Well, I'm glad that's over! Now that our silver-tongued president has gone to Cairo to soothe Muslims' hurt feelings, they love us again! Muslims in Pakistan expressed their appreciation for President Barack Obama's speech by bombing a fancy hotel in Peshawar this week.
Operating on the liberal premise that what Arabs really respect is weakness, Obama listed, incorrectly, Muslims' historical contributions to mankind, such as algebra (actually that was the ancient Babylonians), the compass (that was the Chinese), pens (the Chinese again) and medical discoveries (huh?).
But why be picky? All these inventions came in mighty handy on Sept. 11, 2001! Thanks, Muslims!!
Obama bravely told the Cairo audience that 9/11 was a very nasty thing for Muslims to do to us, but on the other hand, they are victims of colonization.
Except we didn't colonize them. The French and the British did. So why are Arabs flying planes into our buildings and not the Arc de Triomphe? (And gosh, haven't the Arabs done a lot with the Middle East since the French and the British left!)
In another sharks-to-kittens comparison, Obama said, "Now let me be clear, issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam." No, he said, "the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life."
So on one hand, 12-year-old girls are stoned to death for the crime of being raped in Muslim countries. But on the other hand, we still don't have enough female firefighters here in America.
Delusionally, Obama bragged about his multiculti worldview, saying, "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal." In Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries, women "choose" to cover their heads on pain of losing them.
Obama rolled out the crucial liberal talking point against America's invasion of Iraq, saying Iraq was a "war of convenience," while Afghanistan was a "war of necessity." Liberals cling to this nonsense doggerel as a shield against their hypocrisy on Iraq. Either both wars were wars of necessity or both wars were wars of choice.
Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan -- nor any country -- attacked us on 9/11. Both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as many other Muslim countries, were sheltering those associated with the terrorists who did attack us on 9/11 -- and who hoped to attack us again.
The truth is, all wars are wars of choice, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Gulf War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. OK, maybe the war on teen obesity is a war of convenience, but that's the only one I can think of.
The modern Democrat Party chooses -- really chooses, not like Saudi women "choosing" to wear hijabs -- to fight no wars. But the Democrats couldn't say that immediately after 9/11, so they pretended to support the war in Afghanistan and then had to spend the next 7 1/2 years trying to come up with a distinction between Afghanistan and Iraq.
Maybe next they can tell us why fighting Hitler -- who never invaded the U.S. and had no plans to do so -- was a "necessity" in a way that fighting Saddam wasn't. (Obama on Hitler: "Nazi ideology sought to subjugate, humiliate and exterminate. It perpetrated murder on a massive scale." Whereas Saddam Hussein was just messing with the Kuwaitis, Kurds and Shiites.)
Meanwhile, Muslims throughout the Middle East are yearning for their own Saddam Husseins to be taken out by U.S. invaders so they can be liberated, too. (Then we'll see how many women -- outside of an American college campus -- "choose" to wear hijabs.) The war-of-choice/war-of-necessity point must be as mystifying to a Muslim audience as a discussion of gay marriage.
Arabs aren't afraid of us; they're afraid of Iran. But our aspiring Jimmy Carter had no tough words for Iran. To the contrary, in Cairo, Obama endorsed Iran's quest for nuclear "power," while attacking -- brace yourself -- America for helping remove Iranian loon Mohammad Mossadegh.
The CIA's taking out Mossadegh was probably the greatest thing that agency ever did. This was back in 1953, before it became a collection of lawyers and paper-pushers.
Mossadegh was as crazy as a March hare (which is really saying something when your competition is Moammar Gadhafi, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein). He gave interviews lying in bed in pink pajamas. He wept, he fainted, and he set his nation on a path of permanent impoverishment by "nationalizing" the oil wells, where they sat idle after the British companies that knew how to operate them pulled out.
But he was earthy and hated the British, so left-wing academics adored Mossadegh. The New York Times compared him to Thomas Jefferson.
True, Mossadegh had been "elected" by the Iranian parliament -- but only in the chaos following the assassination of the sitting prime minister.
In short order, the shah dismissed this clown, but Mossadegh refused to step down, so the CIA forcibly removed him and allowed the shah's choice to assume the office. This "coup," as liberal academics term it, was approved by liberals' favorite Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, and supported by such ponderous liberal blowhards as John Foster Dulles.
For Obama to be apologizing for one of the CIA's greatest accomplishments isn't just crazy, it's Ramsey Clark crazy.
Obama also said that it was unfair that "some countries have weapons that others do not" and proclaimed that "any nation -- including Iran -- should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."
Wait -- how about us? If a fanatical holocaust denier with messianic delusions can have nuclear power, can't the U.S. at least build one nuclear power plant every 30 years?
I'm sure Iran's compliance will be policed as well as North Korea's was. Clinton struck a much-heralded "peace deal" with North Korea in 1994, giving them $4 billion to construct nuclear facilities and 500,000 tons of fuel oil in return for a promise that they wouldn't build nuclear weapons. The ink wasn't dry before the North Koreans began feverishly building nukes.
But back to Iran, what precisely do Iranians need nuclear power for, again? They're not exactly a manufacturing powerhouse. Iran is a primitive nation in the middle of a desert that happens to sit on top of a large percentage of the world's oil and gas reserves. That's not enough oil and gas to run household fans?
Obama's "I'm OK, You're OK" speech would be hilarious, if it weren't so terrifying.
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All these indices involving Presidents are imprecise because of Congressional impact on the economy, but at the very least the indices should be calculated by starting 1 year after President taking the office and ending 1 year after his leaving the office, because that’s when the real impact of his economic policies show the most effect.
You would see Republican Presidents greatly benefitting from this “normalized” shift, to the detriment of Democratic Presidents. James Glassman had some very good short study on that more than a year ago.
Is anyone else curious about the timing and source of the financial crisis that occurred near the end of the Bush Administration? While all financial institutions tanked, George Soros made 8% profit. He is a multi-billionaire money changer with a reputation for causing financial crises. He is also a Bush hating leftist.
If not George Soros, just how was the crisis orchestrated? Why can the banks already return the money they "borrowed" so soon? What is really going on in our economy?
Are you aware that more jobs have been lost with the stimulus than if the government did nothing? If the government did nothing, we have have more employment today.
The formula needs to be updated for deflation, which does not reduce the misery, but increases it likely more than inflation. Obama is fast climbing the Carter chart. Why didn't they update it for last month's BLS numbers? Obama has gained a closer position to Carter in just one month.
Good post. I explained the Misery Index to a young co-worker just yesterday. He said that I’d been around a long time and asked if the other recessions were like this. After the explanation of the misery that Jimmy Carter inflicted on us I told him about Reagan and what he did to turn this country around. I also told him that other negative dynamics are in play and have taken place that weren’t around during Carter. The scenario is very disturbing, I told him. We are in uncharted territory.
I think the unemployment rate is closer to 10%, if not above 10% - since many of the jobs are "partime" jobs - than the 9% referenced above. I'd also bet the inflation rate is more than .74% already.
See my tag line. I feel we will all be wishing for things to be only as bad as they were under jimmah cattah.