Talk about defining deviancy down. If the incessant “rock star” tenor of the presidential campaign was not syrupy enough to trigger your gag reflex, today’s school girl euphoria over shirtless Obama photos may be the thing. I hope someone has revived Chris Matthews.
Yes, this does reflect poorly on Obama’s supporters in the media because it lays bare, so to speak, the depth of their thinking about Obama. While the President elect is being questioned in connection with the potentially criminal behavior of his closest political advisors, so called journalists are swooning over his physique. How do we rate the relative merits of Obama against say Stephen Harper? It’s hard to say. Most people don’t know who Stephen Harper is because his staff hasn’t arranged for him to appear shirtless on a beach. So there really isn’t much to talk about.
This is further evidence of genius in the Obama camp however. When the dialogue about the President centers on his next quote in Men’s Health, there is little room to be disappointed in his handling of trade policy. All the Obama team has to do is toss their lapdogs in the press a little beef stick and their short term memory is reset.
Obama is now backing away from his plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts. His campaign promise to pay for $4 trillion in new spending by squeezing the filthy rich (aka those making more than $250k a year) and repealing Bush’s modest tax cuts to the rest of us seemed sound. Astonishingly though, It turns out that raising taxes on anyone in the middle of a recession is not such a hot idea. Reality intrudes and the tax cuts stay.
This actually seems to be part of a larger pattern as Obama transitions into office and, as a conservative, I couldn’t be more pleased. As he fills out his cabinet and makes other appointments, I get the distinct feeling that we could possibly have done worse in some ways if McCain had won. Don’t get me wrong: I fully expect my conservative sensibilities to be deeply offended before long. But it’s interesting that the guy who ran around the world talking about bankrupting the coal industry, raising a civilian army (?), closing Gauntanamo, and causing the oceans to recede appears to be preparing to govern from the center. Funny how things change when you actually have to make the decisions that effect 300 million people’s lives.
Which brings me to President Bush. Liberals love to pronounce him the “Worst President In The History Of Our Country.” And possibly in the history of the universe! Of course history will be the judge of that. And history’s judgment will be based in part on the fact that our country hasn’t been attacked in more than seven years. I was thinking of this as I was reading Mark Steyn’s excellent column on the intricately planned terrorist attack in India this week.
As Steyn points out, there is a reason why this hasn’t happened in America recently. And it’s because when he’s not shredding copies of the constitution and listening in on my phone calls, President Bush is making the hard decisions that are necessary to protect our country. Obama will have to decide if he is going to honor every promise he’s made to those on his far-left flank, or if he’s going to make the same difficult decisions that President Bush has made in order to keep us safe.
It’s probably too much to expect Obama to keep Guantanamo open, but I look forward to the reaction from his multitudes of liberal fans when they discover that his foreign policy is not the ”change” they were hoping for. Faced with out current reality, liberal dreams of “hope” and “change” will likely be dashed. And many of President Bush’s decisions will be validated as Obama decides he has no choice but to continue with the status quo.
True to form, the NRO staff has cut through all the hysteria and laid bare the facts about opposition to Prop 8 and the involvement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. As I have stated on this page before, opposition to gay marriage is rooted in a Judeo-Christian religious ethic. While clergy are often the spokespersons for traditional marriage, the explicit root of their common support is never explicitly defined. By the same token, pro-gay animosity towards organized christian religion is rarely called a spade.
Gay activists recognize that anti-Mormon sentiment is common and socially acceptable even among many conservatives and Christians. Attacks on the Mormons are a shrewd attempt to play conservatives against each other and they have good reason to think this will be an effective strategy.
Mitt Romney, whose propensity to adapt policy positions was no more pronounced than any of the other republican primary candidates, was manifestly more the viable conservative candidate that John McCain. Mike Huckabee was not a viable candidate but Evangelical Christians’ distaste for Mitt superceded their fear of an Obama presidency and a 3 branch liberal majority. Their support for Huckabee assured a McCain candidacy and loss.
Where are the spokespeople for other Christian organizations who supported prop 8, now that the Mormon church is being singled out in post election aftermath? The same Christian organizations are now reluctant to voice support for the LDS church even though it hurts not only the immediate cause but makes more likely the possibility of serious consequences down the road. The same lack of fore-site that led to a futile McCain candidacy will hurt all organized religion as the pro-gay agenda is shepherded through the courts by pro-gay activist judges.
The widening probe of insider trading on Wall Street is expected to examine transactions at Steven A. Cohen's SAC, one of America's largest and most successful hedge funds.
Traditionally, the super-rich didn't bother with mortgages, but that changed in the boom years -- and it is still going on. Recent big-time borrowers include hedge-fund titans and baseball magnates.
Obama will face new friction in China over his choice to limit Chinese imports to the U.S. and views that he hasn't done enough to overhaul the financial system.
PELOSI’S HEALTH MONSTER: As senators remained in the dark late last week about the details of the huge committee-approved Senate healthcare bill, over on the House side of Capitol Hill, Speaker Pelosi last Friday unveiled a 1,990-page bill that, not surprisingly, is loaded with mandates, tax increases and a government-run public option and. . .
