Quote of the Day

President Obama — Diminishing himself to serve Speaker Pelosi, Powerline Blog, Feb. 6, 2009.

Last night President Obama delivered a speech to the House Democrats in defense of their fiscal stimulus package. Obama's speech is so breath-takingly superficial and fundamentally dishonest that it must be read to be (dis)believed.
    Here is Obama's answer to the charge that the bill contains too much pork:
Then there's the argument, well, this is full of pet projects. When was the last time that we saw a bill of this magnitude move out with no earmarks in it? Not one. (Applause.) And when you start asking, well, what is it exactly that is such a problem that you're seeing, where's all this waste and spending? Well, you know, you want to replace the federal fleet with hybrid cars. Well, why wouldn't we want to do that? (Laughter.) That creates jobs for people who make those cars. It saves the federal government energy. It saves the taxpayers energy. (Applause.)
    Thus Obama answers the charge that the bill "is full of pet projects" by noting that a bill of this magnitude with no earmarks is unheard of. And, in response to the dozens of pork projects idenitifed by the bill's critics, he defends one minor one.
    But Obama was only getting warmed up. His major howler was this:
So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? (Laughter and applause.) That's the whole point. No, seriously. (Laughter.) That's the point.
    Under this "logic," any bill that contains spending should be enacted because, by definition, it provides "stimulus." It doesn't matter how much stimulus is provided or when the stimulus will occur. This is quite possibly the most irresponsible position ever taken by a president on an economic issue.
    Just a few weeks ago, in his inauguation speech, Obama said that his touchstone for governmental action is how well it will work. Now the touchstone is whether it constitutes spending.

After 3 months of deliberation with his economic advisors, The One's™ policies can be summarized as: 1) we need to spend about $800B, 2) it doesn't matter how it is spent, and 3) anyone who opposes such profligate spending is misguided and needs to get with the program of paying-off all the Dhimmicrat special interest groups. Castigating those who wish to return to the "failed" policies of the past like tax cuts, which have successfully stimulated the economy every time in the past when they were tried, he then proposes to emulate the policies of FDR, which were a monstrous failure.

Quote of the Day

The Impending Obama Meltdown, Victor Davis Hanson, NRO Online, The Corner, Feb. 4, 2009.

Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S. media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary. And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather than scrutiny.

We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion — and with no Dick Morris to bail him out — brought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking.

First, there were the sermons on ethics, belied by the appointments of tax dodgers, crass lobbyists, and wheeler-dealers like Richardson—with the relish of the Blago tapes still to come.

Second, was the "stimulus" (the euphemism for "borrow/print money") that was simply a way to go into debt for a generation to shower Democratic constituencies with cash.

Then third, there were the inflated lectures on historic foreign policy to be made by the clumsy political novice who trashed his own country and his predecessor in the most ungracious manner overseas …

Fourth, there was the campaign rhetoric of Bush shredding the Constitution — FISA, Guantánamo, the Patriot Act, Iraq, renditions, etc. — followed by "all that for now stays the same" inasmuch as we haven't ben hit in over seven years and can't risk another attack.

Fifth, Gibbs as press secretary is a Scott McClellan nightmare that won't go away, given his long McClellan-like relationship with Obama (McClellan should have been fired on day hour one on the job). Blaming Fox News for Obama's calamities is McClellan to the core and doesn't work. …

Six[th], Biden is being Biden. Already, he's ridiculed the chief justice, trashed the former VP, bragged on himself ad nauseam in Bidenesque weird ways, and it's only been two weeks. …

At home, Obama is becoming laughable and laying the groundwork for the greatest conservative populist reaction since the Reagan Revolution.

Abroad, some really creepy people are lining up to test Obama's world view of "Bush did it/but I am the world". …

This is quite serious. I can't recall a similarly disastrous start in a half-century (far worse than Bill Clinton's initial slips). … If he doesn't quit the messianic style and perpetual campaign mode, and begin humbly governing, then he will devolve into Carterism — angry that the once-fawning press betrayed him while we the people, due to our American malaise, are to blame.