He can talk the talk...

[Guest woxof]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/16/...in5166205.shtml

Firefighter Embodies White Frustrations

Frank Ricci Testifies At Supreme Court Nomination Hearings Of Sonia Sotomayor, Who Ruled Against Him As A Lower Court Judge

Testifying against Sonia Sotomayor, Frank Ricci told a Senate committee that cases should be decided cases should be decided on their merits, not "politics and personal feelings."

He spoke, this 35-year-old firefighter, to frustrations that still ripple in an undercurrent across the nation.

Frank Ricci, who is white, sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday and spoke in a steady, deliberate voice about how he studied hard, played by the rules, and was denied a promotion because of the color of his skin. His made no mention of Sonia Sotomayor, who had ruled against a discrimination claim by Ricci and fellow firefighters, and now is on track to become the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court.

Everyman firefighter and Hispanic role model, these two are among the newest faces in an enduring American debate over how to do right by long-disadvantaged minorities and still give the majority a fair shake.

Had Sotomayor not been nominated for the Supreme Court just as the Ricci case was unfolding, the Connecticut firefighters' lawsuit might have been nothing more than a fairly significant employment case that went largely unremarked upon in public. Instead, Ricci found himself telling his story before U.S. senators and on national television after Sotomayor herself repeatedly was called upon to answer for her ruling in the case during four days of testimony before the committee.

People shouldn't be reduced to "racial statistics," Ricci told the senators. They "don't wish to be divided along racial lines." His message was seconded by fellow firefighter Ben Vargas, who is Hispanic.

"Achievement is neither limited nor determined by one's race but by one's skills, dedication, commitment and character," Ricci said.

"You put a face on the issues," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told the firefighters.

Sotomayor, for her part, held out her ruling in the case as evidence that she hews to the law and precedent, not emotion or sympathies.

Ricci, whose lawsuit ultimately was upheld by the Supreme Court, called the whole ordeal "an unbelievable civics lesson."

To Ronald Walters, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, it was a lesson in the enduring potency of racial politics.

For Republicans, Walters said, "it's an issue that plays well with their constituency and they're drumming it. ... Basically this is a narrow pitch toward the white community and the elections in the fall."

It's not a new strategy.

"This all has a background," said Kenneth O'Reilly, a historian who has written extensively on racial politics. The notion of the "white male as victim" has been around for decades, O'Reilly said, harking back to tensions over affirmative action during the Reagan years. A decade earlier, the high court first visited the question of reverse discrimination when Allen Bakke, a white student with good grades, accused the University of California medical school of twice denying him admission because of his race.

Michael Selmi, a professor at the George Washington Law School who wrote a retrospective on the Bakke case, said the issue has waned over the years and more people recognize the value of diversity. But he said the firefighters' case still struck a chord, coming along just as jobs in the auto industry are evaporating.

"They're trying to hold on to those jobs, and that lost era" when white guys ruled the day, Selmi said.

Interest in the Ricci case is likely to flame out quickly once Sotomayor's nomination is settled, O'Reilly said, but racial tensions overall tend to heighten in a down economy.

"When the economy is horrific for everybody, the society is less willing, often, to do the right thing," O'Reilly said. "It's hard to worry about black, brown, red, yellow getting jobs when whites can't get jobs either."

Public sympathies in the firefighters' case were clear in a May-June poll conducted by Quinnipiac University. More than seventy percent of those surveyed nationally thought the firefighters should have been promoted. At the same time, about three-fifths of those surveyed said the case shouldn't make any difference in whether Sotomayor is confirmed for the high court.

The details of Ricci's case played out repeatedly in testimony before the Judiciary Committee this week: He passed a promotion exam only to see the city toss out the results because too few minorities qualified for advancement. He was among 20 white firefighters who sued, and their reverse discrimination claim was rejected by a federal district court. That decision was upheld by Sotomayor and two other appeals court judges. The Supreme Court overturned their ruling late last month.

Nowhere is Ricci's case being debated more hotly than New Haven, where the case originated. He gets strong support there in the white middle-class neighborhood of Morris Cove.

James Izzo, a chef, said the city was wrong to throw out the test results to help blacks and Hispanics. "I just think these people need to study harder," said Izzo, 26. "They play the race card over everything. I think it's a little ridiculous."

Michele Sigg, 44, a project manager in New Haven, didn't want to take sides, but said the case had "brought to the fore some questions, culture changes and laws that need to be looked at accordingly. I think it's a good thing to question ourselves."

The firefighters' case - and the larger questions it raises about race in America - are being debated far beyond Connecticut.

[Guest woxof]

He really can Talk the Talk sometimes.

On many fronts I really do like the man. Some have said that the decision-makers of the Nobel Peace Prize award winners are of a certain political spectrum and are trying to influence Obama's decisions with this award. After all, there was no real reason to give it to Barack.

Perhaps a Peace prize winner would just abandon Afghanistan was the thinking. Turn and run, just like thay wanted the U.S. to do when Iraq seemed hopeless.

But in his speech, Obama laid reality out for them loud and clear....

"war is sometimes necessary"

"The instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace"

"Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms"

"A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

Woxof...now I can see why so many here supported Obama during his campaign.

[Canus Chinookus]

http://www.canada.com/news/Obama+receives+...4780/story.html

OSLO -- The United States must uphold moral standards when waging wars that are necessary and justified, President Barack Obama said on Thursday as he accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace.

In a speech at the award ceremony in Oslo, Mr. Obama said violent conflict would not be eradicated "in our lifetimes," there would be times when nations would need to fight just wars and he would not stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.

"Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war," he declared.

Nine days after ordering 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to break the momentum of the Taliban, Mr. Obama acknowledged the criticism of those who have said it was wrong and premature to award the Nobel accolade to a president still in his first year in office and escalating a major war.

He said America's adherence to moral standards, even in war, was what made it different from its enemies.

"That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions," he said.

By pledging to close the Guantanamo camp for foreign terrorist suspects on Cuba, and moving to bring inmates to trial on U.S. soil, Mr. Obama has attempted to recover the moral high ground that critics of the United States accused his predecessor George W. Bush of surrendering by waging a no-holds-barred "war on terror."

"We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard," Mr. Obama said.

Acknowledging "a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower," he said his country could not act alone in confronting global challenges in Afghanistan, Somalia or other troubled regions.

In seeking alternatives to force, it was necessary to be tough.

"Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must enact a real price," Mr. Obama said in a passage that addressed North Korea's nuclear arsenal and U.S. suspicions that Iran, too, seeks to acquire the bomb.

"It is...incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system," Mr. Obama said. "Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war."

At a news conference earlier, Mr. Obama reaffirmed that U.S. troops would begin transferring responsibility for Afghan security to local forces in July 2011 but said there would be no "precipitous drawdown."

Acknowledging the controversy surrounding his prize, he said: "I have no doubt that there are others that may be more deserving. My task here is to continue on the path that I believe is not only important for America but important for lasting peace in the world."

He said that meant pursuing a world free of nuclear weapons and countering proliferation; addressing climate change; stabilizing countries like Afghanistan; "mobilizing an international effort to deal with terrorism that is consistent with our values and ideals"; and addressing development issues.

Some of these initiatives were beginning to bear fruit, Mr. Obama said.

"If I am successful in those tasks, then hopefully some of the criticism will subside, but that is not really my concern. If I am not successful, than all the praise and awards in the world will not disguise that."

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told journalists the prize was well deserved and "can contribute in itself to strengthening the efforts of the president to work for peace."

On a rainy day with temperatures just above freezing, thousands lined heavily guarded Oslo streets to greet Mr. Obama.

Only handfuls of protesters were visible, with one group holding a sign reading: "Obama you won it, now earn it."

Environmentalists in the crowd called on the U.S. leader to sign an ambitious deal to fight global warming when he visits nearby Copenhagen next week for the climax of a UN climate conference involving nearly 200 countries.

© Thomson Reuters 2009

© Copyright © National Post

[chockalicious]

I did not see the speech but I think he is on the wrong path wih the additional troops. I don't believe that an army can change a society like Afghanistan.

[Fido]

First Gore and then Obama get a Nobel prize.

The Norwegians are turning this into a farce.

[Guest woxof]

I don't believe that an army can change a society like Afghanistan.

If Obama is smart, he won't try to change Afghan society. Obama knows(at least on foreign policy).

Here is the speech...

"Good morning.

Well, this is not how I expected to wake up this morning. After I received the news, Malia walked in and said, "Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is Bo's birthday!" And then Sasha added, "Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up." So it's good to have kids to keep things in perspective.

I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women, and all Americans, want to build -- a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents. And I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action -- a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.

These challenges can't be met by any one leader or any one nation. And that's why my administration has worked to establish a new era of engagement in which all nations must take responsibility for the world we seek. We cannot tolerate a world in which nuclear weapons spread to more nations and in which the terror of a nuclear holocaust endangers more people. And that's why we've begun to take concrete steps to pursue a world without nuclear weapons, because all nations have the right to pursue peaceful nuclear power, but all nations have the responsibility to demonstrate their peaceful intentions.

We cannot accept the growing threat posed by climate change, which could forever damage the world that we pass on to our children -- sowing conflict and famine; destroying coastlines and emptying cities. And that's why all nations must now accept their share of responsibility for transforming the way that we use energy.

We can't allow the differences between peoples to define the way that we see one another, and that's why we must pursue a new beginning among people of different faiths and races and religions; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect.

And we must all do our part to resolve those conflicts that have caused so much pain and hardship over so many years, and that effort must include an unwavering commitment that finally realizes that the rights of all Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security in nations of their own.

We can't accept a world in which more people are denied opportunity and dignity that all people yearn for -- the ability to get an education and make a decent living; the security that you won't have to live in fear of disease or violence without hope for the future.

And even as we strive to seek a world in which conflicts are resolved peacefully and prosperity is widely shared, we have to confront the world as we know it today. I am the commander in chief of a country that's responsible for ending a war and working in another theater to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies.

I'm also aware that we are dealing with the impact of a global economic crisis that has left millions of Americans looking for work. These are concerns that I confront every day on behalf of the American people.

Some of the work confronting us will not be completed during my presidency. Some, like the elimination of nuclear weapons, may not be completed in my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone. This award is not simply about the efforts of my administration -- it's about the courageous efforts of people around the world.

And that's why this award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity -- for the young woman who marches silently in the streets on behalf of her right to be heard even in the face of beatings and bullets; for the leader imprisoned in her own home because she refuses to abandon her commitment to democracy; for the soldier who sacrificed through tour after tour of duty on behalf of someone half a world away; and for all those men and women across the world who sacrifice their safety and their freedom and sometimes their lives for the cause of peace.

That has always been the cause of America. That's why the world has always looked to America. And that's why I believe America will continue to lead.

Thank you very much."

[Canus Chinookus]

Man, I can't listen to him talk without hearing a baptist minister. He preaches.

[zipped]

Some of you are going to love this. Don't shoot the messenger.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/120...es_the_gap.html

[Guest rattler]

more commentary on his acceptance speech.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...bel-speech.aspx

[J.O.]

Some of you are going to love this.  Don't shoot the messenger.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/120...es_the_gap.html

They disapprove because their economy has gone down the crapper. And how many of those disapproving folks:

a. voted for the last President who helped to create the current mess in the first place;

b. bought on credit at userous rates when they could not afford to pay cash for something;

c. watched while the basis of a sound economy was sold up the river in the name of buying more for less at the local Walmart.

Glass houses and stones rarely go together well.

[Guest woxof]

Obama's message in Oslo

The Nobel Peace Prize was probably damaged beyond redemption in 1994, when it was awarded to Palestinian terrorist leader Yasser Arafat -- that is, if had any credibility left after being awarded in 1992 to Rigoberta Menchu, an activist for aboriginal rights in Central America whose tear-drenched autobiography was later shown to be a fraud. On top of that, the left has never forgiven the Nobel committee for giving the 1973 prize to

Henry Kissinger, one of the architects of the Vietnam war.

Yet, still, in the entire uneven, controversial and even disreputable history of the prize, there may have been no odder sight than a wartime president receiving the medal just nine days after escalating a major conflict.

Admittedly, the Nobel committee chose President Barack Obama during the heady early days of his presidency, when the Bush-hating elites of the Western world still went wobbly in the knees every time Mr. Obama waxed poetic about closing Gitmo or opening up dialogue with the world's troublemakers. Many of them still turn to jelly when he speaks, despite his falling popularity at home.

Even the Nobel guardians -- among the most gushing of Obamaniacs -- must have been aghast, though, when the President announced, less than a week and a half before breezing hastily through Oslo to collect his prize, that he would be sending an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to fight in Afghanistan by summer. This brings the number of additional U.S. troops sent to that country since Mr. Obama's inauguration to 64,000. By summer, there will be nearly 100,000 in total, far more than the number sent there by former president George W, Bush (who, we feel quite certain, never made it to the Nobel committee's short list).

In other words, Mr. Obama is -- to his great credit -- more interested in protecting the world from jihadists than in embracing the utopian pacifism that is popular in many European capitals. His speech revealed that he truly understands the task in front of him in Afghanistan. In talking of just and unjust wars, he acknowledged, at least implicitly, that war is sometimes inevitable, that it sometimes is thrust upon nations and cultures, that there are bad people in the world who will never be placated by flowery words and diplomatic niceties. Sometimes, there must be war before there can be peace.

We doubt it's a message the Nobel committee wanted to hear. But it's the truth. And Mr. Obama is to be applauded for speaking it.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=2332314

[Guest woxof]

Obama's popularity is going downhill and Conrad Black has an opinion of it....Is he correct?

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...sachusetts.aspx

"Incompetent Obama teeters on the edge

The burning question after the Massachusetts Senate election is whether the administration responds by making a course correction to survive politically by jettisoning its policy core and cleaning up its methods, or 'doubles down,' as President Obama has implied, and escalates the ideological and guerrilla war for direction of public policy. This was a referendum on the Obama administration, including health care, not just on health care. Even less was it just the rejection of an astonishingly unappealing candidate, predestined to glory as a trivia question. John F. Kennedy took that seat with lashings of his father's money in an anti-Brahmin revolt against Henry Cabot Lodge in 1952, and was reelected by 864,000 votes in 1958. In the intervening years of Teddy Kennedy, the Democrats could have won with a candidate not confined to two legs and one head. This was less a wake-up call than a Te Deum for a dying and sweaty dream.

The president has three principal problems. He is well to the left of the public and of what he promised the voters in 2008, and it is an old, passe leftism, that is authoritarian, deviously presented and was discredited in this country decades ago; the sort of nostrums that caused Bill Clinton and others to become 'New Democrats.' He is increasingly perceived as having credibility problems and of being cold, cocksure, narcissistic and intoxicated by what he modestly called 'the gift' of his own articulation. And as president, he has been quite, and quite surprisingly, incompetent.

The second of these problems seems to prevent the president from appreciating the last. The only serious domestic initiative to show for the last year is an obscene stimulus bill that has had to be defended by the spurious supposition of 'jobs saved' since, contrary to promises, unemployment has risen by over five million after it was enacted. That target could have been attained without squandering 787 billion borrowed dollars.

Current economic projections call for massive debt increases of $1 trillion a year for a decade, with huge money supply increases that will make history not only by their size but, according to forecasts, by their non-inflationary nature, accompanied by tax increases that will, also miraculously, not retard recovery from the recession. No audible sane person believes this arithmetical fairy tale, including, one dares to hope, the president himself. It is a recipe for guaranteed stagflation and currency devaluation.

The administration bought wholly into the unproved claim that carbon emissions are causing global warming, but global warming has not, for the last ten years, been happening. The president padded around the Copenhagen global warming conference trying to generate enthusiasm for $100 billion annual transfers to the Mugabes and Chavezes, as well as the Chinese (the world's largest carbon emitters), as conscience-alleviating payments for the carbon emissions of the economically advanced countries. America's fellow culprits found less tangibly burdensome expiations. So will America.

Mr. Obama must have noticed that the science and the politics were wrong, and that the arithmetic was too. The whole concept, like his promotion of renewable energy, his cap-and-trade bill, his redesignation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and his pursuit of complete nuclear disarmament, is mad. It was a worthy encore to the president's previous cameo appearance in the Danish capital, where his and his wife's prodigies managed to bring Chicago in fourth in contention for the 2016 Olympics, (out of four competing cities).

In foreign policy, engagement with Iran and North Korea, appeasement of Russia, over Georgia and missile defense, attempting to bully Israel and to deny that there was an agreement between the Sharon and Bush (Jr.) regimes over settlements, and siding with Chavez and the Castros in the Honduran crisis against constitutional democracy and America's legitimate interests, have all failed, practically and morally, at least without knowledge of indiscernible and unlikely, contrary intelligence.

There have been no initiatives to reform NATO, the UN, the IMF, all in need of modernization, and there has been a regrettable delay in launching the long-promised and necessary measures to turn the Afghan operation into a success, while the U.S. and its allies have been milling about, losing ground and taking increasing casualties.

The fumbling over Guantanamo has been another fiasco, as attorney general Holder has acknowledged that it is an exemplary prison. But Obama has been entrapped by Teddy Kennedy's unfounded identification of Gitmo with Abu Ghraib. The president's reaction to the near disaster of the panties-terrorist in the skies over Detroit began with waffling from a Hawaiian luau, and gained altitude agonizingly slowly.

No one is audibly lamenting the retirement of George W. or throwing shoes at his successor's head because he speaks in sentences, but this president is bestriding the world as a flake, cow-towing to the Mikado, apologizing for President Truman's use of the atomic bomb, criticizing Roosevelt and Churchill's uninclusive approach to winning World War II, and Churchill and Eisenhower for disposing of the pajama-clad hysteric Mohammed Mossadegh as head of Iran.

And instead of sending the Congress completed bills and drumming up public support for them, as legislatively successful past presidents like FDR, LBJ, and Reagan did, he just rolls a Christmas tree into the Capitol Rotunda and invites Reid and Pelosi and their vacuum-cleaner committee chairmen to festoon it with their favorite pork baubles. Stealing the Alaska Senate election with the fraudulent prosecution of Senator Stevens, (since retracted), the Minnesota Senate election with the fraudulent recounts against Senator Coleman, and the unchallenging seduction of Senator Specter as he was circling the Republican primary drain in Pennsylvania, to get 60 Democratic senators, enabled the public purchase of party loyalty, the dismissal of sincere moderates like Senator Olympia Snow, (whose furrowed brow is a mortal challenge to Botox), for a bad health care bill that is not a reform. This was not what was thought to be meant by the slogan 'Yes we can!,' is not leadership, and the people, even in Massachusetts, don't like it.

It has been a year of fecklessness, amateurism, and posturing. Less that is useful has been accomplished by this president in his first year than by any president since Herbert Hoover, and he was ambushed by the Great Depression after seven months.

President Obama rose with astonishing speed from a more improbable sociological provenance than any of his 42 predecessors, an alumnus both of the genteel finishing school of Harvard Law and of the Chicago boiler room for hardball politicians. Neither his radical nor sleazy connections stuck to him. He deftly made an unspoken arrangement to liberate white liberal America from its guilt complex over historic treatment of African-Americans, and to banish the down-market Al Sharptons, Jesse Jacksons and Charlie Rangels as black spokesmen, in exchange for a one-way ticket to the White House. With this implicit, non-refundable offer in his back pocket, he almost effortlessly seemed to take the Democratic Party away from the Clintons and rode the trends, the economy, and the sclerosis of his opponent's campaign straight into the White House, with professional skill and elegance.

Withal, this president seems overwhelmingly confident, strangely detached, and, as Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan's leading speech-writer, and now one of the leaders of the Obama Buyers' Remorse Movement, wrote, 'cold and faux eloquent.' He is fluent and sonorous, but rather vapid. And now, Maureen Dowd, foxy doyenne of New York Times columnists and pin-up girl of the D.C. Democratic establishment, niece of FDR's top fixer, former co-leader, with Michelle, Caroline Kennedy and Oprah Winfrey, of the Obama massed, synchronized cheerleaders, has apostacized and reviled the president as a nasty egotist. When A Democratic president has lost Ms. Dowd and the Kennedys' Senate seat, it is time to return to the drawing boards.

If the president has a Damascene rendezvous with the real wishes of the American people and turns the White House bowling alley into a cram-course charm school, he can be a popular and successful president yet. An excellent bi-partisan health care bill that really is a reform can still be had and would be hugely admired, especially after this debacle. If he wants to double down on what we have seen in the last year, he will leave the White House in a submersible in three years.

For all the claims that the Republicans are too influenced by religious zealots and country club knuckle-draggers, the administration may be in the hands of 'redistributive,' pacifistic Kool Aid drinkers. If it is, the Republicans will have to elevate their 2012 presidential candidate this year. The office may, 213 years after the retirement of George Washington, actually seek the (wo)man, but not from what is conspicuously on offer now, from either party."

[dagger]

Another opinion.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/35018003

[FA@AC]

That Conrad Black would accuse someone else of having credibility problems and of being cocksure, narcissistic or of liking the sound of his own voice too much is a hoot.

[Guest woxof]

That Conrad Black would accuse someone else of having credibility problems and of being cocksure, narcissistic or of liking the sound of his own voice too much is a hoot. 

So you base your opinions of an argument on who the messenger is. Hmmm.....

O.K. then...Rex Murphy seems to have a lot of credibility in many circles.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...f-a-pickup.aspx

"Rex Murphy: A president in need of a pickup

It was but a single day shy of a perfect year from Barack Obama’s inauguration, when a previously unheralded, not emphatically gifted, Republican candidate, Scott Brown, won the Senatorial election in the state of Massachusetts. The Senate seat in question was not just any seat: It wasn’t so much held, as owned and occupied, stamped with the family coat-of-arms, taken under the political equivalent of copyright protection, by Ted Kennedy. This seat was Democratic in the same way we say water is wet, birds twitter, and reality TV grinds the living nerves.

Yet Scott Brown, a guy who campaigned in a five-year-old pickup truck (GMC Canyon), starting the race 30 points behind the Democratic candidate, stared down campaign jolts from ex-President Clinton, and President Obama, and won Tuesday night by a five-point margin. Truly, the planet has begun to heal, the rising of the seas has begun to slow.

Scott Brown’s win was the real report card on Barack Obama’s one-year presidency. He may have given himself, in an interview with Dame Oprah of Afternoon Fluff, a B+. Voters of Massachusetts were more clear-eyed and rigorous. They went, let us say, with a “gentleman’s D.”

How did this happen? Obama was a chandelier presence in a world of political moles. Just one year in, his grandest plan (health care reform) is in tatters, his political coat tails have been amputated, his tactical practices and policy initiatives have ignited low-key rebellion in an army of citizens (the Tea Party movement) and his once greatest asset, the soup of honeyed words (Hope, Change) and fortune-cookie mantras (You are the change you’ve been waiting for) that left crowds in a dreamy swoon, have not only staled -- Barack Obama’s speeches are sometimes close to … boring.

Let us begin with the observation that some cars should just stay in the showroom, some horses should stay in the barn. A campaign can flourish on style and image; the presidency insists on substance. The pitch is not the product, the trailer is (sometimes) anything but the movie.

Obama is a parochial politician. He emerged from the small pool of the university environment and Chicago politics -- the former, I think, more significant than the latter. Take his jibes at Scott Brown’s pickup, which he delivered repeatedly in Boston two days before the vote. Only the thickest of tin ears could imagine that slurs and putdowns about driving a pickup have any appeal beyond arugula snobs trading nose-in-the-air witticisms about rednecks.

On a much grander scale, the tin ear explains his defiance of genuine, widespread anxiety about his grand health reforms, and the grotesquely expanded expenditures, present and future, of the U.S. federal government. Obama has steadfastly refused to hear, or glided by, their deeply expressed concerns. He presumes, loftily, that his issues are the issues.

Which brings us to hubris. Nice to walk through a cloud of incense, but don’t look for a daily fix. Obama’s celebrated cool has translated for many into its flipside: extravagantly unearned self-assurance. With a persona that oscillates between professor and hipster, he patronizes -- he’s either smarter or cooler than anyone else in the room, and, worse, looks very pleased to be both.

Duplicity, the ferocious art of promising one thing and delivering its opposite, is the other element. He sold himself as someone who would mend the system, sluice off its toxic partisanship, forsake the buying and selling of Congress, clean out the temple. Instead, he’s a horse-trader in the grand manner, a Huey Long redux -- trafficking in special deals, operating behind closed doors, as hard-nosed a politico as our age has seen. He offered and articulated a vision of a better way of doing things, of “redeeming the time.” He didn’t mean it.

Obama one year in is a reduced President, in an uncertain and threatening time, freighted with the justifiable resentments of a portion of his citizenry. Tactics won’t restore what tactics have diminished. His repair, if there is to be one, has to come from himself. He’ll get some hints where to start from Scott Brown. He should take a ride in that pickup."

[Guest woxof]

Another opinion.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/35018003

Jim Cramer? Isn't that the guy that was caught On Video Boasting How He Lies And Scams To Make Quick Profits?

Oops...better not base an opinion of an argument on who the messenger is.

http://exiledonline.com/cnbcs-jim-cramer-c...-quick-profits/

[J.O.]

The battle is far from over, as it still has to go through a difficult senate review.

I was speaking with a staunch Republican acquaintance recently. We are not friends, he's someone I met through a business transaction. I asked him why he was so opposed to a national health care system. His response was that it would cost him more in taxes. When I mentioned that those taxes would help to raise the standard of health for millions of his fellow Americans, all he could say was, "Republicans hate paying taxes more than they love their fellow Americans." It left me speechless.

[J.O.]

You can't fault his honesty, but if that really is a prevailing attitude down south, then I'll stay here thanks. After seeing my own father spend a couple of weeks in an ICU following two serious surgeries that saved his life and then spend a month in hospital afterwards, I am thankful for our system. The first week alone would have cost close to $300,000 south of the border and the grand total would probably have been in excess of $500,000. While our family is far from living in the poor house, the collective financial hit we would have taken to pay for his care would have changed our lives for many years.

[Mitch Cronin]

When I mentioned that those taxes would help to raise the standard of health for millions of his fellow Americans, all he could say was, "Republicans hate paying taxes more than they love their fellow Americans." It left me speechless.

"I'm alright Jack keep your hands offa my stack!"

Imagine..., making "me first" a plank in their platform. "Greed is good!"... "You snooze, you lose." "too bad, so sad." "Sucks to be you." "WHOGAS" etc.... In a civilized world, I don't think you'd see that.