Jun 05 2010
It’s The Dawning Of The Age Of Incompetence …
It is quite disturbing that adults in this nation are flummoxed about why a group of campaigners can be so pathetic at governing and leading. I mean, what clueless fool thinks campaigning is anything like leading or governing?? Apparently news journalists are classic examples of such foolishness:
At virtually every turn lately, the White House cannot shake the appearance that it is hamstrung and a step behind. From a major crisis such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to smaller and seemingly avoidable controversies over internal Democratic Party politics, President Obama and his team are on the defensive.
…
That all this has happened to a White House staffed by the team that so successfully navigated the 2008 presidential campaign is a source of surprise and consternation for Democrats. The missteps have also become easy ammunition for Republicans seeking to capitalize on what may be self-inflicted wounds.
Well, it seems Democrats are easy to surprise. Let’s think about a campaign – especially Obama’s campaign. He promised, promised, promised and then exaggerated, exaggerated, exaggerated and then went mental. For example, some promises not kept:
- No. 24: End income tax for seniors making less than $50,000
- No. 71: Allow imported prescription drugs
- No. 234: Allow five days of public comment before signing bills
- No. 240: Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials
Then, there were the exaggerations:
- Close GITMO
- Reduce Health Care costs
- Capture Bin Laden
Then came the demi-god pronouncements in his inauguration speech:
This was the moment, crowed the young inexperienced senator from Illinois, that this country began to care for the sick, create good jobs for the jobless. This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal!!!
And people believed him.
Look, campaigning at its essence is all about making promises in a manner a lot of people believe you – that’s the only gift required. There is no requirement anyone can actually make it happen, that test comes later. President Obama was gifted in BS, nothing more. He had zero managerial or administrative experience. He had a layman’s grasp of issues and subjects, but enough arrogance to assume he could waddle into a room of subject matter leaders and experts and be seen as the visionary and not the buffoon.
It is not a surprise this empty suit has no clue what do to when flowery words are not enough. He has no grasp of issues and challenges, as we now know with the gulf oil leak. He is a poseur, and that was his plan for dealing with the oil spill. He had no answers, so he just looked busy:
Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, told Obama at one of the earliest briefings in late April that the blowout would likely lead to an unprecedented environmental disaster, senior White House aides told The Daily Beast. Browner warned that capping a well at such depths had never been done before, and that they ought to expect an oil spill that would continue until a relief well was drilled in August, the aide said.
That early briefing on the scope of the spill—and enormous technical challenges involved in fixing it—might help explain the sense of fatalism that has infused Obama’s team from the start.
“Fatalism”? It was not fatalism that hit this young and cocky administration – it was pure shock. Obama and his team have been a deer in the headlights of a national disaster. There were all sorts of actions to take, from the burn-off plan to Governor Jindal’s sand bars to engaging the Saudi’s to applying dispersion chemicals. Two of these actions were stopped due to ‘environmental impact’ concerns! What bureaucratic idiot decided letting oil wipe out all life along the gulf coast was a lesser environmental disaster?
This is not fatalism, this is incompetence writ large. This was this administration’s acid test and it failed. Instead of pulling out all the stops and enlisting help, Obama went on a ‘look busy’ tour.
People who voted for President Obama need to realize their role in this. They tried to take a short cut out of reality. They were tired of being challenged by President Bush to face up to reality and all its challenges. Too many wanted the government to give them free homes and pay for gasoline. Too many were wallowing in a pool of lazy, self indulgence – trying to run from reality instead of taking it head on.
So they voted for the tooth fairy and found that he was nothing but a politician. And they have the gaul to be shocked???
Addendum: Now for the lyrics:
When liberals dwell in the White House
And Pelosi aligns with Reid
Deficits will rocket to the heavens
And the jobless are left to plead
It is the dawning of the age of Incompetence,
Liberal Incompetence,
In-comp-et-ence, In-comp-et-ence
Arrogance fed by ignorance
Flowery & vague abundance
False claims laced with derision
Empty promises followed with division
From mythical powers of vision
Comes only historic revision
In-comp-et-ence, In-comp-et-ence
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-03/obama-white-house-exodus-20-something-true-believers-burning-out/
Burnout by the younger set that helped push him to where he is.
A.J., you are really on a roll lately, with more than a few moments of sheer brilliance. I enjoyed this piece so much and agree with it so heartily, I’m typing (not copying/pasting) it again so I can enjoy every letter and punctuation mark while forcing untold millions of visitors to re-read it. [Full disclosure: the compulsive proof reader that lives in my head forced me to correct one homonym.]
EXCERPT:
People who voted for President Obama need to realize their role in this. They tried to take a short cut out of reality. They were tired of being challenged by President Bush to face up to reality and all its challenges. Too many wanted the government to givethem free homes and pay for gasoline. Too many were wallowing in a pool of lazy self indulgence – trying to run from reality instead of taking it head on.
So they voted for the tooth fairy and found that he was nothing but a politician. And they have the gall to be shocked???
AND ONCE MORE FOR EMPHASIS:
They were tired of being challenged by President Bush to face up to reality and all its challenges.
I would disagree slightly. Running a campaign is in fact a measure of executive decision making ability. It’s a complex undertaking with a lot of moving parts. It should continue to be respected as a dress rehearsal for someone who aspires to sit in the country’s CEO chair.
The scandalous difference this time is Barry wasn’t running the campaign. He was handled by the campaign. The campaign was run by a Progressive machine that dared not speak its name openly.
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
[For a light hearted take on our present peril]
[…] Strata looks at the incompetence that characterizes every aspect of the Obama administration. My take is that they are incompetent, not because they are incapable, but because incompetence […]
That “lazy self-indulgence” will get you every time.
Wonderful post.
I believe that if we, as a country, knew then what we know no, Obama would never have been elected. Some of us were screaming about all the secrets: the Annenberg Challenge, Harvard Law Review, who wrote his books, what went on at Columbia, why did Obama have no record from his days in the Illinois and then the US Senate? Where was all the money coming from? Why was his primary campaign so different from his general election campaign? Who, exactly, is Barack Obama?
But, the country in general, and the press in particular, did not want to ask theses questions. They did not want to dig for the answers because to do so might upset the apple cart. Don’t you know we are on the verge of the historic accomplishment of electing a black man President and making Michelle proud, finally? So, we elected this unknown and this is what we got. We can only hope we get out of it before he completely screws up foreign policy and destroys this nation and our alliances. The problems Israel is having is a direct result of Obama’s treatment of Israel. Turkey would not be supporting a flotilla if it were not for a weak President in Obama. Brazil would not be letting Iran court them if it were not for Obama’s weak kneed responses to Chavez. Everything Obama touches turns to lead.
It is hard to believe any President could have made Carter look strong, decisive, and a visionary, but Obama has succeeded beyond even the Arabs wildest dreams. We will pay for it for a long time just as we are still paying for Carter’s actions with Iran.
Rick, well said and I agree with almost everything you wrote. Except the “if people had known more about Obama” argument. I concede that we may have to pretend to allow some people that “out” to protect their fragile egos and deficient minds. Fine. But between you and me, I hold those people 100% accountable and I have zero confidence that they will act in any smarter fashion the next time around. I think the best we can hope for is that the Tooth Fairy inflicts so much pain that a significant number of fools will throw another tantrum and vote against TF. But they won’t be voting for anything smart, or for any solid principles. As AJ said, they behaved like self indulgent children hiding from a strict parent.
Allow me to explain …
Excellent, excellent post AJ.
And Rick, I also will not give the “if they knew then what we know now” crowd an inch. TOO MANY PEOPLE were screaming about this guy in ’08. But, alas, they wouldn’t listen. The “Tooth Fairy” (and the lame stream media) sounded so much sweeter.
And those who sat home deserve what they are getting along with the Jewish people and Catholics who voted in mass for this guy. What has been sown is now being reaped. Unfortunately we are all having to pay for it…and “we” are not pleased.
As to this administration, someone please tell me what in their pasts is NOT Marxist/radical? They are laughing their heads off at all who think this administration is in a good-faith relationship with the United States of America.
“It is quite disturbing that adults in this nation are flummoxed about why a group of campaigners can be so pathetic at governing and leading. ”
It’s sort of like a horrible product that has great commercials.
When I heard Obama speak in Germany, I had a sinking feeling that he could sell himself to the American people. He said all the right things if you were willing to believe. I didn’t because I knew what Obama, the democrats and MSM said about George Bush for 8 years were mostly lies. But he, Obama, did dish up the fairy tales in spades, as if the dot com bubble hadn’t happened, as if 911 hadn’t happened, as if the images of dying dogs in Northern Iraq poisoned, were made up by some bad actor, as if millions of Muslim men are really harmless fuzz-balls, as if immigration, and Social Security are problems that only democrats can fix, as if taxing the rich would solve all our problems and those who worry about how they will make it will be sprinkled with fairy dust, a gift from Obama and the rich, and the world will be healed.
I think Obama has no intelligence for the international picture and how it works. Everything he touches or chooses not to look at is a screw up. You’ve got western countries boycotting Israel, ignoring North Korea’s sinking a South Korean ship (surely an act of war), Russia pushing us around, Brazil working with Iran, Iran in Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras smacked upside the head by our State Department, it feels like the world is rudderless with a shrinking America. Obama has no appreciation for the role that this country has played in a world in need of values, decency, imagination, exploration, freedom, ingenuity, and millions of other descriptive words of why the world needs us. We are the STOP sign and the GO sign!
At home Obama is a 20% president, he speaks to 20% of Americans and their needs and expects the rest of us to fall into line and make his vision happen. He doesn’t even pretend to appreciate, include or listen to us awful barbarians, who don’t have a clue, how good, and suave, and intelligent he is. We need lessons in social justice, we need to get in his line, then and only then will the world be right.
There are a few courageous souls in the wing who have thought through many of the problems Obama has created, who can fix the mess, if only we elect them to do so. Let’s hope we are smarter the next time around.
PS
Great post AJ!
I’d have to conclude that a large number of “adults” in this nation could not escape from a wet paper bag without help.
Very good AJ. I agree totally.
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The liberal democrats worked it this way that the majority of the populace vote with them. They have dumbed down education to the point where most kids know no history. They quit teaching penmanship in elementary school. In my former job as sorta human relations, I saw applicant after applicant write in cursive crabbed and tiny words and names barely legible and all jumbled together. The schools are too busy teaching the kids there are no winners, their version of history and lately how to do homosexual sex as opposed to teaching them real subjects and how to get on in later life. This was, of course, deliberate. Make the voters so stupid they will believe anything and vote liberals in office. All liberals have to do is promise the voters everything.
The notion has been floated that California high schools will stop teaching American history prior to the Civil War. No more Federalist Papers or constitution arguments of any sort. It all begins with “The Progressive Era” and goes from there.
We need to get this people OUT of our government and not just at the federal level. It needs to start at the community level. Have people running for a “non-partisan” office? Have a look at their political contributions (available on the web).
CP, from one of Glenn Beck “Founders’ Fridays” shows, some students indicated that their schools no longer teach American History. Period. Only World and Europe history. So California isn’t the only state that’s no longer teaching American history or starting with the “Progressive Era”.
Which is why Jerry Falwell, Jr., said 1) Incoming students take a full course on the Founding history to “catch up”. 2) One of the reasons he’s seeing an increase in applications to his university is that many of the applicants are conservative thinkers and the academia is not allowing them to express their opinions (they are being forced to their ideology). 3) His university is set up to allow students to express their opinions, regardless of their ideology.
But check this:
http://chicksontheright.com/2010/06/05/the-us-constitution-now-has-a-warning-label-you-guys/ – The US Constitution has a warning label.
“This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.
And watch this guy sing the last verse of Star Spangled Banner song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9_bP219ehQ – and the response from the crowd is awesome:
*******************************************
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause. it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave
****************************************