Suddenly, liberal op-ed writers are trashing -- even lampooning -- Barack Obama as a one-term president ("one and done"). Centrist Democrats up for re-election in 2012 worry about inviting a kindred president into their districts, lest the supposed pariah lose them votes. The ship is sinking!
Left-wing think tanks, environmentalists and academics vent their anger at Obama for supposedly being too soft on Republicans and too ready to compromise with right-wingers. But what really caused the left-wing falling-out, less than three years after their crush on Obama? For now, polls. Abandon ship!
Obama's popularity has dropped to little more than 40 percent approval. Suddenly, Democrats worry that the public anger could be contagious. It might infect them, too -- in the way a sinking George W. Bush hurt congressional Republicans in 2006. Every person for themselves!
Yet the left can't fairly blame Obama. After all, he rammed through on a strictly partisan vote the century-old liberal dream of a federal takeover of health care - something that Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton never could do. Keynesians never dreamed that a president could actually borrow $5 trillion for domestic spending in less than three years.
The Obama administration even tried to shut down a new Boeing aircraft plant on the shaky argument that the company might thereby be hiring fewer union workers elsewhere. For greens, Obama kept oil producers out of fields in Alaska, the American West, the Gulf and other offshore sites. Hundreds of billions in borrowed federal money went to failed "wind and solar" plants in an effort to jump-start "millions of green jobs." Or a few jobs worth millions of greenbacks.
The Obama revolution under the radar was even more insidious. Open-borders activists were promised that the government would not bother illegal aliens unless they were wanted for felonies. Never before has America joined a foreign government in suing one of its own states - in the fashion that both the Justice Department and Mexico have either filed or joined suits seeking to overturn Arizona's immigration law.
From January 2009 through 2010, Obama advanced the liberal dream with a passion not seen since the New Deal. He rammed through most of what he wanted from a Democratic Congress - ObamaCare, record borrowing, record spending, hundreds of hard-left presidential appointees and judges. So why isn't the economy humming?
Far from being namby-pamby, Obama has gone after opponents like no president since Richard Nixon. He urged Hispanics to "punish our enemies." He called his political opponents "hostage takers." The affluent were lumped together with the super-rich and derided as "millionaires and billionaires," "corporate-jet owners" and "fat cat" bankers. His supporters in unions and the Congressional Black Caucus freely blasted the Tea Party with slurs -- with the unspoken assurances that the president's constant calls for civility certainly did not apply to them.
Critics may lampoon Obama's use of a teleprompter, but he is a far better megaphone for left-wing policies than was the lackluster Jimmy Carter, the pompous Al Gore or the condescending John Kerry. He easily outshines the wooden Harry Reid and the polarizing Nancy Pelosi. Go, Victor!
So the left can't really complain that Obama betrayed the cause or proved especially inept in advancing it. Instead, Obama's supporters are mad that the public is boiling over chronic 9 percent unemployment, a comatose housing market, escalating food and fuel prices, near nonexistent economic growth, a gyrating stock market, record deficits, $16 trillion in aggregate debt and a historic credit downgrading.
And voters are blaming these hard times on the liberal Obama agenda of more regulations, more federal spending, more borrowing, more talk of taxes and more "stimulus" programs.
A mostly moderate-to-conservative public has concluded that it doesn't like the liberal agenda. After three years, it believes that the big government/big borrowing medicine made the inherited illness far worse. Voters may or may not like Obama, but they surely don't like what he's trying to do.
In response, the left needs a sacrificial lamb. So it has nonsensically turned with a fury on Obama as if he were culpable for getting through the left's own agenda. If Democrats don't blame the public's anger on their once-beloved messenger, then they're left only with their message itself.
That's something they simply can't accept.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/09/2011 10:47 ||
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This is nothing more than the standard left response to the failure of communism.
It is NEVER the policies or the philosophy it is ALWAYS inept implementation. If only Stalin, Mao, Castro, .... had done it right we would be living in utopia.
Obama is just the latest failure in the long line of leftist utopians.
[Dawn] THE Abbottabad inquiry commission`s recommendation that a case of treason be registered against Shakil Afridi, the doctor who set up a fake polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... vaccination campaign to try and get DNA samples from the residents of the compound the late Osama bin Laden ... who went titzup one dark and stormy night... was hiding in, merits some debate. First, the legal principles at stake. The reports on the commission`s recommendation do not make clear whether it is a trial under Article 6 of the constitution (high treason) that is being sought or whether Dr Afridi is to be prosecuted for engaging in espionage activities for a foreign intelligence agency. At one level, the case may seem fairly straightforward: taking money to aid a foreign intelligence agency is a crime in countries across the world. Indeed, the recent case brought in the US against Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai for allegedly taking money from a Pak intelligence agency to lobby the US government is a pertinent example.
Yet, the case of Dr Shakil Afridi ought to be seen outside the confines of a narrow interpretation of the law. Dr Afridi was part of an effort to catch the world`s most wanted terrorist who was hiding on Pak soil. In doing so, it is highly unlikely that he was aware of the plans for a unilateral American raid on Pak soil; after all, in the past there has been much cooperation between the US and Pakistain on the capture of senior Al Qaeda leaders. So what exactly is the Pak national interest that has been harmed by Dr Afridi in helping locate the world`s most wanted terrorist on Pak soil? In most other countries, a case like Dr Afridi`s might have met with a different response. There is an even more distressing aspect to this tale of transnational subterfuge: reportedly, incensed by the American-sponsored ploy, the security apparatus has tightened its monitoring of international aid agencies and local NGOs involved in the health sector, potentially disrupting the urgent work of stamping out the polio virus that has been resurgent in Pakistain in recent years. Must innocent children suffer because of cloak-and-dagger games between states?
Posted by: Fred ||
10/09/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] IN as far as it highlighted one of Pakistain's most difficult security challenges, the Supreme Court's announcement on Bloody Karachi's law and order problem is welcome. What more it will achieve, if anything, remains unclear. It is no small matter for the SC to declare that political parties are harbouring criminal elements, to name those parties and to state that the federal and Sindh governments have failed to protect the fundamental rights of Bloody Karachi's citizens. While this is all common knowledge, it is now a matter of record noted by Pakistain's highest court. The hearings also served as an independent forum bringing together various sources of information, where intelligence and security officials and various arms of the administration could air their observations and defend themselves and through which some evidence, such as the joint investigation team reports, came to light. In doing so it provided a broad overview of how and why violence in Bloody Karachi takes place. The SC has also placed on the record some potentially useful solutions, although many of these have been widely discussed for years with no implementation.
Ultimately, however, the announcement could have been bolder. It does call for the creation of a committee to ensure action against those disturbing the peace, but asks for few other monitoring mechanisms. Many of the prescriptions are not time-bound. Depoliticising the police and deweaponising the city, for example, are massive and controversial undertakings that will likely end up being ignored or delayed by those in power at the federal, provincial and city levels who the announcement itself acknowledges are part of the problem. The same goes for other prescriptions such as formulating a law against land-grabbing, prohibiting shutter-down strikes, eliminating 'no-go' areas and rezoning cop shoppes. No instruction has been given to the executive to initiate cases as soon as possible against those whose confessions are part of the JIT report.
The reaction of the political parties named in the judgment has been an unsurprising indicator of what might follow, given that it is not in any of their interests to accept blame. Two of the parties involved in much of the violence have embraced the judgment despite its accusations against them, positioning themselves as champions of peace in Bloody Karachi while refusing to acknowledge the presence of criminal elements in their ranks. Others have objected to accusations of criminality. The fundamental challenge in the way of solving Bloody Karachi's violence remains the same: regardless of what even the SC might prescribe, the city's dynamics mean that only the parties' collective will can help make it a safer place.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/09/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] LIKE the rest of the world, I've had the dubious pleasure of watching the long-running US-Pakistain soap opera/relationship plunge to new lows over recent weeks.
True, it made good headlines and certainly the cast of characters is interestingly colourful. Tough, gun-toting generals, shifty security officials, ruthless faceless myrmidons and -- a new addition -- a beautiful and classy woman, crowded on to an already very full stage, jostling for attention.
But frankly, like many observers, I could barely suppress my yawns. These repeated public squabbles, accusations and counter-accusations, finger-pointing, followed by angry sulks and much chest-beating and thumping are getting extremely tedious.
It's time to innovate and get a bit more creative. At a time when even Bollywood is thinking outside the box, US and Pak foreign policy scriptwriters need to rethink the old-fashioned and outdated formula. The danger of following the well-worn genre is clear for both sides.
The US risks really losing face and patience with its once and future partner as Pak leaders run amok, suddenly morphing from friends into adversaries. Pakistain, meanwhile, is in danger of becoming known worldwide as a schizophrenic and
unpredictable partner, unable to make up its mind on whether it wants to be known as a progressive Mohammedan nation or one which provides succour to its ally's worst enemies.
For the moment, both sides seem to be enjoying the drama and passion. Top US officials, including the now retired Adm Mike Mullen, certainly hit the headlines by describing the Haqqani network as a "veritable arm" of the ISI and responsible for the attack on the US embassy in Kabul.
The entire world has always had strong suspicions about the ISI-Haqqani ties -- but nobody as yet has made the accusation in public. That of course enraged all of Pakistain with politicians of all sorts discovering a brief moment of brotherhood and solidarity as they ranted against the US.
There were passionate references to illusory sovereignty and patriotism. Was it impressive? Did the rest of the world sit up and listen?
Not really. It was just more proof that politicians in the country can only unite to vent against a common enemy -- the US in this case but often, of course, India.
The Pak military was once again painted as heroes -- all references to their failure to 'discover' the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... in Abbottabad and their various humbling run-ins with faceless myrmidons including at the Bloody Karachi naval base, erased from memory. As Gen Ashfaq Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... and the ISI chief Shuja Pasha emerged smelling of roses -- proving once again that the country's politicians run to the military's tune -- Pakistain's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar took to the American airwaves to complain about inappropriate behaviour from an ally.
And then of course, there were the usual references by Pakistain to the country's only true 'all-weather' friend China and that other strong backer of democracy and human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... , Soddy Arabia. 'Who needs America when we have China on our side' goes the predictable Pak mantra. Although this time, Beijing's embrace did not seem to be that warm -- after all China has its own fears of Pakistain-based forces of Evil making their way into their country. And Soddy Arabia is too busy keeping its eye on the Arab Spring to pay attention to Pakistain.
Adding to the excitement, India and Afghanistan signed up for a 'strategic partnership' after President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... indulged in his traditional monthly tirade against Pakistain. He then went on to say Islamabad should have no worries since Pakistain and Afghanistan were "twin brothers".
We did not have to wait long for the back-tracking to begin. Having put the cat among the pigeons, Adm Mullen reiterated the need to somehow maintain the alliance. "A flawed and strained engagement with Pakistain is better than disengagement," he said. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta ...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.... said the US should build a "cooperative and trusting" relationship with Pakistain, where both countries pursue the goal to eliminate terrorism as their major effort. "What we've got to do is build a trusting relationship where we both understand that our major effort has to be to end terrorism, period," he said, describing the US-Pakistain relationship as complicated but necessary.
But he pointed out that there's no such thing as a good terrorist. Pakistain could not "pick and choose among terrorists. If you're against terrorism, you've got to be against all terrorism". It's good advice but likely to go unheeded of course.
While the nation raged against the US, the rest of the world read and sympathised over the plight of thousands of people made homeless by the recent torrential rains in Sindh, the spread of dengue fever and of course rising anger in the country over power cuts.
As one newspaper report pointed out, "concerns over blackouts, inflation and unemployment are a far more pressing worry for many in the country of 180 million people than the risk of the thug bombings or sectarian attacks that periodically rock Pakistain's cities". As far as the country's army, security and political establishment are concerned, it appears that relations with the US are a far stronger priority than making sure that Pakistain's factories keep running, schools and hospitals can
function properly, taxes are paid and that proper action is taken to tackle repeated flooding caused by global warming.
The day that Paks unite to work for progress, growth and development instead of burning the US flag, yes, the world will be impressed.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/09/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Even the Pak Army COAS Kayanai infers as much ...
* DEFENCE>PK/FORUMS > "NO MORE MILITARY OPERATIONS": GENERAL KAYANI RULES OUT AMERICAN DEMANDS, arguing that large-scale, routine, anti-MilTerr oriented Pak Army-Mil Offensives, however successful, is N-O-T a substitute for effective National or Civilan Govt-Administration, esepc in tribal areas.
[Dawn] MOHAMMAD Ali Jinnah visualised the state of Pakistain as "a homeland for the Mohammedans of the subcontinent".
Sadly, he did not specify precisely which sect of Mohammedans he had in mind. Although a Shia himself, he did not have a sectarian bone in his body.
Indeed, he was secular to the core, and this was the philosophy he bequeathed to the state he had created virtually single-handedly. This was a bequest we tore up even before he was laid to rest.
So as we witness the ongoing massacre of Hazara Shias in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , we need to take a hard look at the monsters Pakistain has spawned over the years. Management gurus teach us that before we can solve a problem, we must first analyse it to gain a full understanding of the underlying causes.
But given the deep state of denial we prefer to stay in, we shy away from making the logical connection between cause and effect. When elaborating on his 'two-nation theory', Mr Jinnah was of the view that Mohammedans could not live side by side with Hindus in a united India as we were a different nation in terms of values and cultural norms.
This notion led to the partition of India in 1947, and even though millions of Mohammedans did not -- or could not -- make their way to the new state, Pakistain was born in a cataclysm of blood and fire. Almost immediately, the hard-line vision of Islam, espoused by Maulana Maududi and his Jamaat-i-Islami, became the ideology of large numbers of right-wing intellectuals and holy mans.
However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... it wasn't until Zia seized power in 1977 that this literal strand of Islam became the official ideology of the state.
Some of the hard-line Sunni groups like the Sipah-i-Sahaba came into being in Zia's period, declaring Shias to be 'wajib-ul qatal', or deserving of death. Needless to say, these killers were permitted to thrive by Zia.
Step by step, the notion of separateness at the heart of Partition has fostered a feeling of 'us against them'. Taken to its illogical extreme by hard-line ideologues and their brainwashed followers, this translates into the belief that those not following their particular school of Islamic thought become 'wajib-ul qatal'.
Massacres and individual murders resulting from rabid intolerance bearing the spurious stamp of religious orthodoxy are too numerous to cite here. But the recent episodes of the cold-blooded slaughter of Hazara Shias in Balochistan should open the eyes of those wishing to negotiate with the faceless myrmidons responsible for these acts.
Another hard-line, anti-Shia group, the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, was quick to claim responsibility for these murders, and yet the state has done nothing to bring this organization to book.
According to a Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... blurb, "In Balochistan, some Sunni thug groups are widely viewed as allies of the Pak military, its intelligence agencies and the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which are responsible for security there.
Instead of perpetrating abuses in Balochistan against its political opponents, the military should be safeguarding the lives of members of vulnerable communities under attack from thug groups".
But it's not just in Pakistain that Hazara Shias have been targeted: in Afghanistan, thousands have been killed by the Taliban.
Being a visible ethnic group, they are especially vulnerable to an increasingly vicious and violent Sunni majority. In a blog on this newspaper's website, Murtaza Haider has cited a revealing doctoral thesis by Syed Ejaz Hussain. According to his research, 90 per cent of all those jugged for committing terrorist attacks in Pakistain between 1990 and 2009 were Sunni Deobandis.
And it's not just Shias who are being targeted, or Christians, Hindus and Ahmedis: as we have seen time and again, suicide kabooms against mosques and Sufi shrines have killed thousands of Sunnis as well. While there are a growing number of thug groups, they are all united in their intolerance, and their contempt for democratic values and common decency.
Despite the evil these killers represent, there are growing voices in Pakistain demanding that the government negotiate with them. A front man for the Pak Taliban was quoted recently as saying his group would talk to the government provided it broke off its relationship with the United States and imposed Sharia law in the country.
For a criminal gang to make such demands is preposterous; but for sane, educated Paks to advocate talks with such people is even worse. Instead of insisting that we lock up these faceless myrmidons and try them, we are being asked to treat them as a political entity with valid demands.
If we are to ever defeat the hydra-headed monster we have created, our defence establishment will have to acknowledge its huge error in thinking that it could use these killers to further its agenda in Afghanistan and Kashmire. This has provided them with legitimacy, support and impunity. Unless the Pak state repudiates all links with extremism in all its forms, outfits like the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi will continue to murder at will within Pakistain, while the Lashkar-e-Taiba creates mayhem in our neighbourhood.
Quite apart from the collapse of the writ of the state caused by the depredations of these groups, and the innocent lives sacrificed at the altar of misplaced expediency, Pakistain has become a pariah in the international community. Increasingly, the use of terrorism as an instrument of policy is making us a scary country with a powerful death wish.
But while we struggle to cope with the rising tide of extremism, we need to step back and examine how and why we arrived at this abyss.
Clearly, it did not happen overnight. Looking back, we can see that the demand for separate electorates for Mohammedans in British India over 100 years ago was a major historical fork in the road. By conceding to this demand from a group of Mohammedan aristocrats as part of their divide-and-rule policy, the British tried to ensure that the two major religious communities would not unite against them.
However, it was a brave man who first ate an oyster... we do not have the luxury of blaming our predicament on past imperial policies. The British are long gone, and the barbarians are poised to capture the state. We still have a choice, but if we don't act quickly, we risk joining the ranks of failed states like Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/09/2011 00:00 ||
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"failed states like Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan"
The impression I get is you are already there, but act otherwise.
The gun runners and brutal punk fighters are pouring into Afghanistan from your state, that needs to end... now.
Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy K-8 public charter school in suburban St. Paul folded. It was a school that appeared to have been operating illegally at taxpayer expense. You might have said that the school was Islamic in all but name, except that even its name was Islamic.
"...the ACLU Minnesota they were the good guys in this
settled its claims against Islamic Relief USA and the Minnesota Department of Education. Islamic Relief USA agreed to pay the ACLU $267,500. As part of the settlement, the Minnesota Department of Education also agreed to enforce the damn law.
As a result of its failure to find a sponsor as required by state law, TiZA failed to open this fall. The ACLU's case against TiZA nevertheless remains.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
10/09/2011 12:09 ||
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Having trouble getting my head around the ACLU being on the right side of this case.
#3
If the ACLU wants to regain any of its long lost lustre it will find many more of these "Mosque/State" issues to attack. They polluted the pool with their fanatical anti-Christian war. They need to move against this real religious threat.
#4
What a suprise! But then even a dog gets a little sunshine on its A$$.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/09/2011 15:56 Comments ||
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So with this as in intro, any chance of the Twin Cities Airport geting back any money they spent on remodeling the bathrooms for the mussie cab drivers to wash their feet?????
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
THE Abbottabad inquiry commission`s recommendation that a case of treason be registered against Shakil Afridi, the doctor who set up a fake 
IN as far as it highlighted one of Pakistain's most difficult security challenges, the Supreme Court's announcement on 
LIKE the rest of the world, I've had the dubious pleasure of watching the long-running US-Pakistain soap opera/relationship plunge to new lows over recent weeks.
