The Tygrrrr Express is Oklahoma City bound. Tomorrow I am speaking to the National Federation of Republican Women at their winter conference. It is my biggest gig yet, and a humbling honor to be invited.
Before getting to the main event, a couple of quick political notes are in order.
Harry Reid’s wife and daughter have been in a car crash. While I do not agree with his policies, I met him and his wife Landra a few months ago. Landra Reid is one of the loveliest most delightful women I have ever met. She was nice to me even though I was a conservative Republican. They have their golden anniversary coming up, and I hope it is a happy occasion. Joe Biden lost his family to a car crash, and I hope Harry Reid is not put in that same awful position. In a tragic coincidence, Harry Reid and Karl Rove have both had a parent commit suicide. This is another reason why we need to separate policy from politics. We see the power, but we do not see their inner pain.
Yet politic does matter, and today is about President Obama continuing to act like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
Yet in the tradition of Larry King, I am diverting into ridiculous tangents totally unrelated to this topic.
I almost never cover pop culture except to discuss what screwups they are. Today I have to praise Betty White. The 88 year old White will be hosting the May 8th episode of Saturday Night Live. She has the stamina of people half her age, and this gig is not charity. She was hilarious in her Super Bowl commercial this year, and the former Golden Girls actress has new legions of fans. I hope she hosts the show again when she is 100, and that Willard Scott calls her in front of all of us.
Ok, now back to my typical grumpy self.
Barack Obama is a two year old. He attacks people personally. Then they dare to defend themselves. Then the people defending themselves are accused of a lack of decorum. President Obama then piously explain why we all need to dial it down. What he means is that everybody except he should do this.
There is an unwritten law that when an administration leaves power, they should shut up. Sadly, only Republicans ever obey this law anyway, but that is for another time.
President George W. Bush has stayed quiet, dignified to the end. Yet Vice President Dick Cheney and former political consultant Karl Rove have hammered the Obama administration.
Place the blame on Barack Obama. It is also customary for a president to stop campaigning after he wins the election. His constant criticism of the Bush administration gives Cheney and Rove every right to hit back.
If Obama wants Cheney and Rove to stop, then he has to stop. We get it. He doesn’t like his predecessor. We are long past the point for him to shut up and deal. If he keeps it up, they should keep hammering him back.
While going after predecessors with such reckless abandon is strange, attacking the Supreme Court publicly is downright bizarre.
Barack Obama went after the Supreme Court in his State of the Union speech. This is unprecedented. The justices show up to the speech out of politeness. They are guests in his home. You don’t invite guests into your home and publicly insult them.
When President Obama mischaracterized a recent court ruling, Justice Sam Alito whispered “not true.” Alito was blamed for violating decorum. The man was silently muttering and a camera picked it up. Why does Barack Obama get to slander people with impunity? Why shouldn’t Alito correct him? Obama is a president, not a king.
Now Chief Justice John Roberts has stated that he thinks justices attending the politicized annual speech is a waste of time. He is right.
Some will say they should go out of tradition, but perhaps Barack Obama can obey tradition and not lash out at them like a baby wanting his bottle.
(The totally nonpartisan congressional parliamentarian ruled against Mr. Obama recently on an aspect of health care and reconciliation. I wonder if this formerly noncontroversial figure will now be attacked as a right wing hack for doing his job.)
John Roberts is one of the finest legal minds on Earth. He is an intellectual giant. I will say that on legal matters, he is smarter and better informed than Barack Obama. I know the world thinks Obama is a genius, but when was the last time Obama picked up a legal text? It is the height of arrogance to think that he knows more than somebody who analyzes the law every day of his life.
Barack Obama is no dope, but his skills could be rusty as anybody would be after so much time away from the law. John Roberts is in the trenches.
Why should John Roberts spend his valuable time away from dissecting important legal issues that affect our nation to attend some dog and pony show where a toddler president insults him due to a disagreement brought on by the toddler’s ignorance?
The liberal media thinks that all Obama critics are either evil or imbeciles. Obama should be able to lash out with immunity.
That doesn’t cut it. Until he starts treating his opponents with dignity, he deserves the blowback.
John Robert is an adult. Mr. Obama could learn from him about decorum, civility, and the law.
The first lecturer just got lectured to by a better informed man.
Deal with it Mr. Obama. Then knock it off.
eric
So, Obama is a “two year old” who “mischaracterized” the recent SCOTUS decision in Citizens United? How is Obama behaving like a two year old? Because he criticized the decision at the SOTU? 80% of the country agrees with Obama. We are furious. The decision was disgusting and deserving of public criticism. Obama is being a man about it. Roberts is the little two year old that can’t handle the critique. And how has Obama mischaracterized the decidion? No explanation here. Just that it was “mischaracterized.” Well, what’s the mischaracterization?
JMJ
“80% of the country agrees with Obama. We are furious. The decision was disgusting and deserving of public criticism. Obama is being a man about it.”
Why are you sticking up for what is such an obvious looser ?
He critisized the SCOTUS in a forum where it wa upon them to remain seated and be benign and non confrontational.
And the present dck in cheif took advantage of that cirumstance knowing damn well they would and are required to remain seated and quiet.
The guy has no balls and acts like a freaking two year old in the sandbox who just happens to have more sand in his hands at the moment.
=========================================================
Tuesday June 2nd, 2009
Poll: Americans Want Terrorists To Stay At GITMO
A new USA Today/Gallup Poll indicates that Americans want the GITMO detention facility to stay open. This information should give President Obama pause; U.S. national security is more important than the wishes of his left-wing base and the ACLU.
According to USA Today: “In the survey, Americans were inclined to accept the argument by Cheney and former president George W. Bush that the detention center had made the United States safer. By 40%-18%, they said the prison had strengthened national security rather than weakened it. Those who want the prison to remain open feel more strongly on the subject that those who want to close it. A 54% majority of those polled say the prison shouldn’t be closed, and that they’ll be upset if the administration moves forward to close it.”
This poll will undoubtedly upset the liberal media and will most likely be conveniently overlook
80% ????
Where you getting youe BS from ????
HUH ??? Wanna play ?
notchet , huh bub ?
LOL! Micky, you don’t even know why Obama criticized the SCOTUS! This has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with GITMO, man!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1137
JMJ
Chief Justice John Roberts (1), Obama (0). SCOTUS (5), Obama (0).
80% plucked out of the air. Toma (1), Jers (0).
Toma
LOL! Micky, you don’t even know why Obama criticized the SCOTUS! This has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with GITMO, man!”
Well maybe if you made it clear as to what exactly what you were refering to, it would help.
All i know for a fact is that your chknsht president took a cheap pot shot at them while they had no choice but to sit ther and endure his crap,
So what ? I got a campaign financing ruling mixed up with Obamas conflict with the SCOTUS on Gitmo where hes still wrong…bfd
Alitos mouthing/whispering could be applied to just about every piece of crap coming out this CICs yap
toma can put 2 n 2 together… seems like you’re (PC INSERTION) challenged there buddy
Toma, did you read the link? Are you just lying? I mean, guys, c’mon, this has been all over the news! The American people HATE the SCOTUS decision in Citizens United, and their with the president on this.
There are two things that you’d think most decent human beings could agree upon:
Money is not speech.
Corporations are not citizens.
Money is just little paper and coin vouchers. That’s all it is. It has nothing to say about anything. It is not a medium of communication – it is a medium of trade. Otherwise, bribes would be legal!
Corporations are just paper entities. They can’t fight in wars, vote, enforce law, etc. They are just contractual arrangements. To elevate a corporation to the same status a citizen, with all the rights but few of the responsibilities, is insanely sleazy. It will wreck this country. The Citizens United story is the biggest since the war, but it has yet to sink in, partly because the corporate media wants it buried. But November is coming soon…
Think of the NFL contract dispute here. Come this next season, if the owners and players can’t get it together, there’s going to be either a strike or a mass realignment of the NFL players among the teams. Teams with deeper pockets and owners willing to reach them will begin absorbing all the best free agents in the league, leaving small-market teams high and dry. Fans all over middle-America will become outraged and tune the season out. This is what’s going to happen come November with our elections. Once the corporations with deeper pockets and CEO’s willing to reach them start bombarding the airwaves with sleazy ads, once the worst of the worst corporate puppets start raking in the money from these legalized bribes, people are going to become infuriated – and they will blame the GOP. And theyll be right.
Once again, like from 2001-2008, conservatives got what they wished for, and once again they’re going to regret it.
JMJ
Oh, and I’m glad the president went after the SCOTUS at the SOTU. Decorum be damned. The SCOTUS deserved a public scolding. What they did was a legal assault on this country. They should be tarred and feathered for that decision. And the fact that you guys don’t care about this just shows me how much you put your own petty ideology above the interests of your own country. You guys are in a very small minority in this one.
JMJ
Ok, lets get down to basics. Point one, corporations have not been allowed to contribute to political candidates or parties mainly because Democrats did not want them competing with unions. Union are a huge base for Democrats and they must be protected. The SCOTUS decision says that the exclusion of corporations from the political process amounts to a violation of freedom of speech. So now corporation will be allowed to contribute to political candidates and parties only if said corporation is not foreign owned.
This is the nuts and bolts of the decision. It basically levels the playng field between unions and corporations. Personally I don’t think either should be allowed to participate in any way in our political campaigns or the election process. I see it as a huge conflict of interest and the corruption will be at least doubled. We will never be able to clean up union corruption in politics and the Dems will never exclude their union affiliates and power they weild.
The point that corporations are not “people” is folly. I am “people” and I do own a portion of some corporations as do millions of other investors who are also “people”. The problem is investors (people) are free to not invest in corporations that contribute to candidates or parties that they don’t want to support. However, union members (people) do not have that freedom of choice. They are forced to pay dues and support the union in order to keep their jobs. They have no say in who the unions support. So now the Dems hate the decision because their unions don’t have the advantage any more.
The decision is the only decision the SCOTUS could make and be true the Constitution. Whether you or I like the decision or not is irrelevant. The SCOTUS had a job to do and it did it. Will the decision open the door for more corruption? Certainly, but is the nature of the beast we have created called big government. Big corporations and big unions have absolutely no place in the election process. They are a source of big money and with big money come big corruption and abuse of the process is a certainity. If you want to exclude corporations then exclude unions. I believe this is the right thing to do. In addition, money laundering foundations should be excluded from the process also. George Soros should not be allow to contribute billions and create an imbalance that is an unfair advantage to any political campaign. Nor should any group. It instills and solidifies the power of special interest. Campaign contributions should come from “individual citizens” only and limited. Make candidates work for the job they are begging for. Money should not the determining factor in seeking public office. But then I’m just dreaming. Honest and open elections have never happened and probably never will. Money rules the world we live in and that is a fact.
Toma
Oh yeah, I almost forgot.
Jers, I don’t lie. I notice that you throw that word around a lot. I express an opinion. If you disagree then just say so.
Toma
Toma, either you didn’t read my link, or you lied. The 80% is a well result of polls regarding that SCOTUS decision. You were either disingenuous or outright dishonest, because either you invented the idea that the “80% (was) plucked out of the air” without knowing if it was or not, or you did know the 80% is well-established polling data and just chose to lie about it. The only opinions relevent to this particular discourse are that of those polled.
Unions operated pretty much the same as corporations under precious campaign finance law. So, I have no idea what “field” is being leveled here.
And again, I can’t imagine what kind of person would say that a corporation should be treated the as a human being. Can a corporation go to jail? Can it serve in the military? Can it have kids? Does it go to school? Require healthcare? Get real. There’s NOTHING constitutional or even humanly decent about that sleazy, crooked, scummy decision. I’m sorry, but I have to seriously question the moral and ethical integrity of supporters of this. So would 80% of the country.
JMJ
Ok Jers. No I didn’t read your link. I’m not interested in you link. I’m not interested in polls. Polls are skewed to support what ever. I didn’t say I supported the decision so you can take back the name calling. And 80% of the people agree. There read my link.
Unions can serve in the military? Unions can have kids? Unions can go to school? get real.
Jers the bantering is over. You will never understand.
Toma
Toma, I’m glad you disagree with the decision, but I think your grasp of the issue is tenuous at best.
Unions have always had to follow the same rules as any other NPO. So, as with my link, are you just making things up as you go along?
Try to understand this: unions have NEVER been unlimited political campaign partisipation and donations. Get it?
And look, you can’t really compare NPOs to FPOs. An NPO exists to pursue an agenda. And FPO exists to make a profit. An NPO receives donations, membership fees or dues, with the explicit understanding that it will spend that money on it’s agenda. An FPO makes money for profit. Those who work for an NPO, are members of it or donators to it, understand that their money is being used to pursue an agenda. Those who purchase products or services from or work for an FPO have no such understanding. You’re comparing apples and oranges. Unions are more like the NRA or AARP, not ADM and Prudential.
Just the same, THIS SCOTUS ruling does EXACTLY what you don’t want! It CREATES what you mistakenly believe used to be. It gives unions the same rights as you and I – as actual American citizens. I don’t want that either! I’m a pro-labor kinda guy, but that doesn’t mean I want non-human entities to have the same rights as real live human beings!
JMJ
JMJ;
“Money is not speech.”
Tell you what then.
I’ll buy into and agree with that as soon as you and you athiest moonbat buddies stop b*tching about the”god” references on our currency.
kay?
I don’t recall ever saying anything about God on money. Heck, I think it’s funny. Reminds me of the DK’s “In God We Trust Inc.” Sure, I don’t care for references to religion from the government, but I don’t recall complaining about that specific issue, myself. Remember too, it isn’t just atheists who don’t like the references to religion from the government – it’s Jehovah Witnesses and other minority faiths as well. And that’s what really gets to the heart of a lot of church/state issues: conflicting religious beliefs. Atheists don’t have any conflicting beliefs in that arena. We think it’s all silliness.
JMJ
Get a grip you guys! Maybe we should take a look at WHEN, and in response to WHAT, the comment was made. The justice said, “Not true,” immediately after the President ranted about how the SCOTUS decision would allow foreign corporations to contribute to political campaigns in the USA. The president was dead wrong in his comment and the justice was correct. Nothing in the SCOTUS decision would overturn the current rules barring foreign agencies, corporations, or people, from contributing to US campaigns. Public opinion is irrelevant here; it is a clear matter of the law, which has not changed in many years. The president, who bills himself as a former Constitutional Law instructor at the college level, made a blatantly false statement, and the Justice, who appeared surprised by the ignorance of the law implicit in his statement, spontaneously called him on it, albeit doing so privately (the fact that he happened to get caught by a news camera notwithstanding). After all, he COULD have stood up and yelled out, “You Lie!” THEN he would have been socially inappropriate (although still legally correct).