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Big Bird, binders and bayonets

You know what really puzzles me? In 2008, the Obama people knew instinctively to sell him as an upbeat, nonpartisan, nice, inspirational guy. And in 2012, the same team thinks the country is hungering for President Sarcastic Jerk.

No, actually, a LOT of things puzzle me about these guys. The whole Obama crew. I mean, the randomness of so many things this administration has done.

Like, really cracking down on pot smokers — even in states that have legalized medical marijuana. Or these drone strikes, some of which make even bloodthirsty me a little uneasy about ‘peripheral damage.’

He hasn’t governed as a boilerplate liberal. I can’t decide if the thread that connects all these things is an insatiable will to exercise power over others, or just a weakness of central leadership, so all the agencies wander off and do their own thing.

p.s. Oh. Hey. Help a weasel out. Did I get enough zeroes in 16 trillion? I kept adding three and taking away three. I’m so freaking innumerate, and Google search isn’t helped by the fact Brits don’t use “billions.”

Comments


Comment from LesterIII
Time: October 23, 2012, 9:31 pm

Enough zeroes for trillions? Yep. Too many zeroes in this 0ddministration to be able to decipher their quest for randomness. They are giving Ch@os a bad name.


Comment from mojo
Time: October 23, 2012, 9:56 pm

1 Trillion = 1000 Billion

12 0’s is correct.


Comment from Oldcat
Time: October 23, 2012, 10:06 pm

It is a different set of guys. The Chicago boys knew to run a “hello kitty” campaign, but they all went home with their pockets full of silverware a long time ago.

Only the true believers are left, including Barry himself.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: October 23, 2012, 10:14 pm

Daft stoat!

The British do use ‘billion’ but our version of it is a million million.

In fairness, we’ve largely adopted the dinky little petite US version in recent years 😉


Comment from Laughing Buddha
Time: October 23, 2012, 10:26 pm

Yup yup. You got it right.
I personally think it’s an arrogance of Obama and a desire to exert power that’s caused a lot of this. I really don’t believe he cares about anyone else.


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: October 23, 2012, 11:19 pm

I believe that when Obama ran in 2008, he was willing to listen to the professionals, and besides – it was easy. He had nothing to lose and nothing to defend. He was the golden child with the halo (remember those photographs?).

However, it’s been a tough 4 years. A lot of his staffers have left him, and things like the economy and Afghanistan just haven’t worked out the way he thought they would. I would love to know what the Prime Ministers of Britain, France, and Germany have said to him behind closed doors. We KNOW what Putin and the Chinese told him, and it wasn’t pretty.

I don’t think he’s listening to anybody now. He has said that he is better at the jobs of his subordinates than they are and I think he really believes that. He’s out there saying whatever HE thinks will work and his campaign is doing something else. Note for example, that today his campaign -finally- published his plan for the next 4 years printed 3.5 million copies of it, and he didn’t even mention it in his campaign stops today.

The campaign’s plan to keep him above the fray and demonize Romney as Bush’s evil twin fell apart at the first debate. Romney doesn’t seem mean or evil or stupid… and Obama is petulantly striking out.

An interesting note from listening to our local NPR today. The reporters being interviewed were all Obama supporters and were sulking that (in their view) Romney had moved from the far right ‘kill em all’ towards a more moderate center.
They were complaining bitterly that he wasn’t being called a flip-flopper. They were angry.

It struck me as odd that if a candidate moved towards their position that it was viewed as cheating and it wasn’t right somehow. Shouldn’t they be happy that he’s come around towards “the good” position?


Comment from Paula Douglas
Time: October 23, 2012, 11:21 pm

It’s just an an insatiable will to exercise power over others. It’s hard for healthy people to project that level of self-loathing and consequent spite and envy, so the tendency is to think that there must be some other explanation, but there it is. Also known as hatred of the good for being the good.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: October 23, 2012, 11:35 pm

The anti-med-marijuana thing is the most inexplicable Obama policy.

As J. Christian Adams has documented, under Holder the DoJ has been packed with leftist radicals. I can’t see them supporting this crackdown, and it’s not as if the the Choomer-in-Chief would be passionate about it.

It hasn’t been publicized for political to speak of. But then I can’t see what political gain it could bring. Most liberals either favor legalization, or sympathize with the people who actually need med-marijuana. (There are a few; but the programs are grossly abused.)

People who are anti-drugs are in general far more concerned about cocaine, meth, heroin, oxycontin, designer drugs, and failure to control the border.

The only people who have noticed the policy and reacted to it are offended libertarians.

So who’s behind this policy, and what is the reasoning?


Comment from Mrs Compton
Time: October 23, 2012, 11:53 pm

Rich, I would like to know that as well. I have my eyes on that industry (for various and sundry reasons 🙂 And it worries me that the states have passed these laws, are trying very hard to to implement them and the fear of getting busted by the feds is very real. So who really is behind it? Those in the field absolutely say it’s oblowme.


Comment from Pablo
Time: October 24, 2012, 1:08 am

Note for example, that today his campaign -finally- published his plan for the next 4 years printed 3.5 million copies of it, and he didn’t even mention it in his campaign stops today.

Have you seen it? I wouldn’t be talking about it either. Well, if I was still in kindergarten, I guess I might be proud of it. It’s way too little way too late.


Comment from Oldcat
Time: October 24, 2012, 4:55 am

Rich, Mrs. Compton –

When it comes to the choice between Federal Power and State Power, liberals will go Federal all the way, even if it means taking away drugs.

At least out here in CA, the med marijuana program is a joke – anyone who likes pot can find a doctor to get some from the state. I forget if one of this years propositions is to tax it.


Comment from Mike C.
Time: October 24, 2012, 9:52 am

I would guess the average actual voter doesn’t give a crap about weed issues. There’s bigger fish to fry. Jobs, taxes, regulations – all that stuff. Unfortunately, the avarage voter doesn’t really care much about federalism, either.


Comment from MikeW
Time: October 24, 2012, 11:27 am

Umm, you got the number right. And I love the Bayonet and Binder, but the Romney quote referred to ‘the Letter ‘O”.

I do agree that what all these things have together is the letter ‘B’: Big Bird, Bayonet, Binder, and Barack’s Blinding Bullshit.

To answer part of your question, BO himself is on video saying (in a far earlier campaign) that when a candidate doesn’t have a record to run on, they run on irrelevancies and distractions. Which is exactly what he is doing. Oh, the irony, it hurts so! This campaign’s modus operandi has been from day one… “Squirrel!!11!!” (From the movie “UP”)


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: October 24, 2012, 1:11 pm

Yeah, Zero’s campaign published his “plan” for the next term . . . conveniently after the last debate, so he can’t be questioned about it.

Early voting this week in Loozyana. I can’t wait to take off tomorrow and go pull the lever for all R candidates.

When you vote, be sure the machine holds and submits the correct choices. I’ve heard of a precinct in N. Carolina where more than a few machines under the “supervision” of a Dim-o-crat mysteriously shifted all the Romney votes to Zero. The voters caught it in time and raised a stink. So watch out.


Comment from Tibby
Time: October 24, 2012, 5:07 pm

Wolfus – I’m in La. too, and wondered – with our machines can we tell if it works correctly? I don’t remember seeing anything that would let me know one way or another…


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: October 24, 2012, 5:16 pm

Dunno, Tibby. It’s been two years since I voted. I recall you flip a switch for each candidate — but I don’t remember if there’s a final “confirm” switch or button.


Comment from BJM
Time: October 24, 2012, 5:29 pm

Axelrod & Messina didn’t actually run a campaign in 2008, which is why they’re floundering now. The media anointed Hte Won. All Obama had to was show up and not step on his dick.

btw-remember when Obama claimed that running the 2008 campaign was qualifying CEO experience. Not so much.


Comment from Anonymous
Time: October 24, 2012, 6:12 pm

“Or these drone strikes, some of which make even bloodthirsty me a little uneasy about ‘peripheral damage.’”

This, to use what the cool kids do. It bothers me, too. I’m all for blasting the bad guys but… I’m uncomfortable with how freely, regularly, and willingly he’s using these things and where he’s doing it. It doesn’t seem to actually be helping matters, either. And instead of catching bad guys, he’s killing them, even assuming they’re all genuine bad guys – where’s our intel going to come from?


Comment from mojo
Time: October 24, 2012, 8:00 pm

“Looks good in uniform and doesn’t fall off his horse.”
— Requirements for King, old version


Comment from David Gillies
Time: October 24, 2012, 8:09 pm

It’s a pretty poor state of affairs when government-related numbers are best expressed in scientific notation, viz.: $1.6 × 10^13 or 16 teradollars.

I’m not sure what the animating force behind Obama is except a rather vapid narcissism. I do rather worry if he’s defeated (as seems increasingly likely) he’ll throw some truly appalling tantrum just to land an incoming Romney administration with a big mess. Pardoning that disgusting blind Egyptian, for example (when instead he should have been shot behind the ear in a basement somewhere after lengthy interrogation and fed to pigs.)


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: October 24, 2012, 8:47 pm

As obvious it this may seem, I have to caution all of you not to get your hopes up for a Romney victory. I went hiking today with a (reasonably intelligent)college-educated friend who is simply and purely devoted to voting for Obama. Nothing phases him, although I didn’t try very hard. Bengazi? that place where that video got the ambassador killed? Man-caused Global warming came up too. 97% of scientists say it’s true. How could anyone not believe in SCIENCE?? Oh,and “Bush’s fault”.

Be afraid, be very, very afraid.

It ain’t over yet and we’re not safe yet.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 24, 2012, 10:17 pm

Oh, Some Veg — I *always* get my hopes up. It’s the only way I can work up any energy.

Then, when my hopes are dashed (as they often are), I let the winner do a victory lap unmolested. I go away for a few days, read books or play video games or pick the banjo, then come back and get ready for the next fight.

All those years I lived in Rhode Island, EVERYthing I EVER voted for went down in flames 25/75.

Hey. Wow. Come to think of it, I’m an idiot.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: October 24, 2012, 11:09 pm

“I do rather worry if he’s defeated (as seems increasingly likely) he’ll throw some truly appalling tantrum just to land an incoming Romney administration with a big mess.”

This concerns me as well. I could easily see him blowing up the economy to make things worse for a Republican… or just to punish someone for beating him.

And that’s not paranoid nonsense either, there are several godawful triggers he could pull to cause something awful to happen.


Comment from Oh Hell
Time: October 26, 2012, 2:20 am

There are any number of nasty things ostupid could do to us if he is defeated and I fully expect he will, if Romney wins. I also expect rampant voter fraud, because if they can’t win legitimatley, the Dims will cheat. Either way, we are in for a rough ride. I think I may take up drinking as a hobby….

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