Change We Can No Longer Believe In?

Wow. Pretty powerful ad put out by Crossroads Generation SuperPac, building on something Paul Ryan said in his acceptance speech this week:

“We are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the economy that Barack Obama inherited, not the economy as he envisions, but this economy that we are living. College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life."

Meeting Mitt Romney

Loved this video. Laughed out loud a couple of times. Cried a bit at others. I admire him.

Bias by Omission

I searched in vain this morning for a mention of Artur Davis' speech at the GOP convention last night in the Los Angeles Times (special GOP convention section which contained a write-up of Ann Romney's red Oscar de la Rente dress!). Not  a word, unless you want to include an aside by Mary McNamara in her column ("Folks such as...John Boehner and...Artur Davis pinned the blame firmly on President Obama...").

The sin of omission, in this case, the sin of media bias by omission. To not mention Artur Davis' speech, he, the African American who seconded Barack Obama's nomination four years ago at the Democratic National Convention who now stands boldly before the world endorsing Mitt Romney in a full-throated (and funny) speech chastising Obama for failed promises and acknowledging that he was blinded by Obama's "halo."

Once again, shame on the LA Times, and other media outlets who more-or-less boycotted Artur Davis (and other good men and women of various ethnicities who spoke clearly and boldly in support of Mr. Romney). The Democrats want to believe the GOP is racist. So they shut their eyes and cover their ears.

But we're listening. The GOP is rising and the Democratic party is shriveling and sniveling and falling apart.

Listen to Artur Davis (and while you're at it, Condi Rice, and Mia Love, and Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, and Herman Cain, and Susana Martinez, and...)

 

Ah, Condi...

If she won't run for president, then please, Lord, let her have a spot in a Romney/Ryan administration. What an amazing speech.

Re. Betsy Sharkey and "2016: Obama's America"

Here's the Letter to the Editor I sent out this morning in response to an article in today's Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times by film critic Betsy Sharkey ("Is it Straight Talk, or Propaganda?").

Betsey Sharkey's beef with Dinesh D'Souza's "2016: Obama's America" is that it doesn't fit the criteria of a documentary and should be classified as propaganda instead. She compares D'Souza's work to other documentaries, including Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" which, though she concedes was not objective, at least met the criteria of the genre, which is that "whatever truths emerge, they were ultimately forged by the process, not set in stone beforehand." Michael Moore's thesis wasn't set in stone beforehand?  He's a bona fide Bush hater. Starkey's kidding herself if she thinks Moore didn't have an agenda in mind from the get-go. If Starkey doesn't want to consider "2016" a documentary in the true sense of the word, fine. Let's call it something else, "dramatized non-fiction," say. But let's not pretend that Moore's work is anything other than propaganda. And let's also not forget what D'Souza has done in dramatizing his book. Rather than objectively examine Obama the candidate in 2007/08 and now Obama incumbent running for re-election, the dominant media have failed in their stewardship. It's people like D'Souza who are doing the job the media apparently refuse to do. For that, I (for one) give him a standing ovation.

Devastating Critique of Obama by Harvard Prof

Read Niall Ferguson's article published in Newsweek Magazine (and linked below at The Daily Beast).

Ferguson is no light-weight. Here's his bio:

Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His Latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest (a copy of which I have, autographed!) has just been published by Penguin Press.

Ferguson's concluding statement is worth pondering:

The voters now face a stark choice. They can let Barack Obama's rambling, solipsistic narrative continue until they find themselves living in some American version of Europe, with low growth, high unemployment, even higher debt—and real geopolitical decline.

Or they can opt for real change: the kind of change that will end four years of economic underperformance, stop the terrifying accumulation of debt, and reestablish a secure fiscal foundation for American national security.

I've said it before: it's a choice between les États Unis and the Republic of the Battle Hymn.

Obama's Gotta Go, by Niall Ferguson

Ten More Reasons Why Obama Should be Fired!

OK, here we go with my second installment of brief summaries from Hugh Hewitt's The Brief Against Obama" (see link at end of this post). These ten reasons emphasize issues related to Obama's foreign policy-related decisions and actions. 

PART II: FOREIGN POLICY

1.    Iranian Appeasement (from chapter 11, “Standing by as Iranians Die”): This chapter focuses on Obama’s tepid response to the bogus Iranian presidential election and subsequent crushing of the uprising by the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard. Hewitt: “The opportunity came, and the opportunity passed, to stand with the people of Iran and force change upon the regime.”

2.    Hostility Toward Israel (from chapter 12, “Abandoning Israel to its Fate”): This chapter begins with Obama insulting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he came to the White House on May 25, 2010, then documents other instances where Obama has demonstrated hostility toward Israel, such as declaring on May 22, 2011 that the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines (called “the suicide lines” because they are not defensible); Obama’s friendship with Rashid Khalidi (“a vociferous critic of Israel”); demanding “unilateral sacrifice” from Israel concerning the West Bank settlements; and insisting there’s a “moral equivalence” when comparing Israel with terrorist organizations like Hamas (which refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist). Elaine’s Note: we could include Obama’s tepid treatment of Iran, which has threatened to annihilate Israel. 

Woo, woo...!

Love this! "The Campaign Just Got Hotter."

High Praise for Ryan from...Erskine Bowles?

Have any of you all met Paul Ryan? We should get him to come to the university. I'm telling you, this guy is amazing. I always thought I was okay at arithmetic, this guy can run circles around me. And he is honest, he is straightforward, he is sincere. And the budget he came forward with is just like Paul Ryan. It is a sensible, straightforward, honest, serious budget, and it cut the budget deficit, just like we did, by $4 trillion. The president came out with his own plan. And, the president as you remember, came out with a budget. And I don't think anybody took that budget very seriously. The Senate voted against it 97-to-nothing (September 8, 2011).

Note: According to Wikipedia (yes, sometimes I refer to Wikipedia!), Erskine Bowles is “best known for his appointment in 2010 as the Democratic co-chair of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Alan K. Simpson.”

Ten Reasons Why Obama Should be Fired!

It occurs to me that a presidential election is like a job interview (for the challenger) and a performance review (for the incumbent). Barack Obama is the people's employee. We are his employer. The time has come to determine whether he should be retained as our employee.  The analogy makes perfect sense to me. Obama is not entitled to keep this job. We (voters) need to evaluate him on job performance alone--not fancy rhetoric, not the color of his skin, not the "cool" factor. Just the facts. 

How is the average voter supposed to be able to evaluate Barack Obama's job performance when all we have for reference is a fawning dominant media that camouflages Obama's flaws and magnifies his opponent's? 

Enter Hugh Hewitt. 

Mr. Hewitt has written a devastating critique of Barack Obama’s first and hopefully last term in office called The Brief Against Obama: The Rise, Fall & Epic Fail of the Hope & Change Presidency. The introduction itself is worth the cost of the book, but each chapter that I’ve read so far contains enough factual, documented information as to easily convict Obama of gross incompetence. It’s impossible to deny Hewitt’s claim that Obama is the ultimate “Peter Principle President.”

I'm about a third of the way into the book, and it occurs to me that some people may not be inclined to read this book, so I’ve decided I’m going to try and write abbreviated summaries of each chapter for those who won’t be purchasing the book, and post them here. Maybe someone reading this blog who might otherwise have thought Barack Obama deserves another term will change his or her mind. 

So here are 10 reasons why I think Obama doesn't deserve a second term in office, based on summaries of Hugh Hewitt's The Brief Against Obama first ten chapters, along with a few personal comments. Anyone who disputes these statements might want to read the book and check the sources Hewitt provides. As I said, these chapters are extensively documented. Also, for the record, lest I be accused of plagiarism, in summarizing these sections, I've decided not to put quotations marks around Hewitt’s wording.

Campaign Ads: Dishonest or Defamatory?

An article in today's Los Angeles Times tries to equate two recent campaign ads--one put out by an Obama Super PAC called Priorities USA and the other by the Romney campaign--by suggesting that both ads are "dishonest." The writer (David Lauter) dissects both ads and identifies the dishonest points as determined by independent fact-checkers.

The Priorities USA ad features a man named Joe Soptic who blames Bain Capital, and by extension, Mitt Romney, for his wife's death from cancer after Joe lost his health insurance when his company went bankrupt. The ad has been completely debunked, even by mainstream media outlets, and the Obama administration itself has tried (unsuccessfully) to distance itself from these outrageous claims. Yet though the ad is steeped in falsehoods, has nothing to do with policy or agenda, and amounts to nothing more than defamation of character, no one's pulling the ad, let alone apologizing. The message is all that matters. It gets the job done, end of story.

The Romney ad, by contrast, criticizes Obama for "quietly gutting welfare reform" by dropping the work requirements that were put in place during the Clinton administration. Critics of this ad are saying that Obama is doing nothing of the sort and that Romney is manufacturing "faux outrage." Unlike the "cancer ad" put out by Priorities USA, which attacked Mitt Romney personally, calling him, essentially, a murderer, this ad attacks a legislative action taken by the Obama administration. Welfare reform, which received bipartisan support back in the day when such a thing was actually possible, was a very big deal, and Obama's actions deserve scrutiny. This is definitely fair game, and doesn't even begin to sink to the level of "dishonesty" that the Priorities USA ad did.

Nevertheless, David Lauter equates them on one criterion alone: whether or not the ads are honest. His implied conclusion? Both campaigns lie, both teams play dirty, lying is par for the course (hey, LBJ used similar tactics to discredit Barry Goldwater), and even if your ad is considered devious, at least it's getting the job done. Not surprisingly, this being the LA Times, Lauter leaves the reader with the impression that Romney's team plays dirtier than Obama's team. Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith even gets the last word: "Mitt Romney...is currently running an ad that a former president and authors of the welfare-to-work legislation have called a flat-out lie. When the Romney campaign finally reaches the high ground, we look forward to greeting them there."

Sorry. Not buying any of this.

First, as I already said, there's absolutely no comparison between these two particular ads. One slanders the opponent, the other challenges his opponent's actions.

But second, the idea that Romney's criticism of what the Obama administration did in allowing states to be exempt from the welfare-to-work requirements is valid. Lauter says it's not, but his support comes from the administration's own announcement, and then cites five states who have requested to be exempt, including two with Republican governors (as if that settles the matter). A more fleshed out discussion was aired this past Thursday night on the PBS News Hour between Peter Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University, and Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation who actually helped craft the 1996 welfare reform program.

Here's an excerpt of their discussion, beginning with Robert Rector, who responds to Judy Woodruff's question about how he views Mitt Romney's recent criticisms of Obama's actions:

The Next Vice President of the United States

Maybe Mr. Romney misspoke when he introduced Paul Ryan as the "next president of the United States." Then again, maybe not. After two terms serving as President Romney's vice president, the next logical step would be two terms of President Ryan. Why not?

Here he is, speaking in front of the U.S.S. Wisconsin on Saturday, August 11th:

Best line? "But America is more than just a place...it's an idea.  It's the only country founded on an idea.  Our rights come from nature and God, not government.  We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes."

Second best line? "We won't duck the tough issues...we will lead! We won't blame others...we will take responsibility! We won't replace our founding principles...we will reapply them!"

Yes, America Does Deserve Better

I love this new Romney ad that focuses on the vile ads coming from the Obama camp, and also the one put out by American Crossroads. The Obama team must be convinced that the only way Obama can get re-elected is to utterly demonize Mitt Romney. And they may be right since Obama obviously can't run on his record, and the idealistic "hope and change" message that catapulted him to the Oval Office in 2008 has been revealed as totally bogus. So I guess these ugly ads from Barack Obama (not such a nice guy, after all) will just keep on coming until November 6th.

Of course my fear is that the "average" (read: non-scrutinizing) voter could very well believe these lies. I know members of my own family who believe them. So the Romney team must walk a fine line in their response: to return "tit for tat" and turn out dishonest ad hominem ads the Obama does could backfire. On the other hand, to say nothing, to play the gentleman, the way John McCain did in 2008, is to essentially surrender. So Romney has to be willing to play hard ball while at the same time playing fair. I think these ads meet those two requirements.

Mini Book Review: Dennis Prager's "Still the Best Hope"

Finally finished Dennis Prager's Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. I've heard Dennis say on his radio program that the book is really three books in one, and I'd almost agree with this assessment but for the fact that the third section, arguably its most important given the title of the book, is disproportionate, in terms of substance and depth, to the other two. The first section (Leftism) is comprised of four chapters (What is Leftism; Why the Left Believes What it Believes; Why the Left Succeeds; The Left's Moral Record) and is over 200 pages long. The second section (Islam) is also four chapters (On Evaluating Religions; The Moral Record of Islam; Islam, America, and the West; Responses to Arguments on Behalf of Islam), though it is half the length of the previous section (about 80 pages). The third section (America and its Unique Values) is not delineated by chapter titles and runs about 80 pages in length. If Dennis ever writes a second edition of the book, I hope he is able to flesh out the third section especially. I got the sense that he was rushing towards deadline. The discussion felt compressed and condensed and is not as well-documented compared to the documentation in Parts I and II.

The strongest and most insightful discussion, in my view, is on Leftism. Writing about the left must be like trying to hold a giant squid in your hands while describing it to an audience. Prager says as much in his opening pages. He argues that leftism is a kind of religion, albeit one without Scripture and verse, making it difficult to document its core beliefs and tenets the way you might be able to define (say) Judaism or Buddhism. In addition, Dennis points out that people on the left don't even refer to themselves as "leftists," nor do they consider their beliefs as an alternate worldview in comparison to other worldviews. Instead, they seem to consider their beliefs de facto, incontrovertible, unarguable, while all other viewpoints are not only dubious but evil. For Dennis to attempt to identify the tenets of Leftism must have required an arduous amount of research, and indeed, he provides endnotes for most (not all) of the points he makes.

His discussion on Islam (Part II) took a lot of guts. He admirably and consistently makes a distinction between practicing, peace-loving Muslims around the world and those who advocate Sharia law and forced conversion. He is not afraid to expose the ugly side of Islam with its history of violence, oppression, and especially the anti-Semitism which fuels its hatred toward Israel and America. He is hopeful and optimistic that Islam can and will be reclaimed by thoughtful, honorable, good Muslims who believe in the American trinity (see third section). Me, I'm not so confident. I hope he's right.

My only real criticism of the book has to do with his third section.