The Cognitive Dissonance of His Glibness

[DougMacG]

Obama's Boston statement would sound sincere and Presidential if he didn't say nearly the same thing about Benghazi before it was swept under the carpet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh6Lc5vmO0o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1gF0I2Ecmw

----

In other news, the Sec. of State on who bombed Boston:  WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE NOW?

[DougMacG]

Tom Perez as Sec of Labor should fit in just fine with the Obama cabinet:
----
Perez gave false testimony to the Civil Rights Commission about the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. Under oath, Perez said that no “political leadership” at DOJ was involved in the decision not to pursue that matter. But a federal district court judge (Reggie Walton) found that internal Justice Department documents “contradict” this testimony.

Perez made false statements to investigators who looked into a deal he orchestrated with the City of St. Paul. Under Perez’s deal, the DOJ caused the dismissal of a suit against the City of St. Paul, one that could have netted $180 million to U.S. taxpayers, in exchange for the City’s agreement to drop a Supreme Court appeal (in the case of Magner v. Gallaher), the outcome of which might have invalidated DOJ’s pet method of proving racial discrimination in housing cases.

The Wall Street Journal describes Perez’s dishonesty over this quid pro quo arrangement:

    Mr. Perez told investigators he hadn’t heard of the Magner case until the Supreme Court agreed to hear it on November 7, 2011. But HUD Deputy Assistant Secretary Sara Pratt told investigators that she and Mr. Perez had a discussion about the case well before that.

    Mr. Perez also says he didn’t propose the quid pro quo. But St. Paul’s lawyer, David Lillehaug, testified that Mr. Perez first called him on November 23, 2011 to discuss Magner and on November 29 met him to propose a “potential solution”: the quid pro quo. It defies logic to believe St. Paul wanted to drop a case it had been fighting for nearly a decade and after the High Court had finally agreed to hear it.

Perez has worked in additional ways to cover-up his involvement in the quid pro quo.

    On January 10, 2012, Mr. Perez left a voicemail for Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Brooker, instructing him not to link Magner and Newell in the memo explaining why Justice wouldn’t intervene in Newell.

    Mr. Perez also told investigators he didn’t have “any recollection” of using his personal email to correspond about the quid pro quo. . .Congressional investigators later discovered a personal email Mr. Perez sent to St. Paul’s lawyer, Mr. Lillehaug, on December 10, 2011. They have subpoenaed Mr. Perez for his Verizon email account, but Mr. Perez has not complied with the subpoena.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/04/will-senate-republicans-turn-a-blind-eye-to-tom-perezs-dishonesty.php
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/26/insuring-racial-discrimination/
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/07/high-ranking-doj-official-gave-false-testimony-about-voter-intimidation-case.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/03/how-tom-perez-traded-u-s-money-to-protect-pet-race-discrimination-theory.php
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323346304578426950656708348.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Crafty_Dog]

http://teapartyorg.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=4301673%3ATopic%3A1496560&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rqtJrJ40Cio

This is over three hours long.  I am told it starts to really get traction at about 1:02:00

[Crafty_Dog]

1) Oballah

2)   Oblahblah

======================

"In the wake of Benghazi, the country endured an intense debate over how much free speech we could afford because of the savage intolerance of rioters half a world away. Obama and Clinton fueled this debate by incessantly blaming the video -- as if the First Amendment was the problem. Clinton and Obama both swore oaths to support and defend the Constitution. But after failing to support and defend Americans left to die, they blamed the Constitution for their failure. That's what difference it makes." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

[DougMacG]

I hope all the uproar over the Benghazi attack lying, IRS shutting down political dissent, White House tracking reporters' phone records, and Secretary Sebelius overtly fundraising from those she wishes to regulate will not draw time and resources away from the administration's commitment to get to the bottom of the FAST AND FURIOUS, dead Mexicans and border guard scandal.

I don't know why I haven't heard an update on that.  Does anyone know when Attorney General gets out of jail for his CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS citation?  Who prosecuted that anyway?

[ccp]

Obama plays monopoly.  Holder gets the "Get out of jail free card".

Axelrod spinning (out of control):

Government *too big* for the Brockster to control.  WOW!

Axelrod IS (from my armchair view) the guy who needs an investigation.  This is the guy who probably needs to be in jail.  It appears he is the source of this corruption.   Of course Obama gives him the nods.  But obamster is just the front man.  He is not the strategist brains.  I am not sure if Axelrod is the only one but he is probably the head of the politburo. 

There is something sickening on how all this only is going nuclear because as Crafty (the media "ox is being gored") and many others on radio are pointing out because that the media were being spied on.
Otherwise they would still be covering for their ONE.   I can only say the media entertainment complex does a lot of spying and snooping including much of it illegally of their own.  They hold tremendous power.   More than ever by far.   

But if this is what it takes to get Obama for his crimes than so be it.  It is "manna from heaven".  Hey how come the media is not being accused of going after the Black guys Obama and Holder.  Where is Geraldo:

"this is all about RACE afterall, no?"  that idiot.  Well he is only half Jewish.  That's explains him.  I still don't understand the 75% who support the crats....

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348346/scarborough-goes-axelrod-spinning-ap-tapping-%E2%80%98save-somebody-else-buy-that%E2%80%99

[Crafty_Dog]

What Would Bulworth Do?
Barack Obama's bizarre movie idol.
by JAMES TARANTO

A New York Times story on President Obama's plague of scandal contains this eyebrow-raising revelation:

    Yet Mr. Obama also expresses exasperation. In private, he has talked longingly of "going Bulworth," a reference to a little-remembered 1998 Warren Beatty movie about a senator who risked it all to say what he really thought. While Mr. Beatty's character had neither the power nor the platform of a president, the metaphor highlights Mr. Obama's desire to be liberated from what he sees as the hindrances on him.

    "Probably every president says that from time to time," said David Axelrod, another longtime adviser who has heard Mr. Obama's movie-inspired aspiration. "It's probably cathartic just to say it. But the reality is that while you want to be truthful, you want to be straightforward, you also want to be practical about whatever you're saying."

Perhaps the Times didn't want to spoil the film for its readers--which we are about to do, so please skip the subsequent four paragraphs if you're planning on seeing it and want to be surprised. But the Times's description comes nowhere near doing justice to the film and Beatty's character--and to how strange it is that it is the object of a presidential fantasy.

"Bulworth" is a satire about a politician going through something of a midlife crisis. Sen. Jay Billington Bulworth, a veteran Democrat from California, is a radical leftist at heart, but the exigencies of electoral politics have required him to pose as a moderate. He's up for re-election and running behind a young challenger. His marriage is on the rocks.

Depressed and suicidal, he offers a favorable vote to an insurance company in exchange for a bribe--a $10 million life policy with his daughter as beneficiary. Of course the policy is void if he takes his own life, so he hires a hit man to assassinate him instead.

He drinks heavily, and the combination of alcohol and imminent death has a disinhibiting effect. He begins speaking his mind at campaign events. Then he begins rapping his mind. We're not making this up: "Yo, everybody gonna get sick someday / But nobody knows how they gonna pay / Health care, managed care, HMOs / Ain't gonna work, no sir, not those / 'Cause the thing that's the same in every one of these / Is these m-----f---ers there, the insurance companies! . . . Yeah, yeah / You can call it single-payer or Canadian way / Only socialized medicine will ever save the day! Come on now, lemme hear that dirty word--SOCIALISM!"

The burst of media attention revives his campaign. He begins an affair with a young staffer. Suddenly things are looking better for Bulworth. He cancels the assassination contract and decides to run for president. Then he gets shot anyway--by someone from an insurance company who opposes socialized medicine.

What would it mean for Obama to "go Bulworth"? We suppose we had a hint of it a month ago tomorrow, when he raged against the Senate for rejecting his calls for gun control, a subject on which he had cultivated a pretense of moderation during both his presidential campaigns.

Another example is a June 30, 2003, video of Obama, then a state senator, telling an AFL-CIO gathering: "A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see." Bulworth might have added: But you ain't gonna get it from no insurance company.

Given the revelation that Obama fantasizes about going Bulworth, and the long-established fact that Obama has made statements consistent with the fictitious senator's view that only socialized medicine will ever save the day, it seems to us some apologies are in order from those who insisted it was crazy to think Obama is a socialist. John Avlon should go first.

Let us be clear: We think it unlikely that the president will go Bulworth, and although we're sure we'd enjoy the spectacle, we think it would be bad for the country if he did. An unhinged president would be dangerous to America and the world in a way that an unhinged senator would not.

At any rate, there doesn't seem to be much danger that Obama will go Bulworth. Consider this story from National Journal about Obama's hypovehiculation of the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service:

    Under pressure to show who's boss, President Obama called a press conference late Wednesday to say he was "angry" that the IRS singled out conservative groups for extra vetting and to announce that the agency's acting commissioner had been forced out.

    "It's inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," he said. "I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives."

Unlike the gun-control statement, this one didn't have the feel of being a genuine cry from the heart. Instead, the president seemed to be saying what he had to say.

By contrast, National Review Online notes that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri had some Bulworthy comments about Obama's opponents yesterday on MSNBC's "Hardball": "He has taken control / Of their soul / And their obsession / Is prolonging our recession . . . It's going to be very very, very difficult for us to erase / Some of the things that people have embraced . . . And they simply want this to be a figment / Of his pigmentation."

The prevailing image of Obama in the face of the past week's scandalous revelations is more similar to the weak and aimless Bulworth of the film's beginning. "The challenges underscore a paradox about the 44th president," as that Times piece puts it:

    He presides over a government that to critics appears ever more intrusive, dictating health care choices, playing politics with the Internal Revenue Service and snooping into journalists' phone records. Yet at times, Mr. Obama comes across as something of a bystander occupying the most powerful office in the world, buffeted by partisanship and forces beyond his control.

The scandals have even former White House aide David Axelrod complaining that government is too big. Yesterday he said this to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough:

    Look, it's an interesting case study because if you look at the inspector general's report [on the IRS abuses], apparently some folks down in the bureaucracy--you know we have a large government--took it upon themselves to shorthand these applications for tax-exempt status in a way that was, as I said, idiotic, and also dangerous because of the political implications. One prima facie bit of evidence that nobody political was involved in this, is that if anybody political was involved they would say: Are you nuts?

    Part of being president is there's so much underneath you that you can't know because the government is so vast.

To David Ignatius of the Washington Post, it's all evidence that government is dangerously ineffective:

    The crippling problem in Washington these days isn't any organized conspiracy against conservatives, journalists or anyone else. Rather, it's a federal establishment that's increasingly paralyzed because of poor management and political second-guessing.

    What should frighten the public is not the federal government's monstrous power but its impotence.

But there's a more disquieting interpretation. The Benghazi and IRS scandals were both clearly political in nature: The dissembling about what happened in Libya was manifestly an effort to prevent a foreign-policy disaster from becoming a political problem for the president in the weeks before the election; the IRS abuses were an effort to intimidate and silence the president's political enemies.

What about the Justice Department's decision to cast aside decades-old traditions governing press freedom in order to monitor the communications of Associated Press reporters and editors? This Washington Post report suggests a political motive for that one, too:

    For five days, reporters at the Associated Press had been sitting on a big scoop about a foiled al-Qaeda plot at the request of CIA officials. Then, in a hastily scheduled Monday morning meeting, the journalists were asked by agency officials to hold off on publishing the story for just one more day.

    The CIA officials, who had initially cited national security concerns in an attempt to delay publication, no longer had those worries, according to individuals familiar with the exchange. Instead, the Obama administration was planning to announce the successful counterterrorism operation that Tuesday.

As HotAir.com's "AllahPundit" interprets it: "CIA asked AP not to expose Yemen terror plot bust until White House was ready to crow about it publicly."

If you think about the government in terms of its original mission--"to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty"--then Ignatius is right. It's disturbingly ineffective.

But what if the government between 2009 and 2012 took on a different mandate, namely helping to re-elect Barack Obama? Then the Benghazi and IRS scandals, and possibly the AP one, look frighteningly effective.

If, as Axelrod implies, agents of the government did all this without the president's direction or even knowledge, that is even more frightening. That would mean, to quote a great orator, that the federal government has become "some separate, sinister entity" in which the leaders we entrust with authority cannot be held accountable for its abuse.

[ccp]

Problem is how to stop this regime which runs the US government like a mafia, punish your enemies and pay off your friends.  When nearly half the population is on some sort of assistance.....

http://www.steynonline.com/

How do we ever get mafia dons?

Law enforcement bugs, covertly eaves drop, get witness to turn.   The only strategy we can use here is the latter.  That is why we need a special prosecutor.   But doesn't Justice or the President have to appoint one?

So we are screwed.  

[DougMacG]

"Obama must work to salvage what’s left before Republicans likely win big in 2014, and he goes from being a lame duck to a soiled, sitting duck amid investigation after investigation."

A.B. Stoddard writing at The Hill, 5/15/13.
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/ab-stoddard/300021-a-time-for-humility#ixzz2TlY9dR39

[DougMacG]

The IRS 'heightened scrutiny' targeting of conservative groups in an election year, the Benghazi coverup, the Sebelius story of cronying up with big health care etc., all these known scandals together are but the tip of the iceberg of the misconduct that occurred between the administration and the campaign in the 2012 election.

I am calling for 'heightened scrutiny' of the campaign's "data mining" operation for its collusion with government regarding the supposedly private information owned by the various departments of the governments.  They knew who was African American, they knew who was Hispanic and they knew who all the program recipients were in all the key states.  Is there not one 'low level' Cincinnati Census or food stamp official ready to come forward and tell us how it really worked?!

[DougMacG]

Put my data mining allegation under wildcard, here are the brackets:


Click here for full size view:  http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/351/scandalbracket.png

Who will be the Champion of Obama scandals?  I say a wildcard pick will win it.  We know about the arrogance of power; we just don't yet know all the details.

[ccp]

Some have already suggested we have a fourth scandal though few seem to be paying attention ->  the recess appointments when there was no recess.   

[Crafty_Dog]

If you are counting the non-recess appointments, that would make 5 scandals:

2) Benghazi
3) IRS
4) AP
5) Sebelius shakedown

[DougMacG]

Bob Schieffer, of all people, on Charlie Rose, CBS News, of all places, inadvertently draws the parallel between this administration's handling of it's affairs and the struggle of a young, medicated rock star dealing with illness, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd in Comfortably Numb.  "Is there anyone home?"

Bob Schieffer with Charlie Rose, 5/16/2013:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/05/16/schieffer_on_scandals_its_very_very_disturbing_what_were_seeing.html

"This is more of a case, is anybody home? All of a sudden you have this thing with the Justice Department where they’re getting all these phone records of all the reporters. The Attorney General, well he didn’t know anything about it. You get to the IRS, they don’t seem to know anything about the Tea Party thing. You come to White House, they don’t know anything about Benghazi. Somebody’s got to grab hold of this thing. It’s very, very disturbing what we’re seeing here."

Roger Waters saw it decades ago and called it "Comfortably Numb" (Pink Floyd, The Wall, 1979), brought to life with music and guitar solo by David Gilmour:

Hello, Hello, Hello,
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone home?
...
Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?
...
I can't explain
You would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become Comfortably Numb
...
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move
But I can't hear what you're saying
...
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become Comfortably Numb

[DougMacG]

This President, oblivious to unintended consequences, is the master of them.  Who knew that withdrawing from war would spark new violence there, that abandoning support for an ally in Egypt would empower anti-Americans there, that launching a war on gun and ammunition sales would boost sales in that industry to record levels, or that launching a war against employers would come back to bite employees?  Who knew?

Now President Obama has achieved what President Reagan could only dream of:  Putting distrust of government on the front page of every newspaper, even the liberal ones, day after day after day.

President Obama's answer to every scandal is that this government is so large I have no idea what is going on in any part of it, please hand me a 5-iron.

[ccp]

Nothing like turning a weekend that is supposed to be reserved to honor our military by turning it to yet another lecture from the ONE.  This is the strategy - triangulate.   He is above and isolated from all the lies, the scandals, the cover-ups, the abuse of his office.   Just sickening folks.   This guy has no shame.   He is a Clinton clone - only more radical:

http://news.yahoo.com/politics/

[DougMacG]

Upon advice and wisdom of leadership, I move my Eric Holder post from yesterday to here.  I agree that these personal threads can detract from the issue threads.  These cabinet officials running wild are only relevant in that the unelected A.G. in this case was chosen by the President who continues to stand by him.  That said, Eric Holder is quite a piece of work, loaded with power and worthy of further study and discussion.
----
...Holder got his honesty and scandal handling training as Deputy A.G. for the Clintons so he is a confidant of both camps.  One might say only half-jokingly, he knows where there bodies are buried.

Here is Michael Ramirez with picture worth more than a thousand words, describing the current investigation of Holder investigating Holder.


Before Fast and Furious, Eric Holder had already made a name for himself.  "When he pushed through the pardon of Marc Rich, he didn’t know Rich had assisted America’s enemies, including Iran, or that Rich’s wife had donated large sums to Democratic and Clinton interests."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/05/eric-holders-pattern-of-giving-false-testimony.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/01/the-moment-of-truth-about-eric-holders-moment-of-truth.php

Also among Holder's work was the pardons of the FALN terrorists, and lying about legal work done for Blagojevich, famous as the convicted seller of the Obama Senate seat.

Holder has stated under oath that he didn't know about the Fox News wiretapping when it was he who signed the complaint and handling the judge shopping.

In his opening remarks for confirmation, Holder stated that law enforcement must be untainted by politics. He also insisted that the Department of Justice represents the people, not the president.

Let's judge him by his own standard.

[ccp]

WH alters Michelle transcript.   

No surprise.

One can only wonder how many secret emails, white house transcripts of IRS meetings, Benghazi communications are being deleted and hard drives switched or altered as we speak.

Last resort is going to Library of Congress to stuff papers down your underwear.....

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/04/michelle-obama-heckled-at-dnc-event-threatens-to-leave/

[DougMacG]

The LA Times calls them the "liberal hawks":  http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-heilbrunn-obama-rice-power-20130607,0,4704730.story

There is too much material from these two to even know where to start.  A contributor at Politico today says Susan Rice is a great choice because of character, strong ethical standards and a clear lens of strategic analysis. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/susan-rice-and-samantha-power-up-close-92279.html  Same Susan Rice who analyzed Benghazi and told it straight to the nation.  Rice has a history of other problems well documented in the forum.

Samantha Power, architect of the world apology tour, is quite a bit scarier.  Before getting to her statements, take a look at the fascist-left views of Cass Sunstein, her husband, writing about one of his favorite subjects, justifying coercive paternalism, which means opposing individual liberty, which I wrote about here: http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2177.msg70158#msg70158  and was picked up by the WSJ here:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324105204578382572446778866.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

Washington Free Beacon: Samantha Power’s Five Worst Statements
http://freebeacon.com/samantha-powers-five-worst-statements/

Samantha Power will take over at as ambassador to the United Nations following Susan Rice’s promotion to national security adviser. Here are Power’s five most embarrassing comments.

1. Power called for global apology tour

Power wrote that U.S. foreign policy “needs not tweaking but overhauling,” in a 2003 New Republic article.  Power recommended that United States officials should apologize to the world for its past failures in order to enhance credibility with foreign countries.

“A country has to look back before it can move forward,” Power wrote. “Instituting a doctrine of the mea culpa would enhance our credibility by showing that American decision-makers do not endorse the sins of their predecessors.”

She reasoned that terrorists depend for their sustenance on “mainstream anti-Americanism throughout the world,” and that anti-Americanism is the fault of the United States.

“Some anti-Americanism derives simply from our being a colossus that bestrides the earth,” argued Power. “But much anti-Americanism derives from the role U.S. political, economic, and military power has played in denying such freedoms to others.”

2. Power recommended the United States intervene with a “Mammoth Protection Force” in Israel, then called the idea “weird”

Power made several recommendations on what the United States should do to alleviate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which she compared to the Rwandan genocide, in a 2002 discussion at Berkeley.

Though she stopped just short of calling it genocide, she did say that she saw “major human rights abuses” in Israel.  Power advised that the United States should stop spending money on the Israeli military, and instead invest billions in a new Palestinian state.

“It may mean sacrificing—or investing I think more than sacrificing—literally billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the new state of Palestine,” Power explained.

She continued by recommending that the United States invest billions to send “a mammoth protection force” in order to create a “meaningful military presence” in Israel.

One of the few concerns for Power was that such action would alienate the pro-Israel lobby in the United States.  “Putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import,” Power said.

3. Power praised Obama’s willingness to meet with enemies without preconditions

Power offered praise for President Barack Obama’s statement that he was willing to meet with rogue leaders without preconditions in the first year of his administration.  According to the Huffington Post, Power saw this statement by Obama as a turning point for his campaign and talked positively of his staunch insistence on the point.

“I can tell you about the conference call the day [after Obama made the proclamation],” she recalled. “People were like, ‘Did you need to say that?’ And he was like ‘yeah, definitely.’”

4. Power lost her job with Obama for calling Hillary Clinton a “monster”

Power was forced to resign from Obama’s presidential campaign for calling Hillary Clinton a “monster” in 2008.  The comments came during an interview with a Scottish newspaper.

“She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything,” Power said.

She went into depth on what she believed were deceitful tactics by the Clinton campaign.  “You just look at her and think, ‘Ergh.’ But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive.”

 5. Power on John Kerry: “He must have thought that having got shrapnel in his ass out there bought him some credibility. It didn’t.”

Power had strong words for Secretary of State John Kerry following his failed 2004 campaign for president.  Power thinks that it was a mistake for Kerry to assume his military record alone would be enough to deflect attacks on the merits of his service in Vietnam.

“The lesson we got was that the only thing worse than John Kerry being Swiftboated was his being slow to respond,” Power told the New Statesman. “God love him, he must have thought that having got shrapnel in his ass out there bought him some credibility. It didn’t.”
-----
Same paper, Susan Rice's 5 worst moments:   http://freebeacon.com/susan-rices-worst-5-moments/

[ccp]

FWIW Levin theorizes that Brock the Great's apt of Rice is not much ado about in your face "Republican boy" as bribe to her to shut her up from turning on the "One"/

[DougMacG]

Historian Victor Davis Hanson puts context on the current mess. Obama is just being Obama, 'who changed the rules?'

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/  June 9, 2013

Suddenly, half the country is upset with Obama for the recent flurry of scandals. Even some in the media are perplexed. Why the sudden angst, given that Obama is simply being Obama? We, not he, changed the rules.

Once Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois legislature, his career as a statesman was mostly an afterthought — either voting “present” on controversial legislation (cf. Hillary’s 2008 complaint) or simply showing up to sign off on a straight left-wing agenda. Even his supporters can cite no lasting legislative achievement other than his controversial votes to allow babies born alive from botched abortions to be liquidated. As a political unknown, he got elected and defined his tenure as a legislator into a perpetual effort to find higher office.

Ditto the U.S. Senate.  Obama was noted in his brief career mostly for compiling the most partisan record among a diverse group of 100 senators, while making the argument that he worked “across the aisle” and was a model of “bipartisanship.” Because newly elected Senator Obama swore that he would not run for the presidency, we inferred that he would certainly do just that. (Yes, it is axiomatic that when Obama swears ["make no mistake about it"/"let me be perfectly clear"], then we expect what will follow will prove to be the very opposite.)

In the Senate, there was no signature legislation, no principled opposition, not much of anything, except a vote against Justice Alito and some similarly failed efforts at other filibusters to deny nominees an up-or-down vote.  He spent most of his brief sojourn attacking George W. Bush for the very protocols that he as president would later embrace. The only thing important was getting elected in the first place as a left-wing senator, and Obama accomplished that in brilliant, if not Machiavellian, fashion — with the help of the leaked divorced records of both his primary and general opponents.

The Man Who Never Was

The saga of Obama is marked by the uncanny ability to soar through the academic and government cursus honorum without ever being held too accountable for what followed. Obama’s selection as editor of the Harvard Law Review broke new ground. But to this day, no one cares much that his record was mediocre with no scholarly work to show for his tenure.

For that matter, ditto also his law career at the University of Chicago: an impressive appointment, but no scholarly book as promised, not even an article, and no distinguished record of teaching. Not much of anything. The point of the Nobel Prize was winning it — not doing anything that might have earned it. Just as there was no foreign policy achievement that preceded the prize, so there was naturally none following it. Why expect anything different now?

The Mind of the Liberal Elite

Obama always has a unique insight into a disturbing pathology among wealthy white liberal elites, who often seek, in condescending fashion, to promote particular aspiring minority candidates into positions of power and influence by virtue of their profile rather than past record. Hence the prep-schooled Barry Dunham returned to the more exotic Barack Obama, an authentic enough “other” fresh out of Rev. Wright’s Church, but also the pet of the Ivy League. Had he been born in Chicago to a Daily ward boss, it would have been a bit much to win statewide office. Had Obama been named Reggie Davis I don’t think the liberal resonance would have been there. Had he intoned like Jesse Jackson — all the time — he would have worried big-money liberals. Had his mannerisms been Al Sharpton-like, that would have been a bridge too far. There is something in the liberal mind that ignores the anti-constitutional transgressions of a smooth Eric Holder, but goes berserk over the comparatively minor obfuscations of a twangy Texan Alberto Gonzalez, perhaps along the lines of “how dare he?”  Politics aside, liberal elites would always prefer to hear a Barack Obama fudge than a Clarence Thomas tell the truth.

Obama brilliantly threaded the multicultural, Ivy-League, prep-school, affirmative action, just like us-sorta, yuppie needle. I’ll let you decide whether wealthy liberals practice such racialist paternalism because of feelings of guilt, because of their intrinsic dislike of the NASCAR/Sarah Palin working and middle classes, or as a sort of medieval exemption — the huge “Obama for President” sign on the lawn of the Palo Alto professor means never having to put your kids in schools where some are bused in from East Palo Alto. But what is absolutely non-controversial is that Obama’s prior record as a university undergraduate, a Harvard Law Review editor, a Chicago law lecturer, an Illinois legislator, and a U.S. senator was as undistinguished as his efforts to obtain those posts were absolutely dazzling.

The presidency followed the same earlier script. Obama ran a brilliant campaign both in 2008 and 2012, more inspired even than Richard Nixon’s 1972 CREEP run, or Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” 1984 touchy-feely pastel effort. In 2008, Obama offered cadences of something known as “hope and change” that were supposed to cure the evils of George Bush — and left everything else to the media. The second time around, he turned a decent Mitt Romney into a veritable greedy ogre from the Utah nuthouse, who did everything from ignoring his African-American garbage man to torturing his poor dog to buying pricey horses for his wife who was found guilty of being an equestrian.

But Obama’s record as president? There is pretty much nothing other than ramming through an unpopular takeover of health care, leveraged by political bribes and deemed unworkable even before it is enacted. A “train wreck” is how its author in the Senate dubbed his own legislative offspring.  Otherwise it was golf, down time, and free rein for zealous subordinates to “fundamentally transform America” by any means necessary, usually through administrative fiat and subversions of the vast and always growing bureaucracy.

Obama is now somewhat shocked that a few in the media hold him responsible for lots of bad things that his administration did: destroyed the reputation of the IRS; had a rogue EPA director invent a phony persona; let the HHS secretary shake down PR money from corporations to sell Obamacare; turned the Justice Department into a veritable Stasi enterprise going after the phone records of reporters; reduced the State Department into an arm of the 2012 Obama reelection effort; and helped erode the reputations of both Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, who advanced campaign narratives about Benghazi that were not just untrue, but were demonstrably false the moment they were presented.

So What?

So where’s the beef? Obama, who was given a pass from Rev. Wright to Tony Rezko, is justifiably confused: who now changed the rules? Why should he suddenly be held accountable in a way he never was prior? He signed up to be a transformational president who was above politics, not someone subject to the vagaries of Washington scandals.

The result of the serial dishonesty is that Obama almost immediately reverted to his natural campaign mode, the soaring rhetoric and non-traditional persona that won him everything on the guarantee that there would be no audit, no assessment, no final appraisal. In other words, Obama never really became president of the United States. He simply kept running for the office against “them” even when he is now “them” holding the highest office. So Pavlovian was his campaign mode that he never quite stopped to wonder why he was running against himself — now damning the very abuses of power that he committed, upset only that someone might be disturbed about a record in a manner that they never were at Harvard, in the Senate, or during his first term.

Quo Vadimus?

Where do the scandals lead? To about three more months of Washington inaction. At some point soon, the Democrats will accept that the novelty of Obama in opposition to the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments has worn off. Who cares to hound out our first black president, our first northern liberal commander in chief in a half-century? Likewise the media will strut a bit to show it is not entirely reptilian, but then will revert to the usual hagiography. Why endanger Obamacare, or “lead from behind,” or the apology tours, or the new 50 million on food stamps by cannibalizing your own?

There are lots of metaphors for Obama. Some cite King Henry II, who dreams out loud for advantageous things to follow, only to shed alligator tears when toadies reify his deadly desires (Becket dead? That was a bit much, wasn’t it?). Others cite the clueless Jimmy Carter, whose agendas proved unworkable and ended up as caricatures of a presidency. I still prefer Chauncey Gardiner of Being There. In January 2012, I wrote the following on these pages:

    What got Obama to the presidency was being a man without a past or present, Chauncey Gardiner of Being There — without a college record, a medical record, a scholarly record, or much of a legislative record, the “smartest” president in history without having to say or do anything smart, who “busted hump” his entire life without any proof that he ever did any such thing, who proclaimed himself a greater president than all but three, but left nothing great in his wake, now or in the past. Obama had forgotten that winning non-persona for a time, and so after 2009 fooled himself into thinking out loud that at times he would play a real Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Kennedy, or Reagan.

    But now Obama accepts what he was and always will be — Chauncey Gardiner.

    And just being there is apparently the way to being president a bit longer.

Nothing has changed in the last 18 months, and the Obama presidency remains what it has been since 2009:  a path-breaking candidate who was elected America’s first African-American president; a gifted teleprompted speaker who is as accomplished from a script as he flounders ex tempore; and an opportunist haunted by George Bush and the post-2010 Republican House that are supposed to be responsible for most of what he gets caught for.

Otherwise there is not a lot there—mostly a carnival of McCarthyite (AttackWatch, JournoList, IRS) henchmen and left-wing extremists trying to push through an agenda by any means necessary that the majority of America probably does not welcome.

Obama is perturbed that we question any of this malfeasance. I think he is right to be angry. In his case, we made up the Obama rules that symbolism (not performance) and amnesty (not accountability) count. So why break our covenant with him, and now start asking for concrete and honest accomplishment when the teleprompter was always enough? In 2008, did we ask for the specifics of “the audacity of hope,” or ponder how someone who did not miss a service at Trinity Church (“Yep. Every week. 11 o’clock service”) somehow missed Rev. Wright’s serial racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-American rants? That we now want to know the president’s role in Benghazi, or in the IRS, AP, and Fox scandals is something that was just not part of the smartest-president-in-history bargain—as if once upon a time America ever demanded, “What the hell is your hope and change?”

So as they say here in Selma, “Get over it”.

[ccp]

"Suddenly, half the country is upset with Obama for the recent flurry of scandals"

Well not exactly right.  Half the country has been disgusted with this guy for 5 years now.  But finally there is enough bad news that even the adoring MSM and fellow Dems are getting nervous reading the polls.

"At some point soon, the Democrats will accept that the novelty of Obama in opposition to the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments has worn off."

We'll see if the Republicans can figure it out.  Some have but most are still clueless.

In any case Obama was the front man.  He's got some backup on the stage (holder, Biden) while he is the lead singer.   The real brains are unclear to me.  Axelrod?   Soros?  Probably them and a whole slew of other liberals most likely from the Ivys funded by the entertainment complex and Wall street fascists.

Not only does he give a good tele-prompted speech reading his lines flawlessly with the novel yet annoying (to me anyway) up note at the end of every line he delivers, he has the personality suited for the job.

An effortless liar, narcissistic far beyond simply being confident or even cocky.  Supremely and ruthlessly political and an extraordinary believer in leveling the playing field.  Megalomaniac with only a  conscious to himself.   

Clinton was absolutely narcissistic.  He definitely has many narcissistic traits but I can't really say he rises to the level of being a narcissistic *personality disorder*.   While Clinton is a serial liar he still can garner sympathy as the son of the alcoholic just seeking love and approval.  Hence he was able to adapt to the polls and govern closer to the middle.  It was all about his approval ratings.  Of course polls ratings to count for power as he demonstrated his second term.

Obama on the other hand is far more angry.  Far more about getting even.   Is he white?   Is he black?  Is he Christian?  Is he Muslim?  Is he an American?  The answer to the first four no longer need matter.   He is human.   However with regards to the last one - is he American?   I hope to God most Americans still think that matters.  Many Ivy league libs who are the brains behind Obama, the front man, no longer that is important.  That portends poorly for us.   

[ccp]

It's OK for Obama to have access to everyone's contacts, credit buys, downloads, links, etc. 

Yet he can have media over to the WH for "off the record" meetings whatever the f* that means, and no one has a right to know who these people are.

He can have endless visits to his house scheming and plotting his politics as he works for us yet no one has a right to know.  Yet we have no privacy rights.

As someone for years who has been under surveillance - I can tell you it is not pleasant.  Most people don't think they are targets so they are aloof about this.  Just they wait.

Boehner - This is the leader of the party I have voted for?

[DougMacG]

As the scientific ties between CO2 and warming get weaker and weaker, our glib President tells his closed door, fund raising audiences he is getting ready to double down:

Obama Tells Keystone Foes He Will Unveil Climate Measures

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-13/obama-tells-keystone-foes-he-will-unveil-climate-measures.html

The actions will focus on governing from the executive branch alone, without a check or balance with the legislative branch.

And this guy used to teach constitutional law...

[ccp]

Yes .  He is going to ram as much liberal agenda through as he can over the next 3.5 yrs. 
Now we are going to get involved in Syria.  He we go again with the tail that wags the dog.

Have you noticed the Clintons in the news nearly every day now?

Bush Clinton again?   As much as I don't agree with Bush at least he and his family seem honorable.   I can't say the same for either of the Clintons or Obama.

[Crafty_Dog]

"And this guy used to teach constitutional law..."

Actually IIRC it was one particular Amendment and how to use it for progressive litigation , , ,

[DougMacG]

I don't want to be anti-Michelle, but here she comes, getting all political, with all of the same glibness. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2013/06/13/is-there-another-elected-obama-in-our-future/
Is There Another Elected Obama In Our Future?
"she would likely embrace virtually all of her husband’s economic policies — and could be even further to the left."