Obama's Audacious Dream

from Sigmund, Carl and Alfred
June 5, 2009

Sybil-In-Chief or Contradiction-In-Chief?

from I Own The World.com
May 17, 2009

Sybil-in-Chief

Is Obama merely testing how absurd he can go with his rhetoric while his trained seals still feed him grapes?

Obama's campaign rhetoric vs governing reality gap is wide

For the president, the distance between campaigning and governing has never been starker

from Pajamas Media
May 16, 2009
by Jennifer Rubin

We’ve heard the cliché: there is a difference between campaigning and governing. But in the last few weeks the contrast between the two could not have been more stark. And the gap between President Obama’s effectiveness at the former and shakiness at the latter is coming into focus.

Guantanamo is the most vivid example. As a candidate, Obama pushed the notion that George W. Bush was a constitutional Neanderthal and destroyer of American values. Now he’s discovered that it is really hard to figure out what to do with these really bad people. And he’s even discovered the virtue of the Bush-created military tribunals.

Republicans have kept up the drumbeat, forcing Democrats to include limits on funding and demands to “show them the plans” before funding a Guantanamo shut-down. And it may be that there is no plan, no viable one to allow Guantanamo to be closed. As Kimberley Strassel put it:

If so, Guantanamo will join the growing list of security tools that President Obama once criticized as out of keeping with American values but has since discovered are very in keeping with protecting the nation. Wiretapping, renditions, military tribunals, Gitmo — it turns out the Bush people weren’t a bunch of yahoos but often thoughtful defenders against terrorism. This is all progress, though America might wonder if it could have been spared the intervening drama.

Then we had the detainee abuse photo controversy. Before he took office, Obama seemed agreeable to the Left’s narrative that there was a massive policy of detainee abuse and the American people should see what it looked like. After the firestorm which followed his initial decision to release the photos, he adopted conservatives’ view that we should not let a few bad apples destroy America’s image and endanger our servicemen.

Although the president is tossing the ball back to the courts (at least for now) rather than signing an executive order to make sure the photos aren’t released, his message is clear. He’s not buying into the grand conspiracy vision of the netroots and he’s not going to throw matches on the tinderbox at the moment when we are doing our best to lessen the danger of a conflagration in Pakistan and Afghanistan and complete the mission in Iraq.

We have also had another round of rotten economic news. The deficit is exploding, unemployment is rising, consumers aren’t spending, and the stimulus is doing nothing for us.

In the campaign Obama effectively snatched the tax issue (cut 95% of Americans’ taxes) and the fiscal sobriety issue (”go line-by-line through the budget”) from the Republicans. But now in office (when he’s not flitting off to work on health care or cap-and-trade, or taking vouchers from D.C. school kids), he’s devising plans to raises taxes (on cigarettes, businesses, and energy) and ballooning our debt. Unlike his national security policies, he shows no sign of reversing course on economic policy or coming up with a coherent approach to reviving economic growth and job creation.

And finally on health care, we’ve been inundated with dog-and-pony displays and campaign-like events but haven’t gotten to the heart of the matter: how to pay for it and how to allow Americans to keep their doctor and access to un-rationed care. What’s even more startling, as Yuval Levin points out, is the president’s recognition that the endless cycle of spending and borrowing which his own administration has accelerated is “unsustainable”:

If he understands the consequences of the federal government spending trillions it doesn’t have with no plans for doing better, what does he make of his own budget, which calls for doing much more of precisely that? And what does he make of the health care plan emerging on the Hill, which would spend even more without paying for it and do very little about exploding health care costs except turn even more of them into government costs?

The president is fond of telling us that all the trade-offs which other administrations have made and which his political rivals wrestled with were “false.” But the essence of governing is choosing wisely, something he has struggled to do.

In some cases (e.g., detainee photos) the administration has been badgered into adjusting course and dropping silly campaign promises in order to maintain a coherent national security policy. In other cases (e.g., Guantanamo) they are tied up in knots figuring out how to reconcile their sanctimonious rhetoric and the public’s desire for security. And in still other cases (e.g., domestic policy) the administration hasn’t come to terms with how to spur economic recovery or pay for the ever-growing liberal wish list, even as the prospect for stagflation and/or a collapse of our borrowing capacity looms.

But in each instance the gap between campaign rhetoric and governing reality is wide. And while the administration remains adept at throwing a summit or trotting out industry leaders to tout the president’s ideas, the tough choices have largely been avoided. In the end, it’s not about receiving shout outs from fawning pundits or even about rounding up a simple or filibuster-proof majority; it’s about crafting effective policy. If you can’t do that, no amount of stagecraft will save an administration.

And if we’ve learned anything in the first months of the Obama administration it is that campaigning only gets you so far. Eventually you have to get the governance right, and so far the prospects for that are mixed at best.
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Obama can't lead a life of contradiction - Or can he?

from Pajamas Media
May 16th, 2009
by Roger Kimball

The Meaning of Obama, Part II, with a note from J. L. Austin and an epitaph for cognitive dissonance

Last month, President Obama assured the world that “words must mean something.”

Yes, but what?

The President has just informed us, in his most earnest tones, that current U.S. deficit spending is “unsustainable.” More amazing news followed: government borrowing will mean higher interest rates for U.S. consumers as foreign countries shy away from investing in the United States. He even had a line about “mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Now, I believe there is a lot to be said for all of these things. The debt carried by the United States is indeed "unsustainable." Interest rates are almost certain to rise; the gusty noise you hear offstage is, I’m told on reliable authority, that great asset acid, inflation, just waiting to make a comeback. And when I am not worrying about how I am going to pay for our children’s college education I worry about what sort of country we are preparing to bequeath them: what will their tax burden be in 2025, say?

As I say, these are all good points. The question is, does Barack Obama have the right to raise them? Democrats and their shills in the legacy (formerly the mainstream) media wailed and wailed about the deficits run up by the Bush administration. They had my sympathy, frankly. Much as I admire President Bush — and I do admire him — he spent money like a drunken Democrat.

Or so I thought. It turns out that Bush was a rank amateur when it came to profligacy. His $400 billion deficit, which seemed like a lot of money at the time, is not even a weekend’s “stimulus” bill for Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid & Co. A week or so ago, the White House told us that the budget deficit for the current fiscal year would be $1.75 trillion dollars

($1,750,000,000,000). Somebody forgot to include the party favors, though, because a few days later that estimate was raised to $1.84 trillion ($1,840,000,000,000), a difference of some $90 billion, or more than 4 times the $17 billion in “savings” that Obama announced with such fanfare recently. After the laughter subsided — after all, the President’s Potemkin cuts amount to 1/2 of 1 percent of his budget — Obama shot back: “In Washington, I guess [$17 billion is] considered trivial. Outside of Washington, that’s still considered a lot of money.”

Right on both counts, Prez! In Washington, $17 billion is considered trivial. To the rest of us, however, who will eventually be called upon to pony up for the dough, it is, as you say, a lot of money. That’s exactly the problem: Washington spends it, we pay for it.

The English essayist William Hazlitt once observed that “those who lack delicacy hold us in their power.” Most of us, encountering someone who lectures us about “unsustainable” levels of debt, “mortgaging our children’s future,” etc., expect that if we scratch the chap we find a fiscal conservative.

That, as Barack Obama demonstrates, would be naive. Obama may trundle over to Arizona to deliver a commencement address in which he warns students about those who “started living on credit, instead of building up savings.” But a look at the Obama Family Finances shows that he did a lot of living on credit himself. James Taranto, writing in his “Best of the Web” column, quotes this report:

A close examination of their finances shows that the Obamas were living off lines of credit along with other income for several years until 2005, when Obama’s book royalties came through and Michelle received her 260% pay raise at the University of Chicago. This was also the year Obama started serving in the U.S. Senate. . . .

Watson, what do you make of that conjunction: Michelle’s 260 percent pay raise and Obama’s ascension to the taxpayer-funded trough? Eyebrow raising? It got a bit of comment during the campaign. But the Hope and Change Express had gained far too much momentum to be derailed by any such . . . irregularity.

Am I too fastidious? Was it an irregularity? At the time, Bryon York reminded us that “Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office.” Why wasn’t that news to, say, The New York Times?

Water under the bridge by now, of course. But still. As we try to come to terms with the Obama Phenomenon and unravel the riddle wrapped in a mystery inside the enigma with which he presents the republic, it is worth facing up to the fact that it doesn’t matter what he says.

“Words must mean something,” he said when the North Koreans launched their ballistic missile a few weeks back. But what must they mean? I think of a withering remark from the philosopher J. L. Austin: “There’s the bit where you say it and the bit where you take it back.”

Strophe: Our level of debt is “unsustainable.” Antistrophe: My budget will saddle us with more debt than all past presidents combined, from George Washington through George W. Bush.
Strophe: You mustn’t live on credit and neglect to save. Antistrophe: I will live on credit, spending more than I earn, until such time as I can more than double my wife’s salary by funneling taxpayer money to her place of employment.

Strophe: Military tribunals for terrorists are an outrage; as president I will an end to end. Antistrophe: Military tribunals are necessary for our national security.

It was the psychologist Leon Festinger, I believe, who coined the term “cognitive dissonance.” That’s the uncomfortable feeling we get when trying to entertain contradictory ideas. X and at the same time not-X. The discomfort is a salubrious reminder that reality counts for something, that you cannot live a contradiction.

Or can you? The spectacle of Barack Hussein Obama might suggest otherwise. Watching his pas de deux with himself is to understand that cognitive dissonance can be a vocation as well as a warning.

I can’t help worrying, though, that making it your vocation is only the first act of a drama that ends very badly indeed.
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Obama's nose grows another couple of inches

May 15, 2009
from American Thinker
by Rick Moran

Remember when Obama faced the cameras and told us that he had just talked to the Caterpillar Corporation president who promised him he was going to hire back thousands of workers once the stimulus bill was passed?

Of course, it turns out that was a bald faced lie when the business executive admitted that he had no intention of hiring anyone back on for the foreseeable future.

Flash forward to this week when Obama invited 6 major health care trade groups to the White House and said the following:

"These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment," Mr. Obama said. "Over the next 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, they are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year - an amount that's equal to over $2 trillion."

In the immortal words of Independence Day's Secretary of Defense Albert Nimzicki, "That's not entirely accurate," as Robert Pear of the New York Time s reports:

Health care leaders who attended the meeting have a different interpretation. They say they agreed to slow health spending in a more gradual way and did not pledge specific year-by-year cuts.

"There's been a lot of misunderstanding that has caused a lot of consternation among our members," said Richard J. Umbdenstock, the president of the American Hospital Association. "I've spent the better part of the last three days trying to deal with it."

Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said "the president misspoke" on Monday and again on Wednesday when he described the industry's commitment in similar terms. After providing that account, Ms. DeParle called back about an hour later on Thursday and said: "I don't think the president misspoke. His remarks correctly and accurately described the industry's commitment."

The Washington office of the American Hospital Association sent a bulletin to its state and local affiliates to "clarify several points" about the White House meeting.

In the bulletin, Richard J. Pollack, the executive vice president of the hospital association, said: "The A.H.A. did not commit to support the ‘Obama health plan' or budget. No such reform plan exists at this time."

Pollack also wrote, "The groups did not support reducing the rate of health spending by 1.5 percentage points annually."

That quote from the White House flunky was priceless. From "the president misspoke" to his words were "correct and accurate." I wonder who screamed at her to get her to change her statement?

This is a president, mind you, who promised to "listen" to the people and not dictate to them. Either he needs a hearing aid or he's just making stuff up as he goes along.

I'll take the latter explanation.
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NARCISSIST IN CHIEF: Experts explain what makes Barack Obama tick

"Barack Obama: Narcissist or merely narcissistic?"
from World Net Daily
May 14, 2009

He may be the most mysterious and secretive president in American history.

Though inexperienced and arguably unqualified for the presidency, he mesmerized the entire establishment press and more than half of voters, many regarding him nothing short of a political messiah. Thoughhe can barely speak publicly without a teleprompter, he's praised as a transcendent communicator. Though his voting record is extreme left, he portrays himself as a pragmatic centrist.

But beyond Obama's political ideology, many Americans are troubled also by his strange personality attributes: He greatly exaggerates his achievements, expects constant praise and admiration, believes he's special, doesn't appear to concern himself with other people's feelings, expresses disdain for those he feels are inferior, sets unrealistic goals, appears as tough-minded and unemotional, and other qualities – all of which are textbook symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Indeed, the word "narcissist" is increasingly being applied to America's 44th president. Pulitzer prize-winning columnist and former psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer asks, "Does the narcissism of this man know no bounds?" Jack Kelly, journalist and former high-ranking Reagan administration Pentagon official, says: "The most dangerous thing about having a narcissist in a position of power is his unwillingness – perhaps his inability – to ever admit error. In response to questions from ABC's Terry Moran and CBS' Katie Couric, Sen. Obama acknowledged the troop surge in Iraq has produced dramatic improvements, but said he still would oppose it." Radio giant Rush Limbaugh said of Obama recently: "He's supremely narcissistic … This is all about him. This has nothing to do with the country. It has nothing to do with our way of life. Every aspect of his presidency is about building him up, making him appear to be savior, messiah …"


Is the president of the United States indeed a narcissist, a condition psychology and psychiatry recognize as a serious personality disorder?


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"I think it’s critically important, now more than ever, to understand our president’s core beliefs and to realize that if we embrace them fully, we’ll be well on our way to becoming the U.S.S.A.," says Brian Russell, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist, attorney and familiar national television pundit. And according to Lyle H. Rossiter Jr., M.D., a board certified psychiatrist who has diagnosed and treated mental disorders for more than 40 years, it's not just Obama: America's leadership ranks are full of people with serious psychological problems, declaring that "the modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities."

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"Is Barack Obama crazy?" by Joseph Farah

"American idolatry" by David Kupelian, on why experts believe we're becoming a nation of egomaniacs

"Psychobamanalysis" by Brian Russell, Ph.D., in which the well-known psychologist explains how Barack Obama thinks

"Barack Obama: Narcissist or merely narcissistic?" by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., a comprehensive expert look at how the president’s behavior matches many markers of the troubling disorder

"New study: Narcissists crave power"

"Poll: Obama beats Jesus as American 'hero'" by Chelsea Schilling

"Farrakhan on Obama: 'The Messiah is absolutely speaking'" by Bob Unruh, on why the anti-Semitic Black Muslim leader says, "Barack has captured the youth" and will bring about "universal change"

"Youth movements are bad news" by Dennis Prager, who explains why Obama's powerful appeal to young people does not bode well

"Understanding Obama's cult of personality" by Ali Sina, in which the Iranian ex-Muslim author recalls similar widespread public ecstasy over the charismatic Ayatollah Khomeini

"'Disturbed personalities' leading America today" by Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D., in which the veteran forensic psychiatrist explains the psychodynamics of today's radical liberal mind

"The Obama Doctrine: 'Don't blame me'" by Ben Shapiro, on the dangers of a president being obsessed with his own greatness

"Oratory – or hypnotic induction?" Some analysts claim Obama's eloquence is augmented by hypnosis techniques

"The strange roots of political correctness" by Reb Bradley, who explains how raising coddled, narcissistic kids leads naturally to PC madness

"Liberalism is a mental disorder" by Michael Savage, in which the top radio talker invites confused Americans to "throw off their chains"

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me" by Ellis Washington, in which the law prof highlights what he calls Obama's "infantile, overarching, all-consuming sense of entitlement."

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Office of "THE" American Idol

Votes verified by ACORN

Coincidence? - I think not!

by Rees
April 15, 2009

The Obama Administration via the Department of Homeland
Security released their report (PDF file here) about Rightwing Extremists just before the April 15th Tea Parties. You might say, "So What!"

Well, I believe their intent was to try and intimidate people from participating in today's Tea Parties. Everything they needed to put the fear of God, oops Messiah, into the American public is in that document.

Conservatives typically don't get out and demonstrate until their ox has been gored several times. Liberals will demonstrate for no reason at all.

The current political climate with the huge stimulus package, bailouts and obscene budget that will triple the deficit, finally got the conservatives off their butts and onto the streets. Liberals haven't seen anything like this out of the conservative movement since the Reagan years.

And guess what? Liberals are afraid. They realize that conservatives are the silent majority in this country and if conservatives finally make their voice heard, that it could have real potential to stop some of the out of control spending and socialistic programs being put forth by this administration and congress.

So what do they decide to do to stop or at least slow down this movement? They proceed with their Chicago Thug intimidation tactics.

The latest report by the DHS focuses on "Rightwing Extremists" with no data to support what's stated in the report. The problem is their use of the term "Rightwing Extremist" is a smokescreen to make it appear they're only talking about the real "wacko's" out there.

However, they're not. All you have to do is read the report and you will easily see they have basically smeared all conservatives. I believe I live in an average neighborhood, surrounded by average Americans. Most of my friends and relatives are what I would consider average Americans. Yet, if you go down the DHS checklist, almost every one of my family, friends and neighbors could be considered a Rightwing Extremist.

Obama fired a shot across the bow of all conservatives. He has now labeled us all as potential security threats to our Own Country, and the report was brutal in its smear of veterans.

Most Americans just want to lead a quiet life. They want to work, own a home, enjoy their family and friends and worship as they choose to. They don't want to make waves and they surely don't want to get on the wrong side of the government. As an example, look at how many people are pretty much terrified of being audited by the IRA. They know you can't get into a legal battle with the government, because they have unlimited resources and the average person doesn't. They know they will lose even if they're right.

So what happens now? Hopefully, most of the Tax Day Tea Party Protesters will still show up and make sure their message is heard by this Administration. However, I think that there will be many who won't want the Tea Party Scarlet Letter attached to their name. They don't want to be watched. They don't want to be on the wrong side of this administration.

Obama told the bankers that he was the only thing between the bankers and the pitchforks. He also famously stated to our representatives "I Won." He needs everyone to obey so that he can implement his entire agenda. He will settle for nothing less and will do whatever he has to in order to succeed.

I don't think Our Country needs to be afraid of Rightwing Extremists, I think Our Country needs to be afraid of Obama, his administrations and the tactics of intimidation that they are using to ensure compliance.

JMHO.

Don't Be So Sensitive, Mr. President

photo of Roxana Saberi who continues to be held captive in Iran

Truth comes before reconciliation.

By Christopher Hitchens
Monday, April 13, 2009
from Slate.com

President Barack Obama's visit to Europe afforded us an opportunity to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of his style in operation. And, even though he has almost attained the Holy Grail of public relations—in other words, he is practically at that ineffable and serene point where he gets good press for getting good press—there may come a time when even his trans-Atlantic admirers will have to take a second look.

His speech in Strasbourg, France, was much too long, given the youth of the audience and the way in which presidential sonorousness ate into the time that was to be allowed for questions, but its aim of changing the American tone was largely successful. I thought that the best moment was when he focused on the German and French citizens who had perished in the World Trade Center. George W. Bush always spoke as if the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001, were an attack on the United States only and drew the corollary in his rhetoric that you are either "with" the United States or with the "terrists" (as he always seemed to think they were called). By underlining the losses suffered by other countries, not only did Obama redress this imbalance, he also gently but firmly reminded Europeans that this was and is their struggle, too.
Related in Slate

One would have liked a bit more of this combination and perhaps very slightly less willingness to make disclaimers about American power. It's absurd to act as if, at NATO and G20 meetings, the United States is just another modest member. In the case of NATO, it is at least "first among equals," or primus inter pares, in that its military strength is greater than that of all the other members of the alliance combined. In the case of the world's economic powers, a disproportionate share of the blame for the current crisis lies with America and so does a comparably vast element of the chance that the decline can be reversed. It is obviously not a moment to strut around impersonating a hyperpower, but that doesn't mean that Madeleine Albright's injunction about the United States being a "necessary" power can be disowned, either.

The limitations of the Obama manner were exposed in his address to the Turkish parliament and his press conference with the Turkish leadership. The president did not take the opportunity to reiterate his principled stand on the Armenian genocide that we are commemorating this month and took refuge in platitudes about healing and negotiation. It's not as if the Turks don't know what he thinks, so it's difficult to see the value of undue reticence. And it's hardly an accident that, in all successful attempts at settling accounts with the past in other nations, the word reconciliation has invariably been preceded by the word truth. The first duty is to stop lying. Only then can any genuine attempt at settlement get under way.

It was also somewhat naive of Obama to deny that the United States is "or ever will be" at war with Islam. Of course, one cannot exactly make war on a faith, most especially a faith that is currently undergoing a civil war within itself, in which Turkey has several times been attacked by Bin Ladenist forces. But twice in the past, jihad has been officially proclaimed from Turkey's capital. It was in the name of the Quran that the piratical Ottoman provinces known as the Barbary States took hundreds of thousands of American and European voyagers into slavery in the 18th century, until Thomas Jefferson dispatched the fleet and the Marines to put down the trade, and it was from Constantinople that the Ottoman military alliance with German imperialism in 1914 was proclaimed as a holy war binding on all good Muslims. In other words, what one really wants is an assurance that Islam is not, nor ever will be, at war (again) with the United States.

That Obama is confused about this, and also slightly weak, is demonstrated by his earlier attempt at quiet diplomacy, or constructive engagement, or whatever we agree to call it, with Iran. He sent a message to "the people and leaders of Iran" on the occasion of Nowruz, or New Year—a day that he may or may not have known is slightly frowned upon by the Islamic authorities, because it involves fire ceremonies and other celebrations that predate the Muslim conquest of Persia. Any offense they might have taken on that score must have been mollified when the president twice referred to the country as "the Islamic Republic of Iran," as in, "The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations."

Does this boilerplate goodwill represent anything true? In order for the great and civilized nation of Persia to take its rightful place in the community of nations, it would have to be able to demonstrate that its leadership was freely chosen by its own people and that it was willing to abide by agreements and undertakings (on nontrifling matters such as nuclear proliferation) that it had solemnly signed. The mullahs rule Iran on the basis of a Khomeini-ite dogma known as the veliyate faqui, which makes them the owners and "guardians" of all the country's citizens. And they have been covertly seeking enriched uranium of the sort not required for a civilian nuclear program, while never ceasing to proclaim the imminent and apocalyptic return of the 12th or "hidden" imam. In other words, in order to claim its "rightful place" in any recognizable community of nations, Iran would in effect have to cease to be an Islamic republic.

Meanwhile, the theocratic regime has several times exerted its power to arrest and imprison Iranian-Americans for "offenses" that would not be crimes in any civilized country. The most recent such outrage is the imprisonment of journalist Roxana Saberi, framed for allegedly buying a bottle of wine. We should hear more from the White House about her case and less about the sensitivities of her jailers. Some differences cannot be split. Many conflicts are real and do not arise from mere cultural misunderstandings. Obama must learn this or be taught it, whichever comes sooner.
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Right’s rage at overbearing Obama

The torrent of ideas flowing out of the White House is raising hackles across the US

From The Sunday Times
by Sarah Baxter in Washington
April 12, 2009

A CONSERVATIVE talk show host claims Barack Obama’s policies amount to dousing the American public with petrol and lighting a match. A top adviser to George W Bush calls the vice-president a liar. And a congressman says there are 17 “socialists” in the House of Representatives.

The political invective is turning ugly after the promise of hope and change. Some say it is Obama’s fault for his hyperactivist style of government. Others say it is time the Republicans realised they lost.

The meaning of “Obamaism” – yes, he already has his own “ism” – is being hotly debated. Is it style or substance? The hype about his cool has been overtaken by the realisation on both sides of the divide that Obama meant what he said on the campaign trail about being a transformational president.

In his first three months in office, his administration has put forward a $3.5 trillion budget, produced a rescue plan for banks and bailed out the car industry and is promising a green energy “revolution”, universal healthcare, school reform and an overhaul of immigration.

That’s not counting foreign policy after a week of European summits, dubbed the Obama “apology tour” after he called America “arrogant”, and topped off with a row over whether the president bowed ingratiatingly to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the G20 meeting in London.

There have been diplomatic overtures to Iran, the announcement of a “surge” in Afghani-stan and a demand for $83 billion in supplementary funding for the two wars, including Iraq, which will no longer be known as the “war on terror” but still upsets the left.

On top of it all, Obama turned salesman last week, urging homeowners to refinance their mortgages at the favourable new low interest rates.

“We’re starting to see glimmers of hope across the economy,” he said as the Dow Jones rose by 20% and jobless benefit claims recorded a slight fall.

For George Packer, a liberal commentator writing in The New Yorker, Obamaism is “activist government on every front”. The president’s attempt to preserve the fabric of society is not left-wing but “a pretty good description of what used to pass for conservatism”.

On the right, Peter Wehner argued in Commentary magazine that Obamaism represents the emergence of “European-style social democracy”, which will change America’s social and political landscape.

Moderate “blue dog” Democrats are concerned that Obama is taking on too much. Those who are defending tiny majorities in conservative-leaning districts fear a backlash from voters who worry the president is tilting too far to the left.

The scale of Obama’s ambition is enough to make Republicans see red. Glenn Beck, a Fox News host who has been generating his own headlines with exaggerated outbursts, said: “They’re marching us toward 1984. . . Like it or not, fascism is on the rise.”

Hearing of Obama’s plans for immigration reform, Beck imitated pouring petrol over a guest and lighting a match. “How much more can he disenfranchise us?” he fumed.

Spencer Bachus, a Republican congressman from Alabama, was accused of McCarthyism for saying Congress was pushing Obama too far to the left. “Some of the men and women I work with . . . are socialists,” he said. He has been keeping count. Pressed to explain, he said there were 17, but declined to name names.

Bush’s former aide, Karl Rove, caused a further stir last week after he called Joe Biden, the vice-president, a fantasist and a liar. Biden had recounted a conversation he had had with Bush in the Oval Office. “Well, Joe,” Bush said. “I’m a leader.”

“And I said: ‘Mr President, turn around and look behind you. No one is following’.”

Rove denied the exchange had ever taken place. “I hate to say this, but he’s a serial exaggerator. If I was being unkind, I would say liar.”

Despite the Democrats’ irritation with Rove, White House officials hope to take a leaf out of his book by keeping party activists in a state of permanent mobilisation. Obama’s campaign e-mail list of 13m supporters has already been used to drum up support in Congress for his spending plans.

In another attempt to energise the grass roots, plans are under way for activists from groups such as moveon.org and the labour organisation Change to Win to meet on Tuesdays in Washington.

Called the Common Purpose project, it is meant to provide “a way for the White House to manage its relationship with some of these independent groups”, according to one of those involved. Ellen Moran, White House communications director, has already turned up to one meeting.

The gathering is modelled on the Republicans’s long-established Wednesday meetings, run by Grover Norquist, the prominent tax reform activist.

But Norquist is sceptical the Democrats’ version will work. Various left-wing groups have been trying to copy it without success for years, he said.

“Our coalition holds together because nobody wants anything at the expense of anybody else. You can’t have healthcare reform that saves money if the labour unions take everything there is and you can’t have money for education workers if it is spent on health. That makes their coalition more brittle than ours.”

Norquist believes the president has pledged far more than he can deliver. But Obama is helped by the ability to raise colossal sums to stave off recession and reflate the economy. Temporarily, at least, there is plenty to go around.

The true nature of Obamaism may be revealed only once the money runs out. Then we will know if his hyperactivism has worked.
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Obama: Fuehrer of the United States

This article was first published on 09/22/2008. The article made the Obama campaign story interesting, but we we're just getting a glimpse of who the real Obama was.

Now that we've seen Obama operate as President, the information in the article actually allows us to see a very disturbing image of who Obama really is.

Rees

Understanding Obama: The Making of a Fuehrer

By Ali Sina
2008/09/22

This article has been published in more than 1000 sites, erroneously attributing it to Dr. Vaknin. One person even wrote to me accusing me of plagiarism (double whammy?). Those sites are in error. If you find this article attributed to anyone else but me please write to them and correct them. You are welcome to reproduce this article, or any of my articles on Obama, listed at the buttom, in part or in their entirety, but you must provide a link to the source in this site. Thank you.

I was not impressed by Sen. Barack Obama after the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident – a wholesome presidential package. It is so instinctive for most people to want to see blacks succeed. It is as if all humanity is carrying a collective guilt for what the ancestors of blacks endured. However, despite my initial interest in him, I was soon put off, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words.

It is surreal to see the level of hysteria in his admirers. This phenomenon is unprecedented in American politics. Women scream and swoon during his speeches. They yell and shout to Obama, “I love you.” Never did George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt. Martin Luther King Jr. or Ronald Reagan arouse so much raw emotion. Despite their achievements, none of them was raised to the rank of Messiah. The Illinois senator has no history of service to the country. He has done nothing outstanding except giving promises of change and hyping his audience with hope. It’s only his words, not his achievements that is causing this much uproar.

When cheering for someone turns into adulation, something is wrong. Excessive adulation is indicative of a personality cult. The cult of personality is often created when the general population is discontent. A charismatic leader can seize the opportunity and project himself as an agent of change and a revolutionary leader. Often, people, tired of the status quo, do not have the patience to examine the nature of the proposed change. All they want is change. During 1979, when the Iranians were tired of the dictatorial regime of the late Shah, they embraced Khomeini, not because they wanted Islam, but because he promised them change. The word in the street was, “anything is better than the Shah.” They found their error when it was too late.

Khomeini promised there would be separation between religion and state. He lied and they did not care to look into his past to see whether he actually meant what he said. Had they done that they would have seen that he always believed in caliphate and the rule of Islam. People gobbled everything he told them uncritically. They wanted to believe and therefore closed their eyes so they did not see what they did not want to see. Eyes welled when he spoke. Masses poured into the streets by the millions, screamed and shouted to greet him. People kissed his pictures. Some saw his portrait reflected on the Moon.

Listening to Obama ... it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch Khomeini, how he would excite the crowd and they'd come to their feet and scream and yell.

I was amused to hear a listener calling Fox News Radio's Tom Sullivan Show, (Feb 11) and saying: "Listening to Obama ... it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch those deals with Hitler, how he would excite the crowd and they'd come to their feet and scream and yell." ( Videos of Hitler’s speeches are available on Youtube. They are worth a look.)

Equating anyone to Hitler by highlighting the similarities between the two is a logical fallacy. This fallacy, known as reductio ad Hitlerum is a variety of both questionable cause and association fallacy. I believe it is wrong to trivialize the holocaust and the horrors of Nazism by comparing our opponents to Hitler.

However, Hitler, prior to coming to power had not killed anyone. He was insane, but few could see that. Far from it, he was seen as a gifted man and hailed as the savior of Germany. He was admired throughout the world. He appealed to the masses of people – the working class and particularly to women, and did not just inspire them, he “elevated” them. Thousands rallied to listen to his passionate speeches. They shed tears when he spoke. Women fainted during his speeches. To Germans, he was not a politician, but a demigod, a messiah. They envisioned him as truly a magical figure of majestic wisdom and glory. They worshiped him. They surrendered their wills to him. He restored their national pride. He projected himself as their savior. He ran on the platform of change and hope. Change he delivered all right, but hopes he shattered.

I think it is fair to say that the Illinois senator puts the same passion in his speeches that Hitler used to put in his, and he evokes similar raw emotions in his audience. This much we can agree. Okay, we can also agree that both Hitler and Charlie Chaplin wore square moustaches. So what?

The Cult of Personality

There are other disturbing similarities. Like Hitler and Khomeini, Obama also likes to create a cult of personality around himself. As stated above, when a large number of a population is discontent, a charismatic leader can seize the opportunity and present himself as the agent of change. He can create a cult of Personality by associating himself with the idea of change. He convinces everyone that things are terrible and a drastic change is needed. He then casts himself as the only person who can deliver this revolutionary transformation that everyone is waiting for. He portrays himself as a benevolent guide; the only one who cares about people and their needs and can pull them out of their alleged misery. In reality, they have no clue about how to address the problem - have no experience, no track record. But they are convincing because they are self assured.

These revolutionary leaders need foes. They exaggerate the problems. They make everything look gloomy. They lie, cheat and slander their opponents while casting themselves as the saviors of the nation. Hitler chose the Jews to blame for everything that was wrong in Germany. Khomeini made the Shah and his westernization plans his scapegoats. Obama has chosen President George W. Bush to smear. He can rally people around himself, as long as he can instill in them the dislike of Bush and equate his rival, McCain to him. Sigmund Freud wrote, "It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness" (Civilization and Its Discontents).

A cult of personality is excessive adulation, admiration and exaltation of a charismatic leader, often with unproven merits or achievements. It is similar to hero worship except that it is created specifically for political leaders.

It is amazing to see to what extent people are willing to go to eulogize another human being. It is this excess that constitutes the cult of personality. The difference between admiration and cult of personality is in the degree of adulation. Is it not fair to say that Obama has the same effect on his fans that Hitler, Khomeini or other famous demagogues such as Joseph Stalin or Mao Ze Dong had? I am not equating Obama to those mass murderers. Obama has not killed anyone (at least not yet). I am only comparing their effects on their audience, particularly prior to their rise to power.

Obama’s speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such a quasi “religious” impact on so many people. The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming.

Obama’s speeches are grandiose. They are other worldly. He may talk about the war in Iraq, taxes or social security. It does not matter how mundane is the subject, he makes them sound transcendental and his audience is moved to tears. His worshippers do not go to listen to his plans. He has yet to offer any that is workable and different. They go to bask in his glory, to get high. Obama presents himself as someone with a unique vision and grasp of the entire problems affecting, not just the nation but the world, a pretense that is incomensurate with his track record. When in a meeting with House Democrats waxing lyrical about his trip to Europe, he concluded, “this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for.” The world is waiting for Obama, according to Obama. In one of his rallies he reiterated this delusion of grandiosity and said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for." This sentence is logically absurd. What actually Obama wanted to say, which he masked with fake modesty is “I am the one the world has been waiting for.”

When you fall for someone to the extent that Obama’s followers have fallen for him, you surrender your reason and individuality to him willingly. When millions of people surrender their hearts and their minds to one person the result can be catastrophic. This is what happened in Germany with Hitler, in China with Mao, in the Soviet Union with Stalin, in Cuba with Castro, in Iran with Khomeini, and so on and so forth. Today, we think these men were monsters, but that was not what millions of their worshipers thought. Those people loved them. Dictators can’t dictate, unless peole are willing to be dictated.

Here is what Wikipedia says about Cult of Personality: "A cult of personality or personality cult arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create a heroic public image through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships but can be found in some democracies.

"A cult of personality is similar to general hero worship except that it is created specifically for political leaders. However, the term may be applied by analogy to refer to adulation of non-political leaders."

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Hey Obama! - The U.S. Should Revoke Your Passport

from The Provocateur
Monday, April 6, 2009
by mike volpe

The President Fails Rule 1 of Geopolitics

It's gone from annoying to disturbing how often the president is making a habit of finding a foreign audience to criticize prior American foreign policy. Make no mistake, while a large majority of that prior policy is George W. Bush's, the current president's criticism isn't limited only to his predecessor. In 1952, Arthur Vandenburg presented a very simple geopolitical principle.

politics stops at the water's edge

In other words, whatever disagreements we may have, we present a united front outside our nation. Vandenburg believed that this is vital because in his words,

to unite our official voice at the water's edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us

President Obama seems to never miss an opportunity to talk to foreigners and find a point of prior foreign policy to criticize. The latest comes in a speech to the Parliament of Turkey.

An enduring commitment to the rule of law is the only way to achieve the security that comes from justice for all people. Robust minority rights let societies benefit from the full measure of contributions from all citizens.

I say this as the President of a country that not too long ago made it hard for someone who looks like me to vote.

As Powerline itself points, it wasn't even the federal government that stopped African Americans from voting but rather individual states. This may be a nit picking technicality however what's more important is that this follows in a disturbing pattern of the president using just about any opportunity to take shots at the country he is leading.

He has already gone overseas and accused America of torture, violating civil rights, violating the rule of law, acting arrogantly, not listening, and acting as imperialists. This disturbing onslaught on the country he purports to lead has real geopolitical consequences. From now on, any action which ally or foe alike doesn't like by his administration can be characterized by our adversaries as "imperialist", "arrogant", "torturous", etc.

By doing an endless string of mea culpa for all sorts of prior perceived bad policy, the president also by extension weakens the credibility of the nation as a whole. That's because he presents an image of the nation as a terribly flawed and failed nation. He presents a nation that has an image of doing wrong rather than right. What is really most troubling about all of this is how little time the president spends pointing out all the times that the United States has been a force for good rather. Instead, the president seems to always find any and all prior acts of bad and tells the world about the country's bad, but he rarely points out when the country has been a force for good.

If you were to only listen to the president, you might not realize that our blood and treasure freed both Western Europe and Eastern Europe. If you listen to the president, you wouldn't know that both Afghanistan and Iraq now have a chance at freedom because of the blood and treasure of the United States. It was also the United States that lead in the effort to isolate the Apartheid government of South Africa that ultimately lead to its disintegration. These are just a few examples of a history of good of our nation, and these examples rarely find their way into things the president says about the nation when he is overseas.
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Hey Obama! - Apologize to the American People!

What kind of man has such an obsessive need to put down his own country?

Obama, You should not be allowed to visit Normandy. Your presence will desecrate the ground in which our fallen American Heroes are buried. You are President and Commander In Chief in title only. You dishonor the office. You DO NOT love this Country. And, regardless of what Michelle says, neither one of you are proud of this country.
Rees

from American Thinker
April 06, 2009
By James Lewis

Those arrogant Americans

We have a rock star president who for the first time in American history fired the President of a private corporation, General Motors, then immediately flew to Europe with an entourage of 500 courtiers and a worshipful media, bowed waist-deep to the King of Saudi Arabia, and proceeded to accuse his own country of arrogance.

In Paris, of all places.

Does anybody else think this guy is shockingly ignorant? I wonder if he has ever really talked to a concentration camp survivor, or a Cuban refugee, or a boat person from Vietnam? Or a Soviet dissident. Or a survivor or Mao's purges.

Not to mention families with fallen American soldiers in the graveyards. Yes, he's going to Normandie, but will he apologize for our arrogance there, too? Does he really understand anything beyond the PC history of the world? Or will he just lie in his photo op at the American Cemetery at Normandie?

Ahhh, those arrogant Americans. First they rebel against King George III and all the crowned heads of Europe. Then they welcome tens of millions of poor and persecuted people from the Old World. Then they fail to bow down to Europe's greatest figures -- from Napoleon and Otto von Bismarck to the Kaiser, Hitler and Stalin. Then they fight a civil war, losing half a million people to liberate black people in America. Then they diss the man the BBC considers to be the greatest philosopher ever, one Karl Marx, whose followers killed 100 million innocents in the 20th century. And then, to top it all off, they liberate both the Western half of Europe (in 1946) and the Eastern half (in 1989).

What arrogance these Americans have. Either that, or a very, very -- no, stunningly -- ignorant man was just elected president -- largely because millions of benevolent voters believed that we owe black people a presidency. They may come to see that as their biggest mistake ever. In the next couple of years they will see a tripling of government debt, high inflation, a permanent loss in their personal wealth, and a major devaluation of the dollar.

Which, to judge by his recent television performance, should just make him giggle quite inappropriately, in front of God and everybody. What kind of man has such an obsessive need to put down his own country? Especially given our real history? Has he ever read an honest history book?
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Obama - Are you head of state or enemy of the state?

You should be ashamed of yourself. I'm embarrassed that you are the President of the United States. You would be a much better fit as President of Iran or Venezuela. You could then dictate to your heart's content. You're behavior while in Europe has been disgusting, disturbing and disrespectful to those Americans who lost their lives in order to free Europe.
Rees


Echo Of Europe

from INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Leadership: Sixty-one years to the day after Truman signed the Marshall Plan rebuilding war-torn Europe, President Obama apologizes to French youth for U.S. arrogance. Our defense of freedom is no shame.

News reports quoted French men and women hailing the first African-American president of the United States as a hopeful sign for global racial reconciliation.

But is there another reason they're so smitten? Might they be imagining the decline of America and the rise of a Eurocentric multilateralism?

Barack Obama's words to the thousands of squealing young French and German fans at the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg certainly seem in harmony with such hopes.

"In America," the president claimed, "there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."

President Obama promised that "America is changing" and that there would now be "unprecedented coordination" in our policies.

He lamented that "we got sidetracked by Iraq"; he extolled the "social safety net that exists in almost all of Europe that doesn't exist in the United States."

And he described the G-20 summit he just attended in London last week as "a success of nations coming together, working out their differences, and moving boldly forward."

But is multilateralism really the great hope for the future that the president and his French and German devotees are convinced it is?

"We just emerged from an era marked by irresponsibility," the president claimed in reference to the global financial crisis.

But when he flaunts his "excellent meeting with President Medvedev of Russia" to begin the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles with the claim that working with Moscow will "give us greater moral authority to say to Iran, 'don't develop a nuclear weapon,' to say to North Korea, 'don't proliferate nuclear weapons,' " isn't he actually embarking on a new era of naive foreign policy irresponsibility?

The Russia and Communist China the president wants to "partner" with are directly responsible for giving Iran and North Korea the nuclear expertise and equipment that have empowered those two oppressive terror states to pursue the ability to incinerate a city.

And does the president really believe that Kim Jong-il or the Ayatollah Khomenei respond, as he put it, to "moral authority" the way civilized leaders do?

It's Europe that has things to learn from America, not vice versa.

Europe can learn that with an injection of U.S.-style market competition, French patients need not wait month-upon-month for heart bypass surgery. They can learn that Iran is a clear and present danger requiring force from a united free world, not talk.

While they're at it, they might also learn to express some gratitude for the $13 billion American taxpayers shelled out during the post-war years (over $100 billion in current dollars) to rebuild their countries — after the U.S. came to their rescue during the war itself, spilling the blood of hundreds of thousands to defeat Hitler.

The United States of America is the world's lone superpower — unless and until we choose to relinquish that responsibility.

The last thing our sometime friends and allies across the pond need is a U.S. president bemoaning America's role in the world and serving as an echo chamber to those in Europe who would like to see us weakened or irrelevant.
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Obama Is the ‘Arrogant, Dismissive, and Derisive’ One

If President Obama keeps it up, he may find the pitchforks with which he threatened the CEOs pointing at him.

April 5, 2009
by Kim Priestap
from Pajamas Media

While in Strasbourg, President Barack Obama told an audience in a townhall meeting that America needs to change its attitude toward Europe. He said America was wrong for not celebrating Europe’s “dynamic union” and not seeking “to partner” with them to better address the “common challenges” that face our nations. He even went so far as to say past American policy was misguided because it had “shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive,” an obvious rebuke of former President Bush. The president made these highly critical comments of his own country on foreign soil in an effort to “rebuild” the transatlantic relationship between the United States and Europe by offering an olive branch.

The president’s comments were greeted with cheers. They were described as electrifying and inspiring. And they are the most classic case of projection exhibited by an American president to date.

Just a few days ago in a meeting with American CEOs of American banks, President Obama’s tone and attitude were rife with the arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision he had just criticized in Europe. A participant in the meeting told Politico that when the CEOs tried to explain that the nature, complexities, and competition of the finance and banking industries required that they continue retention bonuses for their employees, the president became impatient. He interrupted them and said, “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that. My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

The imagery behind Obama’s threat couldn’t be more obvious: comply with my demands or I will make sure you are harassed, intimidated, and run out of town on a rail. He made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Don Corleone couldn’t have said it better.

We can not forget, however, that it was Barack Obama himself along with his fellow Democrats who agitated this mob-like frenzy about the banks, the CEOs, and the bonuses. It was Obama who said the bonuses were an “outrage” and a “violation of our fundamental values.” Democrat Barney Frank hauled AIG’s CEO in front of the House Financial Services Committee and interrogated him, demanding to know why he approved the hundreds of millions of dollars of bonuses. Conveniently, Congressman Frank failed to mention that the approval was inside the very stimulus bill Obama championed and the Democrats overwhelmingly voted for.

This wasn’t the first time Obama bared his political teeth. Back in January he responded to the House Republicans’ concerns about not having enough tax cuts in the stimulus package with an arrogant and dismissive “I won.” Karl Rove reported in a recent Wall Street Journal column that Obama told fellow Democrat Rep. Peter De Fazio that he needed to watch his political backside after he voted against the president’s stimulus package: “Don’t think I’m not keeping score, brother,” he warned him.

Obama’s most recent pitchfork threat, however, was not just for his private audience of CEOs. He had a much wider audience in mind: the Democrats in Congress and the American people.

While the president continues to inflame the outrage surrounding the executives’ bonuses by threatening bank CEOs with angry mobs wielding pitchforks, he’s quietly working behind the scenes to help these same CEOs avoid the limits Democrats in Congress are trying to place on the salaries of the executives that receive bailout funds. In fact, the president himself has called for these limits. That means we can add another descriptor to Obama’s list: duplicitous. The Washington Post gives us the details:

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.

Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.

The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials.

It seems the president is trying to play both sides of this issue. On the one hand, he wants to continue to stoke the populist outrage set ablaze by the lavish bonuses; on the other hand, he is trying to help the CEOs keep those same lavish bonuses.

This epitomizes arrogance, dismissiveness, derision, and duplicity toward the American taxpayers and his own party. The president was elected with the grand expectation that he would transform the way Washington does business, but his new scheme of circumventing Congress is nothing more than the old policies of the Chicago political machine. If President Obama keeps it up, he may find the pitchforks with which he threatened the CEOs pointing at him.
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Exclusive: Important Steps to Take If Your Goal Is To Destroy the American Economy

from Family Security Matters.com
J. Harinas

* Since investors and the market in general hate uncertainty, have a vast array of conflicting ad hoc policy decisions so as to create uncertainty everywhere.

* Transfer money from those who create sustainable jobs to those who create unsustainable jobs, i.e. the government.

* Promise to invest money in things that will enhance the country's infrastructure, such as roads and internet access, but then practice bait and switch on a breathtaking scale, so the effort is swamped with pork for pet democrat projects.

* A sufficiently generous larding of pork can help ensure the destruction of bi-partisanship, so squandering the initial good will is definitely a very good move. After all, it's hard to get things done when you've alienated people whose help you need.

* Undermine the ability of those who create jobs by increasing their taxes so there's less money available for investment.

* While you're at it, offer to spread the income around by raising taxes, in the process, making it clear to those who work hard, invest in their educations, take risks, save, and delay gratification that they will see their money go to those who do not do these things.

* Encourage class warfare. Divide the populace and destroy cooperation, thus encouraging backlash and creating paralyzing polarization. That's a genuinely brilliant move. Much to be encouraged and supported.

* Talk up protectionism, since the beggar thy neighbor approach has such a long and vigorous history of encouraging depression. Another brilliant, brilliant move.

* Scare people with talk of economic catastrophe. You can backpedal later, but the initial good work of helping people lose confidence should have a lasting impact. Hard to improve on that one.

* Tackle an array of divisive, expensive programs such as cap and trade and healthcare reform, so the best and brightest in your administration aren't focused on dealing with the existential threat, economic meltdown, which the Washington Post compares in seriousness to Pearl Harbor. (Anything you can do to divide and polarize the country is a stroke of genius.)

* Insult the Chinese by publicly accusing them of currency manipulation. It may be true that they are doing this, but this translates in Chinese (as I'm told by my Chinese boyfriend) as accusing them of lying, and in a country that puts great store on face, doing this publicly on a world stage instead of hashing it out privately, angers them enough so that they're looking for ways to retaliate, and given the number of economic cards they hold, this is not a good position for America to be in. But darn, angering your biggest creditor is simply beyond brilliant if you want to damage the economy.

* Print money on a scale that will insure inflation in the future. Print it on a scale that will make people not want to hold U.S. debt
without staggering interest on that debt, if they're willing to hold U.S. government debt at all.

* Burden future generations with unprecedented amounts of debt.

* Instead of allowing hopeless institutions to go bankrupt, pour vast amounts of money into them, prolonging the pain and running up the cost while only delaying the inevitable.

* Tax and spend and borrow like never before and sign a bill full of 9,000 earmarks while declaring publicly you will not stand for either reckless spending or earmarks. Let the people see the clips of the President saying one thing and doing quite another, and cause the people to lose all respect for the President. This undermines his moral authority. This isn't a big deal, but it helps even if only a little, so by all means do it.

I have a feeling I'm leaving out some important additional steps that could help destroy the American economy, but I think the above would give us a good running start for achieving this. I think congratulations are due all around, assuming that this is the goal.

Bravo!

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor J. Harinas is a New York libertarian.
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