from eddobloggo.com 
One thing that could never be said about the Kennedy Seat is that its late occupant avoided sitting in it.  Whether you liked him or not, as the face of liberalism for five decades, Edward M. Kennedy was constantly in the news; negotiating and debating, day after day, the important issues of his era.

 

Kennedy's literal base of operations, admirably, was his beloved seat in the Senate.  By virtue of remaining in that chair until death did them part, Kennedy's derriere left a huge impression upon that seat.  Novice Scott Brown can only hope to grow into it -- no excess poundage wisecrack intended. 

 

Whereas Teddy always stuck pretty close to his Senate home, the very day that Barack plopped his skinny butt in a Senate chair was the day that he began using whatever magic dust rubbed off on his trousers to propel him into a campaign for a far more ego-massaging seat; a seat in the Oval Office.

 

Just as it was during his brief senatorial stint, Obama leaves his current seat unoccupied much of the time as he continues making questionable campaign appearances around the nation and the world.  If you think about it, this may actually be a positive aspect of his presidency considering the trouble that he gets himself into whenever he spends time working on his agenda rather than doing the Air Force One thing from one redundant campaign speech to another.

 

What is Obama campaigning for these days after being handed incontrovertible proof that even some of his most loyal supporters have joined with those of us who have always been critical of his ill-conceived schemes? 

 

Apparently, his ongoing campaigning is for some far more significant piece of office furniture; perhaps a golden throne.  He will never be able to accept that being the most listened-to, most image-captured person in the world does not necessarily make him the most powerful or even the best-liked. 

 

"Have teleprompter will travel" has worn so thin as the replacement slogan for "Hope and Change" that friends and foes alike are now certain that Obama's overexposure has done absolutely nothing to magnify the image of the faux Nobel Lauriat.  To the contrary, it has actually served to diminished it. 

 

Months of "health care overhaul" speeches have failed to garner anything but disdain for Obama's vision despite a loaded Congress that could have passed his "reform" at any given moment along the way.

 

Continued apologies to our allies, critics and enemies alike has led the international community to realize Obama's weakness and lack of substance.

 

Endorsement speeches for political candidates in important elections have failed to produce anything but fewer votes for those candidates.  An endorsement speech for Chicago to host the Olympics resulted in Rio de Janeiro getting the nod. 

 

The great community organizer and Kumbaya Chorus leader -- with the help of strong-arm Alinsky-styled tactician advisors -- has turned out, statistically, to be the most polarizing personality of our lifetime. 

 

Combine these things with his propensity, nearly every time he goes off the teleprompter, to sound more like an uneducated, pre-judgmental partisan fool than a law school graduate/author, and Obama probably wishes that the worst ad-lib faux pas of his never-ending campaign would merely have been the failure to properly pronounce the word nuclear or the incorrect spelling of the word potato.

 

Which brings us to the weak lefty talking points du jour that revolve around discrediting the conventioneers and supporters of the Tea Party  * disclaimer below for their leaderlessness and affiliation with certain feared right-wingers.  In particular, that would be their most-feared, most-hated and most-demonized target whose popularity they have been unable to diminish with so-called logical arguments and/or vile personal mass media attacks.

 

That this grassroots movement has grown to its present size and position within the sphere of influence without a leader is what is worrisome and fear-inspiring to those who remain coalesced behind their own dysfunctional leadership. 

 

The possibility that a strong Tea Party leader will emerge who will either grow this party into a competitive entity in and of itself or deliver its votes to the GOP is the stuff that the left's worst nightmare is made of.

 

* I am not a member of the Tea Party nor have I contributed financially to date.  My coincidental foto-shopped cartoon image was created prior to the Tea Party's creation.

 

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from eddobloggo.com  
Too big to fail?  First, the world's largest automobile brand went bankrupt.  Now its heir apparent, in spite of ever-gushing media approval and the widest distribution of green technology, is in jeopardy of a major consumer revolt and subsequent financial meltdown as a result of a deadly design flaw.

 

This clown had zero to do with exposing Toyota's design flaw.

A recall is what the consumers in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia have voted for and, while they may not choose to return to brands of the past, they have nonetheless expressed their overwhelming desire to find a political product that is both safe and effective.  For most, thinking green is more about wondering whether they will continue to have a paycheck and much less about wondering how soon all of those pie-in-the-sky green jobs will be created.

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from eddobloggo.com
General Motors began installing  OnStar in select models in 1996 and eventually made its GPS-based safety/security system standard equipment on most models. I know about this firsthand because I've been there with OnStar, albeit reluctantly, in Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, GMC and Cadillac dealerships since Day One.

 

The downside of having access to these and other equally remarkable services is that every OnStar subscriber's precise location is known from moment-to-moment as the GM's Big Brother Satellite scans the globe from on high.  Of late, it reminds me of those unmanned drones waiting for an Osama bin Laden sighting as he mountain-bikes his way through the Tora Bora hills. 

Furthermore, although their representatives regularly claim otherwise, I have never witnessed the consummation of a car deal that was a direct result of OnStar being part of the vehicle.  Needless to say, I was happy to receive a letter from OnStar last week informing me that the our free trial was about to expire. 

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Remember when the Berlin Wall got toppled and hordes of East Germans immediately headed west like Forty Niners in a gold rush?  Eager to see for themselves what the Soviets had been keeping secret for so many years, West Germany's autobahns were suddenly cluttered with East German Trebants -- little low-tech wheezers that could barely get out of their own way let alone the way of a Bimmer clipping along at a buck-thirty-five.

Our beloved German Shepherd, Axl, can easily win a 0-30mph drag race with a Trebant.  Our lawn tractor with its Briggs and Stratton engine is more reliable and easier to maintain than a Trebant and it climbs hills better too. The relic toaster in our kitchen boasts more modern styling than a Trebant that was manufactured in the same year.

Which slime ball car guy was responsible for putting all of those noisy, unsafe-at-any-speed, hyper-polluting scheissewagens on the road?  Blame it on the Car Czar. 

The Car Czar, that purveyor of automotive schlock; that despicable denizen of dictatorship showrooms; that government approved slickster-without-a-conscience who would cram people into rust-prone death traps with a shoehorn and grease to meet his monthly quotas.  That same double-dealing sales-o-crat who would move a customer to the head of the delivery waiting list if he slipped him pair of American Levis that he could sell on the black market.

Consumer Reports won't tell you this, but the Car Czar appears to be alive and well and could be heading to a US-owned auto dealership near you.  Beware folks because the Car Czar will look and sound much more legitimate, if not American, this time around. 

No longer wearing your Uncle Frank's castaway tweed suit and six-inch-wide knitted tie that was sent to Europe in a CARE Package (but which somehow found its way into the inventory of an East German thrift shop) the Car Czar will now be sporting new threads from the Men's Wearhouse, purchased with a federal work clothing allowance check.

This time around he'll boast about consumerism instead of communism.  He'll be all about government emissions control, safety, fuel economy and recycle-ability standards. He'll use the word green a lot, except as it relates to the extra dead presidents' pictures you'll need to pony up if you want to do the politically correct thing.

This time around the Car Czar will tout tax credits but will avoid telling you that there won't be any price cuts or rebates to help lower your monthly payment.  He definitely won't explain that a team of crack tax accountants will be required if you expect to ever see a dime's worth of your "green incentive" money.

On a more serious note, a Car Czar would be the overseer of a sales plan with the potential to marginalize, if not destroy, the domestic auto industry quicker than you can say: "The UAW is on strike!"

While import brands (including those manufactured right here in the fly-over states at an unfair cost-per-unit advantage over their American counterparts) will continue to be marketed as usual, domestic companies will be forced, through government intervention, to make fewer so-called gas guzzler models.  Specifically, those high-quality full-sized trucks and SUV's that sold well until fuel prices suddenly spiked.  The likes of which Asian companies have been unable to perfect, let alone sell for less.

Worse yet, domestic automakers will be compelled by the Car Czar to compete head-to-head with Asian manufacturers in their most successful niches; the ones they carved out for themselves over decades in fierce hand-to-hand combat with each other as much as with the Big Three.

Still up for grabs is the alternative power vehicle market.  But unless the Obama administration's Depression Era-style infrastructural works program includes the rapid construction of a vast network of electric and alternative fuel filling stations, sales of new-tech cars will remain as stalled as a Trebant at a downtown Stuttgart traffic signal.

If you think the West Germans had road rage when those Trebants hit the autobahn just wait until the Pentagon is forced to procure jeeps from the guys they fought in World War II.

Update...

As many readers know, I have worked for automobile manufacturers and new car dealerships for the last 23 years.  I have been affiliated with General Motors since 1994.

Speaking for myself and my employer (a Buick GMC Cadillac dealership)...

• Our volume and income were off 50% in 2009 (2008 was not exactly a banner year either).

• There has been a severe shortage of new vehicle inventory since the summer of 2009.

• Trucks and popular crossover models, in particular, are scarce.

• GM has eliminated its Pontiac franchises (along with Saturn, Hummer and Saab). 

• We were one of the strongest Pontiac dealers in our region. In this area, Pontiac car sales had been a major part of our former success.  Smaller cars like the Vibe, G5 and G6 sold nearly as well as GMC trucks -- a staple in this rural, agricultural area in which plowing snow is a necessity.

• More stringent emissions regulations will make many 2010 GMC Truck models significantly more expensive -- particularly those with fuel-efficient diesel engines.

• "Cash for Clunkers" created a brief sales spurt but disturbed the normal trade-in cycle and created a shortage of used cars -- especially used trucks.  Supply and demand has made for higher used vehicle prices, which is bad for both the seller and the consumer.  read: The After-Math of Cash for Clunkers

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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from eddobloggo.com 
 
The following is a transcript of a Rod Blagojevich phone conversation

that was intercepted by an anonymous eddobloggo contributor...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Good Morning, this is The What Can You Say Hotline. I'm Rachel and I'm ready to assist you.  What is your question please?"

"Hello Rachel.  My name is Rod. Here's my question: 

If, as a kid, my family lived in a small apartment and I was a shoeshine boy and my father had a little laundromat in a black community -- in other words, if I had seen it all growing up -- could I now say that I'm blacker than Barack Obama?"

"Since, as Harry Reid might say, I do not detect a Negr* dialect in your speech, Rod, I need to clarify and ask you a few personal questions before I can assist you.  Would that be OK?"

"Sure, fire away Rachel.  Like I've already told everyone else numerous times, I have absolutely nothing to hide."

"Great Rod.  For starters, are you an African-American? Light-skinned and/or bi-racial would count."

"No, both sides of my family are Caucasian."

"Do you happen to know the president, Rod?"

"In fact, I do know the president.  More importantly, he knows that if I wanted to I could tell you nearly everything about him because I truly have seen it all."

"Are you a Democrat?"

"Yes."

"So far so good!  Are you a US senator?"

"No.  But I am the former governor of a liberal state and I recently appointed the nation's only African-American senator."

"I'm sorry, Rod.  You would have to be a Democrat senator to get away with with saying what you want to say.  Even then, Rod, you would have to make a few token apologies afterward."

"Well, what if I left out the blacker-than-Obama part and just said: 'This guy was elected based simply on hope.  What the bleep -- everything he's saying is on the teleprompter?'"

"That's a close call, Rod, but I wouldn't go there either -- certainly not with an expletive."

"I'm sorry, Rachel, please excuse my French.  So what if I just said that not so long ago real politicians would have sent a wannabe like Barack Obama out to get them their coffee?"

"You would have to be a former president -- a black Democrat former president at that -- to make that one fly.  Any more questions today, Rod?"

"Nope, that's about it Rachel.  Thanks for your help."

"That's why we're here.  Feel free to call The What Can I Say Hotline as often as necessary.  Watch what you say and have a nice day."

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from eddobloggo.com      
I was out shoveling snow for a couple of hours this morning.  Our driveway is two cars wide, 100 feet long and there was about eight inches of overnight accumulation.  When I began shoveling and cleaning off the cars the temperature was seven degrees but it felt like minus ten as a result of a stiff wind.  

It had also snowed overnight on this date 25 years ago.  Unfortunately, I was unable to go out and shovel on that particular morning because a couple of nurses were in the process of attaching me to a monitoring device in the ICU.  They were pretty sure that I had suffered a heart attack at home the previous evening -- a fact that I had denied, attributing my sickness, instead, to a 24-hour bug and over-exerted chest muscles.

I would have stayed at work that day and perhaps gotten sicker or died had a business associate not convinced me to call my doctor an hour or so before being placed in the ICU.

"Don't get depressed or stressed-out over this heart attack that you've survived," my cardiologist told me as I lay in yet another hospital bed post-cardiac catheterization two weeks after my week's stay at the first hospital.  "You've got one-and-a-half artery disease -- pretty common," he continued.

I looked puzzled and was rolling my eyes in disgust so Dr. Edwards kept right on talking.

"That means one completely blocked artery -- with damage, of course, to the surrounding muscle tissue -- and another one that's about 50% blocked.  Fortunately for you the main heart artery still looks pretty good, so I won't recommend bypass surgery at this time.  But it's always an option if things get worse."

"Wow, lucky me," I answered sarcastically.

"Hey Ed,  if you can hold out for couple of years -- quit smoking, lose weight, lower your cholesterol, start an exercise program, avoid losing your temper -- they'll have balloon surgery perfected by then."

"Balloon surgery?" I asked.  "What the heck is that?"

"They've been experimenting with catheters like the one we just used to inject the contrast material for the x-ray movies we made of your heart damage," Doctor Edwards replied.  "But instead of a dye injector at the end of the catheter it will carry a tiny balloon that can be inflated to expand a severely blocked artery."

Fast forward 25 years.  I never had surgery of any kind -- not even one of those balloon procedures that became so commonplace right on my doctor's predicted schedule.  Most probably, this was the result of doing nearly everything the doctors had suggested in 1985.

I lost 55 pounds in the first year after the heart attack and have managed to keep it off by changing the content of my diet (I still have a very large appetite and consume quite a bit of food) and adding more exercise to the mix.  I quit smoking.  I even went vegetarian a year later in an effort to lower my cholesterol after the recommended lean meats, poultry and fish failed to do the trick. 

As you may have noticed, my fight-or-flight reflex is still a bit of a problem.  I am the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, however, compared to the way I was before the heart attack.  Actually, the instinct to fight rather than flee may have enhanced my disease-fighting ability.  Depression and non-activism are not at all helpful to heart disease.

In any case, God answered my prayers and has given me the power to live with, if not overcome, heart disease.  I sincerely hope that my writing today will give others the encouragement they need to overcome or try to prevent their own health problems. 

If you're wondering how even a compliant, health-conscious "heart patient" can shovel snow (chest pain and symptom free) in the coldest weather, there is a real explanation.  It's called collateral circulation which, in short, is the body's ability to create alternate routes for the flow of blood through the heart to compensate for blocked vessels.  CC is a natural form of bypass surgery that is thought to be the result, in large part, of aerobic exercise that both strengthens heart muscle and requires it to find ways to deal with the exercise-increased blood flow.

My own collateral circulation was confirmed a few years ago when I was brought in for a 20-years-later cardiac catheterization.  My current cardiologist was unhappy with the results of a thallium stress test he had ordered around the time that he took me on as a new patient.  We now know that the test result appeared abnormal because of the large number of alternate routes my blood now takes to nourish and oxygenate the healthy parts of my heart.

A day at the Cath Lab confirmed that 20+ years of "clean living" can, in fact, reverse some of the more serious effects and symptoms of heart disease.  While the cardio-surgeon was fully prepared to insert expandable stents into any number of blocked arteries, he was gleeful in his report that he had never seen "a road map of collateral circulation" quite like the one he had documented during my procedure. 

Of course, most of his subjects are much older than 35 when they have their heart attacks.  Even compliant heart patients rarely get a follow-up cardiac catheterization 20 years or more years after cleaning up their acts.  Sadly, the majority of heart disease patients are less than compliant.

from eddobloggo.com We may have to wait awhile for the end of the poorly prioritized Obama administration, but it is certainly possible to put political pressure on the president to replace the Homeland Security Department secretary with someone far more qualified -- perhaps someone a bit more militant about protecting his/her fellow Americans -- at the earliest possible moment.   Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said it best in making the case to get the current homeland security chief "out of the picture"...

What's wrong with this picture?  Just a couple of things.

Janet Napolitano -- former Arizona governor, now overmatched secretary of homeland security -- will forever be remembered for having said of the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit: "The system worked." The attacker’s concerned father had warned U.S. authorities about his son’s jihadist tendencies. The would-be bomber paid cash and checked no luggage on a transoceanic flight. He was nonetheless allowed to fly, and would have killed 288 people in the air alone, save for a faulty detonator and quick actions by a few passengers.

While Napolitano's you can't be serious! initial remark about the jockbomber incident was inappropriate and scary, at least her demeanor reflected a modicum of professionalism as compared with her Dear Leader's initial remarks about the Fort Hood Massacre.

“Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the the Interior Staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference. Uh, I want to thank my cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today. Uh, I hear that Dr. Joe “Medicine” Crow was around. So I want to give a shout out.  My understanding is, is that you uh had an extremely productive conference...”

After a full two minutes of this kind of surreal un-promptered joviality, the president finally got to the heartbreaking point: “We don’t yet know all the details at this moment. We will share them as we get them…We will make sure we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident…I hope all of you recognize the scope of this tragedy.”

Duh.  Who do you think was having trouble recognizing the "scope" of a jihadist's murderous attack at a military installation right in the heart of our homeland?

Meanwhile, Democrats have the audacity to accuse Republicans of going too far in their criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the attempted Christmas Day terror attack, the Fort Hood aftermath, and other recent threats and near-misses.  They contend that the GOP is blatantly exploiting the growing number of homeland security-related incidents to gain the upper hand in the 2010 midterm elections. 

Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra referred to the failed airline bombing incident in a fundraising pitch for his gubernatorial campaign. Other GOP lawmakers have taken to radio and TV to criticize the administration's response to the incident and the failure to identify the suspect as a terror suspect in advance. Former Vice President Cheney accused Obama of pretending the United States is not at war. Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana has called for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to resign. 

These additional recent events -- and others -- help support non-Democrats' claims that this administration has reverted to a pre-9/11 mentality...

• Contacts between the cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi, and the plane suspect are growing more apparent as investigators continue their probe. A US intelligence official said Thursday that "there was probably a face-to-face encounter" between Aulaqi and the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, during a stay in Yemen before the Nigerian man flew to Amsterdam and boarded Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Flight 253. 

• There is a likely connection between the aforementioned Yemeni cleric (and/or others) and the Fort Hood shooter.

• Inter-agency intelligence sharing failures.

• The bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and had not been searched, two former U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

• Attorney General Holder's "unilateral" decision to try 9/11 plotters as American citizens in New York City.

• The closure of Gitmo and the return of some of its prisoners to Yemen and other jihadist hotbeds plus the re-incarceration of others at a shovel-ready federal prison near pork-laden Chicago.

Obama's failure to ramp-up homeland security, accept Janet Napolitano's resignation and modify his Gitmo and KSM trial plans trumps the public's mixed feelings about the rest of his free-spending socialistic agenda.  A single airline tragedy on the ground or in the sky insures significant non-Democrat success in the 2010 elections.

Getting the homeland security picture back in focus, therefore, should be a top priority, especially for Democrats.  The president should read, from his teleprompter, one of his most oft-made statements (usually spoken in regard to far less important "priorities") just once more before retiring it:  "This is an emergency that will become a catastrophe if we fail to act immediately."

But don't hold your breath. Democrats will be too busy pointing fingers at the rest of us to recognize the scope of this tragedy."

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from eddobloggo.com
As reported by the AP, former president Jimmy Carter has formally apologized for any words or deeds that may  ever have upset the Jewish community in an open letter meant to improve his often-tense relationship with Jews.  He said he was offering a special prayer that is customarily recited in synagogues on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, to signify a plea for forgiveness.

 

Whether Barack Obama will continue to blame his predecessors for unforeseeable future ills or whether, like Carter, he someday takes responsibility for some of his own mistakes, rest assured that there will never be an end to his pleas for forgiveness, particularly from the non-Judeo-Christian world.

 

An empty cardigan sweater worn to create a folksy TV image during another time of crisis is an apt symbol of Jimmy  Carter's failed presidency.

"We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," Jimmy Carter wrote to JTA, a wire service for Jewish newspapers.  "As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." So why didn't Carter apologize and pray for forgiveness during the Jewish High Holy Days three months ago or, for that matter, during any one of the 29 Yom Kippurs since his single term as president ended in 1981?  AP's Greg Bluestein offers this explanation: "The letter comes weeks after his grandson, Jason Carter, said

he would run for a Georgia state Senate seat being vacated by Obama's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Singapore. If David Adelman is confirmed as ambassador in January, Jason Carter will be a candidate in a March special election in the northeast Atlanta district."  As you might suspect, that district has a significant, vocal Jewish population.

 

Thus far, all of Obama's apologies have been made on behalf of Americans who, for the most part, believe that our fair-weather friends abroad (especially in Europe where the current generation has difficulty remembering history prior to the Bush administration) still owe the US quite a few more apologies than Obama could ever serve up to the secular and non-Judeo-Christian world. 

 

However, as illustrated by Jimmy Carter's pre-election apologetics, you can expect to hear many more apologies to people of any number of dissed ethnicities and demographic population segments as Obama returns to full campaign mode in his efforts for re-election. 

 

At the rate that the president has been upsetting such subsets as peaceniks, same-sex marriage advocates, socialized medicine proponents, environmentalists and disproportionately unemployed African-Americans, expect their Dear Leader to embark on a domestic apology tour in the coming year in an effort both to retain his own base and to mitigate Congressional Democrat losses in 2010.   

 

Taking Carter's lead, Obama will say something along the lines of: "I could have offered an Al Het months ago but, as illustrated by the overwhelming public support that led to the passage of high-priority health care reform, it is appropriate for me to apologize for the delay of (insert your group's agenda here) now or at any point in time going forward.  So rest assured (insert your groups' name here) that your needs will be attended to very soon."

 

Of course, Obama will read his self-serving statement over and over again off his teleprompter whereas the less dynamic-speaking aged former president felt that his apology could best be made in syndicated writing.  In either case, the empty sweater and the empty suit are indeed a very sorry pair.

 

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from eddobloggo.com 
In case you missed what Hugo Chavez said about Barack Obama at the UN's Copenhagen climate change conference this past week:"It still smells like sulfur in the world.  The Nobel Prize of War just finished saying here that he is here to act. Well, show it sir. Don't leave by the back door."  This was just part of Chavez' personal call-out of your Dear Leader that included at least one of the epithets that he would have hurled at Obama's non-Nobel Lauriat predecessor had George W. Bush been amongst them.

Incidentally, Chavez received a standing ovation for his anti-capitalism rant from virtually all of the international delegates who (take your pick) either love both Chavez and Obama for their Marxism or will continue to hate the USA regardless of whether its president is a wealth-redistributing socialist or not.

9/25/09 - Obama smells mmm mmm good

The last time they turned the mic over to Hugo Chavez at the UN he opened with a slapstick routine about the room smelling of sulfur. George W. Bush had addressed the General Assembly earlier from the same podium, so Chavez' shtick drew big laughs from fellow America haters by his equating of the President of the United States with el diablo.

Three years later: "It doesn't smell of sulfur here anymore.  It smells of something else. It smells of hope," the Venezuelan dictator told the UN on Wednesday.  Earlier, Libya's strongman Muammar Qaddafi had declared to the same gathering that "We'd be content and happy if Obama can stay president forever."

Speaking of staying as president forever, Qaddafi has held his position since 1969 while the relative novice, Chavez, has been Venezuela's top dog since 1998.  If Obama wants "re-election" advice, these guys and the similarly supportive Castro brothers, with 50 years of Marxist/socialist dictatorship under their belts, are just the crowd to be hanging with.

Of course, the American left is ecstatic over these dictators' acknowledgments of the hope and change they have found in their president.  On the same day as Obama's UN teleprompter drone-athon (perhaps daily professorial philosophical lectures are still a bit of a novelty to foreigners whose press coverage is, shall we say, a bit more limited than our own) a video of happy American school children singing the Dear Leader's praises hit YouTube. 

The dictators' love raises the question: Had Qaddafi, Chavez and the Castros pronounced Obama so sweet-smelling a year ago in the final days of the campaign, would their glowing propaganda endorsements have helped or hurt the president on Election Day? If not, we're in far bigger trouble than anyone could ever imagine.

In any case, our nation's case of buyer's remorse is revealed in Obama's continuing decline in the polls and in the growing coalesced protest movement that has created more true neo-cons than the smug left ever imagined possible -- especially after such a resounding Conservative defeat not quite a year ago.

But it's not just right-wingers who see through the Obama hypocrisy.  The ultra-left is pretty upset about his limited prosecution of their anti-war, socialized medicine, gay rights and environmental agendas. 

We're even hearing from the Gitmo prisoners that he pledged to support with American citizens' rights and the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.  Ahmed al-Darbi, a 34-year old Saudi who is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism, told the court in December that he hoped Obama would "earn back the legitimacy the United States has lost in the eyes of the world,"

In a note passed to his lawyer, al-Darbi now says that he is disappointed the Guantanamo prison remains open and the military court still holds hearings.  "I say to him now that he has gone astray," al-Darbi lamented.

So what does "hope" smell like?  No one really knows.  But oddly the stench of sulfur emanating from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was never reported by any of the aforementioned. 

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, was overcome by the Holocaust denier's disgusting smell and he plainly said so. To their credit, dozens of delegates from most of the European nations, Canada, Australia and the United States got up and left during Ahmadinejad's speech, but the diplomats who remained applauded as the Iranian political leader continued his address.

Despite surprisingly strong subsequent statements by European leaders regarding Ahmadinejad's ramped-up nuclear development program, our own president apparently wants to stay sweet-smelling to those who matter least by remaining idealistically and unrealistically professorial, speaking about "the goal of a world without nuclear weapons" and of the legalistic breaking of rules and sanctions.

The next time they visit the UN, Qaddafi and Chavez could sing a little duet with some second-graders from New Jersey as their backup...

Barack Hussein Obama

He is so very clever

We would be content and happy if he were president forever

mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama

He does it all so well

The UN has been cleared of Bush's sulfur smell

mmm, mmm, mm!

Then again, our enemies' song will probably be very different by then.

4/19/09 - Propaganda...By the Book

Forget about their in-common authorship of best-selling books that are required reading for sycophants.  Don't make too much of that shared penchant for frequent oratory or the common belief in the redistribution of wealth and other socialistic programs. 

The single tie that binds the Venezuelan strongman and our own softer-spoken less macho would-be dictator is none other than George Bush.  If not for old Dubbleyah, Chavez would be just another two-bit Third Worlder with oil in his backyard and nobody to pal around with but Fidel Castro.

But having had the golden opportunity to diss President Bush at the UN in front of the entire International Order of Ingrates, Hugo's country was instantly promoted into the Axis of Evil and Chavez was installed as the UN's Grand Dragon for the next year.

For those of you who refused to pay attention to hard news and weren't being fed daily State of the Union Addresses during previous administrations, there were repeated references by Chavez to POTUS #43 as "el diablo" that day at the UN in 2005.  Hugo's rant came on the heels of a similar but slightly more diplomatic tirade by Mahmoud Ahmedenajad and, later, Bush's own address to the General Assembly. 

What you won't see reported while the Obama World Tour continues as if Air Force One were a Prius with nitrogen-filled tires is that both aforementioned oppressors have, in their respective languages, referred to your beloved chief executive as "un ignorante".  Imagine what they say about Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.

Back on point, if it were not for the same George W. Bush that Hugo Chavez used as his stepping stone, Barack H. Obama would have been an historical asterisk by now with Hillary R. Clinton laughing her way around the globe on his big plane with the low number. 

While the First Lady of Pants Suits did her level best to criticize the previous administration and to promote her own job readiness (she did have a slightly fuller resume than that of her opponent and it looked, for a while, like the 3AM phone call deal would be a winner) Hillary was, nonetheless, unable to co-opt the message of "Bush Change" because of her proximity to yet another heavily criticized two-term president.

It was repeated a thousand times during the campaign: "Obama is not running against McCain...he is running against Bush."  That's why everything, even to this day, is more about putting the blame on Bush than about the specifics of any other promised change.

Of course, demonizing Bush echoes what Hugo Chavez said before Obama's ascendancy and it is why, for the moment, the Venezuelan dictator deems it acceptable to be smiling, shaking hands and exchanging books with Obama as if he were a long-lost cousin.

But make no mistake -- everything that Barack and Hugo appear to have in common is trumped by the fact that this is a contest between an experienced bully and a novice wimp.  While Obama bows, scrapes and apologizes to First World leaders he will ultimately be perceived as "un ignorante" by friends and foes alike when he is forced to stand up to the bullies or give them our lunch money.

Meanwhile, Chavez, loses absolutely nothing by being friendly and keeping his mouth shut.  In fact, power, prestige and credibility are being gained by Chavez merely for being seen in the same photos as the media world's most popular personality.

You could argue that Obama was tight-lipped and exchanged nothing but friendly handshakes and small talk with Chavez.  But it is also true that Obama did all of his talking during the campaign when he repeatedly, emphatically stated that he was ready to sit down and talk with America haters -- specifically Chavez and Ahmedenajad -- anytime. 

"Sitting down" was one of the main themes Obama employed to stress how different he would be from the man who refused to dignify anti-American dictators with touchy-feely rhetoric.

Chavez does, in fact, see Obama as the Anti-Bush.  That is, a US president who would lend credibility to his ilk with no strings attached even if he is seen as "un ignorante" merely for saying that he is prepared do so. 

What Hugo Chavez sees in Obama is a way to get back into the limelight, to be better liked in his homeland and to be re-elected Grand Dragon by his fellow America haters.  His propaganda strategy is working. 

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from eddobloggo.com

The following incident was witnessed, Sunday, by a House Republican aide seated nearby.

"This is the Captain, folks.  We appreciate you flying with Continental Airlines today.  We're cleared for take-off so please turn off your cell phones and other electronic devices now.  Thank you."

"Yeah Harry.  We're on the shuttle heading back to DC.  Be careful what you say about the bill...we wouldn't want someone on or near the plane to intercept your message and spill the beans to the press or to one of those GOP stooges on this flight.  Besides, you know that all eyes and ears are on me wherever I go."

"Excuse me, Sir.  I must ask you and the woman in the next seat to comply immediately with the Captain's request to turn off your cell phones.  The entire plane is waiting for you two to shut down your phones and you will be in violation of FAA regulations and could be removed from the plane by marshals if you continue talking."

"You obviously know who I am.  Is that why you're harassing me?  Can't I finish this important government-business phone call?"

"I don't know who you think you are, sir, but no one is exempt from this regulation and, as I've already said, you are holding up this flight."

"OK it's off! But you know you are wrong, miss, I am entitled to keep this phone on until the cabin door is closed." 

"No sir, you are obliged to turn it off whenever a flight attendant asks.  I don't make the rules, I just follow them and urge everyone to do likewise."

(Turns to Sen Gillibrand) "As if New York's senior senator has to take orders from a flight attendant.  She's a b****, Kirsten.  (Phone rings) Hello, Chuck Schumer speaking...Oh hi, Harry.  Where were we when we were so rudely interrupted?"

"Sir, this is getting ridiculous.  Please hang up again and turn that phone off this instant!"

(Aloud for all to hear) "It’s Harry Reid calling.  I guess health care will have to wait until we land.”

"And we'll never land if we don't take off first, so please end the call now!"

Later, through her office, Sen. Gillibrand said that Sen. Schumer was “polite” with the flight attendant and that he “turned off his phone when asked to.”

Nonetheless, Schumer has since apologized to the flight attendant for being overheard calling her "a b****".  Other flight attendants who have worked on some of the senator's Continental flights have been quoted as saying: “He’s not nice.”

Chuck Schumer's legendary self-centeredness aside, can you imagine the repercussions if he ever calls his wife b****? For that matter, do you think Kirsten Gillibrand would say "My husband was polite" if he ever called her a b****?

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Giving thanks for their own protection from the scorching Scandinavian winter inside soundproofed limousines and hotel suites, it was impossible for the media to hear the emissaries' wailing and plaintive prayers for the climactically-challenged masses on the ground in flyover states of the un-emerging world. 

As forced students of Obamaspeak (formerly known as hot air) for nearly as long as most of us studied a foreign language in high school, we understand that when Our Dear Leader blames international coalitions for anything, he is actually blaming un-progressive Americans for that particular dastardly deed.

The previous administration, Republican politicians and especially Conservative-Libertarian Tea Party activists and the growing number of like-minded Americans are constantly being held responsible.  We are demonized for promoting yet another despicable movement designed to discredit, if not derail, the latest gigantic spending endeavor that was so carefully crafted by the know-it-all majority to avert "an emergency that will ultimately become a catastrophe."

This 2004 statement -- the left might wish to attribute it to George W. Bush -- is a perfect example of what Obama calls "bad habits and phony arguments"... 

"The Kyoto Protocol is a death pact, however strange it may sound, because its main aim is to strangle economic growth and economic activity in countries that accept the protocol's requirements."

Actually, this was a pronouncement by Andrei Illarionov, Russia's economic minister under neo-communist Vladimir Putin. Illarionov went on to call the Kyoto Protocol an "economic Auschwitz".

It is highly unlikely that China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and other emerging nations, with growing carbon footprints will risk their economic growth by signing onto any UN resolutions that may be created in Copenhagen. Just the same, the "phony arguments" of those of us living in the snowy American flyover states will ultimately be blamed when the next iceberg cracks off a glacier. 

After the president's weekly speech I switched the radio dial to New York City's WABC-Radio.  Investigative journalist John Stossel was in the process of explaining to Mark Simone's listeners that "if all of the nations of the world had signed Kyoto and then obeyed their pledge to the letter, the global temperature change would be virtually immeasurable."

"Meanwhile," Stossel continued, "millions are dying of malnutrition, malaria and so many other things that are really at a crisis level."  Mr. Stossel would, no doubt, be quite surprised if any of the wealth derived from the greenies' "phony arguments" is ever re-distributed to those around the world who are starving, dying of preventable diseases and living in darkness. 

Al Gore, UN emissaries and the president himself will continue to get carbon credit (formerly known as a free pass) and Nobel Prizes for their good environmental works but they will never be criticized for their hypocritical "bad habits" (including excessive private flight and oversized homes and lifestyles) that are excessively energy-consumptive even when compared with anyone driving a pick-up truck on an American freeway.

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