Breaking News

Late breaking news on FOX... The Republican Party isn't moving farther to the right! Take that, Arlan!
Is this true or just another good example of amnesia?

Sour Grapes

Last night I wrote about the Air Force One fly-over fiasco. It's hard to believe that whoever was responsible for this stunt hadn't considered the terror it would cause the people of New York and New Jersey over whom these planes would be flying. I should say that again so you won't miss that I am making a point.
Point One...
It is hard to imagine that the people in charge of the Air Force One fleet didn't anticipate that flying a 747 trailed by an F-16 low-level over New York City on a business day wouldn't terrorize the people on the ground.
It is HARD TO IMAGINE!!! That's my point.
In fact it is SO HARD TO IMAGINE that it seems a reasonable conclusion that the terror of the people was somewhere along the way factored into the decision to carry out this stunt. They either factored in the terror element or else the whole bunch of them were number than a bunch of pounded thumbs. It's either one or the other. There's no room in between for logical explanations.
Yet...
In the comments section of an article in nj.com concerning this fly-over, several people made the suggestion that there was absolutely no need for concern, that people who felt the terror were just over-reacting to a harmless situation, even that the presence of the military F-16 escort should have clued observers in to the fact that the military had the situation under control. People just over-reacted. Some comments even reminded people that they were just complaining because they don't like the fact that Obama won the election! In other words, it's just sour grapes. Anyone with an ounce of good sense wouldn't have felt any fear.
In other words, Obama won the election. The means he can do whatever he wants and the people shouldn't be complaining.
That's my second point, by the way.
Point Two...
Obama won so now any red-blooded American should stand 100% in support of him. HE CAN DO NO WRONG!
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that's now the Obama standard. I am saying that's the tone of a lot of comments I'm coming across now on liberal blogs especially but also comments to online news articles.
We saw a lot of this on the Republican side while they were in power. Republicans could do no wrong. Tom DeLay, Ted Stevens, Jack Abramoff, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, lies, torture, wire taps, corruption, lying to Congress, you name it... the Republicans held the power and they could do no wrong and anyone who criticized was just plain un-American.
The liberals didn't like being treated that way and for good reason. We want our freedom. So for liberals to now be reacting to criticism of Obama in the same way that conservatives reacted to criticism of Bush/Cheney is just wrong. Obama isn't God, nor did we elect him to be our sovereign Lord. He is just the elected leader of America's executive branch. It is entirely right that we subject him and all of his policies to critical scrutiny. It is entirely wrong to try to squelch that criticism.
So that is my last point.
Point Three...
It is wrong to attempt to squelch criticism of the Obama administration.
As liberals, let's show some respect for freedom, liberty, and the US Constitution. Let's not be carbon copies of the narrow-minded Right.

No Cause for Alarm

This is like almost becoming the Obama mantra, "There's no cause for Alarm." What is it this time? The teetering economy? Job losses? American automakers on the verge of bankruptcy? Swine flu epidemic? Well yes all of the above plus one.
Today it seems someone in the White House did a boo boo. He has officially apologized but just the same, it warranted an apology from the White House. So what was this boo boo? Someone in our government thought it would be a fun idea if they took one of our presidential 747 jumbojets and an F-16 and did a few low level passes over New York City right down there in the vicinity of Ground Zero. And just to make things more fun they classified the mission so the people of New York, you know like the people that work in those tall buildings and since 9/11 are deathly afraid of low-flying airplanes doing strange maneuvers at low altitude over the City of New York, wouldn't have any idea what was happening.
The result?
Good footage on YouTube here and here.
A little panic?
It's hard to imagine that there would be anybody in the federal government ignorant enough to not realize that something like this would cause a lot of fear for New Yorkers. Anyone that ignorant should immediately lose his or her job. In fact anyone anywhere in the chain of command who knew this was coming but didn't try to stop it should be fired immediately.
But hey, after a good night's sleep, that'll all be yesterday. Let's focus on the future instead, right?

AIPAC

Meet your master.

All Over Again

It's like deja vous all over again. It's like Condoleezza Rice repeating Dick Cheney talking points four years into the war. But it's a new era, a time of change we are told. Still, how can you read an article like this and not recognize the all too familiar Bush-era pattern?
How many times were we told that a small and desperate minority was lashing out because they were losing the war against powerful America in Iraq?
When was that ever true?
How would it be any different if they were actually winning the battle?
These attacks, these bombings, they aren't a sign of success. They are an attempt - always have been, always will be - to enflame one population in Iraq against another, enflame the Shiite population into war with itself, with the US, and with the Sunnis. To have these bombings continuing doesn't show that there has been or is an imminent American victory in Iraq. All it shows is that someone with money is still backing the groups responsible for this sort of warfare.
In other words, nothing has changed, not even the absent-minded official rhetoric of the US government.
This is why the American people didn't elect Hillary Clinton as President.

Bags of Cats

I have been keeping mum for awhile, sitting back and observing the wheels of progress spin out of control, looking for anything that I could possibly say something meaningful about. It's amazing all the nonsense going down these days from tea parties to rumors of FEMA camps (attributed now to Obama) to Glen Beck's entertaining take on FOX News. It's amazing how quickly Republicans forgot that G.W. Bush was ever our president.
But the Republicans don't have a monopoly on nonsense.
The latest is a bag full of cats that were released this week with the Jane Harmon story. Here's a post from d-day that sums things up quite well. It seems that Jane Harmon has suddenly become an advocate of - of all things - the right to privacy!
It's in the quote from the talk she gave with Robert Siegel on NPR that I think really lets the cat out of the bag. Harman is saying it doesn't seem like it could have been a FISA wiretap because she wouldn't have talked with any foreigners about this AIPAC spy thing, only an American citizen. So Siegel asks if she might have ever spoken with an Israeli about this and instead of saying no she says she speaks with Israelis "from time to time" and has made many trips to the Middle East on government business. Wouldn't a "no" have been a better answer?... I mean, unless it would have been lying?
Reading between the lines, though, it's easy to conclude that Harman's point is that she shouldn't have been subject to all the spying and wire tapping laws she has been voting for since 9/11 because she is Jewish and she should have the freedom to conduct her government affairs with Israel and Israel's representatives without being subject to wire taps.
I mean really, who in their right mind would think that the U.S. Congress passed legislation that would treat communications with Israel the same way they would treat communications with Russia or China or even France? Aren't all Israelis virtual US citizens? It would appear that Harmon might think that way at least. How else can you explain that conversation with Siegel?

No Right

I am beginning to wonder about President Obama's strategy of leading government in such a way as to completely ignore the existence of the right. It started with his decision to "go forward" instead of looking back at the mistakes we have made. The problem I have with that is that if we don't admit our mistakes and deal with them appropriately, then all we really are doing is living in denial.
I can't help but think that this is how the world must be looking at America now, that America as a whole with Obama as our leader is living in denial of what we have done to it, how our bad policies and false beliefs have impacted the rest of the world, have left the world feeling threatened by our perception of American "interests" and security. For decades now we have lived as though it wasn't the world's interests and the world's security that was at stake, but only our own. Even in globalization our intent was to strengthen our own national interests above all else. The world perceives us this way because this is the way we have been doing things. This is how America's leaders have been programming her people.
Obama wants to change the way the world perceives us.
I'm all for that change but it seems to me like we are skipping the most important step. Obama is going ahead and telling the world voila! We changed! But he's doing it without the consent of the American people. That's the issue I have. And it can't be possible that the world is so gullible as to believe that Obama actually has worked out our consent.
One obvious way to know this is to look at the reaction of the right. These Obama "changes" are making the political right in America squirm in their seats, in Congress, in the conservative media and blogs, in politics. Everybody knows that the right wants to get power back and reverse Obama's "change". That in itself is enough to convince any thinking person in this world to take Obama's promises with a grain - no, a bag - of salt.
But I seriously doubt that the problem is that shallow. The things Obama is talking about now are things that many, if not even the majority, of politicians on the left have not been pushing for. When Obama says he wants a world without nuclear weapons, that America is committing itself to such a goal, shouldn't he have already won that debate here in America? Hadn't the world noticed that Obama isn't speaking for the American majority there? Why not? Because we haven't had that debate. Obama's election didn't happen because of that debate. Congress hasn't had that debate. The American people haven't spoken on that issue. The majority hasn't been won yet. And the world can easily see this fact.
So because of that, because it appears that Obama is not debating the opposition as much as he is simply ignoring it, the world knows that Obama's words are just jive talk.
And that is a problem.