The Obama Infatuation

Is the press giving the president a free pass? | By
Robert J. Samuelson | Jun 1, 2009 | Updated: 1:47 p.m. ET Jun 1, 2009

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well, maybe John Kennedy for a moment, but no president since. On the whole, this is not healthy for America.

Our political system works best when a president faces checks on his power. But the main checks on Obama are modest. They come from congressional Democrats, who largely share his goals if not always his means. The leaderless and confused Republicans don't provide effective opposition. And the press—on domestic, if not foreign, policy—has so far largely abdicated its role as skeptical observer.

Obama has inspired a collective fawning. What started in the campaign (the chief victim was Hillary Clinton, not John McCain) has continued, as a study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism shows. It concludes: "President Barack Obama has enjoyed substantially more positive media coverage than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush during their first months in the White House."

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Barack Hussein Obama: US "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world"

Posted By: Toby Harnden at Jun 3, 2009 at 04:14:00
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents | telegraph.co.uk

It is important to note that "if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world".

So says President Barack Obama. Or I should say: Barack Hussein Obama.

That's right: Barack Hussein Obama. Say it proud. Say it out loud. The middle moniker that dared not speak its name during the election campaign is now front and centre of the US president's attempt to woo the Muslim world, the theme of his visits to Riyadh on Wednesday and Cairo on Thursday.

Petrified of the potential political fallout of being branded a Muslim, Candidate Obama - a practicing Christian - never used the name "Hussein" and its use was frowned upon as a forbidden code for the nutty accusation that he was some kind of Islamic Manchurian candidate.

No more. To say Barack Hussein Obama - BHO for short - now appears to be the height of political correctness.

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New poll results are devastating for Obama's Gitmo plan

By: Byron York | Chief Political Correspondent
06/02/09 2:44 PM EDT

I've gotten a look inside the Gallup poll numbers showing that a majority of Americans oppose shutting down the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. The numbers are stunning. They show a strong and virtually across-the-board rejection of President Obama's proposal to close the prison.

Overall, 65 percent of those surveyed oppose shutting Gitmo, versus 32 percent who say it should be closed. According to the poll's internal numbers, large majorities of men oppose closing the prison, large majorities of women oppose it, large majorities of white people oppose it, large majorities of non-white people oppose it, people with graduate degrees oppose it, and people who didn't finish high school oppose it. Pretty much everybody.

For Obama, the key numbers are the ones that break down opinion by political party. Ninety-one percent of Republicans oppose shutting Gitmo. Sixty-eight percent of independents oppose it, too. The only group that favors shutting down the prison is Democrats, and that is by a relatively narrow 53 percent to 42 percent margin.

When virtually the entire opposition party, plus 68 percent of independents, plus 42 percent of your own party oppose something you want to do, then you're in trouble.
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Obama says Iran's energy concerns legitimate

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 9:24 AM

LONDON -- President Barack Obama suggested that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy _ provided it proves by the end of the year that its aspirations are peaceful.

In a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday, he also restated plans to pursue direct diplomacy with Tehran to encourage it set aside any ambitions for nuclear weapons it might harbor.

Iran has insisted its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity. But the U.S. and other Western governments accuse Tehran of seeking atomic weapons.

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Yeah, right! We want to give nukes to people who believe:

"the Twelfth Imam will reappear when the world has fallen into chaos and civil war emerges between the human race for no reason. At this time, it is believed, half of the true believers will ride from Yemen carrying white flags to Mecca, while the other half will ride from Karbala, in Iraq, carrying black flags to Mecca. At this time, Imam al-Mahdi will come wielding God's Sword, the Blade of Evil's Bane, Zulfiqar (Arabic: ذو الفقار, ðū l-fiqār), the Double-Bladed Sword.

"Shi'as believe that Jesus will also come with the Imam Mahdi to destroy tyranny and falsehood, and to bring justice and peace to the world." -- Wikipedia, Muhammad al-Mahdi

Nader Statement On GM Bankruptcy

WASHINGTON, June 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Consumer advocate Ralph Nader today issued the following statement on GM's bankruptcy filing:

Today's bankruptcy declaration in federal court by General Motors is an avoidable, crude weapon of mass devastation for workers, dealers, auto suppliers, small businesses and their depleted communities. For GM's voiceless owners -- the common shareholders -- it is a wipeout.

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Obama plan won’t revolutionize G.M.’s corporate culture -- it could make things worse

The Quagmire Ahead
By DAVID BROOKS | Published: June 1, 2009

On Jan. 21, 1988, a General Motors executive named Elmer Johnson wrote a brave and prophetic memo. Its main point was contained in this sentence: “We have vastly underestimated how deeply ingrained are the organizational and cultural rigidities that hamper our ability to execute.”

On Jan. 26, 2009, Rob Kleinbaum, a former G.M. employee and consultant, wrote his own memo. Kleinbaum’s argument was eerily similar: “It is apparent that unless G.M.’s culture is fundamentally changed, especially in North America, its true heart, G.M. will likely be back at the public trough again and again.”

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Obama's war on the automobile

Did Obama announce the end of used cars?
By Juan Paxety on June 2nd, 2009

In his speech about the GM bankruptcy yesterday, President Barack Obama (from the New York Times) said:

And that’s why I’m calling on Congress to pass fleet modernization legislation that can provide a credit to consumers who turn in old cars and purchase cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars.

Turn in old cars. It’s long been a talking point of liberals and environmentalists that cars older than a given age should be removed from the highways. The usual mantra goes “The government should buy all cars older than X and pay the owner $750. Then the owner could go out and buy a newer, cleaner, more efficient car.” The advocates for this position either fail or refuse to understand that the owners will not be able to find a car to buy with their $750. Basic economics.

President Obama used the words “turn in” not “trade in.” He will give folks a credit - I suppose that means an income tax credit - for doing this. This sounds like the used cars will go to the government and be removed from the market. No more used cars. You either buy an expensive putt-putt new car, or you go without. It appears that he’s set out to destroy the used car market.

Chinese Students Laugh At Tim Geithner

Joe Weisenthal | Jun. 1, 2009, 3:39 PM

Poor Tim Geithner. He already comes off as kind of nervous and insecure when talking in public, but at least in the US, the only people who ever bother him are crazed Code Pink activists.

But in China, representing the country as chief bond salesman, the man named to People's 50 most beautiful people list was openly mocked.

Telegraph: In his first official visit to China since becoming Treasury Secretary, Mr Geithner told politicians and academics in Beijing that he still supports a strong US dollar, and insisted that the trillions of dollars of Chinese investments would not be unduly damaged by the economic crisis. Speaking at Peking University, Mr Geithner said: "Chinese assets are very safe." The comment provoked loud laughter from the audience of students.

Yeesh! Good thing these little brats can't vote.

They've got a 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M.

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: May 31, 2009

WASHINGTON — It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.

. . . “There was a time between Nov. 4 and mid-February when I was the only full-time member of the auto task force,” Mr. Deese, a special assistant to the president for economic policy, acknowledged recently as he hurried between his desk at the White House and the Treasury building next door. “It was a little scary.”

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Just say no to Government Motors and Obamacars

By: Hugh Hewitt
Examiner Columnist | 6/1/09 6:23 AM
I won't buy a socialist car, which means I won't be buying a GM or Chrysler car for as long as the U.S. government owns huge blocks of the companies.

Today's bankruptcy filing by GM will see the end of a once-great car company and the birth of a federal government-union partnership dressed up as a business. It won't work, even with the $50 billion federal tax dollars plowed into the new entity past and present, and not even with the UAW's "concessions."

Governments can do very few things well and almost nothing efficiently.

Yes, it can build amazing armies and the weapons and technologies to support them, but only at extraordinary cost and only with often dismaying waste. We pay these prices because we absolutely need the incredible effectiveness of our military that results from the enormous investment of resources. We also recognize the sacrificial spirit of the men and women in uniform who serve in the military. They aren't in it for their jobs or the health benefits.

But a government -run car company is a very unnecessary, indeed a deeply dismaying prospect. And not primarily because it won't make good cars at competitive prices, though almost certainly neither the new GM or the new Chrysler will do so. History tells us these ventures are highly unlikely to succeed.

Rolls Royce and British Leyland Motor Corporation were nationalized by the British government, the former in 1971, the latter four years later. Neither intervention succeeded in making either company profitable.

Six months ago the New York Times ran an article that reminded readers that British Leyland "went through £11 billion of inflation-adjusted British taxpayer money, or $16.5 billion, in the ’70s and ’80s before going out of business."

"All that is left of the company now are memories of cars like the Triumph," the story continued "and a painful lesson in the limited effectiveness of bailouts."

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