Tag Archives: president-obama

Time’s Sullivan Defends Obama’s Christianity, Attacks Conservatives for Perception by Some He’s Muslim

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The number of Americans from all kinds of demographics who are unsure that President Obama is a Christian have grown since he’s been in office. For instance, “fewer than half of Democrats (46%) know Obama is a Christian, down from 55% in March 2009. Barely four-in-ten African-Americans say he’s a Christian, down from 56% last year,” an exasperated Amy Sullivan noted in an August 19 Swampland blog post at Time.com. So who’s fault is that? Conservatives, of course, the religion reporter insisted: It would also be foolish and naive to pretend that conservatives who call Obama a Muslim are doing it in a neutral way and that their intention is anything other than to raise questions about his “otherness.” Sullivan failed to name which prominent conservatives in particular she felt were responsible for moving public opinion on the president’s religious loyalties. But in her zeal to vigorously defend Obama as a follower of Christ, Sullivan concluded by asserting that the White House has to take care to “offset those perceptions [that Obama is secretly a Muslim] with a little more openness about the president’s real Christian faith.”   Perhaps Sullivan was being extremely charitable and wished to avoid rank cynicism, but not once did it occur to her that President Obama might be an agnostic who, like many Americans, nominally associates with the Christian faith because it’s a proper thing to do.   Prior to his presidency, might President Obama have attended — albeit infrequently — Trinity United Church of Christ out of a mix of a vague sense of social and familial obligation and political calculus? Sullivan leaves that possibility unexplored.   To her mind, Obama is unquestionably a Christian and that story must be put out there by the White House PR shop in order to bolster Obama’s connection with the electorate (emphasis mine): I suppose you could call the White House’s complete lack of concern about Obama’s religious image admirable. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine a crafty political adviser marching into the Oval Office and insisting: “Mr. President, I’m sorry, but we have to have you walking into a church every Sunday morning, preferably with a big Bible under your arm.” And i n a perfect world, nobody would give a hoot whether the president went to church or said grace before meals or ever uttered one word publicly about his religious beliefs. But these Pew results suggest that nearly two years after Americans elected Obama, they know less about him than they did when he was a presidential candidate still making his way onto their radar. Forget the question of what that means for 2012– it’s already a problem for a leader who wants to connect with the country. One last note on another finding I found fascinating: Of those Americans who think Obama is a Muslim, nearly one-quarter (24%) told Pew pollsters they think he talks about his faith too much. Which is impossible, of course, because Obama is not a Muslim, so he’s spent exactly zero minutes talking about being one. What the result really illustrates is how thoroughly those who oppose Obama are willing to read everything he says and does through a filter of distrust. Sixty percent of those who think Obama is a Muslim say they got that idea from the media. But interestingly, one-in-ten say they got it from Obama’s own behavior or words. They hear the Cairo speech or see the outreach to Muslim countries and assume, well of course, it’s because he’s Muslim. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t engage in the outreach–far from it. But it does make it even more important for the White House to offset those perceptions with a little more openness about the president’s real Christian faith.

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ZBB BS: WSJ Editorial Scoops Beat Journalists on Financial Condition of Obama-Visited Company

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Here’s yet another example illustrating why one must treat the editorials at the Wall Street Journal as a primary source of hard news during Democratic presidential administrations. On Monday, President Obama visited ZBB Energy Corp, a maker of high-tech batteries in Menominee, Wisconsin. Helene Cooper at the New York Times , where a larger version of the picture at the right appeared, reported that “The company received a $1.3 million federal stimulus loan, which officials said would triple its manufacturing capacity and could lead to 80 new jobs.” Note the word “could.” At least the Times mentioned the existence of ZBB’s stimulus loan. In three brief reports mentioning the company during the past week, the Associated Press didn’t even do that. The WSJ’s intrepid editorialists did everyone else’s work for them and peeked behind the curtain at ZBB. It is not pretty: Uncle Sam, Venture Capitalist Meet the battery company that Obama visited yesterday. President Obama kicked off a five-state campaign swing yesterday with a stop at a “clean energy” plant in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. As it happens, Mr. Obama couldn’t have chosen a better company to demonstrate the risks that taxpayers are taking with their billions in green stimulus investment. … Mr. Obama praised it for “pointing the country toward a brighter economic future,” but we’ll let readers decide if they’d write the same checks if they were investing their own money. ZBB has been around for more than a decade, developing batteries and equipment to store energy from wind turbines and solar cells. … last January, when the Department of Energy announced $2.3 billion in “clean energy manufacturing tax credits,” ZBB was one of 183 recipients—collecting $14 million. We wonder who in government looked at ZBB’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Since going public in June of 2007, ZBB has been hemorrhaging money. The firm lost $4.9 million in fiscal 2008 and $5.5 million in fiscal 2009. In its most recent filing, in May, it said it had lost $6.9 million for the first nine months of its current fiscal year. It explained it had a “cumulative deficit” of $44.1 million and informed shareholders that it “anticipates incurring continuing losses.” It acknowledged that its ability to continue as a “going concern” was predicated on its ability to drum up additional funds. … Meanwhile, a review by the company’s audit committee last fall discovered that ZBB’s former CEO had been wrongly compensated as both an employee and an independent contractor, and that the company had failed to withhold his proper taxes. He stepped down, and the management team was reshuffled. ZBB was also forced to restate its financial results after a separate audit committee review found the company had recognized revenue from a contract in the wrong quarter. The company also acknowledged in its May filing that the 72,000 square foot manufacturing facility it bought in 2006 is “currently producing at less than 10% of its expected capacity.” That means it can’t currently access the $14 million in federal tax credits, which were supposed to help with equipment for a new facility. Meanwhile, private investors have soured on some energy-storage companies. ZBB’s initial public offering was priced at $6 a share in 2007, and it closed yesterday at 70 cents. A visit to the company’s quarterly income statements at NASDAQ.com reveals that sales during the four quarters that ended on March 31 were less than $2 million; the revenue line during the most recently reported quarter was a whopping $189,000. During that time, the company lost over $8 million. During the four years ended June 30, 2009 , ZBB burned through well over $20 million. You have to wonder how badly stimulus efforts such as these are going if a company in ZBB’s condition is considered worthy of a campaign stop. How bad are the situations at the ones that didn’t make the cut? The Journal gives a partial excuse to the White House press corps for not doing its work: “It has been dragged to so many of these energy events that it has lost interest in looking at the companies it visits.” Sorry, I’m not as forgiving. Allowing yourself to get scooped by a bunch of guys sitting in New York offices demonstrates how inexcusably lazy establishment press beat reporters following the president have become. That laziness would also appear to be influenced by the likelihood that if they really did their job, they’d have to report unpleasant things about their guy in the White House and the mostly accomplishment-free results of “clean energy” efforts thus far. You’ll know that they don’t even care about being scooped if, as I expect, the WSJ’s editorial is the first and last you’ll see of ZBB’s BS in the establishment press. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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Ground Zero Mosque Organizers to Israeli Newspaper: ‘Go Back to Publishing Yiddish Fables!’

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

How’s this for “creating dialogue”? Yesterday, organizers of the Ground Zero mosque project took to Twitter to slam Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, after the paper incorrectly reported that plans for the controversial Islamic prayer center were being abandoned. But some say the mosque’s organizers went too far by mocking Ha’aretz with references to Jewish culture. ” On a side note, if Haaretz likes publishing fables, perhaps they could go back to the Yiddish ones with parables #welikethosebetter ,” Tweeted Park51 , which calls itself the “official Twitter account” of the Ground Zero mosque project. Yiddish is a language that originated with and was used primarily by the Ashkenazi Jewish community in Eastern Europe. After the Tweet caused a small outcry with some calling it “anti-semitic,” Park51 appeared to remove the comment from its Twitter page, though there is still a link available to the original statement . ” Fine lemme retract the yiddish one and restate – the intent was that Haaretz published an unsubstantiated fable not a fact,” Park51 Tweeted, in an attempt to backtrack on statement. ” Apparently we can take a bashing all day but we can’t make a jab about fables. :(” Later, Park51 attempted to explain the reasoning behind the Yiddish dig. ” I meant it as a joke as my cousin’s mother used to tell us Yiddish stories as kids (she’s Jewish) ,” Park51 Tweeted. Ah, the Ground Zero mosque project. Building bridges between cultures, one Jewish joke at a time.

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Newsweek Defends Obama’s Leisure But Mocked Bush’s Working Vacations at Texas Ranch

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

While Newsweek’s David Graham is hard at work defending President Obama’s summertime leisure — “A Short History of Presidential Vacation Outrage” — by insisting that the press corps always complains about any president’s vacation habits, it’s instructive that he failed to indict his own magazine. “War on terrorism stalled, economy on precipice, time for a month on the Crawford ranch.” Accompanied by a disapproving down arrow, that’s how the August 5, 2002 Newsweek feature “Conventional Wisdom” derided President Bush’s working vacation a mere three months before midterm elections in his first term. Elsewhere in Newsweek’s coverage at the time, writers put the term working vacation into derisive quote marks, and otherwise presented President Bush’s time away from Washington, including a quasi-campaign swing called the “Heartland Tour,” as a nakedly political move to bolster his sagging approval numbers. From Martha Brant’s August 7 “Web exclusive” entitled “Look Who’s Back”: The White House went on the defensive: aides whipped up a WESTERN WHITE HOUSE logo to tack up behind the podium at the makeshift briefing room at the Crawford Elementary School. They cut his vacation short a few days, apparently so it wouldn’t be the longest on record (which is held by Richard Nixon at 31 days). The Republican National Committee did a focus group on the president’s vacation. Pollsters found that most people believe that the president is never really on vacation. That’s the line they’re sticking with this year. The president, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer explained the other day, “is going to bring the White House with him to Crawford.” But all their efforts didn’t stop Letterman from making fun of Bush’s vacation again this year. The other night he gave the “Top Ten Signs President Bush Needs A Vacation.” No. 7: It’s been, what, two weeks since he went fishing? Late-night comedy and the RNC focus group agree on one thing: Bush needs to remain proactive on vacation, especially now with the Iraq situation bubbling up and the economy flagging. This month Bush will meet with his defense secretary as well as the president of Mexico. He will host an economic forum at Baylor University in Waco. And he will visit at least 15 cities, spending about half his vacation time on public events in politically significant states. At least once a week, he’ll attend a so-called “political activity” (read: fund-raiser). But the main thrust of August is what the White House bills as Bush’s “Home to the Heartland” return tour. This is Hughes’s specialty: keeping Bush in touch with average people and their issues. He’ll appear at events with “real Americans,” as one top aide explained, and talk to them about their economic “concerns.” There’s nothing like a photo op with a prize-winning pig at the Iowa State Fair to get out the message: I’m not from Washington, D.C., where pork has a whole different meaning. A year earlier and prior to the 9/11 attacks, Anna Quindlen took a different tack, calling on President Bush in an August 27, 2001 piece to push for European-style August vacations for everyone: Mandate the closing of everything else in the country during the month. The liberals would love the energy savings, the lights off in office buildings, the fossil fuels unburned. Conservationists would be thrilled as national parks and forests revive without the tramp-tramp-tramp of millions of tourists. Health-care professionals would breathe a sigh of relief as Americans walked to the homes of friends, elevating their heart rates and, in the process, seeing people they’ve been meaning to get together with for ages. Republicans could tout the family-values aspect of four weeks in which parents would be more or less forced to stay home and talk to their children. And talk about community activism! Instead of government programs or even nonprofit organizations taking meals to the homebound by van, ordinary Americans could find it in their hearts to carry a nice plate of pasta next door. Newspapers and news magazines would close, too, and television could run previously shown programs. (Whoops! I guess someone already took care of that one!) George W could mash his finger without any snide Gerald Ford comments, and he could take his vacation without any editorializing. No press, no mail, no bills, no sweat. The stock market would have a much-needed timeout; so would Major League Baseball, especially those Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Sure, there would be opposition from conservatives who object to big government’s interfering with the right to develop blocked arteries and sleep difficulties. But research on work habits, as well as observation of the typical American tourist ripping though a European cathedral in record time, suggest that there’s a deep-seated inability to relax in the U.S. of Type A. Each president brings to the job his own ethos, his own character, his own karma. George W. Bush has it in him to become the Vacation President, to lead a grateful and very tired nation to a place in which its citizens can stop and smell the onion rings.  Fast forward nine years to President Obama’s second year in office, and Newsweek’s David Graham all but sighs at the supposed pettiness in the media when it comes to criticizing any president’s vacation habits: Despite White House spokesman Bill Burton’s suggestion that the Obamas are being harassed with unprecedented attack for their recent leisure travels, this is nothing new. As Kenneth Walsh says , criticizing the president’s cottage destination has become a cottage industry in D.C.: “No matter who is the president, the opposition party delights in criticizing him for taking time off, billing it as insensitive to the problems of struggling Americans, demonstrating aristocratic excess, or betraying some hedonistic character flaw.” The only thing new are the creative methods of finding fault with taking time off. Ironically what Newsweek is attempting to do is defend an approval rating-challenged liberal president by capitalizing on the public’s low approval of the press corps. This is further amusing given the magazine’s complaint in the February 1 “Conventional Wisdom” feature that Obama was too docile, not “fighting” hard enough. “Yo, professor: CW wanted someone to fight for us. Not lead a bloodless seminar,” Newsweek huffed as it lamented that “Obama celebrates first year [in office] by losing Kennedy seat to GOP. Will he finally take the gloves off?” Perhaps Newsweek is now convinced that the more pugilistic Obama sounds ahead of the midterms, the more damage he’s likely to do for his allies in Congress. 

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ABC’s Amanpour Takes Dig at Bush: Relations w/ Muslim World ‘Devastatingly Damaged Over the Previous Eight Years’

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

It’s one thing to acknowledge that the Muslim world has had a negative reaction to America ‘s war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq, but, when one starts referring to “the previous eight years” before the Obama administration, it starts to sound like partisan Democratic talking points. As ABC’s Christiane Amanpour appeared on Sunday’s Good Morning America to talk about President Obama’s predicament regarding his speech on the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, Amanpour at one point recounted that relations with the Muslim world had suffered during the “previous eight years” before Obama became President. After host John Berman queried as to “how is this playing in the Muslim world,” Amanpour at one point asserted: “But clearly President Obama from the very beginning went out of his way to try to repair relations with the Islamic world which had been so devastatingly damaged over the previous eight years.” The war in Afghanistan was only seven years old when Obama took office, so her “previous eight years” crack could only be interpreted as a reference to the entire Bush presidency rather than the war itself. Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Sunday, August 15, Good Morning America: JOHN BERMAN: There is, of course, another audience here, the international audience, how is this playing in the Muslim world? CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Well, all of this will inevitably play. How precisely these last two days of comments and change in comments will play, we’ll wait to see. But clearly President Obama from the very beginning went out of his way to try to repair relations with the Islamic world which had been so devastatingly damaged over the previous eight years . He not only mentioned that in his inauguration speech, in his first interviews, but also with that big speech in Cairo, and obviously, talking about trying to get moderate Muslims also to stand up for their faith and to stand against extremism. And, in fact, the people who are in charge of building this have spoken out against 9/11, have condemned terrorism and are viewed as those in the moderate community. So it’s clearly something that has come a cropper, if you like, since they were able to build this and protests have started. But the question, is vital. What does it actually mean, how far away is suitable? Can a mosque be built there? There are other mosques in that general area. What does it precisely mean when you strip it all down, this political furor that’s been started over this?

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Time Mag’s Klein Goes from Bush Delivering ‘Coolest Presidential Image’ to ‘Juvenile’ Stunt

Posted on August 14, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The August 16 Weekly Standard highlighted a striking change in views from Time’s Joe Klein, whose take seems to have changed to fit what’s fashionable. On August 2, in a “ Swampland” blog post looking at President Obama’s speech touting the end of combat operations in Iraq, Klein fretted it “will not be remembered as vividly as George Bush’s juvenile march across the deck of an aircraft carrier , costumed as a combat aviator in a golden sunset, to announce—six years and tens of thousands of lives prematurely—the ‘end of combat operations.’” But back when Bush’s USS Lincoln landing occurred, Klein was more enthralled with it, asserting on the May 4, 2003 Face the Nation: “Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day.” (Video, from the MRC’s archive, is of the matching exchange between Bob Schieffer and Klein.) The Weekly Standard’s “Scrapbook” page observed: As Peter Wehner noted at the Commentary magazine blog Contentions , “Such bipolar shifts of opinion in a high-ranking public official would be alarming and dangerous; in a columnist and blogger, they are comical and discrediting.” Even in that 2003 CBS appearance, however, Klein wasn’t happy about Bush’s successful PR maneuver, regretting how it illustrated the “major struggle the Democrats are going to have to try and beat a popular incumbent President.” From the May 4, 2003 Face the Nation on CBS, the morning after the first Democratic presidential candidate forum of the 2004 campaign: BOB SCHIEFFER: As far as I’m concerned, that was one of the great pictures of all time. And if you’re a political consultant, you can just see campaign commercial written all over the pictures of George Bush. JOE KLEIN: Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day. That was the first thing that came to mind for me. And it just shows you how high a mountain these Democrats are going to have to climb. You compare that image, which everybody across the world saw, with this debate last night where you have nine people on a stage and it doesn’t air until 11:30 at night, up against Saturday Night Live, and you see what a major, major struggle the Democrats are going to have to try and beat a popular incumbent President.

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John King Asks Quayle: You Really Think Obama’s the Worst President Ever?

Posted on August 14, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

John King on Friday went after Arizona Congressional candidate Ben Quayle, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, for claiming in a campaign commercial that Barack Obama is the worst president in history. In case you missed it, Quayle released an ad (embedded right) on Wednesday saying that as a result of Obama’s policies, “my generation will inherit a weakened country.” As this has struck a nerve with Obama-loving media across the fruited plain, King asked his guest: You’re a Republican in a crowded 10-candidate Republican primary. So going after President Obama is not a surprise. But the worst president ever? He’s been in office less than two years. Not Nixon, not Harding, not anybody else? Why Barack Obama? After Quayle answered, King followed up by asking him about his postings to a “racy website, DirtyScottsdale.com” (video follows with transcript and commentary): JOHN KING, HOST: A congressional race in Arizona is suddenly getting national attention and quite a bit of it. Partly because of a campaign ad that’s gone viral and partly because it’s from a candidate with a famous name. Ben Quayle, a Republican running in Arizona’s third district, joins me now to go “One-on-One.” And Ben Quayle, I want to get to this ad. First tell our viewers, if they don’t know, you’re the son of the former vice president Dan Quayle. You’re running for an open Republican seat in the Scottsdale-Phoenix area of Arizona. And the reason that you’ve generated such a national controversy is this ad. Let’s listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BEN QUAYLE (R), ARIZONA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Barack Obama is the worst president in history. And my generation will inherit a weakened country. Drug cartels in Mexico, tax cartels in D.C. What’s happened to America? I love Arizona. I was raised right. Somebody has to go to Washington and knock the hell out of the place. (END OF VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now, you’re a Republican in a crowded 10-candidate Republican primary. So going after President Obama is not a surprise. But the worst president ever? He’s been in office less than two years. Not Nixon, not Harding, not anybody else? Why Barack Obama? QUAYLE: Well, John, this is a claim that — I’ve thought about long and hard. And it was something that I wasn’t happy about. But President Obama, through his ideology and his policies, has fundamentally changed our country for the worst. And I think that he’s taken a country, which was admittedly in bad shape, but he has made it worse and his policies are actually going to affect future generations in a negative way. And the future that he has created for my generation and other generations is pretty terrifying. It seems like right now he’s starting to destroy the American dream. KING: Now, because of what you’re saying in this ad, which is quite provocative, and because of who you are, there are a number of — shall we say — parodies of your ad already popping up online. Some of them are just funny and some of them are pretty pointed and they go right after you. I want you to listen to one of them from a standup comedian. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That’s why I want whatever job Ben Quayle had before he decided to run for Congress. I don’t know what it was, but I know I’ll be better at it than that schmuck. I love America and I was raised right. By which I mean neither of my parents ever forgot how to spell potato. (END OF VIDEO CLIP) KING: A chance to respond. I want to ask as you do — you’re getting a lot of attention because of this. Some of it’s not necessarily polite. But are you benefiting from it? QUAYLE: Well, you know, John, having the last name of Quayle, we’re used to being made fun of and has some parody and having things that aren’t true being said about you. So, you know, it stings but you know that’s the way that politics goes nowadays. KING: And as you know, many of your rivals there and many people who’ve covered politics for a — long time like myself say, well, why would he do this? And some people think you’re trying to change the subject because you’re in a bit of a dust-up of first saying no, that wasn’t me, and then acknowledging that you had submitted some postings to a pretty racy Web site, DirtyScottsdale.com. A, why did you say no when it was you? And B, why did you do it? QUAYLE: John, I have been consistent with my story from the beginning. The Web site that is currently smearing me is a despicable Web site. And I have had no affiliation with that Web site. This is a smear campaign that’s being pushed by one of my opponents. And, you know, it’s the type of gutter politics that we really are trying to get away from and the people here in CD-3 are sick of. I mean if you look at what’s happened since this commercial, it’s been 36 hours. We’ve had over 300,000 YouTube hits. This is the thing that people are looking at. The issues that President Obama is trying to take our country towards a social welfare state and that we need to get people into office who are actually going to combat that. That’s what people want to focus on. KING: Well, I won’t dispute that except I do want to be very clear. DirtyScottsdale.com. This is a quote from you, “I just posted comments to drive — try to drive some traffic.” You did post some things to DirtyScottsdale.com? QUAYLE: I posted a — this is what I’ve said from the beginning. I posted a few comments on a Web site that doesn’t exist anymore. They’re innocuous. And, you know, these are the types of smear campaigns that have been pushed against me about nothing. This is much ado about nothing and, you know — but since it’s a famous last name, people want to focus on that. So — but I’ll be tough and then I’m just going to be staying focused on the issues and focusing on bringing our country back from the brink right now. KING: Well, to a degree, you’re right about the criticism. And I want to read you something from one of your opponents, Pam Gorman. Again, there are 10 Republicans seeking this nomination. She says there’s 10 people in this race, there’s nine of us that may not agree on anything. But we all agree that it’s completely offensive that Dan Quayle is trying to buy his little boy a seat in Congress. How would you respond to that? QUAYLE: Well, that’s what I’ve been dealing with since day one on this campaign. They know that they can’t attack me on the issues because I’m — I have a much better future — vision for the future of our country. I know the issues better than they do and I have a better campaign right now than they do. And so they just attack me on that sort of things that doesn’t make any sense. So she can say what she wants, but in the end, we will take the nomination and move on to the general election. KING: You are in a state right now. Let’s talk about some of those issues. You’re in a state that is ground zero in the border security and immigration debate in the United States right now. You’ve written letters critical of the Obama administration, tried to nudge your former governor, Janet Napolitano, now the Homeland Security secretary. The president signed into law today a new border security measure, $600 million. He was already sending National Guard troops. This does a bit more beefing up the Border Patrol, beefing up customs and the like. Is it a positive step? QUAYLE: I believe it is a positive step. But we need more. We need more troops at the border. And we need them right now. We were supposed to get the National Guard troops on August 1st, and now it’s not going to be until the end of September. If you go down to our southern border and see what’s happening to the ranchers down there and see the devastation that happens from the drug cartels and the human smuggling, it’ll rip your heart out. It is absolutely impossible to not see the problems we have with the poorest border. KING: We speak on the 75th anniversary of Social Security. Just about everybody agrees if you’re going to deal with the deficit long term, structurally, you have to do something with the big entitlement programs. What would Ben Quayle recommend to do to change Social Security? QUAYLE: Well, with Social Security, we would protect those who are in or near retirement today. But for people of my generation and younger, we would actually have to reform it which would be to start to gradually increase the retirement age up to 70 and allow a portion of the people to allow — take a portion of their Social Security and actually invest it into private accounts. These sorts of things need to be done because our entitlement programs are unfunded liabilities related to those are between $16 and $100 trillion which will freeze out all other spending and eventually bankrupt our country. KING: Let me close where I began. The worst president in history. Nineteen months into office. You at the age of 33. You’re sure you can make that conclusion? QUAYLE: He — what he has done in a year and a half, he’s actually changed the country dramatically for the worse. More so than any president in our history. And I stand by my statement. KING: Ben Quayle is a candidate — Republican candidate for Arizona. Mr. Quayle, thanks for your time today. QUAYLE: Thank you. KING: Thank you. So King began with this issue, and ended with it. Hadn’t Quayle sufficiently answered King’s question the first time? Did it require a follow up minutes later? After all, you could make the case that Quayle’s position is premature considering Obama has been in office for less than nineteen months. However, this is a campaign ad, and candidates make all kinds of intentionally inflammatory remarks in such commercials; King should know that. Exit question: Would a Democrat have been questioned twice in such an interview about a campaign ad in which he or she called George W. Bush the worst president in history?

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Open Thread: Obama Backs Ground Zero Mosque

Posted on August 14, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: President Obama backs the building of a mosque at Ground Zero. Thoughts?

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Barack Obama Gives Seal of Disapproval to Americans For Prosperity

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

President Obama spoke on August 9th to the Democratic National Committee in Austin, Texas. Interesting enough, the people of the United States paid for this political fund raising trip. President Obama couldn't restrain himself from taking pot shots at the American people. His speech is available on the White House website at least for hopefully a few more days. One of the organizations that Mr. Obama disparaged was Americans For Prosperity. Mr. Obama said: Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country. And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. You don't know if it’s a big oil company, or a big bank. You don't know if it’s a insurance company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it’s good for their bottom line, even if it’s not good for the American people. A Supreme Court decision allowed this to happen. And we tried to fix it, just by saying disclose what’s going on, and making sure that foreign companies can’t influence our elections. Seemed pretty straightforward. The other side said no. They don't want you to know who the Americans for Prosperity are, because they're thinking about the next election. But we’ve got to think about future generations. We’ve got to make sure that we’re fighting for reform. We’ve got to make sure that we don't have a corporate takeover of our democracy. added by: congoboy

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‘Amnesty’ memo reflects ‘dictatorial’ attitude

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The alarm continues to be a raised over a private internal memo from the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service that indicates President Obama has an amnesty plan in the works for many illegal immigrants. The memo was drafted by four officials at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service to the director of the department, Alejandro N. Mayorkas. Jan LaRue, senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU), believes the memo serves as evidence the Obama Administration intends to go around Congress in its attempt to acquire amnesty for illegal immigrants. “They'll be granting visas and work permits and green cards to people who have illegally entered this country,” she maintains. “They'll do it by a thousand here and a few million there, but they are clearly evidencing an attempt to do it.” In a column published earlier this month on Townhall.com, LaRue suggests that the proposed “registration program for individuals who are unlawfully present in the U.S.” includes registering those individuals as Democrats. While LaRue cautions that the memo does not prove the Obama White House will implement amnesty, she does believe it reveals clues to what many have thought to be true. “The memo indicates that they believe there are several ways that they can accomplish comprehensive immigration reform 'without legislation,'” the attorney explains. “And that's clearly a violation of the separation of power that is established in the United States Constitution.” Indeed, LaRue notes in her column, Article I of the Constitution calls it “legislating without a license.” She comments that “followers of the Constitution can see it as amnesty by a closed and dictatorial executive branch that treats the Constitution as an obsolete opinion.” After the memo was disclosed, the Immigration Service issued no comment concerning the leaked memo. http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1118670 added by: ReverandG

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