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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