Hillary Clinton

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Chuck Todd’s naive remark

todd & obama (mrc. org)

Chuck Todd, the new host of NBC’s Meet the Press, hopes to improve the show’s ratings. He is shown here during Sundays exclusive interview with President Obama. (mrc.org photo)

“I’m as pissed off as anyone watching D.C. not work.  We’re in this horrible period when no one wants to practice politics,” said Chuck Todd, the new host of NBC’s Meet the Press.  I couldn’t help but note this pullout quote from Roger Yu’s piece on Todd in USA Today.

I am reminded of an old one-liner about a patient who read a bio about his doctor entering the practice of medicine. He later told the doctor he was uncomfortable having a doctor who is still practicing.

I found Todd’s quote to be a somewhat naïve observation for someone who has covered the White House for some time.  Surely he has seen how President Obama considers the political ramifications of everything he says and does.   In his book, Defense Secretary Robert Gates recounted the conversation of Hillary Clinton telling Obama she made a political decision during the 2008 campaign to be anti-war because of his position. Continue reading →

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Kerry, Clinton rank climate change #1 threat

Two former secretaries of state, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton took to microphones this past week to push their belief that climate change is a bigger threat than radical Muslim extremists, despite the fact that Americans disagree.

kerry (the federalistpapers.org)

John Kerry turns to the Bible for guidance to push the threat of global climate change. (thefederalistpapers.org)

For Kerry, it was his second attempt to convince us.  On Feb. 16, 2014, speaking primarily to an audience of students in Jakarta, Kerry said “climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”  He went on to say that when he thinks of global threats – terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction – the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.”

In Hawaii last month, Kerry called climate change “the biggest challenge of all that we face right now.”

On Sept. 2, 2014, at a ceremony to promote Shaarik Zafar, a Texas attorney, to be a special representative of the Muslim Communities, he said, “confronting climate change is, in the long run, one of the greatest challenges that we face, and you can see this duty or responsibility laid down the scriptures, clearly, beginning in Genesis.” Kerry believes our respect for God’s creation translates into a duty to protect and sustain His first creation, Earth.  Why did Kerry choose this venue to make this pronouncement?  He believes “Muslim-majority countries are among the most vulnerable” when it comes to the impact of climate change.”

And this is our foreign policy negotiator. Continue reading →

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Once a liberal, always a liberal

Young people often make the transition from Democrat to Republican as they mature.  Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat.  But in my mind, once a liberal, always a liberal.

Liberals will defend their ideology to the hilt, but they don’t like to be called “liberal,” preferring “progressive.”  In a January 2014 Gallup poll, just 23 percent admitted to be liberal.

During her 2008 presidential run Hillary Clinton said, “I prefer the word ‘progressive’ … I consider myself a proud modern American progressive.”  She claimed that over the years the definition of a liberal “has been turned up on its head and it’s been made to seem as a though it is a word that describes big government.”  Bingo!

I’d like to tell you about two “Davids” – David Brooks and David Brock, both use the word “conservative” loosely.  Very loosely.

Brooks (Josh Haner, NY Times)

New York Times columnist David Brooks is billed as a conservative columnist. (Josh Haner photo/New York Times)

David Brooks is billed as a conservative columnist at the liberal New York Times.  He has admitted being a liberal Democrat when he was young.  The New Republic, a liberal publication, published a piece on Brooks’ meeting with then Senator Barack Obama.  It was called, “The Courtship,” because it led to Brooks’ column, “Run, Barack, Run.”

“I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, “ Brooks told New Republic writer Gabriel Sherman, “but usually when I talk to senators, while they may know a policy area better than me, they generally don’t know political philosophy better than me.  I got the sense he (Obama) knew both better than me.”

Brooks recalled a vivid memory of that encounter during the interview.  “I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I’m thinking, a.) he’s going to be president and b.) he’ll be a very good president.”  Now that’s what I call deep thinking.

Obama certainly considered Brooks a liberal.  When conservative columnist George Will hosted a dinner for Obama at his home during the 2008 campaign, he invited several conservative friends, including Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, Paul Gigot and David Brooks.  When the president shook hands with Brooks he said, “What are you doing here?”

Continue reading →

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Is the media turning on Obama?

“No American president can survive if he lets Americans be beheaded on international television with impunity.  Impunity! He has to strike back, as an American, it’s in our soul.”  – Chris Mathews, MSNBC’s Hardball.

Mathews (realclearpolitics.com)

Chris Mathews of MSNBC’s Hardball criticized the president over his statement on the Foley beheading. (realclear politics photo)

Yes, the same Chris Mathews, who said after heading President Obama speak in 2008,”I felt a thrill going up my leg.”  I doubt if the thrill has gone from the liberal Mathews, but his remarks on the James Foley beheading was said quite forcefully on air.

Dowd (dentonrc.com)

Columnist Maureen Dowd has had some unkind things to say about the president. (dentonrc.com)

“The extraordinary candidate turns out to be the most ordinary of men, frittering away precious time on the links,” wrote columnist Maureen Dowd, adding “… this is an ugly, confusing and frightening time at home and abroad, and the country needs its president to illuminate and lead, not sink into some petulant expression of his aloofness, where he regards himself as a party of his own and a victim of petty, needy, bickering egomaniacs.”

“Obama making fools of the media,” read a headline in The Washington Times  that caught my eye, but it turned out to be old stuff.  Columnist Joseph Curl summarized all of the White House scandals that have disappeared from the news, thanks to a disinterested media.  “Say what you will about the president and his soulless team of sycophants, but they’re good.  They know to play the media, which apparently doesn’t mind in the least being played,” Curl wrote. Continue reading →

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And she wants to be president, Part 5

“… we don’t even tell our own story very well these days,” Hillary Clinton told Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic magazine interview; the same piece in which she criticized the president’s foreign policy of “don’t do stupid stuff.”

Like President Obama, Clinton must believe she operated completely under the radar and that no one was paying attention to what she said and did, or didn’t do.… read more

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Axelrod jab at Bush backfires

Obama advisor David Axelrod sought to take Hillary Clinton’s criticism of President Obama’s policy of “Don’t do stupid stuff,” and shift the focus to George W. Bush, but in the process he inferred that his boss’ appointees, Biden, Clinton, Kerry and Powell, were stupid.

“Just to clarify: ‘don’t do stupid stuff’ means stuff like occupying Iraq in the first place, which was a tragically bad decision,” tweeted Axelrod, happy to get in still another jab at Bush, but forgetting that Obama’s appointees all supported going into Iraq.… read more

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Obama’s dream world

“We have come a long way over the past five and a half years.  Our challenges are nowhere near as daunting as they were when I first came into office.” – President Obama, Aug. 1, 2014

I came up out of my chair when I heard the president say that during his pre-vacation press conference on Friday, but there wasn’t a sound out of the dutiful press corps in the audience.

Really Mr. President?

Obama aug 1 2014 press conf (voanews.com)

President Obama told the press that “challenges are nowhere near as daunting” as when he came into office during his Friday press conference. (voanews.com photo)

Let’s look at the economy.  You said, “The good news is the economy clearly is getting stronger.  Things are getting better.”  And you claim “we’ve recovered faster and come farther from the recession than almost any other advanced country on Earth.”  Wrong.  We are mired in the slowest recovery ever!

What about the four per cent drop in real median household income under your watch, Mr. President?  And how about those 11 million workers who quit looking for work … the 11 million who went on food stamps … the increases in prices (food, gasoline and electricity)?  Growth is sluggish.

No, Mr. President, the economy is not looking up.  The national debt continues to climb and seniors have learned that Social Security will go broke in 2030, seven years sooner than when you took office. Continue reading →

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It’s amateur time in Washington

If you are as frustrated, or should I say as outraged, as I am with our president’s inability to face up to foreign crises and deal with them swiftly and confidently, you need only look at the amateurs advising him.

Just as the lack of business experience among his advisors on economic policy resulted in one of the slowest recoveries in history, the president has surrounded himself with amateurs as he dithers on foreign policy issues.… read more