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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (295226)	3/5/2009 11:11:40 PM
From: Ruffian	3 Recommendations Respond to of 793931

Was 'Lady Macbeth' behind Barack Obama's snub of Gordon Brown? Posted By: James Delingpole at Mar 5, 2009 at 12:58:55 On US radio's Garrison show today, I was asked for my reaction as a true born Englishman to President Obama's double insult - first the sending back of the Winston Churchill bust, then his snub to Gordon Brown. "Tough one. Really tough one," I said, torn - as most of surely are - between delight at seeing Brown roundly humiliated, and dismay at having the special relationship so peremptorily, cruelly and bafflingly ruptured. Iain Martin is quite right here: no matter how utterly rubbish we have become as a nation in the Blair/Brown years, Britain's friendship is something Obama will come to regret having dispensed with so lightly. This was not the act of a global statesman, but of a hormonal teenager dismissing her bestest of best BFs for no other reason than that she felt like it and she can, so there. What was the guy thinking? In researching my new book Welcome to Obamaland, I discovered that Obama's judgment is pretty dreadful - but this? My favourite theory so far - suggested by presenter Greg Garrison - was that it was a move calculated to please his Lady Macbeth. At the moment in Britain, we're still in the "Doesn't she look fabulous in a designer frock" stage of understanding of Michelle Obama. Gradually, though, we'll begin to realise that she is every bit the terrifying executive's wife that Hillary Clinton was. Or, shudder, Cherie Blair. We may just LURVE Michelle's fashion sense. But Michelle doesn't reciprocate our affection, one bit. Her broad-brush view of history associates Brits with the wicked white global hegemony responsible for the slave trade. Never mind that a white, Tory Englishman - William Wilberforce - brought the slave trade to an end. Judging by her record, Michelle does not make room for such subtle nuance. Consider her notorious statement that: "For the first time in my adult life I am really proud of my country." Consider her (till-recently suppressed) Princeton thesis, "Princeton Educated Blacks And The Black Community." In it she writes: "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second." Here we see that she has mastered the authentic voice of grievance culture. She also - the thesis was written in 1985 - pre-empts the Macpherson report's ludicrous, catch-all definition of racism: "A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person." No matter how hard young Michelle's white undergraduate contemporaries try to be nice, it's not their behaviour that counts, but how Michelle feels. More worrying, though, and dangerous, than young Michelle's desperate quest for validation through victimhood is the other strain within her thesis. "As I enter my final year at Princeton," she writes. "I find myself striving for many of the same goals as my White classmates - acceptance to a prestigious graduate or professional school or a high paying position in a successful corporation. Thus, my goals at Princeton are not as clear as before." "Yes, exactly, you silly girl" you want to shriek at young Michelle as you give her a good shake. "It's called 'opening your mind', 'broadening your experience', 'allowing youthful dogma to be shaped by reality.' It's why people go to university, don't you know?" blogs.telegraph.co.uk

To: LindyBill who wrote (295226)	3/6/2009 12:21:17 AM
From: Joe Btfsplk	4 Recommendations Respond to of 793931

And I will keep dancing in Waikiki Flaunting your wisdom, patience, and judgment, eh? I, too, have some advancing maturity, but don't know how to do that. First, I'm jealous, then scared, pissed, don't know how to ignore this tragedy, wait for it to pass. Teach me to dance?

To: LindyBill who wrote (295226)	3/6/2009 1:47:17 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	5 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793931

Powerline considers the theory put forth by Doug Ross et. al. that Obama is tanking the economy on purpose: It is, I admit, an intriguing theory, but I don't buy it. Obama can't possibly want to be a one-term failure. That's what happened to Jimmy Carter, and Obama must know that it will happen to him, too, if his policies are perceived as dragging down the economy. More likely the explanation is that Obama is an economic illiterate, and subscribes to the idea--which I think is rather common among Democrats--that what the government does has little impact on the economy. Obama likely believes that the economy will recover on its own, and in the meantime--in Rahm Emanuel's immortal words--he shouldn't let the crisis go to waste. So he enacts every left-wing measure that he wanted to do anyway, expecting that when the economy eventually recovers he can take credit for it, even though his policies, if anything, retarded and weakened the recovery. That's a cynical strategy, although not quite as cynical as destroying the economy on purpose; the difference is that it may well work. http://powerlineblog.com/ I'm with the Powerline guys on this one. So far Obama has been cautious in foreign policy and bold in domestic policy. This is his chance to do something big and he's seizing it. Unless the Blue Dogs revolt, there is no opposition he must pay real attention to. *** One question that must be occurring to politicians both inside the US and outside: how does Obama react when he is confronted by someone too powerful to be brushed aside? What does he do when the choice is confront, back down, or pretend to ignore but deal with the consequences? I don't know the answer to this question. I suspect (h/t to Joe Biden) that several foreign leaders will set out to discover the answer. Including Bibi. If push comes to shove, he might feel it necessary to attack Iran with only a bare 'heads up' to the US. Bibi knows the Congress won't take Iran's side over Israel's. The unknown is sizing up Obama's reaction.

To: LindyBill who wrote (295226)	3/6/2009 1:39:45 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793931

Help, please. Are there really 50 million people without insurance, or "health care?" That's about 1/6 of the entire US population. How many people are on welfare in the US? How many people in the US DON'T pay taxes because their income is too low. (What is too low?) Didn't the SCHIP insurance cover all kids that needed to be covered with insurance for medical? For Obama or anyone else to say people don't have health care is a bogus statement. They DO have health care. They go to our emergency rooms for free at great cost to the people who do follow the rules, and purchase insurance to help when we truly have health emergencies.