Actually Democracy is more of a one edged sword. It was well understood by the founders that Democracy would ultimately lead to enslavement as more and more groups of people would begin to vote themselves paychecks in a downward spiral of disenfranchisement that would ultimately gut the goose laying the golden eggs. This is why we are not a federal democracy, but a republic. For most people who attended high school before Jimmy Carter’s Board of Education kicked in, this would have been a basic lesson learned in American Govt. 101 class.

However, Gelb and his ilk have insisted for decades, subtly and otherwise, that democracy is the crowning jewel of our system. Then, they act all surprised when misguided “groups” of voters make the “consistently bad decision” to pack D.C. with people like Obama and his suicidal advisers.

But no matter, really – Gelb will be well-padded by his sweet retirement package earned by all the years he spent promoting democracy at the NYT and elsewhere, while the rest of us will be covered to some degree by the welfare checks he helped us get – so by all means, let Democracy reign – at least we’ll all have plenty of spare time to keep bowing toward Mecca for all those damned prayers.

I am in agreement with you.

But I was trying to understand how Gelb might be thinking, and why he wrote what he wrote.

” Perhaps Gelb is incensed at this because he’s old enough to remember when all presidents, Democrat or Republican, knew what was necessary diplomatically on the world stage, even though they might have disagreed with each other on some of the details.”

I agree with all the comments upthread that point out there’s no evidence Obama is exceptionally bright. Even so, if Obama was just bumbling then even by accident he’d occasionally do what was necessary on the world stage. The fact that he consistently does the opposite means he and his “brain trust” do know what would be necessary diplomatically. That’s the only way he could have accumulated his track record.

She continues:

“And Gelb remembers a world when, for the most part, people actually recognized when things weren’t going well, admitted that they needed a change of personnel, and wanted aides under them who knew their stuff.”

But things are going exactly how he wants them to go. Why would he change a thing? He’s a second rate intellect, true. But he hired third raters not because he doesn’t want to be exposed, but because he is focused on the results. He’s achieving what he set out to achieve. If his policies are a train wreck at home and abroad it’s because he only wanted to be President to wreck the train.

The leftist Eurotrash understood that; that’s why the gave him a Nobel Peace Prize as a down payment.

But a good songwriter.

http://www.sisterschoice.com/mal-bio.html

I agree that the march was not a farce for those who are prepared to follow through. If Merkel does that, then great.

I also agree that Obama’s presence (or a high-ranking aide’s presence) would have meant something in symbolic terms—solidarity with the forces working against terrorism. His absence, however, spoke even louder.

[i hear he has booked kermit the frog to sing its not easy being green to make the keystone protests seem relevant… ]

Two approaches have been suggested to shield goal
striving from distraction: ignoring the distraction (i.e., by forming temptation-inhibiting plans) and amplifying the desired behavior.

Not only do they do this, but the best (most successful) learn to builid a world around themselves in which their only idea of what is in the real world is what they read that gets through the slot in the door.

Gollwitzer (1993, 1999) proposed that individuals can improve rates of goal attainment by planning out their goal striving in the form of implementation intentions. Implementation intentions are highly elaborated if — then plans that include both a relevant situational cue (e.g., if I hear a distraction) and a concrete response (e.g., then I will ignore it).

button washers and bottle sorters…

ultimately, it becomes a way of life, a way of dealing with the world, combined with the politics of who to pretend to pay attention to.

by the time they are full fledged, they have a wealth of skills related to avoiding reality so that they can delve and get into what they really want to do vs being a whole person (like the smart men of the past who brought us here).

ultimately they even claim that they are putting aside the pleasures of the world to work, but in truth they are addicted to their work and are using avoidance skills to maximize their addiction, while using the putting aside pleasures thing to protect their image as being a martyr is a lot better than being an academic addict who gets off thinking and being rewarded with the right answers for pulling a lever in the limited areas that they find appealing.

so they live a ticky tacky life..
going from the prek box, to the kindergarten box, to the grade school box, to the junior high box, to the high school box, the two year box, the 4 year box, the graduate school box, the university box, the academia box… whereby they are all the same ticky tacky people with ticky tacky ideas… they buy houses that are copies of others and live their ticky tacky lives.

they live their lives in “little boxes” in which they plug up all the outside world, and read what they get in their slots, and try to fix the outside world from that limited space… what thye know of muslims is what comes from the slot which gives them politically correct information that is like a block of swiss cheese, full of holes, holes they dont know are there and have no way of percieving are missing… (such is the quality of missing).

they apply very eroneous methods and cry from their little boxes that someone outside their world should do something… they cry to the collective of box sitters “we must”, in hopes that others will get out of their boxes and act to fix the problem BEFORE they have to get out, and BEFORE such things force their way into their ticky tacky lives..

Gelb did not care what was happening, because it was not happening to jews… he did not care he was siding with anti semites, because he was told socialism and antisemitism are not one and the same… he never learned the real nature of things, because who feeds the slot finds him useful as an athorityh for others to use as a means of affirmation of their ideas.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.