The Truth Hurts
Some devastating criticism of Hillary by Nile Gardiner at the Telegraph UK.
If President Obama’s goal in appointing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was to neutralize his biggest rival, he has certainly succeeded. Clinton looks a shadow of her former self, and has been the most low-key Secretary of State in recent times. Her immediate predecessors Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell were far more prominent figures on the world stage during their first six months in office. Clinton, in contrast, looks tired, disinterested, and largely going through the motions.
Her flagship speech last week at the Council on Foreign Relations was not only exceedingly dull, but devoid of any clear foreign policy strategy that actually advances the US national interest.
There is little doubt that Hillary Clinton’s star has significantly waned since January. Hugely overshadowed by a White House that dominates US foreign policy, the former first lady rarely makes headlines on policy questions. She has gone from fiery senator and presidential contender to increasingly marginalized run of the mill bureaucrat.
Clinton’s own standing has being damaged by both a clear lack of leadership and independent thought, as well as a humiliating association with a weak-kneed foreign policy that is undermining American global power, undercutting alliances with traditional allies (including Britain and Israel), gutting defence spending, and extending the hand of friendship to some of the most odious regimes in the world. That’s quite a fall for a hugely ambitious political figure who all her life has aspired to greatness.
What Nile does not take into account is that at least Hillary is obeying the first law of common sense - “do no harm”. The world does not need to have a bombastic Secretary of State running around, trying to micro manage and direct other countries. Silence or behind the scenes diplomacy is oft times the better option. A subdued, tired “marginalized run of the mill bureaucrat” as Secretary of State may be the best option at this point - perhaps Hillary is smarter than Nile gives her credit for.
Biden Lectures Ukraine On How To Do Things “Right”
In another display of American arrogance, Vice President Biden had the gall to lecture Ukrainian leaders for their lack of progress in emulating the United States’ perfect culture and political system.
Mr Biden, well known for verbose speeches with little substance, lectured Ukraine’s political leaders for their slow progress in democratic reforms. Consider the irony of Mr Biden words:
Mr. Biden cited 19th century Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, whose literary support for Ukrainian independence prompted a Cold War-era monument in his honor in Washington, D.C., arguing Mr. Shevchenko would today be proud of Ukrainian newfound freedoms, but not its political leadership.
“I think he would also be wondering why the government is not exhibiting the same political maturity as the people, why communications among leaders has broken down to such an extent that political posturing appears to prevent progress, especially now, especially in difficult economic times,” Mr. Biden said in a speech billed as an address to the Ukrainian people.
Excuse me Mr Biden, but your very words of criticism for Ukraine could easily be used by many others to describe the situation in the United States.
“The time for inertia and neglect has long passed,” Mr. Biden said in the 20 minute speech at the Soviet-era Ukraine House. “The leaders of this country came together once in 2004 because they knew a free and prosperous Ukraine was more important than any one politician and any one political party. I have no doubt Ukrainians will come together again.”
“The time for inertia has passed, the leaders of this country must come together”?? Plenty of cliches and platitudes here, but the good news for the Ukraine was that the speech lasted only 20 minutes.
Saving it for last, Mr Biden’s most idiotic irony came at the conclusion of his speech when he stated:
“Your economic freedom depends more, I suspect in this country, on your energy freedom than on any other single factor,” Mr. Biden said, urging conservation as well as reform. “That will be a boon to your economy and an immeasurable benefit, I respectfully suggest, to your national security.”
Please Mr Biden! Lecturing the Ukraine on energy policies??? This from the VP of a country that has 5% of the world’s population and uses 25% of the world’s oil, (most of it imported from abroad) and has none nothing in the past 40 years to increase energy reserves or implement sound policies for enhanced use of non fossil fuels.
The Real News
The real news about Biden’s trip is the incredible patience and graciousness displayed by his Ukrainian hosts. Ukraine’s leaders should have told Biden the old story about “people may think you are a fool, but when you speak, all doubt is erased”. Then they should have tossed him out of the country.
President On A Roll
It seems as if the President is enjoying an extended honeymoon with both the press and voters, while the Republicans remain disarrayed and powerless. Public optimism and confidence is surging based on the hope that the steps taken by the Obama administration will lead to brighter economic days. The voters and Congress have effectively given the President what almost amounts to dictatorial powers.
The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well, maybe John Kennedy for a moment, but no president since. On the whole, this is not healthy for America.
Our political system works best when a president faces checks on his power. But the main checks on Obama are modest.
The study examined 1,261 stories by The Post, the New York Times, ABC, CBS and NBC, Newsweek magazine and the “NewsHour” on PBS. Favorable articles (42 percent) were double the unfavorable (20 percent), while the rest were “neutral” or “mixed.” Obama’s treatment contrasts sharply with coverage in the first two months of the Bush (22 percent of stories favorable) and Clinton (27 percent) presidencies.
The infatuation matters because Obama’s ambitions are so grand.
The press has become Obama’s silent ally and seems in a state of denial. But the story goes untold: Unsurprisingly, the study of all the favorable coverage received little coverage.
Unlimited power allows one man to accomplish what could not otherwise be done with a gridlocked political system, but also allows for potentially unwise policy decision implementations that may have dangerous long term consequences. Our basic governmental structure of checks and balances seems to be in peril. Here are some more thoughts on this matter.
American Capitalism Gone With A Whimper
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
Obama Led the US Economy Into a Fiscal Trap Containing a Monetary Time Bomb
The majority of Americans elected an arrogant and bumbling ideologue to the presidency and so the rest of the world — little Israel in particular — will have to pay the price. However, Economics is what invariably brings the Obama’s of this world undone.
Despite the bitter lessons of history — a subject that Obama is as deeply ignorant of as he is of economics — he does not really believe in the existence of economic laws. Let us not forget that this is the same man who thinks he can regulate bubbles out of existence, even though he and his cronies are totally ignorant as to the origin and nature of this economic phenomenon.
Obama and his brilliant economic advisors have driven the US economy into a fiscal trap containing a monetary time bomb. And the markets are taking notice.
It’s a pretty state of affairs when China feels impelled to lecture the US on the need for exercising greater fiscal and monetary responsibility. Nevertheless Bernanke and the Obama administration appear to be completely oblivious to the situation. So much so that the Fed was authorised to print $1.75 trillion in new money so as to buy Treasury bonds. It’s almost as if they were deliberately thumbing their noses at the rest of world.
If the economy resumes its downward decline or the average American does not see his financial situation improving soon, expect the Obama administration’s honeymoon to come to an abrupt end. In the final analysis, it is always about jobs and incomes.
Business Discovers Drawbacks to Government Aid
The banking industry, the insurance industry and finally the auto industry have taken their turn with government money controlled by the Obama administration under the premise that they were all too big to fail. The bankers and insurance executives are finding out how difficult it is to return the TARP money, the auto industry is following suit and will find out that “When you make a deal with the devil, you will always be a junior partner.”
This was recently noted by a dealer News Letter “DealersEdge Editorial“
There is an old saying that is making the rounds among the business pundits these days- “When you make a deal with the devil, you will always be a junior partner.”
First a bit of perspective - Back in the 60s or 70s we can recall a news story of a Russian truck driver who was honored by the Kremlin for recording the highest fuel efficiency when making his deliveries. It seems he was able to alter his driving practices to reduce the consumption of fuel to the extent that he came to the attention of the central planners. He was honored at a Kremlin ceremony. However, he was able to reach this efficiency by taking some extraordinary actions to limit fuel consumption- like turning the engine off when going down hill and not turning it back on until after coming to a complete stop. The question not answered was whether or not he ever delivered anything on time. Such is the unyielding law of untended consequences.
While watching the President in the Rose Garden this week, with the leaders of the Detroit Three in the background, the thought crossed our minds – There is something very wrong with this picture.
Clearly the CEOs of GM and Chrysler are now junior partners in the U.S. auto industry. And while Ford has yet to make that Faustian deal with the White House, they certainly do not want to burn that bridge if their losses continue to eat up all that money they borrowed.
Perhaps the Auto Dealers can see it more clearly as the Obama Administration begins to make more business decisions for the Automobile Manufacturers. The dealers are on the front lines of the market and feel the effects of the manufacturers decisions.
Here’s an additional thought from Thomas Sowell on the matter of the Obama government running private industries:
The presumption that Obama knows how all these industries ought to be operating better than people who have spent lives in those industries, and a general cockiness going back till before he was president, and the fact that he has no experience whatever in managing anything. Only someone who has never had the responsibility for managing anything could believe he could manage just about everything.
Thought Provoking Links
Obama - A Jump to the Left, A Step to the Right
In a front-page analysis, the NYT notes that Obama is taking “a nuanced set of positions that fall somewhere between George W. Bush and the American Civil Liberties Union.” But the truth is that the combination of harshly criticizing Bush-era policies, while also taking some on as his own, has “has generated confusion and disappointment across the political spectrum,” notes the NYT.
Some good insights on the agile President’s complex policy moves.
The repudiation of the California establishment in the series of initiative defeats could hardly have been more decisive.
This vote is the second great signal that the American people are getting fed up with corrupt politicians, arrogant bureaucrats, greedy interests and incompetent, destructive government.
Voters in our largest state spoke unambiguously, but politicians and lobbyists in Sacramento are ignoring or rejecting the voters’ will, just as they are in Albany and Trenton. The states with huge government machines have basically moved beyond the control of the people. They have become castles of corruption, favoritism and wastefulness. These state governments are run by lobbyists for the various unions through bureaucracies seeking to impose the values of a militant left. Elections have become so rigged by big money and clever incumbents that the process of self-government is threatened.
Nothing new here but a good summary of the “mess” our democracy has become. One wonders what could have been done in the previous eight years to prevent the fiscal crises that are now engulfing all 50 of the Nation’s states. The Republicans were never shy about running up monstrous deficits either.
If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush.
Of course, Obama will never admit in word what he’s doing in deed. As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech yesterday claiming to have undone Bush’s moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.
Did Obama vote for Bush? Some policies will never change.
Obama Faces Pitfalls on Detainees
In the reductionist debate in Washington, either any sacrifice must be made to win a pitiless war against radicals, or terrorism does not justify any compromise with cherished American values.
“Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right,” Mr. Obama said. “The American people are not absolutist, and they don’t elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems.
Perhaps one side is more right than the other. In any event, neither side seems pleased with the middle ground approach.
And, a CNN poll showed that 39 percent approved of the job Pelosi was handling her speakership while 48 percent disapproved — well below the 46 percent approval rating that the Californian scored in a CNN survey in March 2007.
Republicans are looking for someone — anyone — on the Democratic side to whom some negatives will stick given their decided lack of success in doing so to Obama. Pelosi is in the crosshairs right now. How will she handle herself in the coming weeks and months?
Pelosi seems confused much of the time. Maybe they should take polls on what the public thinks her IQ is?
Obama Is Embraced at Annapolis
There was no such controversy to confront here in Annapolis, where cheering midshipmen, clad in their sparkling summer dress whites, greeted their new commander-in-chief with hoots, hollers and raucous applause. Mr. Obama returned the show of support by praising the graduates for the path they chose — a notable contrast, he said, to the pursuit of wealth that characterized those who helped create the current economic crisis.
A good start for the President on Memorial Day Weekend!
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