Finally, or should I say in the nick of time?

By the way, so it shouldn’t go unnoticed because of the holiday distractions, the Democrats and the President are spinning that they had a great week prior to Christmas because they passed the three bills, DADT, START, and 9/11, all of which at least conceptually I am in agreement. But I would be remiss if I didn’t add a little perspective as I see it.

Reality is that if the tax law (is it now referred to as the Obama tax cuts?) was extended a year or more ago the economy and unemployment would be in better stead than they currently are. And the 9/11, START, and DADT laws probably would have been passed that much sooner thus relieving many Americans of the excess stress caused by the unnecessary delays due to partisan politics on both sides of the isle.

The President and his people are all smiley for the cameras this week, but for their intransigence the country would now be in far better shape. In the final analysis, it was President Obama’s and the Majority Democrat Congress’ strategy of relentlessly trying to bury the GOP politically that ultimately, perhaps unwittingly, sacrificed the well being of the country.

In fact, (yes those pesky FACTS) for the past two years the Democrats offered up bills that they knew the GOP could not vote for because of the politics or because they were lousy bills. Had the President and the Democrat Congress moved to the middle sooner, which is what frustrated citizens and moderate politicians from both sides of the isle had been imploring them to do for more than a year, this pathetic Congress could have produced far more than it finally did in the last week of its session.

Democrat partisan politics delayed actions that could have gone into effect months ago but party members were transfixed on the President’s vengeful post 2008 election words “elections have consequences and I won.” This egotistical mindset (adopted as their mantra by the Congressional Democrats) hurt the USA. And, there is no question that the Democrats never missed an opportunity to shout about “GOP obstructionism” regarding non-passage of various bills and a Congress that was on track to being labeled "do nothing."

However, the Democrats mistakenly presumed that its strategy of branding the GOP as "obstructionist" would better the Democrat's political position. Well, on 11/2/10 the Democrats learned how poorly that strategy worked because the voters clearly expressed their collective belief that in fact it was the Democrats who were the “obstructionists” to getting the work of the 111th Congress done. Proof of this is the three bills approved this past week; generally agreed upon is that it was the “lame duck” majority Democrat Party, not the GOP, that made the necessary policy moves and compromised to the middle, thus leaving the Republican lawmakers no political option but to vote with the Democrats to pass the bills into law. The Democrats could have accomplished these same compromises to the middle several months ago but didn't because even to a casual observer it was clear that their priority was the good of the their party ahead of the good of the country.

Interesting that in the wake of 11/2 the Far Left/ Progressives were outspokenly blaming Obama for the disastrous election results; in their minds and rhetoric the poor results were indicative of the President’s not being left-leaning enough. The Far Left also blamed the President’s allowing the single-payer provision to be excluded from Obamacare thus giving voters on the left yet another reason for voting against the Democrats. Of course, the Far Left was wrong on both criticisms of Obama. The 11/2 election thrashing of the Democrats, to an objective observer, was a result of voters’ dissatisfaction with the continuing weak economy, high unemployment, and, the coup de gras, the undignified passage of Obamacare through the use of unprecedented nefarious political tactics that were endorsed if not encouraged by the President. Arguably, the Democrats marginalizing, ridiculing and labeling the Tea Party members as "an unruly mob of white, right wing nuts and bigots" also energized voters to go to the polls to vote for "change." In the end, a majority of Americans entered the voting booths with a very sour taste in their mouths for Democrat candidates.

But, after all is said and done, I give President Obama credit that he finally, or should I say in the nick of time, saw the light, probably realizing that if he did not move quickly and significantly to the middle that his presidency would surely end in 2012. Nevertheless, the damage he and his Party did to the country by wasting precious time is done, and you can't turn back the clock or take back stupid; but, because of his policy moves to the center his presidential future has probably been saved unless he gets caught with a White House page in the Oval Office, or the GOP miraculously produces an electable candidate in the next few months.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!

Albiwan..

Maureen Dowd-"Myth and Madness" Sept. 19,2010

I love to read Maureen Dowd’s columns because she is so literary and because she is a window to the world of the farthest left progressive thinking, something difficult for me to understand because to me today's progressive ideology seems irrational.

When I read columns such as Myth and Madness (it is pasted below) what I see is someone tearing people down because of beliefs they might have now or might have had in a previous life. The irony in a writer doing this especially in the context of politics is absurd because the current state of US politics could not be any worse thanks to the past 20 months, ten years, 18 years, 22 years, etc. pick a time frame. The upstanding citizens/ members of the Congress over the past pick a time frame have run the gamut from unethical, immoral, illegal, child abusers, extortionists, embezzlers, thieves, tax evaders, wife abusers, you name it; yet Maureen Dowd wants me to be concerned about some young woman (Christine O'Donnell) who did silly things in her life who now twenty years later thinks she has matured and wants to do something positive for the country or for herself. What am I missing here?

Actually when one considers the performance of the Congress over pick a time frame perhaps a little witchcraft and magic should be introduced into the process, which is currently not working, in order to improve it. :-)

Dowd wrote: “She’s (O' Donnell) right that there’s an untamed beast rampaging through American politics. But this beast does not seem blessed; rather it has loosed a kind of ugliness and wildness in the land.”
Has Dowd ever read a book about American History? And Dowd thinks Christine O’Donnell is in a fantasy world?
Dowd wrote: “Christine O’Donnell is in a fantasy world. Literally.” Please, Maureen... Obama, now that was a fantasy, probably even in his own estimation, until he wasn’t.

Dowd wrote: “Obama’s bloodless rationality has helped spawn the right’s bloodletting of irrationality. His ivory tower approach to the nation’s fears and anxieties about the economy gave rise to a tower of angry babble. Tea Party is basically a big tent for anger.” What the captain(Dowd) means is, if you disagree with the captain you are irrational and angry, which is the Progressive mantra for the day. I do not suppose that the Right would attack its opposition any differently were it in power.

On a personal note, I am not angry with President Obama; I simply think his policies could have been better conceived, expressed, and executed. My logic tells me that if I do not like his record I should not support him or those who voted for his policies. Anger has nothing to do with my thinking.

And, the Tea Party is not doing anything that has not already been done before by political activists over centuries, but it has been made to look extreme by a vilifying liberal media. That’s life... it's hot in the kitchen. Moveon.org is a liberal activist organization that was instrumental in electing President Obama. It was far better organized and funded and perhaps pushed the envelope much further than the TP, yet the press didn’t touch Moveon. C’est la vie, again.

I have said it before and I will say it again, politics is infested by slimy people and the slimiest of them rise to the top because they are capable of sliming someone without the unsuspecting/naive slimee even knowing it. The one liner most often used to describe lawyers also suits the politician...”how can you tell when a politician is lying? His lips are moving.” Perhaps politics has reached the level of absurdity but the “angry” reaction (to me it's simply a non-violent protest) against today's absurd politics from the populace is probably better than if this majority remained "silent."

Maureen makes politics more interesting to follow, but there is no special wisdom in this column, just special writing.

Albiwan..

Myth and Madness-Maureen Dowd

The pretty Palin Mini-Me identifies with the women of Middle Earth, comparing herself to the female characters in the “Lord of the Rings” novels by J. R. R. Tolkien.

“Look at the significance that he gives to Eowyn, the Lady of Rohan,” O’Donnell said on C-Span in 2003. “She was a warrior spirit and, to me, that’s who I love. I mean, I aspire to be soft and gentle like Arwen, but realistically, I’m a fighter, like Eowyn.”

O’Donnell said she liked Tolkien’s outlook on gender: “On the one hand, there’s the attitude that’s normally on the conservative side — as a conservative woman, I feel I can say this — that stifles women. There’s almost the stereotypical attitude of, to be a true woman, you have to stay at home. And I’ve actually had people say to me, ‘Why do you choose a career over marriage?’ Honestly, I’ve had only a few significant relationships, and they’ve broken up with me. And one of the things I’ve been told is, ‘If you weren’t so strong, you’d be married by now.’ ”

This anti-abortion, anti-masturbation, anti-premarital-sex, anti-stem-cells, anti-gay-marriage, dubious-about-evolution Christian conservative has rocked politics by snatching the Delaware Republican nomination for the Senate away from the seemingly sure-thing moderate Mike Castle.

At the Values Voter Summit here on Friday, the 41-year-old O’Donnell cited another fantasy world to conjure up a Christlike image for the Tea Party.

“We’re rowdy, we’re passionate,” she told the enraptured crowd. “It reminds me of the C. S. Lewis Narnia books, where the little girl asks someone about Aslan the lion, who represents God, and she says with a little concern over such a fearsome lion, ‘Is he safe?’ And her friend says, ‘Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.’ ”

She’s right that there’s an untamed beast rampaging through American politics. But this beast does not seem blessed; rather it has loosed a kind of ugliness and wildness in the land.

Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox, Karl Rove dismissed O’Donnell as an absurd choice with a sketchy background and dubious character. He alluded to facts in The Weekly Standard that chronicled her lawsuit against her former employer, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative nonprofit based in Delaware.

Although O’Donnell said in 1998 that wives should “graciously submit” to their husbands, her 2005 suit charged that she suffered “mental anguish” after being demoted and fired because the institute’s conservative philosophy deemed that women must be subordinate.

We the People in the Ruling Class Elites do think O’Donnell comes across as alarmingly loopy. But maybe she’s smart as a fox in doing a Single-White-Female, Fox anchor makeover to look more like her queen-maker, Sarah Palin.

She’s also smart to think of politics in terms of passion and myth — two elements Barack Obama was able to summon during his campaign that are sorely missing from his presidency.

She might have gone a broom too far, though, when she once told Bill Maher that she had “dabbled into witchcraft” and went on a date with a witch that included “a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.”

Obama’s bloodless rationality has helped spawn the right’s bloodletting of irrationality. His ivory tower approach to the nation’s fears and anxieties about the economy gave rise to a tower of angry babble. Tea Party is basically a big tent for anger.

The president’s struggle to connect and inspire passion is a dispiriting contrast to, as Yeats said, the worst, full of passionate intensity.

The first African-American president, who wrote in his memoir that he trained himself as a young man not to let his anger show in a suspicious white society, now faces anger on an unprecedented scale from a mostly white movement.

He seems weary of crisis management, conveying the attitude of the hero in “The Incredibles” who has to keep saving the world: “Sometimes I just want it to stay saved!”

The president seems put upon and impatient with reality while his foes seem happy to embrace fantasy.

Obama can connect with policy. He just can’t connect with the objects of policy. Empathy seems more like an abstract concept than something to practice.

He has never shaken off that slight patronizing attitude toward the working-class voters he is losing now, the ones he dubbed “bitter” during his campaign. There is no premium in trying to save people’s jobs and lift them up and give them health care if they feel that you can’t relate to them. That’s how Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his job, despite D.C.’s progress on schools and crime.

The insane have achieved political respectability while the sane act too good for it all. The irrational celebrate while the rational act bored and above-it-all.

When Rahm Emanuel leaves to go run for mayor in Chicago, all the blood will drain out of the White House. And Obama can go to Ben’s Chili Bowl for lunch every day and it won’t matter.

Movie Critics Are From What Planet?

Mao's Last Dancer was the movie I went to see on Saturday, August 28th. I heard from friends that it was a good film but then I read the discouraging two-star review in the Weekend section from the Miami Herald, which caused me to re-think my decision whether or not to see it.

In the end, even with the not so encouraging critical review, a friend and I went to see the film just to get out of the South Florida summer heat and to eat popcorn. Good decision. The air conditioning and popcorn were good, but the movie was one of the best I've seen in years.

For a remarkable movie like Mao's Last Dancer to receive a mediocre review makes me wonder from what planet do movie critics come, and who are the aliens that voted for the Hurt Locker for last year's Best Picture at the Academy Awards?

A suggestion, if one likes the subject matter of a film, or the actors, or the director or one simply wants to get out of inclement weather and eat popcorn, do yourself a favor, disregard the critics' reviews and go to see the movie. :-)

Albiwan...

re-elect Carlos A. Rodriguez, Broward County Judge group 6

Carlos Rodriguez was my attorney for six years and fought Unum Provident Insurance Company and its bevy of lawyers who attempted to deny my rightful claim. Unum tried every dirty trick in the book but Carlos, quite simply, ate their lunch. He exhibited a fertile, creative, and extremely aggressive mind. Unum finally gave in knowing they were no match for Carlos who was a virtual bulldog. I believe Carlos enjoys being challenged and no matter how accomplished he might be he still wants to take his performance to a higher level. This is the kind of man who belongs on the bench.
It’s not a perfect world and neither is Carlos or any of us. But I can tell you this, if all lawyers were measured by Carlos’ standards the legal profession would be held in considerably higher esteem. This is a special man and anyone attempting to vilify him on a personal level is doing so because Carlos cannot be challenged on his judicial record or his work ethic. He deserves re-election.

Albiwan

E.J. Dionne...Reality???

Did you happen to read E.J.Dionne’s column this am. He said that if GM wasn’t given TARP of 25bil from Bush and 60bil from Obama over 1 million jobs would have been lost. This Dem shill was giving O credit for turning around the US car industry. Not so fast E.J. You managed to leave one pesky little fact out of your column.

Reality? Even after GM was given the $ it still went bankrupt! and had to reorganize operations and rewrite union contracts. Had the TARP $ not gone to GM, it would have gone into bankruptcy sooner, reorganized sooner, rewritten the union contracts sooner, and saved taxpayers $85billion. The reason for delaying the bankruptcy was probably a concession to the unions, a Democrat voting stronghold. Dummy Bush probably gave the $ to GM because he thought the unions would smile more favorably on the Republicans. Fat chance.

E.J. Dionne is so typical of the press that simply will not be honest with the readers.

Albiwan

...it can make you go blind...

I’d like to see a nationally syndicated columnist write about O’s campaign promises that he has delivered on, such as healthcare, financial reform, waging the Afghanistan “war of necessity”, etc juxtaposed to the polls indicating the unpopularity of O’s very same promises delivered. Might one deduce from the negative polls that many who voted for O did not understand his policies or, in fact, didn’t even know what his policies were until they were passed, e.g. Healthcare reform? Perhaps when O's legions were adolescents they were too involved in an activity that was said to potentially cause blindness and in fact did.
Each day I pick up my daily newspaper and read yet another mind boggling story of misjudgments made by the O’s administration. In my mind’s eye, what I am witnessing is surely but unfortunately remarkable in my lifetime.

All the best,

Albiwan..

It Was The Federal Government, Stupid!

If I have to listen to our federal government blame the banks and Wall Street one more time for the economic meltdown, my head is going to explode.

First of all, President Obama's "we knew the economy we inherited was bad but we were surprised at how bad it was" is such b.s. Obama was not surprised by anything. Half of his staff have spent their careers in other administrations and knew everything that was going on in Washington and the country, especially related to the economy. (Geithner, Bernanke, Regional Fed chiefs, etc.)
If you will concede that the root of America’s problem is a mismanaged economy then you must go back to 1977 when Pres Carter signed the CRA into law, which forced banks to approve low interest mortgages to people who were unqualified and eventually couldn’t make their payments. Carter’s heart might have been in the right place because interest rates were as high as 20% so he was trying to make housing affordable. (I got a 14.6% mortgage in 1978.) Big mistake. Reagan did nothing to recall the dangerous law, neither did Bush 41, nor did Clinton who in fact in 1995, prior to his re-election bid, revised the CRA law to lower the standards even further for, by now, what amounted to unsecured mortgages.
Then, the Bush you love to hate was also complicit because even though he warned Congress as early as 2003 that Freddie and Fannie, which sold these junk mortgages, were a train wreck about to happen; but he would not stand up and stop the madness. This was the first of several times Barney Frank proclaimed that both Freddie and Fannie "were on solid financial ground." It was obvious that Blowhard Frank was so wrong it was difficult to believe he made his evaluation while he was conscious. Nevertheless, rather than do the politically unpopular thing and tell low income people the golden mortgage goose stopped laying eggs, President Bush backed down from challenging Barney and slunk away into the shadows. Soon, $700 billion of these bundled toxic assets were sold to China.

And here we are conveniently blaming poor George who didn’t have the brains, nerve, or moral depth to do the right thing and stop or at least minimize the stupidity.

Ever notice how both the Democrats and GOP, which never agree to anything, seem to march in lockstep to always blame the banks rather than each other? The reason is that the House Banking Committee for years has been responsible for oversight of the banking rules but failed in its duties to review and slow down the progress of the CRA runaway train.

In the final analysis, the Congress, replete with Democrats and Republicans, ENABLED the banks to take advantage of loopholes in the CRA. Had Congress been vigilant, perhaps the housing bubble and trillions in bundled derivative crap would have been minimized in their infancy. Had that been the case probably the US wouldn't have elected and now have to deal with a President struggling through his on-the-job-training. Following Bush's presidency should have been the best situation ever for Obama because 'you can’t fall off the floor'...although, thus far Pres Obama is making me rethink that adage.
Albiwan...