Politics

Moe Lane:

It’s important that a distinction be made between the two men, in fact. So we at RedState have put together a list – a non-exhaustive list – explaining just how the two are different.

Why the President is nothing like George W. Bush.

• George W. Bush didn’t blame his predecessor for his own failures.
• George W. Bush can throw a pitch.
• George W. Bush believes in American exceptionalism.
• George W. Bush set policy.
• George W. Bush showed respect and courtesy to the opposite party while President.
• George W. Bush didn’t let his appointments set policy.
• George W. Bush doesn’t whine.
• George W. Bush went out and did the things that he said that he’d do.
• George W. Bush has a thick skin.
• George W. Bush faced down a hostile Congress on issues that mattered to him.
• George W. Bush doesn’t give a… flying leap… what the polls say.
• George W. Bush could make, and take responsibility for, tough decisions.
• George W. Bush didn’t take credit for other people’s work.
• George W. Bush never had to remind anyone that he won.
• George W. Bush had principles.
• George W. Bush defended them.

And last, but certainly not least:

• George W. Bush doesn’t bow.

We hope that clears the matter up for people. [From Agreed, Gibbs: Obama is not Bush.]

Latest example, Chris Dodd:

Senator Dodd’s career should provide a cautionary tale about the dark side of the seniority system and senatorial longevity. Though he was knee-deep in dubious doings, his influence was at its peak: As chairman of the banking committee, Senator Dodd was a key player in the bailouts and in shaping the major pieces of financial-reform legislation currently working their way through Congress. If Congress ends up reshaping the banking and credit-card industries, it will very likely to do so along lines drawn up by Senator Dodd. He was a key legislative architect of the impotent stimulus bill and an important influence on the Senate health-care legislation. The breadth and depth of his influence has been exceeded only by its destructiveness. No doubt a lucrative post-Senate lobbying career, performing essentially the same misdeeds for better money, awaits Senator Dodd, who embodies much of what is wrong with Washington. We’ll miss him on Election Day, but not a minute afterward. [From Exit Dodd -- By: The Editors]

Go read this. Now:

[H]ere we are, on the brink of economy crippling legislation to tackle a problem we don’t fully understand and the science is most certainly not settled on.

Lots of discussion over this the past few days:

For the first time in 20 years, a government panel is telling women in their 40s to stop getting routine mammograms and recommending that a host of other breast cancer screenings slow down. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force redefines mammogram needs. The United States Preventive Service Task Force announced Monday that it recommends against annual mammograms for women age 40 to 49 because, they say, the benefits of testing do not outweigh the "harms" and risks. [From New Mammogram Guidelines Spur Debate Over Early Detection - ABC News]

I'm very glad my wife's cancer was detected at its earliest possible stage by a routine mammogram at age 45, that these people are morons and that if you want them managing your health care, you're a moron, too.

"Harms?" "Risks?" They are apparently mean the imagined risk due to the tiny radiation dose and still believe in the stupid "no baseline" approach for estimating radiation risk. Like I said, they are morons.

But it's still an outrage and a disappointment:

It’s impossible, really, to caricature this White House; even Josiah Bartlett didn’t run through this many liberal stereotypes in his first season. Obama needs new writers. Blow up the World Trade Center and kill 3,000 Americans? Jail! Don’t buy health insurance? Jail! Win the Nobel Prize for doing jack squat. Travel to Copenhagen to beg and grovel unsuccessfully for the Olympics, and pledge to go visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but blow off traveling to Berlin to commemorate the victory of freedom over Communism (then give a tepid speech on the subject that refuses to acknowledge Ronald Reagan). Commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland by unilaterally abandoning missile defense installations in Poland. Insult and disdain one faithful ally after another - Britain, India, Israel, Poland, Columbia, you name it - and cozy up to our enemies, with nothing to show for it - nothing to show for anything he’s done in foreign affairs. All but ignore democratic protests in Iran while supporting an illegal effort by Honduras’ president to stay on beyond the end of his term. Suddenly complain about corruption and electoral fraud in Afghanistan, while seeking the favor of Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadenijad and Vladimir Putin - heck, Obama endorsed half a dozen people in Chicago more corrupt than Hamid Karzai. On and on and on we go, with President Apology constantly straining to run down his country’s record and talk up the propagandized view of history of its enemies. He’s taken more time to “evaluate” General McChrystal’s recommendations about Afghan policy than it took George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan and capture Kabul after September 11. It would be funny if it wasn’t tragically stupid and bound to get people killed. There is no mistake of our past that Obama is unwilling to remake.

So the presidential candidate that "palled around with terrorists" appointed an AG from a firm that defends terrorists. None of this should be a surprised. I'm really wondering whether Jimmy Carter's second term would have been this bad.

Moe Lane points out some things that should be obvious to everyone that has a clue:

One has to make a distinction between the people of the world, and the governments of the world. The people of the world generally like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:

• Because we are free;
• Because we are vulgar;
• Because we are loud;
• And because we visibly do not care if anybody likes that or not.

Meanwhile, most national governments do not like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:

• Because we are free;
• Because we are vulgar;
• Because we are loud;
• And because we visibly do not care if anybody likes that or not.
• 
  

Unfortunately, the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. doesn't have a clue.

I expected this all along, because if the Left is willing to fight a war at all, it's not going to be the one you're in right now. This is a corollary to the only weapons systems libs will vote for (other than those produced in their own districts) are the versions that are not ready to be built yet.

If Obama thinks the war is unwinnable, it would have been nice for him to tell the American public during the campaign, instead of completely reversing himself on a key provision of his foreign-policy vision less than a year into his presidency. Why, if we didn't know any better, we might think that Obama was dovish and unwilling to defy his party's pacifist grassroots the whole time, and that all of his "this is a war that we have to win" talk during the campaign was empty window-dressing to hide an out-of-the-mainstream worldview. [From Obama's Afghanistan Policy Reaches Its Expiration Date - Jim Geraghty - The Campaign Spot on National Review Online]

Bill Whittle, at his best.

Considering the price. (Via RedState)

Of course, we had no choice after private health insurance was "mysteriously" no longer available: