The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Peggy Noonan, Secret Motörhead Fan

Posted on | June 19, 2010 | 32 Comments

by Smitty (via Insty)

The president is starting to look snakebit. He’s starting to look unlucky, like Jimmy Carter. It wasn’t Mr. Carter’s fault that the American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran, but he handled it badly, and suffered. He defied the rule of the King in “Pippin,” the Broadway show of Carter’s era, who spoke of “the rule that every general knows by heart, that it’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart.” Mr. Carter’s opposite was Bill Clinton, on whom fortune smiled with eight years of relative peace and a worldwide economic boom. What misfortune Mr. Clinton experienced he mostly created himself. History didn’t impose it.

So, is ‘snakebit’ a Patriotic Grace deficit? Or could it be that Carter and Obama are fools, wheras Clinton has the benefit of low animal cunning?

But Mr. Obama is starting to look unlucky, and–file this under Mysteries of Leadership–that is dangerous for him because Americans get nervous when they have a snakebit president. They want presidents on whom the sun shines.

I’ll defer to Da Tech Guy or Little Miss Attila for a more serious Roman Catholic read the topic, but this ‘luck’ business is laughable. What was so lucky about Abraham Lincoln? I don’t think that luck plays any more role than that seen in the Alvin Greene candidacy. I do think there is a general cause-effect relationship between moral turpitude and tragedy.

It isn’t Mr. Obama’s fault that an oil rig blew in the Gulf and a gusher resulted.

True. My emphasis follows:

The administration’s failure to take impressive action after the spill dinged its reputation for competence. The president’s failure to turn things around Tuesday night with a speech damaged his reputation as a man whose rhetorical powers are such that he can turn things around with a speech.

Who gives a flying French fornication whether the action impresses anyone, Noonan? Leadership is not about running a godforsaken popularity contest. ‘Words Matter’ Does Not Mean ‘Words Affect Matter’. You simply cannot ‘give good speech’ and then expect the problem to fix itself. You especially cannot appear un-serious by taking vacations and golfing. Now is not the time. In a good leader, such tomfoolery would undermine all of the photo ops and Oval Office speechifying. In the case of BHO, stroking on the course while the oil spreads re-inforces the notion that, other than campaigning and tearing pages out of the Alinsky playbook, he’s useless. Snakebit?
Peggy:

There is still a sense about Mr. Obama that he needs George W. Bush in order to give his presidency full shape and meaning.

The sense about BHO is that he is a two-dimensional idealogue, selling failed ideas with a rhetorical gloss of success. BHO is crossing the threshold where ‘His [country]men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.’ And certainly not out of any sense of self-preservation.

Mr. Obama needs Mr. Bush in the corner and doesn’t have him. That’s part of why he looks so alone out there.

I cannot respond to this portion without sounding completely misogynistic.

And seems so snakebit, so at the mercy of forces. When you’re snakebit you get some sympathy, and some will come.

Here is the sympathy, courtesy of Lemmy, in this case, (you secret fan!):
Peggy:

As for the president, the great question is what you do when you start to feel snakebit.

Resign. Just go. Take crooksAdministration with. Anticipate a full set of pardons–concern over recriminations shouldn’t slow the decision.

I echo Bill Quick:

Listen up, you punked, chumped boobs: We looked at Obama not through your rose colored hallucinations, but through the cold, clear spectacles of reality. None of what he’s done since has surprised us one bit. In fact, many of us, myself included, predicted it even before his coronation by people like you. Yes, it’s nice that after a year and a half of horrible examples, the truth about him is finally beginning to penetrate your skulls. But why, for the love of god, couldn’t you see it at the beginning, when it was no less obvious, but your understanding of it might have done some good?
Actually, never mind. Since Obama’s election will turn out to be the worst thing to happen to the leftist project in America in the past hundred years, and will free a generation from the chains of leftist quackery at just the time such freedom is most sorely needed, I actually thank our lucky stars for useful idiots like you two. Without such, we might have been saddled with John McCain, and that would truly have been a disaster for conservatism, liberty, and America.

I’ll add a rider that the Hayekian lesson to draw from this atrocious administration is that ending the Federal Reserve and repealing the 16th Amendment, if not the 17 Amendment as well, are going to be crucial to breaking the Imperial Fed problem of which BHO is merely symptomatic.
Let’s not overly dignify BHO by thinking him the root cause of either the general Constitutional crisis the country faces, or the energy independence crisis that culminated in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Update: Paco-lanche!

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Category: Barack Obama

Comments

  • http://quite-rightly.blogspot.com/ Quite Rightly

    Excellent, fantastic post!

    Resignation is not too much change to hope for.

    The progressives are starting to get restive. Once they get stirred up, they won’t be as happy to shut up as they’ve been telling the rest of us to be.

  • TR Sterling

    Smitty,
    You wrote a worthy fisking and keeping the focus on BHO is not easy when responding to a column from a self-inflated windbag like Noonan. Thanks
    -TR

  • http://quite-rightly.blogspot.com/ Quite Rightly

    Excellent, fantastic post!

    Resignation is not too much change to hope for.

    The progressives are starting to get restive. Once they get stirred up, they won’t be as happy to shut up as they’ve been telling the rest of us to be.

  • TR Sterling

    Smitty,
    You wrote a worthy fisking and keeping the focus on BHO is not easy when responding to a column from a self-inflated windbag like Noonan. Thanks
    -TR

  • jefferson101

    Go tell it on the mountain! There is no resurrection in this world once you have drunk the Flavor-Aid. Your credibility is no longer worth a flip, and we all know it.

    “I thought Obama was so kewel, but now I see the light?”

    Don’t expect me to ever give any of those who went that route any credibility, ever again.

    Once you are an admitted liar, you are forever suspect, and that goes at least treble for being a dumbazz and expecting the rest of us to forgive you.

    Stupid is as stupid does, and unlike Ignorant, which is curable, Stupid is forever.

  • jefferson101

    Go tell it on the mountain! There is no resurrection in this world once you have drunk the Flavor-Aid. Your credibility is no longer worth a flip, and we all know it.

    “I thought Obama was so kewel, but now I see the light?”

    Don’t expect me to ever give any of those who went that route any credibility, ever again.

    Once you are an admitted liar, you are forever suspect, and that goes at least treble for being a dumbazz and expecting the rest of us to forgive you.

    Stupid is as stupid does, and unlike Ignorant, which is curable, Stupid is forever.

  • Joe

    Can we please ignore the blatherings of Parker, Frum, Ms. Brooks, and Noonan? This Gang of Four do not speak to or for conservatives.

  • Joe

    Can we please ignore the blatherings of Parker, Frum, Ms. Brooks, and Noonan? This Gang of Four do not speak to or for conservatives.

  • Joe

    As for Carter, does Peggy remember (given she worked for Reagan) the postive change that happened after Carter left and Reagan took over? The Iran hostage crisis was just part of it.

    Now it is true Presidents have to rise to the challenges that they are faced with. History defenitely plays a roll. We saw some of that with Churchill as a war time prime minister vs. Churchill as a post war prime minister.

    But let’s face reality, Carter was not merely unlucky. Carter sucked. He sucked as a President. He has sucked as a former President. Even his Habitat for Humanity houses suck (they do, they leak and are all screwed up). I have not been to his Sunday School class, but I suspect that sucks too.

  • Joe

    As for Carter, does Peggy remember (given she worked for Reagan) the postive change that happened after Carter left and Reagan took over? The Iran hostage crisis was just part of it.

    Now it is true Presidents have to rise to the challenges that they are faced with. History defenitely plays a roll. We saw some of that with Churchill as a war time prime minister vs. Churchill as a post war prime minister.

    But let’s face reality, Carter was not merely unlucky. Carter sucked. He sucked as a President. He has sucked as a former President. Even his Habitat for Humanity houses suck (they do, they leak and are all screwed up). I have not been to his Sunday School class, but I suspect that sucks too.

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  • Estragon

    I fully endorse Bill Quick’s take and yours on Barry. I fear Peggy Noonan’s long and painful process of total self-absorption is nearing its final consummation, and we one day soon look to her column and find nothing but a faint aroma of Oil of Olay left.

    As far as repealing the 16th and 17th, sign me up! No true tax reform can ever be achieved while the unapportioned income tax can still return. The Senate was design to represent the interests of the Several States – the House is “The People’s House” under the original design.

    But before we kill off the Fed, wouldn’t it be a good idea to figure out exactly what we are going to replace it with? Who is going to guarantee the availability of currency? Who is going to decide how much needs to be in circulation to avoid both inflation and deflation? What about all the Fed’s functions?

    Because if it is to be replaced by a renamed and restructured entity with very much the same core powers, why not just keep it and enact the changes and reforms? If it is to be replaced by either Congress or an appointee who serves at the pleasure of the President, count me out (after I recover from gasping for breath in paroxysms of laughter, naturally).

  • Estragon

    I fully endorse Bill Quick’s take and yours on Barry. I fear Peggy Noonan’s long and painful process of total self-absorption is nearing its final consummation, and we one day soon look to her column and find nothing but a faint aroma of Oil of Olay left.

    As far as repealing the 16th and 17th, sign me up! No true tax reform can ever be achieved while the unapportioned income tax can still return. The Senate was design to represent the interests of the Several States – the House is “The People’s House” under the original design.

    But before we kill off the Fed, wouldn’t it be a good idea to figure out exactly what we are going to replace it with? Who is going to guarantee the availability of currency? Who is going to decide how much needs to be in circulation to avoid both inflation and deflation? What about all the Fed’s functions?

    Because if it is to be replaced by a renamed and restructured entity with very much the same core powers, why not just keep it and enact the changes and reforms? If it is to be replaced by either Congress or an appointee who serves at the pleasure of the President, count me out (after I recover from gasping for breath in paroxysms of laughter, naturally).

  • http://tigeronpolitics.wordpress.com Ben (The Tiger)

    For a moment there, thought you gents were going to argue for repeal of the 19th Amendment.

    But only Ann Coulter gets to do that.

    Me, I’m enjoying watching the centre-right intellectuals squirm. I’ll never listen to them again — they’ve proven to be ideologically incoherent.

  • http://tigeronpolitics.wordpress.com Ben (The Tiger)

    For a moment there, thought you gents were going to argue for repeal of the 19th Amendment.

    But only Ann Coulter gets to do that.

    Me, I’m enjoying watching the centre-right intellectuals squirm. I’ll never listen to them again — they’ve proven to be ideologically incoherent.

  • Guest

    There is something creepy about ‘intellectuals’ who willfully got down on their knees to stroke the magnificence of a smooth-talking-bad-boy with a Harvard-Inbred degree who while as Illinois State Legislator argued and won his case for killing a human being who survived an initial abortion being performed in A HOSPITAL NAMED AFTER CHRIST!

    Whoever sipped from Obama’s filthy cup of evil Social Justice will face burning in hell on Earth as will their children and their children’s children.

  • Guest

    There is something creepy about ‘intellectuals’ who willfully got down on their knees to stroke the magnificence of a smooth-talking-bad-boy with a Harvard-Inbred degree who while as Illinois State Legislator argued and won his case for killing a human being who survived an initial abortion being performed in A HOSPITAL NAMED AFTER CHRIST!

    Whoever sipped from Obama’s filthy cup of evil Social Justice will face burning in hell on Earth as will their children and their children’s children.

  • molonlabe28

    Great analysis, Smitty.

    I read Peggy’s article (a practice that I have, for the most part, sworn off since the 2008 primaries and general election when Peggy was sounding rather hopey and changey) and found it to be the usual whiny drivel, albeit on an interesting topic (Obama’s twisting int he wind and the oil gusher’s being a metaphor for his Presidency).

    But you dissected it beautifully.

    I also agree with you that Obama will open up the prisons (think: Harold Ford Jr.’s uncle, John, who is doing serious crime on 2 unrelated corruption convicitions) when he is a lame duck.

    My predictions are (and have been for a long time:

    1. The GOP will retake the House this year;

    2. The GOP will either retake the Senate or come within a whisker of doing so this year;

    3. Hillary will quit this year over a pretextual policy issue (e.g. North Korea or Iran) to gear up her campaign efforts for 2012;

    4. Other Democrats will throw their hats into the ring for a shot against Obama in the Democratic primary;

    5. A conservative GOP candidate will win the Presidency in 2012;

    6. The GOP will pick up more House and Senate seats in 2012; and

    7. As a lame duck, Obama will open the prisons by pardoning a massive amount of convicts, including most black politicians who are in prison on corruption charges.

    I concur with Bill Quick that the “independents” who voted for Obama are chumps.

    Many of them are people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and will be making some serious lifestyle changes (a good many involuntary and dictated by mortgage lenders) when the inexorable tax increases and inflation show up on our doorsteps.

    And they thought that the leftist largesse was going to be funded by their bosses.

    Schadenfreude, guys.

  • molonlabe28

    Great analysis, Smitty.

    I read Peggy’s article (a practice that I have, for the most part, sworn off since the 2008 primaries and general election when Peggy was sounding rather hopey and changey) and found it to be the usual whiny drivel, albeit on an interesting topic (Obama’s twisting int he wind and the oil gusher’s being a metaphor for his Presidency).

    But you dissected it beautifully.

    I also agree with you that Obama will open up the prisons (think: Harold Ford Jr.’s uncle, John, who is doing serious crime on 2 unrelated corruption convicitions) when he is a lame duck.

    My predictions are (and have been for a long time:

    1. The GOP will retake the House this year;

    2. The GOP will either retake the Senate or come within a whisker of doing so this year;

    3. Hillary will quit this year over a pretextual policy issue (e.g. North Korea or Iran) to gear up her campaign efforts for 2012;

    4. Other Democrats will throw their hats into the ring for a shot against Obama in the Democratic primary;

    5. A conservative GOP candidate will win the Presidency in 2012;

    6. The GOP will pick up more House and Senate seats in 2012; and

    7. As a lame duck, Obama will open the prisons by pardoning a massive amount of convicts, including most black politicians who are in prison on corruption charges.

    I concur with Bill Quick that the “independents” who voted for Obama are chumps.

    Many of them are people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and will be making some serious lifestyle changes (a good many involuntary and dictated by mortgage lenders) when the inexorable tax increases and inflation show up on our doorsteps.

    And they thought that the leftist largesse was going to be funded by their bosses.

    Schadenfreude, guys.

  • http://dad29.blogspot.com dad29

    I do think there is a general cause-effect relationship between moral turpitude and tragedy.

    Well, yah, you and some old dead whitey named Shakespeare, and an even OLDER dead whitey named Sophocles.

    So. Are you just a racist?

    /snark

  • http://dad29.blogspot.com dad29

    I do think there is a general cause-effect relationship between moral turpitude and tragedy.

    Well, yah, you and some old dead whitey named Shakespeare, and an even OLDER dead whitey named Sophocles.

    So. Are you just a racist?

    /snark

  • RebeccaH

    Oh God. Resignation. Wouldn’t that be a cold drink in the midst of the Sahara?

    But I don’t see the Narcissist-in-Chief ever agreeing to that, or the legacy media agreeing to the final death throes of their own credibility, or the Democratic Party admitting its willful failures.

    As for Noonan, this is too little too late, and not even complete. At the end of this farce, let her eat rotten crow.

  • RebeccaH

    Oh God. Resignation. Wouldn’t that be a cold drink in the midst of the Sahara?

    But I don’t see the Narcissist-in-Chief ever agreeing to that, or the legacy media agreeing to the final death throes of their own credibility, or the Democratic Party admitting its willful failures.

    As for Noonan, this is too little too late, and not even complete. At the end of this farce, let her eat rotten crow.

  • Clavius

    Taking on Peggy Noonan is like shooting fish in a barrel. But good shooting nonetheless.

  • Clavius

    Taking on Peggy Noonan is like shooting fish in a barrel. But good shooting nonetheless.

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  • http://thecampofthesaints.wordpress.com Bob Belvedere

    Masterful!

    I read it while a thunderstorm was passing by, which was quite fitting. You are a Demi-God Of Thunder!

  • http://thecampofthesaints.wordpress.com Bob Belvedere

    Masterful!

    I read it while a thunderstorm was passing by, which was quite fitting. You are a Demi-God Of Thunder!

  • Adobe Walls

    Joe Gibbs said a couple decades ago “You make your own luck”. To a point he was correct.

  • Adobe Walls

    Joe Gibbs said a couple decades ago “You make your own luck”. To a point he was correct.

  • http://warlocketx.wordpress.com Ric Locke

    Repeal the 16th and 17th if you like. Won’t make a dime’s worth of difference.

    As long as the Interstate Commerce Clause stays under the present set of Supreme Court precedents, we’re f*ed.

    Regards,
    Ric

  • http://warlocketx.wordpress.com Ric Locke

    Repeal the 16th and 17th if you like. Won’t make a dime’s worth of difference.

    As long as the Interstate Commerce Clause stays under the present set of Supreme Court precedents, we’re f*ed.

    Regards,
    Ric

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