In addition to the ubiquitous “failure to communicate to stupid-head America,” there’s the equally ubiquitous “we’ve just been too nice and too passive” exhortation to Democrats to fight more.
Anything to avoid looking at the fact that Americans are just not on the same page, policy-wise, as the “progressives” these days.
And here’s an interesting one: it’s not the agenda, stupid, it’s the unemployment. No recognition that perhaps the two might be connected in some way.
Cryptic spambot:
disastrous recliner is the top among the top when it comes to conference choosing base
I think it scans much better as a poem:
disastrous recliner
is the top
among the top
when it comes
to conference choosing base
I was so taken with the mystery of this message from the ether that I Googled “disastrous recliner.” Lo and behold, I came up with this:
In the early models of lift recliners, the actual lifting mechanism was a contraption of heavy duty springs. These springs, once activated, lift the user up and out of the chair and would not stop until the entire chair was in the upright position.
Unfortunately…Depending upon one’s body weight, the catapulting action of spring loaded lift chairs could project the occupant up and away from the chair with potentially disastrous effects.
Be forewarned.
Obama’s current trip abroad doesn’t seem to be going any better for him than the recent election did:
In private meetings with Mr. Obama on Thursday, Chinese President Hu Jintao resisted his pressure on currency revaluation. Mr. Obama also failed to secure a free-trade agreement with South Korea by a deadline he set for Thursday, a blow to a president who has pledged to double U.S. exports over the next five years.
This is not a cause for rejoicing, even for those of us who aren’t exactly Obama fans. The US’s continuing economic woes, disagreement with Obama’s decision that stimulus comes first at the expense of deficit reduction, and Obama’s general domestic political weakness at the moment, are all factors. But I suspect there’s even more to it than that.
When I try to think of any significant foreign policy triumph for Obama since he became president, I pretty much draw a blank. The Nobel Peace Prize wasn’t awarded for any achievement other than mouthing platitudes that the liberals of Western Europe and Scandinavia like to hear. The failure to win the Olympics venue was also relatively unimportant, but it was symbolic of Obama’s wheel-spinning-to-come in foreign lands.
The secret is that word I used earlier: weakness. Obama is still liked abroad, for the most part. But he is not respected, and he is most definitely not feared. I’m afraid that he is considered a genial but inexperienced naif on the world stage.
Of course, not too many presidents have had much relevant background in international negotiation prior to taking on the job, so Obama is hardly unique in that respect. But some of them have had business experience in wheeling and dealing with power players. Or at the very least, they’ve appointed a seasoned Secretary of State to help them. Obama chose Hillary Clinton for that office, and she is virtually as devoid of relevant experience as he. It’s not a good combination.
What’s more, Obama has often seemed oblivious to the gaps in his own knowledge; in fact, he tends to see himself as superior. One of the Obama quotes that most disturbed me during his campaign for the presidency was this:
…[F]oreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain.
It’s ironic because this is supposedly the place where experience is most needed to be Commander-in-Chief. Experience in Washington is not knowledge of the world. This I know. When Senator Clinton brags ”˜I’ve met leaders from eighty countries’”“I know what those trips are like! I’ve been on them. You go from the airport to the embassy. There’s a group of children who do native dance. You meet with the CIA station chief and the embassy and they give you a briefing. You go take a tour of a plant that [with] the assistance of USAID has started something. And then”“you go.”
“You do that in eighty countries””you don’t know those eighty countries. So when I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa”“knowing the leaders is not important”“-what I know is the people. . . .”
“I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college”“I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . . .”
There is something almost shocking about these statements. It’s not just that he’s ignorant of McCain’s rather extensive background of diplomatic travel with senators during his years as Naval liaison to the Senate, which gave him a fair amount of experience (read all about it here). It’s not just that, after these remarks, Obama then went ahead and made Clinton Secretary of State. It’s that he thinks that living in Indonesia forty years ago, as a child of six to ten years old, and any knowledge he did gain of the people there and their way of life, would give him special ability to sit at a negotiating table with foreign leaders and represent our interests. The same for a college trip to Pakistan.
In the realm of foreign policy and negotiation, as well as international economic policy and negotiation (heck, in most realms other than giving a speech containing vague promises and winning an election), I’m afraid that Obama suffers from what Donald Rumsfeld would call unknown unknowns: “things we don’t know we don’t know.” They can be among the most dangerous of all, as Rumsfeld himself came to learn.
[NOTE: This is a slightly-edited repost of an article originally written in 2005.]
Yes, indeed, I am that old—old enough to very vaguely remember when Veterans Day was called Armistice Day, or at least to imagine that I do. The change in names occurred in 1954, when I was very small, in order to accommodate World War II and its veterans.
Since then, the original name has largely fallen out of use—although it remains, like a vestigial organ, in the timing of the holiday: November 11th, which commemorates the day the WWI armistice was signed (eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month).
I’m also old enough–and had a teacher ancient enough—to have been forced to memorize that old chestnut “In Flanders Fields” in fifth grade—although without being given any historical context for it. I think at the time I assumed it was about World War II, since as far as I knew that was the only real war.
You can find the story of the poem here . It was written by a Canadian doctor who served in the European theater (there is no separate URL for the discussion of the poem, but you should click on the “John McCrae´s Poppies in Flander’s Fields” link on the left sidebar). It’s not great poetry, but it was great propaganda to encourage America’s entry into what was known at the time as the Great War.
The poem’s first line “In Flanders fields the poppies blow” introduces the famous flower that later became the symbol of Armistice—and later, Veterans—Day. Why the poppy?
Wild poppies flower when other plants in their direct neighbourhood are dead. Their seeds can lie on the ground for years and years, but only when there are no more competing flowers or shrubs in the vicinity (for instance when someone firmly roots up the ground), these seeds will sprout.
There was enough rooted up soil on the battlefield of the Western Front; in fact the whole front consisted of churned up soil. So in May 1915, when McCrae wrote his poem, around him bloodred poppies blossomed like no one had ever seen before.
But in this poem the poppy plays one more role. The poppy is known as a symbol of sleep. The last line We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields might point to this fact. Some kinds of poppies are used to derive opium from, from which morphine is made. Morphine is one of the strongest painkillers and was often used to put a wounded soldier to sleep. Sometimes medical doctors used it in a higher dose to put the incurable wounded out of their misery.
Now a day to honor those who have served in our wars, Veterans Day has an interesting history in its original Armistice Day incarnation. It was actually established as a day dedicated to world peace, back in the early post-WWI year of 1926, when it was still possible to believe that WWI had been the war fought to end all wars.
The original proclamation establishing Armistice Day as a holiday read as follows:
Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
After the carnage of World War II, of course, the earlier hope that peaceful relations among nations would not be severed had long been extinguished. By the time I was a young child, a weary nation sought to honor those who had fought in all of its wars in order to secure the peace that followed—even if each peace was only a temporary one.
And isn’t an armistice a strange (although understandable) sort of hybrid, after all; a decision to lay down arms without anything really having been resolved? Think about the recent wars that have ended through armistice: WWI, which segued almost inexorably into WWII; the 1948 war following the partition of Palestine; the Korean War; and the Gulf War. All of these conflicts exploded again into violence—or have continually threatened to ever since.
So this Veterans/Armistice Day, let’s join in saluting and honoring those who have fought for our country. The hope that some day war will not be necessary is a laudable one—and those who fight wars hold it, too. But that day has not yet arrived—and, realistically but sadly, perhaps it never will.
We’ve certainly been getting mixed messages today.
When I first saw this piece suggesting that Axelrod had put out the word that Obama was ready to capitulate on the complete list of Bush tax cuts, even for the wealthy, I was surprised.
I was about to write that this was a sign that there might be more compromise—at least on the smaller issues—ahead. That’s something I had thought might happen: a few compromises on smaller things so that Obama could point to his own “bipartisanship” and the terrible intransigence of the vicious Republicans on the larger things.
But now comes the denial from Axelrod: That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.
Axelrod informed NationalJournal that the earlier report was incorrect:
Senior White House adviser David Axelrod said this morning that President Obama has not caved to GOP demands on the extension of the Bush tax cuts, despite a report to the contrary.
“We’re willing to discuss how we move forward,” Axelrod said in an e-mail to National Journal rebutting the Huffington Post story, “but we believe that it’s imperative to extend the tax cuts for the middle class, and don’t believe we can afford a permanent extension of tax cuts for the wealthy.”
So, which is it? The entire dance appears to me, at least so far, to be the usual sending out of purposely conflicting messages, designed to confuse and to give the appearance of conciliation to those who are hoping for that outcome, and the appearance of holding the line to those who are looking for that one.
Obama has done this before, notably on issues of gay rights. It often has had the effect of infuriating both sides.
Okay, this is the proof of what I’ve come to suspect: that Pelosi is actually a Republican mole.
But seriously, folks, should it be a surprise to anyone that she’s digging in? The woman is tenaciousness personified, and digging in is her specialty. It’s rewarded her handsomely in the past.
On the other hand, she loves power, and she’s been stripped of some of hers. Would that not argue for a resignation?
Well, she’s been stripped of some of her power, but certainly not all. Minority Leader isn’t Speaker, but still, it’s nothing to sneeze at. Clearly, she nourishes dreams of one of the greatest comebacks in history. And she knows that she may not have a lot of keen competition for the role of Minority Leader at the present demoralized moment for the Democratic Party.
I’m not in the habit of making predictions, but I’ll make a small one here: if Pelosi wants to retain her leadership of House Democrats, she will. The Blue Dogs are too small and weak to oust her. The outcome will really depend, however, on how much silent and hidden support the Blue Dogs have among the now largely liberal remainder of Democrats in the House. My guess is that the majority of them are in Nancy’s camp, either allied with her ideologically, beholden to her in a host of other ways, or some combination of both.
…I’d have to admit that he’s telling the truth here, and that it’s an admirable sentiment (although nice guys sometimes finish last):
I do believe in the institution of the presidency, and I didn’t think it was right then, I still don’t think it’s right to engage in name-calling if you’re the president of the United States.
And I’d have to observe that the current occupant of the White House disagrees with that policy—at least, as long as he’s the one who’s president and doing the name-calling.
Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker details how voting for Obama’s agenda did in the House Democrats this election cycle.
And then he concludes they should have done more of the same.
Yes, they should have pressed ahead and passed even more unpopular leftist programs, since they were going to be voted out anyway:
My takeaway from all this? If a President has big majorities in Congress and commits to a bold and controversial agenda, he should stick with it to the bitter end, pushing the system as far as it will go during the two-year interval he has between congressional elections. Obama took his foot off the pedal this year after the first sign of the conservative backlash appeared in the form of Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts. But it’s difficult to see how the results of the midterm election would have been much different had he pressed ahead with more stimulus and a comprehensive energy bill, the two most important items left unaddressed and which now have no prospect of passage.
This is exactly the sort of liberal “logic” that is so toxic and disturbing. We’ve got the power, let’s use it while we can, whatever the public might want. Power to us, not the people.
During the height of the HCR battle, I wrote about this phenomenon in my Weekly Standard piece entitled “Congress Becomes Madison’s ‘Overbearing Majority,'” in which I offered the following quote from Madison’s Federalist Paper No. 10:
Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people”¦
Lizza and many others advocate doing just that, without apology and without shame. Of course, he professes to believe (and in fact may actually believe) that it’s in the people’s interests; they are just too stupid to know it.
On the other hand, in this WaPo piece by Obama supporter Ruth Marcus, she seems to get it [emphasis mine]:
The president’s self-diagnosis in his post-election news conference was dominated by the assessment that voters had simply failed to grasp – and that his failure lay chiefly in explaining clearly enough – why the administration took the steps it did…
If only the poor dears had a better grasp.
I write this from a perspective of sympathy with Obama’s aims and overall support for his performance over the past two years. But Obama’s dismissive analysis omits the non-emergency choices he made – primarily to press for and, in the end, muscle through the passage of health-care reform – and the ensuing discomfort of voters.
Discomfort that is entirely understandable, even to those of us who supported health-care reform.
She ends with the following cautionary words:
Democrats are making a big mistake if they think their problem was as simple as not enough talking.
Marcus has been carrying water for Obama for a long, long time. But somehow she has finally managed to do what seems so rare on the Obama side: to see those who disagree as reasonable and well-meaning, and motivated neither by hatred nor by ignorance—and even worthy of respect and legislative restraint.
One wouldn’t think this point of view would be so rare, but it has become so.
Fiscal austerity was promised. Fiscal austerity is needed. But fiscal austerity is hard, or it would have been done earlier.
Problem is, it may be good on the macro level, but it’s seen as bad on the micro level, because local communities and special interest groups benefit from government largesse. The benefit may be short-term, or at the expense of others or even the nation as a whole. But it’s perceived as a benefit by one particular community or group, and people can be loathe to give that up for what’s imagined or projected or explained to be the greater good. After all, a bird in the hand is worth—a lot.
This year is different, however. Or at least, it has appeared to be, so far. Rarely before has there been a public so alarmed and energized about the dangers of overspending, so seemingly willing to give up some perks in order to get the fiscal house in order.
Trouble is, which perks? And whose perks? How deep and wide will the cuts go? It is all very well to talk about generalities, but when specifics come and it’s you or I or the other guy who feels the pinch, it can hurt.
Although many of us here voted for Republicans and rejoiced in their victory, that doesn’t mean we place huge trust in their integrity or their judgment. Politicians are politicians, and betrayal and/or disappointment and/or ignorance and/or error is the name of the game.
Being an opposition party is often easier than having power, as the Democrats found out once again this election cycle. And all is not unified in the Republican camp. Party ranks include everything from a few lingering RINOS to social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, libertarians, establishment types, Tea Partiers, old guard and new.
One early conflict shaping up appears to be whether Michael Steele has got to go as chairman of the RNC. Usually, of course, when a party achieves an astounding victory like the one the Republicans just chalked up, the party chairman would be lauded. Not now, because it is widely perceived as having been accomplished in spite of Steele’s pallid leadership, not because of it.
The brewing earmark fight is emblematic of the sort of battle we may see more of in the coming session. A red-on-red conflict is shaping up between TeaParty-friendly Jim DeMint and establishment-type McConnell:
DeMint won backing from 25 Senate Republicans, including McConnell, earlier this year to impose an earmark ban on Republicans and Democrats alike. Despite winning the support of a majority of Republicans, the proposal was easily defeated by Democrats and 14 pro-earmark Republicans. Thirty-three of 41 Senate Republicans then sought earmarks in this year’s unfinished roster of spending bills.
McConnell, however, isn’t enthusiastic about the idea of a ban now. And he finds himself caught in the middle of an unwelcome battle dividing his party and opening it to criticism from anti-pork tea party activists who helped Republicans take back the House and elect several anti-earmark senators.
And it’s not as though McConnell doesn’t have a point about what happens if earmarks are banned:
McConnell says giving up earmarks would provide a “blank check” to President Barack Obama because his administration would determine exclusively where money for popular programs would go. The proposed ban wouldn’t save any money, McConnell says.
“Every president, Republican or Democrat, would like to have a blank check from Congress to do whatever he chooses to do,” McConnell said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation last week. “You could eliminate every congressional earmark and you would save no money. It’s really an argument about discretion.”
“Earmarks” are one of those words, like “lobbyist,” that are flashed around as code for “evil, selfish.” But that’s way too simplistic, although it’s good for campaigning. Earmarks have become a symbol, and as a symbol they may need to go. But is the remedy worse than the disease?
[ADDENDUM: Ace muses on a similar topic.]
Mark Haub, professor of nutrition at Kansas State, gets my vote as intrepid truthteller of the month, maybe the year. Despite every fiber of his being protesting against some of the results of his experiment in junk food dieting, he has publicized them nevertheless.
For ten weeks, Haub subsisted mainly on a diet of Twinkies, other Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Doritos, sugary cereals and Oreos. He ate a few veggies as well, and a protein shake. But he curtailed his total calories and kept them in the range of 1800 a day, which for a man his size represented a weight-loss diet.
I will take a moment to digress and to observe that for me and many other women, 1800 calories a day would be a maintenance or even weight gain diet. So I confess to a bit of envy that Haub could eat so much and be expecting to lose. But as for the content of his meals, I don’t envy him a bit. I love sweets and snacks. But if I had to eat that way for even one day, I wouldn’t want to continue; I’d crave regular food. And even if I were eating primarily sweets and snacks, Twinkies and Little Debbie would be the last things on earth I’d choose. Absolutely can’t stand ’em.
But the intrepid Haub was trying to prove that calorie restrictions do count, no matter what sort of awful junk you eat. So he soldiered on. What he didn’t bargain for—and what completely surprised and flummoxed him—was that not only did his weight drop, indicating his hypothesis was correct, but his other health indicators (cholesterol, triglycerides, body fat percentage) changed for the better, too.
“That’s where the head scratching comes,” Haub said. “What does that mean? Does that mean I’m healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we’re missing something?”…
“I wish I could say the outcomes are unhealthy. I wish I could say it’s healthy. I’m not confident enough in doing that. That frustrates a lot of people. One side says it’s irresponsible. It is unhealthy, but the data doesn’t say that.”
We’ve learned a lot about health and nutrition over the years. But we still know so little.
[ADDENDUM: Speaking of knowing so little, I just did the math and something has me very perplexed. Haub reduced his caloric intake by 800 calories per day. That would be 5600 a week. Since losing a pound of fat is supposed to require a 3500-calorie reduction, one would expect him to have lost only about 16 pounds in the 10 weeks of the diet. So, how is it that he lost 27? Does this mean the Twinkie diet is an especially effective weight-loss tool? I shudder along with Haub to think so. Perhaps the monotony of the diet caused him to eat less than he thought he did?
Just to get some perspective: for me, as a woman of 5’4″ and not tremendously overweight, I have learned that about 1700 calories a day is maintenance. So in order to lose weight, I have to go way down to near-starvation rations. They say to keep it at 1100-1200 a day, which puts my fastest weight loss at about 12 pounds in that same 10 weeks. And empirical evidence has shown me my weight loss tends to be even slower than that as a rule, despite the fact that I exercise almost every day.
No wonder many women get discouraged dieting.]
