The Light: Hillary

“You’re either with us, or you’re not,” so says Dr. Wilmer Leon, a radio talk show host, about Obama and the African American community, in this article by Caroline May in The Daily Caller, “African-American Leaders And Intellectuals Express Dissatisfaction With President Obama.”

Oopsie daisy – sounds like another faction unhappy with Dear Leader. The African American community has been one of the most stalwart groups in supporting Obama in the polls, so this could be a troubling change for Obama. Those days may be coming to an end, at least for some in the community, and with good reason:

[snip]Since Obama has taken office African Americans have faced a number of disproportionate “highs,” few of them good, such as an exceptionally high unemployment rate, a high foreclosure rate, and a high number of African-American political figures deprived of the president’s support or dismissed from his administration (such as former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, former Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod, South Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene, former green energy czar Van Jones, Democratic Illinois Sen. Roland Burris, Democratic New York Gov. David Patterson, would-be Democratic New York Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr., and Democratic Reps. Charlie Rangel of New York, Maxine Waters of California and Kendrick Meek of Florida).

Dr. Cornel West, professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, is one African-American leader who has been far from pleased with Obama’s neglect of African-American issues. West told The Daily Caller that he has been extremely frustrated with the president’s relative disinterest in civil rights
issues.

“He can take the black base for granted because he assumes we have nowhere else to go,” West said. “But we just won’t put up with it. He has got to respect us.”

West is not the only black leader who feels this way. Behind the scenes, West says, many African-American leaders are not happy with Obama’s failure to address issues important to the black community, especially considering the support the community gave the president during the 2008 election. But, according to West, many of those dissatisfied leaders are hesitant to step forward.

“There hasn’t been a lot of talk about it because I think most black spokespeople, at the moment, are scared of the Obama machine,” West said. “A lot of us are trying to put the pressure on him without aiding and abetting the right wing.” [snip]

I just have to say, as someone living in SC, surely no one really expects Obama or ANY Democrat, for that matter, to support Alvin Greene. For heavens sake, the man was just indicted on two counts of showing pornography a couple of weeks ago. He was kicked out of a SC restaurant on Tuesday. Originally, it was a campaign stop – until those pesky little indictments came down. The organizers canceled the meeting, but Greene came anyway. He, and a companion, were, um, ushered out of the establishment. Heck, even I don’t blame Obama, or ANYONE, for steering clear of this guy. Just saying.

As for my former professor, Cornell West, it is a bit surprising that he, and others, like Dr. Leon, are speaking out already. Now, West was a Hillary supporter, just to be clear, prior to Obama’s being given the nomination by the rule-breaking DNC. But that does not mean he wouldn’t have some real expectations about what Obama might do for the African American community in this country.

Shelby Steele from the Hoover Institute, has some thoughts on the matter, as well:

[snip] Steele pointed out that Obama does not owe the black community as much as they believe he does due to the fact that whites were the ones who elected him — specifically by throwing their support to him during the Iowa caucus. Initially, the African-American community was significantly supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

“Once blacks began to see that whites were with Obama they didn’t want to be left standing at the station so they jumped on board,” he said. “They were not his base anyway. So he is not confused about that. That said, blacks will continue to vote for him. They vote for every Democratic candidate at a rate of 90% so Obama can absolutely take them for granted and will.” [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

This raises a couple of points for me. One, not only are whites the ones who elected Obama, they are also the ones who REARED Obama. It is remarkable to me how completely and fully both Obama’s mother and grandmother have been wiped from history. They are the ones responsible for rearing him. That is to say, he was not raised in a traditional African American community. To pretend otherwise has been one of the most glaring manipulations of the entire election.

Two, yes, many in the African American community were breaking for Hillary Clinton. My first rally in Charleston was easily, easily 1/2 African American, if not more. But, when Obama and his campaign played the race card against Hillary Clinton in SC, employing that turncoat, backstabber, Jim Clyburn, that many in the African-American community turned away from her. She, along with her husband, were characterized as racists by Obama, and for some reason I still cannot fathom, the community, the COUNTRY, bought that, despite their long, long history standing in stark defiance of that claim. But they believed Obama.

Instead of a hard-working Hillary Clinton in the White House, who would indeed have worked on behalf of the African American community, and ALL Americans, who would not be taking vacation after vacation after vacation while the Home sales worsen, more jobs are lost, and the DOW tanks, they got Obama. Even if he IS vacationing in the “historically black section of Martha’s Vineyard” at a gazillion dollars a week, I might add.

Still – it begs the question: just what did the African American community think Obama was going to do specifically for them? Oh, wait – I remember:

Wow. That is still hard to believe, that anyone thought that would happen if Obama became president. But someone clearly spread that word – she was not the only one who seemed to think that was the case.

Anyway, I think Leon sums the issue up perfectly:

[snip] “My take on that is, you have to treat him the same way you would treat any other president,” Leon explained. “Especially since he is not giving you any reason to treat him otherwise. And it is going to be very difficult, whether it is 2012 and he is not reelected or it is 2016 and we’re dealing with a new president — who most likely will not be African American — it is going to be very difficult to hold that new president to a different standard.” [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

There’s a concept – treat Obama like every other president. That would be a change, wouldn’t it? Holding Obama to all the same standards as every other president or presidential candidate? What a novel idea. It’s too late for the latter now, but 2012 is not that far away (it just feels like it is).

I guess we will just see how this continues to play out, and if the dissatisfaction with Obama trickles throughout the African American community, not just the leaders and intellectuals. Time will tell…

Leave it to Maureen Dowd to miss the forest for the trees in her argument that

“The Obama White House is too white.”

In Dowd’s latest NYT column, You’ll Never Believe What This White House Is Missing, she discusses the Shirley Sherrod incident, and writes that “unlike Bill Clinton, who never needed help fathoming Southern black culture,” the Obama white house just doesn’t get the “central African-American experience.”

Dowd contends the Obama administration had better shape up otherwise…

“…[T]his administration will keep tripping over race rather than inspiring on race.”

and

“We may not have a “nation of cowards” on race, as Attorney General Eric Holder contended, but we may have a West Wing of cowards on race.”

They are cowards. Period. Yet they use the Rovian tactic of blaming others for sins of which they themselves are guilty.

While Dowd understands that Barack Obama’s exotic background and upbringing in Hawaii may be a contributing factor to his seeming lack of understanding, she cannot admit that White House insensitivity on racial issues is due to much more than his being surrounded by “smart-ass white boys” as she puts it. The real problem stems from something far worse. His administration’s actions are governed by branding, political expediency and preserving Obama’s popularity.

When polling rather than conscience drives your actions, the Shirley Sherrod firing fiasco is the result.

Dowd then resorts to the typical “let’s attack FOX News for the hell of it” gambit:

“The West Wing white guys who pushed to ditch Shirley Sherrod before Glenn Beck could pounce…”

Dowd does not clarify what Glenn Beck “pouncing” actually meant – Glenn Beck pounced on the White House, not Sherrod. Beck felt they had unjustly fired her. But Dowd could not possibly admit that Beck took Sherrod’s side. Sherrod could not either from the looks of it and wanted to continue to paint FOX News as the bad guy when the network held off on covering the story until they got all the facts – unlike President Obama. Sherrod was forced to resign before FOX did any “pouncing.”

And what of the NAACP? They were the ones with the entire tape – why didn’t they speak on her behalf, if indeed they had the basis to do so?

Perhaps Andrew Breitbart was wrong to show the edited tape of Sherrod’s remarks. It is up to you to decide whether you believe he did so less to slam Sherrod and more to slam the audience at the NAACP dinner who reacted appreciatively to what he felt were reverse racist sentiments on her part.

Dowd also complains…

“At some level, [Obama] acts like the election was enough; he shouldn’t have to deal with race further. But he does.”

…“Who knew that the first black president would make it even harder on black people?” asked a top black Democratic official.

Um. I did. So did a lot of other folks on this blog.

In May of 2008, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson penned a piece entitled The Card Clinton Is Playing – accusing Hillary Clinton of playing the race card to advance her candidacy while ignoring the fact that the Obama campaign had been playing that card daily and with impunity. I responded to Mr. Robinson’s accusations. In pertinent part, I wrote:

…The few like Tavis Smiley, who criticized Sen. Obama for skipping the State of the Black Union, and I believe [Senator Obama] also decided not to speak at MLK’s anniversary event, raise an interesting point. Senator Obama is, perhaps of necessity, courting the white vote and taking for granted the African American community who vote for him in droves. I believe, if he were to be elected, aside from the great symbolic value of having him in office, which I grant you is no small thing, the AA community may suffer because the white liberal elite in the party pushing to elect him will feel they’ve put a band aid over the racial divide in this country, while in actuality doing little to heal it.

Apparently Dowd agrees, complaining that Obama is “light years” behind Bush on developmental help to Africa and wouldn’t let Muslim women in head scarves appear behing him at a rally because Obama staffers were afraid he would be painted “as a radical/Muslim/socialist.” She accuses his staffers of insensitivity — as if Obama were somehow not involved in these decisions. Isn’t he the President?

Ms. Dowd – it is not “insensitivity.” It is Obama’s ‘you are a notch on my bedpost, I use you for my own purposes and otherwise you can get lost attitude.’ This White House is run by a bunch of arrogant frat boys. What do you expect?

Dowd also reported:

“I don’t think a single black person was consulted before Shirley Sherrod was fired — I mean c’mon, “ said Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina. [snip]

“The president’s getting hurt real bad,” Clyburn told me. “He needs some black people around him.” He said Obama’s inner circle keeps “screwing up” on race.

A laughable comment to be sure. I don’t know whether President Obama needs “some black people around him” as much as he needs to grow some genuine leadership ability and the willingness to do his homework before making a judgment on an issue of which he knows nothing.

A disproportionately high number in the black community have been adversely affected by high unemployment, something NYT columnist Bob Herbert has pointed out many times. He too, is wondering why the President is “screwing up on race.”

Perhaps Rep. Clyburn and others are now regretting having played the race card on the Clintons during the primaries, who have done more for the African American community than Obama ever has.

President Obama had never in his career exhibited compassion or understanding of these issues, certainly not to the point of taking action on them. How did Dowd, Herbert, Robinson, Clyburn or anyone else assume he would be magically transformed once elected?

President Obama’s administration only uses the race card as a defensive tool and a shield against criticism of his inane policies and actions. That has officially backfired. It backfired in Massachusetts with his “the Cambridge police acted stupidly” remark, as it has once again with Shirley Sherrod.

More is required than different advisors.

The White House has a horrible habit of working reactively, resorting to a “don’t blame me — it’s the other guys fault” mantra. That is not genuine leadership, which, of course, has been the problem all along. Every time one of these incidents gets played out before the American people, it is further evidence that those in charge have not done their homework and cannot grow beyond making pathetic excuses for the same. Slowly but surely, the country is getting a glimpse into the real character of this administration.

I’ve always been amazed at how the Democrats cannibalize their former heroes. Every Democrat who has failed in their bids for office or re-election for major office have been repudiated, ridiculed, and forbidden to run again for the races they lost. John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, George McGovern… all were devoured by their own kind, became objects of ridicule after they failed to win election or re-election. The ridicule wasn’t just “oh dang, he lost.” It was more like “What a LOSER!!” They went for the jugular!

The Republicans don’t do that! That kind of repudiation didn’t happen to Bob Dole, GHW Bush, or Gerald Ford. Of course, the Republicans have the advantage of not losing nearly as many presidential elections. I guess that kind of skews things. Dubya still has plenty of supporters among Republicans, and thanks to Obama’s miserable presidency, even some Democrats nowadays think wistfully back to the good old days of The Dub!

President Bill Clinton hasn’t been completely cannibalized, but many Democrats have tried to cut him off at the knees. I find that hard to understand. Bill Clinton was the only Democratic President since FDR to win and serve two full terms of office (the only other Democrats to do so were Woodrow Wilson, and the founder of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson). He presided over a period of unprecedented prosperity, turned the national deficit into a surplus, and managed to conduct military operations (as part of NATO) in Bosnia and Kosovo without loss of American lives. Despite his accomplishments, many Democrats, those of his own political party, hate the man! And they extend that hatred to his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton Derangement Syndrome, or CDS, is how some of us refer to this bizarre hatred of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Obama is President because the Democrats would have won in 2008 no matter who they nominated, and the leadership of the Democratic National Committee, in the delirious throes of CDS, decided amongst themselves that they didn’t want Hillary to win because they didn’t want the Clintons back in the White House. That’s why so many people blame Bill Clinton’s controversial impeachment for Hillary’s loss.

She was the best candidate in the field of aspirants, but the Clinton’s themselves often promoted the idea that they were “two (Presidents) for the price of one,.” starting with the campaign of 1992. Many people of both parties really disliked that notion for some reason. Perhaps it’s too much like royalty for their tastes, having a family in charge of the country instead of one leader. Maybe it’s just too much of a good thing.

It seems these Democrats, most of whom defended the Clintons in the 1990s, have bought into the Republican propaganda with the militant zeal of the newly converted. We expect it of Republicans, but it just seems weird coming from the those who are still Democrats. The vast right-wing conspiracy against the Clintons won, I guess.

Republicans started trying to take the Clintons down during Bill’s first election to the White House by calling him a draft dodger and Communist sympathizer. They pounced on accusations from women who claimed Bill had affairs with them, or worse. They tried to bring the Clintons down with endless investigations. They couldn’t find any legal wrongdoing by the Clintons, even after years of a Special (Republican) Prosecutor trying to pin the tail on the donkey.

They finally managed to corner Bill into denying, under oath, that he had “sexual relations” with Miss Blue Dress, sparking the national debate over whether oral sex performed by one individual on another constituted “sexual relations” when no intercourse occurred. Many agreed with Bill’s definition, others didn’t. But no other president has ever been forced to testify under oath about his sexual dalliances. If they had, the list of perjurers could be quite long, but Bill was the only one faced with it in the age of DNA testing. So far.

This fudging of the truth, when confronted on camera with evidence of marital infidelity, resulted in his being impeached (accused) on the charge of perjury by the House, but subsequently acquitted (found “not guilty”) by the Senate. How conveniently people overlook that acquittal.

Bill stood his ground, continued as President, and finished his second term. He even remained very popular, with high approval ratings to the end of his term of office.But because he had been impeached, he became anethema to many in the Democratic Party. His impeachment will be forever remembered by both dumbasses and selective-memory types, as “he was thrown out of office for getting a blowjob at his desk.”

Listening to some of these idiots, you’d think Bill so befouled the Oval Office that Dubya Bush had to have it sand-blasted before he’d set foot in it.

Meanwhile, during his travails and after, Hillary won much sympathy from many people, while others got very angry with her for staying with Bill. My own view is that it’s nobody’s business but the Clintons. But talk about class and character! How many of us, of either gender, could keep our chins up as well as she did when Bill’s sexcapades made headlines? I think there were a few news reports that she was furious, maybe even one report (true or not) that she threw something at him. Rumors abounded that the reason Bill strayed was because she was a lesbian, and other rumors that their sexual relationship was definitely over when the Monica story broke. I doubt any of those rumors and reports held much truth. She may have made him sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom for awhile, but I believe their marriage is based on love and devotion, and that they weathered the storm as well as any couple could, or better.

But these opinions carried over into Hillary’s political career, with some saying she had no chance of success because of Bill, or because she stayed with Bill, or just because they’ve always hated her for being too outspoken. So Bill was the albatross around Hillary’s neck as much as he was, as others have put it, her escalator to the Senate.

What I was hearing during the early part of the primaries, in 2007 and early 2008, was that Hillary didn’t stand a chance because of Bill. They just couldn’t imagine Bill keeping his nose clean, let alone keeping it out of her decision-making. Ironically, these are some of the same folks who used to joke about President Hillary being the one who was really in charge in the 1990s.

What my liberal friends kept saying was that they REALLY didn’t want to have Bill Clinton back in the White House. They offered a variety of reasons. Some have always hated Hillary for their own twisted reasons, or they are desperately ashamed of Bill because of his impeachment and all that it entails. Or perhaps they’re just jealous of him because they’ve never had a BJ themselves.

I see the Clintons as a Power Couple, a pair of equals who communicate well and share their opinions with each other openly. I suspect Hillary voiced her opinions to him when he was the POTUS, and I would imagine he is her closest counsel as well. Personally, I like the idea of getting a two-fer.

There’s no doubt Hillary has always been a power in her own right, a force to be reckoned with. Having been a successful high-profile attorney, after a brilliant university performance, she married an aspiring politician who became governor of Arkansas a few years after they married. She was First Lady of Arkansas for ten years, which put her into politics.

To detractors who say she wouldn’t be the powerhouse she is on the national political stage without riding Bill’s coattails, I would say that’s also true of all the (mostly male) politicians who got where they are by hitching their wagons to other (mostly male) politicians already in power. Or perhaps they were born into it. And they say America hates dynasties.

Bill may have made Hillary a star, but she helped make him what he was/is, and she shared with him the experience of being Arkansas’ First Couple for a decade. Did she rise to fame in politics because of him? Certainly. But the same is true of him. It’s definitely true that successful couples nurture each other, bring out the best in each other, and grow together. True, he held the offices, but it’s not like she was confined to the kitchen in an apron and pearls. She’s no Donna Reed. And definitely no Tammy Wynette!

So the questions remain, the speculation continues, and the opinions are all over the road. Did Bill’s notoriety keep Hillary from winning the nomination? Or will he eventually help propel her into the Oval Office? I hope for the latter. But she may have to have it sandblasted first.

Hey, you just might. I admit, I was surprised to see that I agreed with at least one opinion of theirs. But I did. Turns out, the JournoListers hate Keith Olbermann, too! I know, right??

Now, I have said before I used to love the guy, DVR’ed him every night. But, once he started with the raging misogyny against Hillary Clinton, even defending David Schuster for calling Chelsea a whore and Hillary a pimp, I knew I could not stomach him anymore. But then again, I wasn’t an Obama sycophant like the vast majority of the JournoListers are, and Olbermann is. So imagine my surprise when I read that was one of the reasons they hate him, too:

[snip] At issue was a segment Olbermann had run about Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California who stirred debate in 2009 when she defended traditional marriage.

Following the segment, the subject on Journolist was “I hate Keith Olbermann again,” and the members of the list let it rip.

The Nation’s Katha Pollitt began the group’s rant. “He and Michael Musto did this whole long riff about beauty contestant Carrie ‘opposite marriage’ Prejean’s breast implants, stupidity, breast implants, tacky clothes, earrings, breast implants. They went on and on about how she was ‘part plastic’ and pathetic. You’d think they were celibate vegans who spent their lives zen meditating. It was just a whole TV humiliation of her, and it made me feel sorry for her, which wasn’t easy,” Pollitt said.

Michael O’Hare, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the segment was “about as funny as a rubber crutch. Odd when a reasonable person’s internal alarm doesn’t go off in a situation like that …’I’m going to ridicule a girl who’s obviously at her personal limits just trying to look conventionally pretty on national TV? What does that make me’?”

O’Hare even suggested friends stage an intervention for Olbermann. “If anyone on the list is a friend of Olbermann, friendship demands that you give him a head-up about this lapse,” he said.

Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and CNN contributor, said Olbermann’s root problem is his misogyny. “I can’t take him anytime. I think to write off his mysogyny (sic) as limited to Musto is just not accurate. That very much defined much of how he talked about Clinton as well as others.”

Zelizer was referring to a series of instances during the primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama when critics from both sides of the aisle criticized Olbermann for allegedly sexist treatment towards Hillary. Olbermann was forced to apologize. [snip]

Click here to read the rest.

Incredible, isn’t it? A number of these folks really get it about Olbermann, and his blatant misogyny. No one was more surprised than I was, especially given the level of misogyny leveled at Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin by many on the left.

But still, Olbermann had some supporters, like David Roberts, who appreciated his getting out the liberal news to the masses, so there is that. But that is not so surprising.

And while I am on the whole JournoList thing again, Tucker Carlson, the Editor in Chief of Daily Caller has written a follow-up letter to address the expose of Journolist. He writes about the two arguments currently being used to justify what these journalists did, and some claims that they are making. Specifically, he wrote:

[snip]The response hasn’t been all that furious, actually, probably because there isn’t much for the exposed members of Journolist to say. We caught them. They’re ashamed. The wise ones are waiting for the tempest to pass.

There have, however, been two lines of argument that we probably ought to respond to, if only because they may harden into received wisdom if we don’t. The first is that our pieces have proved only that liberal journalists have liberal views, and that’s hardly news.

To be clear: We’re not contesting the right of anyone, journalist or not, to have political opinions. (I, for one, have made a pretty good living expressing mine.) What we object to is partisanship, which is by its nature dishonest, a species of intellectual corruption. Again and again, we discovered members of Journolist working to coordinate talking points on behalf of Democratic politicians, principally Barack Obama. That is not journalism, and those who engage in it are not journalists. They should stop pretending to be. The news organizations they work for should stop pretending, too.

The second line of attack we’ve encountered since we began the series is familiar to anyone who has ever published a piece whose subject didn’t like the finished product: “You quoted me out of context!”

The short answer is, no we didn’t. I edited the first four stories myself, and I can say that our reporter Jonathan Strong is as meticulous and fair as anyone I have worked with. [snip]

Click here to read the rest of the letter by Carlson.

I recommend reading the entire series at Daily Caller. It is certainly informative, though the piece about Keith Olbermann cannot help but make me smile. He SO deserves to receive this disdain by some of the very elite of whom he seems to count himself. Teehee! It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fellow. To quote Jeremiah Wright, “the chickens have come home to roost!”

And how.

/ Bumped up /

We knew this was happening – we knew that many in the MSM were protecting Obama, were refusing to vet him, to investigate allegations against him, or those with whom he was very close, like Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

But here’s the thing. A number of these journalists (and academics), including from major news outlets, wrote down their plans to do what they could to protect Obama, both in the Primaries, and in the General Election. And did they ever. Check out this interview with Tucker Carlson (I know, I know – he was horrible to Hillary Clinton, but he does acknowledge that these “journalists” worked against her, too). It is eye opening:

We knew it – we knew they were using the race card to help Obama, and to protect him from scrutiny. And use it they did, over and over, and over again. They STILL are using it, for that matter.

But wait, there’s more. In this report, more of the actual statements by some of the so-called journalists who colluded to help Obama are brought to light:

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

And finally, and I bet you knew this was coming, these “journalists” are revealed to have coordinated attacks against Sarah Palin:

Daily Caller has much, much more on this topic, with more revelations each day, it seems (I am having some technical issues with my computer, so please forgive the lack of links to the actual stories).

I used to scoff at the charges of the “liberal bias” in the media. I thought they were ridiculous, sour grapes, and all of that. But this isn’t just bias, this is intentionally controlling news about one candidate, protecting a candidate from being properly vetted, and using a despicable tactic to deflect any questions, the race card. Despicable.

These people are not journalists, not by a long shot. Each and every one of them should lose their jobs over this. They shaped an entire election by their collusion, engaging in character assassinations, race baiting, and propaganda, to protect their chosen politician.

And they wonder why people in this country have lost faith in the media. After this revelation, they should wonder no more…

In their article Pelosi Vents About Gibbs, Politico writers Jonathan Allen and John Bresnahan shared that

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bashed White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Tuesday night, even as the president’s top spokesman continued to backpedal from his assertion that Democrats could lose control of the House in the November election.

“How could [Gibbs] know what is going on in our districts?” Pelosi told her members in the caucus meeting in the basement of the Capitol Tuesday night. “Some may weigh his words more than others. We have made our disagreement known to the White House.”

The hostility escalated when Democratic lawmakers accused the White House of losing the messaging wars. Are some Dem lawmakers implying that if President Obama, Gibbs et al had done a better job of “selling” their non-working policies to the American people, House Dems wouldn’t be facing the prospect of such huge losses in November?

This is a wake up call to Ms. Pelosi and those who stand in lock step with her – If you have a good product – it sells itself.

I think we would prefer better crafted legislation to a better sales pitch. Putting the check mark next to the “DONE” box just to parade around with a giant gavel and goofy smile pasted on your face does not substitute for putting Americans back to work, passing health care legislation that won’t bankrupt the country or passing a stimulus bill that actually stimulates something beyond pet pork projects.

Even Arianna Huffington, a big Obama ally, has complained bitterly that the Wall St. reform package doesn’t go far enough or protect us from “too big to fail.” Then again, she is another political opportunist who has lately taken to agreeing with Tea Party protests and even Sarah Palin. She must be seeing the writing on the wall, too.

It is appalling that Congress does not intend to pass a budget this year — something else they wish to sweep under the rug so as not to damage themselves further in advance of the midterm elections, perhaps. Outrageous spending and a lack of responsiveness to constituents’ concerns is a far more reasonable explanation for the poor prospects of Democrats this fall than President Obama losing the “message wars.” How about winning the competence war and going on a few less vacations?

On Meet the Press on Sunday, here is what Press Secretary Gibbs had to say:

“I think there’s no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control. There’s no doubt about that. This will depend on strong campaigns by Democrats,” Gibbs said on Sunday.

By the next morning, Democratic strategists were fuming privately that he had handed Republicans a great fundraising and voter-motivation tool.

Gibbs and other White House officials have been backpedaling, in carefully measured steps, ever since.

Speaker Pelosi also complained that Obama favors the Senate and helps them in their fundraising efforts far more than he helps the House, which has shown great loyalty to him.

The Senate love fest may be coming to an end as well. Embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went on the record saying that President Obama is not “firm” or “foreceful enough” with his Republican opposition. This prompted the bellicose Ed Schultz of MSNBC to complain Reid just called the President a “wimp.” The “timing is horrible” says Shultz. No kidding:

Looks like Harry doesn’t feel the wind at his back, given that Sharron Angle is besting him in the polls in Nevada at the moment. Other historically “safe” Senate seats are in trouble as well. Fiorina is polling ahead of Boxer in CA for the first time. Even Russ Feingold’s seat is not quite safe.

Apparently, Ms. Pelosi and her cronies missed the memo on how this politics stuff works.

The President is going to do everything he can to save himself. If that means throwing Congress under the bus so he can have a Republican foil to do battle against, making more of his straw man arguments, then he will. If that helps in his re-election bid, that is Job One.

Did Nancy and Harry think when they threw Hillary under the bus, they were going to be rewarded for it?

These two are not the only Presidents-by-Proxy to find out they are dispensable.

It is amazing what comes out from under the rug once it has been pulled back. Recently, DOJ attorney, J. Christian Adams exposed the DOJ’s dismissal of blatant voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party. It has been a staggering expose of what is going on inside the Justice Department, especially in terms of voter intimidation and the lackadaisical approach the DOJ is taking to protect our right to vote free of fear or threat of intimidation. The short answer is, they are not, certainly in terms of the New Black Panther Party.

My favorite part of the dismissal against the NBPP in Philadelphia? The guy carrying the nightstick outside a Philly polling place has been banned from carrying “deadly” weapons near polling places. Until 2012. You read that right. He can’t carry deadly weapons around a polling place in 2010, but he can when it’s time for Obama to run again. WHAT a surprise.

The Obama Justice Department has become the “Get Out of Jail Free” Department for the New Black Panther Party.

But another piece of dirt coming out from under this rug of DOJ whistle blowing is something about which a number of us knew for some time. The threats of intimidation and violence toward Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2008 Primaries. The constant refrain that Obama ran a better campaign than Clinton is absurd, unless you think threatening people, lying, and cheating is “running a better campaign.” Personally, I do not, especially from the party to which I gave my loyalty for decades. I dunno, I kinda have a thing against liars, cheats, and thugs – maybe it comes from my vocation. Ahem.

At long, long, last, some in the media are finally paying attention. The documentary filmmaker, Gigi Gaston, was on Fox and Friends recently, speaking out about the corruption associated with the 2008 Democratic Primaries. Her film, “We Will Not Be Silenced 2008″ is a critical piece of history regarding how Obama and the DNC colluded against Hillary Clinton and the 18 million of us who voted for her. Below is Ms. Gaston speaking out about what she found:

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

I was like Gaston, too. A lifelong Democrat, who believed in the Party and for what it stood. I believed that we really did care about one person, one vote, that we cared about the will of the people. I could not have been more wrong, which I now acknowledge, though it was a painful – check that – excruciatingly painful realization.

The worst part was seeing the level of organization behind Obama’s cheating and voter intimidation. And yes, it most definitely came from the top. There is no way on this green earth that what happened in Texas COULD happen without an organized, concerted effort. Others in states like Washington also spoke of the caucus fraud that occurred there, the busloads of people from out of state coming in to vote. There is zero way this could have happened without Obama’s knowledge or acquiescence. No way. That speaks volumes about him, though not news to many of us, I am sure.

And it speaks volumes about the DNC, which received plenty of evidence that this was going on. The Hillary Clinton Campaign also notified the DNC of irregularities occurring to benefit Obama. And what did the DNC do about it? Absolutely nothing. Well, actually, they did do something – they violated the will of the people, acted in the most unethical, immoral way, dismissing the votes of Americans, and stole votes from Clinton to give to Obama.

Many of you know I have recommended Ms. Gaston’s documentary before. It is staggering, maddening, and downright heartbreaking. I recommend this video to you again. It is well worth watching, so that we will be aware, forewarned is forearmed, and clearly, with this president, with this “Justice Department,” prepared is what we must be.

To get you started, here is Part 1:

One last thing: if you or someone you know, experienced caucus fraud during the 2008 Primary, please, please let the good folks at “We Will Not Be Silenced 2008” know about it. They are still working to get this information out there, to expose the massive level of fraud perpetrated to get Barack Obama into the White House.

How have we come to this place in this country so fast?

Wow, what a night Tuesday night! This is shaping up to be the Year of the Women, finally. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina took California, two women with tremendous resumes in the private sector. Nikki Haley won big in South Carolina, though she does have to have a run-off June 22nd. She is fully expected to win that election. Sharron Angle, the Tea Party pick, will face off against Harry Reid in Nevada. And Blanche Lincoln beat her Democratic challenger, Lt.Gov. Bill Halter.

Senator Lincoln is the one Democrat in this bunch, and I have to say, I am THRILLED she beat Halter. As you no doubt have heard, Halter was supported by MoveOn.org, and the big unions, which poured MILLIONS of dollars into Arkansas (around $10 million), so her win is a big push against the power of the unions, as well as the far left agenda. Here she is celebrating her win:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

Lincoln isn’t done – she has a strong challenger in November, but beating the organized union and MoveOn.org backed candidate is huge, make no mistake. It can also be construed as a bit of a referendum on Bill Clinton v. Obama. Clinton endorsed Lincoln, and the Unions/MoveOn are Obama backers. Maybe the Old Dawg still has it…

Nikki Haley, with the backing of both Gov., Sarah Palin and First Lady (of SC) Jenny Sanford, won the vast majority of votes (49%) with her closest competitor, Gresham Barrett, at 22%. Here is Nikki Haley after the election:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

Should Haley win come November, she will be the first woman governor in SC, and the second Indian American governor in the US (along with Bobby Jindal).

Meg Whitman talks about her win, and her upcoming race against Jerry Brown (or “Gov. Moonbeam,” as Karl Rove referred to him on “Fox & Friends Weds. morning). In her speech, Whitman gives a shout-out to Carly Fiorina on her win to face Barbara Boxer:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

And speaking of Carly Fiorina, here she is in her speech following her win, a win which will pit her against long time senator, Barbara Boxer. She returns the favor to Whitman, with a “Holla” to her, too:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

Sharron Angle, the Tea Party backed candidate, will be facing off again st Harry Reid in the Fall. Oh, I cannot begin to tell you how badly I want her to beat Reid. Even when I still considered myself a Democrat (before 5/31/08), I was not a fan of Reid’s, and my opinion of him has only gone down from there. Here’s Angle after her win:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

Wow. Again, what a night. I might add, I have said a number of times, that after the Democratic Party eviscerated the best candidate they could have had to be the first woman president, I have no doubt that the first woman president will come from the Republican Party.

Honestly, it has been interesting to me to see how the Republican Party seems to support its women in positions of power far more than the Democrats do. You know, the party that claims to be the party for women. After the misogynistic treatment of Clinton by the DNC itself, compared to the treatment by the RNC with Palin, as well as other powerful women in the RNC, I just knew the Demos had blown their chance in a big, big, big way. Oh, sure, the Democrats have a few women senators and representatives, but none of them are on a par with Clinton. Hell, Obama is not on a par with Clinton, never will be (I think he knows that, too – that’s why he was always putting her down to try and build himself up).

When you look at a field like this, all of these powerful, successful women who are Republicans, you just know that our first woman president is going to come from this kind of group. That is assuming Hillary Clinton is telling the truth when she says she will not run for president again, though since Obama has made such a mess of things in such a short period of time, I am not sure she COULD win in this climate.

November will be must see with Boxer having a strong, accomplished woman like Fiorina facing her, Reid having Angle facing him, Whitman against “Gov. Moonbeam,” and Sheheen having the very popular Haley against him. Things don’t look great for Lincoln against her Republican opponent, though. Maybe Bill will show up for her again…

Stay tuned – November is not that far away!

One year ago, I wrote an open letter to Bill Maher taking him to task for his horrid insults to the Tea Party movement, then in its infancy. He self-righteously, and wrongly, claimed that what was at the root of this movement was racism. He also claimed that this was strictly a Republican movement. These are some of the original statements he made in his op-ed in the LA Times:

It’s been a week now, and I still don’t know what those “tea bag” protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who’s going to win “American Idol.” But it wasn’t tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that’s when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.

…“the conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because … well, nobody knows. They’re mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore. Even though they’re not quite sure what “it” is.”

Let us fast forward to his show on April 30, 2010 where he said the following in reference to the tea partiers:

“…well, you know they always say they feel like neither Party represents them. That’s how I feel this week.”

What a difference a year makes.

While his surrounding verbiage was typically tasteless, the sentiment was all too clear. The people he said he could never agree with he found a reason to agree with. Why – our horrific Gulf Coast Oil Spill:

And for those of you who can’t bear to watch him on video, Noel Sheppard provides the transcript of Maher’s remarks — sitting with none other than Mr. Leg Tingle, Chris Matthews himself:

BILL MAHER: Okay, so I mentioned in the monologue I’m a little mad this week. I usually try to hide that, but, you know, when the Teabaggers say that they feel like they have no…

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC: I love the way you say that.

MAHER: What?

ROSS DOUTHAT, NEW YORK TIMES: Just trips off the tongue.

MATTHEWS: The Teabaggers.

MAHER: The Teabag, well, you know they always say they feel like neither Party represents them. That’s how I feel this week. So Teabaggers, you’re not alone. And the reason why is because yes, I’m mad at the oil company who didn’t obviously build their rig well enough. I’m mad at America in general because we should have gotten off the oil tit starting in the ’70s. I’m mad at the people who go, “Drill, baby, drill.” And by the way, they should turn up on the Gulf Coast and start cleaning up the birds with their “Drill, baby, drill” t-shirts. But I’ll tell you who I’m really mad at which is Barack Obama. Couple of weeks ago, the President, our President said, “It turns out the oil rigs today generally don’t cause oil spills. They are technologically very advanced.” Now if, if I was quoting George Bush, this crowd would be laughing in hysterics.

LAURA TYSON, ECONOMIST AND FORMER CLINTON ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes they would.

MAHER: So, why isn’t Barack Obama getting more sh*t for this? I think he should.

(Applause.)

Yes. The audience applauded.

Bill Maher is taking our President to task on something? He dipped his little toe into these waters a few months ago, but ever so gently. Not sounding so gentle now, however.

Then again, a friend called to tell me Maher defended Hillary on his show several weeks back. I’ll have to take his word for it because I will never watch Maher’s show again. This is what Maher had to say about Hillary two short years ago (one among many lovely remarks):

“They fined CBS a million dollars for Janet Jackson’s nipple. Just think what they could get for Hillary Clinton’s c*nt.”

Gee, Bill, next time perhaps you’ll think before disrespecting one candidate while fawning over another or condemning a movement before you take five minutes of your time to understand who they are or what they are about.

Even though Maher still insists on insulting them with the homophobic “tea baggers” slur, it is clear he does understand what they are railing against. Or does this mean Bill is a racist now, too?

H/T to LisaB for alerting us to former Congressman Mickey Edwards’ piece in The Atlantic offering a polite but succinct takedown on Maher. Edwards was in Congress for 16 years and also taught at Princeton and Harvard. Apparently, This Week in ABC thought to elevate Maher to sitting at the round table with George Will, Al Sharpton. Katrina Van Den Heuvel and Matthew Dowd as they discussed the controversial new AZ immigration law. Edwards contended that both sides managed to discuss the difficult choice between necessary security and the profiling issue with civility — except…:

Then there was Mr. Bill Maher, whose three principal contributions were to hail Brazil’s having stopped its use of oil as an energy source for vehicles (incorrect), his observation that Republicans are racists, and his subsequent refinement of that observation: he only meant to say that if you’re a racist, you’re probably a Republican.

I had actually been watching something else on television (a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald), but switched in time to watch Mr. Maher’s performance. I’m glad I did. Had I not done so, I would have continued to be among those blissfully unaware of what a dolt he is, of how hateful and venomous and destructive of civility and intelligent discourse he is.

And so the villain of this piece is? Not Mr. Maher: he is, sadly, what he is, and that is all he is, and (my heart goes out to him) that is probably all he will ever be; one can only do one’s best with whatever limited capacities one has. But George Will, Matthew Dowd, Al Sharpton, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, agree with them or not, have a proper place at the grown-up table; one can only wonder what the producers at ABC were thinking when they moved this character to a table at which the likes of George Stephanopoulos, Cokie Roberts, Cokie Roberts, and Sam Donaldson once sat.

It is good to draw attention to Maher if only to point out that his show is what passes on certain fronts as educated political discourse. It is often far less than that.

This serves as yet one more example that contempt prior to examination is not a good thing. Whether one agrees with the new AZ law or not, it is clear that serious solutions are required by the federal government, notably AWOL on this issue in this and the last Administration.

Likewise, whether one agrees with the agenda of the Tea Party movement, it is clear that the rank and file are not being represented by those in power.

It was Maher who years ago complained that the vertical ownership of Uber-corporations was strangling this country — their deep pockets holding enormous influence over our elected officials — ensuring that neither Party is doing the peoples’ business. He was right. Tea Party anger over that very situation is one of the forces driving this movement.

How odd that Maher never realized the very sentiments he voiced were at the root of the movement he saw fit to condemn this past year.

Though he purports to be a comedian, he clearly fancies himself as more than that. Still, Maher is like 90% of the pundits out there — trying to stay ahead of the curve and keep themselves relevant by insulting those it seems cool to insult. By trading whatever common sense he might have to offer on a given subject for the easy takedown, preferring to stay au courant rather than honest — he lowers the level of discourse rather than elevating it. He also see to it that his audience — and he does have a bully pulpit of his own — does not get both sides of the story, only more demagoguery.

Imagine what might have happened if Maher and people like him had stopped to understand the true grievances of tea party activists last year. Such a pulpit might have brought both sides together to fight a health care bill that causes more harm than good, sending Congress back to the drawing board until they had effective health care reform to offer, rather than insurance payoffs. By Maher employing the typical, and hateful, “us vs. them” attitude to get ratings and please his flock he becomes part of the very problem he spends his show railing against. He also ensures that our President (any president, regardless of Party) will never get sh*t when they deserve it because we are too distracted fighting each other to hold our elected officials accountable.

If anyone wonders why 24% of the population identify with the Tea Party movement, or what prompted Jane Hampsher of FireDogLake to note that Progressivism Is Dead, while expressing fury at being sold out to corporate oligarchs and government elite, look no further than Peggy Noonan’s WSJ piece, The Big Alienation, which aptly describes the growing sense of disenfranchisement felt by most conservatives, some progressives and many in between. It is as a good a definition as I’ve seen and Party identification seems to have little to do with it:

We are at a remarkable moment. We have an open, 2,000-mile border to our south, and the entity with the power to enforce the law and impose safety and order will not do it. Wall Street collapsed, taking Main Street’s money with it, and the government can’t really figure out what to do about it because the government itself was deeply implicated in the crash, and both political parties are full of people whose political careers have been made possible by Wall Street contributions. Meanwhile we pass huge laws, bills so comprehensive, omnibus and transformative that no one knows what’s in them and no one—literally, no one—knows how exactly they will be executed or interpreted. Citizens search for new laws online, pore over them at night, and come away knowing no more than they did before they typed “dot-gov.”

It is not that no one’s in control. Washington is full of people who insist they’re in control and who go to great lengths to display their power. It’s that no one takes responsibility and authority. Washington daily delivers to the people two stark and utterly conflicting messages: “We control everything” and “You’re on your own.”

All this contributes to a deep and growing alienation between the people of America and the government of America in Washington.

None of this happened overnight. It is, most recently, the result of two wars that were supposed to be cakewalks, Katrina, the crash, and the phenomenon of a federal government that seemed less and less competent attempting to do more and more by passing bigger and bigger laws.

Add to this states on the verge of bankruptcy, the looming debt crisis of the federal government, and the likelihood of ever-rising taxes. Shake it all together, and you have the makings of the big alienation. Alienation is often followed by full-blown antagonism, and antagonism by breakage.

Ms. Noonan also states:

The right never trusted the government, but now the middle doesn’t.

If Jane Hamsher is to be believed, many on the left aren’t thrilled either.

Of course, the White House is going to go after Social Security again. It’s the pot of gold at the end of Wall Street’s rainbow, and they desperately want that injection of cash which could keep their giant ponzi scheme from exploding. . . for a little while.

Lucky for them, Obama has successfully dismantled the opposition that kept George Bush from privatizing Social Security at Wall Street’s behest only a few years ago. Did anybody fail to get that message when majority whip Dick Durbin yesterday told “bleeding heart liberals” that they need to be willing to accept cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits for the economic well-being of the nation?

…Just as the choice groups sat on their hands for the Nelson amendment in the health care bill, just like the Sierra Club remains mute in the wake of an oil spill the size of Delaware, there will be nothing more than progressive window-dressing in opposition to cutting Social Security benefits this time around. Any of these groups utter so much as a whimper in response to Durbin’s very alarming statement yesterday? Nada. Zip. Zero.

The idea that the right is more “authoritarian” and top-down than the left is absurd.

Good point, Ms. Hamsher – I don’t much trust what’s coming out of either side.

Ms. Noonan then discusses the much criticized law that Arizona’s passed out of frustration to control its borders:

It is doing this because the federal government won’t, and because Arizonans have a crisis on their hands, areas on the border where criminal behavior flourishes, where there have been kidnappings, murders and gang violence. If the law is abusive, it will be determined quickly enough, in the courts…

But the larger point is that Arizona is moving forward because the government in Washington has completely abdicated its responsibility. For 10 years—at least—through two administrations, Washington deliberately did nothing to ease the crisis on the borders because politicians calculated that an air of mounting crisis would spur mounting support for what Washington thought was appropriate reform—i.e., reform that would help the Democratic and Republican parties.

[snip]

The American president has the power to control America’s borders if he wants to, but George W. Bush and Barack Obama did not and do not want to, and for the same reason, and we all know what it is. The fastest-growing demographic in America is the Hispanic vote, and if either party cracks down on illegal immigration, it risks losing that vote for generations.

But while the Democrats worry about the prospects of the Democrats and the Republicans about the well-being of the Republicans, who worries about America?

No one. Which the American people have noticed, and which adds to the dangerous alienation—actually it’s at the heart of the alienation—of the age.

Both Hamsher and Noonan make clear that we don’t have much by way of allies in the persons of our government officials. It is apparent to anyone half awake that Democrats and Republicans, for the most part, capture an issue in furtherance of their careers and little else. There is a line in the movie “Syriana” –

“We want to give the appearance of doing our due diligence. But we don’t want to do our due diligence.”

Noonan uses the issue of government’s failure to secure the border to the same effect in her piece as Hamsher uses “the giant flaming ball of oil being pushed straight for the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi” that “[m]ight be the worst environmental event in decades” in hers – as examples of government ineffectiveness due as the result of succumbing to interest groups rather than doing what is best for the American people.

For those of us at NoQuarter shouting in frustration for over two years wishing for better leadership than what we felt was being foisted upon us all, it is ironic that Noonan may be the first major pundit to make the following observation:

I asked a campaigner for Hillary Clinton recently where her sturdy, pantsuited supporters had gone. They didn’t seem part of the Obama brigades. “Some of them are at the tea party,” she said.

Though I don’t care for her “sturdy, pantsuit” snark –she notes correctly that we feel we have no place in this new world order of the Democratic party. Perrylogan, one of the commenters to Hamsher’s piece, makes clear why:

The progressive movement died during the primaries, when Obama’s supporters started calling their fellow Democrats racists.

Amen.

In the universe of President Obama, the second “Great Uniter” in a row (George Bush II being the first), we are now more divided against ourselves than ever. It also looks as though many are feeling divided from the very people we have elected to protect our best interests.

Much of this is the result of the politics of demagoguery – served up to control the populace rather than to assist it, to divide us from each other, so we never take the time to notice we have far more in common than we realize.

All this jumble is to say that when two ladies from opposite sides of the aisle express this much anger and frustration, it is time for our politicians to wake up – lest we do figure out how to unite peacefully. Then those elitists Jane, Peggy and we all rage against might be ridden out of town on a rail.