President Obama's Stimulus bill - among many other nefarious things - has allowed him to triumphantly declare that his policies have "saved or created" blabbedy blah number of jobs. I use the all-purpose "blabbedy blah" in lieu of a hard number, mostly because his declarations on this question have been all over the map. One day it's 2 million, the next day, 3.5 million. Much has been written about the weasel-wordiness of the "saved or created" qualifier he uses, but what would you expect? OffHisMeds would only point out that the association with Obama is likely to do harm to the reputation of weasels.
The Stimulus has sown its Trillion Dollar largesse almost exclusively across the Public Sector, including hundreds of billions to the States to help them make payroll for Teachers, Cops, Fireman, regulators, fussbudgets and the millions of others who enjoy full-time pay and Bennies for their part-time, generally pointless jobs. But is this subsidy of Public Sector jobs a good thing? From OffHisMeds' perspective, it depends on how you answer the following questions: 1) Is Public Sector employment wealth-creating economic activity? 2) Do Government Employees pay taxes?
Is Public Sector employment wealth-creating economic activity?
In a word, No. Putting aside all of the arguments from the Usual Suspects who harangue us poor souls in the Private Sector about the virtues of "Public Service", you can reach this conclusion simply by observing that the bulk of what is produced in terms of services by the Public Sector is not exportable, nor are they services that rational consumers would willingly pay for. Government services by their very nature are a) regulatory, b) immune to the market pressures that would make them better and less expensive, and c) imposed on the people. That is not to say that some level of government employment is not necessary; after all, somebody's got to provide for the Common Defense, polish up the Lincoln Memorial, staff the 15% of classrooms that actually provide an education or drive the one profitable bus route in Houston, TX.
It is to say, though, that close to 100% of Public Sector employment is a net drain on our real economy. A necessary evil, if you will. The Private Sector represents goods and services that people actually demand and willingly pay for, and are subject to the competition that makes them a good value. Thus, they represent economic activity that produces wealth. Since Government generates little in terms of services people actually want - much less at competitive prices - they can't be said to generate wealth.
Do Government Employees pay taxes?
In a word, No. Since we have established previously that Government doesn't generate wealth, if you don't generate wealth, it's a physical impossibility to generate tax revenues. To the extent that government employees pay taxes, they are paying with somebody else's tax dollars, or they are paying with the debt that governments incur to cover payroll. All government employees - be they city, county, state, federal or school district - are paid by tax dollars from the Private Sector, so in the Best Case, you could only say that they pay their taxes with other people's tax dollars, depreciated since that money is at least once removed from its origins.
This situation is exacerbated by the fact that there are entirely too many government employees as a percentage of the economy, and that - across the national spectrum - they are grossly overpaid for their jobs. This has the dually perverse effect of a) pushing up their income brackets, forcing people and businesses in the dwindling Private Sector to surrender evermore of their useful dollars to cover not just payroll but the "taxes" paid by Public Sector employees, and b) Inflating the available tax revenues available to government. The triple irony of this situation is that government at all levels justifies endless rounds of extraordinary spending by the federal government based - at least partly - on the hyperinflated government payrolls that already exist. One need only look at the effect of government revenue sharing for education and Medicaid - the spending levels of which become a federal mandate, even if the feds stop sending the money - to understand what I'm talking about. For another example, look at Obama's $23 Billion emergency spending bill to "prevent thousands of teachers, firemen and policemen from losing their jobs".
It gets worse. In addition to the roughly 25 million government employees who roam the land, another 25 to 30 million allegedly Private Sector jobs are actually an extension of Federal, State, County and Local government, in the form of the thousands of businesses who provide products and services to those governments for everything from copier paper to computer systems to school buildings to utilities to road construction: and all paid for by your tax dollars.
Which makes you wonder why Obama has been so modest in his declarations of jobs "saved or created". He's pissed away $1.2 Trillion in the past year. Were you to divide that by $60,000.00 (the average pay package including Bennies enjoyed by government worker across America), he could triumphantly claim to have "saved or created" 20 million jobs, very close to the number currently employed by government.
The only problem is that - as we have demonstrated - there is not a lick of real money coming from any government worker in terms of tax revenues, and catastrophically less tax revenue coming from the decimated Private Sector.
So no, government employees do not pay taxes, and more's the pity, since there's not 50 million taxpaying jobs left in the Private Sector to offset the 50 million in the Public Sector.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Barack Obama, Ugly American
Interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal detailing civil and criminal penalties imposed by the US government against an Italian company for paying $180 million in bribes to Nigerian government officials for a contract to build a natural gas plant in that country. If like me you're wondering why this matter was adjudicated in America's courts instead of Italy or Nigeria - much less why the Italians must pay fines to America - I doubt that you're alone in your confusion.
The settlement calls for Italian oil and gas company Eni SpA and its former Dutch unit Snamprogetti Netherlands BV to pay $365 million in fines to America for their misdeeds.
First off, OffHisMeds must ask what is up with the Numerologists in federal government and their obsession with relevant numbers? For example, this fine works out to a tidy $1 million penalty for every calendar day in the year. Makes you want to be a fly on the wall when they decided what the fine would be. Why not a different number? Wouldn't it make sense to make the fine the same amount as the original bribe? And what of prosecution of the corrupt Nigerian government officials? Do they get a free pass from Obama's Justice Department?
Numerology is a driving force behind everything the Obama administration does. Take the $20 billion they extorted from BP for remediation of the financial impact of the Gulf Oil Spill for example. Whatever your opinion on BP's obligation, there was no reason for the US government to force the payoff, seeing as how that's what our courts are for. What is of interest is the even number: $20 billion. Strange that such an even number should be precisely the amount needed to compensate the thousands of fisherman, retailers, tourist venues, strippers and others who have been affected. How did they arrive at that number? And what do you suppose the likelihood is that - regardless of the economic impact on these businesses - that the actual payout will be: $20 billion?
Nor should we forget that Obama has named the execrable Kenneth Feinberg - Democrat operative extraordinaire - to administer the $20 billion. Feinberg is, of course, the tireless Apparatchik who oversaw the payout of $7 Billion of taxpayer dollars to the victims of 911, averaging around $2 mil per victim. Call me crazy, but it's more than a little creepy that such an individual should exist, much less have regular employment. I'm also more than a little concerned that he'll use the same back-of-the-napkin math he used for 911 to calculate compensation for Gulf Oil victims. It doesn't take a Math Major to conclude that there's going to be hundreds of thousands of "victims" with their hands out. Given a free hand, Feinberg will not only spend it all, but blow his budget out of the water, just as he did for 911.
And OffHisMeds will go on record and predict that - if he does bankrupt BP - that American taxpayers will be on the hook for the remainder.
This is all of a piece for Obama and his minions. Seeing as how he has milked all that he can from American corporations, he is now confiscating the assets of foreign corporations, foreign stock holders, and, well, foreigners. And they're starting to get pissed. His popularity in Great Britain has plummeted since he implemented his extra-legal Money Grab against BP. Watch for a similar reaction in Italy and the Netherlands.
Anybody with an ounce of sense can see where this capricious behavior will lead us. OffHisMeds predicts that foreign governments will retaliate, criminalizing American behavior and confiscating American assets in far larger amounts and with far less justification, and America will be helpless to do anything about it.
Yet another legacy left us by this colossal Dunderhead, who will enjoy a post-presidential life comparable to that of Al Gore, enriched by many tens of millions, albeit with the consolation for the rest of us that he will be politically neutered well prior to the end of his first and only term in office.
My one other consolation is that Foreigners will finally understand that the true face of Ugly Americanism is now, and always has been, the Democrat Party, and it's probably only fitting that America-Haters the world over should get a tiny taste of what average Americans have had to put up with for the past fifty years.
The settlement calls for Italian oil and gas company Eni SpA and its former Dutch unit Snamprogetti Netherlands BV to pay $365 million in fines to America for their misdeeds.
First off, OffHisMeds must ask what is up with the Numerologists in federal government and their obsession with relevant numbers? For example, this fine works out to a tidy $1 million penalty for every calendar day in the year. Makes you want to be a fly on the wall when they decided what the fine would be. Why not a different number? Wouldn't it make sense to make the fine the same amount as the original bribe? And what of prosecution of the corrupt Nigerian government officials? Do they get a free pass from Obama's Justice Department?
Numerology is a driving force behind everything the Obama administration does. Take the $20 billion they extorted from BP for remediation of the financial impact of the Gulf Oil Spill for example. Whatever your opinion on BP's obligation, there was no reason for the US government to force the payoff, seeing as how that's what our courts are for. What is of interest is the even number: $20 billion. Strange that such an even number should be precisely the amount needed to compensate the thousands of fisherman, retailers, tourist venues, strippers and others who have been affected. How did they arrive at that number? And what do you suppose the likelihood is that - regardless of the economic impact on these businesses - that the actual payout will be: $20 billion?
Nor should we forget that Obama has named the execrable Kenneth Feinberg - Democrat operative extraordinaire - to administer the $20 billion. Feinberg is, of course, the tireless Apparatchik who oversaw the payout of $7 Billion of taxpayer dollars to the victims of 911, averaging around $2 mil per victim. Call me crazy, but it's more than a little creepy that such an individual should exist, much less have regular employment. I'm also more than a little concerned that he'll use the same back-of-the-napkin math he used for 911 to calculate compensation for Gulf Oil victims. It doesn't take a Math Major to conclude that there's going to be hundreds of thousands of "victims" with their hands out. Given a free hand, Feinberg will not only spend it all, but blow his budget out of the water, just as he did for 911.
And OffHisMeds will go on record and predict that - if he does bankrupt BP - that American taxpayers will be on the hook for the remainder.
This is all of a piece for Obama and his minions. Seeing as how he has milked all that he can from American corporations, he is now confiscating the assets of foreign corporations, foreign stock holders, and, well, foreigners. And they're starting to get pissed. His popularity in Great Britain has plummeted since he implemented his extra-legal Money Grab against BP. Watch for a similar reaction in Italy and the Netherlands.
Anybody with an ounce of sense can see where this capricious behavior will lead us. OffHisMeds predicts that foreign governments will retaliate, criminalizing American behavior and confiscating American assets in far larger amounts and with far less justification, and America will be helpless to do anything about it.
Yet another legacy left us by this colossal Dunderhead, who will enjoy a post-presidential life comparable to that of Al Gore, enriched by many tens of millions, albeit with the consolation for the rest of us that he will be politically neutered well prior to the end of his first and only term in office.
My one other consolation is that Foreigners will finally understand that the true face of Ugly Americanism is now, and always has been, the Democrat Party, and it's probably only fitting that America-Haters the world over should get a tiny taste of what average Americans have had to put up with for the past fifty years.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Obama & The Neutering Of NASA
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.......I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."
- President John F. Kennedy
"President Obama has ordered me to pursue three new objectives: to re-inspire children to study science and math, to expand our international relationships, and to reach out to the Muslim world........Of those three goals the mission to reach out to Muslims is perhaps foremost, because it will help Islamic nations feel good about their scientific accomplishments."
"The United States is no longer capable of reaching beyond low earth orbit without help from other nations."
- NASA administrator Charles Bolden in a recent interview with al-Jazeera
Two Democrat presidents; two entirely different world-views. That's no accident. In a previous post, I had remarked over a year ago that President Obama - after having gutted the manned spaceflight components of NASA's mission - was on track to make this once great agency a mere extension of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, apparently, he wants to make it an extension of The Peace Corps. According to Obama lackey Charles Bolden, NASA's three primary objectives have absolutely nothing to do with the exploration of space. And thus, we should not be surprised by Bolden's other statements, particularly that we lack the ability to get beyond low earth orbit without help from other nations.
Now, I wouldn't entirely dispute that, but for different reasons than Bolden. See, it's mighty hard to get beyond Earth orbit when you cancel the very programs designed to get you beyond Earth orbit. And there's also the question of funding. NASA - along with the military - has been the Democrat's favorite program to starve so as to create more welfare funding. As a current reminder, this is the administration that has already spent $75 billion in the past year just helping the states meet payroll for the Education Guild. That's three times NASA's annual budget, pissed away so our bloated Education bureaucracy can maintain their full time pay for part time jobs. Is it any wonder Obama doesn't think NASA is up to fulfilling its primary mission?
This is the guy whose vision is so small, whose objectives so infantile, whose world-view so constipated, that the notion of doing in 2019 what we had already done in 1969 is beyond his ability to conceive. Kind of makes you wonder what else is likely beyond Obama's vision? What else does he suppose America is incapable of doing that it has done before? The mind boggles at the prospects, but OffHisMeds offers a few anyway:
- Defeating the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan - when asked about his strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union - famously declared "simple: we win, they lose". Such an economy of words to define an ultimately winning strategy, as Reagan then methodically and almost single-handedly went about the task of dismantling - peacefully - the most dangerous empire in the history of the world.
- USA's Olympic hockey victory of 1980. Unheralded, untested, underequipped, undersized and completely inexperienced at hockey as it is played internationally, the "Miracle On Ice" nonetheless is very much a part of our nation's athletic lore. It's not hard to imagine that Obama's reaction to that victory would be to bemoan American Exceptionalism, and agonize about the overt displays of patriotism, much less the effect it would have on our relations with other countries.
- Building the Panama Canal. This one is a no-brainer. Obama would have apologized for it, much as Jimmie Carter did when he gave it away. And prior to being built, he would have declared that it was futile, given that France had failed in a previous attempt to create a canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. He would also have worried that our success at doing so might have an adverse impact on our relations with France, and would then, undoubtedly, have blathered on about the effect on their self-esteem were we to succeed.
- Victory in World War II. FDR declared December 7th "a day which shall live in infamy"; then he declared war on the Japanese. No such straight rhetorical lines could exist from Obama's narrow perspective. The guy who is incapable of conceiving that Radical Islam is at war with freedom and democracy is also the guy who could feel some empathy for the Japanese empire, and would likely have equivocated for months after the attack, as he did about the Afghanistan surge. The guy who prostrated himself before our enemies and confessed America's sins is likely the guy that would have agonized over how America might have provoked The Empire Of The Rising Sun.
- The Marshall Plan. Now, this one Obama would have been all over, as it involved giving Trillions of dollars to other countries, which just happens to be one of his favorite past-times. Whether it's Liquidity Swaps to rescue the Euro, subsidies to the IMF for the bailout of Greece and the rest of Europe, military subsidies, the hyper-production of greenbacks or outright cash payments, nothing warms the heart of a Democrat like enslaving the American Taxpayer to a bunch of self-righteous Elitist humps with their hands out. Obama's spin, however, would have been to let the Euros, the Democrat Party and some version of the United Nations manage the spending, a mistake that Marshall most emphatically did not make.
- The 1969 New York Mets. They were proclaimed the "Miracle Mets", having won the 1969 World Series after having posted their first winning season in team history. Ironically, this group of hardy over-achievers reached this fabulous milestone the same year that NASA sent a man to the moon. Talk about symmetry; talk about common angels; talk about a reaffirmation of the Stuff that makes America great. The Mets and NASA weren't just metaphors for the Can-Do, pull yourself up by your bootstraps ethic that defined America; they were the living embodiment of it. By comparison, has Obama ever once exhorted his fellow Americans to Entrepreneurialism, self-sufficiency or fabulous achievement? Hardly. Could not fair-minded people all agree that his every exhortation has called on America to settle for mediocrity?
Obama, after all, is constantly talking about the things that America cannot do, whether it's space travel, defeating the Taliban or safely drilling for oil in the Gulf. He is Jimmie Carter's "Malaise" speech on steroids. As is so amply reflected with his policies for NASA, with his every proclamation and policy, President Obama projects his own insecurity, self-doubt and moral ambiguity onto his adopted nation and his fellow citizens. Is it too much to ask that he works out these issues sometime other than regular business hours, and concentrate on his day job?
Providing NASA a mission other than Muslim outreach might be a good start.
- President John F. Kennedy
"President Obama has ordered me to pursue three new objectives: to re-inspire children to study science and math, to expand our international relationships, and to reach out to the Muslim world........Of those three goals the mission to reach out to Muslims is perhaps foremost, because it will help Islamic nations feel good about their scientific accomplishments."
"The United States is no longer capable of reaching beyond low earth orbit without help from other nations."
- NASA administrator Charles Bolden in a recent interview with al-Jazeera
Two Democrat presidents; two entirely different world-views. That's no accident. In a previous post, I had remarked over a year ago that President Obama - after having gutted the manned spaceflight components of NASA's mission - was on track to make this once great agency a mere extension of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, apparently, he wants to make it an extension of The Peace Corps. According to Obama lackey Charles Bolden, NASA's three primary objectives have absolutely nothing to do with the exploration of space. And thus, we should not be surprised by Bolden's other statements, particularly that we lack the ability to get beyond low earth orbit without help from other nations.
Now, I wouldn't entirely dispute that, but for different reasons than Bolden. See, it's mighty hard to get beyond Earth orbit when you cancel the very programs designed to get you beyond Earth orbit. And there's also the question of funding. NASA - along with the military - has been the Democrat's favorite program to starve so as to create more welfare funding. As a current reminder, this is the administration that has already spent $75 billion in the past year just helping the states meet payroll for the Education Guild. That's three times NASA's annual budget, pissed away so our bloated Education bureaucracy can maintain their full time pay for part time jobs. Is it any wonder Obama doesn't think NASA is up to fulfilling its primary mission?
This is the guy whose vision is so small, whose objectives so infantile, whose world-view so constipated, that the notion of doing in 2019 what we had already done in 1969 is beyond his ability to conceive. Kind of makes you wonder what else is likely beyond Obama's vision? What else does he suppose America is incapable of doing that it has done before? The mind boggles at the prospects, but OffHisMeds offers a few anyway:
- Defeating the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan - when asked about his strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union - famously declared "simple: we win, they lose". Such an economy of words to define an ultimately winning strategy, as Reagan then methodically and almost single-handedly went about the task of dismantling - peacefully - the most dangerous empire in the history of the world.
- USA's Olympic hockey victory of 1980. Unheralded, untested, underequipped, undersized and completely inexperienced at hockey as it is played internationally, the "Miracle On Ice" nonetheless is very much a part of our nation's athletic lore. It's not hard to imagine that Obama's reaction to that victory would be to bemoan American Exceptionalism, and agonize about the overt displays of patriotism, much less the effect it would have on our relations with other countries.
- Building the Panama Canal. This one is a no-brainer. Obama would have apologized for it, much as Jimmie Carter did when he gave it away. And prior to being built, he would have declared that it was futile, given that France had failed in a previous attempt to create a canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. He would also have worried that our success at doing so might have an adverse impact on our relations with France, and would then, undoubtedly, have blathered on about the effect on their self-esteem were we to succeed.
- Victory in World War II. FDR declared December 7th "a day which shall live in infamy"; then he declared war on the Japanese. No such straight rhetorical lines could exist from Obama's narrow perspective. The guy who is incapable of conceiving that Radical Islam is at war with freedom and democracy is also the guy who could feel some empathy for the Japanese empire, and would likely have equivocated for months after the attack, as he did about the Afghanistan surge. The guy who prostrated himself before our enemies and confessed America's sins is likely the guy that would have agonized over how America might have provoked The Empire Of The Rising Sun.
- The Marshall Plan. Now, this one Obama would have been all over, as it involved giving Trillions of dollars to other countries, which just happens to be one of his favorite past-times. Whether it's Liquidity Swaps to rescue the Euro, subsidies to the IMF for the bailout of Greece and the rest of Europe, military subsidies, the hyper-production of greenbacks or outright cash payments, nothing warms the heart of a Democrat like enslaving the American Taxpayer to a bunch of self-righteous Elitist humps with their hands out. Obama's spin, however, would have been to let the Euros, the Democrat Party and some version of the United Nations manage the spending, a mistake that Marshall most emphatically did not make.
- The 1969 New York Mets. They were proclaimed the "Miracle Mets", having won the 1969 World Series after having posted their first winning season in team history. Ironically, this group of hardy over-achievers reached this fabulous milestone the same year that NASA sent a man to the moon. Talk about symmetry; talk about common angels; talk about a reaffirmation of the Stuff that makes America great. The Mets and NASA weren't just metaphors for the Can-Do, pull yourself up by your bootstraps ethic that defined America; they were the living embodiment of it. By comparison, has Obama ever once exhorted his fellow Americans to Entrepreneurialism, self-sufficiency or fabulous achievement? Hardly. Could not fair-minded people all agree that his every exhortation has called on America to settle for mediocrity?
Obama, after all, is constantly talking about the things that America cannot do, whether it's space travel, defeating the Taliban or safely drilling for oil in the Gulf. He is Jimmie Carter's "Malaise" speech on steroids. As is so amply reflected with his policies for NASA, with his every proclamation and policy, President Obama projects his own insecurity, self-doubt and moral ambiguity onto his adopted nation and his fellow citizens. Is it too much to ask that he works out these issues sometime other than regular business hours, and concentrate on his day job?
Providing NASA a mission other than Muslim outreach might be a good start.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Just Another Day Of Presidential Finger-Pointing
Based on his behavior in the past few months, it's hard to think of Barack Obama as anything but a petulant child. Start with the Gulf Oil Spill and his insistence - after fiddling like Nero for six weeks - that he was going to "kick some ass" at BP. Move on to his serial accusations of George W. Bush, most recently when he defended the complete failure of the federal bureaucracy to respond to the BP oil spill as the result of "the past ten years of neglect" in the Minerals and Management Service, never mind that those self-same bureaucrats are virtually all Democrats, and have been for the past 40 years. We are also supposed to ignore the fact that his administration had not only been in control of the approval process for 15 months, but that his administration had awarded BP a Safety Award for the aforementioned and now infamous "Deepwater Horizon".
Never mind the facts, it's all somebody else's fault, and mostly Bush's fault.
Fast forward to Obama's recent snivel that "the past 18 months have been the most difficult" in the past century of the presidency. Oh woe is him. I wonder how many rounds of golf and number of pickup basketball games Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush played whilst they were handling - successively - World War I, The Great Depression, World War II, The first Atomic Bomb, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Viet Nam War, The Cold War and 911, much less how many times they were getting their freak on with the First Lady at taxpayer expense in an apparently endless variety of upscale and international venues, including but not limited to Washington DC, New York City, San Francisco, London, Prague and Moscow? All combined, not as many rounds, games, freak-ons or other forms of entertainment our Indulger-In-Chief has allotted himself in these past 18 oh so burdensome months.
But then, it's been a tough year for the President. His initiatives are universally unpopular, the economy goes deeper in the tank every time he touches it, his groveling to our enemies has only emboldened them, and for the entire interval of the Gulf Oil Spill he's been taking it on the chin for doing, well, nothing about the Gulf Oil Spill. Despite the terrible political beating, OffHisMeds has still not been able to verify if Obama actually said: "I want my life back", although his remark that his Presidency has been the worst since - well - whenever, might well qualify as the equivalent. Ironic to note that his demonstrated incompetence, self-pitying remarks and stupefying inaction are vaguely reminiscent of BP CEO Tony Hayword.
Which brings us to this past week.
Unhappy that failure in the Afghanistan theatre is mounting, mostly due to his feckless and cowardly leadership, Barack Obama was spoiling for a Fall Guy and thus leapt at the opportunity to throw his supreme commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, under the bus after an article was published in Rolling Stone wherein McChrystal and his staff had been reported to have said things critical of President Thin Skin and sundry of his lackeys. Quick as you can say "The Previous Decade Of Neglect", McChrystal was recalled, shipped to the White House, very publicly fired and subject to the ritualized degradation that Obama and his minions had previously reserved for Arizona, Arizonans, Gulf Oil Spill victims, Fox News, the chairmen of BP and General Motors, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Bill Gates - and of course - taxpayers.
You can mark your Scorecards in ink on this one, Sports Fans. OffHisMeds contends that it will only be a matter of time before Obama blames the whole McChrystal episode on George W. Bush, despite Obama having hand-picked McChrystal. Now, don't get OHM wrong: George W has a lot to answer for, including having laid the groundwork for this insufferable Boob to become president in the first place, but he is not responsible for Barack Hussein Obama's actions.
B.O. automatically dealt McCrystal a losing hand last year with his very public proclamation that after the Surge he would begin the troop drawdown from Afghanistan by "July 2011". Obama inflicted Karl Eikenberry and Richard Holbrooke on him as his civilian counterparts (and nominal superiors), and both worked tirelessly to undermine the war effort. As Obama's strategy failed, he very predictably sacked McChrystal, and grandstanded General David Patreus back into the theatre. Amazingly,Obama's SpinMeisters actually got the majority of the Main Stream Media and even some conservative commentators to parrot his line that the reason we were failing in Afghanistan was that McChrystal employed overly strict Rules Of Engagement coupled with a "hearts and minds" strategy to win over civilians in Afghan, in the process endangering his troops, demoralizing them and emboldening our enemies. As the Narrative goes, this was McChrystal's baby, and his alone, as if our civilian leaders up to and including the President himself had no say in the strategy.
And Obama not only bought off on that narrative, but enthusiastically embraced it. What a towering hypocrite. What a self-absorbed, mindless Hump. What a finger-pointing, womanish excuse for a man.
And what a shame that OffHisMeds will have to recycle this Riff in two year's time, substituting the name "McChrystal" with "Patreus", and listening to Obama blame somebody else for his failures, yet again.
Never mind the facts, it's all somebody else's fault, and mostly Bush's fault.
Fast forward to Obama's recent snivel that "the past 18 months have been the most difficult" in the past century of the presidency. Oh woe is him. I wonder how many rounds of golf and number of pickup basketball games Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush played whilst they were handling - successively - World War I, The Great Depression, World War II, The first Atomic Bomb, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Viet Nam War, The Cold War and 911, much less how many times they were getting their freak on with the First Lady at taxpayer expense in an apparently endless variety of upscale and international venues, including but not limited to Washington DC, New York City, San Francisco, London, Prague and Moscow? All combined, not as many rounds, games, freak-ons or other forms of entertainment our Indulger-In-Chief has allotted himself in these past 18 oh so burdensome months.
But then, it's been a tough year for the President. His initiatives are universally unpopular, the economy goes deeper in the tank every time he touches it, his groveling to our enemies has only emboldened them, and for the entire interval of the Gulf Oil Spill he's been taking it on the chin for doing, well, nothing about the Gulf Oil Spill. Despite the terrible political beating, OffHisMeds has still not been able to verify if Obama actually said: "I want my life back", although his remark that his Presidency has been the worst since - well - whenever, might well qualify as the equivalent. Ironic to note that his demonstrated incompetence, self-pitying remarks and stupefying inaction are vaguely reminiscent of BP CEO Tony Hayword.
Which brings us to this past week.
Unhappy that failure in the Afghanistan theatre is mounting, mostly due to his feckless and cowardly leadership, Barack Obama was spoiling for a Fall Guy and thus leapt at the opportunity to throw his supreme commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, under the bus after an article was published in Rolling Stone wherein McChrystal and his staff had been reported to have said things critical of President Thin Skin and sundry of his lackeys. Quick as you can say "The Previous Decade Of Neglect", McChrystal was recalled, shipped to the White House, very publicly fired and subject to the ritualized degradation that Obama and his minions had previously reserved for Arizona, Arizonans, Gulf Oil Spill victims, Fox News, the chairmen of BP and General Motors, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Bill Gates - and of course - taxpayers.
You can mark your Scorecards in ink on this one, Sports Fans. OffHisMeds contends that it will only be a matter of time before Obama blames the whole McChrystal episode on George W. Bush, despite Obama having hand-picked McChrystal. Now, don't get OHM wrong: George W has a lot to answer for, including having laid the groundwork for this insufferable Boob to become president in the first place, but he is not responsible for Barack Hussein Obama's actions.
B.O. automatically dealt McCrystal a losing hand last year with his very public proclamation that after the Surge he would begin the troop drawdown from Afghanistan by "July 2011". Obama inflicted Karl Eikenberry and Richard Holbrooke on him as his civilian counterparts (and nominal superiors), and both worked tirelessly to undermine the war effort. As Obama's strategy failed, he very predictably sacked McChrystal, and grandstanded General David Patreus back into the theatre. Amazingly,Obama's SpinMeisters actually got the majority of the Main Stream Media and even some conservative commentators to parrot his line that the reason we were failing in Afghanistan was that McChrystal employed overly strict Rules Of Engagement coupled with a "hearts and minds" strategy to win over civilians in Afghan, in the process endangering his troops, demoralizing them and emboldening our enemies. As the Narrative goes, this was McChrystal's baby, and his alone, as if our civilian leaders up to and including the President himself had no say in the strategy.
And Obama not only bought off on that narrative, but enthusiastically embraced it. What a towering hypocrite. What a self-absorbed, mindless Hump. What a finger-pointing, womanish excuse for a man.
And what a shame that OffHisMeds will have to recycle this Riff in two year's time, substituting the name "McChrystal" with "Patreus", and listening to Obama blame somebody else for his failures, yet again.
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