Obama's psychopathic detachment

I never thought I would find myself wistfully remembering President Clinton and wishing he were still around to inject some heart into the Oval Office (I know, I know, he may have injected some other things as well). However, after listening to President Obama's passionless words in poignant moments over the past ten months, I now yearn to hear the oratory of President Clinton. After Obama's reactions and comments to the Islamic massacre at Ft. Hood, I could only remember the good old days when our president inspired us and spoke passionately after a tragedy like the Oklahoma City bombing. At least when President Clinton spoke, you knew he cared about the people he addressed.

Obama's poor crisis leadership skills revealed themselves in June when Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad murdered Private William Long outside a military recruiting center in Little Rock. Two full days passed without even a word from the president. Finally, President Obama issued a terse statement of “sadness” and never mentioned the incident again. Quite a contrast to his swift, strongly worded response and his statement of “shock” and “outrage” at the “heinous” murder of abortion doctor, George Tiller, just days before in Wichita, Kansas.

In August, at the funeral for Sen. Ted Kennedy, again President Obama's coldness and aloofness raised red flags. Others, like Peggy Noonan, have also noted Obama's cold distance as he arrived, nodded, shook hands and spoke to the family and friends of the Kennedys. In watching the funeral, I was struck by how the president could simultaneously be so completely appropriate and so emotionally vacant. He was polite to be sure, but exhibited a total absence of warmth.

Last week, in his remarks via telecast, at the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, President Obama recognized no other presidents before himself and also failed to mention either Margaret Thatcher or Pope John Paul II . Worse still, he failed even to utter the words “communism,” or the “Soviet Union,” or “Russia.” A major moment arrives, the president speaks, and he whiffs entirely. He exhibits no knowledge of history, no sense of poignancy or America's contribution to the world, and no passion for the freedoms that arrived with the fall of the wall. An utterly cold and vacuous moment.

Finally, the Islamic massacre at Ft. Hood occurs, and President Obama's initial instincts are to warn us all “not to jump to conclusions.” He urges us to react in direct contrast to his own hasty reaction in Gates-gate at Cambridge, and his comments there that the police “acted stupidly.” More strikingly, Obama is unable to state the simple, obvious truth: we have had another incidence of Islamic terror on our own soil. Islamic terror does not occur in a vacuum; jumping to conclusions is very different from reading the pattern of having 63 other Muslim men charged, convicted, or sentenced on terror in our own country just in 2009. Obama again totally misses the point. His trademark coolness belies a glaring ignorance of the matter at hand and his total lack of passion for the American people.

Worse still, his remarks at the memorial service at Ft. Hood fell flat. Does anyone remember a word he said? Years later, I can still remember the warmth and grace exhibited by President Clinton in the aftermath of Oklahoma City. In contrast, Obama's presence and comments at Ft. Hood were utterly forgettable. He failed to show up emotionally in any way. Were one to listen to the president's comments regarding the terror deaths of 13 Americans on an American military base at the hands of an Islamic jihadist, one would notice no difference whatsoever in modulation, tone, or posture from any other speech he has ever given. They have all begun to sound the same. He is everywhere, speaking on everything, and thereby speaking on nothing. No one listens anymore. He speaks as if he is just passing through, a mere observer on the events of life. The hollowness is unsettling.

All in all, Obama's impassioned speeches are reserved for fund-raisers and for healthcare addresses, for which he has no shortage of energy. Line up a pile of dead Americans, and he can barely muster an inflection or an exclamation point. Fill the room with wealthy donors, and the man comes alive. For a mercenary, that may be an admirable thing, but for a president, the vacancy is disturbing.

SOURCE

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U.S. troops battle both Taliban and their own rules

Army Capt. Casey Thoreen wiped the last bit of sleep from his eyes before the sun rose over his isolated combat outpost. His soldiers did the same as they checked and double-checked their weapons and communications equipment. Ahead was a dangerous foot patrol into the heart of Taliban territory. "Has anyone seen the [Afghan National Army] guys?" asked Capt. Thoreen, 30, the commander of Blackwatch Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment with the 5th Stryker Brigade. "Are they not showing up?" A soldier, who looked ghostly in the reddish light of a headlamp, shook his head.

"We can't do anything if we don't have the ANA or [the Afghan National Police]," said a frustrated Capt. Thoreen. "We have to follow the Karzai 12 rules. But the Taliban has no rules," he said. "Our soldiers have to juggle all these rules and regulations and they do it without hesitation despite everything. It's not easy for anyone out here." "Karzai 12" refers to Afghanistan's newly re-elected president, Hamid Karzai, and a dozen rules set down by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, to try to keep Afghan civilian casualties to a minimum. "It's a framework to ensure cultural sensitivity in planning and executing operations," said Capt. Thoreen. "It's a set of rules and could be characterized as part of the ROE," he said, referring to the rules of engagement.

Dozens of U.S. soldiers who spoke to The Washington Times during a recent visit to southern Afghanistan said these rules sometimes make a perilous mission even more difficult and dangerous. Many times, the soldiers said, insurgents have escaped because U.S. forces are enforcing the rules. Meanwhile, they say, the toll of U.S. dead and injured is mounting.

More HERE

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Media's Long Knives Unsheathed on Palin

The long knives of the media have truly been unsheathed for Sarah Palin of late. Exhibit A: demonstrating all the class and balance of its owner Al Gore, the failing "Current TV" network slimed the erstwhile Vice Presidential candidate with some genuinely nasty references. Days after announcing another huge layoff, Al Gore's Current TV referred to former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as a "Gun-Ho" and a "TWILF."

These disgraceful, sexually-charged epithets were part of an attack on prominent conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and came in the form of a cartoon ironically titled "The Stupid Virus"... In the end, this was just a lot of conservative bashing in very bad taste, especially the shot of Palin's Twitter page and her astonishingly offensive screen name "Gun-Ho".

Given that Current TV's Nielsen ratings fall somewhere between airport radar and sonograms, this sort of attack is as feeble as it is distasteful.

And I'll patiently await the cries of protest from the National Organization of Women and other groups that claim to protect the fair treatment of women.

Exhibit B: The dying periodical Newsweek offered its own form of attack, helpfully informing the Republican Party that Palin is "bad news".

As for "bad news for everybody else," Palin is obviously "bad news" that people are hungry for. Palin’s book is going bonkers on the bestseller list and is proving to be one of the best stimulus programs the book industry has had in a good while — and Newsweek’s subscription rate is falling and they’re laying off employees by the dozen.

The only immediate “bad news” is for Newsweek — and when they do gratuitiously negative pieces on a figure who is looked up to by a demographic that spends a fortune on books… not to mention magazines, Newsweek’s death spiral makes all the more sense. This is why the mainstream newspaper business is dying too — you simply can’t dismiss a huge slice of the news consuming public with your bias without ultimately suffering economically.

Never mind that a woman -- who fought corruption both inside and outside her own party, managed a multi-billion-dollar oil deal, ran an entire state government and was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight -- became an overnight political sensation. Never mind that she attracts immense crowds wherever she goes.

She is despised by the Left for two reasons named Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, who sandbagged Palin with interviews that were shocking in their naked attempts to humiliate the Governor.

Simply compare and contrast Gibson's interview questions for Barack Obama and those for Sarah Palin. Gibson's Interview Questions for Obama:

• How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
• How does it feel to “win”?
• How does your family feel about your “winning”, breaking a glass ceiling?
• Who will be your VP?
• Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
• Will you accept public finance?
• What issues is your campaign about?
• Will you visit Iraq?
• Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
• What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton's] speech?

Gibson's Interview Questions for Palin:

• Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking?
• Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?
• Aren’t you conceited to be seeking this high level job?
• Questions on foreign policy...
• ...territorial integrity of Georgia
• ...allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO
• ...NATO treaty
• ...Iranian nuclear threat
• ...what to do if Israel attacks Iran
• ...Al Qaeda motivations
• ...the Bush Doctrine
• ...attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan
• ...Is America fighting a holy war? [misquoted Palin]

Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric both intentionally attacked Palin with questions designed to embarrass. Had Obama been queried with the same devious intentions, he'd have been reduced to the blubbering teleprompter-less soul we saw yesterday in Japan.

When confronted with the question of whether the U.S. did the right thing in bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, his response was "stumbling and ill-prepared." One need only watch the video to appreciate how pathetic his performance was, not to mention the fact that he -- once again -- refused to stick up for his own country.

It is clear that had Gibson and Couric attacked Obama with similar vigor, the Presidential candidate would have been reduced to the "Homina, homina, homina" filibuster he employs when his teleprompter takes its occasional cigarette break.

And here's something else to consider: The fear and anxiety that Sarah Palin generates among the elitist snobs of the Left is truly something to behold. It reminds me of the insecurity and animosity they once reserved for the former Hollywood actor, Ronald Reagan.

SOURCE (See the original for links & graphics)

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ELSEWHERE

Eleven AP Reporters Turn Up Little in Palin 'Fact Check': "The Associated Press recently assigned eleven of its writers to fact-check Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue." AP's team of truth-seekers only found six errors the former Alaska Governor's book, most of which were trivial and presumably not worth the time of a team of reporters. "AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this report", reads the sign-off of Calvin Woodward's fact-check. Even with this impressively large crew, the AP seemed to stretch to find objectionable statements in "Going Rogue"."

MSNBC Uses Fake, ‘Sexy’ Photos of Sarah Palin on Air: "On Friday's edition of Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan featured fake photos of Sarah Palin during a mocking segment on why Americans are fascinated with the former vice presidential candidate. While listing the show’s top ten reasons, Ratigan showed a doctored photo of Palin’s head on the bikini-clad body of a woman holding a weapon. The host never admitted or addressed the fact that his network was passing off counterfeit pictures to his viewers. Earlier in the segment, Ratigan displayed an image of Palin in a short, black mini-skirt. This photo is also not real. MSNBC should immediately apologize for presenting such false information." [How they hate her!]

Obama kisses — not kicks — ass in Asia: "When prices rise steeply month-after-month, a buying panic will set in. People will hoard and scarcities will occur. I don’t know exactly how the American government will react; all I know is how other governments in the past have reacted — e.g. rationing of some commodities, anti-hoarding laws, devaluation of the dollar, seizing of banks, the outlawing of gold, etc. I do not mean to be a Chicken Little and I take no pleasure in wearing the costume but no other economic scenario makes sense to me given the perfect storm that is now brewing around the dollar. The American government has only 2 basic ways to forestall the downpour. It can print more money, which will make the collapse more brutal but which may ‘kick the can down the road.’ (I’m hearing that phrase more and more these days.) Or it can induce others — especially governments — to buy more American debt. Predictably, the Obama administration is doing both.”

Castros afraid of the truth: "Paz y amor. Peace and love. That was the message that 200 young people chanted in Havana while holding placards calling for ‘no more violence’ as passing cars honked their horns. Not among them: Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who was on her way to the Friday demonstration when she and another blogger, Orlando Luis Pardo, were hauled into a car by three men, likely state security agents. The pair was dragged into the car, beaten black and blue in the head and chest before being dumped miles away from the demonstration as if they were trash. (You can watch a short video of the protest at http://desdecuba.com/generationy/) In a Sunday blog post, Ms. Sanchez, who is walking with a crutch because of back pain post beating, summed up the ‘blame the victim’ attitude that permeates after 50 years of dictatorship: ‘The dozens of eyes that watched as Orlando and I were forced into a car with blows would prefer not to testify, and so they put themselves on the side of the criminal.’”

That good ol' double standard: "If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates. It was fascinating to see Barack Obama warning us not to leap to conclusions about the killings at Fort Hood, Texas — after the way he leaped to conclusions over the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, when he knew less about the facts than we already know about the massacre at Fort Hood.”

We can’t sit back and allow the loss of our freedoms: "We elect the government. It works for us. As we watch the Democrats’ plans for health care take shape, we can only ask how did our government get so removed, so unbridled, so arrogant that it can tell us how to live our personal lives? Last Saturday, at 11 o’clock in the evening, the House of Representatives voted by a five vote margin to have the federal government manage the health care of every American at a cost of $1 trillion dollars over the next ten years.”

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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