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Meld this: 'I am not a dictator'

President Obama(Photo: Charles Dharapak, AP)
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Mitch McConnell
Barack Obama
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The sequester is getting attention for sure, but two other comments by President Obama at a brief news conference Friday are likely to have a long shelf life.
First, the president announced he is not a dictator.
Then Obama disclosed he could not "mind meld" with Republicans to force a sequester deal, though it appears he mixed his science fiction metaphors.
"Most people agree I'm presenting a fair deal, " Obama said. "The fact that they (Republicans) don't take it means that I should, somehow, you know, do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what's right."
Alas, the Vulcan Mind Meld is the property of Star Trek's Mr. Spock (a character Obama has been compared to, oddly enough).
The Jedi, of Star Wars fame, used "mind tricks" to get people to do what they want, according to numerous science fiction geeks who flocked to Twitter after the president's remarks.
Even the White House got on the Star Wars joke, tweeting out a picture of the president and advocating his budget plan with the caption, "we must bring balance to the Force." The White House also gave a shout-out to Mr. Spock, saying: "To Deny The Facts Would Be Illogical."
Spock himself -- also known as actor Leonard Nimoy -- weighed in, more or less defending Obama by tweeting: "Only a Vulcan mind meld will help with this congress."
The Atlantic website reports that Obama "shatters his nerd credibility" -- which strikes us as a good thing.
The president had made the same point earlier when he told reporters he couldn't force the Republicans to agree to a new budget deal.
"I am not a dictator," Obama said. "I'm the president."
He added: "So, ultimately if Mitch McConnell or John Boehner say, 'we need to go to catch a plane,' I can't have Secret Service block the doorway. Right?"

via usatoday.com

Who says this: "I am not a dictator. I'm the president."

I mean, who WOULD say such a thing? Someone whose ego and self-love is mountainous, one who teases himself with the idea that he should be a dictator. A benevolent dictator. That'd be fine. With him. And, obviously, plenty of poorly informed citizens of the United States (not to mention all those fans overseas).

Obama has confirmed -- if you want to use that term rather than 'woefully explained' -- that he also is not an emperor. On multiple occasions.

I think it's clear to everyone that Obama WISHES he could avoid all this make-believe compromising he's doing. Changing the goal posts, pretending he's a centrist when he's a statist, pretending he's "post-political" when he's created more divisiveness with his words than any president I can recall since radio was invented.

- jR

Posted via email from Like, Totally Political Dude! - posterous

Obama is JUST a narcissist. Like Hitler was JUST a Nazi.

Barack Obama at the University of Nevada, Las ...

Barack Obama - Image via Wikipedia

I don't care what your politics: if you think Obama is brilliant, humble, sincere, honest, appreciative of his office, deserving of a Nobel and songs sung to him by schoolchildren, and that he is not a pure political operator bent on turning America in a hard left direction... you JUST DON'T GET IT.

He is unquestionably a narcissist. He adores himself, and there were people in Chicago politics who loved him for it. They, in their own words, "protected" him from risky issues, on his way to the Senate, and to the White House. Protected.

His narcissism is immediately evident in his lack of conventional humility in his speeches: "I" "I" and "I" everywhere with this president. It is also evident in his

While Obama was not raised in a wealthy family, he sure seems to have ... a golden stick in his butt. (Excuse the imagery.) I have not seen such infantile attacks on news media, or opposition -- EVER -- from a top leader, certainly not another president. (You understand that unless, like Sean Penn and plenty of others who've enjoyed USA liberties yet understand few of them, you count Castro and his kind as respectable.) It would be less disturbing if this behavior was not calculated, but these verbal attacks are part of a plan, not mood-driven one-offs. It is a part of radical activism, and he's invited it into the White House. (Almost as much as the former president of the SEIU, Andy Stern.)

With the divisiveness in our politics knocked up to a whole new level with him and Mme. Speaker Pelosi leading the spurning of clarity for ideology, ticked off that everyone won't simply let him (and Pelosi and that ilk) run us like some elected monarchy, I stand back and think that God's grace will be the only thing to spare us from the twaddle and naivete. Just gone from irritating, to mystifying, to amusing. Not a happy amusing, mind you, a shameful one. It would be funny, were it not a real life story, and were it not my president swaggering about so proud of himself, compelled to realize the unproven idea of the America he wants me to live in.

I applaud him (I do!) for bringing issues, including healthcare and the external reputation of American arrogance, to the forefront. It is how he's handling those and other issues, which is clumsy, that sets me off. His rhetoric is good, his actions aren't. The actions count more.

So I am counting on people acting to limit the power held by him and his fellow far-leftists, come the elections of November 2010. This country deserves hot debate, but not to be a high-tax, big government, welfare-heavy, centralized nation. It is the United States, after all, not the State, of America.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

GOP comment: Rush's role as firewall

Have a look. Keep reading, hitting the link.

TheHill.com - Rush’s role as firewall

It is becoming increasingly clear that the success of Barack Obama and the success of our nation are mutually exclusive endeavors. Talk radio king Rush Limbaugh was the first to say it out loud, but far from the last. I, too, want Obama to fail. Because I want the United States to succeed.

While Republicans regroup to regain footing as strong voices for freedom, liberty and fiscal conservatism after the November election losses, Rush Limbaugh serves as a firewall against the unprecedented assault on our freedoms by Obama and the far left. Rush doesn’t lose his footing after an election, nor is he cowed by mainstream media attacks and those from (other) top Obama operatives. He is emboldened by them.

Cheri Jacobus appreciates the point to what Rush meant in his now famous and infamous (depending on how well your ears and mind work), takes no shame in accepting his actual point, as oppsoed to taking one sentence and demonizing him over that. She shows just what Rush is (willingly) putting up with, too.

Certain fight-eager, evasive and power-lusting "liberals" (ironic though that self-ascribed tag for the Obamatized may be in light of current statist activity) insist on puking misquotes of Rush, and the president, amazingly and quite humorously, is one of those. When the president personally cannot rise above such street fights, we're all in trouble. Every time it happens, it suggests we're in trouble (this president and past presidents). The likes of super-fake Katie Couric again and again prove by their response to it all of being biased liberals, further embarrassing the purpose of journalism in a free country (this is not Iran, or Cuba, or even France, and it is not going to be Obamastan, either).

Just one viewing of Couric's very recent visit to David Letterman's gabfest will show just how out of touch and disinterested she is with the true value -- barring her career-long far left liberal biases -- of her role on the news. (She's one of many, but one of the largest, at least in title and status, if not believability.) It isn't a news show with her on it, CBS Evening News is a propaganda hour for liberals and missing half of any relevant Obama-related news. She actualy invoked Keynes on the Letterman show, lending her belief in that big government, small free market view of business.

Jacobus is a GOP strategist.

- jR

The year of excessive bias

Liberal media bias puts a chill in everyone else's legs, Chris Matthews. Well, those who desire some semblance of truth and objectivity with their news.

Where did they find the quotes to lampoon? All over the place, says Bozell.
"I could give you 10,000 quotes from election night alone that would qualify. This was the worst year ever. This was shameless,"Bozell said on the "Fox & Friends" interview. "When Dan Rather bemoans liberal media bias, like he did this year, you know there's a problem."
Bozell began the interview by stating he had a "thrill" running up leg to be on the show, a reference to the Chris Matthews line that was not only mocked by [the GOP prez candidate] John McCain's website.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews achieved the distinction by gushing over an Obama speech in February [2008], saying, "I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often. … And that is an objective assessment."[Objective. Because he's Chris Matthews, how could he not be objective. Please.]

It was far beyond the ever-vigilantly lame Matthews to be merely an objective journalist, though it seems he's the only one unaware of that. Reuters, the ever-present European version of the AP, won them over, too.

Coming in behind Chris Matthews as the top runner-up for "Quote of the Year" was a Reuters post-election headline: "Media bias largely unseen in U.S. presidential race."

Huh?

At least Reuters -- which I generally prefer to read over U.S. providers simply because they are foreign (it appears that was a meaningless reason to read them that I've held) -- did not profess that it was their job to assure Obama's administration succeeded. Chris Matthews did this. Quite literally, and he even clarified it. If he were not blind to objective reporting, he might see how funny his one-sided "politi-sex" affair with Obama is to the unconvinced chunk of aware citizens.

Need I remind you that MSNBC is the LEAST watched news network by a massive margin? Is it hard to wonder why? It is more like the Fox Reality Channel for liberals -- mindless entertainment pretending to be representative of reality.

New terminology alert: politisexual reporting. Example: Chris Matthews, especially when regarding his Obama coverage.

- jR

The People's Voice: a babbling manifesto for the rest of, umm, them

Part 2 of series:
Blogs with no purpose except to whine about the world not fitting their fantasy
Label to look for: slobbering blog

The People's Voice

Need proof of the systemic rot eroding the very cores of our souls? Look no further than the meteoric rise of the grossly under-qualified, hyper-ambitious, morally retarded narcissist who still has a realistic chance to be one heart-beat away from ostensibly ruling the most powerful nation in the world. Palinesque tendencies to “drill, drill, drill,” exploit obscene technological advantages to “cull predatory species,” employ our “justice” system to accelerate the extinction of yet another species (to advance the interests of Big Oil no less), and perpetuate the murderous “sport” of hunting with the intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt justifications of “necessity” and “cultural tradition” serve to shred our ridiculously thin façade of humanity and reveal the truly barbarous nature of Western “civilization” and the “American Way of Life.”

I'm sorry, were you saying something? I was busy watching the paint dry on my secret tree house.

If you think that I am simply anti-liberal, try again.

This site includes among its troupe of sensible activists a pack of mixed nuts who say the Internet as we know it will cease to exist in 2012, maybe sooner. One of them, a gal who wears a near dominatrix (but friendlier) outfit, was earlier offering to have sex with guys who sign on to the activist effort to keep the Net free. Virgins only, though. Sorry, Noam Chomsky.

And these people are taken seriously by someone out there. Awesome.

These people are genuine kooks! These are the folks that gun laws are created to protect... to protect others from them should their nut-job ideas and worries turn into urban assaults on the dangerous "enemy others" with their legally-procured guns (if you aren't diagnosed, you're still considered sane, sadly).

- jR

The super-evil conservatives must die! Nut jobs alive and well on the Internet

Counterpunch.org: George Ciccariello-Maher: By the Time I Get to Arizona

Much has been eclipsed in the post-election euphoria, not least of which is the continuity of racist violence in the United States. The election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, the black population still bears the overwhelming brunt of this violence, in its systematic and informal guises, in prisons and on the streets, and with the far-right gearing up we can expect more of the same. [The far-right, in this instance, is actually the radical fascist far-right, or the Nazis and white supremacists, according to what I found in a link. That's sensible, yup. GW Bush is a Nazi. Uh-huh.] But with new dynamics, political and geopolitical, come new violences, and we have seen in recent years a steady increase in anti-Latino or anti-immigrant violence alongside a notable spike after September 11th in anti-“Arab” violence.

Recently-released statistics show violence against Latino immigrants to be the fastest growing of all hate crimes, fuelled by an atmosphere of linguistic-racial hatred and permissiveness to violence against all those deemed to be from “elsewhere.” In a recent report, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted the shocking growth in anti-Latino hate crime, and in early November, an Ecuadorian man was beaten and stabbed to death on Long Island, New York, by a lynch mob of young, mostly white teens looking for some racist fun “hunting beaners,” a game they claim to have played weekly. Less than a month later yet another Ecuadorean was beaten until brain-dead in Brooklyn, this time allegedly by black men who shouted ethnic and homophobic slurs.

Such informal violence has always gone hand-in-hand with the structural violence of the state. ...

Let's forget that 20 full-fledged gang members were picked up in one little raid alone. Foreign, illegal, and trouble. Let's forget that hate crimes are CRIMES. Let's forget that these folks, if committing hate crimes, actually serve time for it. That's inconvenient and rational. Let's forget about rational! Further, in another section of the piece:

In this rising tide of state and informal violence, Arizona has come to be ground zero. There, Lou Dobbs darling “Sheriff Joe” Arpaio of Maricopa County has institutionalized a “Posse” program, deputizing civilians to enforce anti-immigration laws.

Ahem, that would be anti-ILLEGAL immigration. You know: people who are coming over here, flouting our laws, taking SS numbers from dead people -- and the living -- and generally adding to our legal and social problems, not reducing them. Which includes criminal creeps illegally creeping across our borders. Note that there is ABSOLUTELY no concern for the rape, murder and other crimes committed by the truly despicable illegals in thisa, uhhh, thoughtful piece about poor, poor victims of crimes who are in fact also criminals themselves. No, hurting or killing them is not a solution -- DUHH -- but neither is this drivel from the counterpunch'org crackpots. What of deaths of Pakistanis, Indians, for any variety of violent reasons? I guess they specialize in the Hispanic and black victims. It's good to specialize, as one evil whitey showed us with the assemply line (Henry Ford, that was).

This is not here to comment too deeply on it, but simply to note that counterpunch.org goes to lengths to connect conservatives -- and those not interested in a free-for-all society of anarchy -- with radical fascist and hate groups such as the KKK and neo-Nazis.

If you want to read this garbage, go for it. Don't try to claim any rational learning out of it, however. Please note that every time I come across this site I find thoughts that are anarchist, radical socialist, race-baiting, pure prose for preying on those who feel victimized -- especially if they are Hispanic or black. These guys LOVE to bait the illegals and blacks!

Here's one things that makes this especially offensive stuff, in my mind: Tragic and contrary to counterpunch.org's madness, there has been a lot of black folks shooting other black folks in my area. In front of nightclubs, etc. I guess there's some clever reason why that is the conservatives' faults, too. Can't blame that on Ted Kennedy or any other long-serving liberals, huh?!

So, race war, anyone? Yeah, I think counterpunch.org writers have dreams about race wars. They want to be the great white leaders of a black and Hispanic war against non-liberal whitey. So, think for yourself, not according to these kooks. I've yet to read anything on this site that doesn't smack or paranoia, race-baiting, some sort of crude race-rage-inducing victimization fantasy. Half-truths are still half-truths, no matter which side is served. These guys excel at telling a very queer, unsavory, one-sided story.

I figure that sites like it are part of the problem, not interested in a sensible solution. Not interested in a solution at all.

So, watch out for anything and anyone linked however loosely to the nuts at counterpunch.org. Enough said.

- jR

Race and politics still taboo: NY Times' Friedman wrote this drivel... half-drivel

Isn't it a bit goofy that some crystal-clear white liberal guilt is the predominant reflection of one longtime NY Times columnist's upon Barack Obama's win? The regular NY Times nay-sayers would think not; it is clearly a liberal, politically correct (favoring not the poor white guy, but favoring everyone else except him and the slovenly rich) newspaper despite its other reputation, as a publication for superior journalism.

Thomas L. Friedman leads from some white liberal joy into a commentary on some real (in his mind) reasons for the Obama win. I am amazed at what this guy does not see, based on his insight for what he does see.

Finishing Our Work - NYTimes.com

This moment was necessary, for despite a century of civil rights legislation, judicial interventions and social activism — despite Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King’s I-have-a-dream crusade and the 1964 Civil Rights Act — the Civil War could never truly be said to have ended until America’s white majority actually elected an African-American as president.

Let every child and every citizen and every new immigrant know that from this day forward everything really is possible in America.
How did Obama pull it off? To be sure, it probably took a once-in-a-century economic crisis to get enough white people to vote for a black man. And to be sure, Obama’s better organization, calm manner, mellifluous speaking style and unthreatening [sic] message of “change” all served him well.
But there also may have been something of a “Buffett effect” that countered the supposed “Bradley effect” — white voters
telling pollsters they’d vote for Obama but then voting for the white guy. The Buffett effect was just the opposite. It was white conservatives telling the guys in the men’s grill at the country club that they were voting for John McCain, but then quietly going into the booth and voting for Obama, even though they knew it would mean higher taxes.

I guess we ought to thank God, then, that we did not elect a woman, or an Hispanic, Native American, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or someone else. Bobby Jindal, don't expect such a big deal should you be elected to a higher office, because you're just a damned Republican, first of all, and second, it's all about the blacks versus the whites here in the good ole US of A!

Friedman then noted the following, which I think is accurate, fair enough, and not nearly as myopic as his Obama win comments (that fact says soemthing about his perspective, indeed):

Somewhere they also knew that after the abysmal performance of the Bush team, there had to be consequences for the Republican Party. Electing McCain now would have, in some way, meant rewarding incompetence. It would have made a mockery of accountability in government and unleashed a wave of cynicism in America that would have been deeply corrosive.

What I find curious is that he, as everyone seems to, refers to Obama as our first black president. He is, by appearances, our first, indeed. However, Obama's mother and thus half his lineage and half his family is white. Why is this not something to be pointed out, and why do such great writers (though not great thinkers, zing). Is being of mixed race lineage still taboo for the liberals, for crying out loud? Not much to sing about for the white liberals who wish to relieve their racist guilt, then, is there? So where does Friedman fall on the scale of taboos -- pro-mixed race or still afraid of the idea? I suspect he has no issue with mixed race, it's just that liberals like to avoid talking about such things. (It's like seeing something in another's teeth at a Manhattan cocktail party -- best that you say nothing, and love them for the toothy grin they give you, spinach and all. Aw, love them! Take them off my invitation lists! Love them!)

I guess it is a good for a writer to see things through myopic glasses than to suspect the whole gamut of reasons why Obama won, why GOP congressmen lost out, and why people blame a president for all their problems. I would rather contemplate it all, but I guess you can't win Pulitzers if you work that hard.

Troubling.

As for Friedman's piece, be sure to read the last two paragraphs, for the ideas within them. He could have left all the other crap out of it.

I hope we see a new age of public service in the vein of what I saw in Israel. Americans, college-educated or not, around me in my little depressing world are quite selfish little turds. In Israel, they would be the ones getting low-end jobs, or scared shitless in the required military service, prompting change in their attitude. We could use a little scared-shitless in our youths these days that doesn't involve video games or misused firearms.

- jR

Daily Banter: possibly the butt of progressive thought jokes

A new series:
Blogs with no purpose except to whine about the world not fitting their fantasy
Label to look for: slobbering blog

THE DAILY BANTER.COM

Ben Cohen is a ... progressive. Check that, he's a Democrat. No, no that's not it. Perhaps he's a whiner with severe daddy issues. No, that might be too generous, assuming there's some deep cause for his mental myopia. Cohen dislikes anyone who has a record of doing something that is not highly radical -- to the extents of Noam Chomsky-like psychobabble. Or so it would appear. Judge for yourself:

Professor Noam Chomsky has influenced my thinking more than any single person on earth. His speeches, interviews, articles, and books have profoundly changed the way I see the world, and I feel forever indebted to him for his contributions to human knowledge.

The MIT linguistic professor is regarded as the world's leading intellectual for good reason.

So Cohen calls the Bush legacy -- now a legacy is everything one has done, in this case an entire administration -- tragic. Not the usual -- and slightly rational -- war-mongering, or stumbling, but TRAGIC. He's young, his Cohen guy: it's cute to see how the adults fool the young ones so thoroughly.

This guy, and perhaps his cohorts on Banter, either read(s) too little or react(s) too dramatically and emotionally. I think it is likely they read too much in one direction, but mostly the latter. This is a far left, socialist-leaning pack of knee-jerkers. In other words, mistaken liberals who are actually socialist utopian cry babies.

He's such a whiner that independent senator Joe Lieberman is on his list of ten Democrats who need to go not once, but twice. And the second time, he actually calls the senator a "d**k head." Thanks for the commentary, Mr. Cohen.

I think he could have included the pathological denier, Barney Frank, in that list, with Chris Dodd, too (the king of "their fault" politics in the midst of this economic crisis). I find it strange, actually, that seeing as Pelosi and Reid are on his list, that these two contributors to the do-nothingness of the recent Democratic leadership were not included.

Here's what anyone can do to decide for themselves about Daily Banter: Read this post, then the related post regarding Republican leaders. If you don't notice the holes, in content and members, of both listings, then... well, enjoy reading Daily Banter. I suppose this one must be for you.

-jR

Bill Maher on Larry King: There's gotta be something funny about Obama

Special Feature: comedy on CNN!

So funny yet still nobody tuned in.

Bill Maher appeared on Larry King the day after the presidency was won by Barack Obama.

Really, Mr. King? You're attempting to hold some cultural and news relevance (judging from the ads for your program) and the best you can do is the garrulous atheist with a pompous smirk (and presumably some dark, unresolved Daddy issues)? What? Obama's aunt not available? Jon Stewart too busy to come by and chat about the fun times both of you have had over the years, pretending to be newsmen? No Chevy Chase retrospective on political parody with a cynical flair? It could mean Larry King is losing his booking effectiveness. Or that he thinks Bill Maher is the new -- who? Saul Bellow? Not sure even Saul Bellow would like that, despite Maher's success and their shared distaste for anything traditional (outside of cynicism, that is).

This booking tells us volumes about Larry King without even watching the program, for its timing and topic. I did watch and then I read part of it. The oddest bit is when Maher proclaims the "real Americans" to be those other than some slice that Palin referred to as "real Americans". That is, that "real America" is not the 80% who are white, not small town Americans, and not "Joe the Plumber" types. The man is unhinged -- but it is good to see that people such as Palin get on his nerves. The weaker they are, the quicker they screw up. He hides behind humor so that his commentary can quickly turn from "here's the real deal" to "hey, it's just comedy, man!" Because he has his own firm ideas, but he is at heart a smarmy, spoiled bully. He is like the rich kid with all the toys in the neighborhood, punching holes into everyone else's hopes and egos, just because no one's punched his lights out for it yet. Give it time.

Oh, and while I'm at the place of this girlish-lipped, Hollywood metro-sexual bagman: Thanks, HBO, for encouraging his brand of jolly (ignorant, unscientific) atheism, freely vacant of relevance, and rich with one-sided vitriol. If HBO won't punch his card, someone is going to eventually suck some wind out of his black sails.

Maher: There's gotta be something funny about Obama

Here's a simple reason: Maher cannot find anything funny about Obama because he would not dare look, or even want to ask it. To keep his scam going, he will work at it, but he's fool enough to admire Obama too heartily. There is no softer spot for a liberal than their messiah. Just like some TV anchors and supposed journalists (Olbermann, Matthews at the top, and when resistance is low, Campbell Brown, Couric, Gibson, yadda yadda), Maher has a one-eyed view. He can seemingly only make jokes about what he hates. That's not humor, that's bullying. You're simply a punk with friends who let you bully. Such cynicism, such laughing at things you do not comprehend much less appreciate has worked for bullies and satirists for a long, long time.

However, good satirists aren't shameless publicity hounds who crave their own like-minded folks, as Maher sure seems to.

Here's another jewel from this freak-mouth, via the Huffington Post (in 2006), on the same CNN show:

During the live broadcast of CNN's Larry King Live, Bill Maher suggested to Larry King that [the former] Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman is gay. (Watch the clip from the live broadcast and read the transcript on the site)

BM: Well, I wouldn't be the first. I'd get sued if I was the first. Ken Mehlman. Ok, there's one I think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it when he's been, people have suggested, he doesn't say...

I guess this is funny to Mr. Hell in a Hand Basket because what? All conservatives hate gays? So this would be ironic is Mehlman were gay? I guess to Maher this was like the irony of Hitler apparently having some Jewish ancestry. What a totally despicable man this whining preacher of un-God is. Why is he considered funny, because, like the guys of Jackass, he's so thoroughly much of an ass that it is entertaining to watch him? Or is it because his views make sense to people? He's cynical, not satirical. Satire, aside from most SNL skits of the past 25 years, is funny. Cynicism, however, is only funny only to those who share in an unwillingness to see others' views as legitimate. You know, like fascists.

Bill Maher: the fascist of funny, the czar of cynical comedy. Fully backed by HBO.So, why should you be backing HBO? I would prefer not. Maybe I will drop HBO, because I have had thoroughly enough of Maher. Perhaps bringing HBO to its knees will be the way to end his reign of smug, cynical, godlessness words of terror.

- jR

To TIME: If Joe Klein grilled Obama, readers got salmonella

The TIME cover and the relevant coverage inside the mag, dated Nov. 3, 2008, is a fine example of why I think U.S. media is falling on its face. It has little to do with ad sales, and more to do with disingenuous and propagandist coverage.

Or, look at this as a good laugh at the expense of the People magazine of news magazines, TIME.

"Joe Klein Grills Obama" was the headline. It was on the COVER of the issue, a

bove the flag (see images) and got a photo on page 6, with the editor's comments (always an interesting read, for a mackerel).

But I digress. Look at the pics (click then to view a bit larger).

You cannot find that article online. Why? The headline doesn't exist online. Have a look at the contents page (if the link works): http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601081103,00.html

I might guess, being a wise ass, that the headline was supposed to be a joke, perhaps a Halloween bit of foolery -- ON THE FRONT COVER OF THE MAGAZINE. Such things have happened, like in newspapers kids create at colleges with no budget and volunteer staffs. But then, only maybe, and even then there would be outrage among SOME staffers for the gaff. But not here! Not for TIME magazine. Nothing noted in the next issue.

The designers and editors forgot to change it to something less engaging (and thus to something realistic). But I think it is the finest example yet this year of promoting soft-paw coverage as engaging journalism, even from this Obamadoring publication. The interview was a grilling? Hmmm ...

If cooks grilled steak, chicken or hamburgers like Joe Klein "grilled" Obama in the Nov. 3, 2008 issue of TIME, then there would be a long line of violently ill, even dead, people trailing from restaurants, backyards and parks all over the country to the nearest hospital!

A thought: 'Booby traps' are not limited to the Bush legacy

Upon reading the "Booby traps" piece by Rosa Brooks, one favoring left-wing ideology (read the whole thing here), I pondered thusly:

Were there any bothers by this well-educated (that is to say, learned so as not to accidentally write in a biased manner) author regarding the actual booby traps left by Clinton, the political John the Baptist to the Obama-Jesus? I don't have the time to waste, but maybe this is something worth looking at.

What was the viewpoint after 9/11 from her? That GW Bush asked for it? That GW Bush's policies in their infancy invited this inordinately bold move? Was it was his dad's fault, GHW Bush, for keeping Kuwait Saddam Hussein-free? Or was Clinton's lack of interest in the overall values to a solid military - for the country nut-job Islamic terrorists love to hate the most, the U.S. - the thing that most certainly hurt us and
practically invited 9/11? What is her view on that end of the Afghanistan-Iraq issues?

Was there a reflection on the, umm, REAL tripwires that Clinton left for Bush, and the U.S.? Like a smaller, softer and otherwise less-prepared military, and such welcome signs for the 9/11 terrorists? "According to the latest national intelligence estimate" might have fit as an introduction to some lop-sided opinion pieces back then, and immediately after we took Hussein out of control. What did you say in those instances? It was Bush's fault then, too? He intentionally got the NIE's to favor what he wanted, did he?

You will indeed deserve the candidate-in-Chief should he get what the media expects. You will deserve him, you and all Pelosi-type liberals who believe in do-nothing, blame politics above all else. You will so sorely deserve him. Of course, who knows? Obama may be an entirely different person come one year from now. Being a puppet for far-left faction of the Democratic Party might only have been the pass he used; he might run things altogether differently. Unlike Pelosi, Dodd, Biden, Frank, Reid ... he might actually DO SOMETHING aside from awaiting the explosion of poorly drawn mortgages by his buddies in Fannie Mae and elsewhere.

If I were to dream a little dream, an Obama presidency might involve not simply denying responsibility then pushing nearly socialist fixes to serious financial issues.

Sadly, one thing Ms. Brooks nailed accurately was the Bush Admin's lack of thorough, truly forward-looking proactive leadership in the wars:

We know from Iraq that countering insurgencies requires a long, hard slog -- success not guaranteed -- and that the presence of foreign troops can help fuel nationalist insurgencies. More troops in Afghanistan might have turned things around if those troops -- and a less stingy reconstruction package -- had arrived five years ago, when Afghan hopes were high. After years of Bush administration malfeasance, increasing U.S. troop levels without an accompanying dramatic shift in regional strategy risks turning Afghanistan into another Iraq.

However, since I think she uses her brains too little for solid argument or logic and too much for bias, I react as such: It is all too convenient to point these failings out, and be a Monday morning quarterback. She ought to know better. Policy, public opinion, and a need to dangle the carrot of self-reliance in front of these long-oppressed countries makes it quite hard to try to dress this up as an abject failure of leadership. It is not what I would have preferred, but are truly reliable experts saying this is indeed what is occurring, or is this simply one talking head firing yet again at an easy target?

One thing that is clear to me: Ms. Rosa Brooks is opinionated, but a thorough, and I would dare to say baseless, nay-sayer regarding U.S. chances in our current military actions and generally in the so-called war on terror. She is, without question, a liberal commentator. Why she is not billed as such by the L.A. Times, I do not understand. Perhaps, like was made evident in the finance crisis, denying your ideals and your role in anything is a common trait among liberal commentators and politicians. Hmm. I guess we'll just have to see about that, just like if those "booby traps" go off in Obama's, or McCain's face.

Booby traps, indeed. Placed by boobs, protected by boobs, and now blamed on some other boobs by the initial booby-trap-causing boobs. Excellent work, Congress. Excellent.

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