Out. Of. Touch.

July 16, 2010

I’m beginning…just beginning, mind you…to have some doubts about the sanity of our Commander-in-Chief. Sure, I’ve disagreed with almost every piece of domestic policy he’s shoved down our throats in the past year and a half, but I’ve never had any reason to doubt that his mind was as fit as his body.

But then he’s quoted in an NBC interview as claiming this his policies “got us out of this mess.” Obama would like you to believe that the drastic drop in employment in late 2008/early 2009 would have continued at the same pace in perpetuity had he not stepped in and stemmed the tide with his enormous ego fiscal policies. It’s nonsense. The massive employment drops of a year and a half ago, to the tune of roughly 700,000 a month, were never going to continue at that pace. The rate of job loss would slow as employers scaled back to the bare minimum needed to stay in business. In any time of increasing unemployment there is always a peak (or valley, if you prefer) to which the numbers both build up and recede.

Getting us “out of this mess” would not entail tepid job growth where the largest hiring firm in the nation is the Federal government. Getting us out of this mess would mean seeing job growth in the hundreds of thousands per month, not the tens. Getting us out of this mess would involve the unemployment percentage steadily dropping instead of hovering around the 9.5% mark. Let’s consider Obama’s pride and joy, the Stimulus Plan. Only about 50% of the $787 billion has been spent. If you take Obama’s ludicrous assertion that “three million” jobs have been created or saved, that amounts to spending about $131,000 per job. Now that’s government efficiency for ya. Obama promised that passing the stimulus bill would keep the unemployment rate below 8%, but now takes it as a point of pride that the unemployment rate hasn’t gone up to 15%. Why not just tell the people that without the stimulus the unemployment rate would be 20%? Or 25%? Anyone want to believe 50%? Memo to Barry: Saying “it would have been worse” is 1) unprovable, and 2) not saying much of anything at all when things are this bad. He’s starting to remind me of Igor in Young Frankenstein who cheerfully said, “Could be worse, could be raining” just before the deluge started.

George H.W. Bush was accused in 1991 of being out of touch with the common man because he downplayed a mild recession. There was some truth to that, though I think the bigger truth is that H.W. had not been in touch with the common man since he left the military after World War II. But the same media that hammered Bush as an aloof country club Republican passes over Obama as if he’d decorated the White House doorway with the blood of a thousand Republican lambs.

Does Obama really not see the world of hurt this country is in? He and his lackeys keep talking about how this is the “Summer of Recovery” when it’s really just a summer of economic pain. Yes, it’s not as bad as it was during the worst of it 18 months ago, but that’s not the same as good news. There are real people out there hurting, and people so depressed and dispirited that they have given up even looking for work. There are employers who would like to hire but won’t because of the million and one regulations that Obama/Pelosi/Reid have put into place with health care and now with financial reform. Obama has personally put thousands of people out of work with his ridiculous drilling moratorium in the Gulf. The fear of inflation, maybe hyper-inflation, is real. The stock market is bringing new meaning to the word “tumultuous.” The oil spill that Obama was so slow to react to has already crippled the economy of the Gulf areas and threatens to impact the economy of the entire nation. Yet despite all this Barack Obama is on a campaign tour telling everyone that he’s responsible for getting us out of this mess. A man with a sense of decency…a sane man…would wait until we were actually out of it before taking credit.

“Summer of Recovery” indeed.

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Today’s Lesson In Progressive Politics: Bill Press

July 15, 2010

Liberal radio host Bill Press on why Obama’s poll numbers are so bad:

The lesson, of course, is that Progressives believe that the American people are too 1) spoiled, 2) stupid, and/or 3) ungrateful to understand that what Progressives are doing is for their own damn good. Press uses the word “spoiled” here but in fact it’s another “S” word that he means: “stupid.”

It speaks to a wider mindset that bedevils and in many ways defines Progressivism/Liberalism: the belief that a small, elite group of intellectuals should rule and that the slovenly, unkempt, unwashed masses should simply accept this rule and understand that Progressives know best. The clue: he maintains that Americans are ungovernable and then proceeds to implicitly compare Barack Obama with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. What Press and other Progressives fail to understand is that in America it is not the people who are governed (i.e., ruled). The government is a construct of, by, and for the people and those who are elected serve at the pleasure of the people. The people are not subjects of the government; the government is a tool of the people.

H/T: Jonah Goldberg in The Corner.

UPDATE: I see Ed Morrissey at Hot Air is on this, as well, and makes the same basic point as yours truly.

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A Nation of Oiloholics?

July 13, 2010

I’m not sure whether it was Bill Clinton or George W. Bush who first uttered the phrase “addicted to oil” in the context of speaking about the American people. Whoever it was, the concept and the phrase seems to have stuck. It’s now a standard talking point for progressive politicians and hapless conservatives to mutter when they want to make some sort of a grand pronouncement on the subject of oil.

In Sunday’s New York Daily News, there was a large story headlined “We Are A Nation of Oiloholics: Instead of ranting at oil companies, pols, let’s look in the mirror” with a photo of a dejected-looking barfly holding out his glass while an unseen bartender pumps some good old Texas Tea into it.

Writes Colin Beavan (who reposts the article on his blog “No Impact Man“:

We are, in other words, more than a little bit like that alcoholic who’s mad at the bartender for serving him the drinks that he himself ordered. We Americans are slugging down the energy cocktails. Unless we want more and more calamities like in the Gulf, we have to own up to our energy addiction. It’s step one in the 12-step road to recovery.

The beauty of the argument is that if you deny this, well, then you’re just in denial. Step one: Admit you have a problem!

Well, count me among those in denial. For starters, I think the argument is little more than a trite insult to anyone dealing with serious substance abuse problems. But that’s really beside the point. The more important argument is that oil is the engine of our economy. Most obviously it makes our cars run, but it also makes manufacturing possible and is used in everything from plastics to paint. That CD you’re listening to? Made with petroleum products. The carpet you’re walking on? Made with petroleum products. The candles you’re lighting for a romantic evening? Made with petroleum products. The rubber soles on your sneakers, and the tread on your tires? You guessed it. Your dishwashing and laundry detergent? Oil and oil. That over-the-counter pain reliever? If it contains Acetylsalicylic acid then it’s made with petrochemicals (the key part being petro). The plastic part of a Band-Aid? Oil. The food additives that keep canned goods fresh? Yep, that’s oil, too. The fertilizer that makes our amber waves of grain and provides food for millions of people? Well, you get the idea.

I’m not sure Colin Beavan gets the idea, nor the people like him who walk around spouting sanctimonious drivel about our “addiction to oil.”

Our use of oil is an indicator of our economic prosperity and our economic stability. Far from being a symptom of some dread addiction, America’s use of oil is a sign that we are a bounteous nation. You know who doesn’t use a lot of oil? Starving people in Third World nations who would gladly trade their untouched by human hands vistas for the ability to hop in the car, drive to the supermarket, and buy a bunch of canned goods. It is oil that makes these things possible at this point in history.

Beavan again:

We in the United States drive 20 times more miles a year than the Mexicans and twice as many as the Japanese. We use 10 times more electricity per person than the Egyptians and twice as much as the Saudis. To power this energy thirst, we each, on average, consume 10 times more oil per person than the Chinese and twice as much as the Germans. We burn seven times more coal per person than the Indians and three times more than the Brits. For all the talk of China’s climate emissions, each American still emits four times more greenhouse gas than each Chinese.

Am I really supposed to think that this is a problem? That we use more energy than countries where an enormous amount of people don’t have running water or electricity? That we drive more miles than people in Mexico…the same people who are coming to this country by the thousands precisely because we offer them a better life with, you know, more driving? That we drive further distances than the Japanese, who live on an island that is only a bit larger than twice the size of the Tri-State area (which includes two very small states)?

No, we are not a nation of oil addicts. We are a healthy and prosperous nation and should rightly be grateful to those dinosaurs who so selflessly kicked off and became fossil fuels so that we could live a better life with fast cars and air conditioning. We have nothing to be ashamed of, we have nothing to feel sorry for. It is our freedom and our liberty that gave us the plentiful benefits of living here and the attack from the Left, and their obsequious “me-too” useful idiots on the Right, on our oil use is little more than a guilt-ridden dagger to the heart of our freedom.

Perhaps someday there will be a substitute for oil. In fact, I’d bet on it. I’d also bet that it’s at least a few decades in the future and that it will evolve through a scientific breakthrough that happens by accident, not on the order of a politician. In the meantime, there is plenty of oil to go around, and using it is not a sickness that needs to be cured. Drink up, my friends. And if you choose not to, that’s fine. I’ll have one for you.

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Posted by Blaknsam

Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene

July 1, 2010

A few random thoughts. And yes, I stole the blog title from Thomas Sowell.

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The Cowardice of Kagan

June 29, 2010

Today the blowhards in Congress get to question Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Despite her 1995 writing that the nomination hearings are “vapid and hollow” because the nominees will not speak their minds and actually answer questions in a forthright manner, Kagan is being as bland and devoid of substance as a Carpenters album.

Politically, of course, it’s a smart tactic. The last Supreme Court nominee with the cojones to speak his mind about judicial issues was Robert Bork, whose treatment by the Senate led to his last name becoming a verb meaning “to smear.” Since then, every Supreme Court candidate has told the Congress absolutely nothing. It really started with Ruth Bader Ginsburg who was counseled to express no strong opinions and to mouth support for the rule of law and the Constitution, even though she believes in neither of these fundamental aspects of American life. Ginsburg is so far out of even the liberal mainstream that had she been honest about where she stood on the issues, she would have put her nomination in jeopardy.

Of course, conservative nominees do the same thing. Justices Roberts and Alito were bland at best in their confirmation hearings, expressing support for precedent and for original intent and avoiding specificity by claiming that they couldn’t offer opinions on issues that might someday be on the Court docket. More recently, Sonia Sotomayor used the same tactics and now it’s Elena Kagan’s turn.

There is a difference, however. When Roberts and Alito expressed their support for the Constitution, and promised to abide by the law as it is written, they were telling the truth. Sotomayor and Kagan are parsing their words very carefully to avoid outright lying.

Elena Kagan was right in her 1995 writing, even though she was guilty of overstating the case. It is actually correct for a nominee to decline comment on specific issues and specific cases because they may come before the Court. Where both Sotomayor and Kagan are being disingenuous is in their full-throated support of original intent and their denial that they will bring their own prejudices to bear.

Both Sotomayor and Kagan are judicial activists. They believe that the role of judges in America is to preside over disputes like Solomon, using their wisdom to provide outcomes that are fair and reasonable. We know this about them because it is the belief of the man who nominated them, Barack Obama, a man not likely to make the mistake of picking a Justice who will be anything less than far, far Left.

What really speaks volumes here is the fact that the Left feels they must hide their activist nature from the prying eyes of TV cameras and blogging heads. If Kagan believes that her judicial philosophy is legitimate, she should have the courage to sit before the Judiciary Committee and defend her philosophy. It’s a conversation long overdue in this country, but the Left does not want to have this discussion because they know that they hold the losing hand with the American people. If Kagan has the courage of her convictions, she should come right out and tell the Judiciary Committee that she will rule on cases based on the evidence, but also based on what her heart and her political convictions tell her is the fair thing to do. When Republicans and conservatives point out that her philosophy of law makes the very foundation of the country, the Constitution, an arbitrary and meaningless document, she should be ready to explain how her philosophy strengthens the Founding documents.

She will do no such thing. She can’t, because her philosophy is unpopular and untenable. The Left wing knows that they lack the will of the American people in getting their agenda passed by the Legislature, and so they corrupt the Court system by infiltrating the bench with people who rule based on the law as they wish it to be, not as it is written. In order to appoint these judges, the nominees must play the game and pretend to be something that they are not.

Politically it’s understandable. But by any other name, it’s also cowardice.

The Roundup: At National Review, Shannen Coffin offers first-hand evidence of a serious Kagan lie. Hot Air has more on the same topic. Breitbart TV has audio of Kagan defending a campaign finance reform law that would ban books, and The Anchoress weighs in on the same audio. There’s Michelle Malkin on Kagan Kabuki. At the American Spectator, Kagan tries to split the baby, like Solomon, on the nature of the Constitution and stands by her opposition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

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