O rips the American way

Increasingly unloved and ridiculed from both sides, a new and embittered President Obama is emerging this Christmas season as he begins a badly needed vacation in Hawaii.

In an interview on the eve of yesterday's health-care ram-through, Obama expressed his deep frustration over the legislative process.

The president accused Republicans of abuse for employing the very rules that make the Senate the "world's greatest deliberative body."

"If this pattern continues, you're going to see an inability on the part of America to deal with big problems in a very competitive world, and other countries are going to start running circles around us," Obama warned.

What he is saying is that other governments around the world -- those tyrannical states that do not share our respect for the minority -- are better forms of government, better equipped to compete in this modern world.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/rips_the_american_way_8Ns44nIAGjDwfD7BNSCQFJ#ixzz0ah3nQhS4

Nice snag MD. I see it as more then just lazy. He is an academic Marxist. He likes to debate, discuss and desseminate the virtues of a socialist utopia. Work is for dummies.

He has been fawned over and groomed for his success with out having to really break a sweat. The HLR gig was a nice bullet point to put on a resume. He did not care about the paper. He only cared about bolstering the image. He knew enough to at least put on a show of effort.

If he stays true to the pattern as shown at the HLR, then he will try to do the same thing at the white house. IOW, I do not think Obama is leading at all. He gives speeches. In his world view, leading is talking. Work is for dummies. The USA and the world will tire of his mouth.

Such comments reveal a serious lack of understanding and/or a serious attempt to distort the Founders constitutional structuring of the powers of government to protect the liberties of "We, the People" from those to whom we delegate very limited powers in government.

Any person who has read the extensive writings and speeches of the founding period would know better.

Further. his recent comments indicate attempts a believing there is a "moral equivalency" between the American form of government and that of other nations.

In the history of civilization, there is no other nation which incorporated into its constitutional structure for self-government the unique idea that the life, liberty and basic laws to protect them are endowed by the Creator, therefore, inalienable.

That fact, in and of itself, made the America of the Founders unique and special in all the history of the world. And, that fact, and the man-made laws emanating from it, caused America to be a beacon of liberty in the world and a place where millions of oppressed people from all over the globe fled for freedom, opportunity, and sanctuary.

The arrogance of those who, today, wish to appease tyrannical dictators in order to accumulate power to themselves by pretending moral equivalency between the ideas of liberty and the counterfeit ideas of tyranny is a cancer on the noble history of the American Republic.

The interview (and transcript) here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/july-dec09/obama_12-23.html

JIM LEHRER: How do you feel about the way the 60-vote filibuster rule has been employed on the health-care debate?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I am very frustrated.
I think that right now that's the way things are operating. And we've had to make sure that we fight through those issues. I think Harry Reid has done a very good job grinding it out.
But as somebody who served in the Senate, who values the traditions of the Senate, who thinks that institution has been the world's greatest deliberative body, to see the filibuster rule, which imposes a 60-vote supermajority on legislation - to see that invoked on every single piece of legislation, during the course of this year, is unheard of.
I mean, if you look historically back in the '50s, the '60s, the '70s, the '80s - even when there was sharp political disagreements, when the Democrats were in control for example and Ronald Reagan was president - you didn't see even routine items subject to the 60-vote rule.
So I think that if this pattern continues, you're going to see an inability on the part of America to deal with big problems in a very competitive world, and other countries are going to start running circles around us. We're going to have to return to some sense that governance is more important than politics inside the Senate. We're not there right now.
JIM LEHRER: Is there anything you can do about this as president of the United States? Isn't it a Senate situation?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It is a - it is a matter of Senate rules. Look, the fact of the matter is, is that if used prudently, then I don't think it's harmful for our democracy. It's not being used prudently right now. And my hope would be that whether a senator is in the majority or is in the minority, that they're starting to get a sense, after looking at this year, that this can't be the way that government runs.
And one of the things that I think Democrats and Republicans have to constantly do is try to put themselves in the other person's shoes. If we had a Republican president right now and a Republican-controlled Senate, and Democrats were doing some of these things, they'd be screaming bloody murder. And at some point, you know, I think the American people want to see government solve problems, not just engage in the gamesmanship that has become so customary in Washington.

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