Embarrassed about the evidence of your '08 election mistake?

The decline and fall of the Obama brand

This story is getting played out in one form or the other across the nation.

Noteworthy:

"But Obama's policies are nonetheless having immediate consequences in the campaign as the candidates adjust their strategies to account for the president's controversial domestic agenda, which has overshadowed many state issues.

The president will make his first appearance in the campaign Thursday, when he headlines a fundraiser for R. Creigh Deeds(D) in McLean, in part to try to help the state senator from Bath County win over wavering Democrats such as Cleland. But Obama's entry into the race presents a challenge for Deeds: How does he continue the momentum created by Obama, the first Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades to carry Virginia, without being saddled with the baggage the president now carries?"

More:

"If politics is about momentum and message, then the outlook for '10 has changed considerably over the past couple of months. Democrats still have a wealth of opportunities and some advantages, but Republicans now have momentum and an improving issue mix. For the first time this cycle, I can imagine a scenario where Democrats do not gain Senate seats in 2010.

I can see a scenario developing where the Dems come close to losing all their advantage in the Senate, particularly as the Chief Thug cum Bungler keeps increasing the opposition among those who were folled into voting for him and his partners in slime last November.

#

Alternately clued behavior from both highbrows and lowbrows

The proof of such is almost everywhere we look and it's enabled some really stupid policies and ideas, with little to no actual regard for the results.

Noteworthy:

"But legions of idiots voted for a man who was plainly unqualified, even by his own estimation, and surrounded by a bunch of malignant sociopaths like Wright and Ayers and all the rest. How could he possibly win? Well, Obama cynically appealed to the idiots -- the young, the stupid, the naive, the silly, the rock idol worshippers, and probably the drug-addled masses, all the lowbrows in the land.

That includes the idiot savants of academia. Academics have a very narrow band of intelligence, something that satirists since Aristophanes have noticed and poked fun at. The first philosopher in Western history was Thales of Elea; Thales featured in Greek folklore as a man who walked around at night gazing at the stars only to fall into a ditch. That's probably a folksy giggle at the absent-minded professor who is constantly bumping into walls. But there's a big element of truth in it. Academics can be incredibly ignorant and dumb outside of their small areas of expertise. Professors and media scribblers generally lack human smarts. They are sure suckers for all the con artists of the day.

Obama is a smooth-talking hustler who has specialized in charming academic liberals, like a smart graduate student who needs to impress his teachers with every word. They just dote on him, like a proud parent smiling on a favorite child. He's their dream, a black man who sounds so smart."

In his press conferences he hypnotizes all the ink-stained wretches of the media. It's a sight to behold. The man swats a fly and the suck-ups of the media go ga-ga with applause, and go back and write articles about it. That's not just a reflection on their (lack of) character and judgment. It's not just their childish immaturity. It's a reflection on their brains, or rather, on all that empty space between their ears.

Our media stars are just not very bright. They're idiots. That single fact explains a lot. (And yes, they are also corrupt, easily seduced, haunted by deadlines, decadent in their values, and very prone to mob thinking. But if they had any brains it might be harder to manipulate them like this. The White House just pulls their strings and they dance.)"

No one can say they haven't been warned.

Ultimately, they're too dumb,too obstinate, or too arrogant to understand the consequences.

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Analyzing the Obama Recession

"Using Obama's own numbers. we are now worse off than we would have been had Obama's stimulus had not gone into effect."

More:
"During the stimulus debate, Obama took the dishonest position that Congressional Republicans wanted to do nothing to help the economy recover. It turns out doing nothing might have been the smarter move. "

Not electing this disaster in the first place would have been a smarter move, too.

But we already knew that, and we've been saying that for more than a year now, haven't we?

#

'Lobbyists won't find a job in my White House!'

Wink wink, nod nod....

Of course they won't. They don't have to. YOU found them one.

Key point:

"So far, though, at least a dozen former lobbyists have found top jobs in his administration, according to an analysis done by Republican sources and corroborated by Politico."

Yep....."change we can believe in", at it's best.

Summing up the MN Senate race

(hat tip: Heading Right)

Imagine that!

From WSJ: "Strange things keep happening in Minnesota.....":

"Minnesotans like to think that their state isn't like New Jersey or Louisiana, and typically it isn't. But we can't recall a similar recount involving optical scanning machines that has changed so many votes, and in which nearly every crucial decision worked to the advantage of the same candidate. The Coleman campaign clearly misjudged the politics here, and the apparent willingness of a partisan like Mr. Ritchie to help his preferred candidate, Mr. Franken. If the Canvassing Board certifies Mr. Franken as the winner based on the current count, it will be anointing a tainted and undeserving Senator."

A Franken presence in the Senate would be just one more cog enabled by the Vast Democrat Culture of Corruption that we've come to know and love over the years.

It's just that the 2008-2009 election version of this nationwide cancer was one of the most flagrant examples of the genre in decades.

Gee whiz! Does this mean we WILL have to work on paying our mortgages and putting gas in our cars...

...despite what we were promised in the recent campaign for "Hope 'n Change"?

Michael Barone speculates on how "Hope 'n Change" will actually turn into "business as usual".

Noteworthy:

"Obama does make reference to history, especially to distant figures like Abraham Lincoln and FDR. But like Tony Blair, he is given to rhetoric that suggests history begins anew with his installation in office.

'This was the moment,' Obama said on June 3, after the last primaries, 'when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.' He is promising more than King Canute."

Which, of course, he WILL NOT deliver.

This begs the question: Will the under 30 crowd, who Obama actually put under the spell long enough to elect him President, ever figure out just how badly they've been duped? Will they even care?

And just how silly will Obama's campaign fluff sound some six months into the "New Era in politics"?

Hubris will be difficult for the Anointed One to accept.

On the other hand, the odds are pretty good that he will end up being a figurehead anyway.

So Obama hasn't talked to Blago since the election, right?

Really?

Is that a fact?

No, there was no discussion about "Candidate #1", from Barry O, Rahm, or anyone else on the Big O's staff, was there?

I suppose that radio station might have gotten their facts wrong twice. We all know a certain local newspaper that does that sort of thing on a regular basis, don't we?


There's more......

It looks like Je$$e Jackson Jr. is in the mix, too.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall........

Stay tuned.

Brian Wesbury's economic advice to Obama

Eliminate "mark to market", lower personal income taxes and eliminate corporate income taxes.

"There are many positive alternatives (including these)
that are not being formally discussed. This is a mistake.
And more to the point, the last time the government tried
to bail out the economy with drastic action, we ended up
in the Great Depression.

If we really want to 'change'
the way government and the private sector interact, why is

the US government still trying the same old policies that
failed in the past? Tax cuts have worked before, so if
deficits don’t matter, why not try a different kind of surge
– a private-sector, incentive-creating one?"

I've said it before, and I will continue to say it as often as it needs repeating.

This "crisis" and "recession" is artificially pumped up and has been influenced by the various alarmist talk of the past year, which was designed in part to promote the "hope 'n change" mantra of a certain presidential candidate, and promote the growth of government control over the economy.

Such a campaign erodes confidence unnecessarily, causing the intensity of the downturn to degenerate to the level of crisis.

It didn't have to be this way, and those who talked us out of consumer, investor, and lender confidence bear a large amount of the responsibility for the depth of the current situation, whether they like it or not.

Rick Moran discussed it here:

"No one denies that there is a crisis. No one is underestimating the potential for catastrophe. My problem - our problem - is that in this, a time when honest appraisals of the situation are needed, we have little or no confidence that our newspapers, radio programs, or the cable newsnets are delivering what they are supposed to be giving us; the facts of the situation and not trying to scare us into buying their product or watching their programs by hyping the bad news."

Now Obama is talking about how "things will get worse before they get better".

Art Laffer has some thoughts about that:

"No one likes to see people lose their homes when housing prices fall and they can't afford to pay their mortgages; nor does any one of us enjoy watching banks go belly-up for making subprime loans without enough equity. But the taxpayers had nothing to do with either side of the mortgage transaction.

But here's the rub. Now enter the government and the prospects of a kinder and gentler economy. To alleviate the obvious hardships to both homeowners and banks, the government commits to buy mortgages and inject capital into banks, which on the face of it seems like a very nice thing to do. But unfortunately in this world there is no tooth fairy. And the government doesn't create anything; it just redistributes.

Whenever the government bails someone out of trouble, they always put someone into trouble, plus of course a toll for the troll. Every $100 billion in bailout requires at least $130 billion in taxes, where the $30 billion extra is the cost of getting government involved.

If you don't believe me, just watch how Congress and Barney Frank run the banks. If you thought they did a bad job running the post office, Amtrak, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the military, just wait till you see what they'll do with Wall Street."

Is it any wonder that investment money is out of the market, and the wild market swings continue unabated?

The facts tell a different story:

"Our analysis has raised questions about the claims made for the mechanism where by the financial crisis is affecting the overall economy. We emphasize that we do not dispute that the United States is undergoing a financial crisis and that the United States economy may currently be in a recession or may experience one in the near future, perhaps even a very deep one. We do not dispute that spreads between safe securities and risky securities have increased.

Our main point is that policymakers have not done the hard work of convincing the public or even academic economists of the precise nature of the market failure they see,of presenting hard evidence, not speculation, that differentiates their view of the data from other views, and the logic by which the particular intervention they are advocating will fix this market failure. We feel that a trillion dollar intervention warrants a bit more serious analysis than we have seen."

Be sure to look at the graphs presented at the end.

'Bush should resign now and let Obama take over'

It's just the latest Lefty Looney Toon, but certainly not the last.

Excerpt:

"Gail Collins of the NYT makes what she thinks is is a clever proposal: she wants President Bush and Dick Cheney to resign so that Barack Obama can take over right away. The Gateway Pundit has video of Chris Matthews proposing essentially the same thing.

'Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning. Seriously. We have an economy that’s crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush — who is currently on a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks — hasn’t got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful. His most recent contribution to resolving the fiscal crisis was lecturing representatives of the world’s most important economies on the glories of free-market capitalism.

Putting Barack Obama in charge immediately isn’t impossible. Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. (We’re desperate, but not crazy.) Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she’d defer to her party’s incoming chief executive, and Barack Obama could begin governing.' "

One little problem with article, though. The Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" gang LONG ago abandoned any real pretense at manners.

This is the precise reason why they should receive the exact treatment they so willingly mete out, and so richly deserve to get in multiple magnitude in return.

Odes to Obama

Since we're in a literary mode, let's read some material from the City Journal staff and contributors:

Stefan Kanfer

An infallible pol named Obama
Had a recipe chock-full of drama:
Ayers? Wright? Not to fuss—
Throw them under the bus,
And invoke your white middle-class mama.

Stefan Kanfer, a contributing editor of City Journal and a former editor of Time, is the author of a dozen books, most recently Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando.

Benjamin A. Plotinsky

In diplomacy,” argued Obama,
“Preconditions can only cause trauma!”
So the prez-elect flew
To Tehran’s central zoo
And commenced two-way talks with a llama.

Benjamin A. Plotinsky is the managing editor of City Journal.

Theme poem for an election aftermath

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

— William Butler Yeats

(Via LGF)

UPDATE:

Several people have emailed me suggesting I add the second verse.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Obama Hero Worship item of the day

At the WaPo, Anne Kornblut slobbers all over the story:

"It was a moment neither the senator from Illinois nor his advisers had anticipated, but one for which they were uniquely prepared. In the days that followed, the newly chastised Obama team became more aggressive, with a message they had refined over the summer. The candidate himself, criticized as too cool, too cerebral and too detached, suddenly had the opportunity to show those qualities to be reassuring and presidential."

Gag me with a spoon......

Power Lines's Paul Mirengoff comments:

"Though I don't subscribe to it, one can make a case that the fact of the financial meltdown in September cost John McCain the presidential election. But Anne Kornblut, still in high Obama worship mode even after the election, wants to claim that it was Obama's 'measured response' to the crisis that 'sealed the election.'

She contrasts Obama, 'so steady in public,' with McCain who acted 'erratically,' particularly when he suspended his campaign. Kornblut provides no evidence for her claim that Obama's allegedly superior response to the financial crisis sealed his victory, and the claim cannot withstand scrutiny.

McCain's announcement that he was going to suspend his campaign and return to Washington came on a day when a Washington Post poll showed him trailing Obama by 9 percentage points. Indeed, that evening some of my liberal friends insisted that McCain's decision was a desperate response to bad polling news. Whatever the validity of that suggestion, it is clear that Obama's gain and McCain's slide pre-dated the 'erratic' behavior that Kornblut and others blame for his demise.

Even in the absence of the polling data, it would be implausible to claim that Obama's approach to the meltdown, which consisted essentially of 'watchful waiting,' was particularly impressive or inherently superior to McCain's. The meltdown simply enraged many voters, causing them to lash out against the candidate more closely associated with the status quo which, in this election, was always going to be McCain."

Indeed.

More than any of the nonsense propagated by the Tank Media, the Nutroots, and the candidate himself, the indisputable major reason for the Obama victory was the economic downturn.

This occurrence is the proximate reason for the prolonged doom and gloom economic picture painted by Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" pundits and their tag team Tank Media allies for the last 15 months.

Obama: Selling the Doom and Gloom scenario

How to steal a Senate seat in MN

It's right out of the Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" playbook.

Noteworthy:

"As the politically astute Joseph Stalin once remarked, 'The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.'"

Ya think?

Meanwhile, on the scene, PowerLine's John Hinderacker has more:


"Some very basic questions need to be answered. What are the precincts that have allegedly 'corrected' the vote totals they originally reported? On what basis were the alleged corrections made? Did both Republicans and Democrats participate in the alleged corrections? Have the original paper ballots been securely maintained since the polls closed? What assurances are in place to prevent Democrats from fraudulently adding new paper ballots? Do the precincts that have revised their vote totals use the optical scan system that is, as I understand it, nearly universal? If not, why not? If so, what do the ballot machines' tapes show? If the totals now being claimed are inconsistent with the tapes that were signed by the precinct's election judges, on what basis can they be accepted? Why is it that each 'correction' seems to favor Franken? (Imagine that! - Bubba)

The Coleman campaign has reportedly dispatched volunteers to try to guard the security of ballots in some locations. The danger, of course, is that they could already be too late. Minnesota's Secretary of State, a left-wing activist who was elected in 2006 after MoveOn.org and other nationwide groups targeted the Minnesota Secretary of State race, has yet to certify vote totals. If fraud is to be committed, it most likely has taken place already, or will occur before the recount begins.

UPDATE: Hot off the press, the first apparent evidence of fraud. Last night at around 7:30, a precinct in Mountain Iron, St. Louis County, mysteriously updated its vote total to add 100 new votes--all 100 for Barack Obama and Al Franken.

Mountain Iron uses optical scanning, so the Coleman campaign asked for a copy of the tape documenting the ballots cast on election night. St. Louis County responded by providing a tape that includes the newly-added 100 votes, and is dated November 2--the Sunday before the election. St. Louis County reportedly denies being able to produce the genuine tape from election night, even though Minnesota law, as I understand it, requires that tape to be signed by the election judges and publicly displayed.

Maybe there is some legitimate explanation for these events, but I haven't thought of one yet."

It was "slim margin" then, but "landslide" now, right?

Regarding "Patriotic Grace"

During this presidential transition, should we act like the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" did during the transition eight years ago, and continued to act (with about a week's exception after 9-11, and about a month after the invasion of Iraq) throughout the Bush presidency?

No.

I say we act like adults, instead.

But we prepare ourselves to counter the stupidity, arrogance, and wrong-headed action we are sure to encounter, based upon what we know from past experience.

And we will counter these things with an intensity not yet imagined from past political experience, accompanied by none of the self destructive namby pamby-ness that played so great a role in the cumulative damage we inflicted upon ourselves in the last four years.

As the editorial so accurately states, and despite of what some are want you to believe, this country is STILL a right-center nation.

The Tuesday results do not change that.

Theme song for an election aftermath

"We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the next war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?



There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!


Meet the new boss
Worse than the old boss"

Election night predictions

If Obama and his Tank Team Media PR team, in conjunction with his illegal campaign contributions and intimidation tactics have managed to fool enough people into electing him president, the babble, dribble, drool, and spew from every little smarmy slimeball slug in his support group will be forthcoming. Indeed, it started weeks ago.

If McCain manages to overcome all the odds against him to win, the blood-curdling howls of "racism", "fraud", and every other nonsensical excuse possible will be the order of the day from the afore-mentioned group.

Count on it.

Sister Toldjah has updates from her Charlotte base, Newsmax is going live this evening, and Redstate looks like it will stay busy throughout the night.

Meanwhile, on Mt. Rushmore