Indefensible

The failures of Barack Obama continue to mount. Since November’s shellacking, he’s failed to lead on the budget, on Japan, on Libya, and with all this turmoil, he’s off vacationing in Latin America.

On the budget: Way too many deep cuts, austerity measures slashing programs for those most in need. Simultaneously, he didn’t go nearly far enough. Depends entirely on who’s complaining, a liberal or a conservative. On Japan: We can’t be saving the world, wasting resources that could better be spent here. Simultaneously, he should be doing a hell of a lot more to help the Japanese people in their desperate time of need. On Libya: He should have called for a no-fly zone earlier; even though it’s now a mistake. Also, we definitely should not have gone in on our own; even though now joining a multilateral force is a mistake.

And Latin America? Really? An all-out press to get jobs? To ward-off China’s growing share of that market? C’mon. That whole jobs, jobs, jobs, nonsense wasn’t meant to be taken literally – just ask all those Republican Governors laying off workers by the thousands.

Bottom-line: Obama’s worse than Carter if you’re a conservative; simultaneously, he’s worse than Bush if you’re a liberal. Either way, Sarah Palin’s going to have a great big mess to clean up.

Thankful

I sit in quiet contemplation watching the heart-wrenching news from Libya as a madman orders his army to kill his own people. For what? I mean, looking at the big picture – this senseless civil war; for what? So an aging, addle-minded dictator can hold on to power for a few more days?

Similar scenes, horrific bloodshed flowing from innocents from halfway around the world flood the media. Bloodthirsty little tyrants killing men, women, and children – fellow human-beings; for very little gain. Unimaginable.

Then I look at our own fair country. Sure, we’ve got our problems. Evil lurks wherever the foot of man treads. Yet compared to what we witness elsewhere, we’ve got a pretty sweet deal here. Thousands march in opposition to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s union-busting bill, not a single shot is fired. Neither does the President order a death-squad to take Walker out. A while back Tea Party protesters were screaming they wanted their country back. We didn’t have mass-bloodshed, we had an election.

America is blessed in that we are a nation of laws – a republic founded on democratic ideals. With every election there are winners and losers; yet with every election there is always one winner: America.

Where’s Barack?

Barack Obama and I don’t always see eye-to-eye. Our brackets match up to the Elite Eight, but that’s where things go horribly wrong for the President. Of course, while those on the right complain that the leader of the free world took nine minutes out of his schedule to make his picks, they fail to mention he opened with a call for Americans to click on usaid.gov and help the good people of Japan in their desperate time of need. He’s addressed the public everyday since the tsunami hit. He still supports building more nuclear power plants in this country.

He’s forged agreements with both NATO and the Arab League to get the U.N. to approve a no-fly zone over Libya, to the joy of rebels in Benghazi. He had stated earlier the U.S. would not go it alone, as such action would be perceived as American imperialism, which would foster anti-American sentiment in the region. He wanted a multilateral solution and he got it.

No one expected the republicans would be so incompetent in getting a budget passed, so the President has to begin his long-scheduled trip to our neighbors to the south with no deal on the table. His proposed slashing of billions in discretionary funds was shot down by Boehner and company before the ink was dry. That was weeks ago, and the GOP’s made virtually no progress since then.

So I ask, who’s the real “ditherer”?

Defending Defunding

It’s not as bad as Three Mile Island.

That’s it. That’s the sum-total of the right’s response to their proposed spending cuts of everything from our tsunami early warning system to the EPA, and everything else that might have the slightest connection to our ability to handle a situation like the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, should one happen here. Statistically, they’re right – right now. Problem is, this is an ongoing problem that every expert on the planet believes is only going to get worse. So it’s too early to even make such a comparison.

The right also wants to defund everything that might have the slightest connection to our ability to handle a meltdown of a different variety – an economic one, like we went through during Bush’s final year in office. Unlike unions, corporations have rights, and any sort of regulation is a direct affront to their rights. Besides, due to the bailouts we gave, and the tax-breaks we’re still giving to said corporations, we just don’t have the money to keep an eye on them.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish.

The 3,400

“As we know all 3,400 members of the mainstream media are part of the Obama press contingent.” – Michele Bachmann on today’s Laura Ingraham Show.

 

 

She’s referring to the nonstop attacks on her over her recent erroneous statements about the shot heard ’round the world, John Quincy Adams ending slavery, and Gen. David Petraeus being in charge of military decisions regarding Libya. Obviously, if a democrat had made those miniscule misstatements no one on the planet would have reported them. As proof of her assertion, she cited Barack Obama’s 57 states, and 10,000 Kansas tornado victims gaffes; both famously kept secret by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Reuters, the A.P., The View, Letterman, Leno, Stewart, Colbert, and others.

 

Two thoughts:

 

First, everyone makes mistakes, we’re only human. It’s how you respond to those mistakes that matters most. Bachmann’s response was to double-down. “It was my mistake, Massachusetts is where they happened. New Hampshire is where they are still proud of it!” she wrote on Facebook. Politicians of all three parties (the Tea Party insists it’s not just part of the GOP) fall into this trap. In my opinion, this shows a lack of depth. Not something I’m particularly looking for in a presidential candidate.

 

Second, women on the right are not well-served by the likes of Bachmann, O’Donnell, and Palin. This is unfortunate because there are many female conservatives worth listening to, who would much better represent their side’s point of view. I’d prefer a grown-up discussion about the important issues of the day over the constant playing of the victim card.

 

As far as Bachmann is concerned, I have to agree with George Will’s assertion that the congresswoman is “not among the serious contenders.”

“fodder for overheated fundraising letters”…

Obama is coming after our guns. That’s the republican response to the President’s recent letter to the Arizona Star on the aftermath of  the tragedy in Tucson. He stated:

“I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. And the courts have settled that as the law of the land. In this country, we have a strong tradition of gun ownership that’s handed from generation to generation. Hunting and shooting are part of our national heritage. And, in fact, my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners – it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.”

All he called for was a discussion on how to curtail future tragic acts of gun violence. That’s right; the right doesn’t even want to talk about saving lives. (They are pro-life, aren’t they?) And please don’t give me the “slippery slope” formal fallacy.

The President’s opening gambit apparently strikes terror in the hearts of the NRA:

“We should begin by enforcing laws that are already on the books. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is the filter that’s supposed to stop the wrong people from getting their hands on a gun. Bipartisan legislation four years ago was supposed to strengthen this system, but it hasn’t been properly implemented. It relies on data supplied by states – but that data is often incomplete and inadequate. We must do better.”

The right doesn’t want to do better. Whose side are they on again?