Category: Barack Obama

FINAL 2012 DEBATE: ‘FOREIGNERS’

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UPDATE 11:09 p.m. ET: Well, I’ve got to write something longer than 140 characters for the American Spectator tomorrow, so I’ll leave you with this:

A couple of hours until deadline. I need more coffee.

UPDATE 10:33 p.m. ET: Really, I don’t hate foreigners. I just hate listening to debates about foreigners.

Did Obama win this one? If you like Obama (and hate America), yeah, it was a walkover. I’m watching the MSNBC after-show, BTW.

UPDATE 10:12 p.m. ET: Forgive me for not doing more original blog content during this debate. My 19-year-old son got in a car wreck (he’s OK, and it wasn’t his fault), which meant my wife had to go to the hospital, so I had to fix my own chicken nuggets for dinner. Anyway, he’s more snark from my Twitter feed:

When I’m ambassador to Vanuatu, I’ll never have to fix my own chicken nuggets. Or blog presidential debates, for that matter.

UPDATE 9:52 p.m. ET: More snark:

We’re somewhere near the halfway mark and, unless I’m mistaken, Obama’s losing the debate with his arrogant college-professor act, lecturing Americans as if we were a bunch of idiots.

UPDATE 9:40 p.m. ET: Some of my Twitter snark:

Why? Because I’m too lazy to write it twice, that’s why.

UPDATE 9:22 p.m. ET: Obama just boasted of his “steady, thoughtful leadership.” Ambassador Stevens could not be reached for comment.

UPDATE 9:18 p.m. ET: You see how hard Obama is straining to pretend that he’s an expert, and Mitt’s a clueless moron.

UPDATE 9:12 p.m. ET: Obama lays out the Howard Dean/Michael Moore/Roseanne Barr critique of Bush-era foreign policy. As if it were relevant.

UPDATE 9:10 p.m. ET: Mitt aims his words specifically at the “Muslim world” and “jihadists.” Specificity has been lacking lately, eh?

UPDATE 9:08 p.m. ET: Obama wants to “make friends around the world.” And … how’s that workin’ out for ya, buddy?

UPDATE 9:05 p.m. ET: First question: “What would you do about the crisis in Vanuatu?”

No, just kidding. It’s Libya, of course.

EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .

* * * PREVIOUSLY (8:30 p.m. ET) * * *

Thank God, tonight’s debate is the last of this presidential campaign. Republicans endured 20 debates during the primary campaign, and we’re ready to stop debating and start stabbing out Chris Matthews’ eyeballs with sharp sticks voting.

So, yeah, I’ll be liveblogging, kinda, and also snarking it up on Twitter. I’m sure VodkaPundit will be drunkblogging. And our good friends at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity will have a livestream at their Watchdog.Org site.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has highlights of Bob Schieffer’s most biased debate moments. I actually kind of like Schieffer, who is a liberal, but an old-fashioned kind of liberal, as opposed to these smart-alecky Ezra Klein types. The debate starts at 9 p.m. ET, and I’ll be watching the MSNBC post-debate show, because I’m still able to resist the stab-his-eyeballs-out urge toward Chris Matthews.

Just barely, though.

UPDATE II: Here’s the thing: I hate discussions of foreign policy.

Hate it. Because foreign policy is really simple, yet the intellectuals and “experts” get paid to pretend we need their advice. This is all just expert rent-seeking, you see.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Americans and foreigners. And there are three kinds of foreigners:

  1. Enemies who want to kill us;
  2. Allies who want to help us kill our enemies; and
  3. A bunch of irrelevant people who don’t really need a “policy.”

Simple, as I say, and once you’ve got the basics of who’s who figured out, everything else is obvious. Yet there are “specialists” with advanced degrees from prestigious universities who need jobs telling us what to think, and I get so tired of hearing these know-it-alls, I want to stab out their eyeballs with sharp sticks.

Is The Post-Debate Benghazi Discussion Playing Into Obama’s Hands?
UPDATE: Krauthammer Snookered?

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by Smitty

Given a non-optimal event, or, as real people would call it, tragic failure, controlling the spin is crucial. Benghazi certainly qualifies. And the spin after the second Presidential debate is doing a fine job of keeping the discussion manageable for the Administration, if not where they want it.

Neo-Neocon gives a detailed overview of the Rose Garden remarks of 12Sep2012, concluding:

Obama’s Rose Garden speech was carefully written to make sure the President sounded as though he may have been hinting at quite a few things that he’s not really saying, in order to keep all his options open later.

Not bad. And how was Candy cued about the importance of those 12Sep2012 remarks? Axelrod told her on 30Sep2012, that’s how. Which is why Red Diaper David gets paid the big bucks. Also, CNN admits its complicity in supporting Obama during the debate. But that’s in character.

The real issue here is why the Administration is successfully focusing all eyes on words that were spoken on 12Sep2012, and debate verbiage on 16Oct2012. These are certainly interesting, but peripheral. What we need to know is: where was the security that any reasonable person would require in Benghazi, leading up to and on 11Sep2012?

We’re not going to get answers to any hahrd questions, of course. There are too many legitimate issues of classified information, too many illegitimate issues of covering backsides, too many international implications of where the truth could lead, too many sycophants still wanting to drag #OccupyResoluteDesk across the finish line next month ahead of Romney. Fine.

What is the purpose of having a blog if you can’t point a finger and call: NONSENSE when you see it?

via: Insta–pundit.

Update: great roundup over at Nice Deb

Update II: does anybody not see that ‘Not Optimal‘ is just another calculated distraction? BHO hates you, he hates your liberty, and he thinks you’re stupid. He knows he’s toast if there is a real focus on the facts of Benghazi, and so he offers smoke screens. #Choom

Update III: alas, the CIA may not be keeping time with the White House drum:

The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month’s deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.
It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went.

I’ve been impressed in the first two debates at Romney’s capacity to push his argument exactly as far as he wants to, despite the moderator, and then comfortably resume his stance. Despite running in sand, Romney still conjures the piano music.

Update IV: A very detailed breakdown at Perfect Under a Red Umbrella. Again, beware efforts to run out the clock, and mire the discussion in minutia. Ultimately, this Administration has been nothing other than a pack of thugs.
More at Stacy on the Right.

Update V: via Insty again, I submit that Krauthammer is going for the bait here:

Missed by Romney, missed by the audience, missed by most of the commentariat, it was the biggest gaffe of the entire debate cycle: Substituting unctuousness for argument, Obama declared himself offended by the suggestion that anyone in his administration, including the U.N. ambassador, would “mislead” the country on Libya.

Nobody is missing it. We’re chewing on the fine print now. Romney knew he’d made his point, and left it there. BHO wins if he can reduce the conversation to finger pointing–President wins in ties–and distract from the broader question of his leadership vacuum.

Update VI: linked at Jackie Wellfonder.

 

Those Wanting Obama Impeached Should Understand. . .

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by Smitty

I knew as I watched the debate that the Benghazi question was the climax. This ad compiles the details of the Presidential prevarication nicely:

What Romney did there was prosecute the Benghazi case for Stevens, Smith, Doherty and Woods. And he did it in the court of public opinion. And he was halted in his effort by a lousy sycophant of a moderator.

That’s all you’re going to get. There is no way under the sun, even if Dingy Harry were removed, that the precedent for turning the end of a Presidency into a legal probe is going to happen. You don’t want that precedent. Even for #OccupyResoluteDesk, who is hopefully the most atrocious piece of work this country ever suffers.

So, enjoy that ~20 seconds, and keep that in mind in just over a fortnight, when you get to cast your portion of the judgement on this sad little tool.

via Breitbart

#ObamaGoogleHistory What Is My Current Abuse Level At http://theothermccain.com

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by Smitty

This hash tag game had its origins in this:

Slightly strange, this game. I’ve had a lot of love for this tweet:

Yet not so much for this one:

And who doesn’t dig a Harry Reid riff?

GALLUP: ROMNEY 52, OBAMA 45 — Let the Great 2012 Liberal Freak-Out Begin!

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They convinced themselves that Obama “won” Tuesday’s debate, but Romney actually gains in the first Gallup national tracking poll with post-debate reaction? Oh, boy.

UPDATE: Ace explains what happened:

 The debate was not a victory for Obama. It was a confirmation of Romney’s acceptability, plausibility, and fitness for office.

Yesterday, Sully admitted he had been “on the ledge”:

Guess what?

UPDATE II: Ed Morrissey points out that these latest numbers indicate that neither of the past two debates helped Obama among likely voters.

 




 

RECENTLY:

Virginia Town’s Airport Is Collateral Damage in Obama’s ‘War on Coal’

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“The front page of Thursday’s Washington Times features a story about how the Obama administration’s ‘war on coal’ has thwarted plans by the tiny Appalachian town of Grundy to expand its airport. The hostile regulatory climate imposed by the president’s environmental agenda has been a steady theme of Romney’s stump speeches. The coal issue also resonates in Ohio, as well as Pennsylvania, which RCP likewise counts as a battleground state. Coal-industry advocates in Grundy are planning a rally Sunday, and their story could help dramatize the economic costs of the administration’s anti-coal policies.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Obama’s Hope Fades in Virginia,” The American Spectator, Oct. 18, 2012

The population of Grundy, Virginia, is 1,105. It is the county seat of Buchanan County, population 23,581, where the median household income is $29,183, far below the U.S. median average of $51,914. This community, about 10 miles from the Kentucky border and 15 miles from the West Virginia state line, is quite obviously in need of economic growth — so why is the Obama administration standing in the way?

Officials from two Southwestern Virginia counties say a project vital to the area’s economic development has been held up for years because of a dispute with federal regulators over what is an airport and what is a coal mine.
Local leaders say the three-year battle with the U.S. Office of Surface Mining over plans to extend the runway at Grundy Municipal Airport has cost taxpayers in this poverty-stricken corner of Appalachia millions of dollars in lost opportunities, and a list of regulatory hurdles remains before construction can even begin.
“We were attempting to permit this project as an airport project, not a coal-mining project,” said state Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, a Democrat from Lebanon who has been involved for three years with the effort to lengthen the runway from 2,200 feet to more than 5,000 feet — the length needed to comply with insurance standards for corporate jets. The holdup: Federal regulators have refused to allow the runway project to go forward without a mining permit because of the coal deposits below the land that will be dug up during construction.
“That’s where the permitting process got caught up — in determining whether it was an airport project or a mining project, by the Office of Surface Mining in Washington,” Mr. Puckett said. “We’ve tried to resolve that with them for the last couple of years. We’ve had very little success.”
Regulators contend that a mining permit is needed because local authorities plan to sell the coal dug up in extending the runway to help finance the overall project. . . .

Read the whole thing at the Washington Times. People everywhere should be outraged by this: A poor Appalachian town’s best prospect for promoting economic development held up for three years because the radical environmentalists appointed by President Obama are determined to destroy the coal industry. (See my Oct. 8 column, “Counting on Coal Country,” for more background on Obama’s “war on coal.”)

The federal Office of Surface Mining might as well be re-named the Office of Abolishing Surface Mining under Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar who, as Michelle Malkin has detailed at length, is a top enforcer of Obama’s environmental agenda.

Grundy is 53 miles from I-81, but it’s a winding two-lane mountain road so it takes an hour and a half to drive it, which tends to discourage potential business investors from visiting the town. If the town could extend its airport runway, executives could fly in and out, and light commercial aviation might even help promote tourism. (“Ski Grundy,” perhaps?) But no — the project would involve coal mining, and the Fanatic-in-Chief at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is beholden to tree-hugging freaks, so he cheerfuly pisses away millions of taxpayer dollars on bankrupt “green energy” boondoggles, while his bureaucrats crush hope for the people of Grundy.

In the War on Coal – It’s Grundy vs. Obama
— Matt Vespa, Hot Air Greenroom

Why Does Obama Hate Coal Miners And Appalachia?
— The Lonely Conservative

Grundy will have a rally Sunday to show “support for American coal jobs and the people who work in our industry.”

If the Romney campaign would grab hold of this issue, they could make America understand how Obama’s “war on coal” is hurting real people and hindering economic recovery.

 


Military Endorsements Aren’t Decisive. That Said: WOW!

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by Smitty

In deference to #OccupyResoluteDesk, he has half a dozen military endorsements:

Name Note
Wesley Clark, four star General (Ret), former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO, 2004 presidential candidate Tool.
Richard Danzig, former Secretary of the Navy Not a proper veteran, but we can’t get to ‘half a dozen’ without some sort of shenanigans. Also, really competent, would make a good SECDEF while the country sinks, should BHO achieve re-election.
Paul Eaton, Major General (Ret) Got nothin’.
Donald J. Gutter, retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, current Dean, Duquesne University School of Law, Pittsburgh JAGs: whattayagonnado?
Michael D. Lumpkin Wikipedia page says: Commander, Captain (O-6) select. As he was a SEAL, we’ll omit the standard mockery for hedging the yes/no question: Did you get paid?
John B. Nathman, retired U.S. Navy Admiral, co-chair of the campaign THAT Nathman.

Just to avoid looking too, let us say, Crowley-esque in my bias, I drop Mitt’s endorsements below the fold:

Continue reading Military Endorsements Aren’t Decisive. That Said: WOW! →