President Obama And His Hasan Problem–UPDATED
Friday, November 6th, 2009How does a man weened on politically correct thought, race grievance, and collective versus individual responsibility deal with this:
American born
Muslim man
Soldier
Psychiatrist
Murderer
Terrorist
Here was the President’s response:
President Obama gave a shout out before his statements about the rampage at Ft. Hood. Does that seem dissonant to you? Bookworm calls it “frightening insensitivity“.
Robert George of NBC in Chicago writes:
But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a “shout-out” to “Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner.” Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?
Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That’s the least that should occur.
As more uncomfortable information comes out, information President Obama probably knew even yesterday, it will raise more questions. For example, the killer yelled “Allahu Akbar” while he shot his fellow soldiers. In addition, Hasan gave a weird presentation on the Koran during Grand Rounds. Jimmie Bise of Sundries Shack, said on Twitter:
It is this simple: 12 people were murdered yesterday by a man who holds political views the MSM has guaranteed us aren’t dangerous.
And when Jake Tapper just asked Robert Gibbs when an attack becomes a terrorist attack, the response, according to David Almacy also reporting on Twitter was this:
In an answer to @jaketapper, Robert Gibbs just said that he doesn’t have the theoretical background to define “terrorist attack.” Wow.
When faced with the uncomfortable facts, President Obama and his administration are having a collective psychic break. Reality is not conforming to the fantasy they’ve built.
So far, it seems that this killing spree, this terrorist attack, could have been prevented. This man’s radical Islamist views were widely known. He did not hide them. He did not hide that he didn’t want to go to Iraq. He did not hide that he disagreed with America’s wars. He did not hide his frustration about President Obama. He even praised evil–beheadings and terrorism.
Since it’s politically incorrect to “profile” for terrorists or look for threats proactively, how is one to prevent such events? President Obama’s answer has been to pretend. If he ignores threats, they will go away. But they’re not going away. Neither individual or group or State-sponsoring terrorists are going away. And pretending they don’t exist or aren’t serious and deadly is liable to get a man killed. Or many men.
And so, President Obama’s decision to make light of the Ft. Hood killings by burying the story into a pre-planned press-conference makes sense. This act of terrorism revealed all the lies liberals tell themselves and tell others. There are two choices in this situation, then: One, admit the lie and speak the truth. Or two, continue the delusion.
President Obama has chosen to continue the delusion. If he can, and the mainstream media continues to aid and abet him, he’ll reframe this “unfortunate incident” as the actions of one “troubled individual” who should have “received help sooner.” And it looks like he’ll get help in that regard.
But for normal people, this attack was a terrorist attack by a Muslim man schooled in hate-filled ideology. Hasan would have rather killed his fellow soldiers rather than go to an Islamic nation and help his own country find justice there. That is, Hasan was a Muslim first, and a radical one at that, and a countryman second. And because no one can name Islamism evil, because that might make someone uncomfortable, what is there to say?
So the President and his press people fumble around, trying to find some politically correct verbiage to describe evil. And they can’t. What this man did was wrong and heinous. There are no excuses. He was an individual and he’s responsible. He was an educated doctor, a psychiatrist, and enlightenment did not prevent the taint of radical ideology. And he was also a murderer who intended not just to kill, but terrorize.
He is everything President Obama wants to pretend doesn’t exist. Well. America can’t afford to indulge President Obama and his liberal minions their p.c. fantasies. It gets citizens killed. The Ft. Hood massacre was a reality-check.
Updated:
Michelle Malkin reports that Hasan had “extra weapons training”.
Michael Goldfarb on Obama searching for the “real cause” of the massacre.
Updated:
Shrinkwrapped discusses the psychology:
When the immediate reaction of Islamic spokesmen is to warn everyone of Islamophobia, they too are supporting the projection and externalization that is the hallmark of radical Islam and the “lone, psychiatrically deranged” paranoid.
Every effort should be made to resolutely maintain a posture that specifically and emphatically denies the use of projection and externalization to the radical Islamists. Groups like CAIR should be confronted by our MSM and government on a regular basis to expose their use of such psychological processes for all to see. Whenever a “lone, psychiatrically deranged” individual commits an atrocity, we must be alert to attempts to shift the psychological impetus for the attack from the attacker to the surround. It is an unhappy reality that confronting a paranoid’s projection and externalization does not work in a therapeutic context. It either convinces the paranoid that you are part of the persecutory conspiracy or, if accepted and internalized, leads to significant depression. However, we cannot treat terror as a therapeutic situation. When Muslims support, in their speech and writing, convictions that reflect the use of projection and externalization, they must be considered potential dangers to the community. This requires a form of “racial profiling” but the alternative is to wait for an atrocity of such significant proportions that “lone, psychiatrically deranged” non-Muslims begin to take things into their own hands.
Are We Witnessing The Decline And Fall Of The American Non-Empire?
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009America, as Bill Whittle so eloquently pointed out, is not, and never has been an Empire builder. Still, America has been a world-power since almost her inception over 200 years ago. Is it over?
Today, we learn that America lost to the Swiss as the world’s most competitive economy.
Consider, too, MaxedOutMama’s take on unemployment (read the whole thing):
At this point one must interpret a bit. One could, if one were to be polemical, argue that the self-employed worker expansion means that the economy is improving so much that contracting jobs are easier to get and highly lucrative. However, I find that completely implausible in view of the massive drop in wage and salary employment, which has never in our experience been a sign of an improving economy. If wage and salary employment were stabilizing, one might indeed expect to see casual contracting picking up, and indeed, at some point this will happen. Companies are extremely loathe to hire in first stages of economic recoveries.
Instead, what I think we are seeing is the first group of long-term unemployed who are losing unemployment benefits and scratching a living. You only have to be employed one hour of one day of the reference week in order to be classified as employed.
A further comment about the government employment – because of the steadiness of government entities, these numbers are generally pretty reliable in both surveys. It is, however, a rather large drop in view of expanded federal employment, especially the census workers, and likely indicates the depth of the state and local combined tax/retirement problem. The combined impact will only increase for years to come.
So, I wonder what you think. Is America going through a downward cycle or is the downward economic trend spelling doom? Is America declining and diminishing, never to rise again? As a cultural, economic, political and military influence, is America over?
The Name Rule
Friday, August 21st, 2009Robert Stacy McCain wrote a slice of genius the other day. He writes of names and relationships and psychology:
All Girls Named Tonya, the title of that childhood memoir no publisher will ever pay me to write, derives from a principle of human psychology first postulated by a genuinely evil little bastard who became one of my dope buddies in 10th grade. That title is 67% of what I call Art Hembree’s Law:
All Girls Named Tonya Are Sluts.
If your name is Tonya, I apologize on my old friend’s behalf, but as a lowlife trying to score some easy action circa 1978-86, I can testify that Hembree’s Law proved amazingly reliable.
Well, he swapped momentary, if unfulfilled pleasure with Tonya, for a lost lifetime of love with Amy, but I say he got lucky.
If all girls named Tonya are sluts, then all girls named Amy are mean gossips. Now, I’ve lived long enough that the rules have had too many exceptions to be valid, but I’m still suspicious when I meet an Amy. She has a threshold of niceness that she must scale that Anns (they’re smart) just don’t have to.
Don’t forget Susans. To a person, they’ve all been smug, self-righteous smarty-pants. Is there a Susan who is a C-student? I don’t think so. Is there a Susan who isn’t a competitive-better-than-you ball of high achievement? Haven’t met her yet.
My sister says all Melinda’s are fat. That’s not true.
I like John’s. They are unoffensive.
Have to be careful with Michael’s. They can go either way–mean or nice. They are usually smart.
Do names determine behavior? I wonder.
I know a Chiropractor named Dr. Bone. I know a Proctologist named Dr. Butts. No, I don’t know a Gynecologist named Dr. Vagina, but you get the idea.
Anyway, Stacy needs to let it go. He dodged a name bullet. I hope his wife’s name isn’t Amy.
Hillary Clinton’s Hissy Fit
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009I got this from RightWingSparkle and it had me laughing. Some might not think this whole episode is very becoming…or funny. John at Powerline rightly notes that Hillary is “still angry after all these years”:
The Clintons’ “two for the price of one” shtick was always pretty weird. Hillary Clinton’s one great career move was marrying Bill, a political genius. But she often seemed to be burning with rage because her own equal, if not superior, merit was going unrecognized. That’s never really changed, even though Hillary has gone on to enjoy her own career in recent years.
Jules Crittenden says, “She’s BAAAAAAACK”:
It’s the Hill we all know and love from the campaign. Upstaged by Bill, with Obama and Biden out there on the road, doing her job, the last straw was in Kinshasha today when some hapless Congolese university student asked her, “What does Mr. Clinton think, through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton …” CBS has the vid. She looks around, a little stunned, then commences operations on Joe College, with big scary eyes. Money quote follows:
“Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state, I am.”
AP has the story, how she’s been out of circulation, plus the history of this “complicated couple.” OK, rest of the quote:
“If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.”
Isn’t Ms. Clinton so very diplomatic and dignified? Restart button, indeed.
President Obama’s Quest To Remake America & America’s Gut Check
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009Only question: Do Americans want America remade? In this weeks American Issues Project column I talk about the choice before America:
While this is very much about Barack Obama personally–his whole life was made for this moment when he would be in the position where he could “remake America”–it’s even more about the American people.
Do American citizens want America remade?
During the campaign, I wrote often that people generally like the idea of change, but not the actual implementation of change and all that it means. Change is a very dicey word and can be a rhetorical double edged sword. The wielder of the “change” mantra must take care not to cut himself. And when executing change, care must be taken that the transition doesn’t descend into chaos. People are used to certain things, and they keep the status quo because it works on some level.
The energy and faith it takes to remake a whole system, requires significant planning and sure-handedness. That is something that has not been existent with the changes coming from Congress and the Administration. But that’s process, the way things are done. What of the actual intended change?
President Obama campaigned on tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans. The upper 5% of Americans were in pretty big trouble, though. Americans were okay with that. Essentially, class warfare worked. That is, the majority of Americans who produced less than the minority of Americans who produced the most were content to take from the minority to meet the needs of the majority.
That sounded wonderful in theory, but now, the same thing, but on a grander scale is being expected of Americans with health care. That is, say 60% of Americans have stellar health care while the rest of the citizenry is underinsured or uninsured either by choice or by circumstance. The American who have insurance are being asked to underwrite the insurance of those who don’t have it either through coverage cuts of their own care or higher taxes.
Americans are being asked to voluntarily redistribute their wealth. While it sounded great when taking from the rich, top 5%, it doesn’t sound so great when it means more taxes for people who already see themselves as struggling. The old Margaret Thatcher quote comes to mind, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Americans are being asked to trade in a known, but flawed, health care system, for an unknown, and by all accounts, equally flawed health care system. The benefits don’t outweigh the negatives, so Americans wonder why change at all? The benefits should be self-evident and the system should simplify. As with all things government, though, the health care proposals are a litany of rules and regulations seemingly designed to compete with the IRS.
Americans are also being asked to suspend disbelief. So when the Cap and Trade legislation is delved into or receives an even cursory reading, scary proposals like retrofitting ones home to sell it come to the fore. And of course, a person sees that his home or his business would be subject to taxation due to energy use. It is another tax. Far from being part of the lucky 95%, the tax scheme seems to penalize everyone and the poor most of all.
A new portrait of America emerges: Everyone drives a Prius made by unproductive unions, lives in old, small homes with special lightbulbs, waiting in lines for health care a bureaucrat decides a person needs, and being taxed for the privilege of all of the above.
Where are the hot rods? Where are the dreams of a home and a pool? Where is the specialist when you contract a rare form of cancer? Where is the exuberant individual pursuing his dreams?
Please go read the whole thing. There are so many great columnists at American Issues. T.J. Brown discusses a health care system Without Doctors.
There’s much more.
How Far Behind Venezuela Is America?
Thursday, July 16th, 2009How far behind Venezuela does America lag in the populist, socialist, state-run “solution” to the perceived injustice and unfairness of our formerly great capitalistic state? In this podcast, I interview my brother who is in Venezuela doing business and how the people there perceive the changes. The subjects of Sotomayor’s intelligence, the NRSC Toomey endorsement, and Obama’s socialist health care and taxation policies make up the show.
Melissa’s show can also be found on RFC Radio every Monday and Wednesday night at 10:00 pm Eastern.
To subscribe on iTunes, just click here!
When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
Czars Everywhere!
Thursday, June 11th, 2009When I made fun of President Obama’s Czar craze, libs on Twitter gave me a hard time saying that all presidents have Czars. Uh, not so much. No.
Tabitha Hale has a great blog post about the czar differences. Go look at her list. She concludes:
Let’s talk a little more about this. Know how many Czars Reagan had? One. Bush 41? One. Clinton? Three. Dubya? Four. Obama has already QUADRUPLED that. And since most of these positions are already covered by Secretaries, the overlap is wasteful. And some are just inane (seriously, A GREAT LAKES CZAR? What is a Great Lakes Czar? Overlord of the Catfish? I don’t understand). Scariest part? Czars have no one to answer to but Obama. Know how much they are in control of? $1.7 TRILLION. Yeah.
And I really hate the term Czar.
Me too. What are we Russia?
Why yes, America is now turning into a state-run place. A guy on Fox said something that struck me: When it’s not about contracts and competence and it’s about connections, you have a society that is running on different rules. [That is a gross interpretation of what he said.]
Essentially, when the state owns everything, it’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know. How connected to czar or czarina are you? That will determine the success of your endeavor. Influence and corruption become the order of the day.
Welcome to America, just like the Old Country!
American Issues Project Column: The Complicated Economy
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009Is there a simple solution to our complex economic problems? I don’t know, but I see parallels to the complexity of the human body and the United States economy:
The biggest problem with the current financial mess the United States faces is that it’s not simple. The United States economy, the slow, crawling, sprawling recession, makes no sense to the average person.
The U.S. economy makes little sense to experts either. That’s a problem.
When I was up in Chicago for a family gathering, I danced with a relative of my uncle who happened to to be a financial guy and trader. Please explain what is going on, I asked him. He just laughed and said that no one knew what was going on–not even the guys in the business. Why try to figure it out anyway?
How do you respond to that? I was rather stunned and took in the implications of his statement. A smart guy whose whole job was to trade on the stock exchange could not explain what was happening to the U.S. economy. Further, he told me that no one understood it. It’s too big. It’s too complicated.
What does a doctor do when a patient with crazy and varied symptoms comes in that no one can diagnose? Well, the solution might be the same for the U.S. economy. Please go read the whole thing.
No More Americanization
Thursday, May 28th, 2009The impulse is to say Soto-my-er. But that wouldn’t be correct. The proper pronunciation is Soto-may-YOUR and with a opening of the mouth to get the proper fullness and roll of the tongue.
Sigh.
Remember when people Americanized their names? Partly, it made their names easier to say. Mostly, people just wanted to be American. Fully American.
When the in-laws came from Italy, Italian was most certainly not spoken. They were Americans and they spoke English. In the second generation, that would be grandma who is 92, there is not even the remotest hint of Italy in her voice though she is only the second generation here in America.
Not so now with some folks. Oh no. Acculturation is akin to living in the closet and hiding your ancestral glory. Much better to keep the Puerto Rican accent even though you’ve grown up on American soil.
My uncle is of Mexican descent. He speaks Spanish and knows five dialects. When he speaks English it is not Spanglish. It’s English. It is not English with the twang of Spanish hovering over him. I dare say, if I asked him if his Mexican heritage makes his judgment more stellar, he would say no. I’m quite sure he wouldn’t say that being a man makes him smarter. And yet, he finds a way to integrate his Mexican heritage and embrace his history.
Generations of Americans have done this. They know the language of the old country. They keep certain traditions. But they were eager to be American. They were eager to Americanize their name, even. It was symbolic. It was a blessed gift to have this country and people were proud to be a part of it. A shortened name meant becoming new and American.
So, while President Barack Obama can say Pak-ee-stahn correctly and every newscaster is embracing his inner Latina pronouncing Soto-may-YOUR with relish, I just see more of an effort to elevate other cultures in relation to the American culture.
It isn’t about proper pronunciation it’s about putting America in her place. And her place is no better than any other place, including 3rd world racist, sexist, intolerant, nuclear-armed holes like Pakistan. Well, I say America is better. America is better than Mexico. It’s safer. There are more jobs. There is less corruption (for the time being). America is better than pretty much any place in the world I can think of, actually.
People who live here, myself included, are damn lucky to be here by birthright. And those who choose to become citizens are making the best decision of their lives. Their whole future will change.
So, a kid from Puerto Rico can come to America, get educated in the best schools and be put forth as a potential Supreme Court Justice for the best country in the world. That’s America. It’s great. And America is bigger than our collective pasts. She is better than the places we came from. We do well to melt into her beauty and live to rise to her ideals.
Americanization is a good thing. Assimilating and changing to fit America’s mold is what makes this country different from the fractured and racist Europe. So those who are so intent on elevating other cultures might want to consider the outcome of their actions. America doesn’t need to turn into a place where races are Balkanized and marginalized by neighborhoods, language, religion and culture. That would be a destructive place.
America needs to continue to be a melting pot. I’m Melissa Clouthier. It is not Cloo-tee-ay. It is Cloth-ee-er. I’m American and proud of it.
New American Issues Project Column: “It’s Not Fair”
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009I’ve been thinking about the root cause of this bail-out mess and the changes in our American culture. My column at AIP today sums up my thinking about things:
America, in general, and our government in particular, has been consuming more calories than it can afford and grown fat, and rather than cut back, has sought salvation by those who were responsible and by those who lived within their means.
Some who let things get away from themselves have cut back and “tightened the belt”. The government, though, seems willfully obstinate about making such challenging choices itself. President Obama put forth scorn-worthy “cuts” in the face of mammoth governmental pigging out. An already obese government is making itself morbidly huge over the next ten years. One wonders if the patient can be saved or if it will end up in a piano box and buried in the ash heap of indulgent world-power history.
And this all began as someone trying to correct an unfairness. It’s unfair that some people have health insurance and others don’t. It’s unfair that one person eats Filet Mignon and another person eats hamburger helper. It’s unfair that one person gets to drive a souped-up SUV and another person rides the bus. It’s unfair that one person has a mansion and another person has a trailer. It’s unfair that one person gets to go to Harvard and another person goes to a technical college. It’s unfair that more boys than girls are engineers. And on and on it goes.
It’s unfair. It’s unfair. It’s unfair.
So, a man who promised to make things fair got elected President. It’s not fair that America is the lone superpower. It’s not fair that there are rich and poor people. It’s not fair that “rich” people get tax breaks. The government then, will be a tool for “fairness”.
It never works out that way. Like Scar’s alliances and forced “teamwork” between natural adversaries, fairness results in depletion, loss of incentive and many more unintended consequences. Moreover, it’s a fundamentally angry and aggrieved way to look at the world.
More here.
