The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Politics => Topic started by: Eupher on March 16, 2012, 09:46:55 AM
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Most of this stuff would be funny if it weren't true (all of the below is at the link). Maybe this thread belongs in Mind-Numbing Stupidity instead of here - mods, please do with it as you will:
Yesterday I noted that Barack Obama is bad at math, but he’s even worse at history. Tina hit this yesterday, but it’s worth adding to the OOTD canon — and I suspect the Sunday poll commenters would erupt in outrage if Obama’s assessment of his predecessor Rutherford Hayes wasn’t included:
There have always been folks like that. There always have been folks who are the naysayers and don’t believe in the future, and don’t believe in trying to do things differently. One of my predecessors, Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone, “It’s a great invention, but who would ever want to use one?†(Laughter.) That’s why he’s not on Mt. Rushmore — (laughter and applause) — because he’s looking backwards. He’s not looking forwards. (Applause.) He’s explaining why we can’t do something, instead of why we can do something.
Really? I guess we didn’t have Hope and Change in 1877. However, we did have media that actually reported events back then — those were the days! — and as New York Magazine reports, Obama not only got this wrong, he got it as wrong as he possibly could:
We thought it was a bit unsporting of Obama to attack President Hayes, who is quite unable to respond. So we called up the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio, where Nan Card, the curator of manuscripts, was plenty willing to correct Obama’s ignorance of White House history. Just as soon as she finished chuckling.
“I’ve heard that before, and no one ever knows where it came from,†Card said of Hayes’s alleged phone remark, “but people just keep repeating it and repeating it, so it’s out there.â€
Wait, so Hayes didn’t even say the quote that Obama is mocking him for? “No, no,†Card confirmed.
She then read aloud a newspaper article from June 29, 1877, which describes Hayes’s delight upon first experiencing the magic of the telephone. The Providence Journal story reported that as Hayes listened on the phone, “a gradually increasing smile wreathe[d] his lips and wonder shone in his eyes more and more.†Hayes took the phone from his ear, “looked at it a moment in surprise and remarked, ‘That is wonderful.’â€
In fact, Card noted, Hayes was not only the first president to have a telephone in the White House, but he was also the first to use the typewriter, and he had Thomas Edison come to the White House to demonstrate the phonograph. “So I think he was pretty much cutting edge,†Card insisted, “maybe just the opposite of what President Obama had to say there.â€
The real reason that Hayes doesn’t find his visage on Mt. Rushmore is that he wasn’t a very good President, not because he was a Luddite. That’s also why Obama won’t find his visage on Mt. Rushmore, either … nor on the History Channel, except as a cautionary tale. But if they put faces on Mt. Rushmore for mindlessly repeating bad data and false assumptions, Obama would get a peak all to himself.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/16/obamateurism-of-the-day-706/
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His administration is determined to make him look like a fool... not that he needs their help.
Another bullshit story was his claim yesterday that we only have 2% of the world's oil.
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(http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff68/kayaktn/3occuu.jpg) (http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff68/kayaktn/3ocalx.jpg) (http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff68/kayaktn/3ocfdk.jpg)
They don't make them like they used to.
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For the record, there are 58 states. After visiting the 57th, owebuma said there was "one to go". 58, read them and weep.
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With video at the link:
If you think Barack Obama is an amateur at political leadership, just watch him as a sports commentator. CBS caught up with President Obama at halftime of the Western Kentucky-Mississippi State in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball championships, and was asked to give his expert analysis:
Well, I’ve got to say that both teams are shooting terribly. It may be nerves — these are not teams that end up coming to the tournament.
Really? That’s news to WKU alum and OOTD reader Craig S, who pointed me to WKU’s record in men’s basketball:
3 NCAA Tournament wins since 2008
2008 and 2009 Sun Belt Conference Champions
Two NBA Draft picks in last four years (Courtney Lee, 1st round, 2008; Jeremy Evans, 2nd round, 2010)
42 conference championships, third-most in NCAA history
40 seasons with 20+ wins, sixth-most in NCAA history
38 All-Americans
34 national post-season appearances
21 NCAA Tournament berths
14th in NCAA history in all-time wins (1,643)
8th in NCAA history in all-time winning percentage (.670)
7 “Sweet 16″ appearances in NCAA tournament
NCAA Final Four in 1971
HotAir (http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/19/obamateurism-of-the-day-707/)
I don't follow any sort of sports at all, so most of this is lost on me, but whatever.
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He's even incompetent in what he's allegedly an expert in.
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With video at the link:
HotAir (http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/19/obamateurism-of-the-day-707/)
I don't follow any sort of sports at all, so most of this is lost on me, but whatever.
He apparently doesn't know dick about Mississippi State's basketball program either.
NCAA Tournament Final Four
1996
NCAA Tournament Elite Eight
1996
NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen
1963, 1995, 1996
NCAA Tournament Round of 32
1963*, 1995, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008
NCAA Tournament appearances
1963, 1991, 1995, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009
Conference tournament champions
1923, 1996, 2002, 2009
Conference regular season champions
1912, 1913, 1914, 1916, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1963 1991, 2004
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_State_Bulldogs_basketball
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I kinda lost track of this, but here is today's Obamateurism:
Remember Darin Wedel? Back in January, his wife Jennifer surprised President Obama during his Google hangout by criticizing the expansion of H-1B visas and Obama’s assertion that the US faced a shortage of high-tech engineers, since Darin — a semiconductor engineer — had been out of work for months. Obama expressed his surprise, calling the Wedels’ situation “interesting†because Obama had been getting “the word†that there should be full employment. He asked Jennifer to send Darin’s resume to the White House, which she promptly did.
Now, we all know how this story ends, right? The President, having publicly intervened in the situation, gets his team to start paging through their Rolodexes and find donors in the industry who can get Darin a job. That way, Obama has a feel-good story about employment, he looks caring and, er, interested, and everyone forgets about the incident. Any politician worth his salt can make that happen, especially at this level.
Or … maybe not, as John (Doc Zero) Hayward discovered:
More than two months after President Barack Obama asked for Darin Wedel’s résumé, the phone is quiet, e-mails are no longer flooding in and the long-sought-after job interviews — which had begun to be scheduled — have petered out.
“Not even recruiting companies are calling anymore,†said Jennifer Wedel, the Fort Worth mother of two who chatted online this year with Obama about her out-of-work husband.
Needless to say, the Wedels are less than impressed:
“I did feel we got our hopes up a little,†Jennifer Wedel said last week. “I mean, he’s the POTUS. But it seems not even the leader of our country can get [Darin] a job.â€
[…] After Darin Wedel was laid off, Jennifer Wedel went to work at an insurance agency, hoping to help support the family while her husband looked for a job.
John calls the whole incident a disaster for Obama:
The “optics†of this story are absolutely horrible for the White House, but it was actually horrible from the moment it began. The idea that Americans should have to beg the royal court for indulgences – which the court then demonstrates it cannot provide! – is nauseating, and it’s not a new aspect of the Obama presidency. In the very first weeks of his Administration, he was at a town hall meeting in Florida when a homeless woman asked him for a house, and lo! A house was soon offered, after the President hugged her. …
It’s Obamanomics in a nutshell: if you’re lucky enough to find your way into his carefully controlled town hall meetings, or you’ve got the right political connections, you can do okay… until things get so bad that His Majesty can no longer wave his hand and cause bounty to be showered upon selected peasants. Fortunately, Obama can count on the media to downplay this story, instead of treating it as a powerful symbolic moment in a failed presidency, as they would if he were a Republican.
Maybe they got the word.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/17/obamateurism-of-the-day-721/
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If Wedel was owebuma's son, he'd look like him. This is the kind of work owebuma must apply himself to, not decreasing the unemployment numbers or increasing the real wages.
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By Ed Morrissey:
Apparently, the “fairness†argument by itself wasn’t selling the Buffett Rule for Barack Obama. With the election approaching and his approval numbers on the economy tanking, Obama decided to add another argument — that the Buffett Rule was a means to stimulate economic growth:
“As many Americans rush to file their taxes this weekend, it’s worth pointing out that we’ve got a tax system that doesn’t always uphold the principle of everyone doing their part,†Obama said in the address posted online Saturday.
“This is not just about fairness, this is also about growth,†he added. “It’s about being able to make the investments we need to strengthen our economy and create jobs. And it’s about whether we as a country are willing to pay for those investments.["]
First, in order to believe that, you have to buy the notion that economic growth in the private sector occurs when government seizes capital from the private sector. Obama’s stimulus plan should have killed that notion dead, and all that did was seize future capital through massive borrowing. Seizure of capital only retards economic growth by taking capital out of the marketplace, or at best reducing it significantly through bureaucratic overhead and transferring it to inefficient uses. After all, no one has a problem investing in efficient and productive organizations, so government intervention isn’t necessary.
But the truly laughable part of this argument is the scale. Estimates of the annual revenue from the Buffett Rule range between $3.1 billion and $4.7 billion. The American economy is around $15 trillion dollars. Even taking the best case and assuming $4.7 billion in revenue that would have not been put to any productive use in the hands of those from whom it was taken, it would amount to a whopping 0.0313% of the American economy. (For that matter, it’s only 0.5% of Obama’s proposed FY2013 deficit, and 0.12% of his overall budget.) Even under the theoretical 100% improvement in the use of that capital, the impact wouldn’t be big enough to change the reported annual GDP growth rate at the first decimal point. It’s also worth remembering that Obama spent $3 billion in three weeks on Cash for Clunkers in 2009, and it had no impact at all on auto sales; it just moved demand up by a month.
This is Obamanomics in a nutshell; hyperventilating over 0.0313% of the problem while ignoring the other 99.9687% of it.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/19/obamateurism-of-the-day-723/
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By Ed Morrissey:
Apparently, the “fairness†argument by itself wasn’t selling the Buffett Rule for Barack Obama. With the election approaching and his approval numbers on the economy tanking, Obama decided to add another argument — that the Buffett Rule was a means to stimulate economic growth:
“As many Americans rush to file their taxes this weekend, it’s worth pointing out that we’ve got a tax system that doesn’t always uphold the principle of everyone doing their part,†Obama said in the address posted online Saturday.
“This is not just about fairness, this is also about growth,†he added. “It’s about being able to make the investments we need to strengthen our economy and create jobs. And it’s about whether we as a country are willing to pay for those investments.["]
First, in order to believe that, you have to buy the notion that economic growth in the private sector occurs when government seizes capital from the private sector. Obama’s stimulus plan should have killed that notion dead, and all that did was seize future capital through massive borrowing. Seizure of capital only retards economic growth by taking capital out of the marketplace, or at best reducing it significantly through bureaucratic overhead and transferring it to inefficient uses. After all, no one has a problem investing in efficient and productive organizations, so government intervention isn’t necessary.
But the truly laughable part of this argument is the scale. Estimates of the annual revenue from the Buffett Rule range between $3.1 billion and $4.7 billion. The American economy is around $15 trillion dollars. Even taking the best case and assuming $4.7 billion in revenue that would have not been put to any productive use in the hands of those from whom it was taken, it would amount to a whopping 0.0313% of the American economy. (For that matter, it’s only 0.5% of Obama’s proposed FY2013 deficit, and 0.12% of his overall budget.) Even under the theoretical 100% improvement in the use of that capital, the impact wouldn’t be big enough to change the reported annual GDP growth rate at the first decimal point. It’s also worth remembering that Obama spent $3 billion in three weeks on Cash for Clunkers in 2009, and it had no impact at all on auto sales; it just moved demand up by a month.
This is Obamanomics in a nutshell; hyperventilating over 0.0313% of the problem while ignoring the other 99.9687% of it.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/19/obamateurism-of-the-day-723/
So, if I understand what you are saying, he is the anti Ivory soap, 99 and 44/100ths% impure.
Edited to change 110 to 100, and add %
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I wouldn't sully Ivory soap by putting Barry's name in the same sentence as it.
Nope, it boils down to trying to politicize and associate the paying of taxes with the same tired liberal meme that the rich don't pay their fair share.
As far as I can tell (my tax bracket is 28% BTW), the only ****sticks who aren't paying their fair share are the welfare-wielding, Xbox-playing, cellphone-texting turd burglars who are still waiting for their skittle-shitting ponies.
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I wouldn't sully Ivory soap by putting Barry's name in the same sentence as it.
Nope, it boils down to trying to politicize and associate the paying of taxes with the same tired liberal meme that the rich don't pay their fair share.
As far as I can tell (my tax bracket is 28% BTW), the only ****sticks who aren't paying their fair share are the welfare-wielding, Xbox-playing, cellphone-texting turd burglars who are still waiting for their skittle-shitting ponies.
Be careful, those guys are beginning to unionize. They have already organized the hershey highwaymen, and the poo packers.
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The first rule of Vacation Club is … you don’t talk about Vacation Club. And the second rule of Vacation Club at the White House is that you don’t ask about it, either. Barack Obama got a little annoyed with KMOV reporter Larry Conners when he challenged Obama on how many vacations the First Family has taken, in an economy that 76% of American voters is still a recession:
KMOV-STL’s Larry Conners: “The economy is a big issue and concern for folks. I mean, the unemployment, trying to make ends meet, gas prices, food prices going up. Some of our viewers are complaining, they get frustrated, even angered, when they see the first family jetting around, different vacations and so forth. Sometimes maybe they think under color of state business and that you’re out of touch, that you don’t really know what they’re experiencing right now.â€
President Barack Obama: “Well, I don’t know how many viewers you’re talking about that say that.â€
Conners: “We do hear from some.â€
Obama: “I hear from all kinds of viewers about everything.â€
Conners: “I’m sure you do.â€
Obama: “But the fact of the matter is, I think if you look at my track record, I’m raising a family here. When we travel, we got to travel through Secret Service, and Air Force One, that’s not my choice. I think most folks understand how hard I work and how hard this administration is working on behalf of the American people.â€
Conners: “Well, of course, with all due respect, the President side stepped that question. No one is questioning his need to travel on Air Force One or have security. The questions being raised are the first family taking so many vacations, when and where, at taxpayer expense.â€
As Conners notes at the end of the interview, Obama never actually answered the question, and made it clear that he thinks it’s an illegitimate point to raise. No one quibbles with a President’s need to take some time away from the White House, but the frequency in which Obama and his family does so — and the public costs of all that vacation — is certainly a legitimate point to raise, especially while Obama keeps tweaking the supposedly indolent wealthy for not working hard enough for the rest of us.
HotAir video (http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/20/obamateurism-of-the-day-724/)
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The White House puts out a weekly video report called “West Wing Week,†which provides all the highlights of Barack Obama’s events and accomplishments. Two weeks ago, the video included a shot of Obama sinking a three-pointer at the Easter Egg roll (1:50):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0_olLOuzSNs
Zeke Miller of BuzzFeed notes that the White House managed to scrub what really happened:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4kLULqexHU&feature=player_embedded
At Easter Egg Roll event, the ball-player-in-chief missed four of five 3-pointers, but you’ll only see the one basket Obama made in the White House’s video recap of the week.
Must have been a slow week of accomplishments to highlight a 20% success rate on the basketball court. Then again, that might be their best winning percentage all term.
It's pretty bad when Barry can't even tell the truth about basketball.
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So what’s on your personal “life list� What kind of items might be on yours? I’ve been fortunate to already check off most of the items I wanted to do before kicking the bucket — visiting Ireland, visiting Rome and the Vatican, getting married, being a father and grandfather, making a living as a writer — but still have a few more. Other people want to climb Mount Everest, sail around the world, make their first million dollars.
How many people would have these two bucket items on their “life list“?
[go to the link to see the Twitter Tweetie thingie]
I might believe that meeting George Clooney could be on someone’s bucket list, but Obama and his team aren’t exactly promising that. They just promise to have a lucky winner of their $3 lottery attend a party hosted by Clooney. You get to meet Barack Obama, and meeting a President is a pretty cool thing, but a life list item? Really? Of course, Barack Obama himself is telling you that it’s a life list item for you, so it must be true.
Besides, Obama wasn’t always so enthusiastic about lotteries:
Appearing on the public TV program “Chicago Tonight,†then-StateSen. Obama argued that the lottery is not a good way to spend money, especially for the poor.
“One of the concerns that I have, obviously, is that a disproportionate number of people who consistently buy lottery tickets tend to be lower-income and working-class people who can least afford it,†he said. “Even if they’re not compulsive gamblers, they are probably spending money that they don’t necessarily have.â€
Obama also suggested that state lotteries’ marketing practices made them complicit in fleecing the low-income crowd.
“Now, we might say that this is their entertainment dollar the same way that somebody else has entertainment dollar and spends it on a movie,†he said. “But I think the fact that the state systematically targets what we know to be lower income persons as a way of raising revenue is troublesome.["]
Hey, at least when you buy $3 worth of lottery tickets, you have a (very small) chance of getting some money back. In this lottery, the winner only gets an opportunity to get fleeced at a fundraising dinner. That’s not exactly a bucket list item for anyone.
HotAir (http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/24/obamateurism-of-the-day-726/)
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Lotteries are a de facto tax on the poor. The poor in this country are poor because they want to be almost without exception.
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Joni Mitchell once sang:
Don’t it always seem to go
You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.
Apparently, the Obamas sing this regularly, but they mean that we don’t know what we’ve got in them, according to Jodi Kantor’s new book, The Obamas, as Jim Geraghty reports. When they went to Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize, the Obamas began complaining to their friends that Americans just didn’t appreciate their genius, or something:
But amid the bad news and pressures of late 2009, the trip unexpectedly passed like a brief, happy fantasy for the president, a Nordic alternate reality where citizens were learned and pensive, discussions were thoughtful, and everyone was a fan. “It wasn’t hero worship,†said one adviser who accompanied them. “Okay, it was.â€
For one day, the Obamas lived in the dream version of his presidency instead of the depressing reality. At meals and receptions, they mingled with the members of the Royal Academy – government officials, academics…
The trip spurred a thought the Obamas and their friends would voice to each other again and again as the president’s popularity continued to decline: the American public just did not appreciate their exceptional leader. The president “could get 70 or 80 percent of the vote anywhere but the U.S.†[President Obama's old friend] Marty Nesbitt told [another old friend of Obama] Eric Whitaker indignantly.â€
Er, okay. And this disenchantment with American voters took place less than nine months into his term. What exactly had Obama accomplished to warrant “hero worship� Or for that matter, the Nobel Peace Prize?
I’ve got an idea. Maybe the Obamas should leave the US in January and live in Norway a few years. When we miss him enough, he can come back — but, Mr. President, don’t call us … we’ll call you.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/25/obamateurism-of-the-day-727/
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^Pave paradise, put up a parking lot...
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This White House has never been expert at researching claims in presidential speeches, but one would think that Barack Obama would know something about a key political ally before making claims about it. Earlier this month in a forum on “women and the economy,†Obama may have cost women a little extra cash – or at least some lost time — by referring them to Planned Parenthood for mammograms:
[go to the link to see the video]
When people say we should get rid of Planned Parenthood, they’re not just talking about restricting a woman’s ability to make her own health decision; they’re talking about denying, as a practical matter, the preventive care, like mammograms, that millions of women rely on.
First, no one is saying that “we should get rid of Planned Parenthood,†as Obama claims. People oppose giving federal dollars to Planned Parenthood because their core business is abortions. It’s their profit-driving activity, not handing out contraception, and certainly not performing mammograms, to which I’ll return in a moment. Planned Parenthood should be able to operate on their own, just like any other business, and taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize it to keep it alive. Obama’s claim is a strawman argument that amounts to a statement that a lack of federal funding equates to criminalization, which is ludicrous as well as demagogic.
Why aren’t mammograms a profit center for PP? They don’t provide mammograms, that’s why. They refer all requests to other caregivers, which means that if Planned Parenthood disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn’t eliminate a single mammogram in this country. That’s one reason why the breast-cancer awareness organization Susan G. Komen Foundation cut off Planned Parenthood, and they admitted that PP didn’t do mammograms a year ago:
In new emails Susan G. Komen for the Cure is sending to people complaining about their grants to the Planned Parenthood abortion business, officials claim the grants are given to help women obtain breast cancer screenings. Yet, Komen also admits Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms. …
However, a late March expose’ from Live Action revealed no Planned Parenthood centers nationally provide mammograms.
Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.
“We don’t provide those services whatsoever,†admits a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona while a staffer at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas tells a caller, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.â€
In its email to people concerned about the Komen-Planned Parenthood connection, a Komen official admits Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide mammograms for women with its grant money. Komen makes it clear the money is merely funneled through the abortion business to legitimate medical centers that actually perform mammograms.
So no one is arguing to ban Planned Parenthood, and even if they closed their doors tomorrow, it wouldn’t reduce the availability for mammograms by even one single scan. Other than that, Obama had his facts straight, which is to say, not at all.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/27/obamateurism-of-the-day-729/
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Some days, the President just makes it too easy. Doubling down on his attack on Mitt Romney and the supposed question of whether the Republican would have whacked Osama bin Laden if given a chance, Barack Obama insisted that he just assumed that Romney meant that when he said that the war on terror wasn’t just about OBL. In comments at a joint news conference with Japan’s Prime Minister, who must have wondered what the hell Obama was talking about, Obama offered this explanation of the attack on Romney:
“I assume that people meant what they said when they said it. That’s been at least my practice.â€
Come on, now … you know what’s coming next, don’t you? Peter Kirsanow makes the obvious comparisons to Obama’s own record:
“No family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.â€
“As president, I will close Guantanamo.â€
“But what I can guarantee is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support.â€
“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.â€
“My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.â€
“I will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American people an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website.â€
“No political appointee in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years.â€
“I’ll give an annual State of the World address to the American people where I lay out national security policy.â€
I’m pretty sure that you’ll see Obama’s quip paired up with any number of statements from Obama like these that Obama obviously didn’t mean when he said them — in Romney ads this summer and fall. If Team Romney and the RNC want, they could make this a weekly series of ads all the way through Election Day. We could even call them the “Expiration Date Series.â€
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It's a shameless game libs like owebuma play, he indicts himself with his own accusations, and acts as innocent as the blowing snow. To pull that off so seamlessly you have to have complete domination of your conscience. Or none at all.
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It's a shameless game libs like owebuma play, he indicts himself with his own accusations, and acts as innocent as the blowing snow. To pull that off so seamlessly you have to have complete domination of your conscience. Or none at all.
I think the latter description is most apt.
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It's a shameless game libs like owebuma play, he indicts himself with his own accusations, and acts as innocent as the blowing snow. To pull that off so seamlessly you have to have complete domination of your conscience. Or none at all.
Kingfish on the Amos and Andy TV show once said, "I made my conscience a promise. I wouldn't bother it if it wouldn't bother me." I think Obama has the same deal going.
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Kingfish on the Amos and Andy TV show once said, "I made my conscience a promise. I wouldn't bother it if it wouldn't bother me." I think Obama has the same deal going.
A wise man.
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If it weren’t for those dastardly Republicans, Barack Obama often argues, I’d have fixed all our woes by now! Unfortunately for Obama, he often gets his facts wrong in these arguments, but perhaps none quite so wrong as in a speech Monday to the Building and Construction Trades Department conference. He claimed that Speaker of the House John Boehner had blocked him from fixing bridges in Ohio and Kentucky:
I sent them a jobs bill that would have put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back to work repairing our roads, our bridges, schools, transit systems, along with saving the jobs of cops and teachers and firefighters, creating a new tax cut for businesses. They said no. I went to the Speaker’s hometown, stood under a bridge that was crumbling. Everybody acknowledges it needs to be rebuilt. Maybe he doesn’t drive anymore. Maybe he doesn’t notice how messed up it was. They still said no. There are bridges between Kentucky and Ohio where some of the key Republican leadership come from, where folks are having to do detours an extra hour, hour-and-a-half drive every day on their commute because these bridges don’t work. They still said no.
Really? Er … no, not really, as Glenn Kessler discovered. At first, the WaPo factchecker thought Obama had repeated his claims about the Brent Spence Bridge, for which Kessler had already assigned Obama three Pinocchios. Instead, Obama meant the Sherman Milton Bridge, which links Kentucky and Indiana, not Ohio. Governor Mitch Daniels (of, y’know, Indiana) had to shut down the Sherman Milton Bridge because of a crack discovered in the structure. But as Kessler discovered, it didn’t stay shut down for long:
While Obama claimed “these bridges don’t work,†the Sherman Milton Bridge has already been repaired, ahead of schedule, and motorists are driving over it again.
It turned out that, rather than being an example of an aging bridge, the crack that had been discovered actually had been there ever since the bridge was constructed in 1962, because of the type of steel used at the time. Other repairs were ordered, and the bridge reopened nearly three months ago — without needing any of Obama’s jobs-bill funds.
Another nearby bridge, the Kennedy Bridge, will soon undergo redecking, but officials said the work will not lead to a shutdown. Again, the work is being done without Obama’s jobs-bill money.
Let’s recap. Obama got the geography wrong, got the bridge status wrong, got the problem wrong, and neither of the two projects need the funding he touted. Perhaps he’d do better to listen to Boehner. At least Boehner knows where Ohio ends and Kentucky and Indiana begin. Still, he’s getting better … in a way. This time Kessler gave him four Pinocchios.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/02/obamateurism-of-the-day-732/
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Well, it's really hard to keep those 57 states separated in his child like mind. O'Bummer couldn't find his ass with both hands, so this is but a minor goof.
I don't think the guy could tell the truth to St. Peter in order to get by the Pearly Gates!
I've never heard a president lie like a dog like this guy does, and I was puttin' bumper stickers on cars for JFK, who was by the way, the last DemocRat worthy of the office. Every single one since has been a disaster for the country!
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For the record, there are 58 states. After visiting the 57th, owebuma said there was "one to go". 58, read them and weep.
60. He had been to 57 states with one still left to go. He said his staff would not let him go to Hawaii or Alaska.
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60. He had been to 57 states with one still left to go. He said his staff would not let him go to Hawaii or Alaska.
It's a number very similar to the minimum wage, always increasing.
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We’ve criticized Barack Obama and his White House staff on many occasions for their poor research skills, but there hasn’t been any incident quite as embarrassing as the gaffe made in Obama’s proclamation on Tuesday to commemorate Jewish American Heritage Month. The proclamation listed several prominent Jewish Americans, including Gertrude Stein, a well-known American artist of the early-to-mid-twentieth century:
Their history of unbroken perseverance and their belief in tomorrow’s promise offers a lesson not only to Jewish Americans, but to all Americans. From Aaron Copland to Albert Einstein, Gertrude Stein to Justice Louis Brandeis.
Algemeiner, the self-proclaimed [see update] “fastest growing Jewish newspaper in America,†pointed out that the inclusion of Stein in that list was appalling — since she was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and an apologist for the puppet Vichy regime in France during the war. The same day that Obama signed and published the order, Alan Dershowitz had blasted the Metropolitan Museum for covering up Stein’s collaboration with the Nazis in France and cheerleading for Hitler (via Breitbart):
Stein, a “racial†Jew according to Nazi ideology, managed to survive the Holocaust, while the vast majority of her co-religionists were deported and slaughtered. The exhibit says “remarkably, the two women [Stein and her companion Alice Toklas] survived the war with their possessions intact.†It adds that “Bernard Fay, a close friend…and influential Vichy collaborator is thought to have protected them.†That is an incomplete and distorted account of what actually happened. Stein and Toklas survived the Holocaust for one simple reason: Gertrude Stein was herself a major collaborator with the Vichy regime and a supporter of its pro-Nazi leadership.
According to a new book entitled Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Fay and the Vichy Dilemma, by Barbara Will, Stein publicly proclaimed her admiration for Hitler during the 1930s, proposing him for a Nobel Peace Prize. In the worst days of the Vichy regime, she volunteered to write an introduction to the speeches of General Phillipe Petain, the Nazi puppet leader who deported thousands of Jews, but who she regarded as a great French hero. She wanted his speeches translated into English, with her introduction, so that Americans would see the virtues of the Vichy regime. In that respect she was like other modernist writers, such as Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot who proudly proclaimed their pro-Fascist ideology, but Stein’s support for Fascism was more bizarre because she was Jewish.
Stein’s closest friend, and a man who greatly influenced her turn toward fascism was Bernard Fay, who the Vichy government put in charge of hunting down Masons, Jews and other perceived enemies of the State. Fay was more than a mere collaborator as suggested by the Met exhibit. He was a full blown Nazi operative, responsible for the deaths of many people. After the war, when the horrendous results were known to all, Gertrude wrote in support of Fay when he was placed on trial for his Nazi war crimes.
Perhaps an artist should be judged without regard to his or her political affiliations or actions, but the Met exhibit purports to present the story of the Stein collection and of Gertrude’s life in France. It ends with a misleading description of her activities during the war years. It would perhaps be different if this were only an exhibition of the Steins’ art collection rather than a biographical account of her family’s life in France. By withholding from the viewers an important part of the truth, the Met is engaging in a falsification of history.
So apparently was the Obama administration. After Algemeiner contacted the White House for comment, the response came that the wrong version of the proclamation had been published, and that the citation of Stein and other specific people had been from just one early draft. How could Stein be listed at all on any version of such a proclamation? It took the White House a little while to replace the offending proclamation, but eventually they did.
At some point, the White House has to hire real researchers. Maybe that’ll be Obama’s second-term agenda. (via E-nough)
Update: Algemeiner points to this Fox News clip to make the argument that their status as the fastest-growing Jewish newspaper in the US isn’t just self-proclaimed:
*See the link for video*
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/04/obamateurism-of-the-day-734/
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When you think radical lib/dem/socialists are the norm, you end up having nothing but them in the owebuma administration.
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In another of the “Do as I say, not as I do†OOTD entries, we finally include Barack Obama’s personally-delivered attack on Mitt Romney over whether the Republican nominee has the testicular fortitude to fight the war on terror. The attack went against the stated personal ethics of a leader in the Democratic Party. You know … the same one who personally attacked Romney over his purported inability to get Osama bin Laden:
[video]
On Sept. 17, 2006, Obama spoke at Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry in Indianola, Iowa.
“And let me tell you something else I’ve had enough of: I’ve had enough of using terrorism as a wedge issue in our politics,†Obama told the crowd. “I’ve had enough of that. I’ve had enough of that. You know, I – I don’t know about you, but I think the war against terrorism isn’t supposed to crop up between September and November of even numbered years, and yet that seems to be the pattern. There is a sudden burst of activity, a sudden urgency about this whole thing three months before an election every other year.â€
Yeah, I know what you mean, Mr. President — kind of like the way you invited NBC News into the White House Situation Room last week, the first time that’s ever been done, as a way to spike the football one more time on the OBL mission. Odd how that happened in an even-numbered year, isn’t it?
With Video Goodness (http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/07/obamateurism-of-the-day-735/)
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Oops! President Barack Obama forgot about the First Lady when leaving Air Force One today at the Ohio airport before his first “official†campaign event today kicking off his re-election bid. Now this is a “War on Women.â€
[15-second video at link]
Jim Hoft and one of his commenters say that Saturday Night Live won’t be lampooning this any time soon, which isn’t exactly a surprise in this election season (and the fact that their own season is almost over anyway). Had George W. Bush done this, they might have used it in a summer special to emphasize his supposed lack of intelligence, however, which is one reason why it’s worth including here.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/08/obamateurism-of-the-day-736/
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Oops! President Barack Obama forgot about the First Lady when leaving Air Force One today at the Ohio airport before his first “official†campaign event today kicking off his re-election bid. Now this is a “War on Women.â€
[15-second video at link]
Jim Hoft and one of his commenters say that Saturday Night Live won’t be lampooning this any time soon, which isn’t exactly a surprise in this election season (and the fact that their own season is almost over anyway). Had George W. Bush done this, they might have used it in a summer special to emphasize his supposed lack of intelligence, however, which is one reason why it’s worth including here.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/08/obamateurism-of-the-day-736/
I'll bet he paid for that one.
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Almost forgot my wookieyeti.
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Reply #13 (http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,72826.0.html)
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In 2008, a video taken by a cell phone at a San Francisco fundraiser cost Barack Obama the Pennsylvania primary when it caught the candidate claiming that rural voters bitterly cling to guns and religion in tough times, as well as their xenophobia, as an explanation of why he wasn’t polling well in the Keystone State. One might think that Obama would have learned to stop saying foolishly arrogant comments about voters. Instead, he’s just learned to confiscate cell phones at fundraising events:
In the latest attempt to crack down on potentially embarrassing digital leaks from presidential fundraisers, President Barack Obama’s campaign has begun asking donors attending small fundraisers with the president to turn over their cell phones before entering.
Pool reporter David Nakamura of the Washington Post reported that at a $35,800 a head fundraiser at the home of Blackstone COO Hamilton “Tony†James in New York City Monday night, the 60 attendees were asked to place their phones in plastic bags by the door.
An Obama aide called the move it “standard operating procedure,†but veterans of a range of other campaigns said they’d never heard of the practice, which is common in secure White House spaces where there are concerns of espionage, but unknown in contexts in which only political secrets are discussed. The new prevalence of sophisticated audio and recording capacities in mobile devices owned by virtually anyone wealthy enough to write a check to a political campaign, however, has put a new pressure on campaigns concerned with staying on a public message.
That is SOP in Congress, where visitors have to surrender cell phones and other recording equipment before being seated in the gallery, but … the proceedings are broadcast on C-SPAN anyway. Other campaigns ask attendees not to record the proceedings at intimate fundraisers, but according to campaign pros contacted by BuzzFeed, no one has ever heard of a campaign confiscating cell phones. A former Hillary Clinton aide called it “absurd,†while Rick Perry’s campaign manager gets to the heart of it:
Former aides to presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman all expressed surprise at the practice, and they’ve never seen an instance where a campaign asked donors to surrender their cell phones. …
“What is he hiding? Candidates should be for and against the same issue in private as they are in public,†said former Perry campaign manager Rob Johnson. “This shows just how uncomfortable the Obama team is with their message an their candidate. And in addition to religion and guns, voters like to cling to their cell phones.â€
What is he hiding? His next bout of foot-in-mouth disease, of course. Obama and his team must be pretty sure that they can’t trust the President to talk extemporaneously if they’re this concerned about hiding Obama’s responses. After more than three years of writing this feature, I can’t say that I blame them, either … even if it means getting less material in the next five months.
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One small step for owebuma, Another giant Orwellian stride.
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they can’t trust the President to talk extemporaneously
There's got to be a dog and distemper shot joke in there somewhere but I can't find it?
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The only thing missing here was TOTUS:
[video goodness at the link]
Well, at least it makes Obama’s half-full gig at The Ohio State University look like his Inauguration Day crowd. The worst part about this campaign appearance? One of the two homeowners standing behind Obama may not even vote for him:
As leader of the free world President Obama will be used to making speeches to millions of people around the globe.
So he might have felt the occasion was a little beneath him yesterday when he stopped off in Reno, Nevada, to deliver an address outside a couple’s garage.
In what could be a disastrous photo opportunity for the President’s campaign, Mr Obama spoke to a handful of people in the crucial swing state.
The president’s 15 minute address outside the home of Paul and Val Keller on Friday afternoon, drew a small audience of neighbours and supporters – though even his hosts said they were not sure if they would vote for him in the coming election.
Who chose these non-supporters for this photo op? Did they win the Obama-campaign lottery?
Ace points out another mistake made in choosing this venue:
Who’s going to see this as “connecting with ordinary Americans?†And is that even a good objective. He looks “smallâ€, and looking small doesn’t really help him right now. He’s got all the advantages of an incumbent president. Power. Bully pulpit. Air Force One. The lapdog media.
So standing behind a teensy podium, with a Presidential Seal smaller than the headlights on that Jeep behind him, it just seems to diminish him.
He’s doing it to himself, actually.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/17/obamateurism-of-the-day-743/
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World's smallest Presidential seal for the world's smallest President.
This guy can't go anywhere without a podium.
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World's smallest Presidential seal for the world's smallest President.
This guy can't go anywhere without a podium.
Probably no podium on the golf course. But that would be about it.
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When a candidate wants to hammer a message, he takes every opportunity he can to do so, and let nothing stand in his way. Barack Obama, however, takes it to a whole new level. Deciding in February that he needed to keep hammering on the supposed Republican “war on women†after pushing his HHS contraception/sterilization/abortifacient mandate onto employers and schools, Obama requested the commencement-speaker slot at all-female Barnard College this past Monday:
After the presidential campaign has been focusing on female reproductive rights and other women’s issues, President Barack Obama is coming to the city Monday to deliver the commencement address at all-female Barnard College and attend two high-profile fundraisers.
Arriving in the city late Monday morning, the president is slated to deliver the commencement address before 600 Barnard graduates at 1 p.m.
NY1 will carry the president’s commencement address live from Barnard College, starting at about 1 p.m. Monday.
Obama called Barnard President Debora Spar on February 29 and requested to speak at the commencement.
Good move, right? After all, nothing says which side of the war on women like, er … kicking a prominent woman out of the same speaking slot:
The original scheduled speaker, New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson, agreed to step aside to allow the president to headline the event.
Respect! Good thing that Obama replaced Ms. Abramson, because otherwise the graduates at Barnard might never have gotten a woman’s perspective on the world.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/18/obamateurism-of-the-day-744/
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Probably no podium on the golf course. But that would be about it.
He could use his golf bag provided they put a Presidential Seal on it.
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As a general in the War on Women, Barack Obama might be best compared to one who inadvertently fires on his own positions. Team Obama has tried to exploit the usual gender gap in national elections by claiming to fight on behalf of women. Earlier this month the campaign rolled out the creepy “Life of Julia†campaign, and President Obama himself launched the same attacks at a recent commencement speech at all-female Barnard College. How effective has Obama been at this war? Former CNN and NBC anchor Campbell Brown wants Obama to surrender immediately, as she writes in yesterday’s New York Times:
WHEN I listen to President Obama speak to and about women, he sometimes sounds too paternalistic for my taste. In numerous appearances over the years — most recently at the Barnard graduation — he has made reference to how women are smarter than men. It’s all so tired, the kind of fake praise showered upon those one views as easy to impress. As I listen, I am always bracing for the old go-to cliché: “Behind every great man is a great woman.â€
Some women are smarter than men and some aren’t. But to suggest to women that they deserve dominance instead of equality is at best a cheap applause line.
Brown who supports Obama’s position on abortion, scoffs at the idea that contraception is a driving issue in the 2012 elections:
The struggling women in my life all laughed when I asked them if contraception or abortion rights would be a major factor in their decision about this election. For them, and for most other women, the economy overwhelms everything else.
As for “Julia,†well, let’s just say that Brown sees government dominance as a bad trade for male dominance:
The women I know who are struggling in this economy couldn’t be further from the fictional character of Julia, presented in Mr. Obama’s Web ad, “The Life of Julia,†a silly and embarrassing caricature based on the assumption that women look to government at every meaningful phase of their lives for help.
Brown’s husband is doing some consulting work for Romney, but Brown says she remains independent in this race. She does, however, have some advice for Obama. If the President wants to win womens’ votes, maybe he should quit treating them like dependent idiots:
I have always admired President Obama and I agree with him on some issues, like abortion rights. But the promise of his campaign four years ago has given way to something else — a failure to connect with tens of millions of Americans, many of them women, who feel economic opportunity is gone and are losing hope. In an effort to win them back, Mr. Obama is trying too hard. He’s employing a tone that can come across as grating and even condescending. He really ought to drop it. Most women don’t want to be patted on the head or treated as wards of the state.
I wrote about the Left’s inability to connect in my column last week for The Fiscal Times. Looks like we’re achieving consensus.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/21/obamateurism-of-the-day-745/
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How does the private sector create jobs? Any first-year econ student could explain it: businesses make profit on products and/or services, and add jobs as they maximize profits (in other words, reach a high level of productivity) but have the opportunity/need to expand sales. Without maximized profit, there is no pressure to expand, and therefore no job creation; otherwise, businesses improve profit performance through efficiency … which maximizes profits in the end. John Hinderaker knows this, and he’s a lawyer, not a first-year econ student, but apparently another lawyer named Barack Obama hasn’t quite figured that out yet. In his press conference yesterday, Obama blamed Bain for wanting to maximize profits, as opposed to, er … every other business in the real world:
[video of Barry flapping his jaws at the link]
Well, first of all, I think Cory Booker is an outstanding mayor. He is doing great work in Newark and obviously helping to turn that city around. And I think it’s important to recognize that this issue is not a “distraction.†This is part of the debate that we’re going to be having in this election campaign about how do we create an economy where everybody from top to bottom, folks on Wall Street and folks on Main Street, have a shot at success and if they’re working hard and they’re acting responsibly, that they’re able to live out the American Dream.
Now, I think my view of private equity is that it is set up to maximize profits. And that’s a healthy part of the free market. That’s part of the role of a lot of business people. That’s not unique to private equity. And as I think my representatives have said repeatedly, and I will say today, I think there are folks who do good work in that area. And there are times where they identify the capacity for the economy to create new jobs or new industries, but understand that their priority is to maximize profits. And that’s not always going to be good for communities or businesses or workers.
And the reason this is relevant to the campaign is because my opponent, Governor Romney, his main calling card for why he thinks he should be President is his business expertise. He is not going out there touting his experience in Massachusetts. He is saying, I’m a business guy and I know how to fix it, and this is his business.
And when you’re President, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot. Your job is to think about those workers who got laid off and how are we paying for their retraining. Your job is to think about how those communities can start creating new clusters so that they can attract new businesses. Your job as President is to think about how do we set up a equitable tax system so that everybody is paying their fair share that allows us then to invest in science and technology and infrastructure, all of which are going to help us grow.
And so, if your main argument for how to grow the economy is I knew how to make a lot of money for investors, then you’re missing what this job is about. It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity, but that’s not what my job is as President. My job is to take into account everybody, not just some. My job is to make sure that the country is growing not just now, but 10 years from now and 20 years from now.
So to repeat, this is not a distraction. This is what this campaign is going to be about — is what is a strategy for us to move this country forward in a way where everybody can succeed? And that means I’ve got to think about those workers in that video just as much as I’m thinking about folks who have been much more successful.
If you don’t know the role of profit and productivity in the cycle of job creation, it means you need to think a little more about the economy before declaring that you know more than those who have mastered that cycle, Mr. President. Here’s a hint: “Paying your fair share†to the government doesn’t have a lot to do with it.
John puts it succinctly:
Obama displays his trademark incoherence as he tries to explain why Bain Capital is central to the campaign. Asked a multi-part question that included his views on private capital, he starts to say that the distinctive feature of private capital is that the people who run such firms are focused on making a profit. Then you can see the wheels turning as he realizes that what he just said didn’t make any sense, since it didn’t distinguish private capital from any other business. So he backs up and starts over, explaining that as president, he has to think about more than just making a profit; rather he has to think about all Americans’ well-being. That is true enough, of course, as far as it goes. But right now the form of well-being that Americans are most concerned about is a better job market. Businesses grow when they are profitable, and they hire employees when they grow. Obama reveals himself as just another in a long line of liberals who claim they want more and better jobs, but can’t bring themselves to endorse the profits that alone make jobs possible.
In other words, Obama’s the latest in the long line of incoherent public-sector officials who think they know better how to create jobs than people who do it for a living.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/22/obamateurism-of-the-day-746/
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My God, someone needs to nail his eyes to the teleprompter and tell him to never try to think again if he wants to have any hope of being reelected.
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Allahpundit already started off the fun with Barack Obama’s newest White House website, Money As You Grow, which dispenses sage advice … most of which Obama himself ignores when handling our money. AP took two of the better entries in the series in his post last night, but there are plenty more to ridicule within this gold mine of sanctimonious hypocrisy.
For today, let’s take a look at the very last piece of advice offered by the Obama administration to young adults. No, it’s not where to find free condoms (in the cash register till, dummy), but on how to avoid bad investments:
Always consider two factors before investing: the risks and the annual expenses.
Great advice! Too bad Obama didn’t take this advice before blowing more than a half-billion dollars on Solyndra. It’d be almost impossible for me to quote all of the posts we’ve written about Solyndra and the Obama White House’s insistence on subsidizing it despite warnings that it was a bad risk and couldn’t sell its products at a profit, but let’s just go to this one from October of last year, quoting e-mails that floated to the surface when the House Oversight Committee began to lean hard on the Obama administration:
The new documents show a private investor in Solyndra questioning why the federal government, back in September 2009, agreed to put up so much money — $535 million — to help the company expand given the questions about its financial future.
“One of our solar companies with revenues of less than $100 million (and not yet profitable) received a government loan of $580 million,†the investor, Brad Jones, an executive at Redpoint Ventures, wrote in December 2009 to Lawrence H. Summers, then the president’s chief economic advisor, referring to Solyndra. “While that is good for us, I can’t imagine it’s a good way for the government to use taxpayer money.â€â€¦
“The allocation of spending to clean energy is haphazard; the government is just not well equipped to decide which companies should get the money and how much,†Mr. Jones wrote…
“I relate well to your view that gov is a crappy vc,†Mr. Summers wrote, using a shorthand for venture capitalist. “But suppose we think there are all kinds of externalities to renewable investments,†Mr. Summers continued. “What should we do?â€
I’d say the best advice to give any young investor is to ignore any advice on investing that comes from the Obama administration, at least if you’re playing with your own money.
We may have to come back to this website a time or two more.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/24/obamateurism-of-the-day-748/
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Here’s a riddle: what do you call several years in college, a couple of years as a community organizer, and almost an entire career as a Chicago machine politician? If you’re Barack Obama, you call it … “the real world“. And you call it that while appearing at a $40,000-a-couple fundraiser, too:
President Barack Obama, who has spent almost all of his career and adult life in academia, law firms, and government, begins his criticism of Mitt Romney by declaring, “those of us who have spent time in the real world . . .â€
It would probably be rude of me to think about Michelle Obama’s work, where her salary jumped from $121,910 to $316,962 per year after her husband became a U.S. senator, a job that was strangely left unfilled after she stepped down to focus on her husband’s campaign.
In the real world, a family of four could eat for a year on what the two donors spent in one night. In fact, many families of four live on that or less in the US per year.
David Harsanyi tells Obama to get real:
Of course, because those of us who’ve spent time there know that after two years of part-time work in your preferred profession you can become CEO of the entire company.
Those of us who’ve spent time in the real world know that you can become CEO without even showing anyone your CV.
Those of us who’ve spent time in the real world know that if your business fails government will send you a check to stay afloat.
Those of us who’ve spent time in the real world know that if you want to grow your business you have to max out every credit card you can get your hands on – and after that, we hit the kids’ college funds.
Those of us who’ve spent time in the real world know that if you want your business to expand and create jobs you simply blame millionaires for their success.
The ivory towers of Harvard, Capitol Hill, and the White House are not “the real world,†and neither are pricey fundraisers that cost more than some people’s houses.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/25/obamateurism-of-the-day-749/
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The only real world experience Obama has is smoking pot with the car windows up.
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The only real world experience Obama has is smoking pot with the car windows up.
He was sustaining before sustainability was in vogue.
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Remember the TV series “My Three Sons� Many of us probably only remember it through reruns, but it told the story of a single father raising three boys, starring Fred MacMurray and a lot of sweaters and pipes, if memory serves. That’s actually part of the point, because Barack Obama cast himself in a new family in two speeches last week, this one called His Two Sons … and it’s not the first time:
[video goodness at the link]
At the Iowa State Fair Grounds on Thursday, Obama said: “We don’t need another political fight about ending a woman’s right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood or taking away affordable birth control. We don’t need that. I want women to control their own health choices, just like I want my daughters to have the same economic opportunities as my sons. We’re not turning back the clock. We’re not going back there.â€
Both the transcript of the Iowa speech distributed by the White House and a video of it posted by the Des Moines Register indicated that Obama mistakenly said “my sons.â€
The video of the speech posted by the Des Moines Register also shows that despite his slip about “my sons,†the president was speaking with the help of a teleprompter.
On Wednesday at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City, Calif., Obama made the same mistaken reference to “my sons.â€
“We don’t need another political fight about ending a woman’s right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood, or taking away access to affordable birth control,†Obama said, according to the White House transcript of his speech. “I want women to control their own health care choices, just like I want my daughters to have the same opportunities as my sons. We’re not rolling back the clock.â€
In other recent speeches, Obama delivered virtually the same line as he did at the Iowa State Fair Grounds and at the Fox Theatre but said “your sons†instead of “my sons.â€
Well, the good news is that Obama doesn’t have to worry about his daughters being treated differently than his sons. The bad news is that Obama and his speechwriters haven’t learned from their exact same mistake in January. Why not just say “our sons†and “our daughters� Does it always have to be about Obama himself, so much so that he and his speechwriters invent phantom sons for his speeches?
That’s all right, though. I’m pretty sure this show will get canceled before the next season starts, and will be replaced by Happy Days.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/29/obamateurism-of-the-day-750/
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I wouldn't be a bit surprised if owebuma had illegitimate sons.
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All I can say is that I may not forgive my co-blogger for bogarting the best OOTD candidate I’ve seen in a while. Don’t worry, though — we’ll come back to that one later this week for sure. (For the record, Allahpundit elbowed me and yelled “INTERCEPTED!†when that tip came to our inboxes.) For now, let’s go to E-nough for a look at Barack Obama’s Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery. It included this solemn pledge:
As long as I’m President, we will make sure you and your loved ones receive the benefits you’ve earned and the respect you deserve.
“As long as I’m President†might not be much consolation, given Obama’s poll numbers and the state of the economy. However, even if Obama won a second term, it wouldn’t make veterans and their families feel all that secure. Don’t forget that this is the same President who considered this plan in 2009:
Lawmakers say they’d reject a proposal to make veterans pay for treatment of war wounds with private insurance. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.
Water under the bridge, you say? Lesson learned? Consider this development from just two months ago:
The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.
The disparity in treatment between civilian and uniformed personnel is causing a backlash within the military that could undermine recruitment and retention.
The proposed increases in health care payments by service members, which must be approved by Congress, are part of the Pentagon’s $487 billion cut in spending. It seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget, and $12.9 billion by 2017.
Many in Congress are opposing the proposed changes, which would require the passage of new legislation before being put in place.
“As long as I’m President� My guess is that veterans can’t wait for his term to expire.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/30/obamateurism-of-the-day-751/
And Mr. Morrissey would be absolutely correct.
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By now any casual observer can easily see owebuma rarely if ever lives up to his word.
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So today, I have to go there — and not just because of Barack Obama’s use of the term “Polish death camp,†either:
[yet another video of Barry at the link]
Allahpundit has done a good job of explaining the diplomatic debacle Obama created with these three words, but perhaps the White House should be reading it, because they clearly don’t understand the impact of this insult, nor the easiest path to dealing with it. Obama got a lot of flak from the Right about the tenor of his appearances abroad in his first year in office, calling it the “apology tour,†but that’s exactly what’s needed in this case — and it doesn’t even require the tour. It could take the form of a public appearance, with a reporter selected to ask the question that would prompt a prepared response along these lines:
I’m glad you asked me that, [favored reporter]. You know, when I honored the valiant Polish freedom fighter and humanitarian Jan Karski, I made the mistake of associating the location of these camps with the brave Polish people. Of course I didn’t mean to do that, but I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for that insensitive remark. As we all know, those camps were operated by the same people who were at the time brutally occupying and oppressing the Polish people, who had to fight for another forty years to free their nation from foreign domination after the Nazi death camps were liberated.
That’s all it would take — perhaps 30 seconds of Obama’s time, and just a slight serving of crow over a real and hurtful insult to a nation that has had to fight bravely for its very existence for centuries. Anyone can make a mistake and thoughtlessly insult a friend, but a real apology offered immediately will suffice with a friend, too. Instead, for two straight days after Obama insulted Poland, he’s sent his flunkies out to the media to stammer about “regret.â€
That’s about as amateurish as it gets.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/31/obamateurism-of-the-day-752/
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So today, I have to go there — and not just because of Barack Obama’s use of the term “Polish death camp,†either:
[yet another video of Barry at the link]
Allahpundit has done a good job of explaining the diplomatic debacle Obama created with these three words, but perhaps the White House should be reading it, because they clearly don’t understand the impact of this insult, nor the easiest path to dealing with it. Obama got a lot of flak from the Right about the tenor of his appearances abroad in his first year in office, calling it the “apology tour,†but that’s exactly what’s needed in this case — and it doesn’t even require the tour. It could take the form of a public appearance, with a reporter selected to ask the question that would prompt a prepared response along these lines:
That’s all it would take — perhaps 30 seconds of Obama’s time, and just a slight serving of crow over a real and hurtful insult to a nation that has had to fight bravely for its very existence for centuries. Anyone can make a mistake and thoughtlessly insult a friend, but a real apology offered immediately will suffice with a friend, too. Instead, for two straight days after Obama insulted Poland, he’s sent his flunkies out to the media to stammer about “regret.â€
That’s about as amateurish as it gets.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/31/obamateurism-of-the-day-752/
Instead , the White House keeps insisting it was a harmless slip of the tongue.
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In owebuma's mind owebuma can do no wrong, and everyone else is wrong to think he is capable of fault.
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Whitehouse memo to all staffers....lay off the Po-lock jokes for a week or two.
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Consider this the Wisconsin recall edition OOTD. At first, I was fairly certain we wouldn’t get an OOTD out of this event at all. Barack Obama has done his best to stay as far away from Tom Barrett as humanly possible. In fact, last Friday he managed to fly over Wisconsin to get to Minnesota for a few fundraisers, and then fly over Wisconsin again to get to a few more fundraisers in Chicago later the same day, a fact with which Republicans had some fun this weekend:
The president, who campaigned for Mr. Barrett two years ago, has been conspicuously absent this time. His aides argued that he had a full plate and did not have time to come. But Republicans were quick to point out that Mr. Obama was only a helicopter ride on Marine One away from the state on Friday when he visited Minneapolis, and again on Saturday after spending the morning in his old neighborhood in Chicago.
“He couldn’t drive 15 miles and show his face here?†said Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, who spent the weekend in his native Wisconsin to stir the pot and campaign for Mr. Walker. “There are going to be a lot of Democrats in Wisconsin who are going to be pretty disappointed with their president who did not come in and help out.â€
Fear not, Democrats! Barack Obama has finally reached out in support of Barrett, as Allahpundit noted briefly in an update on this post. But he picked a strange medium for the support, and hilariously ironic wording, too:
It’s Election Day in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I’m standing by Tom Barrett. He’d make an outstanding governor. -bo
Obama could have cut a TV spot, a web ad, or even a voice-over for a last minute radio spot. Instead, the deepest level of commitment Obama could muster for Barrett is a Twitter message. And note that the tweet claims to have Obama doing something he refused to do literally — “standing by Tom Barrett.†Not only did Obama do his best to avoid standing anywhere near Barrett in this election, Obama apparently couldn’t dare to be in the same state.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/05/obamateurism-of-the-day-755/
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^Supporting from behind, and from way out of sight.
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Maybe Obama knows that his open support has turned into a touch of death for many DemonRats. After all, how many lost after getting his support in the 2010 elections? I think Sarah Palin had a better track record of backing winners than Obama did.
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Hey, the President’s a busy man. Apparently, he’s too busy to remember the correct name of the man who wants his job:
[yet another video of Barry and TOTUS at the link]
Criticizing his opponents’ economic policies at a New York fundraiser, President Obama made an interesting slip of the tongue tonight, identifying the GOP nominee as “George Romney.â€
The enthusiastic crowd at the Broadway fundraiser reacted with giggles, and a few cheers, as the president regained his composure.
“Governor Romney … has had great success in his life and he’s raised a beautiful family,†the president ultimately said, correcting himself. “But he has a theory about the economy that basically says, if I’m maximizing returns for my investors, for wealthy individuals like myself, then everybody’s going to be better off.â€
Except, of course, that Romney’s investors weren’t all “wealthy individuals like†himself. In fact, most of Romney’s investors were people who were putting their retirement funds in Bain’s hands in order to grow their wealth for their golden years. Some of those people were actually Obama’s biggest backers … the unions.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/06/obamateurism-of-the-day-756/
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George Romney hey ? Maybe he was thinking of other famous Georges. Clooney, Costanza, people on his intellectual level.
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George Romney hey ? Maybe he was thinking of other famous Georges. Clooney, Costanza, people on his intellectual level.
You forgot his true intellectual equal. Curious George.
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You forgot his true intellectual equal. Curious George.
Superb !
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I got a few e-mails suggesting that Barack Obama’s failure to address the 68th anniversary of D-Day qualified as an OOTD. Not every anniversary gets a presidential address, however, although a statement on the holiday honoring the heroes of the event is usually de rigueur. The White House did post such a statement yesterday, along with video of Barack Obama’s speech on the 65th anniversary of the greatest amphibious invasion in history, honoring those heroes of the war that liberated western Europe from the grip of a murderous tyranny.
Last week, though, Obama insulted the hero of the movement that helped free eastern Europe from the grip of a murderous tyranny:
According to the Wall Street Journal, Polish officials requested that Walesa accept the Medal of Freedom on behalf of Jan Karski, a member of the Polish Underground during World War II who was being honored posthumously this week. The request makes sense. Walesa and Karski shared a burning desire to rid Poland of tyrannical subjugation. But President Obama said no.
Administration officials told the Journal that Walesa is too “political.†A man who was arrested by Soviet officials for dissenting against the government for being “political†is being shunned by the United States of America for the same reason 30 years later.
Obama apparently doesn’t like bestowing awards on people who are “too political†… unless he likes the politics, in which case Obama shows solidarity:
Meanwhile, one of the recipients of the Medal was Dolores Huerta, the honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. So socialist politics are acceptable, but not the politics of a man who stood up and fought socialism.
Smart power, eh?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/07/obamateurism-of-the-day-757/
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Klein, and his new book "Amateur" are accruing vindication daily.
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Yesterday, the Romney campaign took their Democratic counterparts to school. Team Obama released their May fundraising numbers early, hoping to get a boost in the media with the improved totals over April of $60 million, in partnership with the DNC. Within the hour, Romney’s campaign completely swamped out their media strategy, changing the narrative from Obama improvement to Romney’s triumph, beating Team O by nearly $17 million in May.
Unfortunately, Barack Obama flunked that lesson. Instead of letting his campaign address the issue, Obama took to Twitter to argue that Romney’s fundraising was somehow less genuine:
“What we’re seeing are two very different models of fund-raising.†http://OFA.BO/LQrRyE
Really? The Romney campaign quickly pointed out — again — that 93% of their donations in May were $250 or less:
In the first full month of joint fundraising between Romney’s campaign, RNC and various committees associated with the two, 93% of donations were of $250 of less, totaling 297,442 individuals. That leads to a grand total of more than 319,800 donors for team Romney, compared to the more than 572,000 who donated to Obama and the DNC in May. Ninety-eight percent of donations to the president’s side were $250 or less.
So, that looks pretty much like the same model, doesn’t it? And really, dahling, is Obama in any position to argue about being more connected to The Little People after running this ad a week ago?
[video of Anna Wintour at the link]
Maybe someone should take the Twitter device away from the President.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/08/obamateurism-of-the-day-758/
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I found out how Romney is raising so much money.
He keeps going up to Joe Biden and saying : "Joe, can you give two tens for a five".
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Remember when Barack Obama argued last week that the economic problems facing the US stemmed from cuts in the public sector? Turns out that Obama only likes to blame government cuts when he’s not taking credit for government cuts. On Friday, Obama had this to say:
The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government — oftentimes, cuts initiated by governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government.
Exactly one month earlier, though, Obama took credit for shrinking the size of government:
The only time government employment has gone down during a recession has been under me. So I make that point — I make that point just so you don’t buy into this whole bloated government argument that you hear.
The juxtaposition prompted the Romney campaign to put the two statements side by side in this web video last night:
[lovely video of King Barry at the link]
Just remember — Obama was for the $87 billion before he was against it against the government jobs before he was for them. Besides, he’s wrong on both counts. Federal government jobs — the jobs for which Obama is directly responsible — have increased by 29,000 during his term in office. When Democrats controlled Congress in the first two years of his presidency, federal jobs increased by 83,000, and peaked in March 2011 at 89,000 above the level when Obama took office. At that point, Republicans forced him to compromise on the remainder of the FY2011 budget — and by the end of the year, the federal workforce had trimmed 43,000 jobs, with another 12,000 reductions this year so far. One party seems at least a little interested in getting rid of bloat, but it’s not Obama and the Democrats.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/12/obamateurism-of-the-day-760/
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Is someone pointing out that owebuma can claim both ends of an issue if it benefits him, again ?
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What’s the one issue foremost on the minds of voters in this election cycle? The economy, and specifically job creation. Every poll shows that the economy is by far the predominant issue for the electorate, almost always with a majority. Barack Obama likes to accuse Mitt Romney of being out of touch, but at least the Republican challenger has built his campaign to demonstrate that jobs and the economy are his central focus. What does Obama think is the most important issue for a second term in office? Here’s a hint — if you’re thinking “jobs,†you’re not getting warmer at all. In fact, that’s not even his second pick (via the American Thinker):
Obama has an ambitious second-term agenda, which, at least in broad ways, his campaign is beginning to highlight. The President has said that the most important policy he could address in his second term is climate change, one of the few issues that he thinks could fundamentally improve the world decades from now. He also is concerned with containing nuclear proliferation.
Climate change, followed by nuclear proliferation? The last time Gallup polled on election issues was in February, and climate change didn’t even make the list. Nuclear proliferation might be considered a part of “terrorism and national security,†but that came in fifth place. In first place was the economy, followed by unemployment, the budget deficit, and repealing ObamaCare. Rasmussen tests this in its daily tracking polls, and the latest week’s data shows economic issues being chosen as most important by 53% of likely voters, followed by fiscal issues (16%), domestic issues (14%), and cultural issues (6%). Climate change and nuclear proliferation aren’t even on the radar screen in an electorate tired by years of economic malaise.
Besides, as Investors Business Daily points out, it’s not as if Obama hasn’t spent a lot of money on green-tech issues already. In fact, when charted out, Obama’s spending looks like a hockey stick, just like AGW hysterics seem to enjoy:
So forget about the abysmal jobless numbers above 8% for over three years, or the $15 trillion deficit that threatens to turn the U.S. into Greece. No, amid those very real calamities, climate change is more important.
If this isn’t a sign of a president out of touch with reality, what is? If climate change is Obama’s “most important†policy issue, then neither the Tea-Party-led victories around fiscal discipline — such as the Wisconsin vote, nor the West Virginia primary, here 40% of Democrats chose a jailbird to protest Obama’s anti-coal agenda, made a dent on him.
Like a madman doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, it can only mean Obama intends to double-down on his green agenda if re-elected.
Already no president has ever spent money on “climate change†as he has. The Congressional Budget Office reports that since 1998, $99 billion has been spent among 14 agencies on “climate change.†Of that, $35 billion was earmarked from the 2009 stimulus.
The top agency charged with enacting the Obama green agenda — the Department of Energy — has seen its budget soar from $24 billion in 2009 to $38 billion in 2012, the Office of Management and Budget estimates.
Here’s the chart:
[go to the link to see it, please]
Looks like Obama’s been a little too obsessed with his own hobby horses. Maybe voters should elect a President who shares their priorities … and can handle them.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/13/obamateurism-of-the-day-761/
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The longer owebuma is in office the more out of touch he gets.
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Barack Obama tried pushing back last week after an awful jobs report — by blaming Republicans for not doing enough to protect public-sector jobs:
“These are teachers and cops and firefighters,†he said. “Congress should pass a bill putting them back to work right now, giving help to the states so that those layoffs are not occurring.â€
On the official White House schedule, this briefing was billed as Obama “delivering remarks urging Congress to act on the ‘To Do List.’â€
IBD Editorials noted, though, that the “To Do list†has nothing to do with addressing state or local jobs:
The only things on that list are tax incentives for companies to create jobs at home; help for underwater homeowners who want to refinance; some targeted small business tax credits; more money wasted on “green†energy; and a silly new “Veterans Jobs Corps.â€
Not that it matters, since Democrats have entirely ignored Obama’s picayune To Do List anyway.
There may be a reason why that issue isn’t on Obama’s “To Do List.†It already appears on his Already-Done List, as IBD points out:
However, on that same White House web page, Obama lists all his amazing job creation accomplishments, with little green check marks to show they’ve been done. Things like “Rescue the auto industry†and “Sign 18 tax cuts to help small businesses.â€
And right there on that list are these: “Keep 400,000 teachers in the classroom†and “Keep police officers, firefighters and other first responders on the job.â€
So, help us out here. If Obama’s already saved these jobs, why is he saying state and local governments are cutting them and putting the economy at risk?
Because Obama’s stimulus package only kicked the underlying issues of the size and costs of state and local governments down the road temporarily. He didn’t “save†those jobs at all — he just “rented†them. And now he wants more money from Congress to temporarily rent them again, and keep the states and localities from making the long term budgeting decisions that are now three years past due.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/18/obamateurism-of-the-day-764/
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Barack Obama’s press conference on June 8th got a lot of bad reviews, mainly for his assertion that “the private sector is doing fine†and that what America needs is a lot more government workers. Ed Rogers at the Washington Post has, uh, a few other, uh, issues with Obama’s, uh, performance:
The president says “uhhh†too much. When I was a cable television news extra during the ‘90s and early 2000s, you learn early to purge your presentation of “uhhh.†Saying “uhhh†suggests uncertainty and is distracting. (And in my case, when it was accompanied by a Southern accent, it was even worse.) I don’t know what the president had in mind, but his own meandering, stuttering performance could not have done him any good with any audience. What was he, uhhh, thinking?
Here’s, uh, an example of, uh, Obama’s delivery from that press conference:
[Video #1 of Barry at the link]
It’s not as if no one has ever pointed out the program before, either. Here’s a clip from Late Night with David Letterman that’s almost exactly 49 months old, from May 2008:
[Video #2 of Barry at the link]
And this comes from almost three years ago, from one single press conference:
[Video #3 of Barry at the link]
Maybe it’s time someone, uh, gave the World’s Greatest Orator some public-speaking tips, eh?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/19/obamateurism-of-the-day-765/
As long as Barry is reading TOTUS, his "performance" is generally acceptable. At least Chrissy gets a tingle up his leg. When he goes off script, that's when he gets in trouble.
I'm no expert on public speaking, but uh...............if you can't speak well in public......
DON'T.
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Hitlary Clinton. Probably the worst public speaker I have ever heard.
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Remember how George W. Bush’s cowboy demeanor was such an embarrassment to the American cognoscenti and media minders? How his rough manners and folksy drawl had the sophisticates on this side of the pond flushed with embarrassment? Remember how glad they were that a witty, urbane, and cultured member of Academia would replace him as America’s principal representative abroad?
Er …
World leaders gathered in Los Cabos, Mexico for the seventh annual Group of 20 summit on Monday. As part of the festivities, all of the assembled heads of state posed for a cheerful family photo–except for one. According to the White House pool report from the photo shoot filed by the Wall Street Journal’s Carol Lee, photographers asked the leaders to wave for the cameras and Russia’s once and future strongman Vladimir Putin declined to pose for the picture.
“They all said to wave to the cameras, and most of them did. President Putin didn’t wave,†Ms. Lee wrote.
There were several other priceless details in Ms. Lee’s dispatch from the high powered photo shoot. Apparently, despite being surrounded by twenty other world leaders, President Barack Obama “was chewing gum the whole time.â€
Instapundit’s post got this response: “I assume he was sitting and not walking.†“As for Obama,â€Andrew Malcolm quipped, “he was into his cool casual mode at the formal photo session.†But no one answered the real burning question (NSFW):
[clip from Blazing Saddles at the link]
Did he bring enough for everyone?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/20/obamateurism-of-the-day-766/
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“They all said to wave to the cameras, and most of them did. President Putin didn’t wave,†Ms. Lee wrote.
This was done to prevent Obama from embarrassing us once again by waving at an inappropriate time and blocking someone's face. This time they all did. I must admit, that the first time i saw the picture with everyone waving, I thought it was photoshopped to make fun of Obama. :rotf:
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Chewing gum ? How urbane...owebuma is so low rent, low class.
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Yesterday morning, Barack Obama asserted that executive privilege allowed his administration to hide documents from Congress, related to an ATF operation that ended up providing the weapons that killed hundreds of people — including two American law-enforcement officers, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and ICE agent Jaime Zapata. By noon, Obama went back to demanding transparency … of his critics:
Barack Obama
✔
@BarackObama
"Hell no." OFA.BO/sb9s3P
20 Jun 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
The link takes readers to a blog post by Obama campaign manager Jim Messina griping about American Crossroads and demanding the disclosure of their donor lists. It’s titled “Hell No,†which is coincidentally what Obama told Congressional investigators trying to find out why two Americans and hundreds of Mexicans got killed by weapons the ATF handed off to drug cartels.
Twitter user Shane Styles couldn’t believe the timing:
Barack Obama
✔
@BarackObama 20 Jun 12
"Hell no." OFA.BO/sb9s3P
Shane Styles@shaner5000
.@BarackObama Are you seriously calling for the names of private donors on the same day you issued an EO over #fastandfurious documents???
20 Jun 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
I guess this is the life of privilege, eh? Transparency on thee while obfuscation for me.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/21/obamateurism-of-the-day-767/
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There is no limits to his vanity, ego, or arrogance.
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What’s a great way to connect to an important audience, one that you desperately need to have any chance of success in an upcoming election? How about implying that they can’t be trusted around you with … forks? Despite Barack Obama’s appearing at literally dozens of fundraising dinners over the last several months, the attendees of NALEO — a Hispanic voter group — had to surrender their utensils before Obama would speak:
[video of a Latina mother telling the audience that eating utensils have to be turned in. And she's not joking, she says.]
Does a fork or dinner knife pose an unacceptable danger to President Barack Obama?
One wouldn’t think so, given the hundreds of lunches and dinners he’s attended ranging from state dinners to political fundraisers to run-of-the-mill stops on the rubber-chicken circuit.
However, at one such lunch Friday afternoon, guests heard an unusual announcement that they needed to hand over their silverware for security reasons.
“It’s very important that you use your utensils as soon as possible,†National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials board member Raquel Regalado told about 1000 delegates at the group’s annual conference.
Politico reports that the Secret Service made the request after finding out that Obama would address the group immediately after the meal was concluded. Supposedly this is just routine, but Josh Gerstein and Reid Epstein note that Obama appears frequently at dinners without having the Secret Service round up silverware — usually at fundraisers. Apparently, people who give money aren’t as suspicious as people who don’t.
Even assuming this is standard operating procedure, why not just ask NALEO to put a little more time between the meal and the President’s appearance, or to delay the meal until afterward? Didn’t Obama or his campaign staff consider how this would look to the Hispanic activists in the room? And for that matter, the Secret Service is also providing protection to Mitt Romney, who spoke the day before at 1:20 in the afternoon, shortly after lunch. Did Romney’s security detail demand that the attendees be stripped of their silverware too?
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Actually, that looks like they're nervous that the Hispanics will steal the silverware. :-)
:racista:
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Remember that scene in the Rose Garden earlier this month, when The Daily Caller’s Neil Munro interrupted Barack Obama to ask a question about his new immigration policy? Obama upbraided Munro for his lack of manners, provided a non-responsive answer, finished his statement … and stomped off in a huff without taking questions from the press. Given that, can Obama really set himself up as the arbiter of press transparency? Yes, he can!
President Barack Obama’s campaign issued an attack video Friday ripping Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for evading the media’s immigration-related questions.
The video was released even though immigration activists are still seeking answers about the president’s June 15 proclamation in the White House’s Rose Garden, where the president pointedly declined to answer The Daily Caller’s questions about how the policy impacts American workers.
“On Friday, the president announced a change to U.S. immigration policy. Ever since, Mitt Romney has been dodging questions about repealing the order,†said the attack video, released by the “Obama Biden Truth Team.â€
The video is titled “Mitt Romney on U.S. immigration policy; Why won’t he give a straight answer?â€
The DC reminds everyone of the laughable hypocrisy:
Obama declined to take questions in the Rose Garden. Earlier that day, spokesman Jay Carney and Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano had also declined to answer questions.
Since then, the administration has said little about the policy, although Obama’s campaign has prominently posted an edited video of Obama’s Rose Garden speech on the Latino sections of the campaign website.
The administration’s silence was maintained even though GOP legislators said his policy violates the law, disadvantages immigrants waiting in the formal entry process, and also would boost unemployment.
On June 21, for example, Carney fended off questions at the daily White House press conference about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s alternative immigration policy, but did not address the impact of Obama’s policy on unemployed Americans.
The. Most. Transparent. Administration. Evah.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/26/obamateurism-of-the-day-770/
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The. Most. Transparent. Administration. Evah.
Yes, it is...and those of us here saw right through it before it even got elected.
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Yes, it is...and those of us here saw right through it before it even got elected.
We saw through him before anyone else, including those who will never see through him.
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This one is kinda lame, guys:
Looks like we’re going to have to make this Sports Week at OOTD Central — and we have to start with the most breaking news. Barack Obama, whose basketball acumen has already come under close scrutiny, offered his congratulations to the winner of the NBA Finals … all of them, apparently:
Mark Knoller tweet:
Pres Obama congrats Miami "for having the world champion Miami Heats here in town." He said "Heats."
26 Jun 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
It seems that the President touted by the media as a sports genius and basketball phenom doesn’t know the name of the most famous team in the NBA. After years of liberal fawning over the President’s supposed basketball expertise we now find out that he doesn’t even know the name of the Miami Heat? Seriously?
Who’s his favorite player? Kevin Durants?
Hopefully he gave a shout out to LeBronze Jame.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/27/obamateurism-of-the-day-771/
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I had to laugh when I saw the clip of Barack Obama get booed by a crowd at a campaign stop in Boston after teasing them about a trade between the Red Sox and the White Sox involving third baseman Kevin Youkilis. We got a lot of e-mails over this, including several nominations for this clip to be added to the OOTD list, but I didn’t think it merited inclusion — as it’s clearly an intentional and good-natured needling of the crowd:
[video of Dear Leader at the link]
That is, I didn’t consider it an OOTD until I saw the reaction at the White House. Clearly, the President didn’t check in with his staff, as Jay Carney spent the next day trying to convince everyone that Obama didn’t get booed — the crowd was saying Yoooooook! As Allahpundit noted on Tuesday, that’s a rather difficult argument to make, since Obama acknowledges the boos in this clip as they rain down on him, and enjoys the moment.
Didn’t Obama bother to explain that to his staff in order to prepare them for the inevitable questions that would arise the next day? Now the White House press corps has another data point for the utter destruction of Jay Carney’s credibility with them, all over a dumb joke that Obama probably should have skipped in the first place.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/28/obamateurism-of-the-day-772/
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When lecturing one’s opponent on acceptable economic policy, it helps to actually know the terminology. Barack Obama attacked Mitt Romney on a number of recent occasions for the “outsourcing†done by companies at Bain Capital — and then scoffed when corrected:
Last week it was reported Governor Romney’s old firm owned companies that, according to this article, were pioneers in the business of outsourcing American jobs to places like China and India. And yesterday his advisors were asked about this, and they tried to clear it up by explaining that there’s actually a difference between outsourcing and offshoring. (Laughter.) I’m not making that up. You can’t make something like that up. (Laughter.)
You can’t make up ignorance like this, either. There is actually a huge difference between the two. Many companies choose to outsource payroll, for instance, which is why we have the ADP employment report each month. ADP employes people to handle that service more effectively, due to economies of scale. That helps keep costs down on indirect labor, which lowers prices, which means consumers can get more for their dollar. None of that involves sending jobs overseas, which is what offshoring means.
And if you want an example of offshoring, Obama provides the perfect example:
The Obama campaign spent nearly $4,700 on telemarketing services from a Canadian telemarketing company called Pacific East between March and June, a Washington Free Beacon study of federal election filings shows.
Pacific East is not the only overseas telemarketing firm raking in cash from the president’s reelection campaign. Obama paid a call center in Manila, Ph
ilippines $78,314.10 for telemarketing services between the start of the campaign and March.
John Hinderaker channels his inner Obama (sorry, John!):
You really can’t make this stuff up. The Obama campaign is rapidly turning itself into a laughingstock.
Unfortunately, we don’t have to make this stuff up. Obama provides us an almost never-ending stream of this material.
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^Regardless of how hypocritical owebuma is, his supporters will never leave him.
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Here’s one definition of change: In 2008, the Obama campaign bragged about how badly they tromped John McCain in fundraising and campaign spending. Eighteen months ago, they began boasting that Team O would raise a billion dollars for his re-election effort in 2012. Today, however, they’re already griping that Mitt Romney and conservatives will outraise them this time around — and now the whining has reached all the way to the top. On Friday, Barack Obama personally held a conference call with recalcitrant big-ticket donors from Air Force One as he flew back from Colorado, urging them to get off the sidelines and into the game. Obama warned them that he would be the first President ever to be outspent in a re-election effort by his challenger:
“We are going to see more money spent on negative ads through these super PACs and anonymous outside groups than ever before. And if things continue as they have so far, I’ll be the first sitting president in modern history to be outspent in his reelection campaign.â€
So far, though, the opposite is true, as Timothy Carney explains at the Washington Examiner:
First of all, Obama’s campaign has raised much more money than Romney’s, it has spent more money than Romney’s, and it has more cash on hand than Romney’s, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
But you can’t just count the campaigns. After all, when Obama hosts his $30,000-a-head fundraisers, he’s raising money for his campaign and the DNC — and the DNC is spending that money basically to re-elect Obama. On the national committees, Obama is beating Romney, too.
Of course, Obama is also counting outside groups with the reference to super-PACs. But if that’s the case, then Obama won’t be the first to face a deficit. Carney has a graph from 2004 that shows George W. Bush being outspent by nearly $200 million when outside groups get counted in the mix. The difference this time is that unions don’t get the only exception to campaign-finance regulation, and so others can build the same kinds of political-action war chests that unions have used for decades. Carney concludes:
So, either Obama’s including outside money, in which case he’s not the first to be outspent. Or he’s not including outside money, in which case he’s not being outspent.
You know what might have evened up the fight a little bit? The public-funding limits for presidential campaigns. Too bad for Obama that a previous presidential candidate became the first since Watergate to opt out so that he could massively outspend his rival, effectively killing the program altogether. Who was that again? Oh, yeah. Hey, Mr. President, let me paraphrase one of your predecessors: if you can’t stand the Heats, stay out of the kitchen.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/02/obamateurism-of-the-day-774/
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I know it was mentioned in another thread, but wouldn't making fund raising calls from Air Farce One, be as illegal as making the calls from the Oval Office?
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I know it was mentioned in another thread, but wouldn't making fund raising calls from Air Farce One, be as illegal as making the calls from the Oval Office?
Billy Jeff got into some trouble for that back in 1997:
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/22/news/22iht-clinton.t_0.html
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I read somewhere that is was a phone payed for by the Obama campaign...which makes it OK (I guess).
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I read somewhere that is was a phone payed for by the Obama campaign...which makes it OK (I guess).
O's campaign shelled out the bucks to install a new satellite linked phone on AF1? Otherwise, it's still being made with govt property, i.e. military equipment.
Still stinks...
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O's campaign shelled out the bucks to install a new satellite linked phone on AF1? Otherwise, it's still being made with govt property, i.e. military equipment.
Still stinks...
Another good description of a lib, they stink but think they smell like the sweetest perfume.
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What greater honor can a President have than to attend a naturalization ceremony, especially on the Fourth of July? The ceremony marks the end of a years-long process for people who came to the United States legally and then worked and studied to become Americans. Yesterday, Barack Obama got to speak at one such event where the new citizens went the extra mile and served in the US military, too. What would a President say to these fine young men and women on the occasion of their official transformation into American citizens?
Er … how about a plea to Congress to let those who came illegally get the same honor:
But Obama did more than just welcome members of the military to American citizenship. The naturalization ceremony took a political turn when the president defended his controversial decision to unilaterally enact some provisions of the DREAM Act — which would put illegal immigrants who came to this country at a young age on a path to citizenship, but which has failed to win passage in Congress — and also to renew his call for comprehensive immigration reform.
“We’re still perfecting our union, still extending the promise of America,†Obama told the group. “That’s why, as another step forward, we’re lifting the shadow of deportation from serving — from deserving young people who were brought to this country as children. It’s why we still need a DREAM Act — to keep talented young people who want to contribute to our society and serve our country. It’s why we need — why America’s success demands — comprehensive immigration reform.â€
Did the President understand that the people at this event actually went through all the trouble, time, and expense of coming into the country legally, and then served our nation in the military? It’s not that comprehensive immigration reform isn’t a valid issue for an election — it certainly is — but making this pitch at a naturalization ceremony, especially this one, makes one wonder if Obama can tell the difference between legal and illegal immigration. We know one thing for sure: his audience certainly did.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/05/obamateurism-of-the-day-776/
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Barack Obama hit the road on a campaign bus tour with yet another theme for his re-election effort — “Betting on America.†Obama intends to hammer Mitt Romney as an outsourcer and offshorer, but Drudge noticed a big problem with that plan, via Instapundit:
[video of the Outsourcer In Chief at the link]
I wrote about this same thing last August, when Obama campaigned on a “Buy American†theme using the Canadian-made bus. One might have thought Obama would take his own advice, but instead, we have yet another Do As I Say Not As I Do summer tour kicking off.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/06/obamateurism-of-the-day-777/
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Most of us recall the 2008 election, when Barack Obama busted the limits of fundraising and spending — and became the first presidential candidate since Watergate to opt out of the public system. He raised over $770 million and swamped out Republican nominee John McCain, hitting a record for fundraising in a single month in September 2008 with $150 million.
Well, most of us remember that pretty well. Obama, on the other hand, whined about being outspent in both the 2004 Senate race and the 2008 presidential contest:
“I got outspent when I ran [the] first time for Senate,†he claimed as he was ending his heated campaign-trail speech in Maumee, Ohio.
Obama was misleading.
The Federal Election Committee’s website shows that Obama’s campaign claimed $14,807,432 in donations by December 2004.
In contrast, his opponent, Alan Keyes, had only $2,545,325, according to the FEC.
That’s a six-fold advantage for Obama, not a deficit.
And the Daily Caller also corrected Obama’s claim about 2008:
In a second speech June 5, Obama compounded his misleading claim by declaring that he was outspent in the 2008 presidential race.
“The thing that I want everybody here to understand – each of you personally — is that back in 2008, everybody said we couldn’t do it because we were outspent,†he said during a 4.12 p.m. speech in Sandusky, Ohio.
Obama did not correct the claim, although he immediately revised it, by adding that “we weren’t favored.â€
During the 2008 race, Obama raised $779 million. His GOP rival, Sen. John McCain, raised less than half as much, or $347 million.
In the Democratic primary, Obama raised $237 million, while his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, raised $229 million.
At some point, most of us think that a man who raised that much cash has done enough whining.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/09/obamateurism-of-the-day-778/
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Analysts universally panned the jobs report on Friday, which showed a growth of only 80,000 jobs — slightly more than half of what’s needed just to keep up with population growth. It was the third straight disappointment in the series, making the second quarter of 2012 the worst period in two years for job creation. Anyone with even a passing understanding of the jobs data knew that the only good news from the report was that it wasn’t any worse.
Not everyone has a passing understanding of the jobs data, apparently:
We learned this morning that our businesses created 84,000 new jobs last month, and that overall means that businesses have created 4.4 million new jobs over the past 28 months, including 500,000 new manufacturing jobs. That’s a step in the right direction. (Applause.) That’s a step in the right direction.
A step in the right direction? Only if you think falling behind is the “right direction.â€
By the way, BLS data shows that the US has added 3.75 million jobs in the last 28 months, not 4.4 million (138,665,000 in February 2010 and 142,415,000 in June 2012). As I mentioned yesterday, the 28-month starting point was picked by the White House to conveniently overlook the million-plus job loss from the start of the recovery in June 2009, which was four months after Obama signed the stimulus bill that was supposed to keep unemployment from reaching 8%. But even at the rate Obama claims for the period that ignores jobs lost during the recovery (and not the recession that preceded it), that only comes to 157,142 jobs added per month, or about what would have been needed just to keep up with population growth.
In other words, even if Obama’s bogus numbers had been true, it wouldn’t have been “a step in the right direction.†It would have been marching in place.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/10/obamateurism-of-the-day-779/
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A step in the right direction is having more people go on disability than actually found jobs?
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The owebumaManiaMedia is expert at smoothing over any bad news caused by owebuma. But if a GOPer was in the oval office, even good news would be colored to look like bad.
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As Mitt Romney took his family on vacation at Lake Winnipesaukee, where he maintains a tony summer home, Barack Obama decided that this was an opportune moment to paint himself as one of the hoi polloi. At a campaign stop at Carnegie Mellon University — hardly a discount commuter college — Obama talked about how a trip to a motel with a swimming pool was the mark of a great vacation when he was a wee lad:
“I remember my favorite vacation when I was a kid, traveling with my mom and my grandma and my sister, and we traveled the country on Greyhound buses, railroads. And once in a while we’d rent a car, not that often, and stay at Howard Johnsons,†Obama told supporters at Carnegie Mellon University.
“Didn’t matter how big the pool was; if there was a pool, I’d jump in. I was 11 years old, and I was excited just to go to the vending machine and get the ice bucket and get the ice,†he told the crowd.
Not exactly jet skis on Winnipesaukee. Hint, hint.
Er, sure. But isn’t this the same man who now vacations with the upper crust at Martha’s Vineyard every summer until, coincidentally, this election year when he needed to look a little more middle-class? Three days before this speech, ABC News reported that this was the first summer in four years that the Obamas skipped the Massachusetts mecca:
With the campaign heating up before the November election, there appears to be little time for the president to squeeze in his annual vacation on the idyllic island.
For the past three years, the president, the first lady Obama and their two daughters have rented a house on Martha’s Vineyard, filling their days with bike rides, golf games and stops for ice cream. This year, however, with what is expected to be a close election just five months away, the president will likely be on the campaign trail.
And let’s not forget the sojourn to Spain that the First Lady and their daughter enjoyed with a few friends and a lot of Secret Service protection:
First Lady Michelle Obama has drawn some criticism from conservative radio hosts for her international travel, including a trip to Spain with daughter Sasha where she lunched with King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.
The Christmas vacations at the resort in Hawaii aren’t too bad, either. I’d call that a lot better than the motel swimming pool of Obama’s youth, as are the 100+ golf outings Obama has enjoyed as President by now. There’s nothing wrong with families taking vacations that fit within their budget, but those who stay in expensive glass resorts on Martha’s Vineyard, Hawaii, and Spain shouldn’t throw stones.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/11/obamateurism-of-the-day-780/
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Early in his presidency, Barack Obama had quite a few vetting blunders — appointing people who had tax problems (Tim Geithner, Tom Daschle), corruption probes (Bill Richardson), and so on. It doesn’t appear anything has improved on Team Obama. Last week, Obama had local businessman Daniel Potkanowicz introduce him at a Youngstown, Ohio rally — and the local CBS affiliate noticed something oddly familiar about him:
An Ohio man who says he once lost his job and introduced President Barack Obama at a rally on Friday had been accused of stealing trade secrets by a former boss.
Court records show that Daniel Potkanowicz and a business partner in the Youngstown area were ordered to pay $500,000 to Clearview Window & Door after a judge ruled in 2009 that they had violated trade secrets.
The man who took Potkanowicz to court couldn’t believe his eyes:
Richard Albright, owner of Clearview, couldn’t believe Potkanowicz would be allowed to introduce the president.
“I’m wondering who put him up there,†Albright told The Vindicator. “He was involved in a scandal, and he’s introducing the president.â€
Well, the local station explained the rigorous selection method used:
Potkanowicz now works for Summer Garden Food Manufacturing, a company Obama toured on Friday. He says the president’s campaign selected him to speak after talking with management there.
But just remember — the rest of us have to show picture-ID to get to see Obama attack Republicans for requiring photo-ID verification at the voting booth. (via JWF and Instapundit)
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/12/obamateurism-of-the-day-781/
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The owebuma administration is a "Culture of Corruption", -Michelle Malkin-
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This OOTD comes to us from Jeryl Bier, and it’s a bit complicated — but only because President Obama and his campaign made it so. Obama has been claiming that he has cut taxes for the middle class “every year that I’ve been President.†But by how much? That’s where someone has some math problems. Here’s the original July 9th speech:
That’s why I’ve cut middle-class taxes every year that I’ve been President — by $3,600 for the typical middle-class family. Let me repeat: Since I’ve been in office, we’ve cut taxes for the typical middle-class family by $3,600.
The problem starts with Obama mixing an aggregate number with an emphasis on “every year.†As Jeryl discovers from the White House site, the claim of $3600 in savings is an aggregate of four years’ worth of two different tax credits — only one of which was his alone, the Making Work Pay credit that was part of the stimulus package. A typical family of four at average earning saved $800 a year in 2009 and 2010 with that tax credit, which expired after the 2010 tax year. The additional $2000 comes from the payroll-tax holiday in 2011 and 2012 that saves about $20 a week — even though that proposal came from both Republicans and Democrats. However, the payroll tax holiday isn’t truly a tax cut; it reduces the contribution of each worker into their supposed Social Security retirement fund, which will either cause a shortfall later that will have to be covered by tax increases or result in lower benefits being paid out. Those credits do add up to $3600 over four years, and have resulted in no discernable economic stimulus.
Apparently, Obama was so confusing that even his own campaign couldn’t figure out what he was trying to say. They bowdlerized Obama’s quote — and made it sound as though Obama was claiming to have saved middle-class families $3600 each year:
Barack Obama
✔
@BarackObama
President Obama: "I’ve cut taxes every year that I've been President by $3,600 for the typical middle-class family.â€
9 Jul 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Maybe Obama needs to repeat it one more time … and this time, get the math right.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/17/obamateurism-of-the-day-784/
Barry the Magician - creating numbers out of thin air since January 20, 2009.
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Sometimes, a politician can take a difficult concept and make it easy for audiences to grasp. Others can take a fairly self-evident argument and turn it into … an insult. This week, Barack Obama exemplified the latter when he tried to underscore that economic success depends in some part on a free society, governed wisely. Instead, he told small-business owners that they didn’t have much to do with their own success, emphasis mine:
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Actually, had Obama not been so ham-fisted in his construction, he would have had a good point about the balance between liberty and the government that secures it. We do need to have roads and bridges and the like that allow sellers and buyers to find each other; we need some regulation to prevent fraud and theft, in order to make markets operate efficiently and honestly. Our system of constitutional self-government provides a framework that allows for enough governance to provide those necessary checks without becoming overbearing, and without government distorting those markets for the preferred outcomes of elites rather than the outcomes decided by voluntary associations in the marketplace.
Unfortunately, we have deviated far down the latter path for decades, and Obama wants to go even farther down a road that leads to economic stagnation and the stunting of liberty. That path also leads to the arrogance and ignorance on display when a politician who has never operated his own business or worked in any significant manner in the private sector tells people who took enormous risks to start their own businesses that “you didn’t build that†and “someone else made that happen.†Of course the business owner built the business and was primarily the one that “made it happenâ€; without someone willing to take the risk, businesses wouldn’t get built at all.
Obama took an opportunity to make a good point and booted it into the realm of clueless-elite satire. And he did it in a prepared speech. Whether or not it took a White House village to create that speech, Obama made it, and this Obamateurism, happen.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/18/obamateurism-of-the-day-785/
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From the comments at the latest OOTD:
As Iowahawk so aptly put it…
@iowahawkblog
That welfare check? Somebody else made that happen.
OMG the man is a national treasure. :lmao:
Most think this will be the OOTY and follow him right into November. Rush was saying about Mitt's speech afterwards, "it sounds like something finally made Mitt genuinely mad." The crowd roared. Sounded big.
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Iowahawk is one of the best reasons to get a Twitter account.
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We all had a chuckle over Barack Obama’s fumbling of the “Kiss-Cam†at the Verizon Center in Washington DC last weekend, disappointing fans when the First Couple decided not to lip-lock on camera. After getting booed, the official story was that the Obamas’ daughter encouraged them to smooch when they suddenly got a second chance to make things right. The crowd cheered, of course.
But was that second chance just a lucky break for the President? Not according to New York Times reporter Peter Baker, reporting from the pool:
Peter Baker@peterbakernyt
Not to be cynical, but press pool was out in motorcade ready to leave and then brought back into arena in time for successful kiss-cam redo.
16 Jul 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Obama apparently demanded a re-do just to get the press to report on the smooch, and to cover for his earlier gaffe.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/19/obamateurism-of-the-day-786/
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Everything owebuma says/does needs walkback and flakking to interpret properly.
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Barack Obama stepped in it when he told small business owners that they didn’t deserve credit for their own success with his “you didn’t build that†speech in Roanoke, Virginia a week ago, but that wasn’t his only gaffe in his class-warfare argument. Obama argued that government built most of our grandest ventures:
So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam.
Er, perhaps the White House should learn to Google. Government built the Hoover Dam, all right, but it had nothing to do with the Golden Gate Bridge … except to get in the way of its construction, as W. J. J. Hoge explains (via Reason):
That’s only half true. The federal government did build Hoover Dam. However, the Golden Gate Bridge was funded by a $35 million dollar bond issue by the six counties in the Golden Gate Bridge District. It was a state-authorized project built by a partnership of local governments.
Reason reveals that we owe a big debt for the Golden Gate Bridge to … the one percent:
What’s more, the conservative commentator Thomas Purcell asserted last November (Obama having been playing the Golden Gate card for a while now), “it was the ‘One Percenters’, as is the term coined of the rich and powerful these days, that built the Golden Gate, not government. More importantly, it was government that posed more obstacles for the building of the bridge than any other entity and if the Department of Defense had their way it never would have been built at all.†More Purcell:
The Department of Defense (then called the Department of War) kicked and screamed saying that the bridge would be dangerous and block the channel from ships going in an out of the Presidio base.
Since the DOD owned the land on either side of the channel, there was no way to build it without Federal approval, and they refused to grant it.
After another year of wrangling, and some heavy support from the fledgling automotive industry lobbying (yes, they had lobbyists back then too), the DOD finally relents and allows construction of the bridge, but only sells the land back to the state commission and does not participate in its construction.
Construction did not go as smoothly as planned. It takes another FIVE years for the government and the architects to come to agreement on the design. Furthermore, Federal contractor unions wanted the contracts to build the bridge and stalled the government on the issue, demanding they take action to halt construction unless they got the contract. Fortunately, local authorities insisted that as part of the contract only local labor would be used instead of Federal union contracts, insuring the area had work during Depression era unemployment.
The financing of the bridge came from private industry and local landowners, too, as Purcell explains, emphases mine:
A second problem in 1929 when the US Stock Market collapsed made for more problems. The Golden Gate committee now has trouble issuing the bond needed for the construction of the bridge, even though the citizens of the surrounding area had put up their own personal lands and farms as collateral. It takes 3 more years and the wealthy President and founder of Bank of America, A.P. Giannini, to personally buy the 35 million dollar bond which he then finances through the bank. Without the bank and the intervention of private industry fueled by personal wealth, again the bridge would not have been built. By 1937 the bridge is completed—and Strauss delivers the bridge 1.7 million UNDER budget, using local non-union labor and private contractors.
The Golden Gate Bridge is not a symbol of government planning or a government project—it is a bridge built DESPITE government setbacks and government intervention and is the sole achievement of individuals working in and with the private sector to overcome these obstacles.
How many more grand projects might the private sector produce if government wasn’t confiscating one dollar out of every four? Perhaps enough to build a research center, which Obama and his speechwriters rather desperately need.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/20/obamateurism-of-the-day-787/
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Just because owebuma isn't a self made man, doesn't mean the feat has never been accomplished.
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Barack Obama wanted to impress on people that Mitt Romney’s economic plan wouldn’t help the American economy — which would make it at worst a tie with Obamanomics, of course. In making that argument, Obama cited a serious study by what he claimed was a disinterested, non-partisan economist:
[video goodness at the link of Barry stumping for, well, Barry]
“We have not found any serious economic study that says Governor Romney’s economic plan would actually create jobs, until today,†Obama said. “I’ve got to be honest: Today we found out, there’s a new study out by [a] non-partisan economist that says Governor Romney’s economic plan would in fact create 800,000 jobs. There’s only one problem: The jobs wouldn’t be in America. They would not be in America.â€
Non-partisan? Nonsense, says the Weekly Standard:
As we detailed earlier, “Clausing, according to donor records, gave Obama for America $250 on May 18, 2012. Likewise, on September 14, 2011, Clausing gave $242 to Obama for America, records reveal.â€
In addition to her financial support for Obama, Clausing has donated money to the Democratic Party of Oregon ($250), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ($500), the Democratic National Committee ($500), John Kerry for President ($1,000), Dean for America ($300), Gore and Gore/Lieberman ($1,500), and many others.
The Oregonian has called Reed College, where Clausing teaches, “one of the most liberal and academically liberal colleges in the nation.â€
Ironically, the Obama campaign’s citation of a donor’s economic research happens to coincide with the same day that the Romney campaign is hitting them for engaging in crony capitalism.
Irony! That’s one of our favorite qualities at the OOTD Hall of Shame.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/23/obamateurism-of-the-day-788/
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I would literally consider suicide if I had given $1,500.00 to the Sore/Loserman campaign.
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Last week, Barack Obama wanted a Jacksonville, Florida audience to know that he spends all of his time selflessly devoted to their best interests:
[video of Dear Leader on the stump. Again. At the link.]
And most of all, I would wake up every single day, every single day and spend every waking hour thinking about you. Fighting as hard as I knew how for you.
Unfortunately, that statement came out the day after this story broke:
President Barack Obama is at odds with some of his handpicked outside advisers on hot-button election topics such as regulations and corporate taxes.
Many of the recommendations at issue stem from the president’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, a group of business and labor leaders with whom Mr. Obama hasn’t met in six months.
Jay Carney tried spinning it for the media:
“‘There’s no specific reason [for not meeting with his own Jobs Council], except the president has obviously got a lot on his plate, but he continues to solicit and receive advice from numerous folks outside the administration about the economy about ideas that he can act on with Congress or administratively to help the economy grow and help create jobs,’ Carney said in the White House’s first on-the-record response to a POLITICO story noting the hiatus.â€
A lot on his plate? According to National Journal’s Daybook, Carney’s right. Obama has held 106 fundraisers in the six months since he last met with his jobs council, and not a small number of rounds of golf, either. Looks like those supporters in Jacksonville need a waking up moment.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/24/obamateurism-of-the-day-789/
Obama lies like a rug. But of course, you knew that.
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Obama lies like a rug. But of course, you knew that.
That statement is unfair to most rugs: they aspire to be able to lie with the natural ease that O has shown throughout his administration.
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That statement is unfair to most rugs: they aspire to be able to lie with the natural ease that O has shown throughout his administration.
My Grandmother used to say "He'd lie when the truth would do better".
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"Liar, liar, plants for hire" -Patrick Star
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:rofl: You have kids, don't you?
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Yep. 9 yo Twin mini-mes running around
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When Barack Obama ran for office in 2007 and 2008, he promised to get troops out of Iraq in sixteen months. Instead, he stuck with George W. Bush’s timeline, and forty-two months into his term, Obama is taking credit for a plan that, er, Bush built in declaring the Iraq War over:
In a web video released Monday, the Obama campaign celebrated the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. “As your commander in chief, and on behalf of a grateful nation, I’m proud to finally say these two words, and I know your families agree – welcome home. Welcome home,†Obama says in a clip from a speech he gave at Fort Bragg in December. The president repeats that phrase again for dramatic effect, “Welcome home.â€
As Jake Tapper reports, the timing was … pretty bad:
President Obama’s campaign today released a video praising the president for ending the war in Iraq. It turns out that today has proven to be the deadliest day of the year in that country.
A wave of attacks throughout Iraq – IEDs, explosions, and gunmen — has resulted in more than 100 people killed and more than 200 wounded.
Yesterday, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-Qaeda’s top leader in Iraq, released an audio message announcing, â€We are setting off a new stage of our struggle, with the launch of a plan named ‘breaking the walls.’â€
Declaring victory usually means that your enemies aren’t the last ones in the field.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/25/obamateurism-of-the-day-790/
Barry the Amateur strikes again..... :whatever:
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Barack Obama has mostly avoided talking about the economy on the campaign trail, even though it’s by far and away the most important issue for voters in every poll taken this cycle. When he does talk about the economy, Obama usually fumbles the ball. First he told the White House press corps that “the private sector is doing fine†when it obviously is not, and then last week he told small business owners that “you didn’t build that — someone else made that happen†while arguing to hike their taxes.
This week is no exception. As Obama returned once again to the economy to undo some of the damage with his “you didn’t build that†remark, he did a victory dance of sorts in Oakland:
[video of Barry telling lies on the stump at the link.]
“We tried that and it didn’t work,†Obama said of Mitt Romney’s proposed tax cuts and spending cuts, which he dismissed as a Bush-style “top down†economic policy. “Just like we’ve tried their plan, we tried our plan — and it worked,†he added later in the speech. “That’s the difference. That’s the choice in this election. That’s why I’m running for a second term.â€
It worked? His plan promised that unemployment wouldn’t go above 8%. It hasn’t gone below 8% since he put it in place. His plan promised that the plan would increase GDP by 3.7% by the end of 2010. We’re heading toward a GDP in the 1s, or possibly lower. Obama’s plan promised to find 1.529 million jobs for women. Instead, we’ve added only 2.412 million jobs since the start of the recovery in June 2009, and jobs for women over 16 years of age have only gone up 617,000.
I guess that’s Mission Accomplished in the era of Hope and Change, eh?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/26/obamateurism-of-the-day-791/
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I guess that’s Mission Accomplished in the era of Hope and Change, eh?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/26/obamateurism-of-the-day-791/
Did any one really hope to have any change left when the democrats got though?
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Did any one really hope to have any change left when the democrats got though?
A couple of dimes and a nickel maybe. :shrug:
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A couple of dimes and a nickel maybe. :shrug:
Now if you could just get that emoticon to turn his pockets inside out.
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Now if you could just get that emoticon to turn his pockets inside out.
I already talked to him about that. As a registered Dem, he claims he's one of the 99% and doesn't get paid enough.
Rat bastard. I give him the shirt off my back and he gives me shit.
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I already talked to him about that. As a registered Dem, he claims he's one of the 99% and doesn't get paid enough.
Rat bastard. I give him the shirt off my back and he gives me shit.
:lmao: :rotf:
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One good reason not to hold a policy debate in the wake of tragedy is because of the nonsense it produces from politicians, especially those politicians who gauge their positions by holding a finger to the wind. The White House at first said Barack Obama wouldn’t press for more gun-control laws after the shooting in Aurora, then Obama changed his mind when his base began to gripe. That prompted this platitude, and a curious claim:
“A lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals,†Mr. Obama said at the annual National Urban League convention in New Orleans. “They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities.â€
AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers? Not American soldiers, who don’t use the Russian-designed Kalashnikovs. Besides, the killer in Aurora used an AR-15, not an AK-47, as well as a Remington shotgun and a .40-caliber Glock. The AR-15 is the semi-automatic, civilian version of the M16, which is used by the American military. The AR-15 is semi-automatic only so that civilians can purchase it legally, which they have done since the late 1950s.
Katie Pavlich pulls the rest of this statement apart, too:
First of all, alleged Colorado theater killer James Holmes wasn’t using an AK-47. Second, the U.S. military does not use AK-47s either, so I’m not exactly sure which soldiers President Obama was referring to. Third, all law abiding gun owners believe AK-47s shouldn’t be in the hands of criminals. Fourth, Obama mentioned Columbine and Virginia Tech, both gun-free campuses where students were left as sitting ducks before they were mowed down. Fifth, the Second Amendment isn’t about the American hunting and shooting heritage, it’s about the people protecting themselves from the government.
Actually, I’d add that it’s about defending yourself rather than building the kind of police state necessary to obviate the need for self-protection. But Katie’s not finished:
Sixth, Obama spoke of pushing gun control without the help of that pesky thing called Congress. On this point he is correct. Last summer the Department of Justice, the same department responsible for funneling 2500 AK-47s and .50 caliber rifles to the Mexican drug cartels (criminals) through Operation Fast and Furious, pushed through a new long gun reporting measure for Southwest border gun dealers in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
It’s a little rich to hear the administration that sent thousands of AK-47s into the hands of Mexican drug cartels scold the rest of us on the need to keep them away from, er, criminals. If Obama had bothered to get his facts straight before opining on the matter, he could have avoided that reference altogether.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/27/obamateurism-of-the-day-792/
Barry, don't bother locking and loading next time you run your mouth without vetting what you're attempting to spew. You'll look silly regardless.
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With Mitt Romney on his way to Israel, Barack Obama needed to make a public gesture showing his commitment to the key American ally. Unfortunately, Obama couldn’t quite figure out the difference between “million†and “billion†when it came to the spending he had just authorized with his signature, and ended up incorrectly correcting himself — in a rare televised signing from the Oval Office:
[lots of video love from Barry at the link]
“I’m also very pleased that this week we are going to be able to announce $70 million in additional spending — $70 billion, excuse me, in additional spending for Iron Dome.â€
Actually, it was $70 million; $70 billion would be far larger than our total foreign-aid outlays. The Daily Caller dryly notes, “It is unclear why Obama was unfamiliar with the amount of the foreign aid increase.†Unfortunately for those of us who have analyzed Obama’s spending proclivities, it’s entirely clear that he can’t tell the difference between millions and billions.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/30/obamateurism-of-the-day-793/
*sigh* An asshat of biblical proportions is our Barry.
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With Mitt Romney on his way to Israel, Barack Obama needed to make a public gesture showing his commitment to the key American ally. Unfortunately, Obama couldn’t quite figure out the difference between “million†and “billion†when it came to the spending he had just authorized with his signature, and ended up incorrectly correcting himself — in a rare televised signing from the Oval Office:
[lots of video love from Barry at the link]
Actually, it was $70 million; $70 billion would be far larger than our total foreign-aid outlays. The Daily Caller dryly notes, “It is unclear why Obama was unfamiliar with the amount of the foreign aid increase.†Unfortunately for those of us who have analyzed Obama’s spending proclivities, it’s entirely clear that he can’t tell the difference between millions and billions.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/30/obamateurism-of-the-day-793/
*sigh* An asshat of biblical proportions is our Barry.
Or even trillions. But that colossal gaffe will be entirely downplayed by the owebumaManiaMedia.
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This week, a new Gallup survey showed that Barack Obama’s campaign issues rank at the bottom of the stack with most voters. That doesn’t mean that Obama can’t speak to the issues that matter. Republican voters consider the deficit the most important issue, and Obama has a promise to make on that score. Unfortunately, Obama’s own Office of Management and Budget has already made hash of it. The Republican minority on the Senate budget committee pointed it out last week (via Power Line):
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i317/Eupher6/omb-deficit.jpg)
“Pay down†must somehow equal “inflate beyond all comprehension.†Jeff Sessions wants Obama to pull the ads off the air:
President Obama is currently running a campaign ad saying he has a plan to ‘pay down the debt in a balanced way.’ He has made this claim in public remarks as well. But his updated budget—submitted two weeks after the legal deadline—reveals just how dramatically false this claim is. These ads ought to be pulled down.
His updated budget proposes a $10.6 trillion increase in gross debt through 2022, with debt remaining permanently above 100 percent of GDP. The picture in the out-years looks even bleaker. No change is proposed to our dangerously unsustainable debt course.
The President’s claim his tax hikes are for deficit reduction is shown to be false as well. His budget proposes to spend $46.2 trillion over ten years—an increase of nearly one-and-half trillion dollars above the current law baseline and a 57 percent increase above today’s spending levels. The President’s $1.8 trillion tax increase is not used to reduce the deficit but to fund this massive increase above what we are currently planning to spend.
Meanwhile, the President’s party in the Senate has refused to even produce a budget plan at all for three straight years.
Well, just think how bad it would be if Democrats produced an actual budget.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/31/obamateurism-of-the-day-794/
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I got sick of the libs beating up GWB for his far less egregious budgets. In comparison, owebuma should be getting beaten up at a minimum twice as much, if not 3 times as much. Hardly a whisper of owebuma's egregious budgeting is ever heard, especially by the owebumaManiaMedia.
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I missed this last week, but it’s just as good a week later. Nine days ago, Barack Obama asserted that under his leadership, the world had “a new attitude … confidence†in America, and you could see it everywhere he went:
[video at the link]
Of course, world tours tend to only bring Presidents into contact with diplomats (and Obama has pointedly not visited Israel in four years, either, which can hardly be described as more confident in American leadership these days). On the other hand, when presidential candidates meet with foreign leaders, they hear something entirely different — which Romney heard on the same day Obama offered up his take:
Australia’s foreign minister privately warned Sunday that foreign leaders see “America in decline,†Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said.
Romney said he met with Foreign Minister Bob Carr in a San Francisco hotel Sunday night shortly before a Republican fundraiser.
He said Carr suggested that America could improve that international perception “with one budget deal†that helps balance the budget.
“And this idea of America in decline, it was interesting [Carr] said that; he led the talk of American being in decline,†Romney said at the fundraiser, according to The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. â€And if they’re thinking about investing in America, entrepreneurs putting their future in America — if they think America’s in decline they’re not gonna do it.â€
Later, Carr tried to clarify his remarks:
Foreign Minister Bob Carr and other Australian officials said Monday that Carr was praising American economic strengths during Sunday’s meeting. The meeting was kept secret until Romney shared Carr’s comments with donors later in the day.
“He said America is just one budget deal away from ending all talk of America being in decline,†Romney said, while addressing roughly 250 donors at San Francisco’s Fairmont hotel. “I said, ‘Can I quote you on that?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’†..
“The foreign minister’s remarks represent a considered assessment of the U.S. economy and an antidote to talk of U.S. declinism,†said Kim Beazley, Australia’s ambassador to the United States.
He said Carr has identified increasing U.S. energy competitiveness and continued inventiveness coming from Silicon Valley “as a sound base for the next progression in the U.S. economy.â€
Perhaps Carr did mean this as “an antidote to talk of US declinism,†but he wouldn’t have had to offer it had the talk been, as Obama suggested, of “confidence†in the US. And it’s worth pointing out that the only explicit marketplace measure of American strength — our credit rating — has declined under Obama, the first time that has happened in over 90 years.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/01/obamateurism-of-the-day-795/
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Amazing, after almost 4 years of on the job training, owebuma is still making amateur moves.
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Barack Obama seems to have trouble with his economic citations. Just last week, he noted a favorable review from what Obama described as a “non-partisan†economist … who just happened to be a contributor to his campaign. Yesterday in Mansfield, Ohio, Obama told a campaign-stop crowd that Romney’s tax-reform plan had garnered an unfavorable review from “an independent, non-partisan organization … This wasn’t my staff.†Ah, but that depends on the definition of wasn’t:
[Dear Leader on the stump -- again]
And you do not have to take my word for it. Just today, an independent, non-partisan organization ran all the numbers on Governor Romney’s plan. This wasn’t my staff. This wasn’t something we did. Independent group, ran the numbers.
Independent? Not exactly. The study at the Brookings Institute was co-authored by Adam Looney — and guess where Looney worked before his current gig?
Adam Looney is a senior fellow in Economic Studies and policy director of The Hamilton Project. His research focuses on tax policy, labor economics, inequality and social policy. Previously, Looney was the senior economist for public finance and tax policy with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and has been an economist at the Federal Reserve Board.
In fact, Looney worked for Obama for two years, 2009-10, on the same economic advisory board that brought us “shovel-ready jobs.â€
So … “independent� “Non-partisan�
[Vid clip with the lines, "You keep using that word. That's why you fail." at the link]
Just wait until he starts citing Christine Romer as a conservative economist …
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/02/obamateurism-of-the-day-796/
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Anyone who doesn't already see the truth (that you can tell O is lying cuz his lips are moving) would certainly be tipped off by the repeated denial of any linkage to this "independent" economist.
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I wonder how owebuma figures out who to invite to the White House to congratulate for winning some athletic endeavor, or contest ? Because whoever wins, they didn't build that win, or make that win, or earn that win. Someone else built it, or made it, or earned it.
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Barack Obama went to Ohio this week in order to convince Rust Belt voters that he really cared about their economic concerns. At one stop, Mansfield, the biggest economic concern in the Obama administration’s plan to close the local Air Force base, which would kill about a thousand jobs in the town. What did Obama say to Mansfield voters to set their minds at ease about the base closing? According to Politico’s James Hohlmann — absolutely nothing:
BY THE NUMBERS (FROM BOSTON)-5,422: Words In His 2 Ohio Rallies. 2,563: Words In Mansfield Rally. 2,859: Words In Akron Rally. Up To 1,000: Jobs at stake at Mansfield AFB. 43: Minutes On The Stump Throughout Ohio. 22: Minutes On The Stump In Mansfield. 21: Minutes On The Stump In Akron. 0: Words Or Seconds Addressing His Budget’s Closure Of Mansfield AFB.
And guess where Obama landed with Air Force One? Yes, indeedy:
As Obama delivered a blistering appraisal of Republican rival Mitt Romney’s tax plan at boisterous rallies in Mansfield and Akron, his ninth visit to Ohio this year was nagged by the irony that Air Force One landed at an airport with a base that his proposed budget has put in jeopardy.
After landing AF1 at the base the Obama administration wanted closed and an outcry arose in Ohio, the White House suddenly reversed course — even though Obama never personally addressed the issue while in Mansfield:
With Republicans mocking the visit, the White House clarified that it plans to eliminate the fleet of C27-J medium aircraft flown and maintained by the 179 {+t}{+h} Airlift Wing in Mansfield, but it does not plan to shutter the base and furlough 800 Guard members, as previously reported.
White House spokeswoman Joanna Rosholm said the administration will work with the Defense Department “to find a mission for Mansfield Lahm Air National Guard base so that the men and women who serve there can continue to make their important contribution to our national security.â€
Republicans reacted wryly: “It’s ironic that it took a campaign event to convince (Obama) of the invaluable work of Mansfield’s Air Guard, rather than the thousands of letters and calls from those directly affected,†said U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi, a Genoa Township Republican who will represent part of Richland County — Mansfield is the county seat — if he wins a seventh term, as expected.
First Obama lands at a base that his administration planned to close, then ignored the issue while in town — and reversed course afterward instead of using the trip to highlight the policy change. It’s hard to see how Obama and his team could have screwed up that opportunity more.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/03/obamateurism-of-the-day-797/
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First Obama lands at a base that his administration planned to close, then ignored the issue while in town — and reversed course afterward instead of using the trip to highlight the policy change. It’s hard to see how Obama and his team could have screwed up that opportunity more.http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/03/obamateurism-of-the-day-797/
He could have used the opportunity to announce the immediate closure and layoff of all concerned, military and civilian alike, but that's about the worst that he could have done.
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He could have used the opportunity to announce the immediate closure and layoff of all concerned, military and civilian alike, but that's about the worst that he could have done.
Agreed, and while Barry and his handlers have shown monumental stupidity, they didn't go quite that far in this case. Backpedaling and pandering are political qualities that Barry thinks he can demonstrate and not be called on -- until November, that is.
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One might think that Barack Obama would have learned his lesson from the “you didn’t build that†blowback. He handed Mitt Romney a powerful attack by claiming that small businesses owed their success to government, and that entrepreneurs had nothing to do with the infrastructure that government provides — despite the fact that government only has the capital to build that infrastructure because entrepreneurs risk their own capital to create and expand markets, provide jobs, and raise the tax base. Obama reacted by griping about being taken out of context, and then claiming that he always gives entrepreneurs the credit for their success.
Even after all that, Obama wants to find some anecdotes to push his argument that government should get credit for private-sector success (via Doug Powers at the Boss Emeritus’ place):
Barack Obama
✔
@BarackObama
If you or someone you know owns a small business, share how President Obama’s policies are helping it succeed: OFA.BO/rCWham
5 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
When growth is 1.5% and joblessness is 8.3% only because millions of people have dropped out of the work force for despair of finding employment, anecdotes are all Obama will be able to offer.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/06/obamateurism-of-the-day-798/
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How long til someone hijacks that request for anecdotes with twitter accounts named "SolyndraCEO", "Ener1CEO", etc and saying things like "I donated to Obama2008 and got loads of stimulus money. Too bad the company went bankrupt..."
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How long til someone hijacks that request for anecdotes with twitter accounts named "SolyndraCEO", "Ener1CEO", etc and saying things like "I donated to Obama2008 and got loads of stimulus money. Too bad the company went bankrupt..."
:lmao:
h5
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How long til someone hijacks that request for anecdotes with twitter accounts named "SolyndraCEO", "Ener1CEO", etc and saying things like "I donated to Obama2008 and got loads of stimulus money. Too bad the company went bankrupt..."
I did too, where's my kickback ?
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Remember when we elected a President who promised to usher in a new era of meaningful politics, an end the days of partisanship for only the sake of partisanship, and rising above cheap personal attacks? Good times, good times:
Adding a new attack line on Monday to his stump speech, the president railed against rival Mitt Romney’s tax proposals, saying they amount to “Robin Hood in reverse.â€
“It’s Romney Hood,†the president added to loud applause from 500 supporters in a Stamford, Connecticut ballroom.
Obama’s campaign isn’t yet indicating whether the “Romney Hood†line will remain part of the president’s stump speech.
If he does, he’s going to have to explain it to his supporters, who didn’t quite get the reference:
In a sign of the times, a lot of people apparently have missed the Robin Hood reference entirely and have mistaken #RomneyHood for a place … a very bad place. But if you’re going to get the story wrong, you might as well get it really wrong, right?
AAmom@AVD911
#RomneyHood Where Hispanics self-deport and African-Americans lose the right to vote.
6 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Whitney@memfisman
In #RomneyHood you lie like a rug.
6 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
utaustinliberal@utaustinliberal
In #RomneyHood middle-class families get a tax hike of $2K to pay for a $250K tax cut for the wealthy.
6 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
However, as Twitchy also noted, conservatives reminded everyone that Robin Hood stole from the ruling class to give to the poor — the poor Saxons who had been taxed into poverty:
Just Karl@justkarl
Funny, I remember Robin Hood as the guy who took money from the corrupt gov't and gave it back to those who earned it.
6 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Melissa Clouthier@MelissaTweets
@justkarl Everyone gets that story wrong.
6 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Vodka Drinker@*******Lush
Dear @BarackObama, Robin Hood has been perverted by leftists. He stole from the gov't and gave back to taxpayers. #AssHat
6 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
So maybe Obama should have someone explain the story to him before he gets around to explaining it to his supporters.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/07/obamateurism-of-the-day-799/
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Is Obama the evil King John or the equally evil Sheriff of Nottingham? I'd have to go with King John. Ruling by fiat and living the good life while making life harder for the rest of us.
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Is Obama the evil King John or the equally evil Sheriff of Nottingham? I'd have to go with King John. Ruling by fiat and living the good life while making life harder for the rest of us.
Yeah, the Sheriff was just a minor scumbag with a healthy dose of corrupt in the whole RH story, whereas King John was not only evil, but corrupt too.
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Here’s a riddle for you. You hear Democrats talking constantly about the evils of the “Bush tax cuts,†the rates set in 2001-3 for income tax which haven’t been changed since. Whenever the topic of tax rates comes up, Democrats blame the “Bush tax cuts†for everything from the trillion-dollar annual deficits to the financial collapse of 2008. With all that in mind, when is a “Bush tax cut†not a “Bush tax cut�
When Obama wants to take credit for it, that’s when:
Barack Obama
✔
@BarackObama
Use the hashtag #2200dollars to share how the President’s middle-class tax cut would help your family next year.
2 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Jeryl Bier explains:
Note the wording: “the President’s middle-class tax cutâ€. This is the same administration that has balked at referring to the current rates as “the Bush tax cuts,†and now has appropriated that label for the President himself. And it’s not even a new cut, simply a continuation of current tax policy. The only answers the president should have received via Twitter should read: “I will spend the $2,200 on the same expenses I used it for in 2012 because my taxes are not being cut.â€
Note to President Obama from Reality: this isn’t a tax cut at all, and it’s not an Obama tax rate, either. It’s the current Bush-era tax rate. Republicans wanted to keep the tax rates exactly as they are, too, only they want to do it across the board. Obama wants to raise taxes on higher-end income earners, those making $250,000 a year or more. Maybe we should be asking what he’s going to do with the extra $80 billion a year while he runs trillion-dollar deficits, all the while promising to “pay down the debt in a balanced way.â€
There’s a lot of unreality in Obama’s statements, isn’t there?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/08/obamateurism-of-the-day-800/
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I love this thread. I love seeing how incompetent, and inept owebuma is on a daily basis.
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How long has it been since Barack Obama answered a serious question from the White House press corps? Keith Koffler counts the days … and counts … and counts:
The last substantive question Obama took from a White House reporter was during a June 20 press conference following the G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. Obama allowed only six questions during the event, which was nearly guaranteed to keep him out of political hot water as the focus was on foreign policy.
Since then, Obama has held no press conferences, given no interviews to White House reporters, and taken no questions at the White House events he has held where reporters have been present.
Matt Lewis has figured out how to get Obama to take a question — pay for an answer:
While he might be dodging the press, Obama has been much more willing to take questions from donors at campaign fundraising events. In fact, I count at least half a dozen examples in the last month (here, here, here, here, here, and here) where he has uttered some version of “I want to spend most of my time in a conversation answering your questions.â€
That may be a little unfair. After all, the President does spend every waking minute worrying about our economy and job creation, doesn’t he?
It’s worth noting that while President Obama had too much “on his plate†to meet with his jobs council — or take questions from the press corps — he did have time for another round of 18 holes this weekend.
Never mind.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/09/obamateurism-of-the-day-801/
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His outsourcing jobs council ?
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For today’s OOTD, I’m turning the reins over to one of our terrific Green Room contributors. Steve Eggleston of No Runny Eggs relates Barack Obama’s campaign message that we should intervene in every industry like we did with automakers:
If Ed weren’t recovering from back surgery, I’m positive this would have been today’s Obamateurism of the Day. I have to credit Ace for digging up this little gem from a speech President Obama in Pueblo, Colorado yesterday:
We’ve got a bunch of examples of the differences, the choice in this election. When the American auto industry was on the brink of collapse, more than 1 million jobs at stake, Governor Romney said, let’s “let Detroit go bankrupt.â€
I said I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back and GM is number one again. So now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs not just in the auto industry, but in every industry. I don’t want those jobs taking root in places like China. I want them taking root in places like Pueblo.
Let’s review what, exactly, Obama (and to be fair, President Bush as a lame duck and enabler) did to the auto industry:
Expended $43.2 billion (not including a $6.7 billion “flash money†“loan†from otherwise unused DIP financing used to create a credit-worthy Government Motors out of whole cloth) to seize control of the largest auto maker, General Motors. Of that $43.2 billion, only $16.8 billion has made its way back to the Treasury, with another $10.3 billion in stock the government still holds in GM (as of the close of the markets yesterday). That puts the projected loss on the GM deal at $16.1 billion, while the UAW VEBA (retiree health-care fund) has already recovered more than what it was owed pre-bankruptcy and stands to get close to $30 billion on the $20.6 billion it was owed before all is said and done.
Expended $12.8 billion to seize the third-largest auto maker, Chrysler, hand initial majority control to the UAW, and facilitate the transfer of ultimate control to a foreign entity, Fiat. Of that $12.8 billion, $8.2 billion was ultimately recovered from former owner Cerebus and Fiat, putting the final loss at $4.6 billion.
What, exactly, did we get for that $30 billion, besides a government-run company whose recent success is due more to its controlling owner upping its fleet purchases than anything else and an Italian-union collaboration? Did you think it would be an increase in jobs? You would be mistaken if you thought that.
The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, widely considered the most-accurate measure of jobs as it is a census that includes every job provided by a private employer subject to the unemployment tax, has as one of its industry subgroups “automobile and light truck manufacturing†(NAICS 33661 in bureaucrat-speak). In December 2007, when the “Great Recession†started (at least according to the economists charged by the government with defining recessions), there were 187,219 people employed in the industry. In December 2008, when Bush decided to bail out GM and Chrysler, employment dropped to 155,504. In December 2009, after Obama turned them into Government Motors and UAW Motors, employment dropped to 131,525. There was little change in December 2010, but employment did bottom out at 131,020. There was a bit of a recovery by December 2011 (the last month QCEW data is currently available) as employment rose to 142,532.
To recap – we spent $20-30 billion (depending on whether one thinks we’ll get even $20.65 per share once/if Treasury decides to let GM go), sold the smallest of the Big Three to the Italians, and, 3 years after the bailout started and 2 1/2 years after the economy “recoveredâ€, had 13,000 fewer people employed in the automotive industry. I’ll let Jim Hanson have the last word on the Crony Capitalist Socialist in Chief:
[video at the link]
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/13/obamateurism-of-the-day-802/
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The way owebuma touts his "success" at GM, you would think there might be some actual evidence that his policies worked there. Delphi, a one time subsidiary of GM has announced they will no longer be honoring retirement agreements with 20,000 of it's retirees.
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There’s nothing like the hometown to get a politician feeling on top of the world. When Paul Ryan headed home as Mitt Romney’s running mate this weekend, a “massive†crowd greeted him like a homecoming hero, despite having only hours to coordinate it:
The largest crowd of the campaign so far for a Mitt Romney event welcomed home favorite son Rep. Paul Ryan at a massive rally here in the congressman’s district Sunday night, pushing the GOP’s vice presidential nominee to tears as he took the stage, setting off cheers with two simple words:
“Hi mom.†…
“I’m a Wisconsinite through and through,†Ryan said to cheers from a crowd which contained many members of Ryan’s extended family, and which the campaign estimated to be more than ten thousand strong, likely the largest turnout ever for a Romney event.
Some estimates had the crowd size as high as 13,000. But you know who else had a homecoming? The man at the top of the other ticket, Barack Obama. He came to Chicago for a long-planned fundraiser only hours after Ryan generated the huge crowd in Wisconsin. Tickets started at $51 a pop, celebrating the President’s birthday a week earlier. The hometown crowds must really have been huge, considering the size of the city in comparison to Ryan’s less-populous district, right? Er …
jodikantor@jodikantor
Just to clarify, tix *started* at $51. Obama campaign sez event was sold out, but room is about half full. Hmmm.
12 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
There may have been a reason for that:
jodikantor@jodikantor
The invitation to the president's birthday fundraiser today in Chicago. twitpic.com/aiib1k
12 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
https://twitter.com/kevinmeyers/status/234629654647029760
Kevin Meyers@kevinmeyers 12 Aug 12
@jodikantor Did they really screwup CST/CDT?
jodikantor@jodikantor
@kevinmeyers You're the second person to say that.
12 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Politico tried to scoff at Kantor’s first-person report:
But the crowd for the afternoon fundraiser at the Bridgeport Art Center totaled 1,000, an Obama campaign official said – more than the 850-person estimate the campaign offered earlier in the weekend. Tickets for the Gen44 fundraiser, targeted at younger supporters, started at $51, but many were more expensive.
And, to this reporter and several others in the White House press pool, the room seemed plenty full. There was empty space at the back of the large loft space during and immediately after the president’s remarks, but the crowd was densely packed to get close to the stage at the front of the room where Obama spoke.
Kantor wasn’t buying it:
DRUDGE REPORT@DRUDGE_REPORT 12 Aug 12
REPORT: Obama fundraiser in Chicago. 'Admission only $51, but room is half full'... drudge.tw/R5LqFF
jodikantor@jodikantor
@DRUDGE_REPORT Admission *began* at $51, to clarify. Obama campaign said event was sold out, though the room looked abt 1/2 full to me.
12 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Too bad Obama comes from such a small hometown, or he might have done better than one-thirteenth of the crowd Ryan attracted.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/14/obamateurism-of-the-day-803/
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Via Jim Hoft:
[video at the link]
As Jim points out, Paul Ryan and House Republicans passed the farm bill two weeks ago. The Democrat-controlled Senate hasn’t acted on their own version so the two bills can go into conference committee. Maybe Obama should call Harry Reid and find out what the problem is … and while he’s at it, ask him why his party hasn’t produced the budget resolution required by law every year, for the last 1200 days.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/15/obamateurism-of-the-day-804/
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Barack Obama has campaigned on equal-pay issues going all the way back to 2007, so it’s no big surprise to hear him still campaigning on it in 2012. He regularly cites the Lily Ledbetter Act as one of his big achievements as President, fighting for equal pay for women, although the merits of a bill that allows for more retroactive lawsuits is certainly debatable. However, it seems that Obama has a new crusade — equal pay for … First Ladies:
[video of Barry the Buffoon at the link]
And let me say this. When I talk about women’s issues, I’m talking about the experiences that I’ve seen in my own life. Everybody knows Michelle. (Applause.) The fact that we are partners in this process, this journey of life, has been my source of strength. And I want to make sure that she has control over her health care choices. I want to make sure that when she’s working, she is getting paid the same as men. I’ve got to say, First Ladies right now don’t — (laughter) — even though that’s a tough job.
Well, actually, it isn’t a job. There is no “job†called Presidential Spouse, just as there is no “job†called Presidential Child. Is life difficult for presidential spouses and children? In many ways, yes. And in many ways, no. Few people get to live in an elaborate mansion with household and kitchen staff on duty all hours of the day and night, for instance, paid by taxpayers for their comfort. Few other spouses get the kind of political/cultural platforms that First Ladies do, either. As this First Family has discovered, the vacation venues and covered travel expenses are usually a bit better than the hoi polloi experience, too.
But First Ladies don’t get paid because Presidential Spouse isn’t a government position; it’s a circumstance of being married to the President … who, by the way, gets $400,000 a year in salary, a hefty pension even after just a single term that includes the kind of Cadillac-plan health care that Obama himself decried in the private sector, and lifetime a decade of free personal security. If that’s not enough, then perhaps the Obamas should take this opportunity to retire so that Mrs. Obama can go back to work in the private sector.
By the way, there’s nothing that legally prevents a First Lady from having a job of her own, or a First Dude if those circumstances arise. It would be impractical for a number of reasons, not the least of which are issues of conflicts of interest and security. But it has been done, albeit for a very brief time: Hillary Clinton formally entered the Senate more than two weeks before her husband stopped being the President in January 2001.
Update: I had forgotten that the President could lead on this issue very easily — by paying women equally in his own White House. So far, Obama is all talk.
Update II: Secret Service protection for former Presidents and their families was curtailed to 10 years; I’ve corrected that above.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/16/obamateurism-of-the-day-805/
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Seriously — how hard is it for a Democratic President to antagonize the media into open war? Almost as difficult to fumble Medicare to the point where it becomes an effective Republican attack in a presidential election … but that’s an OOTD for another day. This week, Barack Obama gave interviews to two hard-hitting news sources: People Magazine and Entertainment Tonight. That got Joe Scarborough laughing at his lack of courage in facing the White House press corps, but got ABC’s White House correspondent Jake Tapper mad enough to take public the rising anger among the reporters assigned day-in and day-out to cover the President.
As Jim Geraghty noted before the storm broke yesterday, even the entertainment industry is tired of seeing him:
Back in May, after President Obama answered questions about the Kardashians and Fifty Shades of Gray in an appearance on “The View,†Entertainment Weekly’s television critic Ken Tucker argued that it was time for the commander-in-chief to start skipping the fluff interviews: “If you’re going to spend time on TV, Mr. President — and Mr. Romney — do us all a favor and skip Whoopi and The Daily Show and Jay and Dave and the Jimmys and all the celebrity news anchors on the networks. Just speak to us directly, or engage in debates that are real debates which will allow for considered thought and direct questioning of your opponent’s positions.â€
What about Mr. Romney? Hey, he’s ducking the press and angering them equally, right? Er ….
Garrett Haake@GarrettNBCNews
We hammered him when he wasn't available, so lets give credit where it's due: Romney has held three tough press avails this week.
16 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
And what about positions? Jake Tapper wanted to know that yesterday, too:
[video at the link]
It was a joke. Just like Obama’s refusal to engage serious journalists while escaping to the celebrity shmooze circuit.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/17/obamateurism-of-the-day-806/
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The extent of owebuma's "transparency" is going on talk shows and answering probitive questions like "what is your favorite New Mexico food?", and, "what superhero superhero would you most want to have?" to which owebuma might answer "the ability to speak all languages". Presumably at or near the top of the list would be Austrian.
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Via Real Clear Politics, a true Alfred E. Newman moment … what, me divide?
[video of Barry at the link]
“I don’t think you or anybody who’s been watching the campaign would say that in any way we have tried to divide the country. We’ve always tried to bring the country together,†President Obama said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
John Podhoretz scoffs that this comes down to the age-old argument from the person caught redhanded: Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
President Obama’s answer on Wednesday to a question about his running mate claiming Republicans are going to put “y’all back in chains” was a classic bit of soothing presidential palaver.
I don’t think you or anybody who’s been watching the campaign would say that in any way we have tried to divide the country,” he said about a moment in which Joe Biden had done precisely that.
The president’s answer has the quality of the adulterer caught in bed with another woman who says to his wife, “Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?”
Obama has been using an almost-explicit class-warfare campaign since his speech to Congress in September of last year. From blaming those who use corporate jets to the wealthy for the massive deficits his administration has rung up — over a trillion dollars in each of his years — Obama has been trying to stoke rage against the wealthy for the woes of the nation. That strategy was put into place specifically to run against Romney, which is why Team Obama keeps obsessing over Romney’s tax returns rather than talking about what their second-term agenda is.
The only place Obama could possibly peddle this comic relief is Entertainment Tonight … which is not coincidentally the only national media outlet he’s engaging.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/20/obamateurism-of-the-day-807/
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The most divisive ever. After claiming he would be a uniter.
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The most divisive ever. After claiming he would be a uniter.
He's united all the wierdoes, crazies, loafers, homos and other riff-raff under the giant democrat tent or at OWS events. Where's a suicide bomber when you need 'em?
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I love Barack Obama press conferences, scheduled or impromptu. Either way, they provide fertile ground for OOTD entries, and yesterday was no exception. When challenged on the negative manner in which his re-election campaign has operated — especially with the personal attacks on Mitt Romney — Obama seemed nonplussed, emphasis mine:
[video of Dear Leader at the link]
Nancy Cordes, CBS: As you know, your opponent recently accused you of waging a campaign filled with anger and hate. You told Entertainment Tonight that anyone who attends your rallies can see that they are not angry or hate-filled affairs. But in recent weeks, your campaign has suggested repeatedly – without proof – that Mr. Romney might be hiding something in his tax returns. They have suggested that Mr. Romney might be a felon for the way that he handed over power of Bain Capital. And your campaign and the White House have declined to condemn an ad by one of your top supporters that links Mr. Romney to a woman’s death from cancer. Are you comfortable with the tone being set with your campaign? Have you asked them to change their tone when it comes to defining Mr. Romney?
President Obama: Well, first of all, I am not sure that all of those characterizations that you laid out there were accurate. For example, nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon. And, I think that what is absolutely true is if you watch me on the campaign trail, here’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about how to put Americans back to work.
Really? Then I guess that Stephanie Cutter, one of Team Obama’s official spokespeople, has officially been declared a “nobodyâ€:
Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter suggested that Mitt Romney may be a criminal on a conference call with reporters this morning about a Boston Globe report that shows that Romney stayed at Bain Capital three years past when he said he’d left.
Cutter said that there were two ways to interpret the story. The first: Mitt Romney was “misrepresenting his position†at Bain to the Securities and Exchange Commission, “which is a felony.â€
Don’t take our word for it. Here’s Cutter on CNN accusing Romney of committing a felony:
[video goodness at the link]
Aaaaaaaaand here’s Ed Rendell rebuking Team Obama for going the full felony:
[more video goodness at the link]
Maybe Obama doesn’t know what his own campaign is doing … but that’s taking deniability into the realm of the implausible.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/21/obamateurism-of-the-day-808/
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Official lib policy...
Deny, Deny, Deny
Counteraccuse, Deny
Make liberal use of denial, sprinkle in counteraccusations.
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Once again, we return to Barack Obama’s press conference on Monday for today’s example of the “Me or Your Lyin’ Eyes†credibility strategy. In this case, President Obama gets asked whether he’s prepared to condemn the super-PAC run by his former aide, Bill Burton, which implied that Mitt Romney was responsible for the death of a laid-off worker’s spouse. Obama tells the press that he had nothing to do with the ad:
[Dear Leader in his every-six-months-or-so presser at the link]
Q Well, why not send a message to the top super PAC that’s supporting you and say, I think an ad like that is out of bounds? We shouldn’t be suggesting that –
THE PRESIDENT: So let’s take that particular issue, as opposed to — because you lumped in a whole bunch of other stuff that I think was entirely legitimate. I don’t think that Governor Romney is somehow responsible for the death of the woman that was portrayed in that ad. But keep in mind this is an ad that I didn’t approve, I did not produce, and as far as I can tell, has barely run. I think it ran once.
That’s true, strictly speaking, that Obama didn’t produce the ad; campaigns cannot legally coordinate with PACs or super-PACs, only with their party committees. However, as BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski discovered, Obama’s official campaign website certainly promoted the claim the ad made. Andrew found this image in a slideshow attacking Romney:
[image with the quote at the link]
Does Obama not expect to be held responsible for his own campaign website? Perhaps that’s why he’s been hiding from the national news media and giving fluff interviews with People and Entertainment Tonight. As far as whether we should trust Obama or our own lyin’ eyes, well …
[Who else but The Eagles and a Greatest Hits LP at the link?]
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/22/obamateurism-of-the-day-809/
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Not only is there no owebumaManiaMedia reporter competent enough to formulate that type of investigative journalism as a basis for a tough question for owebuma, they wouldn't have the professional courage to ask it. Nevertheless, whatever inane, inaccurate, or dodging response owebuma would give to such a question, the "journalists" would let him get away with it.
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Sorry, gang, but this one is stupid. Must've been a slow news day.
Begin quoted article:
This one’s a two-fer, one for Barack Obama and another for a prominent media outlet. Yesterday, Obama campaigned in Ohio and wanted to engage in some of the local sports customs, such as the Ohio State cheer that uses four people to spell the state name. Unfortunately, it’s the spelling part that became the problem:
Christopher Maloney@CHRISMAL0NEY
A word of advice to @BarackObama: it's "O-H-I-O" that has 18 electoral votes, not "O-I-H-O" pic.twitter.com/babXzAtp
22 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Oiho? Maloney had a lot of fun with that on his Twitter feed, and The Hill picked up the story:
President Obama needed a do-over to spell “Ohio†correctly on the campus of Ohio State University this week.
Although Obama and several students at a campaign stop Tuesday morning at Sloopy’s Diner on the campus of OSU tweeted out photos of the president correctly posing as the “I†in Ohio, another student supplied a photo of a spelling mishap to Mitt Romney’s campaign.
The photo, tweeted by Romney’s Ohio communications director, Christopher Maloney, shows Obama and three students all a little confused about how to spell the state’s name, with Obama holding his hands up in what seems to be an “H†and as the third letter.
That’s when the Washington Post swung into action. Apparently thinking that no one could be so dumb as to misspell “Ohio,†the Post tried to debunk the picture as a Photoshop, a moment captured by their rivals at the Washington Examiner:
[image at the link]
After numerous people corrected the Post on Twitter, they finally had to admit that they were “fooled†… apparently someone is that dumb:
The Washington Post
✔
@washingtonpost
Correction re: that Obama photo. We were fooled. wapo.st/O6hXYQ
22 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
That’s OK, though. The President of the United States managed to get “Ohio†right on his second try. Can’t wait to see what happens in Connecticut.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/23/obamateurism-of-the-day-810/
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I kind of wondered about that. If the OIHO picture was a mirror image of an original.
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What a bunch of ****ing geeks.
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This week, the Congressional Budget Office issued a very dire warning about the economic disaster that will result from the so-called “fiscal cliff†or “Taxmageddon†at the end of this year. According to the CBO, the damage from the policies in place now would cost 2 million jobs and create a “significant recession.†One might think that this would interest the man currently holding the top job in the federal government and running for a second term. However, as Jake Tapper pointed out in a White House press briefing yesterday, Obama seemed to talk about everything but the fiscal cliff and the tanking economy this week:
[video at link of my hero Jay Carnal]
ABC’s Jake Tapper: “The Congressional Budget Office report is a pretty dire warning about what this nation faces, yet I didn’t hear the president mention it yesterday, is there a reason why?â€
White House Spokesman Jay Carney: “Well I think I put out a statement which is the White House’s view and the president’s view. The president talks every day that he’s out there, as he was yesterday, about what we need to do to help build our economy, help it to continue to grow, help it to continue to create jobs and yesterday, and the day before, he was focusing on the need to continue investments in education because he firmly believes that education is a matter of our economy, it’s an economic issue.â€
Tapper: That’s not what the Congressional Budget Office was addressing, they were talking about … The president talked about education, he talked about Todd Aiken, he talked about Michael Jordan, he talked about a lot of—“
Carney: “He talks, you know, all the time about what we need to do to specifically to help the economy grow and create jobs. And his belief that we need to take a balanced approach to address the kinds of fiscal challenges that are necessary.â€
Just call this the Seamus The Roof-Riding Dog That Didn’t Bark.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/24/obamateurism-of-the-day-811/
Jeezus, Jay, just go ahead and spin like a ****ing top. It's what you do, asswipe. :whatever:
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A "Balanced Approach". That's libspeak for raising taxes.
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A "Balanced Approach". That's libspeak for raising taxes and cutting/gutting defense spending.
FIFY.
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FIFY.
That was a good fix.
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Everybody knew this one was coming:
Begin article:
The task of Commander in Chief is daunting for every President, with the possible exception of men like Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant, who entered politics after commanding armies — in Eisenhower’s case, the largest multinational force ever put into the field at that time. It helps, though, to learn the ranks of each of the services, and to make sure that you know in which service your top commanders lead:
Perhaps most seriously, however, was Obama’s slip in an interview with KSDK in St Louis, Missouri when he was asked about the new 22-minute film ‘Dishonorable Disclosures’ by a group of former Special Forces troops and intelligence operatives.
‘I won’t take this film too seriously,’ he responded. ‘I gather that one of the producers is a birther who still doesn’t think I was born in this country.
‘You’ve got one who was a candidate, a Republican candidate for office. And a proud card carrying member of the Tea Party. So this is obviously a partisan film.
‘I’d advise that you talk to General McRaven, who’s in charge of our Special Ops. I think he has a point of view in terms of how deeply I care about what these folks do each and every day to protect our freedom.’
The difficulty with this is that William McRaven is and admiral not a general. As a SEAL, he is member of the US Navy, not US Army or US Marines.
D’oh! It could have been worse, as the Daily Mail notes. Obama might have called Admiral McRaven a “corpseman.â€
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/27/obamateurism-of-the-day-812/
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Admiral William McRaven is a General who came up through the ranks as a corpse man. He was one of the men present and memorialized on memorial day, when owebuma said that he saw some of those we honor on that day in the audience.
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Admiral William McRaven is a General who came up through the ranks as a corpse man. He was one of the men present and memorialized on memorial day, when owebuma said that he saw some of those we honor on that day in the audience.
Does General McRaven speak Austrian?
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Does General McRaven speak Austrian?
Yes, I did fail to mention that, he is fluent.
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Yes, I did fail to mention that, he is fluent.
Which of the 57 states was General McRaven born in?
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Which of the 57 states was General McRaven born in?
Of the 57, and the 2 remaining left to visit, it was one of the 2 remaining.
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Of the 57, and the 2 remaining left to visit, it was one of the 2 remaining.
Oh, THAT one.
Does he have a green card? I'm asking for a friend.
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Oh, THAT one.
Does he have a green card? I'm asking for a friend.
Yes. It's green, ish.
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You knew this one was coming, right?
Begin article:
Some OOTDs are hilarious; some are annoying; some are outrageous. Others fall into the You’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me category. When American hero and global icon Neil Armstrong passed away, most people chose to highlight Armstrong’s accomplishments, his humility, and/or his legacy. Even NBC managed to put Armstrong’s picture on a story that they accidentally headlined with Neil Young’s name. What about the President of the United States? He put the focus … pretty much where it always is for him. Sooper Mexican caught this tribute from the official Obama 2012 campaign’s Tumblr website:
[you've seen this image -- silhouette of Barry as he's gazing up in the heavens toward good ol' Neil]
Who’s that in the picture, gazing into the night sky? Neil Armstrong? Not exactly:
I found the source of the picture, and just as I suspected, it was a stock photo taken of Obama from their Flickr account. …
Wow, president mompants couldn’t even be bothered to take a fresh picture.Classy! What a way for the worst president in recent memory to egotistically dishonor the death of an indisputable American hero[.]
It’s pretty easy to find pictures of Neil Armstrong for a tribute to, er, Neil Armstrong. I’m pretty sure the government has a few leftovers from July 20, 1969 sitting around someplace.
Addendum: But let’s acknowledge when President Obama gets it right:
Mark Knoller
✔
@markknoller
Pres Obama orders flags at half-staff on day of Neil Armstrong's burial "as a mark of respect."Funeral service on Friday in Cincinnati.
27 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Good call.
End article.
At least Barry isn't a complete narcissist. :whatever:
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It took him two days to order flags at half staff?
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It took him two days to order flags at half staff?
He needed the time to strategize about how it all could be about him.
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Not too long ago, Barack Obama came under withering criticism for avoiding the White House press corps for months, and then suddenly giving interviews to those hard-hitting investigative journalists at … People Magazine and Entertainment Tonight. In fact, the criticism actually withered Obama into giving a press conference, one for which he was woefully unprepared. This week, he’s going back where he’s most comfortable (via Townhall):
Add Glamour magazine to the list of nonpolitical publications that have scored an interview with President Barack Obama.
Editor in chief Cindi Leive flew to Portland, Ore., last month to sit down with the President for an interview that will appear in the magazine’s November issue. It is not the first time Obama has sat down with Glamour — he did so in 2008, along with John McCain — but it is his first time as a sitting president.
A woman’s magazine like Glamour would not traditionally be in play for an interview with the President — first ladies have been more their turf — but agreeing to the interview is a mark of changing media strategies. The Obama campaign has recently been exploring alternative news outlets to press their message — ESPN Magazine, People magazine and Entertainment Tonight have all scored interviews, much to the dismay of the White House press corps, who have not enjoyed the usual privilege of questioning the President since Aug. 19. Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the campaign, described these outlets as being “equally important†to traditional political media.
It’s “equally important†because it’s critical for Obama’s re-election hopes to avoid getting asked tough questions and providing detailed answers on his economic policies and his agenda for a second term. By the way, Glamour is an excellent choice, based on the dictionary definition of the word: “an exciting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness.â€
That explains 2008 well enough, surely.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/29/obamateurism-of-the-day-814/
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The November issue? Hmmmm... could that be construed as advertising, since he's agreed to do the interview as part of a campaign? Shouldn't they have to give Mitt equal coverage?
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I would love to see a cover story starring owebuma on Vanity fair in the style of the Valerie Plame cover...
(http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQq2bPJZCJJDHoSAcEzOkeV17xhQ4eSJCVgbzev4Z0Bw5v2R2ZH)
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Seems like fact checkers need to do some fact checking of their own assumptions. Paul Ryan’s speech last night included a reference to a GM plant in Janesville that closed, which Ryan used to criticize Barack Obama for failing to meet his campaign promises. A number of “fact†checkers jumped all over Ryan’s anecdote to claim that he lied about the circumstances of the plant’s closure. We’ll just take one example, from the AP’s “fact’ check:
RYAN: Said Obama misled people in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis., by making them think a General Motors plant there threatened with closure could be saved. “A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: `I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.’ That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year.â€
THE FACTS: The plant halted production in December 2008, weeks before Obama took office and well before he enacted a more robust auto industry bailout that rescued GM and Chrysler and allowed the majority of their plants – though not the Janesville facility – to stay in operation. Ryan himself voted for an auto bailout under President George W. Bush that was designed to help GM, but he was a vocal critic of the one pushed through by Obama that has been widely credited with revitalizing both GM and Chrysler.
Actually, those “facts†aren’t quite accurate, either. As the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported in September of last year — long before Ryan got added to the ticket — the Janesville plant got shut down in 2009, after being notified of their pending closure in December 2008:
General Motors Co. has committed to reopen its idled plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., and keep its shuttered assembly plant in Janesville on standby status.
The commitment to the former Saturn plant in Tennessee was part of a contract settlement reached late last week between GM and the United Auto Workers union.
Since they were shut down in 2009, both the Janesville and Tennessee plants have been on standby status, meaning they were not producing vehicles, but they were not completely shut down. …
The Janesville plant stopped production of SUVs in 2008 and was idled in 2009 after it completed production of medium-duty trucks.
Remaining on standby means not much has changed in Janesville. Community leaders say they would be ready if the GM plant reopened, but no one seems to be counting on that.
Production continued into 2009 on trucks — and into April, as this local TV report from April 2009 shows, courtesy of our good friend Morgen Richmond:
[video at the link]
Clearly, the job of “fact checker†in the mainstream media must not involve research skills. Nor does it take much in comprehension, because these supposed fact checks started with a misrepresentation of what Ryan actually said. Here are his actual words, emphasis mine:
[video of Ryan's speech segment at the link]
President Barack Obama came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two. Those were very tough days, and any fair measure of his record has to take that into account. My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.
A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.†That’s what he said in 2008.
Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.
Ryan acknowledged that the plant had already been slated for shutdown in 2008. That was his point. People voted for him because they thought Obama represented hope to get the plant back in operation. In fact, that had been known since at least February 2008, when Obama came to Janesville to speak, and specifically addressed the plant closure in his remarks, delivered at the plant itself — and promised to keep it and other plants like it open “for the next hundred years†(emphasis mine):
It was nearly a century ago that the first tractor rolled off the assembly line at this plant. The achievement didn’t just create a product to sell or profits for General Motors. It led to a shared prosperity enjoyed by all of Janesville. Homes and businesses began to sprout up along Milwaukee and Main Streets. Jobs were plentiful, with wages that could raise a family and benefits you could count on.
Prosperity hasn’t always come easily. The plant shut down for a period during the height of the Depression, and major shifts in production have been required to meet the changing times. Tractors became automobiles. Automobiles became artillery shells. SUVs are becoming hybrids as we speak, and the cost of transition has always been greatest for the workers and their families.
But through hard times and good, great challenge and great change, the promise of Janesville has been the promise of America – that our prosperity can and must be the tide that lifts every boat; that we rise or fall as one nation; that our economy is strongest when our middle-class grows and opportunity is spread as widely as possible. And when it’s not – when opportunity is uneven or unequal – it is our responsibility to restore balance, and fairness, and keep that promise alive for the next generation. That is the responsibility we face right now, and that is the responsibility I intend to meet as President of the United States. …
Those are the steps we can take to ease the cost crisis facing working families. But we still need to make sure that families are working. We need to maintain our competitive edge in a global by ensuring that plants like this one stay open for another hundred years, and shuttered factories re-open as new industries that promise new jobs. And we need to put more Americans to work doing jobs that need to be done right here in America.
That’s the promise that Barack Obama failed to deliver — even when the government took ownership of GM. Ryan had it exactly right, and the fact checkers have made a mockery of their own profession by stepping all over their own biases to refute Ryan.
Update: Guy Benson goes after more “fact checks†of Ryan’s speech from Team Obama.
Update II: More from Reason’s Shikha Dalmia, noting that the Janesville plant was actually one of the choices to keep open when Obama extended the automaker bailout:
Here’s what GazetteXtra.com, a Janesville paper, reported on Feb 2, 2009:
Full-size sport utility vehicle production has ended at the local General Motors plant, but medium-duty truck production is continuing—not starting—in Janesville.
And it likely will continue into May, when the lights finally go off in the facility that has been producing vehicles since 1923.
When GM officials announced last June that SUV production would cease in Janesville, they also said that medium-duty truck production would conclude by the end of 2009, or sooner if market conditions dictate.
What’s more, the administration actually did consider keeping the Janesville plant alive after it nationalized GM by commandeering the bankruptcy process. According to Shepardson’s story:
In June 2009, GM considered three sites to locate a small car: its Orion plant in Michigan; Janesville, Wis.; and a Spring Hill, Tenn., plant slated to close in November. GM picked Orion and later reopened Spring Hill.
Now why would Obama choose to close the only plant he had actively “suggested†he’d keep open? Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that it was in Ryan’s (Republican) hometown? Just askin…
I believe the retrofit costs would have been higher in Janesville, which is why the plant wasn’t chosen — but it’s clear that the plant wasn’t closed under Bush, and that Obama had an opportunity to make good on his promise.
Update III: BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski finds this promise from Barack Obama in June 2008, after the notice went out that the plant would shut down over the next several months, emphasis mine:
“Reports that the GM plant I visited in Janesville may shut down sooner than expected are a painful reminder of the tough economic times facing working families across this country. This news is also a reminder that Washington needs to finally live up to its promise to help our automakers compete in our global economy. As president, I will lead an effort to retool plants like the GM facility in Janesville so we can build the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow and create good-paying jobs in Wisconsin and all across America.†Source: media.gazettextra.com / via:uppermichiganssource.com
Sounds like a promise — and it certainly did to the people of Janesville. Will the “fact†checkers fact-check themselves now?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/30/fact-checking-the-factcheckers-on-ryans-speech/
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Seems like fact checkers need to do some fact checking of their own assumptions. ...Sounds like a promise — and it certainly did to the people of Janesville. Will the “fact†checkers fact-check themselves now?http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/30/fact-checking-the-factcheckers-on-ryans-speech/
Many thanks, Eupher for the research!
The answer of course is "no", because they believe they are still right!
As relativists, Leftists do not believe in "Truth" because Truth is simply a perception, an opinion, as ephemeral as a quark. Truth results only when you have a superior reason for your opinion, e.g. helping the poor, stopping war, etc. For such great causes, lies can become Truth if they lead to a successful election for someone who will stop the war or help the poor.
Part of this comes from Nietzsche, part from French deconstructionist “philosophy†which borders on the absurd and at times crosses the border. I can guarantee that MAObama and his crew are descendants, consciously or unconsciously, of Jacques Derrida, whose career may have been one of the greatest intellectual frauds in history.
From Ignatius Insight:
Philosopher Roger Kimball, in an essay titled "The Meaninglessness of Meaning," denounced the "baneful ideas" of Derrida. "Even if deconstruction cannot be defined, it can be described," Kimball stated, "For one thing, deconstruction comes with a lifetime guarantee to render discussion of any subject completely unintelligible. It does this by linguistic subterfuge. One of the central slogans of deconstruction is ‘there is nothing outside the text.’ In other words, . . . the meanings of words are completely arbitrary and that, at bottom, reality is unknowable."
Set aside the big word and you’ll recognize that we’re surrounded by amateur deconstructionists who say, "We really can’t know if something is true or not" or "That statement means something different for everyone" or "That depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is." Deconstructionism is aptly named because it seeks to deconstruct—that is, destroy—the nature and meaning of language.
(My emphasis above)
See:
see: http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features/colson_derrida_nov04.asphttp://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features/colson_derrida_nov04.asp
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OOTD by Eupher is a must read thread for me, but today it is a twofer. The amateurism of the media, and their dishonest slanted biased reporting in favor of owebuma, gets to reveal unwittingly another owebuma amateurism.
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Many thanks, Eupher for the research!
The answer of course is "no", because they believe they are still right!
As relativists, Leftists do not believe in "Truth" because Truth is simply a perception, an opinion, as ephemeral as a quark. Truth results only when you have a superior reason for your opinion, e.g. helping the poor, stopping war, etc. For such great causes, lies can become Truth if they lead to a successful election for someone who will stop the war or help the poor.
Part of this comes from Nietzsche, part from French deconstructionist “philosophy†which borders on the absurd and at times crosses the border. I can guarantee that MAObama and his crew are descendants, consciously or unconsciously, of Jacques Derrida, whose career may have been one of the greatest intellectual frauds in history.
From Ignatius Insight:
(My emphasis above)
See:
see: http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features/colson_derrida_nov04.asp
I may have fixed the link in my reply - will see in a minute.
Thanks for your thanks, but as you know, all I'm doing is going to the HotAir site and copying and pasting the Obamateurism of the Day.
It's a rare day when, after reading the latest ridiculousness and stupidity of Barry's regime, I don't wonder if I'm really reading this crap or am dreaming it.
Surely NOBODY is that stupid.
Right?
Uh....Hello? Bueller?
Yes, I fixed your link.
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A good one today, guys:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden have taken a lot of credit for the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. Biden has used the “Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive†line as a campaign slogan on more than one occasion. Sadly, some of the men from the same Navy SEALs unit that successfully conducted the OBL mission died three months later in Afghanistan when a missile hit a CH-47 Chinook ferrying them in Wardak province. For their service and accomplishments — for which Obama has been happy to assume political credit — the President of the United States sent a letter of condolence to each family.
Did he offer any personal thoughts? Not exactly, although it’s not quite as bad as Jim Hoft believes:
Yesterday, Karen and Billy Vaughn, parents of Aaron Carson Vaughn, spoke at the Defending the Defenders forum sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots outside the RNC Convention in Tampa. Karen brought a copy of the form letter they were sent following their son’s death.
It’s a form letter.
It was signed by an electric pen.
That’s not all.
Karen Vaughn reached out to the parents of the other SEALs killed in that crash.
Their letters were all the same.
Form letters – signed by an electric pen.
Are the letters signed by electric pen? The White House denied it, and Jeryl Bier, one of our OOTD stalwarts, thinks not:
The bottom two examples are enough to show that the signatures on the letters are not identical. Note the loop at the top of the “O†by the downstroke on the signature on the left; that loop is absent on the signature on the right. The other signatures are difficult to make out due to the low resolution, but I believe it is possible to detect small variations there as well.
The other reason I question the electric pen claim is that there is a well-known specimen of the president’s electric pen signature. In May 2011, the president was in France when an extension of the Patriot Act was passed by Congress. As was widely reported at the time, and to some minor controversy, the legislation was signed into law by President Obama’s authorization of the use of an electric pen. CBS News reported this at the time, and had obtained a copy of the legislation with the president’s electric pen signature … This signature is obviously different than the clearest specimen from the letters to the military families[.]
But a form letter it most certainly is, Jeryl says:
The remaining issue, of course, is the use of form letters. Although not unprecedented, as noted by Jake Tapper, President George W. Bush generally eschewed their use when writing to grieving families and choose to write personal notes to the families. Given that President Obama’s letters are dated September 23, 2011, and he spent the following afternoon on the golf course with Bill Clinton and White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, it would be difficult for the president to plead lack of time as an excuse for the fill-in-the-blank condolence letters.
Jim has pictures of the letters, along with this reminder of what it takes to get a personal note of condolence from the Commander in Chief:
But Obama did send a personal letter to rapper Heavy D’s family when he passed away.
Indeed he did, according to the AP:
“We extend our heartfelt condolences at this difficult time. He will be remembered for his infectious optimism and many contributions to American music. Please know that you and your family will be in our thoughts and prayers,†the president wrote in a letter, which the Rev. Al Sharpton read at the service, The Associated Press reported.
Res ipsa loquitur.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/31/obamateurism-of-the-day-816/
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If he dodges this bullet, it will only be with the willing accomplices of the owebuamManiaMedia.
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This is the OOTD I wanted to write all last week, but couldn’t believe that Barack Obama would actually blow such an easy opportunity. From a week ago today, Democrats like Debbie Wasserman Schultz openly criticized Republicans for holding a long-planned convention as Hurricane Isaac first looked to hit Tampa, and then Mississippi and Louisiana. A Yahoo news bureau chief got fired after an open mic picked up his accusation that Mitt Romney and the GOP were happy to party while black people drowned.
And yet, Obama himself seemed oddly disconnected from the event, even though it would have provided a perfect tableau for him to demonstrate his leadership. He refused to act on Bobby Jindal’s repeated request for full emergency status. Instead of going to Louisiana and Mississippi to take charge or at least get a ground-level look at the issues (and be seen doing so), or at the very least stay in the White House to oversee federal-state coordination, Obama went to Virginia to campaign — at the same time the chair of his own party was criticizing Republicans who have nothing to do with emergency management in the area for holding a political event.
Still, I thought that Obama would take advantage of his opportunity at some point to look Presidential as Romney and other Republicans campaigned in Tampa. Instead, Obama spent the entire week asleep at the switch — and only woke up when Romney got to Louisiana first and forced his hand:
President Barack Obama was today forced to announce he will fly to storm-hit Louisiana on Monday – hours after Mitt Romney beat him to the punch by deciding to head there this afternoon.
Not only did Obama not get to Louisiana first, but he still had a campaign stop in Ohio on his schedule that had to get canceled after a full week of preparation:
After it emerged that Obama was still taking time to fit in a campaign stop in Cleveland, Ohio before checking out how clean-up operations are proceeding in the Bayou state, the Obama campaign abruptly cancelled that event.
‘In light of the President’s travel to Louisiana to meet with local officials and view ongoing response and recovery efforts to Hurricane Isaac, President Obama will no longer travel to Cleveland, Ohio on Monday, September 3,’ the campaign said in a terse statement.
Perhaps nothing else demonstrates the Empty Chair Presidency as a chief executive than this whiff on a softball pitch. And since this is Empty Chair Day at Breitbart and at the Boss Emeritus’ page, why not make this today’s OOTD?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/03/obamateurism-of-the-day-817/
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Vote present, be an inaction figure, lead from behind, and empty your mind, suit, and chair.
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Campaigning for white votes in Oiho* was more important than "pandering" to black voters in Louisiana, who will vote for him anyway. Plans were only changed because of political fallout from his white voters.
*
(http://www.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2012/08/Oiho-copy.jpg)
O I H O
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Campaigning for white votes in Oiho* was more important than "pandering" to black voters in Louisiana, who will vote for him anyway. Plans were only changed because of political fallout from his white voters.
*
(http://www.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2012/08/Oiho-copy.jpg)
O I H O
There you go....the worlds smartest people can't spell O-H-I-O. Looks like O-I-H-I or either I-H-I-O coming from the other side....or maybe they're trying to spell hello in Japanese....and they got that wrong too.
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There you go....the worlds smartest people can't spell O-H-I-O. Looks like O-I-H-I or either I-H-I-O coming from the other side....or maybe they're trying to spell hello in Japanese....and they got that wrong too.
I never paid attention to that goofy excrement. Anybody who stands around flailing their arms like some kind of ******* spider monkey doesn't have enough to do.
Besides, the one dude on the left needs to hit the anti-perspirant.
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It's a mirror image produced by the VRWC.
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It's a mirror image produced by the VRWC.
All the more reason for the dude to stop flailing and slap on some antiperspirant.
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It's a mirror image produced by the VRWC.
That was what was claimed at first, but the picture was later verified as real.
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That was what was claimed at first, but the picture was later verified as real.
My conspiracy launch is encountering a shower of sparks as it grinds to find good traction.
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One of the reasons Barack Obama didn’t make it earlier to Louisiana was his speech to soldiers at Fort Bliss to make the second anniversary of the end of combat operations in Iraq. He might have gotten more cheers in the evacuated areas of Hurricane Isaac’s landfall. According to the Daily Caller, Obama met with such a stony reception that he tried to cajole a reaction out of the audience:
His praise for the soldiers — and for his own national-security policies — won cheers from only a small proportion of the soldiers and families in the cavernous aircraft-hanger.
The audience remains quiet even when the commander-in-chief thanked the soldiers’ families, and cited the 198 deaths of their comrades in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The audience’s reaction was so flat that the president tried twice to elicit a reaction from the crowd.
“Hey, I hear you,†he said amid silence.
The selected soldiers who were arrayed behind the president sat quietly throughout the speech.
That, says Damian at e-Nough, is the real OOTD:
So when Mr. Obama brags on himself, silence. When he promises something, a smattering of applause. When he recognizes the military, cheers. Now why is that? [We consider why that is.] Perhaps it’s because they sense the depth of his sincerity (and this). Perhaps it’s because they have experienced his support first-hand (and this and this). Then again, perhaps they’ve been fooled once too often.
In an e-mail to me, Damian adds:
But of course Mr. Obama is not hearing them. Not at the podium and not in his policies. It is an unintended irony. That is the Obamateurism. That and Mr. Obama’s rhetorical lameness laid bare. And there is also the delicious synchronicity of Mr. Obama going flat at a military base named Bliss.
Mr. Obama now needs an applause light to cue his audiences when to clap, when to laugh.
How bad was the speech and its reception?
CNN and MSNBC ended their coverage of the speech before it was half-over.
Maybe Obama would have been better off speaking to, er, empty chairs.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/04/obamateurism-of-the-day-818/
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What would an empty suit have to say to an empty chair ?
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What would an empty suit have to say to an empty chair ?
Need a hanger?
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Need a hanger?
That's quite good really.
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We've seen this one already, but it's something that needs to be hammered again and again and again...
In 2008, Barack Obama promised to change the way Washington works and to bring people together. In 2012, CNN’s Jessica Yellin asked Obama why he couldn’t accomplish that in his first term, and Obama said that … it’s his family’s fault (~2 minutes, via Breitbart):
[CNN video at the link]
Even Yellin couldn’t quite believe this answer. “If this is such a priority,†she told Candy Crowley and Dan Balz, “why didn’t he do it? I mean, you can carve out one night a week to go out and socialize and reach across the aisle.†That excuse also ignores the 100-plus rounds of golf Obama has already played, eating up most of the Sunday time that could have otherwise been spent with his family — or even using golf to reach across the aisle, which Obama has done so rarely that it merited a large amount of media attention when he invited John Boehner along on a round.
New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor wrote about Obama’s use of free time in an article earlier this week:
For someone dealing with the world’s weightiest matters, Mr. Obama spends surprising energy perfecting even less consequential pursuits. He has played golf 104 times since becoming president, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who monitors his outings, and he asks superior players for tips that have helped lower his scores. He decompresses with card games on Air Force One, but players who do not concentrate risk a reprimand (“You’re not playing, you’re just gambling,†he once told Arun Chaudhary, his former videographer).
His idea of birthday relaxation is competing in an Olympic-style athletic tournament with friends, keeping close score. The 2009 version ended with a bowling event. Guess who won, despite his history of embarrassingly low scores? The president, it turned out, had been practicing in the White House alley.
But his failure on Hope and Change were because he was spending so much time … with his family. Given his track record of blaming everyone but himself for his own failures, using his daughters as political shields is sadly just par for the course.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/05/obamateurism-of-the-day-819/
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Palestinians and other muslim terrorists have perfected the technique of using women and children as human shields.
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It’s bad enough when biased news organizations claim to be “fact checkers.†It moves to the ridiculous when politicians try filling that role. Even the New York Times noticed that Barack Obama didn’t exactly cover himself in glory when he tried taking on a new role as Arbiter of Truth:
Mr. Obama this week, for the first time, entered the fray. Campaigning on Tuesday on college campuses in Iowa and Colorado, he told thousands of supporters not to believe the opposition’s attacks because, “how do I put this nicely? They will just fib.†On Wednesday in Charlottesville, Va., he ramped up his complaint, winning applause from the estimated 6,500 people.
“Sometimes they just make things up. But they’ve got a bunch of folks who can write $10 million checks, and they’ll just keep on running them,†he said. “I mean, somebody was challenging one of their ads — they made it up — about work and welfare. And every outlet said this is just not true. And they were asked about it and they said — one of their campaign people said, ‘We won’t have the fact-checkers dictate our campaign. We will not let the truth get in the way.’â€
Wow — that would be a fine catch for any Obama Truth Squad member, let alone the Truth Commander in Chief! Except, as the NYT notes, no one actually ever said that they wouldn’t let the truth get in the way:
Mr. Obama was referring, as many other critics of the Romney campaign have, to a comment that its pollster, Neil Newhouse, made to reporters at the Republican convention on Tuesday, dismissive of those faulting the campaign’s television ads. What Mr. Newhouse actually said was, “These fact-checkers come to those ads with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs. We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.â€
Mr. Newhouse did not say, “We will not let the truth get in the way.â€
D’oh! Mark Hemingway calls this “a near perfect encapsulation of how the Obama campaign is leaning on incompetent partisans masquerading as “independent†media fact checking organizations to do their dirty work[.]“ I just call it a case of projection. Like Mark, though, I eagerly await the mainstream media’s fact checkers and their ruling on the President’s attempt to try out for a job. A few more of these, and Obama may need one in January.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/06/obamateurism-of-the-day-820/
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The lib/dem/socialists are experts at altering a conservative quote slightly (to massively), then calling it a lie.
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One of the ex officio duties of a President is to be the leader of one’s party. As many Presidents have learned, this is akin to being the leader of a Cub Scout pack of, oh, several thousand youngsters at once. However, we haven’t seen quite the mismanagement that took place this week at the Democratic convention, especially not directly provided by an incumbent President.
It started when Republicans noticed that the Democratic platform had removed all references to God, and also a plank that endorsed recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Republicans rushed to attack Barack Obama over it, in part to pay back Democrats who had attacked Mitt Romney over the GOP’s plank on abortion. Platform stories rarely last long, though, because few people bother to read the platforms and candidates largely ignore them as well. Had Obama ignored the issue, as Romney had with the abortion plank the week before, it would have become a dusty footnote in history.
Instead, Obama and his team turned it into a headline-making embarrassment. The campaign couldn’t make up its mind if Obama had personally reviewed the platform before its adoption, or had never looked at it at all before the GOP made the omissions an issue. Everyone agreed on one thing, though: Obama personally ordered that the platform be amended to fix both problems — a process that would require a two-thirds vote on the floor to approve, since the convention delegates had already approved the platform. Ted Strickland and Cory Booker dutifully went back and wrote one amendment to cover the changes. No one apparently checked to see if either the recognition of Jerusalem or adding a mention of God would provoke significant opposition, nor did Obama have his team split the issues into separate amendments in order to isolate any opposition.
That set the stage for this memorable train wreck:
[video at the link]
Instead of ignoring the issue and letting it die a quiet death, as it would have done with the favorable media coverage at the convention, Obama’s leadership had a whole lot of Democrats appearing to vote against God Almighty — and booing Him, too. Suddenly, the nothingburger of a platform dispute erupted into headline-grabbing news, and even MSNBC was forced to cover it. Obama’s hand-picked DNC chair tried telling everyone that there was “no discord†in one of the worst spin attempts ever caught on videotape — one that had CNN’s Anderson Cooper and his panel marveling that Debbie Wasserman Schultz lives in “an alternate universe†and openly laughing at her:
[video of the aforementioned critter at the link]
There may be a lot of blame to go around on this debacle, which will most definitely be the biggest news story of this convention and will haunt Democrats through the election. But it all started with the party’s leader fecklessly playing into the hands of his opponents by taking the bait on a platform debate.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/07/obamateurism-of-the-day-821/
DWS is a certified lunatic. And she represents her district in Flori-duh. Could there be a correlation there?
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I'm tempted to donate to 0bummer just in recognition of all the free entertainment he and his freak show provided this week.
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The owebuma campaign launched another projectile, in anger, to damage the Rmoney campaign, and as has been the trend, the projectile morphed into a sharp edged boomerang.
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Note to President Obama: when we call something “Bidenesque†… it’s not a compliment:
[video of Barry at the link]
“…marked with three proud words: made in the U.S.A.â€
The Weekly Standard points out the similarities:
[video of Plugs at the link]
Readers are cordially invited to speculate on how many times we’d be hearing about this if George W. Bush — or Mitt Romney — had said it.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/10/obamateurism-of-the-day-822/
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One would think that presidential candidates would know better than to try to attempt to use, or even comment on, new technology while out on the campaign trail. George H. W. Bush just tried to pay polite attention at a grocery store while a clerk explained a bar-code scanner system, and the media played it into a look-how-out-of-touch-the-rich-guy-is story. Of course, most people wouldn’t consider an iPhone new technology, either:
But when White House trip director Marvin Nicholson handed the president his personal iPhone, Mr. Obama couldn’t get it to work. A reporter who witnessed the scene said the president looked “befuddled.â€
“It’s not clear he knows how to dial on an iPhone,†the reporter wrote in a pool report.
Finally, Mr. Obama said, “Oh, I got to dial it in. Hold on, hold on. I can do this. See, I still have a BlackBerry.â€
The president then “had a little more trouble dialing,†the pool report said.
And whose fault was that?
The president then has more trouble dialing. When the call didn’t go through, he blamed Mr. Nicholson for having an insufficient cell phone plan.
Well, anyone’s but Obama’s own, of course.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/11/obamateurism-of-the-day-823/
:thatsright:
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Not only does owebuma have two left feet, he has two left hands. One with the kung fu grip on your wallet, the other with the sleight of hand.
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Recently, Governor John Kasich claimed credit for creating more than 120,000 jobs in Ohio since taking office in January 2011. Kasich told the Republican Convention last month that putting the state’s budget back in balance without accounting gimmicks or tax hikes encouraged investment in the state. Barack Obama wasn’t about to let Kasich take all the credit for that, however:
“John Kasich stood up there and told everybody that Ohio is now number one in the Midwest in job creation, fourth best in America — which got folks kind of confused, because if it’s all Obama’s fault and nothing is going right, what’s going on in Ohio?†the president asked a crowd at a Labor Day rally in Toledo. “Now, I guess the theory was that it’s all the Governor’s doing. But I think we need to refresh his memory — because a lot of those jobs are autoworker jobs like yours.â€
Really? How many autoworker jobs has Ohio gained in since January 2011? The BLS data for auto manufacturing and auto-parts manufacturing, screen-grabbed below, should give us a pretty good idea. In January 2011, Ohio had 19,200 auto manufacturing jobs; as of July (the latest data), there are 17,800, for a decrease of 1400 jobs. In auto parts manufacturing, Ohio had 56,000 jobs in January 2011, and only 54,200 now, for another decrease of 1800 jobs — a grand total of a net loss of 3200 jobs in this sector.
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i317/Eupher6/bls-ohio-auto.jpg)
Well, maybe Obama meant throughout his presidency. The numbers there are almost as bad. In the first full month of the Obama term in February 2009, Ohio had 59,000 auto parts manufacturing jobs and 19,400 auto manufacturing jobs. Those dropped to 50,900 and 14,200 in June 2009 at the start of the recovery, and bounced back up to the present level as noted above. It’s still a net decrease over Obama’s tenure of 6400 jobs in this sector.
Clearly, the jobs growth took place elsewhere in Ohio. Kasich doesn’t need his recollection refreshed. Obama needs a refresher course in math.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/12/obamateurism-of-the-day-824/
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Everything good that happens is because of Obama, Piss be upon Him. Everything bad that happens is
Bush's Romney's fault.
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Everything good that happens is because of Obama, Piss be upon Him. Everything bad that happens is Bush's Romney's fault.
Wise, you are. Learned, you have.
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It’s tough to get a meeting with the President of the United States, regardless of who’s in the office at any given time. Heck, even a besieged ally like Israel can’t get the US head of state to agree to a meeting, even when Israel’s Prime Minister offers to come to him:
Feuding between the US and Israel burst into the open when Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, sharply criticised recent US statements about Iran while the White House said President Barack Obama would not meet Mr Netanyahu in the US this month.
Mr Netanyahu made a stinging attack on Tuesday on Washington’s refusal to establish a “red line†for Iran’s nuclear programme – a point beyond which US military action against Iran would be taken. …
The White House said on Tuesday that Mr Obama would not meet Mr Netanyahu when he travels to the US this month for the UN General Assembly session because the two men would not be in New York on the same day. However, Israeli media reported on Tuesday evening that Mr Netanyahu had offered to travel to Washington for a meeting. This was denied by the White House.
The Israeli media in question for this story is Ha’aretz, which isn’t exactly a bastion of conservatism in the Holy Land. Still, was this really a snub, considering how tightly packed the President’s schedule must be? Barack Obama has to meet with a lot of important people, like, say … the Pimp With A Limp (h/t: Power Line):
President Obama was heard on the South Florida airwaves this 9/11 Anniversary morning in a 10-minute radio interview with Miami’s “Pimp with the Limp†DJ Laz from 106.7 WRMA-FM.
“You’re big time. You’ve got Pitbull and Flo Rida and all these guys just beating a path to your door,†Obama said, buttering up Laz. “And so I’m hoping that I can get a little of that magic from you in this interview.â€
Hey, maybe Obama just wanted to talk with some regular folk on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 — you know, to share some remembrances and talk about the need to remain vigilant after the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. Right? Er …
The two talked tunes, TV, football and top topics of the 2012 campaign. Obama did not mention the terror attacks that took place 11 years ago today, a fact his critics were quick to point out.
He “avoided talking about 9/11 on 9/11′s anniversary, but made time to mock the Dolphins bad record,†noted the Miami Herald.
That’s not all Obama avoided. Bibi’s still waiting on Line 1.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/13/obamateurism-of-the-day-825/
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It’s tough to get a meeting with the President of the United States, regardless of who’s in the office at any given time. Heck, even a besieged ally like Israel can’t get the US head of state to agree to a meeting, even when Israel’s Prime Minister offers to come to him:
The Israeli media in question for this story is Ha’aretz, which isn’t exactly a bastion of conservatism in the Holy Land. Still, was this really a snub, considering how tightly packed the President’s schedule must be? Barack Obama has to meet with a lot of important people, like, say … the Pimp With A Limp (h/t: Power Line):
Hey, maybe Obama just wanted to talk with some regular folk on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 — you know, to share some remembrances and talk about the need to remain vigilant after the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. Right? Er …
That’s not all Obama avoided. Bibi’s still waiting on Line 1.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/13/obamateurism-of-the-day-825/
If you're expecting the President to act Presidential (as in comporting himself in a dignified manner), you might not want to hold your breath.
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Yesterday, I asserted that Barack Obama was channeling Jimmy Carter on foreign policy. As it turns out, I was being unfair … to Jimmy Carter. How bad does a President have to be to get a correction from one of the worst Presidents of the modern age? This bad:
President Carter spoke to Drake University in Des Moines and was asked if he agrees with what Obama said about Egypt:
Carter: “Egypt is an ally of the US, we know Egypt well.â€
There have been few foreign policy stumbles as bad as Barack Obama’s dismissal of the Egyptian alliance in memory, and few backtracks as blatantly embarrassing, either.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/14/obamateurism-of-the-day-826/
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Yesterday, I asserted that Barack Obama was channeling Jimmy Carter on foreign policy. As it turns out, I was being unfair … to Jimmy Carter. How bad does a President have to be to get a correction from one of the worst Presidents of the modern age? This bad:
There have been few foreign policy stumbles as bad as Barack Obama’s dismissal of the Egyptian alliance in memory, and few backtracks as blatantly embarrassing, either.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/14/obamateurism-of-the-day-826/
Jimmy was right and also wrong. Egypt was an ally, but since the Muzzie Brohood took over, they aren't.
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Several Western embassies in the Middle East and Africa in flames. An American ambassador dies in the line of duty, the first time in 33 years that’s happened. What does the leader of the free world do? Travel to … Las Vegas:
President Barack Obama’s Wednesday afternoon speech in Las Vegas is being delayed by about 45 minutes, according to the White House.
Obama had been scheduled to speak at 5:25 p.m. at a campaign rally at the Cashman Center in downtown Las Vegas. He will now deliver his speech at 6:10 p.m., according to an updated schedule released Wednesday morning.
The president was forced to alter his schedule to comment on a Tuesday attack on the American Embassy in Libya that killed four people, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, the White House Press Office said.
Erick Erickson makes the obvious argument about media bias:
Had George Bush gone to Vegas for a fundraiser on a day like today, the nat’l political press would be in an uproar.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) September 12, 2012
This is an OOTD on another level, too. Incumbent presidents have an advantage in optics — the White House. Forget for the moment that proper leadership called for the head of state to be seen back in the Oval Office and handling the situation. That’s exactly the kind of image his campaign should be projecting, too. Instead, fundraising was a higher priority for the campaign than either providing an example of leadership, or even the appearance of leadership.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/17/obamateurism-of-the-day-827/
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Several Western embassies in the Middle East and Africa in flames. An American ambassador dies in the line of duty, the first time in 33 years that’s happened. What does the leader of the free world do? Travel to … Las Vegas:
Erick Erickson makes the obvious argument about media bias:
This is an OOTD on another level, too. Incumbent presidents have an advantage in optics — the White House. Forget for the moment that proper leadership called for the head of state to be seen back in the Oval Office and handling the situation. That’s exactly the kind of image his campaign should be projecting, too. Instead, fundraising was a higher priority for the campaign than either providing an example of leadership, or even the appearance of leadership.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/17/obamateurism-of-the-day-827/
There might be a reason for Obama to be concentrating on fundraising. He knows he is going to lose the election, so he is just padding his retirement account.
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There’s really no good way to introduce this except to parrot Charlie Spiering’s headline — “Obama denounces, then endorses corporate welfare in Ohioâ€. No, seriously:
On the stump in Ohio today, President Obama denounced taxpayer subsidies for oil companies explaining to voters that he didn’t want to participate in corporate welfare. Then Obama proceeded to explain how he would offer more taxpayer subsidies for green energy companies.
[video of the jug-eared Kenyan at the link, stumping away]
‘Cause as long as I’m President, I’m not going to let oil companies write this country’s energy plan. And I’m not going to let them keep on collecting four billion dollars in taxpayer-funded corporate welfare! [cheers]
We’ve got a better plan. We’ll keep on investing in wind and solar, clean coal technology. We’ll invest to help farmers and scientists harness new biofuels to power our cars and our trucks.
You can’t make this up. By the way, Solyndra cost taxpayers $520 million in corporate welfare when it went bankrupt. That’s one-eighth of everything that oil companies get, according to Obama, but at least the oil companies actually produce energy.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/18/obamateurism-of-the-day-828/
Obama and the hysterical liberals who pound on their chests and decry the big, bad oil companies and how they're raping the American people just don't understand how the corporate welfare that they espouse and celebrate is tantamount to being raped - only with an HIV-infected weapon of mass destruction. That being the schlong that belongs to the gubmint. ****ing asshats. :argh:
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There’s really no good way to introduce this except to parrot Charlie Spiering’s headline — “Obama denounces, then endorses corporate welfare in Ohioâ€. No, seriously:
[video of the jug-eared Kenyan at the link, stumping away]
You can’t make this up. By the way, Solyndra cost taxpayers $520 million in corporate welfare when it went bankrupt. That’s one-eighth of everything that oil companies get, according to Obama, but at least the oil companies actually produce energy.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/18/obamateurism-of-the-day-828/
Obama and the hysterical liberals who pound on their chests and decry the big, bad oil companies and how they're raping the American people just don't understand how the corporate welfare that they espouse and celebrate is tantamount to being raped - only with an HIV-infected weapon of mass destruction. That being the schlong that belongs to the gubmint. ****ing asshats. :argh:
I agree. There should be no corporate welfare, of any sort. Let corporations rise and fall based upon their own merits. The only time gov't should write a check to a company is when purchasing a product, and that should be through a bid process
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I agree. There should be no corporate welfare, of any sort. Let corporations rise and fall based upon their own merits. The only time gov't should write a check to a company is when purchasing a product, and that should be through a bid process
And unions should not be a consideration, just price and ability to do the job or provide the services or products.
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Democrats really tried to sell the American public during their national convention on the allegation that Republicans have declared a War On Wimminses, and that Mitt Romney is the Offender in Chief in dismissing the distaff set. But as Eli Lake recounted this weekend in his excellent article of the effort women in the CIA have provided to bring justice to Osama bin Laden, the Champion Of All Julias doesn’t sound like much of an improvement (via Instapundit):
Just before the White House announcement of a new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, Obama asked Riedel and his team to come to see him in the Oval -Office so he could thank them. Riedel’s team consisted of an Afghan specialist from the State Department and a Pakistan expert from the CIA. Riedel introduced the CIA analyst to Obama as “the best Pakistan expert I’ve ever seen.†Obama looked at the CIA officer, who was sporting stiletto heels, and said with clear amusement, “You don’t look like a Pakistan expert.â€
Maybe the CIA officer politely told the President that his slip was showing.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/19/obamateurism-of-the-day-829/
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I agree. There should be no corporate welfare, of any sort. Let corporations rise and fall based upon their own merits. The only time gov't should write a check to a company is when purchasing a product, and that should be through a bid process
There are lib/dem/socialist assertions of corporate welfare, which are not actual corporate welfare, then there are cases of real corporate welfare, like Solyndra and several recent renewable energy kickback calamities.
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Normally I’d let an OOTD candidate percolate a few days after one of my co-bloggers, Erika Johnsen, did such a great job with it the day before, but if this isn’t in Sunday’s poll, I think I’d face a rebellion in the comments. The 2008 candidate of “Yes we can!†turned into “No, I can’t†yesterday:
[the jug-eared Kenyan once again in front of the cameras at the link]
“The most important lesson I’ve learned is you can’t change Washington from the inside.â€
Let’s recall, as Ace does, exactly how hard it was for Obama to change Washington:
Foreign Policy Pres.@AceofSpadesHQ
Obama: Giving me the presidency, all of Congress, and a majority of the Court wasn’t enough for me to implement my vision.
20 Sep 12
Melissa Clouthier points out that this sounds more like an accusation than an excuse:
Melissa Clouthier@MelissaTweets
Shorter Obama: It’s not me. It’s you. As in, your fault.
20 Sep 12
Paul Mirengoff says this is a bigger admission of failure than it sounds at first:
In reality, Obama’s latest statement, like nearly every utterance of his that mentions “change,†is nonsense. He would have been closer to an insight if he had said: You can’t change Washington when your party suffers a massive defeat in congressional elections because the country doesn’t like the change you’re trying to impose.
But even this statement would be flawed because Obama has never really tried to “change Washington.†Rather, he sought to change America through measures — legislation, regulation, and executive orders — that emanate from Washington.
Mitt Romney certainly had fun with it:
Zeke Miller@ZekeJMiller
Romney: his slogan was yes we can. Now it’s no I can’t.
20 Sep 12
Maybe Obama should get ready for his career outside of Washington … sooner than he thought.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/21/obamateurism-of-the-day-831/
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Another lesson owebuma had to learn the hard way due to lack of experience, carelessness, and overall ineptness was that jobs weren't shovel ready.
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Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether a politician wants to lie to you or to himself. As in this example from Barack Obama, it really doesn’t matter — especially in the YouTube era (via Instapundit):
[video of Barry at the link]
Maybe memories are unpatriotic.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/24/obamateurism-of-the-day-832/
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We’re never going to get Barack Obama to do math properly, but we’d like to see him figure out the difference between debt and deficit. We’d also like to get him to recall the history involved in both. Here’s an exchange from Sunday’s 60 Minutes interview where Obama seems mighty confused about debt, deficit, and the calendar:
KROFT: The national debt has gone up sixty percent in — in the four years that you’ve been in office.
OBAMA: Well, first — first of all, Steve, I think it’s important to understand the context here. When I came into office, I inherited the biggest deficit in our history. And over the last four years, the deficit has gone up, but ninety percent of that is as a consequence of two wars that weren’t paid for, as a consequence of tax cuts that weren’t paid for, a prescription drug plan that was not paid for, and then the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Well, first of all, Kroft asked Obama about debt, not deficits. Deficits add to debt, but they’re not the same thing. The first budget might have been “inherited†— we’ll get back to that in a second — but the trillion-dollar-plus deficits in the next three years all belonged to Barack Obama. Those were all his doing, and the laughable part of this claim is that if Congress had adopted his last two budgets, the problems would have been worse. That’s why Obama’s two most recent budget proposals didn’t get a single vote in the Senate, which his own party controls.
Furthermore, Obama talks to Kroft as if he had no input into policy at all, but was simply a victim of a federal government left on a Bushian autopilot. Obama’s party had large legislative majorities in both the House and the Senate the first two years of his term. Obama could have done practically anything he wanted about deficits and debt during that time. Instead, he spent his time passing ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank.
Speaking of legislative majorities, which party controlled Congress the two years previous to Obama’s election as President? Why, it was the Democrats. Who passed that budget that Obama “inherited� The Democrat-controlled House and Senate — including a Senator named Barack Obama. And which President signed it into force with an omnibus spending bill in March 2009? Obama did, which means he inherited the budget and its deficit from himself.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/25/obamateurism-of-the-day-833/
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Erika took a look at the most eye-popping quote from yesterday’s UN speech by Barack Obama, but the larger context bears some comment. Unfortunately, like “you didn’t build that,†the context of the remark that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam†doesn’t improve Obama’s speech. In fact, it makes it even worse. Here’s the end of that passage, along with a more full transcript of Obama’s demand for “tolerance†and its apparent opposite:
[video of Barry flapping his ears in his U.N. speech]
The future must not belong to those who target Coptic Christians in Egypt – it must be claimed by those in Tahrir Square who chanted “Muslims, Christians, we are one.†The future must not belong to those who bully women – it must be shaped by girls who go to school, and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams just like our sons. The future must not belong to those corrupt few who steal a country’s resources – it must be won by the students and entrepreneurs; workers and business owners who seek a broader prosperity for all people. Those are the men and women that America stands with; theirs is the vision we will support.
The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shiite pilgrims. It is time to heed the words of Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.†Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies, and that is the vision we will support.
If Gandhi said that intolerance is a form of violence, it must have been one of his off days. Intolerance may lead to violence, but it’s not violence in itself. Neither are “slander†equal to churches being destroyed, or the “bullying†of women. Even if we knew what “slander†of a 1500-years-dead historical figure encompasses — literary criticism? theological critiques? — the speaking of opinion about Mohammed or anyone else thousands of miles away doesn’t even come close to the act of vandalizing churches or conducting pogroms against the Copts. For that matter, neither does Holocaust denial; in the case of Ahmadinejad, it’s a symptom of the danger he represents as (nominal) head of the Iranian government, which is actively seeking nuclear weapons to aim at Israel. It’s not the Holocaust denial that’s the danger.
Even worse is the implication of Obama’s equating of “slander†to acts of real violence. He seems to be offering a deal that he can’t deliver, which is that the US will ban such “slander†if people stop torching churches and committing violence against women. That’s a dangerous expectation to set for people in parts of the world who don’t understand that Obama can’t possibly deliver on it.
Demanding an end to outspoken criticism of the “prophet of Islam†is just another way of calling for blasphemy exceptions to free speech. That is most certainly not “what America embodies.†In a free society, people can choose to deny the Holocaust just as they can remain intolerant of, and criticize, Islam or Christianity or God Himself. They can even express that intolerance in speech, writing, and yes, even filmmaking. They just can’t commit violence to impose those views on others. And that’s what America embodies.
Too bad Obama doesn’t seem to know that.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/26/obamateurism-of-the-day-834/
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Barack Obama decided to give Americans a little straight talk in his weekly radio address on Saturday. He’d like to solve a lot of problems, especially mortgage reform, but he can’t. Why not? Congress is too busy campaigning, that’s why:
But we can do even more if Congress is willing to do their part.
Back in February I sent Congress a plan to give every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgages by refinancing at lower rates. It’s a plan that has the support of independent, nonpartisan economists and leaders across the housing industry. But Republicans in Congress worked to keep it from even getting to a vote. And here we are — seven months later — still waiting on Congress to act.
This makes no sense. Last week, mortgage rates were at historic lows. But instead of helping more and more hardworking families take advantage of those rates, Congress was away on break. Instead of worrying about you, they’d already gone home to worry about their campaigns.
Not like our President! It was just three weeks ago when the first American ambassador was killed in the line of duty in 33 years, in the first successful terrorist attack on an American diplomatic facility in 14 years. Congress was in session at that time. Did our President rush back to Washington to do his job? Er, not exactly. He blew off a national security briefing so that he could go to Las Vegas … because he was more worried about his campaign.
The hypocrisy is simply breathtaking.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/01/obamateurism-of-the-day-837/
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Last week at the UN, Barack Obama made an appearance at the UN — and then blew off the world leaders to make an appearance on The View. Of course, his presence on this talk show was critical — right?
[video of Dear Leader on that POS TV show referenced above at the link]
Obama on ‘The View’ today: Of being the only male on stage, he said, “I told folks I’m just supposed to be eye candy here for you guys.â€
— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) September 24, 2012
RT@byrontau Obama during taping of “The Viewâ€: “I told folks I’m just supposed to be eye candy here for you guys.â€
— WhiteHousePressCorps (@whpresscorps) September 24, 2012
Referring to himself as “eye candy†… well, that makes one person who thinks of Obama that way.
:whatever:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/02/obamateurism-of-the-day-838/
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Barack Obama went back to work this week, by which I of course mean he continued talking with hard-hitting media outlets like, er, Glamour. What topics did Obama want to discuss — the economy, foreign policy, or the federal deficit? Of course not! Mark Knoller tweeted out the highlight of the interview:
In interview with Glamour Magazine, out today, Pres Obama says to most Americans, “access to contraception should be a no-brainer.â€
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) October 2, 2012
“No brainer?†Well … yeah. That’s exactly what the Center for Disease Control found in its long-range study of sexually active women and unplanned pregnancy. The 2009 study showed that 99% of sexually active women who wanted to avoid pregnancy thought access to contraception a no-brainer, too. In fact, the 20-year study never even suggests that access was a barrier to avoiding pregnancy; it doesn’t make the list of reasons for the unplanned pregnancies that occurred with respondents to their survey.
On the other hand, assuming that women can’t find birth control without their employer or school subsidizing and facilitating access, and forcing them to do so? That’s treating women as “no brainers.†It infantilizes women and puts employers, educators, and the government in the bedroom — where activists claim they don’t want those kind of intrusions.
Twitchy caught some of the reaction:
.@markknoller Is it news to Obama that access to contraceptives is already a no-brainer? Anybody not already have “access�
— Champion Capua (@ChampionCapua) October 2, 2012
@markknoller So is it the president’s position that “access†to something is denied if your neighbor doesn’t foot the bill for it? #tcot
— Corr Comm (@corrcomm) October 2, 2012
Dear @barackobama, I am a woman who has NEVER had a problem “accessing†contraception. It’s a #nobrainer, actually.cc: @markknoller
— Lilia (@LiliaEP) October 2, 2012
Just a few words from some of the “brainer†set.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/03/obamateurism-of-the-day-839/
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I wish the left and right would start calling this issue what it really is.
It isn't about women's access to contraception, it's about having the taxpayers pay for abortions.
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Nothing says sincerity like campaign promises, huh? Last week, Barack Obama released a two-minute TV spot in which he directly talked into the camera and made a few promises about his second term. The problem, as Guy Benson discovered, is that most of these promises are recycled from his first presidential campaign:
[video of Barry at the link -- if you can stomach it]
(1) His “plan†is to magically create a million manufacturing jobs. Never mind the fact that the manufacturing sector has shed well over half a million jobs during his tenure, including 15,000 last month alone. Focus on the words.
(2) He pledges increased energy independence. Never mind that he made similar unfulfilled promises during his last campaign, that he’s manipulated science and unilaterally blocked domestic energy projects that his green allies don’t like. Focus on the words.
(3) He calls for new “investments†to help build our economy. Never mind that his investment record (using our money and borrowed funds) has been piss poor over the last four years, and that we’re trillions in the hole because of it. Focus on the words.
(4) He says he’ll reduce the deficit through a “balanced†approach. Never mind that he’s shattered his first-term promise to halve the deficit by now, and that his claimed war “savings†have been pummeled by fact-checkers as a thoroughly unserious gimmick. Focus on the words.
Obama finishes with a call for “economic patriotism,†which our Erika Johnsen ripped:
It’s time for a new economic patriotism. Rooted in the belief that growing our economy begins with a strong, thriving middle class. Read my plan. Compare it to Governor Romney’s and decide for yourself. Thanks for listening.
“New economic patriotism� Does that sound severely creepy to anyone else?
Sounds more severely protectionist, and as Guy points out (and I did earlier as well), more likely to produce jobs overseas by attacking capital that could be invested in the US. Looks like Obama’s not only recycling old unfulfilled campaign promises, he’s also recycling Smoot Hawley, too.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/04/obamateurism-of-the-day-840/
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“New economic patriotism� Does that sound severely creepy to anyone else?
Work for the good of The Fatherland and The Community, not for the betterment of yourself comrades.
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Oh, Lord. Barry picks his nose in this one. Spork Alert.
Talk about bad timing! When Mitt Romney accused Barack Obama of “picking losers,†Obama appeared to be doing, er … just that at the 11-second mark here:
[video of Barry digging for gold at the link.]
There’s really no good time for that, is there?
[the famous Seinfeld episode of Jerry scratching uh...something at the link.]
One word for the next round of debate prep: Kleenex.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/05/obamateurism-of-the-day-841/
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I'll save people the trouble and bring the video over. :lmao:
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3gp_4Ih3yQ&feature[/youtube]
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I’m old enough to recall the Roberto Duran – Sugar Ray Leonard fight in which the Panamanian champion simply stopped fighting in the middle of the round, telling the referee “No mas, no mas.†I watched that fight live; I missed the Mitt Romney – Barack Obama championship bout, but this looks kind of like a replay:
[sound bite of the debate - Dear Leader once again in inaction - at the link]
Did Obama want to have Jim Lehrer change the topic? Probably not, but that’s what it sounded like. An experienced debater would be focused on his own answer, rather than giving the moderator a not-so-subtle hint to find something else to talk about after his opponent just dominated him on a topic.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/08/obamateurism-of-the-day-842/
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The first rule for lawyers is this: never ask a question to which you don’t already know the answer. The first rule of political campaigns is to set up all public appearances with supporters – and make sure your candidate doesn’t get outside of the safe zone. Barack Obama and his campaign appears to have ignored both rules in a walkabout in Cleveland last week:
Obama was greeting different vendors at Cleveland’s West Side Market when he came upon the proprietor of Rolston Poultry.
According to the White House pool report, Obama asked the man how business was going.
“Terrible since you got here,†he replied.
Reporters were unable to get close enough to ask the man his political affiliation. According to the report, Obama “didn’t appear amused by the sentiment†and the Cleveland Plain Dealer said he “quickly shifted direction to another stand†after the encounter.
Obama did a lot of walking away last week, huh?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/09/obamateurism-of-the-day-843/
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He also raised more money from our enemies than any other pres! POS!
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Because nothing says “I’m hipper than my opponent†than a cultural reference to … 1994 (http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2012/10/09/obama-oj-simpson-2012-election-elmo-big-bird/1622101/) (via Ann Althouse): [video of Dear Leader once again showing his ass at the link]
Again mocking Mitt Romney for his proposal to cut public television, Obama added some riffs about the fate of some Sesame Street characters.
“Elmo has been seen in a white Suburban!†Obama told donors in San Francisco.
“He’s driving for the border!â€
Except, perhaps, for getting it wrong:
Of course, Simpson rode in white Bronco – driven by friend Al Cowlings — during the famous slow-speed chase through Los Angeles in 1994.
Er … isn’t there something creepy about making jokes about OJ Simpson as part of a presidential campaign? Especially in California?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/10/obamateurism-of-the-day-844/
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This is what happens when you don't give him a prepared speech or a teleprompter.
Good God, and they said George Bush was stupid.
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I just heard a clip of obama explaining why he did so poorly at the debate...
wait for it
he said he was just being to nice......
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There was plenty of criticism about Barack Obama’s debate performance eight days ago: Disengaged. Disconnected. Acted like he didn’t want to be there. And that was just the criticism coming from his fellow Democrats. Obama has another take entirely on why he flopped in the critical first debate, and that is that the President was just too … polite?
“Well, two things. I mean, you know, the debate, I think it’s fair to say I was just too polite …â€
[Video of Barry the Slacker at the link]
Actually, Obama comes a little closer to the truth at the end of that sentence:
“…because it’s hard to sometimes just keep on saying and what you’re saying isn’t true. It gets repetitive.â€
That was the actual problem. Obama came armed with his usual slogans and straw-men arguments, the same ones he’s been using for nearly four years to explain away his failures as someone else’s fault, and they landed with a thud on the stage. Obama discovered the difficulty of using straw-man arguments when someone else gets to respond, and ended up looking weak, petulant, and bored. That’s hardly being polite to either Mitt Romney or the voters who cared enough to tune in, hoping to hear something new … like a second-term agenda, for instance.
And, as Erika pointed out yesterday, if the Obama standard of truth is the four-Pinocchio attack line on Big Bird, Obama’s not going to do any better in the next debate, either.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/11/obamateurism-of-the-day-845/
GFY, Barry. You're a disgrace.
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We’ve had a couple of these collections of verbal tics from Barack Obama’s speeches as OOTDs, but apparently the Greatest Orator In Modern American Presidential History didn’t learn from those YouTube videos. That’s too bad for Obama; if he’d watched one or two of them, he might have avoided this one from the debate, compiled by BuzzFeed’s Dorsey Shaw:
[video of Dear Leader and his nervous tics at the link]
Dorsey commented: “Even the president’s most loyal fans have got to be getting annoyed with this.†They certainly weren’t impressed by the impression Obama left in the first and most critical debate, nor his preparation for an event that has been on his schedule for the last four years.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/12/obamateurism-of-the-day-846/
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On Friday, the day after the VP debate, the media wanted to know why Joe Biden claimed that the administration never knew about the requests for additional security from our diplomatic mission in Libya. They wanted to know why one State Department security expert described the difficulty dealing with State as “the Taliban [being] inside the building.†People wanted answers to questions about why the White House hadn’t kept tabs on a situation in Benghazi and eastern Libya that Barack Obama in large part created with his unilateral decision to apply military force to decapitate the Qaddafi regime without having any plan to keep the radical Islamist terror networks from taking advantage of the situation — including our enemy of war, al-Qaeda.
Unfortunately, the only person answering those questions was Jay Carney. Where was President Obama? As Jake Tapper reports, Obama was answering the tough questions in Miami about, er, a feud between two hip-hop artists:
President Obama appeared on the Miami radio station Y100 Friday, where he weighed in on the Mariah Carey v. Nicki Minaj feud, was asked whether Vice President Joe Biden should shave his head to look more authoritative, and said he should have brought up Mitt Romney’s “47 percent†video tape during the presidential debate because “the media’s attention span is fairly short.â€
“The media’s attention span is fairly short,†says the man whose idea of “media†this days is this:
The president spoke with DJ Michael “Yo†Simmons, the self-billed “Half-Black Brother with a Korean Mother†who also does stand-up and serves as a celebrity correspondent on E! News.
In this case, Obama picked the right man for the interview. He’s a lot more of a celebrity than a leader, as he proved on Friday — when America needed a leader to answer those questions that Jay Carney was dodging.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/15/obamateurism-of-the-day-847/
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This assbite is more interested in lickin' his cronies ass and raising money for his campaign than he is about the death of 4 Americans in service of their country.
We can't get rid of this useless empty suit fast enough, in my opinion!
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It’s become no secret that Barack Obama won’t do tough interviews any longer, and it was the theme of our Obamateurism yesterday, too. This one from Daniel Halper deserves a place in the OOTD canon, for an additional reason. Once again, rather than do an interview with a real news reporter — even a local one — President Obama called into a Cleveland sports-talk radio station to discuss his campaign, and right away the conversation went to the issues that matter most to voters in that crucial swing state:
“Mr. President, you were in Columbus the other day. We saw you do O-H-I-O,†the host said. “Do they make you do that?
“They don’t have to make me do it. I do it on my own,†Obama responded. “I’ve been here so much that I’m a professional Ohio State cheerleader.â€
“Sounds good,†said the sportscaster.
A professional? I think a professional would have figured out how to spell out O-H-I-O on the first try:
A word of advice to @barackobama: it’s “O-H-I-O†that has 18 electoral votes, not “O-I-H-O†twitter.com/CHRISMAL0NEY/s…
— Christopher Maloney (@CHRISMAL0NEY) August 22, 2012
Not to worry, though — the professional then proceeded to talk about the big issue facing voters in three weeks:
And President Obama advocates for affordability of sports tickets. “It is important, though, to make sure that tickets, for example, stay affordable. And, you know, I do get concerned when I look at some of the major league teams across sports that, you know, you’re starting to price out a lot of families.â€
Oi.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/16/obamateurism-of-the-day-848/
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And President Obama advocates for affordability of sports tickets. “It is important, though, to make sure that tickets, for example, stay affordable. And, you know, I do get concerned when I look at some of the major league teams across sports that, you know, you’re starting to price out a lot of families.”
Good grief! This guy needs to be wearin' short pants like Alfalfa from the Little Rascals.
Do they sell balls anywhere? If not, he sure as hell needs a transplant. Maybe he oughta see if Hitlery or the Wookie has a spare pair. I would imagine Hitlery has a few she could give up outa her lock box.
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The Barack Obama media avoidance strategy continues apace in the OOTD feature, once again with a bit of a twist. On Monday night, Hillary Clinton announced that she took “full responsibility†for the security failures that led to the attack on Benghazi — while Obama still hasn’t addressed it since his UN speech in which he blamed a YouTube video. But he’s got a hard-hitting interview coming up this week, with another opportunity to opine on the really important topics of the day. Is it with ABC News’ Jake Tapper, CBS’ Mark Knoller, or perhaps even the Washington Post? Not exactly– and even Politico has begun calling out the Leader of the Free World:
Cue the outrage from the Fourth Estate: President Barack Obama, who hasn’t done a full White House press conference since March, is taking questions from the celebrity magazine Us Weekly.
“Ever wanted to ask the President of the United States a question?†writes the magazine. “Here’s the chance, because President Barack Obama wants to hear from Us! As Obama, 51, campaigns for reelection in a race with Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the commander in chief will answer questions from Us Weekly’s readers — about his platform, his opponent, life at home in the White House with Michelle, Sasha, Malia and Bo, touring America on the campaign trail, his favorite celebs (Beyoncé and Jay-Z, perhaps?) and more!â€
Shouldn’t they be outraged — or at least asking why Obama won’t meet with the press about the death of a US Ambassador and a misleading cover story from the White House that blew up in Obama’s face?
And it just got worse yesterday. Reporters at the debate gave Obama an opportunity to talk about Hillary’s statement and follow it up with his own. However, after showing a willingness to exchange pleasantries with the press, Obama walked away when the question got a little tough:
[video of Jugears, slippin' and slidin' along in Williamsburg, at the link]
Mr. President, we know leadership when we see it … and Leadership Rn’t Us.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/17/obamateurism-of-the-day-849/
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Ever wonder if the "Prez" is nothing more than a attention whore? Me neither.
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Ever wonder if the "Prez" is nothing more than a attention whore? Me neither.
Ya know, I'd like to see the facts on how many days this ass has actually been in the White House doin' his job. We all know he's over a hundred rounds of golf, he shoots hoops with his lackeys and goes on vacation 4 times as much than any other Pres in my lifetime.
Just when does he do his ****in' job? Better yet, what has it cost us? And I'm not speakin' monetarily.
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Ever wonder if the "Prez" is nothing more than a attention whore? Me neither.
I'm waiting for him to do a facebook picture where he's holding his phone in the mirror and leaning slightly while doing duck lips.
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I'm waiting for him to do a facebook picture where he's holding his phone in the mirror and leaning slightly while doing duck lips.
While sitting on the counter in his panties or short-shorts? :rofl:
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Plenty of outrage got expressed last week over Barack Obama’s interview with Jon Stewart, in which he said that the deaths of four Americans in Libya was “not optimal“:
[video of Barry and his Best Bud Jon Stewart at the link]
Frankly, I didn’t think this was as outrageous as many on the Right did; clearly, Obama was repeating Stewart’s word choice, not his own. Of course, Stewart is a comic that gets paid to be snarky and irreverent, even with the worst of stories, while Obama is an experienced politician who should know better than to adopt that kind of language. I though Bernie Goldberg had the best take on the issue:
Mr. Obama didn’t come up with the word “optimal†all by himself. In his question to the president about the administration’s handing of the Benghazi attack, Stewart said, “I would say, and even you would admit, it was not the optimal response – at least to the American people as far as all of us being on the same page.â€
That’s when the president made his “If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal†comment.
The president made a mistake. When interviewed, you don’t let the interviewer put negative words in your mouth. But that’s all it was: a mistake. It wasn’t a sign of disrespect; he wasn’t belittling the death of four Americans. And conservatives know it!
I agree. Is it an Obamateurism? Sure — but it’s hardly a sign that Obama was indifferent to the deaths of four Americans.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/22/obamateurism-of-the-day-852/
Interesting point of view, and one that is fair. Barry ****ed up -- pure and simple -- but then, we're used to that from him, aren't we?
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As we decelerate from last night’s debate on foreign policy, let’s recall this moment from the previous debate. Mitt Romney challenged Barack Obama on energy policy, pointing to skyrocketing gas prices as one outcome of Obama’s energy policies. Obama defended high gas prices as … proof of a booming economy?
[video of part of the debate at the link]
Well, think about what the governor — think about what the governor just said. He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was $1.80, $1.86. Why is that? Because the economy was on the verge of collapse, because we were about to go through the worst recession since the Great Depression, as a consequence of some of the same policies that Governor Romney’s now promoting. So, it’s conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices because with his policies, we might be back in that same mess.
Well, think about what Obama claims here. It’s true that the law of supply and demand means that a lowered demand from a deep recession will create lower prices at the pump. It’s equally true that if one generates more supply when demand increases, one will keep prices from rising very quickly, or at all. In that sense, Obama acknowledged that Romney was right — that policies that keep the US from exploration, extraction, and refining push prices up.
Besides, if Obama’s correct about the fabulous economy creating higher gas prices, then household incomes should have roughly kept pace with pump costs. What happened to median household income in that same period of time? Oh, yeah — it fell by 4.8% during the recovery, more than during the recession itself. Maybe Obama thinks that is a booming economy, but I doubt that middle-class households feel the same way.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/23/obamateurism-of-the-day-853/
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As is usually the case when Barack Obama has to speak extemporaneously for any length of time, the debate on Monday night provided a few nuggets for OOTDs. Today’s comes courtesy of Breitbart, Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, and Jim Hoft, and took place during Obama’s defense of his handling of the Arab Spring. In it, Obama tries to boost his presidential bearing, but instead ends up channeling a different kind of leadership altogether (emphasis mine):
[President Pompous in full bloom at the link]
“So across the board we are engaging them in building capacity in these countries and we have stood on the side of democracy. One thing I think Americans should be proud of: when Tunisians began to protest, this nation, me, my administration, stood with them earlier than just about any other country.â€
L’etat c’est moi? Combined with the tone of perpetual annoyance Obama tends to adopt whenever challenged, that sounded pretty arrogant — and Karl Rove noticed it afterward, too:
[Karl Rove at the link]
A couple points we had sort of Louis XIV moments by President Obama. “I said when I would take the shot, I’d take the shot.†Well, wait a minute Mr. President, you didn’t take the shot, the SEALs took the shot at Osama Bin Laden. And, then at another point he said, “The nation, Me…†and then proceeded to describe what the nation wanted to do. And, I thought it was a little unusual because again it came across as just a little pompous at times – Louis XIV masquerading as president.
Yes, although the L’etat c’est moi quote is more solidly attributed to Napoleon than to the Sun King. Besides, using Tunisia as a measure is hardly determining. We had no pressing national security issues in Tunisia at the time of the Arab Spring. We did have pressing national security issues in Egypt and Libya, which Obama made worse with his Arab Spring interventions, pushing out Hosni Mubarak and conducting a war to remove Moammar Qaddafi from power.
What was the result? Obama couldn’t even bring himself to call Egypt an ally a month ago after our nation – that would be not “me, my administration†— had based our national-security policy in the region on our alliance with Egypt’s Mubarak for more than 30 years. Eastern Libya’s terrorist networks now operate freely, including al-Qaeda. Obama can brag about the outcome in Tunisia, but in this case, one out of three is still bad … and let’s not forget that our embassy in Tunis was torched and nearly overrun in September, too.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/24/obamateurism-of-the-day-854/
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Within hours of having been exposed for the third straight debate as lacking an agenda for a second term, and with his campaign strategy of delegitimizing Mitt Romney in shambles, Barack Obama finally got around to putting out an agenda for the next four years on Tuesday morning. That didn’t keep Obama from using silly personal attacks on the campaign trail to belittle Romney. Obama had begun calling Romney’s purported shifts in policy stances “Romnesia†last week, but on Tuesday decided to equate it to cancer and end-stage renal failure (ESRD) by using the term “Stage Three†along with it (via Daniel Halper):
[vid of Barry the Boy Wonder at the link]
Obama: Now, we’ve come up with a name for this condition. It’s called Romnesia. (Applause.)
Audience: Romnesia! Romnesia! Romnesia!
Obama: We had a severe outbreak last night. (Applause.) It was at least stage three Romnesia. (Laughter and applause.) And I just want to go over with you some of the symptoms, Delray, because I want to make sure nobody in the surrounding area catches it. (Laughter.) If you say that you love American cars during a debate, but you wrote an article titled, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,†you might have Romnesia. (Applause.)
Sounds like Obama has a bit of an honesty problem on the Detroit accusation, as even his friend David Letterman discovered when he did what Obama didn’t … which was to check the record. Beyond that, though, this kind of playground-level ridicule of someone’s name hardly befits an incumbent President. As I wrote on Saturday, it reeked of desperation when George H. W. Bush did it in 1992, even without using medical terminology best known to apply to cancer and kidney failure.
Call this an acute case of ESRD — End Stage Re-election Desperation.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/25/obamateurism-of-the-day-855/
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One of the first things an attorney is supposed to learn is to never ask a question without first knowing the answer. One of the first things a politician is supposed to learn — at least since Gary Hart talked himself out of a presidential nomination in 1984 — is to only challenge the press to dig up something when you’re sure it doesn’t exist. Barack Obama, both a lawyer and a politician, apparently never learned either lesson, as BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski proved. Obama, while slamming Mitt Romney as a flip-flopper, double-dog-dared the media to find any changed positions in his public positions:
[Barry flip-flop video #1]
Well, for one thing, Obama signed a petition in 1996 advocating the banning of handguns, which Andrew embedded on his site. Then there’s also his “evolution†on gay marriage since his 2004 declaration that his faith led him to oppose its legalization:
[Barry flip-flop video #2]
Or how about his flip-flop on marijuana legalization?
[Barry flip-flop video #3]
Andrew also has Obama on record in 2004 demanding an end to the Cuba embargo and giving at least tacit support for prosecuting businesses that hire illegal immigrants, which is somewhat different than his rhetoric as President. But Andrew saves the best two for last. Here’s Obama blasting George Bush for “hiding†behind the same executive privilege Obama now invokes over Fast & Furious:
[Barry flip-flop video #4]
And here he is criticizing Hillary Clinton’s support for the same individual insurance mandate that he made a central piece of ObamaCare:
[Barry flip-flop video #5]
Let’s add in one of our own, too:
[Barry flip-flop video #6]
Heck … maybe he was just BS-ing.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/26/obamateurism-of-the-day-856/
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There’s nothing worse than attempting to ridicule a critic by offering a ridiculous — and easily checked — assertion. Recall this moment from the final debate, when our current Commander-in-Chief lectured his opponent on the modern American military?
[vid of Barry in the 3rd debate at the link]
You — you mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets — (laughter) — because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.
Actually, submariners call those boats, Mr. President. Ships that go underwater are called sunk. But that’s merely a technicality. On bayonets, Barack Obama had no idea at all that those are still standard issue in the Marine Corps — and that we have a lot more Marines now than we did in 1916:
According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. military has at least 600,000 bayonets in stock and plans to acquire 175,000 more.
Given that there were about 200,000 men in the Army and National Guard in 1916, according to National Review, that would mean that there are three times as many bayonets today and probably will be at least four times as many than before World War I.
According to the website marines.com, every Marine receives bayonet training in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program and on the Bayonet Assault Course in Recruit Training. The bayonet makes a rifle â€just as effective in close combat situations,†according to the website.
That’s the kind of thing that one might expect someone who spent the last four years as C-in-C to know, even without trying to puff himself up as a military expert. Only amateurs would make this kind of mistake, and on the biggest stage of them all, no less, in what was clearly a pre-planned attack line. Didn’t Obama and his team even bother to check with their own people at the Pentagon before deploying this in the debate? Apparently, Obama’s just as talented at research as he is at military expertise.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/29/obamateurism-of-the-day-857/
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Things have changed since 2007 we had a thing called a president and we don't have one of those anymore.
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China, Colorado … heck, they both begin with a C, right?
[video of the Barry, the Stumpmeister, at the link]
“I want to build on the progress we’ve made. Doubling clean energy. I want fuel efficient cars and long-lasting batteries and wind turbines manufactured here in China! I don’t want them manufactured in China, I want them manufactured here in the United States!â€
As Colorado, Nevada, California, and everyone else has learned, when Obama puts a bet down on a green-energy company with taxpayer money, it’s most likely that the product won’t get manufactured anywhere. See: Solyndra, Ener1, Abound, A123, et al.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/30/obamateurism-of-the-day-858/
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The WSJ had a great op-ed on this yesterday, partially quoted below:
There seems to be nothing more conducive to creative thinking than an election that has slipped away from an incumbent. All of a sudden, Barack Obama is chock full of new ideas. He wants a “grand bargain†on debt and entitlement reform, for instance, even though neither were part of his 20-page picture book, er, second-term agenda that he just released last week. But even more creatively, Obama wants to create another Cabinet position — the Secretary of Business:
In an interview with MSNBC, the president said he wants to consolidate a number of business and trade-related agencies, creating a “one-stop shop†for oversight.
“I’ve said that I want to consolidate a whole bunch of government agencies. We should have one Secretary of Business, instead of nine different departments that are dealing with things like giving loans to SBA [the Small Business Administration] or helping companies with exports,†he said in an interview with MSNBC’s Mika Brezezinski and Joe Scarborough.
Maybe he should show up for his current Cabinet meetings. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Obama already has a Cabinet official that’s supposed to promote business:
Maybe Republicans would have opposed the Secretary of Business if they’d learned about it somewhere besides cable news, but who knows? The reasons could include turf, but also the fact that the government already has an agency with a “focus on expanding the American economy and job creation†and that “invests in America’s long-term growth and competitivenessâ€
It’s called the Department of Commerce, with its very own Secretary, and the quotes in the preceding paragraph are how the White House describes its mission in its 2013 budget. Mr. Obama wants to expand Commerce spending by 5% to some $8 billion annually. Extra credit goes to anyone who can name the acting Commerce Secretary. No Googling.
It’s actually Rebecca Blank, who has been acting Commerce Secretary since June, when John Bryson left after having a strange series of vehicle accidents in Los Angeles. Bryson replaced Gary Locke, Obama’s first appointee, who became Obama’s Ambassador to China. Now, if you don’t know all that, don’t feel bad. Neither does Obama, apparently.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/31/obamateurism-of-the-day-859/
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A fine sentiment, issued here by Barack Obama while visiting the Red Cross. “We leave nobody behind,†Obama says to the gathered volunteers. “We make sure that we respond as a nation, and remind ourselves that whenever an American is in need, all of us stand together to make sure that we’re providing the help that’s necessary.â€
[video of Barry at the link - sorry, I can't watch it due to firewalls]
Of course, he’s talking about a private-sector organization during Hurricane Sandy … not the Obama administration during the seven hours that the Americans in our consulate in Benghazi were “in need,†in which case we apparently stand down rather than stand together.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/01/obamateurism-of-the-day-860/
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This one was so obvious, even Politico reported it as a flub. Barack Obama gave Americans living in Hurricane Sandy’s path some great advice if thing suddenly got bad in the storm, which was to go onto the Internet and keep up with the latest information. That’s certainly great advice … if the storm hasn’t knocked out your power and/or Internet connection:
When President Barack Obama urged Americans under siege from Hurricane Sandy to stay inside and keep watch on ready.gov for the latest, he left out something pretty important — where to turn if the electricity goes out.
Yeah, that might be an important consideration — and it was for millions of Americans who lost power for a significant amount of time during the storm. In this case, Obama wasn’t alone in failing to think outside the (computer) box:
Despite the heightened expectation of widespread power and cable television failures, everyone from the president to local newscasters seem to expect the public to rely entirely on the Internet and their TVs for vital news and instructions.
None of the major cable or local news channels put emergency phone numbers or key radio station frequencies on their screens.
And what’s worse is that the advice to check out ready.gov turns out to be rather lousy advice. Why? Because ready.gov wasn’t, er, ready:
The only phone-related instructions on the homepage of ready.gov is how to get monthly disaster-prep text messages. The Federal Emergency Management Agency told the public via Twitter to use texts and social media outlets to stay informed.
That’s fine for those with smartphones, but not exactly helpful for those without. And even those with smartphones need cell service to use texting, social media, and the Internet, much of which failed in New York City during the storm.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/02/obamateurism-of-the-day-861/
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It’s difficult to keep track of the days on the campaign trail — which city you’re in (or state), what day of the week it is. Still, when you need voters to show up on Election Day, it’s probably good to get a proper count of the days until the polling places are in business, as our weekend editor Jazz Shaw pointed out:
Obama just told rally they have a choice to make “in four more days.†Yes, send everyone to the polls on Wednesday. Thanks.
— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) November 3, 2012
We won’t have a problem with that, actually.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/05/obamateurism-of-the-day-862/
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It’s difficult to keep track of the days on the campaign trail — which city you’re in (or state), what day of the week it is. Still, when you need voters to show up on Election Day, it’s probably good to get a proper count of the days until the polling places are in business, as our weekend editor Jazz Shaw pointed out:
We won’t have a problem with that, actually.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/05/obamateurism-of-the-day-862/
Hopefully, he got that message about election day out to ALL his voters
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Hurricane Sandy has devastated the most populous city in the nation. FEMA has struggled to deliver supplies and relief. Another nor’easter will bear down on the same area starting tomorrow. Where will the President be when it hits? On a basketball court in Chicago:
The president will observe his most time-honored Election Day ritual.
Former White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who has joined the campaign on its final day to travel with President Obama, said his former boss sent an e-mail to his former personal aide, Reggie Love, to start organizing his regular pickup basketball game in Chicago for Tuesday.
Take it away, Katie Pavlich:
It might be a better idea for Obama to handle the ongoing Hurricane Sandy crisis instead. After all, thousands of freezing Americans with no electricity, water or heat, isn’t exactly “optimal.â€
But … wasn’t that photo-op last week?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/06/obamateurism-of-the-day-863/
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Some readers have already noticed that we haven’t had an Obamateurism entry since Election Day. I’ve received a few e-mails wondering what happened to the daily feature, but viewers of the Ed Morrissey Show know that I had already decided to shut down the OOTD series after the election, regardless of the result. If Mitt Romney won, we wouldn’t need it any longer, and if Barack Obama won re-election, the point would be moot.
Dinesh D’Souza actually made the latter argument last night, apart from the context of the OOTDs:
Isn’t it time for conservatives & GOP to stop calling Obama an amateur & a bungler?He is highly successful in accomplishing his goals
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) November 8, 2012
The election would be a pretty good argument for that.
To understand why I think the series has run its course, it helps to know why I started the OOTD feature in the first place. It wasn’t to make the point that Obama makes a lot of gaffes; he had done that during the 2007-8 campaign, too, and all politicians do it to some extent. It’s just human nature, especially apparent when every utterance gets committed to video or transcription. It was that the media strung together some George Bush gaffes as a narrative about his intellect, including Jacob Weisberg at Slate, who turned them into a “Bushisms†series and a few books — but no one in the media bothered to do the same with Obama.
This was my way of making a point about media narratives, and also have a fun way to point out Obama’s fumbles. Frankly, I didn’t think it would go on nearly this long. If I wanted a feature that would have lasted all during Obama’s first term, I probably would have focused on Joe Biden instead. After nearly four years, though, the point has been made and made and made. That doesn’t mean we won’t have some fun with Obama’s gaffes in his second term (we certainly have fun with Biden’s!), but I’m not going to catalog them on a daily basis any longer.
We won’t leave you hanging on this year’s OOTDs, though. Starting Sunday morning, we’ll begin running the OOTY preliminary polls, and we’ll add a poll at the end for the biggest overall Obamateurism in the last four years.
[justify]# # #[/justify]
So, this looks like the final word on the OOTD feature. I've tried posting this every weekday since the thread started in March, and this might well be the last post. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/09/closing-down-the-ootds/