The Bama’s on Broadway

If size doesn’t matter, a rumor perpetrated by the anatomically challenged, small things can have large implications.

The Obama’s stimulated the economy last night by attending a Broadway show after dining in the Village. It is in the nature of presidential perks and perhaps not worth mentioning.

I’m confident the commentating class would have been equally understanding if george and laura engaged in a comparable bit of subsidized self-indulgence under comparable circumstances (the collapse of the auto industry, unemployment, debt, massive entitlement spending, a burgeoning bureaucracy and probable if not pending stagflation …)

Not being a practiced bean counter I can only guess at the evening’s cost. I suspect transportation, parking for planes, helicopters and limos, security and all the concomitant niceties and (tax excluded benefits) that accrue to the leader of the free world would suffice to keep several or several dozen people in their soon to be foreclosed homes (an equally inappropriate expenditure of other people’s money).

President Obama being nothing if not politically astute surely realized there maybe something wrong with this picture but obviously thought himself and his bride deserving.

A curious calculation for a self portrayed common man. Perhaps the egalitarian is truly an elitist with an overactive sense of entitlement.

What A Surprise

As if ten days abroad wasn’t sufficient foreign policy experience for our would be world leader, Senator Obama chose a running mate of self acclaimed authority and expertise in the affairs of nations, Senator Joseph Biden. The Senator’s first exercise in vice presidential candidacy didn’t disappoint . He relieved himself of a weeks worth of rhetorical bloat and bombast. Specifically it was loud, repetitive, hackneyed, vague and factually challenged. Its leit motif was that John McCain and George Bush share the same ideological bar code. Throw in a few snide remarks, expressions of gratitude and a quasi religious tone when describing Mr. Obama and there you have it . Boiler plate by Biden, for a change.

That’s not what I said, sort of

Life is too short to pay attention. Unfortunately you miss a lot. Like the David Brooks OP-ED piece in Friday’s (5/16) Times. Mr. Brooks had an opportunity to ask Senator Obama to decipher (explicate, if you prefer) one of his statements on recent Hezbollah “activity” in Lebanon.

Mr Brooks: what did you mean (and mean to imply) when you said “it’s time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, and end to the current patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment.”

Senator Obama: “to peel support away from Hezbollah” the US should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them that they’re getting social services”. US foreign policy needs “to look at the root causes of problems and dangers”. Hezbollah and Hamas need to understand “violence weakens their legitimate claims”

Senator Obama did acknowledge that Hezbollah is not “a legitimate political party” and he seems to realize that they are being encouraged and enabled by Syria and Lebanon. The difficulties of negotiation, he admits, are compounded when dealing with a theocratic/ideological regime, but “they are rarely purely ideological movements. We can encourage actors to think in practical terms”.

Perhaps Senator Obama thinks he is back in the editorial offices of the Harvard Law review, resolving the tiffs and teapot tempests of those equally out of touch with reality.

Question: what part of President Bush’s statement (within the context of a lengthy address to the Israeli Knesset) is incorrect, misleading or inappropriately applied to Senator Obama or his party. The quoted line “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with terrorists, that some ingenious argument will convince them that they have been wrong all along”.

Senator Obama’s foreign policy realism is to realism what the People’s Republic of China is to representative government.

A symbol of his party’s future, Senator Obama is more a symptom of a head snapping shift to the left, with enough ideological baggage to herniated a brace of donkeys.

Pay attention, to his soaring and sermon like pronouncements, you’ll find they are a little more than marsh gas with a whiff of Marxism.

You DON’T Say

Senator Obama has something in common with Senator McCain, they both want to limit political speech.

Senator McCain’s (and Feingold’s) legislation was merely a monumentally misguided solution to a misunderstood (and mischaracterized) problem. Several unintended consequences later their “mistake” is manifest.

Senator Obama, however, won’t require legislation bearing his name, he will employ a kind of moral leverage. It won’t affect all political speech, just Republican political speech, specifically John McCain’s political speech regarding his rival.

The post-partisan candidate needs to limit the scope of that conversation, lest we be frightened, mislead, distracted and perhaps informed.

With the subtlety of a fat, overwrought drunk in a crowded elevator we’ve been told that McCain will resort to the same “old” divisive partisan diatribes, the same “old” names and labels in lieu of reasonable arguments, and the same “old” failed policies of the past.

Do any of Senator Obama’s remarks sound as if they could be misconstrued as divisive, partisan name calling?

Destiny’s Democrat will continue to regale us with his vaporous visions of America.

No, not the ones of his pastor and spiritual mentor, nor those of his left-wing friends and associates, not even those of the it’s never too late-term abortion crowd, though he might, if prevailed upon, share his nuanced insights into a sufficiently regulated Second Amendment.

Obama has accused McCain of running for Bush’s third term, perhaps it’s Obama who is running for Carter’s second.

Enough

Tenacity, persistence and good old fashion stick-to-itiveness risk falling into disrepute. These “dubious” virtues, as practiced by Senator Clinton, seem less laudable of late.

As for the death watch on the Clinton candidacy it’s somewhat premature. The Senator is nowhere to be found in the political equivalent of ICU, rather she is fully ambulatory and running amuck.

The prognosis, nevertheless, is somewhere between guarded and grim. Yet the Clintons have a reserve of resilience and resolve. Equally admirable qualities, under other circumstances.

This all has the makings of a recurrent nightmare for Senator Obama. We’ve all had the experience, being pursued by some faceless horror that exudes menace. The faster we run the closer it gets, the more we struggle the stronger it grows.

Hillary Clinton, the candidate from Hell!

Some are more equal than others

Senator McCain was asked if he would sign Federal Shield Law Legislation (protecting journalists from revealing their sources), when it arrives on the President’s desk.

On balance, to insure a free press, allowing for the inevitable abuse, yet on principle, he managed a qualified yes, subject to change without notice. The correct answer for a candidate, wanting to dissociate himself from the incumbent, who was less equivocal.

A logical question or two might be asked of those who support this legislation: should the someone who broke the law to acquire the information be prosecuted, is the reporter not effectively complicit once he receives what he knows to have been stolen, what if the release of that information compromised our national security, what if irreparable harm, not immediately calculable, was done? What if some journalist and his publisher were influenced more by their politics than their “principles”, why would they enjoy a privilege (immunity from prosecution) that I, merely a citizen, would be denied, why assume that their knowledge and intentions are superior to those entrusted with this nation’s defense?.

Who, precisely, is the shield law meant to protect?

Wright and wrong

What should have remained a private conversation between Reverend Wright and the voices in his head has now been heard by all. To most it sounded intemperate, actually it sounded insane. But before you jump to logical conclusions stop to consider Wright’s arguments and claims.

The Reverend’s message apparently is consistent with his religious establishment. A liberal if not left wing theology, a liberationist theology, is much a part of mainline Protestant churches. Theirs is an activist and adversarial teaching. They are in the business of social justice, so called.

To many this is a detour on the path to the divine. A slurry of piety and progressive politics (progressive means make a hard left and keep going until socialism seems to make sense).

Perhaps one should ask Senator Obama, who was an ardent social activist, is he not sympathetic to such righteous advocacy? Is he disowning Reverend Wright or this strain of black liberationist theology of which Wright is but the inevitable expression?

Unintended but not unexpected

Recent findings: widening gaps in life expectancy between socio-economic groups reinforce a conviction that systemic societal inequities, a multiplicity of potentially causative agencies and the buffeting of vast impersonal forces continue to victimize the most vulnerable members of society.

If the operative theory is correct, the disparities will worsen with our economy and the election of John McCain.

People in the counties where life expectancy has stagnated or declined are understandably frustrated and bitter. They cling to their hamburgers, pizza and fries. Distrustful of those who aren’t obese, chain smoking, heavily armed functional illiterates.

Perhaps if the playing field were level they might jog around it, just a couple of laps. They need a major bureaucratic intervention. They need hope for a change.

Careful what you wish for

What’s worse than being an idiot?

Answer: Being a useful idiot.

It’s a trick question because in either case, you’re an idiot. However, useful idiots tend to be of a more pernicious strain. They often serve malevolent interests and intentions.

Enter former president Carter, whose recent foray into the Disneyland of death-cults, the Middle East, confirms and solidifies his claim to being the worst former president in this nation’s history. The spate of sputterings and speculations regarding what he’s doing and why, has yet to abate.

Standard explanations run as follows: he is an embittered, delusional old fool, trying to rehabilitate a legacy. He is an anti-Semite, trying to pass as an anti-Zionist. He is the unintended and altogether unimaginable consequence of this nation’s reflexive ill-judgment some thirty years ago. Perhaps all the above.

Less is more, or less

I was reminded of an old joke about a hotel in the Catskills. The food here is terrible, someone complained, and they give you such small portions.

I feel that way about additional debates between the two Democratic rivals for their party’s nomination. The debates (so called) are tedious, predictable, uninformative and an insult to the intelligence and we need more of them.

It is only in those aspects that they are inadvertently instructive, that they may yet contribute to the survival of western civilization (by eliminating both candidates from rational consideration).

Senator Clinton seeks an advantage, Senator Obama seeks to preserve one. So it remains debatable whether there will be any more debates.