So help me dog, I was never able to figure the appeal of B. Obama, either when he first hove onto the political scene, or when he was elected, and reelected. He seemed to me, from the first and at a distance to be just a pleasantly and superficially-cultured nullity, with the not-uncommon ability to deliver inspiring, soaring speeches from words put in front of him, just like any A- or B-list actor I could name. He looked good, sounded good … and that was all there was to him, as far as concrete accomplishments went. Again, like any good actor he looked the part that he was supposed to play, no matter that the actual legislative resume was vanishingly thin of substantive accomplishments.
Perhaps that was all that was required of him, that he look and sound the part. And what does that make of the sense and sensibility of those who voted for him, cheered him on enthusiastically, the establishment media who rolled his Juggernaut over the finish line, and supported him in eight years of trying his best to turn the United States into some nasty South American socialist dump, ruled in turns by a coterie of the elite, and their ambitious throne-sniffers? David Brooks, the token conservative at the National Paper of Record, got all thrilled and man-crushy, adoring the perfect crease of Obama’s trousers. This may live in infamy as the shallowest, stupidest thing that our Miss Brooksie has ever written, against considerable competition.
Frankly, no wonder the credibility of the national establishment media has gone down the tubes. Anyone paying attention knew that we were being snowed gaslighted, even over the interminable years of the Obama administration. As a minor and perhaps superficial example, look at how we were all told insistently, through the cover stories on all the establishment fashion mags that Michelle Obama was the most beautiful, tasteful, and stylish First Lady since Jackie Kennedy. And we had before us the evidence of our own eyes … talk about killing the credibility of the fashion papers. Something of the same diminution of credibility happened with the mainstream press, I believe.
A neighbor of ours is a recent transplant from an annoyingly liberal state, who has confessed in an unbuttoned moment to having worked the phones for his campaign in her original home. Why? I asked. This woman is elderly, but in possession of most of her original issue of marbles, an animal lover and a good neighbor. Pretty shrewd in most aspects of life, come to think of it. And her reply? “Because it was time for a black man to be president,” at which point I dropped the discussion and changed the subject to something a trifle less incendiary.
“Because it was time.” I could hardly think of a lamer reason for electing any mortal into the highest office in this blessed land. And I thought so, even when the Fresh Prince of Chicago first took to the hustings against the Dowager Duchess of Chappaqua, or as I termed her then, “Her Inevitableness.” “Because it was time.” Which may well be, but if it is so, then couldn’t the nominated candidate of “It’s Time” be someone of more substance? Was all they wanted the establishment political parties, the national press, even a good part of the federal bureaucracy and god save us, the so-called intellectual elite a shallow, attractive man of no particular accomplishment or record? I guess so, watching the subsequent melt-down over the last year. I suspect that a substantial portion of the outrage, frenzied justification and rationalization after the fact are to cover up their own bad judgement in having cast all their chips and credibility on the bet of a candidate so shallow … a man of cotton candy: a few shreds of sweet sugar, blown up through the application of hot air, into something substantial in appearance. And now, the Cotton Candy Man appears to have signed a deal with Netflix to write and produce … well, something. I really wish that if being a reality TV star was his ambition, he could have done so without involving the rest of us.
19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. 22 The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”
The election of Obama, like Samual Johnson’s opinion of second marriages, was “A triumph of hope over experience.”
A lot of people thought it would be a symbol of their virtue and lack of prejudice.
Not me. That was from February 2008.
I even added my ID to the “Leave a Reply” site but it was deleted. The comment function is seriously out of wack.
Mike K in case it does it again.
Which may well be, but if it is so, then couldn’t the nominated candidate of “It’s Time” be someone of more substance?
As Biden opined at the time, his essential qualifications were clean, articulate, and black. There was no way anybody like Sharpton, Jesse Jackson (in his later years), or any other African-American Democrat with a record was going to get anywhere near the nomination without scaring the hell out of both the donor base and suburban soccer moms. Maybe Colin Powell or Condi Rice but it’s become apparent that they are both far to the left of the GOP base on many issues, and that fracture probably would have become apparent sooner during a primary campaign.
Well, I’ve been getting less and less happy with Netflix for the last couple of years. I still have the DVD as well as streaming. Recently I got a DVD that had broken in the mail. There used to be a place at the site where you could indicate that the disk had a problem before you returned it and they would ship out a replacement. I searched all over the site and could not find it. And now they’ve jumped in bed with 0bama. I looked in my Queue and there were only 5 DVDs in queue but thirty in saved but unavailable. I know many of them are available because they are at Amazon for sale as disks. But for some reason, Netflix doesn’t stock them.
At least news that the Cotton Candy Man will be joining got me off my butt to search out alternatives to Netflix. Filmstruck looks like what Netflix used to be. Bye bye Reed. It was nice while it lasted.
You know the Netflix board of directors now includes former Ambassador Susan Rice?
https://ir.netflix.com/management
You know Netflix “profiles” its customers so that they serve up videos to “suit your tastes” ? Or perhaps, to modify them, shape them, “nudge” them …
I know, Pouncer – and like Mrs. Davis says – we will begin considering dropping Netflix, in the wake of this development. The Deep State looking after it’s own, shepherding them to another profitable venue, when they have all but sunk the previous one.
This kind of cr*p must come to an end. It smacks of the nobility, looking after their own and their faithful and loyal servants, against all rational economic consideration.
I’m trying to remember what side of the “net neutrality” issue Net Flix was on. That probably had something to do with it but I don’t see the payoff for them with this decision.
“but I don’t see the payoff for them with this decision.”
I suspect that we have entered the time of choosing for the upcoming 2nd ACW. Net Flix’s corporate structure is choosing and intends to be in good with the Ministry of AgitProp.
An appalling number of media outlets want to get in good with the Ministry of Agit-Prop. So sad, recollecting the earnestness with which they pledged themselves to the mission of all the news that’s fit to print, without fear or favor. A penny and that pledge … you’d have a penny. So sad.
Mike K was ‘ trying to remember what side of the “net neutrality” issue Net Flix was on ‘
The streaming video services in general liked and promoted net neutrality. This, in much the same way 19th century railroads supported various interoperability regulations. The bigs use the overt argument of “neutrality” to magnanimously suggest a small carrier is just as entitled to use of the big-carrier’s bridge as the big carrier itself. But the effect is that the big carrier gets monopoly control over their bridge, charges competitors of ALL sizes exorbitant bridge tolls, and by the way, exercises a newly legislated right to send its own trains over a small carrier’s local tracks and bridges whenever they feel the need.
The TimeWarnerSpectrum people who own movie and TV production studios making Superman and Green Arrow videos want to stream their movies over their own cables and cellular services for free and at high speed to their customers, and throttle back speeds, or charge more, to stream competitors’ videos like (Sony) Spiderman or (Fox) X-Men movies as hosted by various other services. Google, owning YouTube, would like to compete with cable by putting in fiber networks but are restricted by various local utility contracts from doing so. And Amazon and Netflix accuse TimeWarner’s “free” services of being anti-competitive and non-neutral. So all of the streaming providers want a “fair” neutral federally guaranteed opportunity to clog up the municipally-granted monopoly narrow bandwidth “bridge” with equal and undifferentiated packets of video.
The solution is (IMNSHO) not really neutrality laws, it’s to encourage more bandwidth over new and wildly variant media. Cable, fiber, CDMA, GSM, modulated AC electrical power lines, 5G, satellite, ADSL over wet string *, carrier pigeon**, or whatever else an ISP can sell to a group of users. Let everybody build his own bridge and control his own traffic. Keep the feds out of it — unless they can somehow incentivize the towns and cities to get out of the way, as well.
* https://www.zdnet.com/article/fact-broadband-really-does-work-over-a-piece-of-wet-string/
** https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149
I remember before Obama was elected commenting on here that our nation & the constitution could weather even that possibility. And, I think, in a sense it has. Trump has gotten rid of a big percentage of what Obama had done by the whisk of his pen – and what he hasn’t gotten rid of, he has indicated that Congress better do something about because it wasn’t Obama’s responsibility but theirs (e.g., Daca). Obama governed like a banana republic president but he was doing it in a country whose constitution (and values) had long separated it from those republics – ones with great natural resources but lousy governments. Trump may sound like a banana republic leader, with his emotional and lengthy speeches. But he’s far from it in actual actions.
Still, I’ve been reading Metataxas’ If We Can Keep It. (It goes fast, but is a great reminder of that core, the importance of people like Whitefield, the golden triangle, etc.)
I don’t think we are out of the woods yet – nor likely to be until China loses its imperial ambitions, North Korea and Iran their genocidal ones,
Trump isn’t impeached and whoever follows him isn’t, well, a communist.
I suspect that earnestness is always a bit tainted or becomes so. But it certainly became a different enterprise when the people writing and speaking the news were financially and credentialed in a different class than the rest of us – they seemed to think it set them aside morally as well.
We’ve lost Bernard Lewis, Pipes the elder, Tom Wolf (sp?) – each chronicled a different culture but all were important reporters in that great old sense Sgt Mom describes. I just heard Lewis talk, but that was enough to give me a sense of his depth.
There’s a question I’ve been pondering for some time. Given that even blithering morons can have stopped-clock moments, I’ve been wondering: did Obama ever have a foreign policy success that benefits US interests? I can’t think of an example off-hand.
“did Obama ever have a foreign policy success that benefits US interests?”
Not that I know of. That is the one virtue he has, consistency. Unfortunately for us, he is consistently anti-American.
“did Obama ever have a foreign policy success”
None of his foreign policy initiatives, not one, not ever, had Congressional approval, none even had majority support from his own party, which is why they’re all in the garbage heap already.
I have not participated in NetFlix, and now have a really good reason NOT to.
It is far past time that these sweetheart multi-million dollar deals like Hillary’s books and now this thing with Netflix get seen as what they are: legalized bribery. As such, it needs to be shut down.
You cannot convince me that any of Hillary’s books earned out their multi-million dollar advances, and the sordid history of politicians making bank off of publications needs to be monitored. Hitler’s personal fortune derived in large part from Mein Kampf, and he enabled so many little fiddles with regards to government-mandated sales and purchases that it boggles the mind. The lying shitweasel went so far as to charge the German Post Office royalties for the use of his image on postage stamps… That he ordered be used.
These frauds need to be seen for what they are, and stopped. If Barry is going to try to parlay his line of BS into billions, then he can kiss goodbye to his pension and his Secret Service security detail. There is no reason the public need pay for either, which are predicated on the idea that retired presidents should sit down and shut up.
The only thing I disagree with in this post at Yid with Lid is that the Deep State did not begin with Obama.
If there is a date, it might be the “National Security Laws” passed after 9/11.
Rahm Emmanuel even put it in words, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
I’m still listening to Max Boot’s biography of Edward Lansdale, “The Road Not Taken.” and it is excellent.
I don’t care about his malignant NeverTrumpism. His book is excellent. He also refers to my other go to book about Vietnam,
Mark Moyar’s “Triumph Forsaken.”
Could we have won Vietnam ? I don’t know. I am certain that, had we taken Lansdale’s advice, we would not have had 500,000 draftees fighting there.
Lansdale ran into the 1963 equivalent of the deep state.
He was even slandered in Oliver Stone’s mythical “JFK” movie.
Dammit, that was me again !
Oh, I am certain that Hillary’s book deal is a thinly-disguised scam – as were generous advances to other politicians for books which wound up on the remainder pile with the speed of light, the day after publication. Not to mention insanely generous speaking fees. No wonder mainstream publishing – what I call the Literary-Industrial Complex is all but stove-in and wrecked on the economic reefs. This Netflix is more of the same. I wonder what significant work Obama and M’Shelle will actually do – he’s a notoriously lazy beggar, and she’s more about vacations and hob-nobbing with the A-list than actual work.
My own position, in 2008:
“Barack Obama will make us all appreciate the quivering mound of incompetence that was the Jimmy Carter Administration.”
I stand by that assessment.
Mike:
All the evidence is, WE ***DID*** WIN IT.
After the disaster (for the NORTH) that was the Tet Offensive (The North lost an enormous amount of irreplaceable men and materiel to accomplish almost nothing of value), several key individuals in the North began discussions amongst themselves as to how to best sue for peace, what were the best terms they could hope for…?
Then word got back to them how the US Media was treating it, and they realized all they had to do was to hold out and the U.S. media would hand them the war, sooner or later.
And so they shifted left, and hunkered down for a war of attrition, of perseverance.
That’s the shame of the U.S. media. They’ve doomed not less than three nations of people to living in hell, just to harm the USA.
There is a special place in Hell waiting just for them. Cleaning shoes and septic tanks…
With their tongues.
P.s., I notice the system is no longer retaining previous login info…. no doubt this is what is screwing up Mike.
This is OBH, of course.
OBH, I mildly disagree. I have read Mark Moyar’s book, “Triumph Forsaken” which is a very good history of Vietnam going back centuries. He was planning to do a second volume but interest collapsed with all the leftist revisionism.
I’m almost through with Max Boot’s biography of Lansdale.
The Army was determined to fight the war with WWII tactics, probably under the influence of General DuPuy, who was the tactical wizard at the time
First deployed to Vietnam in 1964, he served as Chief of Staff of Operations for Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, and in March 1966 he assumed command of the 1st Infantry Division (“the Big Red One”).[3] During his time as commander, he established a scholarship fund for the children of 1st Infantry Division soldiers killed in Vietnam, which eventually became the 1st Infantry Division Foundation.[6] Also during his time as Commander, he became known as having an “ax-swinging” style of officer management; having fired as many as 56 officers under him including seven battalion commanders and many more majors, captains and sergeants major.
Westmoreland was an artillery officer.
Lansdale was successful in The Philippines and had MagSaySay as a leader. In Vietnam, he had Diem who was much more of a Mandarin figure but was receptive. After Kennedy and Lodge killed Diem, I think the war was probably unwinnable. If Lansdale had kept his influence, which means that MacNamara was not the Sec Def, we might not have won but there would not have been 500,000 US soldiers and Marines there.
If you mean won the conventional battles, I tend to agree but read Mark Bowden’s Hue: 1968.
The TeT was not a real loss for the NVA but it did energize to communists on US campuses.
It is really annoying that the ID is being stripped from the comment.
That last comment was me’
The problems with comparing the Philippines to Vietnam are religion and scale.
Magsaysay was Catholic, as were 80% of Filipinos, and he had the support of the church against an insurgency that was confined to a local area.
Diem, on the other hand, was Catholic while 80% of the Vietnamese were Buddhist. He faced a nationalist insurgency supported by the neighboring nation that was also fed by Diem’s unpopular repression of Buddhists.
I’m not going to read Boot’s book because I don’t care for his political agenda. You’ll have to tell us how it ends.
Mike K: “The only thing I disagree with in this post at Yid with Lid is that the Deep State did not begin with Obama.
If there is a date, it might be the “National Security Laws” passed after 9/11.”
IMHO, the deep state STARTED w/the creation of the civil service (thank you, GooGoo’s). The creation of a permanent bureaucracy eventually led to organizations more concerned w/their own survival, than w/what they were intended to do. IIRC, Sowell talks about this a bit in Knowledge and Decisions. I can then envision concentrations of people of like-minded ideology growing (self-selection, I suspect) eventually becoming centers of opposition.
Having said all that, though, I think that’s a more pedantic view and the current manifestation of the Deep State is more recent.
As I read the Diplomad, this has been true in the State department for a long time. And, I suspect that Nixon’s experience in ’72 may well have been a significant inflection point.
I agree that State has been its own little world for a long time.
On Diem in VN, it may be that Diem was too rigid to change and it might have been lost anyway.
If Lansdale had been there, there would not have been 500,000 draftees in VN.
I don’t like Boot’s NeverTrump ism either but the book is very good.
I remember reading “The Ugly American” in college. I think ti was correct.
Once again, the ID was stripped.
Is there any way this can be fixed? Could it have anything with the version of WordPress ?
I don’t understand the constant griping about IDs? I never leave myself logged into any website anywhere. When I comment here, I just know I need to add my name, and have never had any sorts of issues with authentication or anything else.
“did Obama ever have a foreign policy success that benefits US interests?”
What’s a “foreign policy success”? As opposed to a “foreign affairs success”? Policy is deciding what to do, affairs is doing.
I can think of two in the “affairs” category.
1) Killing Osama bin Laden. I don’t think Obama deserves any particular credit for it, but it did happen on his watch.
2) Removal of Muammar Qaddafi. Qaddafi was a venomously anti-US dictator with billions of oil $ he used to subsidize terrorists and other anti-American actors. Even the present disorder in Libya is less dangerous to US interests than an actual hostile regime. (Of course Obama and Clinton bungled the process, resulting in a barely positive outcome. Had the US acted decisively when the anti-Qaddafi rebellion began, the conflict would have been over in a week, and there would be a stable, America-friendly government there now.)
“I wonder what significant work Obama and M’Shelle will actually do – he’s a notoriously lazy beggar, and she’s more about vacations and hob-nobbing with the A-list than actual work.”
When Obama was elected state senator, Michelle was hired by the University of Chicago as “Director of Diversity Outreach” at a salary of about 115K. When he was elected US Senator, she got a raise to over 300K. When he was elected President and she departed to be First Lady, the position was abolished.
It would be amusing to review the files from her office for those years, and see what, if anything, she did for “work”. The attendance records alone could be hilarious.
“Anonymous” just above was me.