We watched with mixed emotions, your speech (yet another speech!) at your town hall meeting last week. We saw you strident, perhaps angry. We saw you defiant. What we didn’t see was that you had learned anything from We the People.
The mixed emotions come because it kind of tugged at us when you said (paraphrasing) that some of the attacks on you stung. That’s perhaps the most human thing we’ve heard you say – ever. It’s using English in a way that Americans around the country understand and get. It’s not professorial. It’s not highbrow, looking over the glasses to talk down to us. It’s just connecting man to man or man to woman.
However, in the next moment, we remembered.
We remembered when you tried to walk it back from your condemnation of the Cambridge Police Department, when you said that you had “miscalibrated” your language. Who talks like that?
But more – we remember that you did condemn the Cambridge Police Department after saying that you didn’t have all the facts. Fast forward to when you tried to stump for Martha Coakley, and you said that you didn’t really know Scott Brown’s record as you then tried to condemn it.
You are very fast to demonize fellow Americans, Mr. President. We can’t think of a single time that George W. Bush did that, despite provocation that makes your hot seat look like an air conditioned cockpit. You are very quick to lash out at us, Mr. President – at anyone who stands in your way. This is why we call you a bully. And you do it with people who are ill equipped to fight back against the force of the Federal Government in general and the Office of the President in particular. This is why we call you a coward.
We strongly suggest that if you want to turn things around on your watch, Mr. President, that you stop with the demonization; stop with the villainizing of entire swaths of Americans. Show the same kind of respect and courtesy that you and your Wicked Witch of the West demand every so often from the rest of us. Start treating people who disagree with you with respect, Mr. President, and just maybe you’ll find it reciprocated.
If you can’t manage that, we happily imagine you feeling irritated, annoyed, ticked off, etc. We wish for you the same consternation that you cause us. We would rather that we could respect an American President, but as in all things, respect is something earned, and you, Sir, have not earned it; not yet; though you still can.
- Off-the-cliff.com
America
Failing
Day 310
There are a number of things to say about the raging climate-change scandal that is raging. But cutting through the cheese, we say this:
It is the climate change proponents who are talking about diverting billions (trillions?) of dollars from traditional channels into ones that people like AlGore will make a bundle in. And they do this without any public debate. Real debate. Not comments on a blog. Not a war of words between people in a 3 minute segment on FoxNews. A real debate. But people like AlGore refuse to debate: http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/20873/Why_Wont_Al_Gore_Debate.html
We don’t get it. If proponents are so sure of themselves, so sure that the data is really there to support the massive social, cultural, political, and economic transformations that they seem to want so-o-o badly (and that they wanted even before “climate change” was fashionalbe), then shouldn’t they be EAGER to debate?
We propose a nationally televised debate between Al Gore and a scientific champion of his own choosing and Senator Inhoffe and a scientific champion of his own choosing. We challenge them to meet in a 10 part series of one hour debates on the subject of global warming and climate change. We will think about the rules by which we’d like the debate to proceed. But this is a start. And we’d like to see it televised on C-SPAN – for real. Not Obama’s version of transparency through C-SPAN, which never happens.
So how about it, Mr. Gore. You have opponents EAGER to take you on. What’s the matter? Are ya – chicken?
- Off-the-cliff.com
There’s a move afoot to try to “save” rags like the New York Times.
And what is any good communist up for? Taxing productive people who don’t want to read the newspapers (which is why they’re failing), so that the newspapers don’t have to earn a profit. Look – if the NYT dies on the vine, most people won’t care. Most of us may even be thrilled to see this leftist shadow of greatness fall.
We believe that there are enough venues for news available – far more than ever before – to be worried about “saving” some museum piece venues (with our tax dollars or charity dollars (that could be used to fight homelessness, hunger, or toenail cancer)).
The horse and buggy went away. It’s time for many newspapers to follow suit. Especially since so many of them are no longer watchdogs; no longer truly the 4th Estate.
- Off-the-cliff.com
We believe that there are people on the Left who are, how shall we put it, way too obvious about their rhetorical methodology. Maureen Dowd gave us “political ventriloquism” with her atrocious commentary on Joe Wilson. But since the method is out there for the Left to use, we use it freely here, and take it a few steps beyond. Why should Maureen Dowd be the only one to give authenticity to auditory hallucinations?
Enter Noam Chomsky. He now compares our side to Nazis (just as did Nancy Pelosi). Is Chomsky really trying to be in the same boat as the blithering idiot from San Francisco? Unbelievable that he would let his brand be tarnished by her, but apparently liberalism trumps intelligence.
We wouldn’t bother commenting on yet another loon trying to paint our side as Nazis, except he gives us another powerful rhetorical tool for our arsenal: the imperfect analogy. According to MediaIte:
Chomsky, an influential linguist and liberal activist, did give himself some wiggle room — he prefaced his comments by saying “I don’t want to press the analogy too hard,” and later repeated that the analogy wasn’t a perfect one.
But notice that this doesn’t stop him from using it! So we can combine these two tools: political ventriloquism and the imperfect analogy.
So, Noam – can we call you Noam? Fairly or unfairly, what we here you saying is, “I’m too tired to come up with a good analogy, so while I don’t want to press the analogy too hard, I’ll use it anyway.”
We ask you. Is this any way for a world class linguist to act? Can you not, with that mighty brain of yours, come up with a perfect analogy – one that you can press hard without it ever being “too hard?”
Here’s an simile for you: The Left (that includes you, Noam) is like a House of Mirrors at an old-style amusement park. Whatever is presented to these mirrors comes back distorted all to heck. And we can press this simile full pedal to the metal, and it still comes out crystal clear and true. The Left can never answer the accusations made against it on the merits. All they can do is attack the messenger. Never once, does Chomsky quote Limbaugh or Michael Savage and refute the arguments that they make. No – it’s “Oh – I’m so sensitive. I can’t argue on the merits. I left college a long time ago and forgot how to do it. Oh – poor me.”
We are tired of the Left. We so wish it was November 2010 so we could boot the rascals and bandits out of office. As bad as the Republicans were before, they were like fresh air compared to the dank stink of this Administration and the Pelosi-ites.
But thanks for the rhetorical tool, Noam. Now that we know it’s a legitimate tool, we’ll be using it with full force and with great relish and fervor.
- Off-the-cliff.com
America
Failing
Day 266
It turns out that President Obama and his evil minions are afraid of FoxNews. (Does this mean they have Foxiphobia?)
Whatsa madda, Mistew Pwesident? Can’t take a widdew honest wepowting?
And Iran, North Korea, and the Russians are supposed to respect you?
Even if FoxNews was what they say it is (and it isn’t), to protect the President from the evil questions that no one else dares to ask seems incredibly weak to us. It’s as if he’s a little girl afraid that the big bad Hannity will wipe him out with one daring question; or that Glen Beck will show him to be the buffoon that all of us here at O-t-c believe he is. Or that Mr. O’Reilly might ask an insightful that forces the smartest, most spiritually enlightened, peace-loving man that EVER walked the Earth (more so than Jesus, Buddha, Brahma, Lincoln, MLK, Ghandi, George Washington, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking all rolled into one super President) to actually THINK before he answers.
We have the Chicken Heart along the right side of this blog for a reason. It’s because Mr. Obama and his entire team are CHICKEN. Bwap-bwa-a-a-a-ap. We think of the movie The Music Man….
Cluck-a-little-peck-a-little cluck-a-little-peck-a-little, cheep cheep cheep cheep, cluck-a-little-peck-a-little, cluck-a-little-peck-a-little cluck-a-little-peck-a-little, cheep cheep cheep cheep, cluck-a-little-peck-a-little – He was afraid of Fox and he hid away so he wouldn’t have to answer questions (cluck-a-little-peck-a-little), so he went to CNN and all the other shows (cluck-a-little-peck-a-little)… CNN, NBC, CBS, Chuacer (oops)… cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep, Cluck-a-little-peck-a-little, Cluck-a-little-peck-a-little, cheep cheep cheep cheep….
Goodnight Mr. President…
- Off-the-cliff.com