When he ran for president, George W. Bush promised to be a modest reformer at home and a humble representative of the United States on the world stage. The Al Qaeda-organized-and-funded terrorist attacks of eight years ago changed all that. During his presidency, Bush created massive new government bureaucracies, sent troops into two wars and threatened more as part of Americas war on terror.
Barack Obamas initial approach to the office of the presidency has been as grandiose as Bushs was restrained. Its not hard to recall that he ran as a transformative candidate, promising sweeping, though somewhat fuzzy, change during the campaign.
For the first several months of his presidency, Obama has labored to deliver on that pledge. He pushed a controversial stimulus bill through Congress to help rev up the economy, turned Bushs reluctant bailout of Chrysler and General Motors into a giant government auto buyout and appointed a record number of czars to help regulate bureaucracies in both public and formerly private sectors.
Then, Step 2. Obama is trying to fundamentally alter the American economy by backing sweeping environmental, labor and health care legislation. He wants to change the way Americans consume energy, unionize and see their doctors.
So far, hes failing miserably. Consider the following:
Cap-and-trade legislation had to limp over the finish line in the House of Representatives with the help of a few moderate Republicans, who then caught holy unshirted hell from their constituents. Environmental legislation generally has taken a drubbing in public opinion polls when people consider how costly it is.
The Employee Free Choice Act may be stripped of its card check provision in the Senate, which would effectively do away with secret ballots for unionization elections. Even in its watered-down form which still includes highly objectionable, mandatory, binding so-called gunpoint arbitration and makes no concessions to employers who dont want to have to prop up teetering union pensions it might not pass the Senate. And the leadership of the House has refused to touch it until the other chamber has made up its mind.
On health care, forget the rage set off by private citizen Sarah Palin tweeting about death panels. Forget the misleading talk about whether there will be a public option. (The ever-evolving plan is one giant public option, folks.) Forget the angry voters who crowded into the town halls during the August recess. Forget that a number of Democratic senators and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are still not willing to sign on to a bill. Right now, even after Obamas address to the joint session of Congress last week, its possible Democrats dont even have the votes in the House where they currently enjoy a 77-seat majority.
Its entirely possible nay, likely that Obama will lose on all three big issues. Hell probably take that personally. As he has pushed for the passage of his reforms, his public approval ratings have taken a beating, and voters have started to trust the Republicans more than his party on a host of issues.
The question that most political handicappers are considering right now is not Will Republicans make gains at the midterm elections? but How large will those gains be?
What all this means is, barring some unforeseeable world event, Obamas will probably not be a historic presidency. He will have some successes and a lot of failures. His opposition wont roll over, and his party will refuse to go along with his more costly, and thus risky, schemes. He wont coast to reelection.
So Obama now has the chance to be the sort of president Bush would have been if the World Trade Center towers had not come down. Heres hoping he makes the best of it.
#2
Never let these people lull you into thinking they have been beaten back! Don't stop opposition to everything they try and do. Cap and Trade and Immigration Reform are coming as well. We must keep the energy up!
The MSM may have only reported 30-50,000 attending the 9/12 rally, but they know the number was at least several hundred thousand!. We are stirring the true American people from decades of slumber, comfort and inattention, don't stop the fight!
#4
ION TOPIX: UK THINK TANK:US POWER SLOWLY FADING [London Instit of Strat Studies], espec as POTUS BAMMER = USA seeks evermore WORLDWIDE/GLOBAL CONSENSUS ON US POLICIES, i.e. no longer willing to engage in geopol UNILATERALISM = INDEPENDENT ACTIONS on its own behalf.
What used to be labeled as pervasive, perennial, DETRIMENTAL? "GROUP THINK"???
I do not know if what has been attributed to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi is true; in any case we have become accustomed to the politicization of religious fatwas. A news item reported in the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper revealed that Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi had issued a fatwa prohibiting Iraqis from acquiring US citizenship on the grounds that this is the nationality of an occupier nation. However this fatwa has nothing to do with the reality on the ground, and contains more political absurdity then it does religious guidance. Sheikh al-Qaradawi himself is an Egyptian who possesses Qatari nationality, which was given to him after he opposed the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. However when an Israeli office was opened in Doha, al-Qaradawi did not renounce his Qatari nationality. This is a personal issue that does not concern us as much as we are concerned with the usage of religion, especially the weapon of the fatwa, in highly politicized cases.
Perhaps Sheikh al-Qaradawi would be right to resort to the dangerous weapon of fatwas if there were a large number of citizens being granted naturalization, or if there were forced relocations to America, or if the Iraqi nationality was being revoked, but none of this is happening. In fact, the opposite is true, for of the thousands of Iraqi citizens who queue up to apply for visas to Western countries, only a few are granted. Therefore obtaining US or European citizenship is not -- as Sheikh al-Qaradawi imagines- easy, but rather is a difficult process that is rarely granted to applicants. This is even more difficult for the Iraqis due to the large number of Iraqi refugees, including those seeking asylum abroad. The British Foreign Ministry raised the issue of repatriating its Iraqi refugees, as did the majority of Western countries. This is opposite to what Sheikh al-Qaradawi seems to think [with regards to Western countries wanting to naturalize Iraqi citizens]. These states are full of refugees and immigrants, and they offer financial incentives for them to return to their countries of origin.
After the US announced their withdrawal from the Iraqi cities earlier this year, a group of Iraqi interpreters [who worked for the US army] asked to be given visas and employment in the US on the grounds that they feared reprisal attacks following the withdrawal of US troops, however only a few interpreters were granted with visas. Similarly, the international organizations that seek to aid Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan by helping them to secure asylum in foreign countries have failed to do so with regards to the US.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi had issued a fatwa prohibiting Iraqis from acquiring US citizenship on the grounds that this is the nationality of an occupier nation.
Wow. The Holy Crayon. Is there anything at all it can't give you an answer for?
After the US announced their withdrawal from the Iraqi cities earlier this year, a group of Iraqi interpreters [who worked for the US army] asked to be given visas and employment in the US on the grounds that they feared reprisal attacks following the withdrawal of US troops, however only a few interpreters were granted with visas.
WTF? After helping us out as they did, it seems to me that the least they should get in return would be a free ride over here, through college, and into a decent job.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/15/2009 18:06 Comments ||
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#2
"She was a citizen who deserved an investigation and an answer to her complaint," Boyer said.
Well, she was much less inconvenienced than Sgt 1st Class Wood was.
RIP, Sergeant.
And, good for Sheriff Boyer.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/15/2009 18:59 Comments ||
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#3
I think the sheriff will not have to worry about re-election for a very long time.
If one follows this thread at Althouse (and we should all read Althouse from time to time), you'll note a discussion of what is termed a 'Moby' -- defined, in her post, as,
"An insidious and specialized type of left-wing troll who visits blogs and impersonates a conservative for the purpose of either spreading false rumors intended to sow dissension among conservative voters, or who purposely posts inflammatory and offensive comments for the purpose of discrediting the blog in question.
The term is derived from the name of the liberal musician Moby, who famously suggested in February of 2004 that left-wing activists engage in this type of subterfuge: "For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion. Then you go to an anti-immigration Web site chat room and ask, 'What's all this about George Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens?'"
The mods at Rantburg watch out for these sorts of trolls, and we thank our regular readers for pointing them out to us when they occur at odd hours. We ask that you continue to do so. Some in the progressive Left will do whatever they think it takes to silence the Anti-Idiotarian blogs like Rantburg.
We will not let them do that. So if you see a Moby posting, please point it out to us either here or at the O-Club. And please, let's ourselves refrain from any sort of language that can be used to harm Fred and the Burg.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
