~Busted~

This is an event little recognized in the study of Obama. I will post the discussion by Dinesh D’Souza on Obama’s past and why this event discussed below drives his outlook on life:

Barack Obama is making some British politicians nervous.

A bronze bust of Winston Churchill was loaned to President George Bush after the 9/11 attacks. The British government offered to let Obama keep the bust, but Obama decided to send it back. A bust of Abraham Lincoln now sits in the oval office where the Churchill one once rested.

Although most Americans view Churchill favorably, Obama’s Kenyan roots may not put him as much at ease.

It was during Churchill’s second term in office that the British brutally put down the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. Obama’s grandfather was imprisoned and tortured during that suppression.

“The African warders were instructed by the white soldiers to whip him every morning and evening till he confessed,” said Sarah Onyango, Obama’s grandfather’s third wife.

Overly anxious British diplomats are now seeking an alternative for Prime Minister Gordon Brown to present to Obama when he visits him in the next couple of months.

Obama should not be surprised at the British reaction. Churchill has been recognized in polls as its greatest leader.

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Just a couple favorite quotes from Churchill:

Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?

Woman: My goodness, Mr. Churchill! Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course.

Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?

Woman: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!

Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.


Bessie Braddock: “Sir, you are drunk.”

Churchill: “Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.”


Nancy Astor: “Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison.”

Churchill: “If I were your husband I would take it.”

The Hammer (read here: The Krauthammer) Strikes Again

NewsBusters h/t:

Here is a portion from NB:

Moments later:

KRAUTHAMMER: Colby.

KING: Sir.

KRAUTHAMMER: Colby said it was a good speech. We really have to talk about the quote-unquote “investments,” which of course is what Democrats say when they want otherwise to say spending but they won’t use the word. And then he said it was okay on that, except that it didn’t address spending, which is a bit like saying, “Yes, but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

KING: Cranky, cranky, cranky.

KRAUTHAMMER: Spending and debt is the issue of the day. That is the President’s own deficit commission had said, and I thought all of you un-cranky liberals had approved their conclusions.

Indeed they had, which raises another interesting point.

Totenberg said the electorate is not serious about trimming the budget. She later commented that the cuts being discussed are trivial because discretionary spending is a small part of the budget, and no one wants to talk about reducing entitlements.

We’ve been hearing this a lot lately from liberal media members. Now that the Republicans control the House, folks that came out en masse against any plans to reform Social Security in 2005 are now teasing this subject again.

As such, it is really the press that want entitlement cuts generically but are going to balk and balk loudly at the specifics. This is important because what we saw in 2005 is how powerful the media can be in impacting public opinion and preventing legislation.

George W. Bush was re-elected with a strong mandate having been the first President since Roosevelt in 1936 to win back the White House while expanding his Party’s majority in both chambers of Congress.

The public was ready for significant Social Security reform, but the media wasn’t having any of it. Instead, so-called journalists – led by minority leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid – went on a full-court press to shamefully convince the American people the program was fiscally sound for decades to come, and Bush was lying about its imminent insolvency to scare the public into supporting his agenda much as he did with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Now, six years later, these same folks are mocking any attempts to cut spending by ridiculing Republicans for not going after Social Security and Medicare.

It makes you wonder not only how they sleep at night, but also how they so effectively manage their hypocrisy instinctively knowing which side of an argument they need to be on when it fits the prevailing template.

Gotta hand it to ’em – this takes talent.

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(Emphasis Added)

Favorite Quote in a While~Obama and Plagiarism

From NewsBusters:

“President Obama’s second State of the Union address contained enough recycled ideas and lines lifted from speeches of others to make historians wince,” quipped Felzenberg, himself a former presidential speechwriter. “Had the president submitted the text of his second State of the Union Address in the form of a college term paper, he would have been sent forthwith to the nearest academic dean.”

Ask and ye shall receive

NewsBusters h/t:

  • Ex Google lobbyist Andrew McLaughlin working as the No. 2 tech policy guy in the White House discussing net neutrality with Google lobbyists (registered and unregistered) while Google stood to profit from the administration’s Net Neutrality rules.
  • Former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson taking a job as Treasury Department chief of staff within 9 months of his work for Goldman.
  • Former H&R Block CEO Mark Ernst being hired by Obama’s IRS and then writing new regulations on tax prep — regulations that H&R Block has endorsed, and that will help H&R Block.
  • Obama officials meeting off campus for official business for the sake of avoiding the Presidential Records Act.
  • And this nugget from the same NYTimes piece: “Two lobbyists also cited instances in which the White House had suggested that a job candidate be “deregistered” as a lobbyist in Senate records to avoid violating the administration’s hiring restrictions.”
  • The firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin. As my colleague Byron York has explained: “The method of Walpin’s firing could be a violation of the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires the president to give Congress 30 days’ notice, plus an explanation of cause, before firing an inspector general.”
  • Giving a car company (Chrysler) to a political entity that spent millions to get you elected. This deal involved alleged threats by a since-indicted car czar to knee-cap investors who didn’t want to agree to the White House’s deal.

…(read more)…