Tigerhawk wonders whether Barack Obama’s declining political fortunes have any connection to the spate of investigations launched against Bush-era officials. “Call me a cynic, but I am not in the least surprised that a couple of weeks after Barack Obama’s strong approval/disapproval ratings took a turn to the unfavorable and Obamacare is looking less like a lead pipe cinch it is suddenly time to investigate the Bush administration.”
I think that as the political impetus which drove Obama into power abates, it will become evident how many really unsavory operations have hitched a ride on the running board of Hope and Change Express. They have been ignored until now, but they won’t be for much longer. For example, those following in Waxman-Markey might start asking questions about Science “Czar” John Holdren, who has apparently said many strange things about population control and global warming. Front Page called him, “Obama’s Biggest Radical”, and the toned down Wikipedia entry features such quotes maintaining that fixing the planet requires “partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization … if this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force.”
As jobless numbers rise, Obama’s economic policy may also come under further scrutiny. In spite of all the rhetoric about fixing the crisis, it may be embarassing to find what Michael Lewis, writing in Vanity Fair is amazed about: the lack of official interest in discovering what really caused the financial meltdown. It is as if financial forensics were unimportant because the answers to the problem — whatever the problem turns out to be — are already known. Lewis writes:
Here is an amazing fact: nearly a year after perhaps the most sensational corporate collapse in the history of finance, a collapse that, without the intervention of the government, would have led to the bankruptcy of every major American financial institution, plus a lot of foreign ones, too, A.I.G.’s losses and the trades that led to them still haven’t been properly explained. How did they happen? Unlike, say, Bernie Madoff’s pyramid scheme, they don’t seem to have been raw theft. They may have been an outrageous departure from financial norms, but, if so, why hasn’t anyone in the place been charged with a crime? How did an insurance company become so entangled in the sophisticated end of Wall Street and wind up the fool at the poker table? How could the U.S. government simply hand over $54 billion in taxpayer dollars to Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch and all the rest to make good on the subprime insurance A.I.G. F.P. had sold to them—especially after Goldman Sachs was coming out and saying that it had hedged itself by betting against A.I.G.? Since I had him on the phone I asked Jake DeSantis for what Congressman Grayson had asked Edward Liddy: names. He obligingly introduced me to his colleagues in London and Connecticut, and they walked me through what had happened—all of them speaking to someone from the outside for the first time. All, for obvious reasons, were terrified of seeing their names in print, and asked not to be mentioned by name. That was fine by me, as their names are not what’s interesting. What’s interesting is their point of view on the event closest to the center of the financial crisis. For while they disagreed on this and that, they all were fairly certain that if it hadn’t been for A.I.G. F.P. the subprime-mortgage machine might never have been built, and the financial crisis might never have happened.
And I’ve been hearing from private sources that there is considerable unhappiness over the release of five Qods agents to Iran and that not everyone is convinced the Obama administration had nothing to do with it. Obama’s Grand Bargain is a black box. One day the public may even get to peek at what’s inside and who can say what their reaction will be. The dilemma facing the administration’s political strategists is that once the administration begins to lose political momentum, a hundred niggling points will suddenly start to catch on the previous Teflon-coated surface with all the tenacity of velcro, which they can’t let happen. On the other hand, how can they speed up to conceal the blemishes unless the critics can be silenced or at least misdirected? Unable to slow down to the point where the details become visible and yet unable to fob off questions any longer the administration becomes like a man pursued who dares not ease off on the accelerator while his vehicle is being buffeted to pieces by potholes he can’t avoid because of the speed he traveling at. Slow and you’re doomed; speed up and maybe you’re doomed as well.
None of these problems are unanswereable if Obama decides to address them, as his predecessors did, point by point, detail by detail. But it will mean a reversion to a style of governance that has so far been relegated to the past. Yet can it be avoided for much longer in the face of growing skepticism? Once the Messiah is required, like everyone else, to submit his expense claims then he stops being the Messiah and simply becomes the President. The problem is whether Barack Obama can survive a demotion from the being the One to just being the plain old 44th President of the United States.
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52 Comments
1. Lifeofthemind:Do you remember in “Fantastic Voyage” when the intruder began to grow and the antibodies suddenly recognized the threat and began to attack it? The drugs that were being used to suppress the body politics’ immune system may be starting to fade. Traditionally this is when a failing regime focuses on a foreign enemy. The Argentines had the Falklands to impale themselves on. Will Obama pick a fight with Israel? He has already worked hard at insulting all our friends. The fomenting of domestic conflicts is perilous. Chicago politicians should know that the links are to complex to isolate the victims.
Jul 12, 2009 - 10:04 pm 2. Joshua:The problem is whether Barack Obama can survive a demotion from the being the One to just being the plain old 44th President of the United States.
Another big question is how his erstwhile worshipers will look upon him after the demotion. Alas, I suspect it will turn out much like Don Henley once wrote and sang for The Eagles:
We’re like sheep without a shepherd
Jul 12, 2009 - 10:10 pm 3. NahnCee:We don’t know how to be alone
So we wander ’round this desert
And wind up following the wrong gods home
But the flock cries out for another
And they keep answering that bell
And one more starry-eyed messiah (!)
Meets a violent farewell…
Can the ex-Bush administration scream “racism” if it’s harassed, tormented and lynched by a bunch of black politicians and bureaucrats appointed by the Enabler in Chief?
Jul 12, 2009 - 10:42 pm 4. Langley:NahnCee @ 3
No.
Every school child knows that paper beats stone, stone beats scissors, and scissors beats paper.
That child also knows, but can not verbalize, that black beats white.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/06/29/carnival-of-grotesques/
Jul 12, 2009 - 10:52 pm 5. Thrasymachus:You may have seen the Robert Reich column, the gist of which is “When is the recovery coming? Never.” In the end people won’t care that he is a crypto-communist, they will care that he got their hopes up, and then dashed them.
I think I may have said before that the last bubble has not popped, the last bubble is the Obama bubble, the idea that someone will save us from all this. I think Reich is right and we’re looking at the Japan scenario. Obama can keep it going as long as he can borrow money from the Chinese and as long as he can keep getting spending bills through. I don’t think a real health care bill will pass, because nobody wants to pay for it. He may not need that though.
Jul 12, 2009 - 10:57 pm 6. Pascal:Survive the demotion? Given the brazen overreach, this is a fall with Biblical parallels.
To Hell with Zero; pray our republic survives.
Jul 12, 2009 - 11:09 pm 7. RDS:A.I.G. couldn’t afford to pay Goldman off in March 2008, but that was O.K. The U.S. Treasury, led by the former head of Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson, agreed to make good on A.I.G.’s gambling debts. One hundred cents on the dollar.
How convenient. That’s another huge scandal that isn’t getting much attention: the Goldman-Treasury collusion. Interesting they let Lehman (Goldman’s biggest competitor) die, triggering the stock market collapse, right after finding a more orderly exit for Bear.
Jul 12, 2009 - 11:23 pm 8. Josh:It is as if financial forensics were unimportant because the answers to the problem — whatever the problem turns out to be — are already known.
I think they are known. Really, it boils down to greed, and a massive moral and ethical incompetence by the top financial officers of all the major financial houses, so widespread you have to say it’s a cultural thing, generational. Is it the kind of thing Obama can fix? Doesn’t seem so to me. Geithner is a dull tool.
The conceptual problem is that the “rocket scientist” idea of separating risk from principle, is ill-founded. That’s a long argument, but I say it’s “the answer”, and will be seen as such … fifty years from now. Much clearer situation than what caused the 1930s depression. And you heard it here first!
Jul 12, 2009 - 11:26 pm 9. Rob:He just needs to use enough misdirection to take enough people’s eyes off the man behind the curtain to get a close election for ACORN to put him over the top. That means attacking the opposition relentlessly and focusing on trivia.
John McCain on Meet the Press today and nearly 1/3 of the time was spend on questions about Palin…
Jul 12, 2009 - 11:49 pm 10. Walt:The time of the Fall
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:09 am 11. Reclass:Is apparent to all
It comes when the people perceive
That the God that they took
For divine is a crook
And that’s when they no longer believe
When the MSM turns
And the vast public learns
The Messiah has feet built of clay
They will spurn him no doubt
And demand he be out
And his whole crew of clowns on their way
But of course we all know
That we can’t make him go
Till his time left in office is done
He will still be our prez
No matter who says
That the country must shed of the One
Yes that’s right girls and boys
Though I know it annoys
All of us to know that’s understood
We can only just pray
That we live till the day
That he’s turned out of office for good
3 and 4
Scissors beats paper….black beats white…and fear beats intellect, ignorance reigns supreme and we wonder why the GOP is in disarray. 1 in every 3 Americans is non white. Even if you believe the left is pandering or assuaging their “white guilt” in courting what can no longer be called “minority groups”, they are going to continue to dominate this country until the Right can figure out a better strategy than sophomoric oversimplified nursery rhymes.
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:43 am 12. buddy larsen:I am throwing away my party card. Both sides are as intellectually bankrupt as each other. This country is probably going to the hell it deserves. DAILY KOS and PJ bloggers will have a fun time down there.
Well at least he’s got a more diverse cabinet, according to five (5) USA Today reporters, than Clinton or Bush had!
(one wonders how the project was assigned, “Okay, you reporters, here’s this pile of pictures from the last three administrations. i want ‘em separated into, uh, six piles, latin, black, white, asian, women and men!”
“Uh, editor sir, they will all need to be in two different piles at the same time.”
“well shit, somebody make some copies, damn!”)
…anyhoo, suddenly as his numbers turned down, finding so many emergency problems in the previous administration, is not much bigger a coincidence that that, finding the numbers turning down at least partly due to the buzz on the liberty internet, the North Koreans suddenly declare Cyber War!
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:44 am 13. bob:Narry a Norvegian in the whole stew.
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:53 am 14. Andrew X:I have been for a year simultaneously scared of and sickened by the despicable idea of prosecuting Bush officials, etc, and have railed against it on the web vociferously. I need not elaborate why.
Interestingly, I seem have only a minimal emotional reaction to this latest flirtation with this disgraceful idea.
Simply because I strongly believe (God help me if I’m wrong) that, if it goes forward, it will be seen for exactly what it is, that if there are any teeth to it whatsoever, the bottom could be falling out for us all as it really gets rolling, and that it could backfire catastrophically on everyone involved on the prosecutorial side, not least President Hopey-Changey.
I can’t help but think that the fury aroused on the right would be immense, moderates would unanimously be asking “Don’t you have more important things to do?”, and soft-lefties would be embarrassed and wish it would all just go away.
That would leave only the maniacal, drooling, Ward Churchill / Jeremiah Wright left on his side, who you can be assured would make such asses of themselves through it all as to further bury their own cause.
Now, imagine the economy continues to fall, and/OR there is a major foreign policy or military situation or, God help us, a terror attack.
Throw THAT into that mix and waddya have?
Of course, they are all just blind enough fools to roll the dice and go for it, but I think it would actually speed up the inevitable reckoning for the American people of just how this President sees the country that has asked him to lead it, and just where his REAL priorities lie.
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:58 am 15. twobyfour:Potyemkin too used divers facades, buddy. Yea, there was only one Batyushka Gossudar Czar then, now they seem to be cropping up like mushrooms. They are small czars, but boy they rule! Hard to find any difference.
BTW, cancer is essentially a fungus.
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:13 am 16. mac:Yes, as The Won’s right-hand man starts to formally charge Bush and Cheney with war crimes, the Calvo Sotelo moment comes closer and closer.
All we really need to see now is the target list for both sides.
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:40 am 17. buddy larsen:i hear ya twoby. Remission as a strategy seemed to’ve worked for awhile there –then the PPK challenged the Genoveses for Poppy Europe, and everything went virulant again. or fungulant. Now it looks to be the poison, the knife, or the gamma ray; kill or die or kill and die. One good quadrant and three that don’t matter. Yet i wonder, does that make the one quad the *only* quad once again? I hope so –where there’s life there’s hope! of course, the D words want to keep the other three quads lit up darkly. as if they mattered, or were still in play in a world of light.
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:42 am 18. dtmack:Rob #9
Trivia is only going to get them so far. I think if prosecutions go forward that #14 Andrew X is correct – it’ll be seen as what it is, an attempt to divert attention. It’ll also open the door to the idea that it’s legitimate to prosecute the officials of an outgoing administration, and it doesn’t take a vivid imagination to see where that particular idea would lead.
You seem to be saying that Sarah P is no longer anything but a diversion, and I couldn’t disagree with you more on that. She’s central. She may never win the WH, but she’s going to be a political force for a while. There’s a lot of disgust in this country with the way the looters were allowed a free hand, and that’s gotta go somewhere. She’s about the only prominent national figure on either side who isn’t tainted by this, and that’s why there has been a relentless attack on her by both political parties.
The political and financial establishment knows people are pissed, and they also know that they have no intention of providing a true accounting of what happened, or who was responsible, because many of them would be implicated in some way. Plus they like things just the way they are, and don’t need some “hick populist” from Alaska riling up the people.
So they can’t do what people are demanding, and they don’t need a very prominent figure pointing this out to the masses. They need to make her go away, and they’ve decided that ridicule is the way to do it. That may keep her out of the WH, but I don’t think she’s going anywhere.
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:44 am 19. twobyfour:Andrew X/14
One can cry wolf only a few of times, then it becomes apparent to anyone that it is about attention, not wolf.
There are some basic rules:
1. Be careful with precedents. If 0 sues, he can be then sued, too.
2. Interesting things may be brought to light.
So, most likely, this would be at the cry wolf stage, milked few more times for what it is worth.
0 needs a different kabuki. Something fresh. Or forgotten. 1950-1953, Eastern Europe, the show trials of “saboteurs” and “traitors”, Eating of Your Own (TM). Not just under the bus, but run over back and forth, several times. Though, it may be too early and hard to pull off without the Obamajugend muscle behind it. But desperate circumstances force desperate measures. It would be tempting and hard to resist for the NiC (Narcissus in Chief) TOTUS.
I have two dates. Not sure of the significance. September 19 and October 9, 2009. May be an interval. Things may become… quite unstable.
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:52 am 20. Rob:#18: Let Palin do what she’s going to do. There are a lot more important, even dire, issues we face right now. We’ve got over 3 years until the next election. Certainly, our politicians have more important things to discuss right now than Palin’s future.
Jul 13, 2009 - 2:07 am 21. Pascal:Rob, good luck with your proposal, like it is us who determine what the Ministry of Truth and party hacks consider important. As if.
I know there are people here who think Orwell’s prediction is passé. Nevertheless, Sarah P, whether she or we like it or not, appears to be serving as our claque’s Emmanuel Goldstein.
If only she was subjected to just two minutes hate every day. It’s more like an industry has sprung up to deliver to us some variation of it 24/7. And it’s been going on every single day for coming up on a full year. Will there be a first anniversary doubleplus hate session? Count on it!
(How about, instead, a first anniversary memorial session to remind us that once, long ago, it was still okay to be normal?)
She has so been the target of BOTH party’s core leadership that it is bordering on proof positive that the “two” parties share the same central command office.
It has become cliché to say that aiming at Sarah is deliberate so as to divert our focus from the widespread thefts and multifaceted constitutional violations. Well, duh!
Bottom line: The attention directed at Sarah is so obviously diversionary, it is logical to expect that if any birth certificate is eventually made public, it will be hers.
Jul 13, 2009 - 2:25 am 22. Andrew X:OK, 2×4, I’ll bite…..
WHAT are you thinking about re: Sept 19 to Oct 9. Is this a horoscope thing, or what?
I myself put a great significance on September 12, 2009. Why? Because, in reason number 6,745 why the 43rd President has more class in his little finger than #44 will ever have, it has been strongly noted that, even though 9/11 was conceived, planned, financed, and operationally inserted under the Clinton admin, Mr. Bush did not show one HINT of blame on his predecessor. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
On 9/12/2009, the “Bush excuse” will be dead, dead, dead, and the whole world will know it.
Obambi’s net has about eight weeks left on it. Then it’s varsity time, ready or not.
Not.
Jul 13, 2009 - 2:32 am 23. buddy larsen:why those two dates, twoby? anythink i should read? i can take it –my hair’s still standing on end after the Masonic Conspiracy and the Saint Malachy and the Last Pope, not to mention the boards of directors of Citi and AIG up to about a year ago, not to mention a hundred other malign comets in the sky.
Jul 13, 2009 - 2:39 am 24. Lifeofthemind:Reclass,
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:19 am 25. twobyfour:Drop dead.
This country is the best and deserves the best.
Andrew, buddy, no horoscope or astrology. And wish I knew what they represent. A dream…. I saw them printed in bold bright red in a calendar and it was somehow related to 0. Well, did not want to keep it to myself in the case there is some significance. If I do, I usually have very short … notices. Not so far ahead. It is possible that I’ll get a better resolution as that time approaches.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:26 am 26. PA Cat:23 buddy
2 x 4 could be getting the dates from the Mayan calendar or Nostradamus or the dimensions of the Great Pyramid or maybe all three.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:27 am 27. buddy larsen:shabbat comes up on search of Sept 19. IDF has reckoned a three week war to knock Iran bomb back five years. that’d be about Oct 09. is shabbat a right time to do the thing?
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:36 am 28. Rob:Pascal, I didn’t realize I’d made a proposal in my posts. I’m not sure what you’re referring to. But thanks for the good wish on whatever proposal I may have made.
Frankly, the current situation has me so bewildered I’m out of ideas.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:45 am 29. twobyfour:PA Cat, you’ve forgotten the Bible Code… but no, none such. Just a dream.
Buddy, maybe you’re onto something. Shabbat may be the day the order is given and the execution would be commencing the next day (after sunset according to Jewish custom).
But the impression in the dream was that it was more related to 0 personally.
Jul 13, 2009 - 3:56 am 30. buddy larsen:red letters –red –war
Jul 13, 2009 - 4:37 am 31. hdgreene:The trail really leads back to Washington. Fannie and Freddie packaged the mortgages that were sold through Wall Street. When Banks and Governments wanted to count these bonds as reserves, they bought the insurance from AIG (London, I believe).
The reason they do not investigate is the political linkages. And such prominent Democrats as former Secretary Rubin and Rham Emmanuel are neck deep in creating the original policies. If they can find a way to lay it off on Republicans they will investigate. Unfortunately, with blogs and Fox news an investigation may run out of control.
Right now Barney Frank gets to talk like he was always the model of financial rectitude. He wants to keep it that way. Why would he want investigators prying into his love life?
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:23 am 32. RWE:A WSJ article several weeks back pointed out that AIG got into the credit swap business starting in 1998, with the full approval and encouragement of the Clinton Admin, specifically one Larry Summers. The same Larry Summers who is one of Obama’s economic advisors.
This brings to mind a joke from the defense acquisition community:
A program manager is fired and he tells his replacement that there are three sealed envelopes in the center drawer of his desk that he needs to open when he hits his first 3 big problems.
The first big problem arrives and the new PM opens Envelope No.1 and finds a note that says “Blame me, your processor. Say the problem is the result of some bad decisions made by the previous PM and you will fix it.”
The next big problem comes. The PM opens the envelope marked No.2 and finds a note that says “Take the blame for it. Say it was an honest mistake and that you will fix it and it won’t happen again.”
The third big problem arises. The PM opens the envelope Marked No.3 and finds a note that says:
“Make out three new envelopes.”
Some day people are going to figure out that Obama is Xeroxing the note from Envelope No.1.
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:53 am 33. Charles:As a Christian, what I have found is that if I put my rest in anything but God–He will jerk that rest out from under me. The answer is always to turn to God.
I buy tigerhawk’s take.
Obama placed his rest in public approval. As the approval wanes the whip comes down.
That also means the whip will come down much harder before his four year term is through.
Jul 13, 2009 - 5:56 am 34. NahnCee:Speaking of prosecuting ex-administrations, I wonder how our ex-First Lady and the ginormous department she is in charge of feels about this. State *was* able to get the WH to back down on its political appointments for ambassadors.
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:29 am 35. buddy larsen:Summers & (then) protege Geithner were also neck deep in the Asian Crisis, the Peso Crisis, and the Russian Default Crisis. In every case someone with a sharp nose (and bought agents high in the target gov’ts leaking coming policy decisions) instigated ‘runs’, which spiraled and cascaded, which brought in fixers from Clinton, Summers and geithner. Almost like a stage ensemble, the heavy (Soros/Boris Karloff) followed by madcap protags Abbot & Costello as Summers and Geithner. Funny, except that a few national middle classes got wiped out of billions every time –using American taxpayers’ money laundered as IMF and World Bank liquidity interventions.
now Summers, if the admin can swing an email from Bernanke to BAC’s Ken Lewis into a ‘threat’ to buy Merrill ‘or else’, will shove Bernanke out –whenever they’re sure they don’t need him as a scapegoat anymore –and install Summers as Fed Chairman. The game is already prepped for summers, an arch mad genius if ever there was one, with the Fed being given vast new agency powers (so it can better fight the crises its own shills keep sending up) which will amount to the Obama National Bank expanding from a TARP duchy to the King of the World Lead=to=Gold Alchemy Plant.
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:31 am 36. buddy larsen:Holdren, too –as certifibly lunatic as Summers. Hell just listen and watch ‘em –you would not let ‘em get anywhere near you. Holdren is a Paul Ehrlich ‘Population Bomb’ fanatic, that thoroughly debunked and ridiculed nazi nonsense 1968 book that among many other evil ideas recommends secretly sterilizing whole target populations via disguised hormone additives in the food and water. Now here in 2007 we hear about purple hermaphrodite trout in estrogen rivers, and amber waves of contraceptive corn across the fruited plain.
These guys are friggen nutjobs, and they’re scuttling around in their ivory tower lahBOratories speed-planning Joseph Mengele shit –as if Joseph Mengele was the cool cat’s meow.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:05 am 37. peterike:Mrs. Palin may be something of a “Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington” type, a person who can actually do what the Lefties claim to love doing: speaking truth to power.
Of course, the Lefties actually speak lies FOR power, but whatever.
The nomenklatura’s hatred/obsession with Palin actually empowers her (ooh, more Lefty speak) because they can’t help but talk about her. She is perhaps the only person in America today that could rip the lid off the entire Goldman-Government-Obama-Etc slime pit and have it presented via the MSM. Problem is, I doubt she gets it.
Is there any way we can get her to start reading Belmont every day? Or maybe we can get Buddy to have a sitdown with her and ’splain it all.
Meanwhile, a current Google news headline shows “First Alaska Walgreen’s opens in Wasilla, so where’s Sarah Palin?” (Answer: up your media bum so far you can’t even tell.)
The other big headline: “Analysis: Sotomayor a cautious, careful liberal.” Yeah, and Ginsburg is of course a “moderate.” I fear the Sotomayor hijinks are going to prove another distraction, and a great source of “get whitey” commentary. That, and the new Get Cheney side show that’s starting to boil. The show trials are starting. Expect more Obama-diversions to head your way.
Jul 13, 2009 - 7:27 am 38. Subotai Bahadur:The regime is not acting within the realm of “normal” politics, considering what effect its actions will have on electoral prospects; possibly because based on inside knowledge and plans it no longer considers fair elections a factor. Similarly, the creation of “show trials” of political enemies are not going to be done with an eye on precedent that can be used against themselves. If trials begin, they do not intend that they will ever be in a position where they can be held to account for any actions by anyone outside the regime.
Yes, show trials of former Bush officials, and eventually Bush himself, will be a distraction for us while they push through their program. But it will also fullfill the classic function of such trials; terrorizing both the opposition and the masses by implication.
We are dealing with an authoritarian regime with characteristics of several kinds of dictatorships. The Collectivist/Socialist/Marxist-Leninist strain is of course apparent. As is the classical Fascist/Corporatist strain. And there is the pro-Jihadi strain that must be accounted for. However, while we can argue which is the “real” driver of Buraq Hussein Obama’s actions; we cannot ignore that the methods of all of them are functionally identical, antithetical to any definition of Liberty, and unbound by rules, laws, Constitutions, or qualms about “eliminating” political/class/racial enemies.
If there are show trials for former governmental figures; we can expect that they will be either loosely or not at all based on the law of the time of whatever acts are being charged, that legal procedure will be ignored or biased against the defendents, and that the MSM propaganda machine will be in full cry.
It will be the death of the canary in the coal mine. At that point a certain choice that I have referenced before will be demanded of us.
Mention has been made of the 23/7/365 hate against Sarah Palin; being done in lieu of an official “daily two minute hate”. And it has been noted that both the core of the Democrats and of the Cthulu worshipping Republicans hate and fear her.
IF, and it is very much an if at this point, Sarah Palin continues to fight in the electoral arena as either a candidate or an organizer, I will support her. But in the course of that, I have more than a passing fear that between the two cores noted above; lessons have been learned from the old Department V of the KGB and its successor organization the FSB. Her avoiding a “tragic accident” is not a sure thing, considering the mindset we are dealing with.
Once again, the choice will be presented.
Subotai Bahadur
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:14 am 39. RWE:People have criticized the Bush Admin for not prosecuting members of the Clinton Admin. Aside from the petty vandalizing of the White House there were many other prosecutable offenses, including, of course, those of Sandy Burglar.
Pres Bush wanted to set a new tone in DC, and that was commendable. But fat lot of good that did him or the country.
The Left’s approach is to keep up a constant drumbeat, meaningless exercises like the Federal Prosecutors firings, Cheny’s “Secret” meetings with energy companies, the Valerie Plame Blame Game, claims about Halliburton, the horrible Patriot Act, the Dubai Ports deal, and so forth.
Drumbeats are hollow and have no substance. But they get heard, like the loud stereo of a car passing by at 0300. You have no idea what the song was that was playing in the car but you know that you heard something; it woke you up.
So, the drumbeats register in the back of people’s minds, they affect feelings. You may not like the sound of the music but it registers that someone somewhere is having a party. There is something going on, you think, even though it probably is only a drunk teenager in a car at 0300.
Unfortunately, folks, we have to reply in kind. We have to keep up a drumbeat. It can be hollow, it can be pointless, but we have to register in the back of people’s minds.
Like the dead cities of the Axis powers, they started it and we will have to reply in kind. It’s nasty, it’s dirty, and people still call it a crime, but burning down Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped win the war. Roll up our sleeves, get a good handful of excrement, and let fly.
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:24 am 40. NahnCee:Tea Party participants are out-drawing MoveOn.org participants 10 to 1 in various meetings / confrontations around the country re: Obama’s health care plan. If that level of street activism can be maintained, the Left’s bullying street demo activities to get their own way is being confronted and destroyed. Of course, MSM isn’t covering these confrontations, but people driving by can *see* what the reality is.
Too bad no one was het up enough during the major fighting of the Iraq war to get out and counteract the nuts on the corners waving their “Troops out of Iraq NOW” banners. I guess when you’ve personally lost your very own job and Obama also wants your kidney on top of it, it’s enough to get lots of people more involved.
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:45 am 41. virgil xenophon:It is amazing how closely Subotai Bahadur argument/line of reasoning parallels an Oct 2008 post by Whiskey at his blog: “Whiskeys Place” entitled: “Obama’s America: Is it Jonestown?” @
http://whiskey’s-place.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamas-america-is-it-jonestown.html
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:11 pm 42. David L.:I would disagree with Fernandez only in one detail of characterization. The administration is not fleeing. By reopening the question of the conduct of the War on Terror, it has rounded on its critics with the implicit threat to ride them down and destroy them if they do not get out of the way of Obama’s domestic agenda and cease all efforts to look inside the “black box” of Obama’s Grand Bargain. The message now is step back and shut up, or the administration and the “progressives” in Congress will begin a process that could very well rip the nation to pieces.
Jul 13, 2009 - 12:13 pm 43. Subotai Bahadur:#41 virgil xenophon
For the record, I have not read the piece by Whiskey; and indeed cannot now. The link [once it is copied and pasted] goes to to blogspot saying there is no such blog, but I can have the name if I want to buy it.
Subotai Bahadur
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:04 pm 44. Roderick Reilly:I have some comments on Andrew X’s proposition that prosecution of the Bush administration will backfire. I believe that there is a strong probability of that, although I think that the flames of indignation have to be skillfully fanned by a prepared and coordinated opposition to those prosecutions.
The latest news (from the Washington Times) is that there may be investigations into the disappearance/deaths of some 2,000 Taliban prisoners, courtesy of the Northern Alliance.
How do you suppose many Americans would react to an attempt to make us/Bush look bad because of that, especially if the opposition media puts it in the perspective of 2001-2002? So 2,000 members of the movement that enabled the killing of 3,000 innocent Americans were wiped out? So friggin’ what? And it was Afghanis who did? So double-friggin’ what? This kind of deliberate flagellation of the American spirit after months of apology tours and stimulus packages that the American public never asked for, and deficits so huge even ordinary Americans are alarmed, and a Cap & Trade monstrosity at a time when everybody and his grandmother has noticed an unusually mild summer after a winter where it snowed in Vegas and Baghdad, and you get the proverbial, “straw, meet the camel’s back.”
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:07 pm 45. peterike:Roderick, indeed my personal response to the 2,000 dead Taliban is “good riddance to bad rubbish” and a hearty hand-clap for the Northern Alliance.
But this kind of thing resonates tremendously with the harder-Left part of O’s base. You know, those entirely ready to always and everywhere condemn the US as imperialistic killers. This is red meat for the hard core who will make no mental distinction between Northern Alliance-Bush-Rethuglicans. These are the sort of folks who post laughable nonsense on blogs like “the US is the biggest killer of all time.” It’s all the same continuum to them. With all O’s backpedling on promises he made to his Red core, he needs to string up some Republican and/or Military heads.
After all, we know the military is a bunch of baby killing psychos. There have just been SO many cool movies about that.
Jul 13, 2009 - 1:16 pm 46. Mad Fiddler:The greatest hope for the world that will come from the the present universal access to cameras and powerful media authoring software is not just the ability to capture events as they unfold.
It is the understanding by a world-wide generation of the ease with which an utterly false story can be manufactured to appear as truth, starting from actual true events.
My deepest hope is that kids who know how to put together the remarkably sophisticated stories we’re seeing, will be be much less gullible and trusting of lying bastards.
Jul 13, 2009 - 2:30 pm 47. gokart-mozart:43 subotai: Try THIS
Jul 13, 2009 - 2:57 pm 48. Subotai Bahadur:#47 gokart-mozart
Thanks for the link. I don’t see the parallels as exact. I am speaking more of a totalitarian seizure of power. No matter which pew of the totalitarian church Buraq Hussein ends up sitting in, that should be the trigger point for resistance.
Subotai Bahadur
Jul 13, 2009 - 6:19 pm 49. Robohobo:Wretchard wrote:
This is what we have seen so far, that both mechanisms are being put in place. Silence the critics with specious “hate crime” laws or misdirect with some other crisis. As in – “Don’t look at the HUGE tax bill we want to hand you for health care ‘reform’ instead look at the ‘wise Latina’ we put up for SCOTUS!” [These are not the droids you want....]
dtmack @ 18: re: Palin
If anything happens to her, then you know the future of the rest of the country. And personally, I would not put some sort of mischief beyond the current thugs in the WH.
See HR 645 – National Emergency Centers Establishment Act & HR 1966 – Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act
As far as BHO going from ‘The Won’ or ‘The One We Have All Been Waiting For’ to just POTUS #44, I prefer “The 0bamanation” [read the zero-bamanation]. He is mortal, but don’t tell him that/ He thinks he is destined for greatness but, you know, greatness has many forms from greatly revered to greatly despised.
Us boomers have made a huge mistake. We got what we asked for in ‘The Sixties’. The old saw of be careful what you ask for is true. We wanted these changes. We were SOOOOOOO wrong.
Jul 13, 2009 - 9:56 pm 50. Triton'sPolarTiger:@49 Robohobo
“If anything happens to her, then you know the future of the rest of the country. And personally, I would not put some sort of mischief beyond the current thugs in the WH.”
Up to this point, one of my greatest fears has that someone will somehow manage to knock off Lord Zero before he finishes his first (and hopefully last) term. Opportunistic bastards that leftists are (see Rahm’s “never waste a good crisis” comments), it won’t matter who did it – conservatives will be blamed. With a totally in the tank liberal media promulgating that idea, we (conservatives) will be cooked, and The One will be presented as a martyr deserving of sainthood.
I believe that leftists are so intent on acquiring and maintaining power (and forcing their enemies – us – to live in subject to it) that they’d even knock off Lord Zero if they saw it as a way to permanently destroy/discredit conservatives.
So, back to your comment – I believe it goes without saying that the vileness she’s been subjected to since joining the McCain ticket has been (and continues to be) so over the top, that I can easily see some leftist nutjob getting all whipped up and taking it upon himself/herself to permanently remove this woman – she is, in their eyes, nothing more than a cancer.
Removing the cancer would be seen as a virtuous act – with all the wackjobs out there, it wouldn’t require any current admin thugs.
{{sigh}}
While I despised a lot of what Clinton did while in office, I never hated the guy. So far, I don’t hate “O” either, but for the first time in my adult life, I’m forced to consider the possibility that what we’re seeing in government, “O” included, is outright evil, intending to reduce us to a status only slightly above that of cattle… and we’ll be treated as such – bread, used, and culled as the elite sees fit.
God help us.
Triton
Jul 13, 2009 - 11:14 pm 51. dtmack:#50 Triton
I too wish Obama a long and healthy life as an ex President.
As far as Sarah P, if the Democrats had any friggin’ brains (yeah, I know), they would be providing massive security details for her everywhere she goes. Right now she’s a threat to the GOP, and they should realize that she has the potential to cause immense disarray within the DEM opposition, because she does. The bigwigs in the GOP are trying to figure out a way to neutralize her, but I don’t think they’ll have much success.
The other day she evidently said that she would support anyone, regardless of party affiliation, who advocated the correct policies. I haven’t seen the quote myself, maybe that’s wrong.
If it’s right then that’s as direct a challenge to the GOP establishment as she could make. That’s why I think she’s relevant and fascinating. She has the ability to throw a monkey wrench into a lot of plans, and it’s going to be interesting to see what she does with that.
Jul 14, 2009 - 1:30 am 52. JFSanders:49. Robohobo:
“Us boomers have made a huge mistake. We got what we asked for in ‘The Sixties’. The old saw of be careful what you ask for is true. We wanted these changes. We were SOOOOOOO wrong.
O’s best buddies still fightin the man
This video is 1:30 long but is amazing for it’s frank views. Caution strong language.
Jul 14, 2009 - 5:01 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.