Obamability: He Jist So Tech Savvy!

"Obama mounted the steps of the Capitol not merely with the wind at his back but surfing a tidal wave of goodwill: an astonishing 83 percent approval rating for the handling of his transition."

He almost has the Oval Office telephone down pat!

They're Poor Winners, Too

They're Poor Winners, Too

Leftists are always lecturing Republicans and conservatives on the importance of civility and bipartisanship yet revealing, whether winner or losing, that they are the ones who need lessons in manners and collegiality.

If you aren't convinced of the left's nonpareil arrogance and nastiness from observing their behavior toward President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the past eight years, then contrast the behavior of Mr. Bush's staff leaving office and that of Mr. Clinton's, who literally trashed the White House like juvenile delinquents.

Fast-forwarding to this week, did you see Obama supporters booing President Bush at the inauguration, singing, "Na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye"? Pure class.

The Washington Times reported that these same Obama supporters mocked Mr. Cheney "with derisive laughter when he appeared on huge TV screens by the Capitol grounds, rolling down a ramp in a wheelchair after suffering a back injury moving out of his Naval Observatory home. 'Good riddance!' one man yelled."

Nor was it just rude mobs at the parade. "Hardball" host Chris Matthews wasn't content to bask in his euphoria over Obama's assumption of office. Like many of his colleagues, he needed to kick Bush as he was going out the door. "There'll be no more bullying of the world, no more acting like one of the bad guys on occasion. We're going to try again to be the good guy of the world and to get along with our fellow democracies. It is a dramatic change that's to come." Dramatic, indeed, Chris.

more...

http://townhall.com/Columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2009/01/23/theyre_poor_winners,_too

God Bless President George W. Bush

Downed Jet Lifted From Ice-Laden Hudson River

Downed Jet Lifted From Ice-Laden Hudson River
AP

The airliner that was piloted to a safe emergency landing in the Hudson River was hoisted from the ice-laden current and placed on a barge, and its two "black box" data recorders were sent to investigators in Washington.

Emergency workers swarmed around the barge and its battered cargo — moored next to a seawall just a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center site — on Sunday morning as federal aviation investigators met in a downtown hotel.

The aircraft was slowly lifted from the frigid water at the southern tip of Manhattan late Saturday, exposing its shredded underbelly that dropped pieces of metal as a crane maneuvered it in the darkness. There was no immediate announcement where the barge would be taken or when it would be moved.

Although the area was barricaded, the spectacle attracted dozens of Sunday morning strollers and tourists snapping pictures of the wreckage in gently falling snow.

US Airways Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, speaking to National Transportation Safety Board investigators Saturday for the first time, said he made a split-second decision to put the airliner down in the river rather than risk a "catastrophic" crash in a populated area of New York City or New Jersey after a collision with birds shut down both engines.

more...

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/jan/17/ntsb-right-engine-still-attached-miracle-flight/

This should be a lesson to King Obama: empty suits don't count--experience, humility, and competence do.

Sun-Times: Journalists Being Shut Out by Obama

Sun-Times: Journalists Being Shut Out by Obama
By Warner Todd Huston

One has a sinking suspicion that the press is allowing itself to become Obama's lapdog extraordinaire.

According to Sun-Times columnist and long-time Chicago journalist, Carol Marin, journalists at Barack Obama news conferences have come to realize that Obama has pre-picked those journalists whom he will allow to ask him questions at the conference and many of them now "don't even bother raising" their hands to be called upon.

One wonders why journalists are allowing this corralling of the press? Would they have allowed George W. Bush to pre-pick journalists like that? Would they meekly sit by and allow themselves to be systematically ignored, their freedom to ask questions silenced by any Republican? Would journalists so eagerly vie with one another for the favor of Bush like they are Obama's?

more...

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2009/01/12/sun-times-journalists-shut-out-obama

Another Lincoln?

Another Lincoln?
By Michael Gabor

It is comforting to know that, in these times of economic distress and financial belt-tightening, the first tangible product of the Obama administration is a brand new Presidential Limousine.

It does prove there is at least one difference between Obama and Lincoln, although purists would argue that limousines weren’t available in 1861, and it remains to be seen whether a stove-top hat will make an appearance on Inauguration Day. Otherwise, the scheduled Lincoln inaugural train ride from Philadelphia to Washington, the Lincoln Bible, the Gettysburg Address-inspired inaugural theme, the Lincoln 2.0 Inaugural Ball, and the Lincoln lunch menu serve as ample proof that we have blessed ourselves with, dare we say it, another Lincoln.

Not so fast. Lincoln was known for his humility, lack of pretension, and self-deprecation. Obama can only be characterized as grandiose. If Obama wants to be the 21st century version of Lincoln, he’s not allowed to try so hard making the case. Let we the people decide how he rates on the Lincoln scale after at least a day or two in the Oval Office.

more...

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/another_lincoln.html

It's hysterical that this smoking emblem of the Left should choose to paint himself as a latter-day Abe Lincoln: America's first Republican president LOL! How presumptuous can you get? This guy has done nothing--and has been led every Sunday for the last 20 years--by the most virulently hostile and racist preacher imaginable. Not very Lincoln-like.

Obama wants the greatness of Abe without doing the hard work, or having the principles of Abe. Gooodness what a mess he is! What a graceless, undignified, usurped presentation that flies in the face of Lincoln's humble, self-effacing attitudes.

Barack is nothing but a kid playing dress-up... always wanting to be first in line, teacher's pet. He thinks he can BE our 'black' Abraham Lincoln simply by employing the trappings, words, and keepsakes from that era. He has none of the needed substance.

Commissioning of USS GHW Bush Has Special Meaning to GW Bush

Commissioning of USS GHW Bush Has Special Meaning to GW Bush
By Richard Dunham

To President George W. Bush, today's ceremony commissioning an aircraft carrier named for his father is the emotional culmination of a turbulent eight years in office.

"He is a remarkably humble man, which is a rarity in this line of work,'' the current president told the Houston Chronicle on Friday. ``And he's full of grace -- it's been a beautiful thing to behold.''

Ten days before leaving office, the president known as Bush 43 got intensely personal when talking about his father, the man known around the White House as Bush 41.

"He taught me that you can come into politics with a set of values and leave with the same set of values,'' the younger President Bush said. "In other words, he just wasn't father in name, he was father in love, and in the depth of his affection for mom and our family.''

The outgoing president said that he knows how much the carrier commissioning means to his father.

"There's a couple of things that are going to keep him young,'' he said of his 86-year-old dad. "One is the carrier and the anticipation of the moment, (the other is) me getting out of the presidency.''

President Bush and his sister, Doro Koch, are both scheduled to make remarks at the event in Norfolk, Va.

"Obviously, it's an honor to participate and to share in that experience,'' the president told the Chronicle. "The biggest honor will be to be on the platform and watch this good man be honored.''

http://blogs.chron.com/txpotomac/2009/01/chronicle_interview_commission.html

Obama couldn't even dream up such gracious, heartfelt words about any of his family members (most of whom are laying under his bus) as GWB has about his father. Read it and take a lesson, Lefty-Loos.

U.S. Woman Deserter Ordered to Leave Canada

U.S. Woman Deserter Ordered to Leave Canada
By Paola Loriggio

The first female U.S. Iraq war resister to seek refuge in Canada has been ordered to leave the country before the end of the month or face deportation.

Kimberley Rivera, who served in Iraq in 2006 and fled to Canada in 2007 after refusing redeployment, was told this morning she has until Jan. 27 to return to the U.S., said Michelle Rubidoux of the War Resisters Support Campaign."It's ridiculous," said Rubidoux, who accompanied Rivera to her hearing at the Greater Toronto Enforcement Centre on Airport Road.

The decision will force Rivera to uproot her family – her husband Mario and their three children, including their newborn daughter, six-week-old Katie – from their Toronto home. In the U.S., she would also face jail, as desertion is considered a felony.

Coming to Canada began a new chapter filled with opportunities and hope for my family," Rivera said in a statement released before this morning's decision. "I am just glad I get to be a mom again."

Lee Zaslofsky, a spokesperson for the war resisters group, criticized the government's track record of deporting Iraq war resisters."During the last election campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper acknowledged the Iraq war was 'absolutely an error'," Zaslofsky said in a statement.

"He should support the troops who came to the same conclusion, rather than sending them and their families back to the U.S. to be punished."

Roughly 200 American war resisters are believed to be living in Canada at this time. A handful have been ordered to leave, and await court rulings to determine whether they can appeal the orders.

In July 2008, Robin Long, another soldier who fled the U.S. to avoid fighting in Iraq, was kicked out of Canada and is now serving a 15-month prison term in California.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/562982

Life in the Clown-Car Fast Lane

Life in the Clown-Car Fast Lane
By David Kahane

And the party has not even started yet!

Can you believe it? Barack Hussein Obama II hasn’t even been inaugurated yet and he’s already been interviewed by federal prosecutors in the ongoing Blago mess; he’s seen Bill Richardson immolate himself rather than stand the federal grand-jury scrutiny that would have come with his appointment as Commerce Secretary; his boy Rahm Emanuel is both en pointe, having resigned the House seat that was previously warmed by Hot Rod and Dan Rostenkowski, and, apparently, on Patrick Fitzgerald’s tapes too; and he’s facing the prospect of the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, standing like a homunculus George Wallace in the schoolhouse door, ready to deny entrance to a black man when Roland “We Are the Senator” Burris tries to take Bambi’s hardly-even-used seat tomorrow.

And here we Democrats thought the Clinton administration could never be topped!

You people had better get used to it, though, because hijinks and shenanigans like these are going to be the order of the day for at least the next four years. After all, we are the Tammany Party — the party of Slavery, Segregation, Sedition, and Surrender — so this sort of thing is not exactly new for us. Just look at our track record: We rightfully opposed the tyrant Lincoln with a loser general running on an antiwar platform, we perfected defensive election theft with Boss Tweed to save us from the plutocrats and goo-goos, and we formed an unholy alliance with gangland to get Franklin D. Roosevelt the Democratic nod over Al Smith at our convention in (where else?) Chicago in 1932.

We are the party of Barack Obama and the Daley Machine; the party of the Clintons and their amazing alchemistic Library, which turns Saudi dross into altruistic gold; the party of Tony Rezko and Norman Hsu; the party of vaporizing fundraisers, absconding bagmen and sitting New Mexico governors (and a recent presidential “candidate”) currently under federal investigation for allegedly steering a state contract in the direction of one of his big backers, David Rubin of CDR Financial Products in Beverly Hills. Now comes word that Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state-designate, Congress and the Emoluments Clause willing, got millions of dollars for a mall in Syracuse shortly after the developer coughed up a hundred grand for the Bill Clinton “Foundation.” That’s what I call commerce!

We are also the party of Charlie Rangel, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who’s currently under “investigation” by the House “Ethics” Committee for a myriad of dubious practices, including using campaign contributions to pay his parking tickets.

more...

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTA1MDY0MGE0ZmM4NjM3YmMxOTcwZGMxMDgwYzhmMjg=

The Honeymoon: Over Before It Began

The Honeymoon: Over Before It Began!
By John Hinderaker--Power Line

Many liberals have what strikes me as a touching faith that the election of Barack Obama will cause America to be better loved by people around the world, including those who are ideologically hostile to the United States. They take seriously the idea that the fact that George Bush is hated in some precincts, and his likeness is a staple of anti-American demonstrations, tells us something about Bush rather than about the people who dislike our country.

So I confess to some satisfaction in seeing Obama's likeness paraded at a hate rally in Jakarta, along with those of Mubarak and Olmert. The protesters were blaming Obama for Israel's attack on Hamas, when he hasn't even been inaugurated yet!

Note the cigarette; a nice touch, I think! Many liberals enjoyed the disgusting attacks on President Bush by anti-American critics around the world. It will be interesting to see how they react when Obama is the target.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/01/022468.php

Evolution of 'Chicago Man'

Israel's Actions in Gaza are an Act of Self-Defence

RJC Responds to Poll Showing Sharp Division Between Democrats and Republicans on Gaza Action

RJC Responds to Poll Showing Sharp Division Between Democrats and Republicans on Gaza Action

By Republican Jewish Coalition

Majority of Democrats oppose Israeli self-defense actions in Gaza; Nearly two-thirds of Republicans support it.

Washington, D.C. (January 2, 2009) -- The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) released a statement today in response to a Rasmussen poll of American opinions of the Israel-Hamas conflict, which showed a majority of Democrats opposed to Israel's defensive actions in Gaza while nearly two-thirds of Republicans supported Israel's actions. RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said:

The latest Rasmussen poll (conducted December 30, 2008*) highlights the continuing deep division between rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans regarding support for Israel's right to defend herself. As Israel takes military action to defend herself from the continuous assault of rockets and mortars coming from Hamas-controlled Gaza, that divide is especially note-worthy.

The Rasmussen poll shows that there is a huge split between Democrats and Republicans on whether Israel should have undertaken the current military action against Hamas. Democrats opposed the Israeli action 31%-55% and Republicans supported Israel's course of action 62%-27%.

This is not an isolated instance. We saw a similar split between Democrats and Republicans when Israel fought Hezbollah forces in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in late July 2006 showed that among Republicans, an overwhelming 84% said they sympathized more with Israel (1% sympathized more with Arab states); by comparison, just 43% of Democrats did so (12% sympathize more with Arab states).

In a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll at the very end of July, when asked whether the U.S. should be more neutral in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah or whether the U.S. should align itself with Israel, Democrats supported neutrality over alignment, 54% to 39%. However, by comparison, Republicans strongly supported alignment with the Jewish state, 64% to 29%.

While we are pleased that many Democratic congressional leaders have offered their unqualified support of Israel, the fact that an overwhelming majority of Democrats at the grassroots level oppose Israel's self-defensive action is troubling and a cause for concern in the Jewish community.

We hope that going forward, pro-Israel Democratic congressional leaders and advocacy groups such as the National Jewish Democratic Council will redouble their efforts to educate grassroots Democrats and build greater support for Israel's right of self-defense.

The Dilemma

The Dilemma

By Donal/VerityINK

Today, I finally got it about the Jews. My mental disconnect ended and I realized their eternal dilemma. I mean, these people have been beset with various nations and groups trying to assassinate them for centuries. And, now, they are being pushed to the edge of having to guard their own survival (no less because no one else will).

However, they do not want to be genocidal themselves. It's abhorrent to them; they are too moral a people--and it's not just a matter of it having been done continually to them that they eschew it.

I finally understand because I am at the point where I am done. My tolerance is gone. I hate the Palestinians/muslim terrorists and wish they were off the earth--and I am so far gone it is only in some moments that I feel badly about this. I can just imagine how the Israelis feel. Living next door to people who want nothing more than their death--calling them apes and pigs--living down the street from an Iranian madman who says he wants the bomb to do it with even more dispatch...

Then, the Jews, thinking of Hitler--and having him forever imprinted on their collective memory and wanting SO badly to never be equated with him--and, yet, having to make sure they endure and that maybe they cannot do that without taking out a large swath of their enemies (who insist on hiding behind their own civilian people). That conundrum is surely the definition of hell: to be genocidal or be exterminated yourself.

You see, I've never quite understood why Israel has not done more to defend itself (though I do understand the United States has had a hand in this, wanting 'stability' in the middle east... and world opinion has never cared one whit for Israel and militates heavily against their own self-defense.) Instead, I think this forever-dilemma has as much to do with it.

Fortunately, Ahmadinejad may make the question moot (and the mullahs, understanding where his insanity may take them, might be what is making him unpopular, at times, in Iran). He is playing a fools game because, of all the people on earth that would be willing to believe someone is really trying to kill them, it would be the Jews. Ahmadinejad does not understand this; they are quite serious, and one bad move on his part will give them the justification they currently may not feel they have.

They've had it for years.

Pardon me for appearing to speak for a people, perhaps assuming without first asking (or being off base entirely); these are only my mental ruminations this morning.

P.S. I wrote this last year and decided to reprint this today as world happenings seem--again--to make it particularly relevant.

Fitzgerald: Israel to Gaza: Just Leave Us Alone

Fitzgerald: Israel to Gaza: Just Leave Us Alone
By Hugh Fitgerald

Israel, of course, is forced to fight with one hand tied behind its back -- tied by the so-called "international community" that puts enormous pressure upon it, and even convinces the weak-minded in the American government to join in, when the Israeli goal is actually quite simple and straightforward.

That goal is to stop the sending of thousands of rockets indiscriminately (or discriminately, for that matter) into Israel, into such major population centers as Ashkelon, Ashdod, and now Beersheva, requiring nearly a million Israelis to have to worry all the time about the 15 seconds they have to find shelter against incoming rockets. It's a very simple demand.

It has nothing to do with changing the immutable ideology of Hamas. It has nothing to do with winning unwinnable -- because firmly inculcated with Islam -- hearts and minds. It is purely a military matter: is Hamas going to be allowed to continue a gigantic, a truly monstrous arms buildup, with every kind of missile that the Iranians or others can supply them with, or is it not?

(snip)

Just keep this in mind: if there were no rockets shot into Israel, no fantastic arms buildup of military equipment, smuggled under several hundred tunnels that have been carefully constructed (and from the secondary explosions that you can see from the bombing of them, these places were full of arms), then there would be nothing, absolutely nothing, not a gun, not a tank, not an airplane, not a paper airplane, from Israel going into Gaza.

It is a simple choice. It is the most understandable and basic request: stop sending rockets, stop spending all of your energies making war or preparing for war. Leave us alone. That's all. Just leave us alone. That is what any country -- even besieged and thrown-to-the-Muslim-wolves Israel -- has a right, and a duty, to demand.

more...

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024176.php

Israel Forever!

This morning, we burn the blue candle for our best allies and friends:

Israel Forever!

Obama the Magic Negro-Gate

Obama the Magic Negro-Gate
By Larry Elder

The real story of race and the Republicans and Democrats...

(snip)

When will the GOP -- on the issue of race -- go on the offense?

After all, for 100 years, the Democratic Party showed its tone deafness to the rights of blacks. Democrats opposed the 13th Amendment (freeing the slaves), the 14th Amendment (making ex-slaves citizens) and the 15th Amendment (that, on paper at least, gave blacks the right to vote). Democrats founded the Ku Klux Klan -- some even call it the "terrorist wing of the Democratic Party." And a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Alabama Gov. George "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" Wallace was a Democrat. Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox, who as a restaurateur, left pick handles hanging on the walls to provide customers recourse in the event an uppity black tried to enter his restaurant. He was a Democrat. Arkansas Gov. Orville Faubus attempted, in 1957, to prevent the integration of Little Rock High School. He was a Democrat. Bull Connor, the commissioner of public safety for Birmingham, Ala., turned water hoses and dogs on civil rights activists. He was a Democrat.

But what about the infamous Republican Southern strategy?

The co-author of the strategy, Pat Buchanan, wrote in 2002: "Richard Nixon kicked off his historic comeback in 1966 with a column on the South (by this writer) that declared we would build our Republican Party on a foundation of states rights, human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to the [Democratic] 'party of Maddox and Wallace to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.'"

Today it's Democrats who blatantly use the race card to malign Republicans as a collection of bigots. Yet it's Republicans who support school choice and private Social Security savings accounts -- both of which disproportionately help blacks.

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Democrat Charlie Rangel, said of Republicans, "It's not 'spic' or 'nigger' anymore. They say 'let's cut taxes.'" Rangel, in an attack on Bush, called him "our Bull Connor." Donna Brazile, then Al Gore's campaign manager, called Republicans "white boys," and said, "A white-boy attitude is 'I must exclude, denigrate and leave behind.'"

Hillary Clinton, before a group of blacks, condemned the then-Republican-controlled Congress: "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about." Then-candidate and now Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said of George Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina, "George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black."

In a Katrina hearing, Democrat Barney Frank accused Bush of intentionally responding sluggishly. Why? Katrina would induce blacks to leave Louisiana, making it a more solidly Republican red state -- a Bush scheme that Frank called "ethnic cleansing by inaction."
Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean recently referred to the Republican Party as the "white party." The 35 percent of Asians and 31 percent of Hispanics who voted Republican apparently don't count.

So who should apologize to whom?

more...

http://townhall.com/Columnists/LarryElder/2009/01/01/obama_the_magic_negro-gate

Roseanne Barr Says Israel's Destruction 'Assured'

Roseanne Barr Says Israel's Destruction 'Assured'
Rick Moran

Did you know that blubberhead Roseanne Barr has a blog?It's a marvelous place, full of all sorts of interesting tidbits that dribble out of her ears on a daily basis. Today, she trains every point of her double digit IQ on the war between Israel and Hamas. What emerges may not be coherent. But as situation comedy, its a gem:

i told my friend don't go!
I said Israel will attack any boat carrying doctors and medical supplies--they have turned away the red cross already and all medical and food assistance. Israel is a NAZI state. The Jewish Soul is being tortured in Israel. The destruction of the jews in Israel has been assured with this inhuman attack on civilians in gaza. Hamas is the street gangs---this is equivilent to los angeles attacking and launching war on the people of watts to attempt to kill the bloods and the crips.

more...

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/roseanne_barr_says_israels_des.html

Roland Burris' Monument to Himself

Roland Burris' Monument to Himself
By Michael Goldfarb

This alone ought to disqualify Roland Burris from being appointed as a United States Senator. Its amazing how the left has been able to rally around Burris without knowing anything about him, declaring him qualified to serve if only he hadn't been appointed by a governor on the verge of impeachment and imprisonment. Nevermind that he sought the appointment despite all that, or that he ran for the Democratic nomination for Senate and was soundly rejected by the voters of Illinois once before, as he was rejected for governor by those same voters (in favor of Blago!).

Did anyone ever think that maybe there was a reason Illinois voters refused to send Burris to the Senate when they had the chance? Click through to see the "major accomplishments" Burris has emblazoned on his own monument to his own greatness.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/12/roland_burris_monument
_to_hims.asp

How too funny! Folks shouldn't laugh, though--Bammie will soon outdo even this hysterically funny Crypt to Himself! (Though I don't know how he'd bother to add 'extra room for future accomplishments'; Bammie doesn't have any now...) LOL! The portrait of King Barky--stage left (he couldn't possibly be stage right)--is all the tribute he'll get here...