that of anyone else on the hill. Neither of the quotes you chose were particularly atrocious in and of themselves. Commenting on the brutal nature of an election season by making a reference to pugilism? It’s pretty tame, to be honest. Certainly tame by Washington standards. I know people are looking for just any reason to get whipped up into a frenzy over the latest word out of his mouth, but the truth is that most of it really isn’t that sensational. He’s pretty mediocre.

    Show me a case of one senator beating another half to death with a cane or a candidate openly calling for violent revolution, and I’ll be suitably horrified. Show me a campaigning politician saying “we’re gonna beat them! It’s gonna be a fight!” and I am suitably underwhelmed.

    Maybe it’s a cultural thing? If someone had said that two hundred years ago, maybe you would have turned some heads. Hm. No, probably not, actually:

    link

    As for the other remark, what can I say? People voted for him, and he knows it. It’s notoriously hard to mobilize the same kind of voter turnout during midterms, which is something politicians have struggled with forever. Again, acknowledging this is not a bad thing.

    I guess I just don’t “get” the big deal about this particular set of remarks. I’ve gotten others in the past, but this is, I suppose, one of those things that falls differently on different ears. I particularly don’t understand how any of those statements are proof that he is “president of only half the country,” but to each their own, I suppose.

    As for the particularities of the Clinton->Bush transition, there is much less to comment on. The economy wasn’t in a shambles (not that the Clinton economy was anywhere near as good as his party likes to frame it), and while the 9/11 attacks were largely planned during the 90s, to say that the Taliban had spontaneously appeared at that point fully-formed and frothing for American blood is a bit simplistic. If anything, their particular ideological strain is more the result of Eisenhower’s aggressive containment policies from the late 40s through the 50s. Of course here I am mainly talking about the events that shaped Sayyid Qutb into the man he became. After that, the interventionist policies which kept radical fervor high were largely a bipartisan effort. I can no more blame Clinton for the planning which occurred under his watch than I can Bush for its execution. It was a tragic event long in coming, with manifold causal elements.

    Anyway, with your permission, I’d definitely like to shift the focus back to the original matters I had hoped to discuss. You yourself have placed the word “stimulus” in quotes any number of times. If you’re of a mind to do so, why don’t you tell me a bit about your take on it. Use the questions I asked in my last comment if you need any points of order or guideposts or what-have-you.

    [FYI unembedded links go into moderation or sometimes spam, so you might want to create the link. Heated rhetoric when things are as tense as they are, when there has already been violence coming from the left (there are numerous examples, and you can find them easily on google) is not a good idea. The president should set the tone, and the tone he is setting is not a healthy or productive one. My reference to Bush/Clinton was not about economics (although Bush did inherit a mild recession) but about terrorism. Bush took enormous heat for much that he did after 9/11 to put policies in place (all or most of which have been continued under Obama) but not once, while he was taking that heat, did he say, "look, I'm just trying to clean up fallout from the mistakes of the past decade, when no responses were made, when threats were not being taken seriously, and the various agencies weren't even communicating with each other, terrorist funds were not frozen, etc..." He did not do this "I inherited trouble" crap that Obama can't let go of, he just buckled down and tried to do his job. Made some mistakes, sure, every president does, but he didn't spend his time whining about the guy who came before him and helped create the mess in the first place. As to the rest, I'm going to let Bender respond, if he wants to, since you're main response was to him. I no longer engage in long-term comment responses, for sheer lack of time. -admin]

  • zhombre

    This is a shallow and arrogant man and he is neither going to change nor learn nor “grow into the office.” Wait and see, folks: the gross abuse of executive powers over the next two years will constitute impeachable offenses.

  • kelleyb

    Hmm, we need to pray. Dangerous image our President painted with that comment. He does not make idle statements, unlike the VP. So I find this worrisome that our President has escalated the ‘I’ll fight for you’ political chatter into street fighting rhetoric.

  • http://vita-nostra-in-ecclesia.blogspot.com Bender

    JDC –

    History speaks for itself, much better than I could.

  • JDC

    Again, I do appreciate the response. I must confess I am a little alarmed, however, that in the same breath that you decry divisive rhetoric, you make mention of violence “from the Left.” Who is the Left? Do they have a phone number?

    The first thing we can do to curb divisive rhetoric is to start with our own speech, and the one of the best ways to do that is to carefully monitor the use of attributions to nebulous entities or groups. Use specific names if possible. Assign concrete responsibility for actual events to actual people, by demonstrable means. And above all, be careful with “they” and “them.” Nothing spurs division like the simple act of creating an Other (which remains, tragically, one of the most commonly-used tactics in all of political discourse).

    Anyway, to say that “not once” did Bush disparage past leadership compared to his own is a bit generous, at best. A ten-second perusal of Google yields several examples which directly contradicting that. I am not out to be argumentative for argument’s sake or any such thing, but the impression I get is that you may place the man on something of a pedestal. At the end of the day, he’s a politician like any other. (ESPECIALLY like any other, I might quip.)

    All presidents take “enormous heat.” It’s what they do. They run aggressive campaigns. They smear their opponents. It’s terrible, but it’s at least pretty uniform in that regard. The beauty of this information age is that with the wealth of stored media every which way, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that these are constant features, and no one president in recent memory has had it “easier” than any other. We could literally go back and forth all day with “X said Y about Bush,” “alright, but how is that different from Z saying Q about Obama/Clinton/Reagan/Carter” and so on until we’ve exhausted exabytes of data and, by the time our tally marks stretch upward, tickling the tops of clouds, a whole new exabyte of inflammatory media has accumulated.

    This would be a fool’s errand, simply put; a distraction from actual discourse of a substantive nature. I have no desire to sift through tabloid trash when I’d like to discuss the business pages, and I doubt you’ve the time to fritter away on such an activity, as well.

    Anyway, I thank you for your correspondence to this point. I don’t wish to draw you into the sort of long term comment discussions you try to avoid. I shall wait for Bender from here on.

  • JDC

    Ah, dear Bender! Thank you so for engaging with me, but you appear to have left out some words.

    If you need me to refine my queries, please let me know. I am eager to understand your perspective. Responding with a smug grin and the equivalent of “maybe read a BOOK” is hardly conducive to substantive discourse, or even the fundamental basis of understanding.

    So, I’ll offer you another chance to elucidate your positions. I am quite eager to understand the basis of opinions different from my own, and I have no desire to dismiss or “shut down” anyone else out of hand.

    I shall then explain why, as I said, I believe you are in error (while taking into account your explanations). In doing so, I shall attempt to include enough History to satisfy even your formidable hunger, good sir.

    If you do not take my offer, however, I shall assume that your remarks have no basis in rational formulation or thought, and proceed to brutally eviscerate them, as is customary here on Internet.

    I expecting a rollicking good time, either way! ;)

  • newton

    “Dangerous image our President painted with that comment.”

    What else do you expect? We’re talking about a classic Red-diaper baby here!

    Scratch him but a little, and you might well find a mini-Stalin itching to come out. After all, that’s what was fed to him from the start. We all know that.

  • Jen

    “Hand to hand combat….” An unsurprising choice of words coming from the man who – on the campaign trail – aimed to motivate his supporters by saying, “If they (the opposition) bring a knife, we’ll bring a gun.”

    This is a man who is taking the teaching of Rev. Wright (and Muhammed) to heart. It doesn’t matter what “religion” BHO says he is….actions speak louder than words, and his words reveal his heart.

  • firefirefire

    It must be noted for the benefit of those who don’t find the Presidents use of the phrase “hand to hand combat” to be particularly pugnatious or threatening, the action of which when carried out in real life situations is usually “to the death” by those soldiers so engaged.
    But I get that Barry didn’t actually mean that he would physically fight republicans to the death over political differences,he’s too much of a coward for that.

  • Mike M.

    Obama hates America, and he hates Americans.

    He hates American prosperity, and he hates American exceptionalism.

    He hates that there is a free world, let alone that America was (previously before Obama) the leader of the free world.

    The only people he likes are the people who hate America and Americans like he does. In other words, he likes Democrats, who also hate America and want to destroy it or weaken it while plundering its riches for their own use.

    It’s that simple.

    It’s the oldest story there is. It’s been told a thousand times and lived in a thousand places before today. We’re no different.

    There is good and evil. There are the guys in the white hats, and the guys in the black hats. There is Hans Solo and Darth Vader. There are Americans, and there are Democrats, whose spiritual leader is Obama.

    It is, as it always is, us or them. There is no third option. We win, or they win, and not both. Obama knows this, and therefore is language about combat.

    We’d better know it too.

    You think otherwise, you’re deluding yourself and endangering good people everywhere.

  • http://www.noodlingonit.com Kris, in New England

    The idea that people won’t turn out to vote because Obama isn’t on the ballot – the man’s ego knows no limits. There have been some 56 presidential elections in our nation’s history, each one resulting in a president in the oval office. Since Obama is #44 in that line, I’m pretty sure he hasn’t been the only president we’ve had (though it may feel like it).

    Oh that whole blame-the-past-administration thing? That is so 2006. Democrats have controlled Congress since then and Obama has been in office for nearly 2 years now. When will these people stop trying to place the blame for their failed policies and ineptitude on an administration that hasn’t been in control for 4 years. They need to man-up, accept responsibility for their own time in office and stop the whining.

    Actually my favorite P.BO quote from the radio station call-in, was this gem:

    “If we think that we can just vote one time, then we have a nice party at Obama’s inauguration, and then we can kind of sit back and suddenly everything’s going to change – that’s just not how it works.”

    Again, the monumental sense of his own importance. Obama … I’ve got a news flash for you. Your entire campaign was based on just that kind of attitude.

    And does anyone else have a problem with POTUS calling into a syndicated radio station, especially one that represents about .5% of the total number of licensed radio stations in this country? Can you say – echo chamber?

  • Judith L

    Many of us who were concerned about what we saw as serious risk factors with candidate Obama–the repeated parental desertion, multiple lacunae in his personal history, thin but far left voting record, and deep political roots in the corrupt Chicago Machine–hoped that the responsibilities of the office would influence President Obama in such a way that our concerns would be proven over-wrought.

    But as Emily Dickinson said, “Hope is a thing with feathers”, and that hope has long since flown away.

  • Jeff

    Second Jen’s comments. Obama thinks he’s a super tough guy with all his gun, knife, hand to hand combat rhetoric. Oooooh, he’s from Chicagooo, wow. They re so tough there.. Better run and hide.

  • Dagwood

    JDC, the headlines on the left-leaning sites you linked all proclaim “Bush Blames Clinton” but the quote I see repeated in those posts is simply “We inherited an economy in recession.” Not quite the same impact as “those guys drove us into a ditch”, now, is it?

    Kinda like MoDo ranting that “You lie!” was a racist remark – nobody heard the flustered congressman add “…boy!” to the end of his outburst, but by golly, that has to be what he meant!

    So where is the blatant finger-pointing in your links that has been so rampant over the past two years? In light of the statements our current president has made to deflect criticism, as well as to fire up his supporters at partisan events, I find it either incredibly dishonest or incredibly naive to claim that Bush and Obama were equally as divisive.

  • Last Sphere

    (JDC wrote – “you make mention of violence “from the Left.” Who is the Left? Do they have a phone number?”)

    Who is the Left?

    Answer: The Democrat National Committee and all of it’s goose-stepping supporters, like yourself.

    Do they have a phone number?

    Answer: Phone numbers are so 20th century silly! They have multiple web sites: The DNC, The Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo…etc…etc…etc…

    The “Left” is (by design) multi-faceted, dispersed, and composed of innocuously titled sub-groups; which is all designed to hide their funding sources don’t you know. Hello Mr Soros.

    You can however, identify the Left by their vote on Nov 2nd, if not by their Obama ’08 bumper stickers and their life-size inflatable Obama dolls proudly on display in their bedrooms. But hey- like you don’t already know that.

    And none of your Google results compare to the blatant street-rhetoric of your Community-Agitator Jackass currently occupying the White House.

    And here’s an example of Obama’s open-minded willingness to “compromise” and “unite” when he was in the midst of ramming his non-stimulating Porkulous bill down the collective throat of this country.

    Obama to Republicans: “I won.”

    Now how’s that for “shovel-ready” my friend?

    Oh and, you can drop the pretentious language nonsense. Unless you’re an 19th century Dandy privy to a time-machine, your ridiculous attempt to establish a facade of intelligence and sophistication is blatantly obvious. BTW, which site are you trolling for? Kos? HuffPo? The Dem Underground? Go ahead champ- you can tell us.

    JDC announcing a visit to the john: “I shall bid your pardon for my hasty retreat to the necessary facilities so unfortunately required by the call of nature.”

    Country Bumpkin’s response: “The crapper is the first door on the left perfesser.”

  • Manny

    Bender is right on! That’s an excellent analysis. That’s why Obama’s “Bush-blame” doesn’t stick and the public knows it.

  • JDC

    Hi, Dagwood. Pleasure to meet you.

    Divisiveness is not merely a function of rhetoric, and certainly not merely a function of how often someone blames one’s predecessor. I’m not sure I buy your particular comparison between “inheritance” quotes; one uses dryer language than the other. How different is “we inherited an economy in recession” from “I inherited this problem,” really? Even if you are positively convinced (and I am not) that Bush was at least more subtle about it – the messaging was already taken care of, either way.

    **Please note that this is not me saying anyone is better than anyone else or that the culture of assigning blame has abated in any way.**

    There is a tendency I’ve noticed in political discourse to misinterpret an attempt to show similarity as an attempt to claim some moral high ground. I do no such thing, so there’s really no need to reply to my “Y is just like this thing X did” with “oh yeah? Well, Y ALSO did THIS.” As I said above, this leads down a tunnel which I have found, through personal experience, to be endless. It is a tiresome and inefficient use of time.

    I don’t for a moment agree with any assessment which states that Joe Wilson’s remark was fueled by racism. I will, however, agree that it was pretty rude and, frankly, asinine.

    Anyway, as I said, divisiveness is really in the eye of the beholder. Our experiences of it will differ by factors as disparate as our upbringing, present community, even the basic chemical state of our brains. We have better things to do than tilt at windmills by comparing descriptors with no quantitative measure.

    I mean, I suppose if you’re talking about economic divisiveness, then we could have a discussion, but it wouldn’t be particularly long; neoliberal economic policies have recreated the same division of wealth we experienced prior to the Great Depression. I’d say there’s no way to top that, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens with this Carried Interest tax business.

    Anyway, I am not saying that Bush and Obama are equally as divisive, nor am I saying that one is/was more divisive than the other. I am saying, however, that if our only measure is “quotes I don’t like,” then we’ll have to accept that their respective conditions are incommensurable. That said, I believe the issue of divisiveness goes far deeper than many acknowledge; the tendency towards creating an Other is a cultural phenomenon that transcends any single public figure, and true change must begin at the personal level, with each of us.

    This is why I tend to stick to measurable facts and phenomena in my policy analysis. Rhetoric only clouds the matter at hand. Sophocles understood this, but apparently 2500 years has not been sufficient time for the rest of humanity to follow suit.

  • JDC

    Last Sphere, you’ll have to forgive me if I’ve offended you. I certainly meant no disrespect in anything I’ve said. However, I find your assumptions about my personal predilections and associations to be rather ill-informed to say the least. “Dead wrong” is, I suspect, a suitable informality.

    Let me clear the air for you with a few brief facts:

    -I am actually incapable of “goose-stepping” in the traditional sense due to a rare congenital condition in which the joint direction in both my hips and knees to be reversed. I can flamingo-step, but I have yet to find a totalitarian society which has a use for this skill.

    -I WAS issued an “inflatable Obama doll” (weren’t all Americans, on inauguration day?), but due manufacturer defect, the product is actually a Steve Buscemi doll. Surprisingly, it really livens the place up.

    -Soros hasn’t actually signed one of my paychecks. Though fully half of the country (roughly 150,000,000 people) is embroiled in his grand and all-encompassing conspiracy, most of us don’t deal with him directly. I believe my account is handled by his underling Krth’n'gul, in accounting. Or possibly Magog or Hastur, I always get those three confused.

    -I see you’ve noticed my speech impediment. It’s no small source of shame for me. Alright, I admit it – I am constitutionally incapable of uttering jejune colloquialisms without considerable expenditure of effort. Yes, My phrenologist explained the actual cause of it to me, but I’m afraid it eludes me at present; something or other about reading habits.

    -I am not here on behalf of any of those publications, but one you did not mention. It is so far to the left, it only exists in the abstract realm of philosophical Universals, and has no particularity nor instantiation in our time/space continuum.

    I hope this has been informative to you. I also hope, on a more serious note, that you can recognize my participation on this blog for what it is: a simple desire to engage individuals whose opinions differ from my own in polite conversation.

    I am not here to troll, and I’m frankly at a loss for how you could have gotten that impression. I have not put anyone down; I have not behaved rudely or disruptively or even impatiently, despite the considerable hostility and snideness I have so far received in return. The only trait I could have displayed so far that might have triggered this response is “has an opinion different from yours,” and if that is your definition of “trolling,” then I am frankly unsure how to respond.

    Perhaps I can suggest further reading on the matter. I recommend Daniel Webster’s brilliant trolling of Robert Hayne over tariff law. Additionally, you might be interested in Plato’s dialogue, Gorgias, in which Sophocles handily trolls Callicles into submission.

    Or – and this is just a thought – you could address me as a person, rather than an immediate and perfectly projected representation of everything which appears to cause you distress in life. The act of debating ideas and arguments on their own merits is, in my opinion, a far more productive mode of discourse.

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  • Last Sphere

    (JDC wrote – “Last Sphere, you’ll have to forgive me if I’ve offended you. I certainly meant no disrespect in anything I’ve said. However, I find your assumptions about my personal predilections and associations to be rather ill-informed to say the least. “Dead wrong” is, I suspect, a suitable informality.”)

    Translation: Yes you busted me. I am a pretentious liberal portraying a pretentious 19th century poff.

    (“Let me clear the air for you with a few brief facts:”)

    Translation: Let the BS really begin!

    (“-I am actually incapable of “goose-stepping” in the traditional sense due to a rare congenital condition in which the joint direction in both my hips and knees to be reversed. I can flamingo-step, but I have yet to find a totalitarian society which has a use for this skill.”)

    Translation: I am playing the predictable “sympathetic victim” per the standard Left-Tard playbook. In truth I’m a gay unemployed dancer who has fabulous “jazz-hands” but little talent when it comes to my first true-love in this life: DANCE!

    (“-I WAS issued an “inflatable Obama doll” (weren’t all Americans, on inauguration day?), but due manufacturer defect, the product is actually a Steve Buscemi doll. Surprisingly, it really livens the place up.”)

    Translation: My Obama inflate-a-mate is my favorite out of my vast collection of anatomically “correct” love substitutes. Oh Snap!

    (“-Soros hasn’t actually signed one of my paychecks. Though fully half of the country (roughly 150,000,000 people) is embroiled in his grand and all-encompassing conspiracy, most of us don’t deal with him directly. I believe my account is handled by his underling Krth’n’gul, in accounting. Or possibly Magog or Hastur, I always get those three confused.”)

    Translation: I am sucking from the government teat- can you guess which one? *tee hee hee*
    And no, as long as the Obama DOJ is in charge you’ll never suss out the source of all those over-seas campaign contributions or the nexus of ACORN, SEIU, Move On, Code Pink, and on and on. *tee hee hee*

    (“-I see you’ve noticed my speech impediment. It’s no small source of shame for me. Alright, I admit it – I am constitutionally incapable of uttering jejune colloquialisms without considerable expenditure of effort. Yes, My phrenologist explained the actual cause of it to me, but I’m afraid it eludes me at present; something or other about reading habits.”)

    Translation: Yes I’m a pretentious old tart with a profuse lisp and I also dress in 19th century formal attire complete with the ostentatious plumage that is all the rage at Club Eight. Oh and, Bawny Fwank is my hero!

    (“-I am not here on behalf of any of those publications, but one you did not mention. It is so far to the left, it only exists in the abstract realm of philosophical Universals, and has no particularity nor instantiation in our time/space continuum.”)

    Translation: Yep. I’m from Kos.

    (“I hope this has been informative to you. I also hope, on a more serious note, that you can recognize my participation on this blog for what it is: a simple desire to engage individuals whose opinions differ from my own in polite conversation.”)

    Translation: I like to play the open-minded concern-troll as I make ridiculous comparisons and blatant moral equivocations all wrapped up in this awesome self-aggrandizing and euphistic prattle.

    (“I am not here to troll, and I’m frankly at a loss for how you could have gotten that impression. I have not put anyone down; I have not behaved rudely or disruptively or even impatiently, despite the considerable hostility and snideness I have so far received in return. The only trait I could have displayed so far that might have triggered this response is “has an opinion different from yours,” and if that is your definition of “trolling,” then I am frankly unsure how to respond.”)

    Translation: Yes you busted me. So I will now feign indignation and self-righteous victimization in a pathetic attempt to obfuscate my pseudo-open minded concern-trolling. *tee hee hee*

    (“Perhaps I can suggest further reading on the matter. I recommend Daniel Webster’s brilliant trolling of Robert Hayne over tariff law. Additionally, you might be interested in Plato’s dialogue, Gorgias, in which Sophocles handily trolls Callicles into submission.”)

    Translation: Here’s where I attempt to validate my erudite facade by casually dropping some references from historic abstractions to philosophical mainstays. Note that this pathetic attempt ignores and betrays the very essence of the Socratic method: “One is wiser than other men only when one is conscious of one’s own ignorance.”

    (“Or – and this is just a thought – you could address me as a person, rather than an immediate and perfectly projected representation of everything which appears to cause you distress in life. The act of debating ideas and arguments on their own merits is, in my opinion, a far more productive mode of discourse.”)

    Translation: In a final attempt to distance myself from your accurate analysis of my overt trolling attempts I will play the ultimate and predictable Left-Wing debate card: The Accusation of Projection. i.e. “I know you are- but what am I!”

    Oh and, the crapper is still the first door on the Left Perfesser. Now return from whence you came.

    [LS - JDC is not a troll, and he has not been uncivil to anyone, in fact he's been polite and a bit playful. -admin]

  • Robert

    “ego-riding fool”

    Come on, be constructive and offer solutions, don’t call names. I wish this blog was more post-partisan, or at least had some other points of view.

  • Christine

    What this com box really needs is some perspective from the “unwashed masses”. One so completely divorced from her two semesters of philosophy in college many moons ago, that it boggles the mind. Thankfully, I am here – riding in to the rescue, resplendent with my two rusty cents. How Obama-like of me.

    After reading all of the mental machinations of JDC, I had a great laugh. You see I am much too stupid to make decisions for myself and I don’t know much about the world. I do, however, know about integrity. I know about taking responsibility for my actions. I know about hard work.

    If you delete the POTUS compari-fest, and look at the actions of the current POTUS, he is definitely falling short of the mark. The more he points blame in the opposite direction, the more we non-ivy league educated cretins (ooh, French! Did I spell it properly?) will believe he either a) has no control and someone else IS actually running the show, or b) he is a blamer and a liar and someone who is not to be trusted.

    JBC, exercise your brain all you want with your explanations and comparisons. However, what a person does say, in fact, matters to most people. President Obama SAID he would work with others during his run for office and has said and done absolutely the opposite whilst in office (ooh I used one of your “English” English words – golly gee willikers, I’m two fer two).

    I am an easy target for your abuse, so fire away. But the one thing you can’t change is that our POTUS misrepresented himself and has behaved quite poorly as President and as a person.

  • JDC

    Last Sphere, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you. I hope we can overcome these inexplicable barriers some time down the road, and eventually improve the character of our discourse from “immediate and inexplicable hostility” to “polite and respectful disagreement.”

    That is, assuming we disagree; what is especially amusing about this episode is that I have yet to explicitly submit an opinion on anything of substance; the limit of what I have thus far shared is that we probably don’t see eye-to-eye on a number of present policy issues. Perhaps one day we’ll bear this out, conclusively.

    Christine, I must once more apologize if I’ve offended. I seem to be inadvertently stepping on a lot of toes, here.

    I am not sure why the immediate assumption is that I am a fan of Obama. In the course of this discussion, I have remarked that I am “no great fan” of his, and referred to his overall performance as “mediocre.” If it seems that I am rushing to his defense at every turn, it is only because I believe explicitly partisan analysis to be utterly lop-sided and prone to generating a misleading view of matters. The problem is not, strictly speaking, the Democrats or Obama or the Republicans or Bush or what-have-you, but rather the underlying cultural trends and circumstances of which they are all but symptoms.

    Our quick-fix society is never concerned with the actual ills in need of remediation, but rather with framing events in order to best direct attentions and emotions in measured and, frankly, distracting ways, all in the service of one of a few overarching narratives. Subscribing to any one of these narratives places one within a social structure which is self-reinforcing and overtly hostile to all other competing views.

    As much as the proliferation of news and views on the internet could have been hoped to offset this, in some cases it has actually exacerbated it by way of the phenomenon of information dilution, and the simplicity with which individuals can “sort” themselves and restrict their own perspective. Becoming part of an echo chamber is now no more difficult than visiting the first few bookmarks on your list.

    The wages of this is extreme social tension and division, as handily exemplified by this very discussion. By simply setting foot in here and announcing “I may disagree on a couple of purely economic points!” I have been called everything from a “goose-stepping” Leftist to a “concern-troll” to what I can only assume you mean to imply is an “ivy-league elitist” (of which I can assure you I am none). It’s exactly what I mean when I say that, ultimately, a given politician’s statements that seem to engender divisiveness are but symptoms of a particular cultural undercurrent. Taking the view that all objects and events are the product of a given process, these cultural “artifacts” can only be the manifestation of a truly troubling development, indeed.

    Anyway, I thank you for your invitation to “fire away,” but I’m afraid I have neither the vitriol nor the inclination to lend you any abuse. It wouldn’t solve anything and, your coy parenthetical japery aside, I don’t have any reason to suspect that, were we to actually move on to matters of policy, we couldn’t have a rousing and enjoyable summit.

  • Christine

    Apology accepted. My apologies to you as well. I mis-took what you wrote. I don’t like comparisons between both presdients as well, as I found both of the presidents mentioned mediocre at best.

    The comparisons struck a chord with me, because they are so overused as well as used as a way to excuse the poor behavior of the current POTUS.

    I guess what I am trying to say is poor behavior is poor behavior and we should expect more of our Presidents and of ourselves.

  • Greta

    Barry is only the ongoing growth of the evil party known by the name democrat. You have to remember that this party has a very long history and only when laid from end to end do you see how evil it has been since it was formed.

    1. Supported slavery as it existed and for its expansion into new areas of the growing country. They also supported the right to do whatever they chose with slaves who were of course not human.

    2. Led the country into civil war to prevent any minor changes to slavery such as expansion.

    3. after the civil war which they lost and in which hundreds of thousands died horrible deaths and mutilation, they then went into decades of battle to prevent the freed slaves from any form of civil rights. They used many different forms of terror attacks including lynching innocent blacks and burning churches and homes. This was not a short period but continued up through FDR and Truman. FDR was advised of these actions, but as leader of the party, he had his socialist agenda to push forward and refused to risk that to save some blacks being lynched.

    4. With strong push by the black community supported strongly by the republican party votes, LBJ finally pushed through civil rights legislation but at the same time turned the black civil rights issue into one of the war on poverty and the use of government handouts to control the black vote.

    5. With the end of their battle to block civil rights, they latched onto abortion and from the early 70′s on they have supported every form of abortion which has led to 50 million murdered human infants in the womb. That party alone is the major factor in its being made legal, expanded, and even if possible paid for by tax payers funds. They did not even stop at partial birth abortion. Between the food stamp program, welfare, abortion, and the denial of improvement to the public school program or to allow blacks free choice to escape the schools, they have done about as much harm to the black family as the did with their civil rights battles in previous generations of the democratic party.

    No other party in any other country has such a long and extended record of evil with the loss of life and dignity as the democrats can claim as their heritage. So Barry’s actions along with Pelosi, Reid, and others make more sense as you see how long they have represented the wrong position on every major social and moral issue in the countries history.

  • crosspatch

    When caught in a strong tide, the recipe for certain disaster is to attempt to swim directly against it.

    If the people manage to create a wave of change in Congress, they are going to be pretty stoked. If Obama engages that wave with “hand to hand combat”, they are likely to experience that as Obama going to war against the people themselves. That can not possibly turn out well and will (I am certain) end Obama’s presidency in the political sense.

    In fact, the harder he fights that wave, the more likely his party will face an even larger one in 2012. So far his actions and rhetoric are those of a political sophomore. To, in effect, declare war against the American people is not a very smart move on the part of any politician on the national stage. He might find his own party leaving him to flounder on his own.

    Part of his response to this wave can be seen in his recent appointment of national security adviser. Donilon is a political hack and friend of Joe Biden with no experience in national security but with a lot of experience lobbying for Fannie Mae (I thought this administration wasn’t going to use lobbyists?). He is the second coming of Jamie Gorelick and may well be the master of disaster.

    Obama is surrounding himself with “safe” loyal political hacks rather than people who are the best for the job. He apparently doesn’t want any feedback up the chain from people who have more experience than he does. There is an old saying: A people hire A people. B people hire C people.

    Fasten your seat belts. The ride gets very bumpy from here on out. Our national security is being managed by a financial lobbyist.

  • Bill

    Our standard of living has been going down for many years as we ship jobs overseas. No wonder the unemployment rate remains high.

  • crosspatch

    That picture of President Bush assisting Sen. Byrd reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw the other day in Palo Alto, California:

    “Grace Happens”

    I thought that was such a great bumper sticker and then I saw that picture on this site that shows that is true.

  • c matt

    It seems divisiveness is simply part of the two party system. If one “side” has a majority, it is hardly unexpected. A solid third party, so that no one party has majority control, would force more cooperation.