In what can only be described as another "World According to Joe" moment:
If President Obama Seems Aloof, It’s Because He’s Better Than You
November 19, 2010
By Daniel Foster
The ever-reliable Vice-President Biden has a gem in his recent GQ interview. When asked why President Obama comes across as aloof to many Americans, Biden replied: “I think what it is, is he’s so brilliant. He is an intellectual.”
Friday, November 19, 2010
Coercion is not Torture - Ghalani trial / verdict
Andy McCarthy has a bunch of good commentary @AndrewCMcCarthy :
Coercion Is Not Torture... http://tinyurl.com/29a4he5
One More on Ghailani: Mr. President, Stop Blaming Bush-- http://tinyurl.com/24pjaje
Ghailani: Why 285 Counts? http://tinyurl.com/2eueoqf
Ghailani and Inconsistent Verdicts-- http://tinyurl.com/2ewcj3b
Talking Ghailani at the NYTimes-- http://tinyurl.com/2d9camp
Justice Was Not Done-- http://tinyurl.com/2fml3bj
Obama Caves on Civilian Trial for KSM-- http://tinyurl.com/285xp4y
A Compromise Verdict, and No Winners-- http://tinyurl.com/24bjbex
Coercion Is Not Torture... http://tinyurl.com/29a4he5
One More on Ghailani: Mr. President, Stop Blaming Bush-- http://tinyurl.com/24pjaje
Ghailani: Why 285 Counts? http://tinyurl.com/2eueoqf
Ghailani and Inconsistent Verdicts-- http://tinyurl.com/2ewcj3b
Talking Ghailani at the NYTimes-- http://tinyurl.com/2d9camp
Justice Was Not Done-- http://tinyurl.com/2fml3bj
Obama Caves on Civilian Trial for KSM-- http://tinyurl.com/285xp4y
A Compromise Verdict, and No Winners-- http://tinyurl.com/24bjbex
Don't Touch My Junk !
November 19, 2010
Don’t Touch My Junk
Charles Krauthammer
The junk man’s revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy.
Ah, the airport, where modern folk heroes are made. The airport, where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone who’s ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube — where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a “flotation device” — has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever, blow the door, explode the chute, grab a beer, slide to the tarmac, and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond. Not since Rick and Louis disappeared into the Casablanca fog headed for the Free French garrison in Brazzaville has a stroll on the tarmac thrilled so many.
Who cares that the crazed steward got arrested, pleaded guilty to sundry charges, and probably was a rude, unpleasant S.O.B to begin with? Bonnie and Clyde were psychopaths, yet what child of the ’60s did not fall in love with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty?
And now three months later, the newest airport hero arrives. His genius was not innovation in getting out, but deconstructing the entire process of getting in. John Tyner, cleverly armed with an iPhone to give YouTube immortality to the encounter, took exception to the TSA guard about to give him the benefit of Homeland Security’s newest brainstorm — the upgraded, full-palm, up-the-groin, all-body pat-down. In a stroke, the young man ascended to myth, or at least the next edition of Bartlett’s, warning the agent not to “touch my junk.”
Not quite the 18th-century elegance of “Don’t Tread on Me,” but the age of Twitter has a different cadence from the age of the musket. What the modern battle cry lacks in archaic charm, it makes up for in full-body syllabic punch.
Don’t touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm-election voter. Don’t touch my junk, Obamacare — get out of my doctor’s examining room; I’m wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Don’t touch my junk, Google — Street View is cool, but get off my street. Don’t touch my junk, you airport-security goon — my package belongs to no one but me, and do you really think I’m a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come?
In Up in the Air, that ironic take on the cramped freneticism of airport life, George Clooney explains why he always follows Asians in the security line:
“They pack light, travel efficiently, and they got a thing for slip-on shoes, God love ’em.”
“That’s racist!”
“I’m like my mother. I stereotype. It’s faster.”
That riff is a crowd-pleaser because everyone knows that the entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness. Nowhere do more people meekly acquiesce to more useless inconvenience and needless indignity for less purpose. Wizened seniors strain to untie their shoes; beltless salesmen struggle comically to hold up their pants; three-year-olds scream while being searched insanely for explosives, when everyone — everyone — knows that none of these people is a threat.
We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to assure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety — 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals, and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling — when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable, and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.
The junk man’s revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? Okay. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population.
But now you insist on a full-body scan, a fairly accurate representation of my naked image to be viewed by a total stranger? Or alternatively, the full-body pat-down, which, as the junk man correctly noted, would be sexual assault if performed by anyone else?
This time you have gone too far, Big Bro’. The sleeping giant awakes. Take my shoes, remove my belt, waste my time, and try my patience. But don’t touch my junk.
— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2010 the Washington Post Writers Group.
Don’t Shoot the Groper
November 19, 2010
By Mark Krikorian
Krauthammer’s “Don’t Touch My Junk” column is outstanding and I think he’s right that Americans’ tolerance for indignity to avoid the unthinkable prospect of profiling is exhausted. But I’m afraid some people are directing their anger at the wrong target. Ron Paul, for instance, has introduced legislation to remove TSA employees’ immunity from prosecution and arrest them for assault. Kick the Bureaucrat is a game conservatives love to play, and sometimes it’s justified, but this time it isn’t. The problem is the policy that the White House and its minions have instructed their subordinates in the civil service to carry out. And it’s not just the Obama folks; Bush insisted on this non-profiling approach, and Republicans ran Congress for four years after 9/11 and supinely permitted it.
I just heard Ann Coulter make this very point today, at David Horowitz’s shindig in Palm Beach (hey, a third-stringer like me can’t sneak onto the NR cruise, but this is a pretty good alternative!). Anyway, Ann said that the TSA people are actually big fans of hers, but they’ve been told to follow certain procedures, so what are they supposed to do? (She also suggested that everyone being groped should make “sex noises,” like in the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene in When Harry Met Sally.) Ironically, Ann’s fan base in TSA is likely due to the Democrats’ insistence that the function not be outsourced to private firms; this has meant that the TSA screeners are overwhelmingly Americans, often former military — almost the only Americans working at the big airports I’ve been to.
We see the same “kick the bureaucrat” thing in immigration — whether it’s overwhelmed Border Patrol agents or inspectors, or visa officers and USCIS adjudicators told to ignore fraud, it’s the hapless schmo carrying out the ridiculous policies of his superiors who gets blamed. The fish rots from the head down, and that’s where our ire, and our policy changes, have to be focused.
Don’t Touch My Junk
Charles Krauthammer
The junk man’s revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy.
Ah, the airport, where modern folk heroes are made. The airport, where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone who’s ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube — where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a “flotation device” — has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever, blow the door, explode the chute, grab a beer, slide to the tarmac, and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond. Not since Rick and Louis disappeared into the Casablanca fog headed for the Free French garrison in Brazzaville has a stroll on the tarmac thrilled so many.
Who cares that the crazed steward got arrested, pleaded guilty to sundry charges, and probably was a rude, unpleasant S.O.B to begin with? Bonnie and Clyde were psychopaths, yet what child of the ’60s did not fall in love with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty?
And now three months later, the newest airport hero arrives. His genius was not innovation in getting out, but deconstructing the entire process of getting in. John Tyner, cleverly armed with an iPhone to give YouTube immortality to the encounter, took exception to the TSA guard about to give him the benefit of Homeland Security’s newest brainstorm — the upgraded, full-palm, up-the-groin, all-body pat-down. In a stroke, the young man ascended to myth, or at least the next edition of Bartlett’s, warning the agent not to “touch my junk.”
Not quite the 18th-century elegance of “Don’t Tread on Me,” but the age of Twitter has a different cadence from the age of the musket. What the modern battle cry lacks in archaic charm, it makes up for in full-body syllabic punch.
Don’t touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm-election voter. Don’t touch my junk, Obamacare — get out of my doctor’s examining room; I’m wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Don’t touch my junk, Google — Street View is cool, but get off my street. Don’t touch my junk, you airport-security goon — my package belongs to no one but me, and do you really think I’m a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come?
In Up in the Air, that ironic take on the cramped freneticism of airport life, George Clooney explains why he always follows Asians in the security line:
“They pack light, travel efficiently, and they got a thing for slip-on shoes, God love ’em.”
“That’s racist!”
“I’m like my mother. I stereotype. It’s faster.”
That riff is a crowd-pleaser because everyone knows that the entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness. Nowhere do more people meekly acquiesce to more useless inconvenience and needless indignity for less purpose. Wizened seniors strain to untie their shoes; beltless salesmen struggle comically to hold up their pants; three-year-olds scream while being searched insanely for explosives, when everyone — everyone — knows that none of these people is a threat.
We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to assure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety — 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals, and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling — when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable, and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.
The junk man’s revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? Okay. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population.
But now you insist on a full-body scan, a fairly accurate representation of my naked image to be viewed by a total stranger? Or alternatively, the full-body pat-down, which, as the junk man correctly noted, would be sexual assault if performed by anyone else?
This time you have gone too far, Big Bro’. The sleeping giant awakes. Take my shoes, remove my belt, waste my time, and try my patience. But don’t touch my junk.
— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2010 the Washington Post Writers Group.
Don’t Shoot the Groper
November 19, 2010
By Mark Krikorian
Krauthammer’s “Don’t Touch My Junk” column is outstanding and I think he’s right that Americans’ tolerance for indignity to avoid the unthinkable prospect of profiling is exhausted. But I’m afraid some people are directing their anger at the wrong target. Ron Paul, for instance, has introduced legislation to remove TSA employees’ immunity from prosecution and arrest them for assault. Kick the Bureaucrat is a game conservatives love to play, and sometimes it’s justified, but this time it isn’t. The problem is the policy that the White House and its minions have instructed their subordinates in the civil service to carry out. And it’s not just the Obama folks; Bush insisted on this non-profiling approach, and Republicans ran Congress for four years after 9/11 and supinely permitted it.
I just heard Ann Coulter make this very point today, at David Horowitz’s shindig in Palm Beach (hey, a third-stringer like me can’t sneak onto the NR cruise, but this is a pretty good alternative!). Anyway, Ann said that the TSA people are actually big fans of hers, but they’ve been told to follow certain procedures, so what are they supposed to do? (She also suggested that everyone being groped should make “sex noises,” like in the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene in When Harry Met Sally.) Ironically, Ann’s fan base in TSA is likely due to the Democrats’ insistence that the function not be outsourced to private firms; this has meant that the TSA screeners are overwhelmingly Americans, often former military — almost the only Americans working at the big airports I’ve been to.
We see the same “kick the bureaucrat” thing in immigration — whether it’s overwhelmed Border Patrol agents or inspectors, or visa officers and USCIS adjudicators told to ignore fraud, it’s the hapless schmo carrying out the ridiculous policies of his superiors who gets blamed. The fish rots from the head down, and that’s where our ire, and our policy changes, have to be focused.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
I have not read Decision Points, and I don't know if I will, but I have been reading a lot of commentary about it, and have seen some of GWB's TV interviews.
I am once again struck by the contrast between Bush's image as his haters would have you believe, and the man who comes across on TV.
I am also struck by the contrast between Bush's class and the arrogant Obama who time and again exhibits a lack of class when it comes to his opponents.
Bush takes it all in stride; he did so too much to his detriment as President as it allowed his opponents to define him. But the man exudes a classiness and comfort in his own skin that Obama could only dream to possess.
To me, that makes Bush, despite his flaws, a truly likeable person for a politician with personal qualities that are real and one can respect. Obama can only pretend.
Despite this publishing campaign, it is very clear that Bush doesn’t really mind terribly what people think and say about him.
Where does he gets his insouciance from? Is it his religious faith, or might class have a part to play? Does he have the sublime self-confidence not to judge himself by others’ criteria because he is a genuine American aristocrat? “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” he answers, in precisely the way that a real aristo would. His theory is that “I just always tried to do what was right, and never compromised my principles”. He might have made errors, like every president, but they were not over matters of principle.
Decision Points is unlike most politicians’ memoirs, which try to prove omniscience. Bush admits to making several mistakes, but puts these in their context and invites the reader to consider alternative scenarios. “You’re rarely judged by the decisions you don’t make,” he points out. “The Middle East would be an even more dangerous place today, for example, if we’d backed down in front of Saddam. It takes time for history to take a broad enough perspective.” Yet there are signs that it is already starting to. Karl Rove – who Bush describes as “a sort of political mad scientist” – called the other day to tell him about a poll where he and Barack Obama were running neck-and-neck with 45 per cent approval ratings, a major advance on the 34 per cent when he left office in January 2009. Yet Bush clearly could hardly care less.
“I didn’t care when I had a 90 per cent approval rating after 9/11,” Bush says, “and I don’t care now either. A lot of my relaxed attitude to life — I feel no need for a desperate struggle or for refashioning myself — comes from the knowledge that they called Lincoln ‘a baboon’ and almost drummed Truman from office. A long-term view is the only way to judge an administration. Also, with a new president, you tend to get judged against the backdrop of predecessors and successors.” Which is why the timing of this book publication, the week after Obama’s “shellacking” in the mid-term elections, is inspired. Yet Bush won’t be drawn on any current political controversies, just to help him sell books. As I ask him about the Ground Zero mosque or the Tea Party or Obama’s plans to withdraw from Afghanistan next July. He just counters with: “Nice try.”
Obama's recurring foreign policy failures ...
According to Dr. K(rauthammer)
On President Obama’s failure to seal a free-trade deal with South Korea:
Whenever a president walks into a room with another head of state and he walks out empty-handed — he’s got a failure on his hands.
And this was self-inflicted. With Obama it’s now becoming a ritual. It’s a combination of incompetence, inexperience, and arrogance. He was handed a treaty by the Bush administration. It was done. But he wanted to improve on it. And instead, so far, he’s got nothing. …
And this is a pattern with Obama. He thinks he can reinvent the world. With Iran, he decides he has a silver tongue, he’ll sweet-talk ’em into a deal. He gets humiliated over and over again. With the Russians he does a reset, he gives up missile defense, he gets nothing.
In the Middle East, he proposes a ban on Jewish construction in Jerusalem, which is never going to happen. And what does it do? After 17 years [of negotiations without any preconditions] it destroys any chance of negotiations.
Again, a combination of [incompetence] — he comes in, I’ll reinvent the world, I know everything — and arrogance. And the result? He gets zero results.
On a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts:
This is all a result of the shellacking. … Remember in ‘09 at the beginning of the presidency, Obama was in [a] discussion with the Republicans. And he got to a point in the debate where he said “I won.” Well, [this time] the Republicans won. As a result we’re going to get an extension of the [Bush] cuts — and the Republicans will resist a decoupling, which is absolutely essential.
If that happens, if it’s two years, three years or more, it doesn’t really matter. It’ll be renegotiated, reargued, and there’ll probably be a whole debate about a whole new tax structure anyway.
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