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2010-08-08 Caribbean-Latin America

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Posted by badanov 2010-08-08 11:25|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 Now this is weird. Every time I think of Mrs. Obama I get the, "Let Them Eat Cake," saying running through my head. I didn't know some one else shared that thought.

Posted by miscellaneous 2010-08-08 12:36|| 2010-08-08 12:36|| Front Page Top

#2 Here's a clue John, you poor sheltered upper-crust twit: Its called LEADERSHIP. Lead by example. Something innate to anyone that's held a military leadership position. "Follow Me" isn't a motto, its a way of life.

We call on our president to be a leader. And guess what? Family matters. The old saying goes "The hardest job in the Army is Army Wife". Like any military wife knows, the commander's wife is part of the team, like it or not. She has to help set the example in public.

And that is where the Obamas fail - basic leadership.

Its becoming mpore and more apparent that he's simply a glib pol from the Chicago machine who is far above his competence, and she's a power hungry social climber with all the grace of a Klingon.

She is the Marie Antoinette to his Jimmy Carter.

Side note: how can this guy be so blind to the obvious issue of personal leadership? Is the "upper crust" and press really that isolated from real life? If so, its time to tear them down, forcefully if needed. They are becoming a clear and present danger to the Republic and liberty.

Posted by OldSpook 2010-08-08 12:44|| 2010-08-08 12:44|| Front Page Top

#3 Side note: how can this guy be so blind to the obvious issue of personal leadership?

Because 'leadership' has been deconstructed into an evil artifact of 'false class consciousness?'
(Ask Lopt- she is way better at explaining how our socialist ruling-class looks at these things.)

Is the "upper crust" and press really that isolated from real life?

That would be 'yes.' Too many examples to mention...

Posted by Free Radical 2010-08-08 13:47|| 2010-08-08 13:47|| Front Page Top

#4 Um, guys? Read this again, remembering that he doesn't like Bambi or Bambi's policies much.

I think Mr. Kass is very imaginatively sticking it to Mrs. Bambi.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2010-08-08 14:10|| 2010-08-08 14:10|| Front Page Top

#5 At my last private-sector gig, the place was going slow spiral Tango-Uniform. Multiple layoffs (Gawd, I got tired of the "you are the best of the best" speaches the day after each one, but I digress.), pay cuts, etc. Yet the CFO had the Obamasense of arriving at work one day in a brand new Porche 911.

Imagine the surprise of us "best of the best" when the damn thing got keyed......

Posted by Uncle Phester 2010-08-08 14:39|| 2010-08-08 14:39|| Front Page Top

#6 ~~speaches~~....er, speeches....was thinking about how in the pits the gig was......

Posted by Uncle Phester 2010-08-08 14:42|| 2010-08-08 14:42|| Front Page Top

#7 Barb, I respectfully disagree - honestly it sounds like he is making excuses for them since they have money they can do as they wish -- he gets his digs in about HOW Obama made the money but does not attack the central "wrongness" of the action in the context of being the primary leader in the US Government. It smells of typical Country Club types defending their own against us rabble, the Sam's Club types.

Again, I think he misses the most salient point: a leaders family IS part and parcel of the team; and their behavior alters the effectiveness of the leadership.

Marie Antoinette was an enabler of Louis XVI, and she deserved the guillotine.

Michelle Antoinette, (knowingly or not) is setting herself and Obumble up the same way, except there is no guillotine waiting (at least not yet).

Posted by OldSpook 2010-08-08 15:23|| 2010-08-08 15:23|| Front Page Top

#8 TO clarify:

And if the first lady wants to take her daughter and her friends to Spain and spend her own money, how dare anyone rip her for it?
[Agreed. Unfair to criticize a wealthy woman for wanting to treat her daughter to a once in a lifetime vacation.]

Dead wrong. If you are Joe Stock holder, then yeah take a vacation, whatever. When you are the leader and your people are hurting, you have to do the right things, even if it means you have to tell the wife and kids "No". THAT is the part of leadership that the original author does not get. There are times when your position demands things that may have you sacrifice personal gratification for the greater good. And that's where it is NOT OK for a rich woman to take a "once in a lifetime vacation".

Just like a division commander's wife doesn't go on a Disneyland vacation when her husband's brigades are deployed in combat (and her husband usually doesn't spend time at the golf course if he is serious about his unit).

Its piss poor leadership, and destructive.

Posted by OldSpook 2010-08-08 15:38|| 2010-08-08 15:38|| Front Page Top

#9 Or perhaps Im missing the /irony tags...

Posted by OldSpook 2010-08-08 15:40|| 2010-08-08 15:40|| Front Page Top

#10 OS, destructive is part of the plan.

Posted by Hellfish 2010-08-08 18:23|| 2010-08-08 18:23|| Front Page Top

#11 I am constantly amazed that people assign a bad execution of good intentions - "obama really loves the US he just has a weird view of economics" or "he's a bad leader because he sends his family friends on this vacation" or "doesn't he realize he plays too much golf and takes too much time off?"

This is who he is. He does not love your America. He is doing all he can to push his agenda and reward his allies which he hopes him to push his anti-American agenda forward. He's not an idiot - he's against all this country stands for.

Once you look at it this way he makes a lot more sense.

Posted by Hellfish 2010-08-08 18:28|| 2010-08-08 18:28|| Front Page Top

#12 Compare the column Mr. Kass wrote with the one Joe Klein of Newsweek would have written had Laura Bush taken her daughters on the same exact trip in the summer of 2006.

Posted by Steve White 2010-08-08 19:58|| 2010-08-08 19:58|| Front Page Top

#13 Let them eat cake. That is what Mrs. O told the advisors when she told them that she was going to Spain and leaving her husband behind on his birthday. Hey, she can do whatever she wants, including telling him, "Later!" on his birthday.

Posted by Martini 2010-08-08 20:19|| 2010-08-08 20:19|| Front Page Top

#14 OldSpook, Fred, you need to read some of John Kass's previous columns, readily available on the Chicago Tribune web site. You really blew it in your fisking and comments. You are 180 degrees wrong on Kass.

Posted by Ebbese Ebbump8799 2010-08-08 20:25|| 2010-08-08 20:25|| Front Page Top

#15 Fred and OS has nothing to do with this fisking. It was this writer.

Posted by badanov 2010-08-08 20:33|| http://www.free-fire-zone.org 2010-08-08 20:33|| Front Page Top

#16 Like I said, its possible I missed the /irony tag someplace in there in the original piece. But honestly, there are tons better criticism that can be made, which was my point - its a far more fundamental defect in the Obamas and typical elites that the "elites" themselves seem unable to comprehend.

Posted by OldSpook 2010-08-08 21:01|| 2010-08-08 21:01|| Front Page Top

23:45 CrazyFool
23:45 JosephMendiola
23:32 Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo)
23:08 Old Patriot
22:58 Asymmetrical Triangulation
22:43 Pappy
22:28 tu3031
22:21 JosephMendiola
22:17 tu3031
22:02 OldSpook
21:55 rwv
21:54 Asymmetrical Triangulation
21:51 rwv
21:44 rwv
21:44 OldSpook
21:41 Pappy
21:35 Pappy
21:32 Uncle Phester
21:25 JosephMendiola
21:19 Spaviling Scourge of the Algonquins
21:19 Thing From Snowy Mountain
21:09 OldSpook
21:06 JosephMendiola
21:01 OldSpook