Who is this guy?

Peggy Noonan raises the questions that most Americans have already been pondering in their own minds for the past couple of years. A quote from her column, dated August 27, 2010:

When the American people have looked at the presidents of the past few decades they could always sort of say, "I know that guy." Bill Clinton: Southern governor. Good ol' boy, drawlin', flirtin', got himself a Fulbright. "I know that guy." George W. Bush: Texan, little rough around the edges, good family, youthful high jinks, stopped drinking, got serious. "I know that guy." Ronald Reagan was harder to peg, but you still knew him: small-town Midwesterner, moved on and up, serious about politics, humorous, patriotic. "I know that guy." Barack Obama? Sleek, cerebral, detached, an academic from Chicago by way of Hawaii and Indonesia. "You know what? I don't know that guy!"

Who among us can say that they really have an understanding of who he is, what he thinks, where he comes from?

What Were You Thinking?

Transparency? You decide...

The Failure of Liberal Governance

From the Wall Street Journal today:

To fix the economy, Democrats sent federal spending to peacetime heights in the name of replacing private investment with "public demand." But instead of spurring recovery, this spending spree has retarded it by frightening the public and business about future tax increases and the rising burden of public debt. The new jobs Democrats promised still haven't arrived, and while the recovery should finally produce job growth this year, Americans know they have received little for their $862 billion in "stimulus."

The rest of Mr. Obama's liberal agenda has foundered on its own overreaching implausibility. To fight the speculative threat of global warming, Democrats have tried to impose vast new taxes to raise energy prices. To address rising health-care costs, they proposed huge new health subsidies and political control of medical decisions. Medicare is heading toward bankruptcy, yet Mr. Obama's response is to make the entire health-care system like Medicare. And to fix the financial system, they have declared war on bankers while proposing reforms that would do little to prevent future bank bailouts.

Read the entire article here.

What Were You Thinking?

Awaken, O America

The Obama Disconnect

Peggy Noonan points out the disconnect between our current president and the people of the country. It's not just a rhetorical disconnect, not just an iconic disconnect. No, these reflect a deeper disconnect, the truly problematic one, and that is over policy. Read the article here.

"What Were You Thinking?"

Criminal Activity or Terrorism

L. Gordon Crovitz' article in today's Wall Street Journal points out the fallacy of treating suspects in the war on Terror the same way we would treat potential terrorists. The Obama administration has taken us back to the pre-911 days of the Clinton administration, and is making it easier, not harder, for those who hate our country to plot and conduct their murderous mayhem.

"What Were You Thinking?"

Obama and Post-Modern Rascism

A thoughtful article yesterday by Shelby Steele in the Wall Street Journal suggests that the Emperor has no clothes. Steele says:

I think that Mr. Obama is not just inexperienced; he is also hampered by a distinct inner emptiness - not an emptiness that comes from stupidity or a lack of ability but an emptiness that has been actually nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the political world.

The nature of this emptiness becomes clear in the contrast between him and Ronald Reagan. Reagan reached the White House through a great deal of what is called "individuating" - that is he took principled positions throughout his long career that jeopardized his popularity, and in so doing he came to know who he was as a man and what he truly believed.

He became Ronald Reagan through dissent, not conformity. And when he was finally elected president, it was because America at last wanted the vision that he had evolved over a lifetime of challenging conventional wisdom. By the time Reagan became president, he had fought his way to a remarkable certainty about who he was, what he believed, and where he wanted to lead the nation.

Mr. Obama's ascendancy to the presidency could not have been more different. There seems to have been very little individuation, no real argument with conventional wisdom, and no willingness to jeopardize popularity for principle. To the contrary, he has come forward in American politics by emptying himself of strong convictions, by rejecting principled stands as "ideological," and by promising to deliver us from the "tired" culture-war debates of the past. He aspires to be "post-ideological," "post-racial" and "post-partisan," which is to say that he defines himself by a series of "nots" - thus implying that being nothing is better than being something. He tries to make a politics out of emptiness itself.

"What Were You Thinking?"

Smarter Security, not More Money

The Heritage Foundation published an article this morning regarding how our bloated Federal bureaucracy is responding to the recent foiled terror attack. Read the article; here's a tidbit from it:

"The Flight 253 attack was the 28th foiled terror plot against the United States since 9/11. What is notable is that of the 28 failed plots, 26 were stopped by intelligence, military, and law enforcement agencies. Only two were stopped by citizens on the scene - Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in 2009, and Richard Reid in 2001. In both these cases, America just got lucky - the plots were clumsy and the passengers and crew responded bravely and quickly. There are many valuable lessons to be learned from the failed Christmas attack on a Detroit-bound airliner; throwing more money at airline security is not one of them."

"What Were You Thinking?"

Tiger and Barack

Lisa Schiffren wrote an article on the American Thinker back on December 8 titled "Tiger, Barack, and the Law of Transitivity." It's quite interesting in its premise: the squeaky-clean image of Tiger Woods was a creation of businesses interested in extracting money from the public, and is very similar to the image created for Barack Obama leading up to the election of 2008. In both cases the image that was created, and widely believed, was significantly different from the personal reality of the individual. Give it a read.

"If I were watching the public's disgust with the newly revealed Tiger Woods from an office in the West Wing, I'd be concerned. Because Barack Obama is about as completely manufactured a political character as this nation has seen. His meteoric rise, without the inconvenience of a public record or accomplishments, and the public's willing suspension of critical evaluation of his résumé allowed his handlers and the media to project whatever they wanted to on his unfurrowed brow."

"What Were You Thinking?"

Hentoff: America under Obama

John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute conducts an interview with Nat Hentoff, of whom Whitehead says, "he has angered nearly every political faction and remains one of a few who has stuck to his principles through his many years of work, regardless of the trouble it stirred up."

Hentoff speaks to many of the issues of the day, including government health care, unemployment, public education, and the Fourth Amendment.

"What Were You Thinking?"

An Overdue Debunking

Cal Thomas's column in today's paper carried the title indicated above. In the archives, it's titled "The Flathead Society." Either way, if you have an interest in joining the debate over global warming you would do well to give it a read.

Cal cites an essay by Dr. Leonard Weinstein, a NASA research scientist with over 30 years of experience.

Attack on America Redux

"What Were You Thinking?"

American History, as mis-told by Harry Reid

There's no shortage of lunacy and outright lies coming from the left side of the political spectrum. Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev) recently mis-represented the women's suffrage and emancipation movements as having been blocked by Republicans. In fact, it was members of his own party that blocked and obstructed such advances.

Read John Fund's story in the Wall Street journal, setting the record straight.

"What Were You Thinking?"

Mr Independant

Mr. Lieberman notes that the public option serves no other purpose: "It doesn't help one poor person get insurance who doesn't have it now. It doesn't compel one insurance company to provide insurance to somebody who has an illness. And . . . it doesn't do anything to reduce the cost of insurance."

Mr. Lieberman dismisses Democratic arguments that it is necessary to keep insurers honest. "Sometimes the private sector does things that are wrong, and when they do, you regulate—sometimes you litigate," he says. "But never in the history of America . . . have we tried to keep one industry honest by having government go into that business to compete with the industry."

Read Joe Lieberman's article in the Wall Street Journal.

"What Were You Thinking?"

Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation

A message from Abraham Lincoln, delivered on October 3, 1863...

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

 

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

 

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

 

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

 

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

 

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

A far cry from the current administration.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"

Mindless Mantra of "Diversity"

Read what Ann Coulter has to say about diversity at WorldNetDaily. Here's a blurb to whet your appetite:

"Never in recorded history has diversity been anything but a problem. Look at Ireland with its Protestant and Catholic populations, Canada with its French and English populations, Israel with its Jewish and Palestinian populations.

Or consider the warring factions in India, Sri Lanka, China, Iraq, Czechoslovakia (until it happily split up), the Balkans and Chechnya. Also look at the festering hotbeds of tribal warfare - I mean the beautiful mosaics - in Third World hellholes like Afghanistan, Rwanda and South Central L.A.

'Diversity' is a difficulty to be overcome, not an advantage to be sought. True, America does a better job than most at accommodating a diverse population. We also do a better job at curing cancer and containing pollution. But no one goes around mindlessly exclaiming: 'Cancer is a strength!' 'Pollution is our greatest asset!' "

"What Were You Thinking?"

The Winds of Change

"What Were You Thinking?"

Reagan's Role

This morning from the Heritage Foundation:

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin and said: "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

On November 9, 1989, just two years after Reagan made his Brandenburg Gate speech, the people of Germany did tear down "this wall" and in so doing they freed hundreds of millions of people from the tyranny of communism. Reagan by no means single-handily brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall, but his leadership against despotism was widely recognized by the victims of communism. When he visited Poland in 1990, a dissident leader presented Reagan with a sword explaining: "I am giving you this saber for helping us to chop off the head of communism."

But the leftists in America do not want us to remember Reagan’s role in history. That is why President Barack Obama (the same man who found time to jet to Copenhagen at the drop of a rumor that his presence could win the Olympics for his hometown of Chicago) could not be bothered to attend the 20th anniversary of the wall’s fall last night. Instead, President Obama taped a video message that completely failed to mention Reagan or British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

More than petty partisan slights are at stake here. President Obama’s refusal to recognize the role President Reagan’s and Prime Minister Thatcher’s leadership played in defeating despotism goes to the core of Obama’s foreign policy priorities. Heritage scholar Nile Gardiner explains:

Barack Obama simply does not view the world as Reagan did, in terms of good versus evil, as a world divided between the forces of freedom on one side and totalitarianism on the other. For the Obama administration the advancement of human rights and individual liberty on the world stage is a distinctly low priority, as we have seen with its engagement strategy towards the likes of Iran, Burma, Sudan, Venezuela and Russia.

We commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall to celebrate the collapse of communism, to honor those who died resisting communism, and to resolve that never again will peoples and nations allow so evil a tyranny to terrorize the world.

Yet, at a time when the United States currently faces challenges as complicated as those confronted by Reagan (war in Afghanistan, the global fight against Islamist terrorism, the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran) Obama is bent on apologizing for our nation’s actions, betraying Cold War allies, and dithering on troop deployments.

"What Were You Thinking?"

November 7, 2009: a Day that will Live in Infamy

You can find a link to the text of H.R 3962, the Pelosi health-care bill passed by the House of Representatives, HERE. You can read a short summary of what's in those 1,900+ pages, by Betsy McCaughey at Wall Street Journal, HERE.

If you think people ought to be thrown in jail for not buying insurance, you'll probably love the bill. If you think old folks are getting off easy today, you'll love what's gonna happen to them when this bill goes into effect. If you think that all the uninsured will get free health care, you're sadly mistaken. If you think that you personally will benefit, you're probably wrong about that, too.

"Every Medical Insurance Decision will be subject to Rationing by Politics!"

"What Were You Thinking?"

WSJ on ObamaCare

If you're the sort of person that wants to know what's going on in the debate over health-care reform, you might consider looking at this Wall Street Journal web page. They have links in one place on many (all?) of the articles they've published on this issue.

"What Were You Thinking?"