There is an imposter in the White House. We want to know what happened to President Obama. Has some vast right wing cabal grabbed him from his bed and replaced him with a look-alike?
In something that seems right out of a science fiction movie, President Obama is going forward on his pledge to fund – wait for it – new nuclear power plants!
Holy Batman, Batman!
Something we at O-t-c can applaud about President Obama?
We are big believers in government spending to improve infrastructure (true improvements – not make-work boondoggles). We also believe it is government’s role to go after very long range goals that cannot be handled effectively by corporations that need to show profits for their shareholders quarter after quarter. And we believe that government has a role in underwriting potentially hazardous enterprises, where private insurance would find the risk untenable, and would thus not insure a project.
As long as it it done correctly, as long as there is competitive bidding on pieces of the project by truly competent corporations, and as long as the oversight is managed per science and not political correctness, the funding of nuclear power plants can be an extremely welcome development.
It is not often we have looked forward to offerings by this President. We applaud this move.
- Off-the-cliff.com
P.S. – So far.
We are very pleased when we can praise a politician. It doesn’t matter to us at all if the politician is a liberal or a conservative. We don’t care if he or she has a D, I, or R next to his name. All we care about is how he or she behaves; what he or she believes and believes in; what they say; and most importantly, how they vote.
If we like them on any of these, we’re willing to say so.
So we have a stark contrast that we are pleased to shout out, and we say, “Thank you, Mr. Obama.”
To what are we referring? A simple thing, really. An acknowledgment that our protests are real; that they are based on disagreement with the direction he seems hell-bent on taking us; and that we have a right to speak our minds.
Contrast this to the chowder head, Jimmy Carter, who says that anyone who disagrees with President Obama is a racist. We believe that Jimmy Carter is a racist. How about that, Mr. Carter? We think you are so focused on race; that you have such a big case of “white guilt” that you can’t think straight about race, and that you would do well to either follow Mr. Obama’s lead, or keep quiet, lest you make a bigger fool of yourself and tarnish that rusty legacy of yours even more.
We still dislike his Presidency very intensely, and you can find out more about why we think this by clicking here.
But for this one entry, and as evidence that we can be swayed if you do the correct things, Mr. President, we are pleased to treat you in this one entry, as someone worthy of respect. Do more of it, and we could eventually end up dropping our derisive criticisms of you. We would like that very much because that would be very good for the country.
Dare we hold our breath? What say you, Mr. President? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could call you an American stalwart?
- Off-the-cliff.com
Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows what we think of the President – at least in part. We call him the Putz-in-Chief because of the way he let Carrie Prejean twist in the wind, taking all the jabs and jeers that he could have deflected by simply saying, “You know folks. the answer that Miss Prejean gave is more or less my view as well. If you are attacking her, you are attacking me.” He could have said that, but didn’t. There’s simply no way that he could have reasonably not known what was going on. This is one of the slickest, hippest President’s we’ve ever had. (Don’t confuse these with the value he bring to the Presidency, which we see as cataclysmic.)
We have called him a coward because of the way that he bullies our allies but won’t take on our enemies in any but the most effeminate way. Not wanting to intervene in Iran’s misbegotten spawn-from-hell election is not what anyone was asking for. We were asking him to show the same solidarity that we showed as a nation when Poland was struggling to get out from under the Soviet’s evil thumb.
We have also called him a coward because of the way he has dealt with race. From Eric Holder calling us cowards for not wanting to deal with race straight up, from the protected statuse that he holds, to the way he called the actions of the Cambridge Police Department stupid when one of his friends was arrested, and before he (self-admittedly) knew the facts.
We could go on, but we simply suggest you read this blog. We stand by everything we have written, 100%.
But we value our integrity and honesty more than we value our political positions. Actually – that’s not quite right. We consider truth to be the polestar in what we write, and if there is something good that the President does or is, that we think is noteworthy, we note it. Especially since we come down on him so harshly (because he deserves it) most of the time.
So – what deserves our praise?
We were watching FoxNews, as is our wont to do, and there was a segment on one of the shows where the President’s photographer was being interviewed. There were some candid photos of the President shown during this interview. One of them showed Mr. Obama and his wife sharing a tender (not salacious) moment with the Secret Service trying hard to not watch while they were watching. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Obama’s foreheads were touching as they savored the victory of his becoming the President.
We were reminded in this one picture, that Mr. Obama is a man – same as any other. He loves his wife and kids. From all accounts he is a good husband and a good dad. This scores big with us, just as it does with any other guy who is a good dad and father. It is nice to see; nice to know.
It is not a valid reason for someone to be praised on policy matters or public behavior. So we want to make clear, that our derision of the President is because he is the President. It has nothing to do with him as a man, a husband or a father. We think on this score he is no worse than many of us; maybe even better than many of us.
Our upsets about him are in the public arena. We think that they bleed into his private life. The lack of chivalry discussed above makes us wonder how he really feels about women in general. We wonder what his real view is on fairness and fair play. We have no choice but to wonder because the way he treats his wife and the way he let’s people take arrows he could easily deflect seem so different.
This reminds us of the stereotypical mob boss. Great with family. Ruthless with everyone else. So we make the distinction. Good family man; and a President who is terrible in every way we can imagine.
Clarification made; now we can go back to the public arena.
- Off-the-cliff.com
On the other hand, Mr. President, we simply love the way you threw Nancy “The Nut Job” Pelosi and Denny Hoyer under the bus for calling people like us “un-American” for daring to speak truth to power. Given that’s what your side has preached for 50 years, we found it mighty hypocritical of the know-nothing Speaker to say this.
Of course, we don’t know if this is a “good cop, bad cop” tactic that you’ve cooked up with the Speaker, with you being something of the Puppet Master (we believe you’d be the puppet master because Pelosi just seems to be dumber than a dead barnacle), but in any event, you have implicitly marginalized her by correctly saying that America has a long tradition (as in forever) of being ticked off and yelling at their representatives.
So we say kudos for that, Mr. President.
Now – if you could simply tell the truth about some other things, that would be helpful.
For example, will you explicitly disavow the things you said before about wanting a single-payer system? Will you say, “You know – from the outside looking in, I really thought a single payer system was the way to go. But now that I actually see the full complexity of things, single-payer has got to be one of the biggest bone-headed ideas I ever had.”
Will you say that, Mr. President?
We know that would require you to come over to the light side of the Force, and it would not only throw Nancy “The Worthless” Pelosi under the bus, but you’d be leaving her in a political ditch (where she belongs).
What do you say, Mr. President? Will you finally come clean?
- Off-the-cliff.com
America
Failing
Day 197
We were going to take today off when we saw a few interesting stories on Drudge and decided that we should make some snide comments. One of these comments may surprise at least one of the 5 people who read this blog. We’ll begin with that one so that we can end on a cheerfully curmudgeony note.
It was all over the news yesterday that Bill Clinton secured the release of two left-wing American journalists who were sentenced to 12 years hard labor in North Korea. We have been watching people ask, “Who won here?” And on FoxNews, which we normally consider a very good news venue, the answer was the tin-plated dictator, Kim Jong Il. This might have been a good answer if the question asked was, “Who won politically?” But that’s not the question asked. The answer to the question that they asked is that Euna Lee and Laura Ling won. We probably don’t agree with much of what they write, given that they work for Al Gore, who we consider another loon. But journalists (even those who tilt far to the left) don’t deserve to be in prision, let alone a North Korean prison for the act of writing. We don’t know enough about the quality of what they wrote to say whether we’d characterize it as journalism. But expressing a viewpoint in writing or on video should not result in prison time. So the gals won. And we give grudging recognition to Bill Clinton for putting up with the madman, Il in order to do something good. And we even give grudging recognition to the Obama Administration which had to vet the idea of letting Clinton do this and giving him the green light. So this is good all-around.
Now – if the question is, who won politically? Let the hounds from hell have at the debate.
On to the other two stories – this time about hot air. No – we don’t mean Nancy Pelosi this time, though we suspect that if she would just SHUT UP the world temperatures would drop 5° within a year.
No – this time we’re on about tornados and hurricanes.
Turns out that we’re having “a tepid tornado season” according to the Columbus Telegram.
And as is typical of stories like this, it is a case of good news-bad news: “This has been an unusually mild year in Tornado Alley, which is good news, of course, for the people who live here, but a little frustrating to scientists who planned to chase twisters as part of a $10 million research project.”
So perhaps we have found a way to stave off tornados – hire scientists with government money to study them.
And the other bit of news is that scientists are now predicting a mild hurricane season.
We note that in the past 2 years, many experts predicted a busier than average hurricane season, only to end up with nothing to write home about. So maybe they’re getting with the program.
But don’t expect any let-up from environmentalists, who make their daily bread out of telling you that the sky is falling, or that if it isn’t that something else abysmal is happening. If it turns out, for example, that we have several years of quiescent hurricanes, we fully expect these lunatics to regroup, and then tell us that fewer hurricanes is “ba-a-a-ad” because the wildlife along the eastern seaboard need hurricanes in order to thrive, much the way that forests need forest fires in order to thrive.
The facts don’t matter to such people. Twisting the facts to argue for their stated goals is all that matters.
Just remember – you heard it hear first.
- Off-the-cliff.com