With Obama’s response to the Gulf Oil Spill crisis, Democrats and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media are, to some extent, reaping what they sowed when they rushed to criticize then-President George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
Then, they behaved as if the federal government was the exclusive provider of relief services and downplayed (or outright ignored) evidence of incompetence at the state and local levels. They wanted to create a narrative of W’s incompetence. In the process, then, they had to make the federal government the primary responder to such disasters.
Obama has also made it easier for others to fault his manner of leadership. Instead of taking responsibility for the crisis or at least pressing the responsible authorities to act responsibly, he’s casting about looking for others to blame. Obama, Jennifer Rubin writes,
. . . can never pass up the chance to pass the buck. He describes the difficulties with the Minerals Management Services as if someone else had been president for over a year and as if this is the fault of “deregulators” rather than a massive bureaucracy without accountability
(Even his sidekick in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has joined the game, blaming George W. Bush, nearly 17 full months into the Obama Administration. You’d think they could come up with a different playbook.)
Byron York observes that at his meeting with BP execs, the Interior Secretary was absent, but lots of lawyers were present. Guess he is more interested in suing (or using the threat of a lawsuit against) the oil company than in fixing the leak.
Indeed, it seems that our politicians have agendas other than addressing the problem at hand. Right now, the primary issue should be stopping the leak and containing the spread of the oil. Just as with the problem of illegal immigration, the first issue we need address is securing the border.
Obama, however, would rather pander to the special interests who support his party, using his White House address to press for cap and trade. Instead of considering new legislative initiatives to appease liberal interest groups, he should be formulating an executive response to the problem at hand.As David Freddoso reports, however, his Tuesday night speech “contained no substance, little reassurance, and no sign that he is on top of the oil spill.” Simply put, the president doesn’t have his priorities straight.
He intends to stick to his big government agenda no matter what’s happening in the world around him.
RELATED: Era of Obama rhetoric is over.
Mr. President: If we can put a man on the moon…
UPDATE: Somewhat related from Jim Geraghty:
At the Daily Caller, Julie Gunlock sees it mostly as a media coverage issue: “Earlier this month, CNN’s Ed Henry posted pictures of a picnic hosted by the vice president, including cute images of Rahm Emanuel and the vice president engaging in a water gun fight. That same weekend, two senior male members of the White House communications staff were pictured, sans shirts, participating in some sort of drinking game at a well-known Georgetown barbeque joint. Now, I actually don’t begrudge the president and vice president or their staff a good time. My question lies with the mainstream media who fail to hold this administration to the same standard as the Bush administration.”
The entire disaster is a case study in what’s wrong with left-liberalism.
– Left-liberalism forced BP to drill in deep water. (Environmentalists made it virtually impossible to do new drilling onshore, or in shallow offshore waters.)
– Left-liberalism has coddled the negligent and the incompetent for decades, for example with its long track record of bailouts. (I’m talking about the left-liberal *philosophy* of bailouts, corporate socialism and Big Government, which unfortunately has been carried out by both major parties for decades at different times.)
– Layer upon layer of government regulation – again created by both parties, but under the left-liberal, Big Government philosophy – forced BP to worry about the regulators, get along with the regulators, seek exemptions from the regulators, etc. Instead of keeping its eye on the ball. (i.e., bringing product to market with safety, for maximum profit potential)
– It was the Obama corporate-socialist regime which granted BP its environmental safety exemptions in 2009. (BP was a top donor to the Obama campaign.)
– The Obama campaign was elected partly on its own promises of strict environmental protection, including that it would repair the alleged environmental faults of the previous administration. Of course it was all rhetoric. Left-liberalism gave us a world in which deeds and reality don’t matter; only having the right left-liberal rhetoric matters.
– The Obama corporate-socialist regime, having its cookies exposed, now wants to scapegoat BP – the very people who are trying to repair the fault. Again, left-liberalism gave us a world in which deeds and reality don’t matter; only scapegoating matters.
This is a pretty wooly post. You don’t think Obama has done enough, because he’s too preoccupied with big government? What kind of ‘Executive Response’ isn’t, by definition, going to be a HUGE articulation of government power for it to make any difference to this crisis.
I agree that he doesn’t have his priorities straight, but not because he’s trying to push cap and trade, legislation that already exists but has stalled. Given how much political hay he COULD have made out of this, he barely said a peep. in case you didn’t notice, the speech outraged the pro-cap and trade left.
Issuing 400 new drilling leases, including ones to BP, granted after the spill, however:
http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/06/new-drilling-leases-gulf-of-mexico
Not only isn’t he on top of this spill, he’s giving leases to the people that caused it in the first place, based on the same safety assessments that deepwater horizon was subject to. Now THAT is a skewed priority.
Yes, for goodness sake, let’s keep government out of this! Free market capitalism will solve the problem by itself. Far from being incompetent, Obama is secretly showing great leadership by trying to keep the government out of things as much as possible and let the invisible hand do its work. BP thinks only of the good of the environment, the safety of its workers, and the health of the “small people” who are its beloved customers–just like Toyota, health insurance companies, and the coal mining industry. Why would we bind the hands of such good and caring corporations with pesky regulations which only inhibit their ability to make profits? The people they killed should be proud to have died to keep these corporations alive! I hope the families and children of the dead know how lucky they are.
The oil should be treated like tea spilled in the name of freedom.
…if, and only if, it is allowed to. Clue for the clueless: It hasn’t been allowed to, for decades.
Another clue: Parody, to be effective, must have some kind of remote accuracy. Yours fails. Take this one example:
That doesn’t parody me because my own point is precisely that BP, in today’s world of Big Government and corporate socialism, does not think of those things.
I would wish you better luck next time, Ash. Except that I know, from your loooooooooooooooooong track record of misunderstanding and cluelessness with me, that you never understand a word I say.
(P.S. That’s not a complaint. I’m amused. It amuses me Ash, that not only are you unable to refute my points, you are unable even to understand what they are.)
I would have been a hell of a lit more impressed if Pres. Obama said, “…this is the situation as-it-stands, and here’s what we’re going to do about it. BP has accepted responsibility and we’ll deal with what-happened after we’ve got the well sealed and the oil in the Gulf and on the shoreline dealt-with. Now is not the time for the blame game….there’s vital and urgent work to do”
Instead we get Bush-blaming, finger-pointing…and lawyers.
I’m beginning to think Obama might not be the best president ever. Even Matthews and Olbermann criticized his speech.
On another subject, there’s a really good looking guy mowing the lawn half a block away. Which of the following would be the least pathetic?
A. Getting some binoculars and looking at him through my window.
B. Pretending to take a walk, going past him, and waving.
C. Going over in wearing a bathrobe, carrying a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses and saying, “You look hot. . .and thirsty.”
Just thought I’d ask.
Funny thing to me, we hear all this talk from the left of wanting President Obama to ‘Seize contol’ These are the same people who howled when President Bush used the executive powers he was already granted. Including suspending the Jones Act to help Katrina.
I’m sorry Gulf Coast, I’m afraid President Bush cares more about protecting you than President Obama does.
to Ashpenaz…… Make sure you squeeze every last drop outta those lemons.
I love how Waxman the idiot is setting himself up for future epic fail, even though he doesn’t know it.
Right now, Waxman is screaming that a CEO should be personally responsible for every decision made in the company, even those radically below his level.
Next year, Waxman will be hammered as he tries to spin and spin and spin for how he, his Barack Obama, and their Nancy Pelosi should not be held accountable for ANY decisions made by them, their staff, or anyone in their administrations.
Even some of his stalwart fans in the liberal MSM are beginning to realize he’s a witless wonder
Ashp…you post many things that do not make much sense. What is this “secret leadership” that Obama is supposedly showing? I’ve never heard that term before and wonder if it’s a new one showing up on the leftist blogs.
Oh, its MUCH worse than that.
The Damage done by Katrina was done WITHIN the state of Louisiana (and other states), and thus the Constitution PROHIBITED President Bush from doing anything without first getting the permission of the governors.
But the damage done by Deepwater Horizon has been done in FEDERAL waters which means the federal government has primary jurisdiction, not the states, and states cannot do ANYTHING in federal waters without OBAMA’s permission.
In other words the Constitution clearly made Bush the second responder and clearly makes Obama the FIRST responder, yet Bush responded immediately, finally getting approval, getting the LA governor to evacuate, getting emergency relief pre-positioned so the response could be as fast as possible while going on 60 DAYS LATER and Obama has STILL done NOTHING except blame and point fingers and threaten lawsuits.
Indeed, he has hampered and HURT emergency efforts to protect the environment because he has NO IDEA how to lead and NO IDEA how to manage.
In short, he has no clue what he is doing, and it shows.
This is what happens when you elect community organizers who have never accomplished anything and have no leadership experience.
We warned you.
The deep water oil well that blew was a disaster waiting to happen. How do you cap such a beast? How many more are out there aging and increasing the potential for further disaster?
ILC is totally right. No oil company looks for complicated, expensive and risky places to operate. They are forced there by politicians and environmentalists who have no credible plan or alternative, workable solution.
If Obama were an actual leader, he would have called on the Army Corps of Engineers, the Seabees, NOAA, the Coast Guard, other governments, big oil and the small company experts to come together and work out strategies. That does not guarantee success, but it sure starts the ball rolling.
There is no “restoration” possible. People will lose jobs, ecosystem will suffer, industries will be wiped out temporarily. While such damage is not “acceptable,” it has nothing to do with shutting down the source of the disaster. This is war and there is going to be collateral damage all over the place. Rebuilding and sorting things out will require a second wave of enlightened leadership, but first things must be tended to first.
Obama has chosen to throw his temporary authority around and act tough. On his present course, he is left with seizing BP and stumbling along while he pushes other people around insisting that his royal patience is running out. So, pray tell, just what is going to happen when Obama finally blows his fuse? The oil will continue to gush, because it is too stupid to know it is up against The Won.
Obama has wasted two months of his credibility already. Golf and basketball restoreth his soul, but mighty Obama has still not got the message. He can’t even organize a community of experts to get a single task accomplished.
We are not talking about Obama solving the Israel problem here. We are not talking about curing the economy. We are not talking about keeping Iran from nuking up. We are not talking about mitigating “man-made” climate change. We are not talking about fundamentally changing America. We are not talking about being open and transparent and delivering hope and change.
We are talking about capping one oil well.
Hear, hear!
Obama, in his brilliant way, is letting the free market solve the problem by keeping government’s hands out of it!!!
Asking the government to step in is asking for socialism. That would be like the government stepping in with the health insurance companies, and you know what that leads to–universal, affordable health care!!! God forbid!!!
I’m sure that coal miners and Toyota drivers would rather die than allow government to step in and stop corporations from making potential profits. Oh, wait–they did!
Obama greatness comes from his humble desire to appear spineless and incompetent when what he’s really doing is making sure capitalism continues to survive.
I don’t live by the Gulf, so I don’t care, and I don’t want my hard-earned money going to fix a problem I didn’t create. If you don’t like oil-stained beaches, move somewhere else, you terrorist!!!
(P. S. The good-looking guy was still there mowing when I had to run some errands, so I simply drove the extra block to go past him. Would it have been better not to honk? Was that pushy?)
Again, Ash: In order to parody successfully, you must understand what the other person said, and say something resembling it. Go back to class. (which I assume is the 3rd grade)
Day 59 did you plug the leak yet daddy?
it was so cute at the time….
As the oil continues to spew, Obama (D)is back in DC.
And the Democrats have called many oil men and BP executives to DC. I’m not sure how that plugs the leak either.
You said that government safety regulations forced BP to focus on regulations rather than their natural sense of decency which would have led to safety if there weren’t so many safety regulations. Who couldn’t disagree with that?!?
Obama agrees with you–his spineless ability to enforce regulations is actually a cover for government getting out of BP’s way to let it do what it does best–get oil out of the ocean based on it’s own self-determined standard of safety and cleanliness. We really have to blame this one on Bush, an oilman, who should have known better than to try to actually enforce regulations. It’s Bush’s fault for even trying to get BP to play by government rules.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-gov-bobby-jindals-wishes-crude/story?id=10946379
THAT’S what os wrong with this administrations RESPONSIBILITY for the oil spill. You CANNOT make this stuff up!
I’m sorry, but bailing out failing mega-corporations is not a plank of liberal ideology. Bailouts are occurring because huge corporations that take huge risks have effectively captured the government and are directing their bribees to cut them checks when the needlessly risky actions they’ve been taking blow up in everyone’s faces. It’s one of those inevitable negative consequences of the free market that conservatives refuse to acknowledge, and it’s made possible by distracting the public with silly nonsensical emotional wedge issues like gay marriage and who looks good in a cowboy hat and what such and such a candidate said about eating arugula.
The revolving door between government and the big business private sector is the biggest threat to American stability we’re facing and conservatives are deliberately ignoring it because it conflicts with their ideology.
Liberals have more to be upset about with the outcome of this Presidency than conservatives do. If nothing else, conservative ought to be grateful to Obama for refusing to investigate the many cases of corruption and human rights violations perpetuated by the Bush administration over the years. He’s extending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he’s keeping people locked up with no trials, he’s legitimizing Bush’s criminal activities on the issues of torture and warrantless wiretapping, and he’s doing it all while being called a desperate weakling that caters to the terrorists by the very people that support those policies the most.
Obama hasn’t made any significant policy progress that liberals in this country can be proud of or happy with, and the liberal dissent with this administration is far more vocal and widespread than any conservative criticisms of George Bush were during and after his presidency. Certainly there are people that buy the spin and reflexively support everythin Obama does, but this is hardly a new convention. The unwavering support of conservatives for Bush’s destructive policies despite all the evidence of incompetence and corruption and ineffectiveness is what sunk Republicans at the polls for the last two cycles, and you only have Americans’ short attention spans and gullibility to thank for any electoral gains you might make in the future.
Deeds don’t matter and rhetoric does? The last GOP President lied the country into a war that has been insanely costly and was conducted terribly, and all they’ve had to say is ‘mistakes were made’ to placate their docile, always loyal flock. Take a look in the mirror and try to remember what was going on a few years ago before you start spouting off.
I see on ABC (via Drudge) that Bobby Jindal put some barges to work some days back vacuuming oil from the water – and it was working.
Along comes the Coast Guard and shuts the operation down for more than a day so they could verify the presence of fire extinguishers and life vests.
The article says Jndal *tried* to call the White House and said that every person he spoke to at the CG gave him different answers.
What a fiasco!
I guess a total lack of common sense must be some sort of requirement for gubmint work.
Imagine if this were reported while a Republican was in the Oval.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-gov-bobby-jindals-wishes-crude/story?id=10946379
levi – you come close to making a good point except that the bailouts are NOT a consequence of the free market.
In a true free market, businesses that fail GO OUT OF BUSINESS.
Speaking of bailouts, I see where Chris Dodd managed a $54 million stimulus “loan” to an indian tribe that operates the highest-grossing casino in the US. The casino is so profitable that individual tribe members get about $30K/year from the profits.
Obama has played 7 rounds of golf since the gulf oil rig exploded killing 11. 6 WH concerts and One state dinner. Only today has the Adm finally allowed that the Jones Act MAY BE waived in certain cases to allow foreign skimmers to help out the effort. Day 59. What did we expect from a community organizer? He has poisened the well for all future communtiy organizers to win the Presidency. Independent pollster Rasmussen now has Obama at his lowest level in his Presidency with a whopping minus 20 strongly approve/ strongly disapprove. It has gotten so bad that individual Democrat legislators have started shoving matches with young reporters on the street. (charges pending).
Levi tells the lie over and over and over in the belief that soon it will become conventional wisdom. Levi is challenged over and over and over to provide the evidence and he goes mum over and over and over again.
What is Levi’s lie?
Once again, Levi, slap a little proof on us………
Levi …… come back, Levi. We want the evidence. We want to learn. We want to share your enlightened aura.
Well, I think we’re at an critical breaking point where the markets are so free and uncluttered by government monitoring and intervention that it is a viable profit-making strategy for corporations to buy and sell politicians and favors and not even have to be all that discrete about it. If the free market philosophy is about doing whatever it takes to maximize your profits, corporations can hardly be faulted by trying to persuade regulators to look the other way and pass favorable legislation – like bailouts – if they can get away with it. You should expect companies to seek bailouts and other favors from the government in a free markets system.
But I know what you mean, companies that live by the sword should die by it too. What we’ve got right now is a corporate oligarchy that excuses high crimes and misdeamenors by the wealthy and powerful while being excessively harsh on lower and middle class people who are expected to foot the bill for their excesses. A great example of this was that idiot Democrat that grabbed a kid by the neck on video camera this week. Any one of us do something like that to a representative and we’ll be in jail before supper, but a representative does it to some college kids asking a question and he just gets to walk around.
Hey guess what? I’m a big boy, and I don’t need to ask a Republicans’ permission to talk about whether or not I’ve been lied to. I know when I’ve been lied to, and virtually every word out of George Bush’s mouth about the Iraq was a lie. He promised WMD, he promised connections to terrorists, he promised a brief, cheap war, he promised a domino effect in the middle east, and none of it came to pass. It’s blatantly obvious that all of the doom and gloom and all of the rosy prognostications were based on non-existent evidence and political calculations to win the 2004 elections, and I don’t care if you don’t agree with me or not. You have absolutely no standing to be credible and honest on this question, and the standard Republican responses to this question – that Clinton thought Saddam had weapons, that I haven’t seen the intelligence, or the flat-out-crazy assertion that Saddam did have weapons and terrorist connections – are completely laughable and don’t even pretend to be a serious answer.
You want to stand up and be counted as a sucker? I’m not going to stop you. But you would think that as part of a movement that habitually criticizes government for being too intrusive and untrustworthy and bungling, something more than a shrug and an unenthusiastic “Mistakes Were Made” would be required for your skeptic ideology.
Obviously it is, since your Obama Party is doing it, your Obama is demanding it, your Obama Party members of Congress are voting for it, and you yourself have babbled how wonderful it is and how it saved the economy from collapse.
And you’re not demanding his impeachment.
Funny, isn’t it? Liberals like yourself screamed for Bush’s impeachment for all of those things, and all you can do is spin and babble about how wonderful Obama is and how great it is that he’s doing those things.
Show some independence, Levi. Call for Obama’s impeachment and trial on war crimes like you did for Bush. Can’t do it, can you?
Isn’t it funny how Levi automatically shrieks that any evidence that contradicts his already-determined opinion is wrong? 🙂
There Will Be Blood has turned out to be a prophetic movie. I can see Plainview testifying before Congress the same way this BP guy did. The same corporate/government/religious dynamics seem to be at work. Of course, the book was written by the same guy who wrote that socialist tract, The Jungle, so it’s obviously anti-American propaganda. But couldn’t we fix the leak by having, say, Venezuela come in and “drink our milkshake?”
Or even if the market isn’t free. In any SANE market – whether free or regulated – bad business are allowed to go out of business!
Bailouts are socialism, not capitalism. Left-liberal, Obama corporate socialism. This last round (TARP / TALF / BARF etc.): sure Bush proposed it. But he was only following the Big Government, left-liberal philosophy – as Bush did far too much, and as several of us on this blog criticized him for, way back when. And it was Obama who carried out the bailouts. Obama took ownership and even expanded them. Obama sealed the deal.
Precisely. And, in various and sundry other forms, left-liberals have been proposing and carrying out bailouts for decades. Generations. Obama’s bailouts may be different in form from FDR’s fascist measures to “help” business – but not different in underlying philosophy, cost, or results.
(i.e. poor results – the American taxpayer / little guy being ripped off)
Nope. Wrong again, Ash. Not what I said.
As I did say, not only can you not refute my points, you can’t even manage to understand them. My thoughts are evidently beyond you grasp. And I find that funny 🙂
Obama never had any executive experience. Why are we surprised he is an incompetent boob now.
Biden today was busy telling us how great the economy was. 10% unemployment, with thousands more being laid off in the gulf as we speak.
As we watch our country suffer under these idiots, the only silver lining, a very small silver lining is the upcoming elections when the liberals will be routed. Imagine the suffering until a new congress and administration in 2012 can start to make things right again.
BTW I loved how Obama voters reconfirmed their excellent standards by nominating another great candidate in NC for senate. Obama/Greene, actually their interviews sound strikingly similar. hehe
The general philosophy of bailing people out by government force, is left-liberal. What is welfare, but a bailout? Or socialized medicine? Or farm subsidies? Or all government regulatory schemes, which always somehow manage to burden newcomer businesses and thereby favor established businesses? Or government “stimulus” measures, always advocated the hardest by left-liberals, and whose funds somehow always end up in the hands of favored businesses? Or education subsidies? Or government-guaranteed credit – i.e. government-forced loans to people who don’t deserve them because they can’t repay them? Or state-owned enterprises like Government Motors?
It’s all left-liberalism. It’s all bailouts. It’s all socialism. It’s all ripping off the prudent and the productive. And it’s all the incompetent rich (those rich who have no idea how to produce things or make a legitimate profit) trying to cement their positions, ripping off the little guy and squelching the up-and-comer, while pretending to throw crumbs to them. That’s why the Roosevelts and Kennedys were Democrats; why Democrats today have most of America’s billionaires. And in Hitler’s Germany, their philosophy / economic program was called National Socialism. In Mussolini’s Italy, it was called Fascism.
But with Obama and today’s Democrats, we see the left-liberal philosophy in America reaching its climax. Their mask is torn, because now they have *openly and directly* bailed out the largest and most incompetent / undeserving businesses in America. Which they have always done; but usually less visibly, less directly, with more finesse.
Ah yes, Levi’s now whining he was lied to, when he’s been shown again and again the only liar is him. Levi, who’s said that the middle east lacks ambition to modernize or develop.
Remember folks, it took 109 days for Levi to admit his claim of “plenty of successful Socialist countries couldn’t be backed up.
Best of all, requiring him to back up his statements is considered a ‘childish taunt’. One he then promptly demands of his betters. He then of course, ignores the evidence when presented.
To Levi, his self proclaimed superiority is reason enough for him to drag us kicking and screaming to his future. The best thing is, the more he talks, the more his ignorance shows.
Kind of like the current administration.
We’re seeing leadership, from people like Gov Jindal. We’re seeing the adminstration putting their union supporters ahead of the people of the Gulf coast.
But hey, with President Obama seizing 20B from BP, and then deciding who will dole it out, we also see that he knows as much about due process as Levi.
Obviously it is, since your Obama Party is doing it, your Obama is demanding it, your Obama Party members of Congress are voting for it, and you yourself have babbled how wonderful it is and how it saved the economy from collapse.
Obama is no liberal, and neither are the Democrats pulling the strings in the Congress. There has been absolutely no progress from this administration and these Democratic majorities in advocating and implementing liberal policies. I absolutely cannot trust you to have a definition of a liberalism that makes any sense whatsoever, so why don’t you take the word of someone that considers himself one?
And you’re not demanding his impeachment.
Funny, isn’t it? Liberals like yourself screamed for Bush’s impeachment for all of those things, and all you can do is spin and babble about how wonderful Obama is and how great it is that he’s doing those things.
Show some independence, Levi. Call for Obama’s impeachment and trial on war crimes like you did for Bush. Can’t do it, can you?
I would support Obama’s impeachment if there was some guarantee that whoever the next President ends up being opens up extensive investigations into the activities of the Bush and Obama administrations for their human rights violations and repeated lawbreaking, with a heavy focus on Bush, who initiated most of these terrible policies.
But it’s becoming more and more apparent that the criminals in the Bush administration are never going to be held accountable for what they did, so why bother? There was really only one chance to do the right thing here and Obama has completely blown it. It’s in the past now and it will probably be one of those things that we admit was a series of terrible mistakes in a hundred years or so, but as it stands I’ve accepted that people in power in this country never have to truly answer for anything they do.
“Layer upon layer of government regulation – again created by both parties, but under the left-liberal, Big Government philosophy – forced BP to worry about the regulators, get along with the regulators, seek exemptions from the regulators, etc. Instead of keeping its eye on the ball.”
“You said that government safety regulations forced BP to focus on regulations rather than their natural sense of decency which would have led to safety if there weren’t so many safety regulations.”
I think my translation is correct. I feel pretty sure I captured the confused logic and inner contradictions quite accurately.
Of course, you used the fact that they were elected as “proof” that Americans embraced liberalism and liberal principles and wanted liberals in office.
And you excused Obama’s lying to the American public as necessary to put liberals like him who shared your values into office.
I would support Obama’s impeachment if
So you will never support Obama’s impeachment, even though you openly admit that Obama has done the same thing for which you screamed for Bush’s impeachment.
Thank you for making the fact that you are a hypocrite and moral relativist so blatantly and frankly obvious.
Translation: You know perfectly well that it’s not.
After all, you yourself had to use the word “translation” (as in, not what the person actually said – just *your* poor interpretation of it) to describe what you did. So wrong again, Ash. My thoughts remain beyond your ken.
Ayn Rand’s book, “Atlas Shrugged” just jumped up again to the number 17 on the Amazon.com best sellers list.
Every time O speaks, the book’s sales surge. This is the highest ranking since right after the 2008 elections and the following months of strong sales.
I think a lot more people just realized that there might be a really big problem with the Obama Administration.
Good news for November 2010 which cannot come soon enough.
Levi, you have stuck your foot in it up to your eyes.
Show us the proof.
Show us the proof.
Show us the proof.
Show us the proof.
When you say that Bush intentionally lied and caused all manner of mayhem as a result, you should have the common decency to show your reasoning for calling him a liar.
Levi, I am not particularly enthusiastic about the Iraq war decision. But it was not arrived at in a vacuum. You insist that Bush duped the entire Congress, the U.N., England, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, etc. the people of the US, the main stream media, the education establishment and whoever else. So, show us the proof.
How does a Hitlerchimpmonkey idiot pull off such an intergalactic sucker punch? Don’t you and your group of basement keyboard jockies feel incredibly stooooopid for letting it happen?
It is clear that you are festering in this Bush is a war criminal stew. Can you comprehend the fact that the world has moved on? Try commenting without jumping into that swamp every time.
Obama is no liberal
True, a liberal wouldn’t have increased the size of government by 30% his first year while gutting advanced weapons programs for the military, nationalized auto companies, banks, the student loan industry, and the health care system. A liberal wouldn’t have chosen for his inner circle of advisers an avowed communist like Van Jones, a eugenicist like John Holdren, a Chavez admirer for FCC diversity czar, or an “regulatory czar” who believes trees have the right to sue. A liberal would not have openly and overtly sided with the worst Marxist dictatorships in Latin America against a democratic US ally, Honduras.
Obama’s no liberal. He’s a radical.
Ever hear of “Regulatory Capture”?
Rob, there’s a lot Ash hasn’t heard of.
And Hayek’s _Road to Serfdom_ is number 2, at the moment. (Atlas at 19) That is astounding. These two books are over 50 years old! and not even that well written!
Levi can’t show proof. Proof requires facts, Levi ignores those over and over again.
Now we’ll have the game of Levi saying he doesn’t and we drag out the links again showing where he does.
Look, if somebody says something is going to happen, especially if that someone is in a position of inherent authority and credibility like the presidency of the United States, and if they swear up and down that they’ve extensively researched the issue and if they make all kinds of guarantees about the authenticity of the statements they’re making, and then none of those things turn out to be true, there are only two possible conclusions to arrive at, that they made an honest mistake, or that they deliberately mislead.
And from my perspective, nothing about the Iraq war fiasco looks like an honest mistake. Let me put it to you this way. Suppose that I were to come into your house one day, and I sat you down and told that if you showed up in some specific alley at a specific time of the night in a very bad neighborhood, you would find $2 million dollars in a briefcase that is yours for the taking. You might believe that was too good to be true and question how I would know this. But I would have been prepared for your protestations, so I would have convened a panel of people that have specific credibility with you, for example, your priest, your mother, and/or your significant other. (In real life, this was the full force of many members of the Bush administration making the case for invasion with all of their ‘expert credibility.’) For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re convinced, and you head out at the appropriate time to pick up the money.
Once there, you find no money, and are instead savagely beaten within an inch of your life by vagrants and gangmembers.
While you’re laid up in the hospital for a few months, my scheme becomes apparent when through various machinations I take advantage of your absence, perhaps by breaking into your house, perhaps by taking your job, perhaps by moving in on your spouse, perhaps by outbidding you on some items we were competing for on e-Bay, whatever. (In real life, this is the part where the war pays off for Bush through winning him re-election and presenting the opportunity to hand out gobs of government cash to unscrupulous contractors that support the GOP.) This is the important part – this is the reason that I (Bush) sent you (the military) to go get the money (invade Iraq) so that I could profit at your expense (win re-election, shore up campaign donors.)
After your three month stay at the hospital, you track me down and ask me what happened. And all I would say to you is this, “I got some bad intelligence, and some mistakes were made.” Then I would scurry off with my spoils and you would never see me again, which is no skin of your back because you actually believed that I didn’t lie to you. Despite the disastrous consquences of my actions for your personal life, for some reason you bought my obvious line of bullsh*t, and now you eagerly await the arrival of the next charlatan to take advantage of your naivety and gullibility.
A war that was started for the economic and political benefit of a handful of wealthy, powerful Americans was sold as a war to preserve national security and global stability, and that is called a lie. It might sound like a conspiracy theory from an Oliver Stone film, but it’s as plain as day that this is what occurred. There are many ways to lie and the Bush administration used them all; by exaggeration (we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud), by ommission (no one ever mentioned that all of the intelligence they were being fed was coming from a completely untrustworthy source that had emotional and financial stakes in Saddam’s removal) and by flat-out just making sh*t up (Saddam was behind the anthrax attacks! These alumnium tubes are definitely for centrifuges! These are pictures of mobile weapons labs that are sure to exist!)
It’s called a Big Lie. From wikipedia: a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
Who cares? Your “perspective” is flat-out wrong.
Or to say it another way: The only one lying here, Levi, is you. It is a lie, to knowingly and deliberately assert that somebody else lied about X, when the factual record – you know, facts, those pesky things always giving you problems – shows that the other person never lied about X.
Same to you. Grow some balls and actually respond to something for a change and maybe I’ll start caring what you have to say.
I’m not sure what you mean. It isn’t as if any of those groups or countries have any ability whatsoever to prevent an American President from doing what he’s decided to do. There were protests all over the world over our decision to invade and I remember the French ambassador to the UN being very skeptical of our case for Iraq, and no one ended up sending anything more than a token amount of troops anyway. America is the biggest kid with the biggest weapons, what do you expect anyone to do about our insistence on making a collosal series of mistakes?
I know that the world has moved on and said as much earlier in the thread. That’s extremely depressing to me and I hope that one day some modicum of justice is administered, but I know that is mostly wishful thinking.
However, the Iraq disaster is still one of the best arguments against conservative credibility and competence and just because the idiots responsible for it aren’t going to jail doesn’t mean I’m not going to throw these failures in your face whenever you make the claim that conservatives are smarter and more ethical than liberals.
*sigh*
Again, for those reading the comments, since Levi won’t accept facts.
Al Quada and Irag so happy together
President Bush giving justification for invading Iraq including their violation of the 1991 cease fire.
Chemical weapons found here and here.
So once again, all Levi has is lies lies and lies.
Oh, and wheels to keep attaching to those goal posts.
Levi, your little taunts are boring and childish and that’s why we’re ignoring them. So go ahead and keep counting whatever it is you’re counting. I’m not impressed and I don’t think anyone else around here gives a sh*t.
You’re hearing what you want to hear, as usual, so you can jump around flailing like a toddler in the desperate hope that someone will acknowledge your intelligence. You’re inability to decipher analogy and metaphor is debilitating.
From now on, I’ll talk real slow, with short words, and treat you like a 4 year old, okay? Oh, but there I go with the analogies again. I’m sure that will sail right over your head. Let me dumb it down for you: you’re a moron and a liar.
Grow some balls and actually respond to something for a change and maybe we’ll start caring what you have to say.
Of course, Levi still keeps to his socialist credibiltiy where ‘plenty’ means ‘zero’ and all those socialists in history, with 100 million dead at their feet weren’t ‘real socialists’.
But hey, he wants MORE government, I guess so we can continue to keep foreign ships out of helping in the gulf and shutting down rescue efforts to check for life jackets.
Government Regulations forced BP into the deep sea. Government regulations are hampering cleanup.
When the President lies to the American people “Part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean,” said Obama, is “because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.” [quote from Charles Krauthammer] Levi supports him, but when Levi’s convinced he was lied to, no amount of facts will change his mind.
But hey, I look at the BP/Obama/Soros cuddlyness as an example of the best way for our democracy to work is to have a competitive private sector working cooperatively with an organized public sector.
So, this is an example of Levi’s dream come true.
TL, exactly.
Bush never claimed that Saddam was involved in 9-11 (a leftie red herring). But it is a fact that Saddam had growing ties with al Qaeda, and harbored al Qaeda refugees from the Afghanistan war, in Iraq. And that he financed much international terrorism.
Bush never claimed that WMD would be found in Iraq for sure. But much of the world intelligence establishment did claim that – including George Tenet, the CIA director of *Bill Clinton* (whom Bush unwisely kept on), and Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Senate *Democrat* who chaired the Intelligence Committee.
And as it turns out, they did find WMD in Iraq that Saddam wasn’t supposed to have – namely chemical weapons – but the New York Times and the left-wing blogs chose not to report it, so naturally Levi is ignorant of it.
We could go on. Bush never promised an immediate domino effect in terms of rainbows and unicorns breaking out everywhere – although, as it turned out, the Iraq war was instrumental in getting Ghaddafi in Libya to give up his WMD programs, and gave hope and encouragement to the pro-democracy forces in Lebanon.
We could go on all day. In 2005-7, I used to write about this topic on GayPatriot endlessly and knew my stuff quite well. I haven’t bothered with it lately; since 2008 I have been more interested in the financial / economic issues facing America.
ILC,
Beleive me I understand with the reasons we liberated Iraq being in the past. Mostly it is google-fu that pulls up the links that Levi refuses to read. Of course the fact that it is the Federal Government that is hampering relief efforts makes the cry for ‘more government’ even more pathetic.
One has to realize that Levi, like Barack Obama, is a pathological liar who, when caught, simply disassociates from reality and lies again.
Obama can do that because of his black skin, which renders him immune to any criticism from or contradiction the liberals with which he’s surrounded himself.
Levi, on the other hand, is a different one. I think it makes obvious that Levi’s parents were rather incompetent, typical liberals, and that Levi doesn’t have a job. Can you imagine an employer putting up with someone like Levi who says one thing, then turns around an hour later and insists that he never said anything of the sort, that you are wrong for misinterpreting him, and that, since he is your moral superior, he is always correct and you are an idiot?
Levi.
Link to these Bush promises or zip up your pie hole:
I see you now wish to replace “he promised” with “from my perspective, he promised.”
Cute. That means that Bush did not actually lie, it is your perspective that has created the lie.
Google: lie. Then Google: idiot.
“From my perspective, he promised X” is, of course, subjectivism. It means the speaker can make up whatever sh*t he wants and not be accountable. Levi isn’t the only one who tries to play under those rules. It’s part of the brave new world created by left-liberal philosophy… just to connect it back to my comment #1, the oil disaster as a case study in left-liberalism.
And we should simply point out that Levi’s perspective is one of a confirmed anti-Bush bigot who refuses to consider any facts that run contrary to his already-established opinion.
#48: “And Hayek’s _Road to Serfdom_ is number 2, at the moment. (Atlas at 19) That is astounding. These two books are over 50 years old! and not even that well written!”
Has there been any movement in the sales rankings of George Orwell’s books? Now that BP has been shamed into handing over $20 billion to be placed under the control of Obama’s “Pay Czar,” I would assume that the Administration’s audacity in referring to the money as “the independent fund” would lead to a dramatic surge the sale of Orwell’s work as well.
What’s funny is that Obama *didn’t* demand that Freddie and Fannie, which are state-sanctioned enterprises, hand over $20 billion after all the havoc and devastation on the lives of Americans that they have wrought, these past several years.
Well the companies themselves don’t have money, that is part of the problem… but Obama could have gone after the $100 million-plus bonuses that a couple of their top executives took, back in the day. Why hasn’t he?
Obama lied when he said….
1. he wouldn’t rest til he got to the bottom of the Christmas Day bomber fiasco.
2. he wouldn’t rest until he got to the bottom of the Ft Hood massacre fiasco.
3. he wouldn’t rest until every man and woman who wanted a job, had a job.
4. he wouldn’t rest until he plugged the leak.
For a guy who golfs once a week and parties the other days, he’s not accomplishing much while “he’s not resting”.
The solution to fixing the leak is obvious. You take Her Rumpiness, Michelle, dump her in the gulf with some weights. That butt is big enough to seal off the Holland Tunnel.
Didn’t Obama offer to suck up the oil with a straw? We have desperate coastal residents with shop vacs, why not a president and a league of Democrat suckers?
#67 baby got back.
Where’s Levi? (heh)
#67 Is that a new meaning for “butt plug”?
Predictably, you’ve resorted to semantics. I don’t know if Bush ever said these words exactly; “I promise there are WMD in Iraq,” but I know that through his words and his actions, as well as those of his administration, he effectively promised they would be there. You’re picking on my word choice as a diversion. In no way is this an admission by me that ‘promise’ was not the correct word to use here, but would you get focused if I used the word assurances from now on? How about guarantees? Insistences? Have you ever heard of a thesaurus? They’re called synonyms. Funny thing about language – the words don’t matter nearly as much as the ideas.
And the fact of the matter is that the idea that Saddam was a grave threat was drilled into the American public for months with language that was much more forceful and effective than simply muttering “I promise there are WMDs.” Off the top of my head, I can recall the quote from Rumsfeld saying he knew exactly where the weapons were. I recall Colin Powell pointing to places on maps and graphics insisting that there were weapons to be found there. I recall Bush including a line about aluminum tubes in his State of the Union despite protests from his energy department. I recall John McCain saying that Saddam was probably behind the anthrax attacks. I recall Paul Wolfowitz saying the war would cost $1 billion dollars (which would be repaid quickly). I recall Dick Cheney saying the war would take six weeks and that we would be greeted as liberators. And I recall Condoleeza Rice’s line about the smoking gun mushroom cloud. That’s a full court press designed to leave the American people with one conclusion and one conclusion alone, and the inherent credibility that back these individuals’ positions of authority also backs the statements they make. They weren’t putting these statements out there as guesses or estimations or hypotheses, these were presented as exhaustively-researched conclusions, and if anyone greeted them with even a modicum of skepticism (a supposedly conservative value, especially on matters of government) they were mocked and derided and labeled unserious and unpatriotic.
In the abstract, what is the more effective propaganda technique? Bush standing at the podium and saying “I promise that Iraq has WMDs,” or Condi subtly suggesting that everyone you’ve ever known and loved could die in a radioactive hellfire any day now? And again, I must point out the irony of me, the big-government liberal, pointing out to you, the small-government, always mistrustful tea party conservatives, that the corridors of power in this country are filled with overly ambitious people that are terribly incompetent and they will spin any yarn to cover their own hides. I guess that’s only when Democrats are in charge? I think Bush and Obama are both liars – does that make me a better conservative than you?
Additionally, if you want to make any claims to being a consistent debater, you’ll busy yourself over the next few years studiously chasing down the conservative commenters on this website that habitually accuse Obama of being a “liar” and making false “promises.” One of Dan’s favorite pasttimes around here is bringing up Obama’s campaign “promises” of a net spending cut, despite the complete absence of Obama ever saying the words “I promise a net spending cut.”
Have a look:
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2009/04/12/in-campaign-obama-promised-net-spending-cut/
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2009/05/18/wheres-that-net-spending-cut-obama-promised/
And there are far too many cases of conservatives here and elsewhere accusing Obama of lying to catalogue. To read the typical comment here, Obama has been deliberately lying every day of his public life – so put them to the same challenge that you put to me. If Obama is lying about the stimulus bill creating jobs – PROVE IT!! If Obama is lying about the healthcare bill reducing costs – PROVE IT!! Remember, according to the precedent you’ve established with Bush and the Iraq war, Obama can basically say some form of “I got some bad intelligence” or “some mistakes were made” and that’s an argument ender. You can’t accuse him of deliberately lying if he sincerely believed the things he was saying – as per the Bush invading Iraq precedent. By the standards you’re affording me, the conservatives around here are not allowed to use his statements, his track record, or the real world consequences of his policies to prove that he’s a liar, which basically leaves a few forms of divination like ‘gut feelings’ and ‘looking into his eyes through my TV screen.’
Have fun, you have your work cut out for you.