Ted Rall

...Obama: "...[A] terrible betrayal."

h/t: Glenn.

Jennifer Rubin asks...

...A number of good questions, the answers to which ought to bring more questions, but My Cynicism tells me that none of these questions will be asked, so as to keep The Unicorns Flying. PBUH.



h/t Glenn.

Lefties heads begin to explode like popcorn.....

You just knew that this one was coming.

"A new military plan for troop withdrawals from Iraq that was described in broad terms this week to President-elect Barack Obama falls short of the 16-month timetable Mr. Obama outlined during his election campaign, United States military officials said Wednesday...." [my emphasis]

As Tom Maguire notes, The Times buried this in their A section. I guess they see no sense in making a big deal now of the issue that seemed to be such a big deal only a few weeks ago.

I have long said that the answer to the question of "When are we leaving Iraq" is: "Never. We're not leaving Iraq. It isn't in our national interests to leave Iraq. It isn't in the interests of the West for us to leave Iraq. The stability we provide in a region that (unfortunately) is the source of much of the world's energy mandates that we stay. Like it or not."

It might be tempting to say that this was great news...

...But it's not. I hate to be a pessimist, but I think this is very bad news indeed.

Oil drops 9 percent as demand outlook overshadows OPEC

I paid $1.39 a gallon for gas last week. And, as is the case with everyone else, I like paying that a whole lot more than I like paying $4+ per gallon.

But on the day after OPEC cuts production by 2 million barrels per day, when the Price of Oil falls 9%, we're seeing our economic House of Cards fall right before our eyes.

Buckle up, kiddes. It's going to be a rough ride.

Rick Warren....

Now, in preface, I'm not all that "church-y". Neither is Mrs. Azlib. We aren't members anywhere, and don't regularly attend services anywhere. We're not even sure which denomination we are. We don't watch Sunday morning "church-tainment".

That said, a couple of years ago as part of a bookclub she was active in, Mrs. Azlib did read The Purpose Driven Life.

But it is interesting that the lefties are all up in arms over The Prophet Obama's (PBUH) selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Chapter two of America's new docu-drama: Heartbreak: The Obama Years.

Wear this betrayal like a robe, lefties. Barry's a playa', don't ya' know. You've been played.



h/t LGF.

I hate to break it to you folks, but....

If " [m]ore than nine out of ten people in Illinois think that Gov. Rod Blagojevich should resign", then that majority is going to be disappointed.

While Blago may be an obvious criminal, he is also arrogant and thinks he can beat this. But neither of these explain why he won't resign.

Blago won't resign because doing so will be to admit that the charges against him are correct. His lawyer won't let him resign. The correct thing to do will be for the Illinois legislature to impeach him. He'll be able so say that he did not quit on his own, and will then be able to fight his criminal charges as well as he can.

"Hi. I'm Ted."

So said the Governor of Ohio (Ted Strickland) as I met him and his armed escort on my flight the other day.

Other than the wiki on him, and the (D) behind his name, I don't know the first thing about him.

Edit: Another interesting item was that his Ohio State Police escort motioned to his gun being in an ankle holster. I've got a low-end ankle holster for a Walther PPK, and I hate it. For the few times that I've worn it, I'm always wondering if the damned thing is going to slip down my leg and onto the floor, and if I ever do have to get into the thing, pulling my pants leg up high enough to access the gun won't go smoothly, I guarantee it. They're more for movies and very discreet carry--so discreet that accessibility is almost impossible, if you ask me. To each, his own, though.

More Edit: This post is again exposing for me the vagaries of blogging. I can sometimes get tens and tens of readers a day, so tracking them isn't all that difficult. Today, I'm receiving a good number of my readers through this post. I wonder: Why is that, and how do you people find me?

Just sayin'. That's all.

Finally!

Something worthwhile to shoot!



H/T these guys, via Gerard.

I guess I need to start an...

..."Incredibly Bad Ideas Generated by Democrats" Label.

My first candidate...

Governor to sign union measure

Gov. Janet Napolitano is prepared to sign an executive order allowing about 25,500 state employees to select union representatives who would have a seat at the table with state officials during talks regarding employee pay, working conditions, disciplinary actions and other personnel issues.

I am reminded of Hillary's "I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all."

There will no doubt be others to follow. We won't be able to afford those either.

Three Words...

Victor. Davis. Hanson.

Do read them all.

I agree with Gerard that Hanson's call for true courage would go something like this....

"...Real courage would have been to throw shoes at Saddam; or even to return to
Cairo and throw something at a Mubarak during a public event. That would take
singular courage and establish the integrity of the journalist as a consistent
critic of authoritarianism—and might additionally earn you a noose rather than
accolades on Arab websites...."

We've been bamboozled...

As is often the case, courtesy of Gerard.

The other shoe falls...

OK, so anyhooo, regarding this episode, and with Bush himself joking about it at an improptu press conference, and with inspiration from this comment thread, I thought I'd try my hand at blog humor. [As I have found with writing, and blogging itself, blog humor is probably more difficult than it appears, but I'll try none-the-less.]

I call this effort "Responses I'd Have Liked to Have Seen" [And some of these are stolen from the above comment thread.]

George Bush whips out a .44 Magnum and says: "[T]his is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"

George Bush: "Who throws a shoe? Honestly. You fight like a woman."



Dick Cheney1: Blam! [Shotgun to the face.] Slide operates.

Dich Cheney2: "Awright, Motherfucker. I'm gonna wrap my dick around your neck and strangle you."

John Edwards: Ouch!

John Kerry: Yessssss! Another Purple Heart!

Al Gore: The Globe has become so warm that this poor man was forced to take off his shoes.

Condi On The Record...

I have to admit that I had higher hopes of Condoleeza Rice. I was quite a fan before she became Secretary of State, but have been disappointed with her in recent years. Maybe it has been the entrenched bureaucracy she works with at State; maybe it has been the challenges we face; maybe I've been harder than I should have been on her. I don't know which, but until recently, I have considered her as only a small step better than Colin Powell (who has gone from bad to worse, IMO).

That said, I was pleasantly surprised at the cutting defense Rice offers here of the challenges the Bush administration were left with in comparison to the ones being left for the Obama administration. A few snippets....

"... [The Bush administration] inherited a terrorism problem that had been ignored for years and allowed to grow until it exploded on 9/11...."

"...What we inherited were the failed Camp David Accords, and as a result the Second Intifada." She recalls Palestinian bombings of clubs and pizza parlors, the shelling of the Bethlehem Church of the Nativity. "Yasser Arafat was in power, stealing people blind and working with terrorists. Ariel Sharon was elected not to bring peace, but to defeat the intifada...."

"...We inherited a Lebanon with Syrian forces there for 30 years. Now, Syrian forces are out. There is a democratic government in power -- yes, being challenged by Hezbollah -- but the prime minister has survived and they've elected a president. The Lebanese army is out in the country for the first time. And," she says, "they are friendly to the United States...."

And most importantly...

"...Then? Saddam Hussein dragged the region into a war and lost over a million lives. It dragged the U.S. into war. He murdered his own people, terrorized his neighbors and sought weapons of mass destruction. Today? You have a multiethnic, multiconfessional democracy that isn't threatening its neighbors." [my emphasis]

So, I take most of it back, Condi. We are far better off as you and your boss leave office than when you took it.

Buu, Buuuu, Buuuuuttttt Wait.....

I thought we wanted "Dialogue with Iran".

Now, PEBO (PBUH) is saying that we "will offer Israel a 'nuclear umbrella' against the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran".

Now that he's been elected, he's every bit the warmonger than Chimpy McBushHilterHalliburton is.

Blogo-post...

Just yesterday, I said to my F/O that Barry's CrackBerry addiction, may, if he hasn't taken the advice to turn the damned thing off, and if he hasn't been careful, lead to fingerprints pointing towards the developing Blogo-gate.

Courtesy of....

....Gerard, and with apologies to Glenn, one word: Heh.

The D's and the media are desperately (break) dancing to protect The Prophet Obama (PBUH) from any of this, but I cannot believe that a guy with Zero's thin resume could rise in Chicago machine politics without being touched somehow by this corruption. He'll be answering Blogo questions for some time.

Backwardation...

Caveat: I am a guy now 33 years beyond my Econ 101/102 courses in which I got C's, if I remember right. I'm no economic expert...I barely understand a fraction of this stuff.

But I do know that this sort of thing scares the pants off me.

Backwardation

From what I can gather, the core of our monetary system (and that of others around the world) has just rotted through completely. Nobody who has gold is selling it. Our fiat currency is fatally ill, and the means of an individual protecting oneself is now gone.

That said: I'm buying ammo and ammo components.

And one other thing...

Not surprisingly, they're now calling for Blogo to resign. That would be the right thing to do, and there is a Lt. Governor there who could immediately step in, but the original question still remains: Who will be Illinois' junior Senator?

They're talking about having some sort of special election to fill this seat. The problem I have here is that there is already a process for filling that seat, and a special election isn't part of that. The Governor appoints the new Senator. The thinking is that whoever takes that seat would be tainted by this scandal, so who wants it?

I say that if the IL System is corrupt, then they should sleep in the bed that they have made. Don't make shit up just to keep from further embarrassing the Party.

I may have been born at night....

....But not last night.

Obama's Campaign Manager, David Axelrod, on Obama and Blagojevich and the question of who ought to be appointed as his successor.....

"I know he's talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them."

Now that would make emminent sense.... I don't care if it is corrupt Cook County, or a bunch of Mormoms from Utah: A senator ought to have an opinion on who ought to be appointed to the office to which he was elected but has now moved on from, and he ought to share those thoughts with his state's governor.

But that was way back on November 23. Today, after Blagojevich's scandal broke, the Axe and O show are singing a completely different tune. Axe....

"I was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the
President-elect has spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate
vacancy. They did not then or at any time discuss the subject."

I don't know whether Obama or any of his team knew of the shakedown that Blago was attempting to run. It would be somewhat naive to think that an Illinois politician might have never heard of such a thing, but at this point there is no evidence to believe that O was part of the (alleged) corruption. But The One has a history of blaming staffers, or saying he or others had mispoke when their previously-uncontroversial statements came up to bite them. And when you couple this with the thing that is really, REALLY grating on me--that the YouTube of the Axe interview is now no longer available (thrown down the Memory Hole, no doubt)--you'll pardon me if my Suspicious Spidey-Sense is tingling.

There is something else going on here. Something that the O-bots, the Chicago Machine, and the press don't want us to dig into. The thinking now is that "Senate Candidate Number 5" is none other than Jesse Jackson, Jr (which would explain Jesse Jackson's tears in Grant Park). I also can't help but remember that Rahm ("Rahmbo") Emanuel is also a Chicago politician of some note. I can only speculate that Emanuel was offended at the depth of Blago's corruption and set up the governor for the fall he deserved to take.

The players here are too close for me to believe that Blago's indiscreet corruption was not known among them.

Oh, this is rich....

Via Glenn, I see that Dee Dee Myers now asks...

"...At what point does sexist behavior get taken seriously?"

In fairness, Myers' husband wrote a rather scathing Vanity Fair article on Bill Clinton (which drew a somewhat bizarre and equally scathing response) and was only in the Clinton White House for its first two years--missing the whole Lewinsky episode. She did (rightly) complain when she found out that she was being paid less than subordinates with lesser responsibilities.

However, Bill Clinton's problems with "bimbos" was not something he developed in Washington. This has been a lifelong problem for him, and for Myers to now decry sexist behavior from Obama's speechwriter towards a Hillary image is at least forgetful, if not disingenuous.

For future consumption....

....And I do mean "consumption"....

My First Officer and I are just back from The Wilkes House, where we enjoyed one of my layover favorites--good ole' Southern cookin'. I am now his favorite Captain. If you're in Savannah between the hours of 11am and 2pm, you simply must get yourself to Mrs. Wilkes House.

I'll be back (with the wife) for future afternoons of consumption.

Limited government....

Via Will over at Vodkapundit, here we see yet another cry, a plead, a begging for more limited government. That these are the best of our country, and that they can manage to get elected over and over again is a frightening thought. Read them all, but this is my favorite....

"...Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut called for the resignation of General Motors’ CEO Rick Wagoner saying he should “move on." Meanwhile, Dodd — the largest recipient of Freddie Mac money in the Congress, beneficiary of plum deals from subprime mortgage villain Countrywide, and a key player in watering down mortgage standards that led to the current credit crisis without which the Detroit Three wouldn’t be in the pickle they are — clings to his post as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee...."

Oh, Great.

"...Shinseki will be named as Barack Obama's Secretary of Veterans' Affairs...."

Sorry, but Shiseki was wrong about Iraq, and Rumsfeld was right. As was evident at the start, the extra troops that Sheseki was insisting on were not needed to take down Saddam's army. Taking the extra "hundreds of thousands" of troops into Iraq would have had us there with the larger, more oppressive footprint that would have reinforced the impression that we were there to occupy, rather than free Iraq. It is incorrect to assume that the extra Surge troops would have brought about success earlier. Not that this was the plan all along, but the Surge troops succeeded because they were applied at a point where the Iraqi public (at least the Sunni) had grown tired of the al Qaeda excesses and began their Anbar Awakening.

Shinseki is to Bush what McClellan was to Lincoln--a General who wanted to build his Army to an enormous level before using it.

The reason behind this selection is simple: The Prophet Obama (PBUH) has been drawing considerable criticism from the Angry Left for his choices for Defense, State, and National Security Advisor, and for his approach to the economic troubles we are in.

Shinseki is a bone thrown to the Angry Left.

This is the start of what I believe will be a long series...

...That I am calling "Heartbreak: The Obama Years".

Episode 1: Campaign Promises on Ending the War in Iraq Now Muted by Reality

[I really love that one. The Reality-Based Community (sic) now finds itself "muted by reality". Those NYT headline writers really know how to stick the knife in.]

The Fred!! on Obama, Congress, the economy and the bailout....

Oh, this is a great idea....

Bill Clinton eyes role, too

"Former President Bill Clinton says he is open to the possibility of a role in the Obama administration but said he otherwise plans to be deferential to both the president and Clinton's wife, the soon-to-be secretary of state...."

Yeah. Good luck with that, Barry.