If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all
Bookworm on Mar 13 2009 at 8:37 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
Sorry I didn’t blog today, but I had absolutely nothing to say. Part of it is that I have a cold (my first this winter, so I’m not complaining), which means that my brains have temporarily been transformed into cotton wool. And I think part of it is, as you all discussed in a thread yesterday and today, just being completely overwhelmed by the volume of errors coming out of the Obama camp.
Just today, Obama signed a bill banning all stem cell research. You read that right. Two days after issuing an executive order taking just about every type of embryo research, he’s now reversed himself. There is a raging debate in my email threads whether he’s an idiot (the Anchoress‘ theory), or he’s engaging in the Obama three step (Bob Owens’ theory). Of course, the mere fact that this debate rages shows that we’re superior to Progressives, who tried for eight years to maintain that Bush was simultaneously a drooling idiot and a genius Machiavellian manipulator. We at least recognize that Obama’s either one or the other.
Today I’m leaning to the idiot side. How else can one explain the myriad insults Obama’s team offered Brazil’s president, Hillary’s “overcharged” meeting with the Russians, or Obama’s myriad insults to the English. These can’t just be mere coincidence. Either the lunatics have taking over the asylum, or the Machivellian Obama plan isn’t just to destroy America’s economy, it’s also to embarrass America to death.
And that’s all I have to say.
(One more thing: Showing himself a stronger man than I am, Don Surber detailed Obama’s 52 mistakes in 52 days. H/t: Michelle Malkin)
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18 Responses to “If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all”
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Lol. That’s all I can say. As each day rolls by he looks more and more inept.
Week-End Bloggers…
Here’s the Right Wing News guest blogger line-up this week-end. Saturday ——– Bookworm from Bookworm Room Cassy Fiano Kathy Shaidle Five Feet Of Fury Morgan from House of Eratosthenes B. Daniel Blatt from GayPatriot Gina Cobb John Stephenson from …
Since it was the AP that reported Obama’s clueless diss of the Brazilian president, you can be certain that the insult was far worse than reported.
Chris Muir’s got a theory, too.
Drudge reports this morning that Russian may base aircraft in Venezuela and Cuba. So is this the foreign policy crisis Widemouth Joe Biden predicted during the campaign? If this story proves true, let us see how the Obama Administration deals with this challenge. Any predictions?
My email groups predict that he’ll do nothing at all. There won’t be a crisis, because he’ll be absolutely passive. Steve Schippert, however, is optimistic that, while Russia is tweaking us and showing our weaknesses, in long-term strategic terms, Russia ain’t what it used to be and cannot inflict too much damage on us from those locations.
Obama’s anticipated non-response will have one virtue, which is to remind people that millions of Americans knew Jack Kennedy, and Obama is no Kennedy.
I would hope that the Obama administration would generally shrug at the notion of Russia basing a few outdated bombers (that’s all they have) in Cuba or Venezuela.
Just keep quiet and let them go ahead, because if they do it provides an opportunity. Once the bombers are in place, Obama should take note of this provocation and announce that he is proceeding with the anti-missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Quid pro quo.
The Brazilian thing is simply unreal. Brazil is a major trading partner and is even now exploiting a huge off-shore oil and gas resource. Not that we are interested in having another source of oil and gas from a friendly country. This administration cannot afford any more of these screw-ups if they want to be taken seriously. They are acting like a third world pretender trying to crash the party.
I tend to go with the idiot/incompetent part. Last year I compared experience of those elected President, using the following metrics: US Senate, US Cabinet, Governor, Military, US Vice President. Of all those elected President, there was only one person before Obama who had US Senate experience and none of the following: US Cabinet, US Vice President, Governor, Military.
That would be Warren Harding.
That metric also describes Obama.
His only executive experience was chairing the Annenberg Experience, where he dispensed over $100 million in research money for improving Chicago Schools, with nothing to show for it. That would not indicate good judgment nor would it indicate good decision making.
Last year Obama reminded me of Julius Wintergreen, who was elected President on a platform of Love in Gershwin’s musical Of Thee I Sing. We got what we paid for.
Given Obama’s recent foreign policy gaffes it is time to revisit a speech he made in San Antonio last year.
In my four years working in Latin America, I never had reason to feel ashamed of my country. I returned to the US with much more pride in the US than when I had left the US. By comparison, we looked pretty damn good. As such I considered his words to be an insult: contrary to what he implies, an American has little or no reason to not feel pride in country when traveling abroad. At least that was my experience. There was also a coded message: vote for me so you can be proud of America. That is also an insult.
His foreign policy gaffes do not increase my pride in America. Betcha Obama will turn out to be more considerate towards Thugo Chavez or Ahamdinejad than towards Gordon Brown or Lula. Be nice to thugs, dismiss well-behaved people.
While I am an agnostic, I do not consider it inappropriate to see Obama as God’s punishment of the United States. Our best hope is to survive his term(s) with the least damage.
I’ve read that in all the Obama appointees so far, not a single one is a businessman – or woman. Not a single one has experience _doing_ things. Which reminds me of the old saw:
Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.
Unkind, maybe even unfair, but also, maybe not untrue. No matter how intellectual you are, no matter how brilliant, someone still has to take the words and put them into action. Your fantastic architectural plans for your magnificent house and hanging gardens will require a qualified contractor who can plan for what is required, and the grunt workers who have to be hired to get the heavy stuff moved. You can plan a garden, but somebody has to dig it up, plant it and pull the weeds. It looks like Obama doesn’t have any contractors so far. He can write checks for the contractors, but somebody has to do the grunt work.
By the way…if you’re looking for a light read somewhat on the topic, try “The $64 Tomato”. I ran across it in our Friends of the Library bookstore – F of the L is an organization that takes book donations, shelves them and resells them to the public. Terrific place to by cheap books, and all “donations” go to the Public Library. The only bad thing about it is that there are _no_ old books to be had at the local yard sales. Not the place to go if you’re looking for a _particular_ book, but great for small treasures you never knew about.
And by the way…I learned that expression as “If you can’t say anything _nice_, don’t say anything at all.” It _has_ taught me to phrase things carefully.
And somehow, in my mind, it also links directly to “Children should be seen and not heard”… Not sure why. There’s probably a good reason…
This is an old one, but maybe even more relevant today than when it first hit the internet…
http://benbittrolff.blogspot.com/2009/03/wall-street-and-dead-donkeys.html
About the bill banning funding of all embryo research…
It looks like this has been in all the budget appropriation bills since 1995. It’s only valid until this budget expires Sept 30 of this year. I suspect that’s why there was no push back – they wanted to get that budget through. Betchya it won’t be in _next_ year’s appropriation, though. Obama probably went ahead and signed it since it’s such a short term problem and it is likely to go away without any action on his part. It’s smarter for him to pass it for that reason, than to fight it and further alienate those who are against it.
Here’s an interesting one I ran across – very timely…
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/857-The-Bezzle-Defined.html
Let’s keep our terminology straight. Obama did not “[sign] a bill banning all stem cell research.” The bill banned federal funding of stem cell research, not the research itself, and it only defunded research involving human embryos.
I’ve always been frustrated when libs erroneously complained about Bush “banning stem cell research”, let’s not make the same mistake.
Good point, socratease.
Here´s what I cannot understand. I always thought there were experts at the State Department or wherever who specialize in these protocol questions. Surely Presidents don´t pick the gifts for visiting statesmen themselves? The technocrats should ensure that it doesn´t make any difference who is president. Unless the Barackistas upset all continuity by bringing in their own people.
I’ll second the ‘good point’ to socratease #13.
And isn’t it true that States were still funding research using embryos if they wished? Bush’s “ban” was only on *federal* (national govt) funding using embryos that had not already been set aside.
I’d prefer more precision in reporting as well. I’d accuse them of being deliberately dishonest, but I actually think this is one of those cases where the reporters, being against the Bush decision, can’t even see the difference themselves. Intellectual laziness coupled with a myopism caused by their own “moral superiority” and their own far-left belief that if the federal government isn’t controlling it and funding it, then it’s not getting done.
>>I actually think this is one of those cases where the reporters, being against the Bush decision, can’t even see the difference themselves>>
The _reporters_!!! It isn’t just the reporters – I saw an interview with Clinton (Bill, not Hill) – can’t remember where, but what I saw was a transcript – where 3-4 times he makes the statement about “embryos not being fertilized, so using them was no problem”. Jaw dropping ignorance. I guess when he took bio 1, his mind was on a different aspect of reproduction…
Only two problems with your excellent suggestion:
1. The Obamatron does not come equipped with a pair of balls.
2. Our president is increasingly a not-so-closeted Marxist. Somewhere deep down he laments the fall of the Soviet Union and the last best hope of mankind that it stood for. Why not let the misunderstood ol’ bear tweak the bad ol’ eagle? We deserve it for not keeping hope alive.
There won’t be a crisis, because he’ll be absolutely passive. Steve Schippert, however, is optimistic that, while Russia is tweaking us and showing our weaknesses, in long-term strategic terms, Russia ain’t what it used to be and cannot inflict too much damage on us from those locations.
While that is true, it was also true that Somalia represented no direct threat to America. Yet it was the withdrawal of US forces from Mogadishu, Somalia that inspired people like Osama Bin Laden to pool their resources and attack America on AMerican home soil.
These incidents tend to have indirect consequences which are far more important than the direct consequences.