Team-Dewey On American Thinker

Today, American Thinker published an article “Postmodernism: A unified theory of all the trouble in the world” by Team-Dewey contributor, She-Dewey. It’s a great read and introduces a topic that will be further explored in the future.

Enfant Terrible, or Why are American Parents Inferior?

Article originally posted at American Thinker, February 18, 2012

 

When it comes to parenting, I find myself siding with the French. Quelle surprise!

Allow me to turn your attention to an article in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal: "Why French Parents are Superior." It's a catchy title, but a more accurate one would be "Why American Parents are Inferior," because it appears that the French are simply doing what one might expect of anyone in the role.

We join author Pamela Druckerman after a harrowing vacation weekend in a French coastal city with her husband and toddler, where we immediately get a hint at the nature of the problem.

[W]ithin a few minutes she was spilling salt shakers and tearing apart sugar packets. Then she demanded to be sprung from her high chair so she could dash around the restaurant and bolt dangerously toward the docks.

When ineffectual parents cave in to a toddler's unreasonable and dangerous "demands," you've already lost the war, ma chouette. Let the record reflect, however, that the parental units did the best they could:

Our strategy was to finish the meal quickly. We ordered while being seated, then begged the server to rush out some bread and bring us our appetizers and main courses at the same time. While my husband took a few bites of fish, I made sure that Bean didn't get kicked by a waiter or lost at sea. Then we switched. We left enormous, apologetic tips to compensate for the arc of torn napkins and calamari around our table.

Unfortunately, no compensation was left for the other patrons of the brasserie, who were no doubt as entertained as the staff were by these hapless parents' offspring's performance art.

Then, a glint of light in the darkness:

... I started noticing that the French families around us didn't look like they were sharing our mealtime agony. ... French toddlers were sitting contentedly in their high chairs, waiting for their food, or eating fish and even vegetables. There was no shrieking or whining. And there was no debris around their tables.

I myself have observed this apparently now-unusual family dinnertime dynamic with Japanese families in restaurants around Detroit.  I've also seen it in other flyover outposts -- Iowa, Nebraska, Utah. Think of it: whole families of bitter clingers acting civilized.

It gets better (or worse):

I realized it wasn't just mealtime that was different. ... Why was it, for example, that in the hundreds of hours I'd clocked at French playgrounds, I'd never seen a child (except my own) throw a temper tantrum? Why didn't my French friends ever need to rush off the phone because their kids were demanding something? Why hadn't their living rooms been taken over by teepees and toy kitchens, the way ours had?

Let's try to noodle this out on our own, as it's a little early in the game to buy a clue.

When American families visited our home, the parents usually spent much of the visit refereeing their kids' spats, helping their toddlers do laps around the kitchen island, or getting down on the floor to build Lego villages. When French friends visited, by contrast, the grownups had coffee and the children played happily by themselves.

Nope; still no clue. Unable to crack this perplexing mystery, Druckerman dedicated five years of research to get to the bottom of this conundrum and write a book. Here's what she discovered:

Middle-class French parents ... have values that look familiar to me. They are zealous about talking to their kids, showing them nature and reading them lots of books. They take them to tennis lessons, painting classes and interactive science museums.

Yet the French have managed to be involved with their families without becoming obsessive.

Sooo...children are not the center of the entire universe? Both they and you might benefit from a more balanced approach?  Who knew? Apparently almost everybody:

This problem has been painstakingly diagnosed, critiqued and named: overparenting, hyperparenting, helicopter parenting, and my personal favorite, the kindergarchy. Nobody seems to like the relentless, unhappy pace of American parenting, least of all parents themselves.

They say recognizing the problem is the first step. Here's a bit of unsolicited advice that may advance the beleaguered author to step two: "If it hurts your head to hit it against the wall, maybe you should stop doing that."

Our intrepid parent soldiers on. Recognizing that French children seem to be better-behaved than her own brats, she conducts some investigative reporting and asks French parents how they discipline their children. It turns out that they don't "discipline" them, as the author understands the term, in the sense of imposing punishment.  Rather, they "educate" their children on how to behave. We "old ones" might call that "training," which implicitly involves some form of "discipline" if the "training" doesn't result in the desired behavior. But I understand that that conjures up uncomfortable comparisons to housebreaking a puppy. Developing a properly socialized human being is much more complicated, so "educate" it is.

Here are some of the French tricks of proper "education" that Druckerman uncovered:

One of the keys to this education is the simple act of learning how to wait. It is why the French babies I meet mostly sleep through the night from two or three months old. Their parents don't pick them up the second they start crying, allowing the babies to learn how to fall back asleep.

Ah yes, the age-old dilemma: to Dr. Spock or not to Dr. Spock.

[Learning to wait] is also why French toddlers will sit happily at a restaurant. Rather than snacking all day like American children, they mostly have to wait until mealtime to eat. (French kids consistently have three meals a day and one snack around 4 p.m.)

Three meals and an after-school snack? What a concept! Maybe if more American parents adopted that pattern, Michelle Obama wouldn't have to be carping constantly about our kids' fat behinds.

It turns out that a proper French childhood "education" includes learning the fine discipline -- if I may use that word -- of delayed gratification. Additionally, French children are also "educated" in the equally fine art of amusing themselves sans constant parental interaction. Imagine that! Independence! That sounds very...well, American. Or at least it used to.

Ms. Druckerman discovered that researchers have determined that children who learn how to control their urges by delaying gratification also develop other helpful coping skills:

[T]he good delayers were better at concentrating and reasoning, and didn't "tend to go to pieces under stress[.]"

Could properly "educating" children to be patient, as it used to be known, actually have other beneficial effects? she wonders incredulously:

Could it be that teaching children how to delay gratification -- as middle-class French parents do -- actually makes them calmer and more resilient? Might this partly explain why middle-class American kids, who are in general more used to getting what they want right away, so often fall apart under stress?

Well, it's not as if Americans don't want their children to be patient:

But patience isn't a skill that we hone quite as assiduously as French parents do. We tend to view whether kids are good at waiting as a matter of temperament. In our view, parents either luck out and get a child who waits well or they don't.

Right.  Just like with those puppies. You either luck out and get a good one who knows he's supposed to pee only outdoors, or you get a bad one who needs a more thorough "education."

While American parents in general and our author in particular seem to struggle with getting their children to behave, the French have deftly identified for these poor people the (obvious) source of the problem: allowing the children to be in charge. The consequences of this unnatural order of things elude the French's American counterparts.

After a while, it struck me that most French descriptions of American kids include this phrase "n'importe quoi," meaning "whatever" or "anything they like." It suggests that the American kids don't have firm boundaries, that their parents lack authority, and that anything goes. It's the antithesis of the French ideal of the cadre, or frame, that French parents often talk about. Cadre means that kids have very firm limits about certain things -- that's the frame -- and that the parents strictly enforce these. But inside the cadre, French parents entrust their kids with quite a lot of freedom and autonomy.

Wow!  This is almost like rocket science or something! Maybe the French really are better than we are! Wait, there's more.

Authority is one of the most impressive parts of French parenting -- and perhaps the toughest one to master. Many French parents I meet have an easy, calm authority with their children that I can only envy.

Ah, there’s the rub: authority. For a large segment of American parents, authority is anathema: associated with mental rigidity and the exertion of illegitimate power and control. Why this distorted view? Thank our twelve to eighteen year public liberal emersion education system. Those who fall sway to this indoctrination program emerge as liberal adults fully invested in liberalism’s first principles: equality, fairness and non-judgmentalism.

Liberal parents attempt to raise their offspring according to these guiding principles. (Unlike their conservative peers who managed to escape with their critical thinking skills intact and raise their kids, well, more like the French.) For liberals, the highest moral standard is fairness and there is no sin greater than being judgmental.

As parents they find themselves in constant conflict with their key values. Exercising parental authority to exert control over their child requires inequality of treatment on occasion and near constant judmentalism. No wonder liberal parents are always stressed. And no wonder the author envies the French who, au contraire, are genetically judgmental and have no problem whatsoever with authority.

Their kids actually listen to them. French children aren't constantly dashing off, talking back, or engaging in prolonged negotiations.

So what exactly is it about French parenting that is superior? This is what I gather: they are not uncomfortable treating their children like untrained puppies until such time as the children have learned to stop peeing in the house. Which is to say: French parents assume the role of alpha dog with their children rather than the other way around.

Seriously, how hard is this? If you feel you need coaching but can’t afford to live in France for a year, get in touch with one of your conservative friends with kids and spend a few weekends observing them.

Robin’s New Roost

Remember Robin? The recovering liberal therapist from Berkley? Apparently she's back with a gig at American Thinker, with more tales from the dark side.

Her take on an old Maude episode is worth the read alone:

The Left has become way too serious and sanctimonious for my tastes. But it wasn't always that way. I recently rented the first season of Maude, a show I enjoyed in my youth. I was astonished at how Maude, the white liberal, is affectionately teased throughout for her preachy white guilt. When she goes shopping for a "maid" (that's what they called them then), she insists on hiring a black one to "help" some needy person. When the confident Florida shows up, Maude is so condescending that Florida quits. Florida explains, "I'd rather work for a racist than a white liberal because at least racists won't try to change me." They reconcile, of course, and Florida is a major player on the show, reflecting back to Maude her patronizing ways. The lesson back then to whites: lighten up and laugh at yourself. And be very careful that your crusade for social justice isn't just another form of white arrogance.

 

Some of the comments are also fun:

Aren't most conservatives former liberals to some extent? All children are liberals. They are naive, selfish, and believe the world works the way they want it to work. They throw tantrums and blame everything on someone else. They think being a kid is cool and adults are uncool. However, many of them gain wisdom and humility later in life and begin to realize how the world really works. Then they become conservatives and move on.

 

And some gut-wrenchingly true:

…Why so strict on my kids? I knew what the real world was like because I lived inside of it everyday and I understood that the world owed you nothing. If I didn't teach self reliance and self discipline to my kids who would? The liberals?

Certainly not in Berkley.

Technorati Tags: recovering liberal,American Thinker

Crazies To My Left

Are society’s crazies more numerous than those of us who cling to sanity, or just noisier? Not really a rhetorical question in the mind of James Lewis. He has a great piece in the American Thinker today, Indulging Craziness. It’s an interesting twist on “the lunatics have taken over the asylum” theme. In the political asylum, the crazies have co-opted the sane to advance their leftist agenda.

He maintains that our culture has taught us that it’s compassionate to indulge craziness. But he points out what every psychiatrist knows: “if you let the crazies set the rules, you have to get crazy right along with them.”  He could have added that by indulging them you validate their fantasy world, assuring they become more entrenched in their nutty behavior. Reality recedes further and further into the background until it reaches the vanishing point.

All the usual suspects are included in the group of crazies we have been trained to indulge:  paranoid race mongers,  gender groups, homosexual coalitions and every other group identity with a bitch. The one thing they have in common is the  promotion and practice of the politics of victimhood:

Our culture is now actively teaching racial paranoia to blacks, gender paranoia to women, and abuse paranoia to everybody with a beef. All those exaggerated fears and phony fits of rage have been cynically whipped up by the Left to grab more power. That's their Compassion Fascism. The rest of us go along, because we don't want to be bothered to stand up against it. But in the aggregate, over time, we have become a culture driven loopy by race, gender, and group paranoia. We have adopted the madness of the most race-obsessed people, and made them rich. Over time, they have worn down our sanity, so that our culture has literally gotten crazy.

The proponents of victimhood understand far more clearly than do the well intentioned enablers that this is really all about power.

Lewis proceeds to describe how the Obama administration plays into this scheme: two mean crazies at the center, Barrack and Michelle, surrounded by a court of sycophantic enablers which is growing larger by the day as more and more czars are added to the shadow government. The only good news here is the inevitable implosion. The bad news: it’s hard to gauge all of the collateral damage that will be inflicted.

Great article, do read the whole thing.

 

Technorati Tags: American Thinker,James Lewis,Obama,czars,racial politics,gender politics

Clarice on the Incredible Lightness of the Won

Family issues - some good, some not, none involving the Super Bowl - require my attention, so, please read Clarice's: The Incredible Lightness of Obama on American Thinker. It is an excellent summary of the Week in Cairo, as well as a reflection on the god-complex causing the Obama administration to ignore judicial rulings they don’t like.

This week saw a showdown between the man whose most significant achievement before 2008 was that he very nearly got the asbestos removed from the Altgeld Gardens tenements in Chicago and the third-longest-ruling head of Egypt since the Pharaoh Ramses, whose reign lasted 67 years.  The Egyptian, an 82-year-old with terminal cancer, easily bested the community organizer, the man elected by people who quite clearly confused the last presidential election with an American idol contest.  While many who elected the American president probably do not yet realize it, it is lucky for them that he lost the showdown, for had he not, the results would have created worldwide havoc and devastation…

And in an effort to avoid constitutional havoc and devastation, Judge Vincent last week ruled Obamacare  unconstitutional based on the Democrats’ either intentional (they wouldn’t dare throw the whole law out!) or unintentional (sloppy, careless) drafting.

Meanwhile, the White House signaled that it intended to ignore the clear language of Judge Vinson's opinion and proceed with implementing ObamaCare.  As of Friday afternoon, the government had not filed a motion to stay Judge Vinson's order nor an appeal of his order, and at  least two states have telegraphed that they think that ObamaCare is dead in its tracks.  Both Wisconsin's and Florida's attorneys general have instructed state agencies to cease work to implement it.

It is the hallmark of the administration thus far: ignore what you don’t like and just deem your wishes to be the law of the land.

The man who in 2009 in Cairo said, "So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed on one nation by any other" was now dictating to Mubarak the kind of government Egypt should have and when it should have it.  Mubarak noted only the obvious: that if he stepped down immediately, the situation would devolve into chaos. 

Indeed, as things rolled out early last week, what ignoramus could’nt see the reality of chaos theory setting in?

The rulers of Egypt have a stake in its continued existence which supersedes Obama's adolescent moral preening.

Ah yes, our adolescent, moral preening Won:

We have not yet seen a detailed Obama position paper on who should fill what cabinet slots in Egypt or how its constitution might be rewritten, but the man who showed such contempt for our Constitution and laws -- from the appointment of czars and czarinas to the refusal to acknowledge the import of Judge Vinson's ruling -- was surely contending both his right to rule the U.S. and that that right includes the right to rule Egypt.

Excellent commentary.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

 

Delta Tau Chi Fraternity House

American Thinker’s Greg Lewis has presented the Obama administration all too accurately in I Was a Teenage President.

The Obama administration resembles nothing so much as a big house in the suburbs where the parents are away for the weekend. In the absence of any responsible person to take charge, the Teenager-in-Chief is letting the rest of the adolescents run wild.

They've maxed out their parents' credit cards and have begun working on their overdraft lines in earnest . . .

Which is pretty funny, if you can get past the fact that he is describing the dismantling of the republic. I think the country is waking up to discover that we, or some of “we,” have elected a completely inexperienced president with the maturity of a  frat guy, the ego of a quarterback, and the intelligence of a linebacker on a football scholarship. And he’s hired all the terribly clever – not wise, clever - guys that he found so amusing and sophisticated as they sat around the student union plotting the takeover of the misguided American government when they were young.

The unseasoned, untested neophyte was elevated to superman status by a machine that he was led to believe he was driving. In fact, he was already obliviously in way over his head. Then, as is usually the case with pawns, the handlers blew enough smoke up his ass to inflate his head. Once such pawns begin to believe  their own press clippings, they become a made man.

The mystery is why the American electorate believed his clippings? Partially it was because Bush fatigue had established the perfect platform for hopenchange. Partly it was due to the nauseating  cheer leading by the MSM, combined with their suppression of any negative vibes related to the anointed one. For example,  BO’s affiliation with known America haters Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers was relegated to  paranoia, “birthers” were, and still are, ridiculed for raising a legitimate question which has yet to be properly addressed. His apparent disdain for middle Americans “clinging to their guns and religion” and his admonition to Joe the Plumber that we need to “spread the wealth around” went unchallenged by anyone other than Fox. And no one, but no one, on the MSM side of the dial thought it odd that Barack Obama made it through 2 ivy league universities without any academic records, grades, papers or even edited articles in the Harvard Law Review to show for his efforts. And even though BHO himself conceded he’d messed up with drugs while he was young, not one old media type was interested enough to to pursue it so as to ensure that he hadn’t been a crack addict anytime in the distant - or even near - past.

Worse, anyone with the audacity to question the dope (BO, not the drugs) was immediately marginalized as a racist rightwing hate monger. With help like that, we might have elected anyone. Oh wait, we did.

  Nice work if you can get it

A Confederacy of Dunces

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."  Jonathan Swift – “Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting”

Sadhill illustrates and annotates an American Thinker post and asks if we’re doomed by a confederacy of fools: Will Ignorance Lead to a Second Term for the King of Fools?

From Lauri Regan’s AT post:

There is a wonderful quote that has been making its way around the internet over the past year. It apparently was translated from an article published in the Czech Republic newspaper Prager Zeitung last April and reads as follows:

“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry     capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency…Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”

The first time I saw this, the Tea Party enthusiasm was in full force and Republicans were on their way to taking back the House and gaining ground in the Senate. Optimism prevailed and the light at the end of the tunnel began to appear. But as Barack Obama announces his reelection bid and the GOP has yet to produce a strong, viable candidate for President, it would be prudent to question the present mindset of the electorate who got the country and the world into the current mess and whether it is possible that “the confederacy of fools” will elect him to a second term.

When Obama won in 2008 [...] I analyzed the various reasons that people had for voting for a person who was clearly incompetent, unprepared, unpatriotic, and basically void of any substance other than his own ego and disdain for American exceptionalism. The five categories of Obama voters included (i) individuals suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, (ii) followers with a mob mentality of assuming that if everyone liked the guy, he must be wonderful, (iii) socialists, (iv) people with racial guilt looking for a post-racial America, and (v) those suffering from simple ignorance due to a lack of intellectual curiosity to understand the man who would be king.

Now, with over half of Obama’s term complete, the only relevant categories of Obama supporters are those falling under items (iii) and (v) — Americans who reside on the far left of the political spectrum and those who remain completely ignorant about world affairs, economics, and the person who is the current leader of the free world. The far left will continue to support and vote for Obama no matter how many flip flops he makes on closing Gitmo, military trials for terrorists, intervention in Mideast revolutions, and other policies that raise their ire.

However, in the face of a dishonest and complicit mainstream media, it is up to all thinking Americans to make efforts to educate themselves, their neighbors, friends, colleagues, and family as to the dangers of four more years of Obama as President. For while the world can withstand four years of incompetence in the White House, eight years will likely result in a world forever changed, with America reduced to mediocrity and powerlessness, Islamic fundamentalism on an unimpeded rise to triumph over the West, and liberty and freedom replaced in many more parts of the world by tyranny and human rights abuses.

While many Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 have woken up to the fact that it was a colossal mistake, there remain too many Americans who simply do not understand just how incompetent and ideologically driven his administration is.

[...] The U.S. electorate might want to take one more look at Obama swaggering up to the podium for his campaign and post-election speeches and question the intelligence of a man who cannot speak without a telepromptor, who refuses to disclose his college transcripts (let alone his birth certificate), who chose Cairo for his most famous reach-out to a people who hate America, and who appears to care more about enjoying the life of Riley than he does about the free world. If Obama represents the level of intelligence of the American people, then I fear our Republic will not survive the “multitude of fools” who may very well hand the prince a second term.

If we can’t get over our infatuation with the superficiality of  “celebrities” as a stand in for values, principles and depth of intellect, we are doomed. And the terrorists win.

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." 

So there you have it: confirmation that Obama is definitely not a genius. He’s got the entire confederacy of dunces on his side. As we suspected all along -I just don’t see how this can possible work in our favor.

Sharing the Pain Since January, 2009 UPDATED WITH AMERICAN THINKER LINK

UPDATE: Must read American Thinker article by William Tate, Race Played a Role in Obama Car Dealership Closings.

He cites excerpts from the Inspector General’s report that are likely to detonate a few road side bombs. When the smoke clears, the trial lawyers will have a field day litigating the biggest beneficiary of their financial largesse: the Obama administration. Here are just a couple of examples of the Chicago style tactics revealed in the SIGREPORT and largely unreported by the media:

[D]ealerships were retained because they were recently appointed, were key wholesale parts dealers, or were minority- or woman-owned dealerships. [Emphasis added.]

Thus, to meet numbers forced on them by the Obama administration, General Motors and Chrysler were forced to shutter other, potentially more viable, dealerships. The livelihood of potentially tens of thousands of families was thus eliminated simply because their dealerships were not minority- or woman-owned.

Closures based on political affiliations, which have been anecdotally connected to the dealerships targeted for closure (as well documented by Doug Ross) are again called into question. Barofsky’s report notes that – despite GM’s argument that “dealership terminations would cause GM and Chrysler to lose market share in rural areas” :

"ultimately close to half of all of the GM dealerships identified for termination were in rural areas."

…Records indicate that in 2008, Obama lost the vote totals in the nation's 1,300 rural counties by nearly 80%.

The article is a must read, if you are even marginally interested in how political and race based Obamanomics are ruining our country. Or if you owned a car dealership that was shuttered.

Google map of closed Chrysler dealerships

Treasury’s Troubled Asset Recovery Plan (TARP) Special Inspector General (SIG), Neil Barofsky,  reported Monday that "Treasury made a series of decisions that may have substantially contributed to the accelerated shuttering of thousands of small businesses and thereby potentially adding tens of thousands of workers to the already lengthy unemployment rolls -- all based on a theory and without sufficient consideration of the decisions' broader economic impact."

Well, as they say in Hollywood, no shit, Sherlock. In this post from last year: Pimp My Ride: Barry and the UAW’s Excellent Adventure I wondered why Obama was pushing to close dealerships when it made no sense on its face;

So why was the culling of dealerships  such a key element in the bankruptcy reorganization plan? Why does it continue to be such a prickly issue with the White House? And is there any truth to the allegations that dealers were eliminated based on their party affiliation and campaign contributions? I’m just asking, on behalf of the conspiracy theorists.

Absent any facts, absent any rational explanation, the only way a logical mind can interpret such nonsensical behavior is to backfill with its own logic. That’s the basis for a lot of conspiracy theories. But this one didn’t even conjure up a very believable conspiracy theory.

Apparently we still don’t know what was behind the decision to close so many dealerships. It looked like someone had a dog in the fight, and that their dog won; but we don’t know whose dog it was, or what they won. Or what the point of the fight was.  At the time, the National Auto Dealership Association argued in Congressional hearings that “'We do not see how these cuts make economic sense – not for the companies, not for the dealers, not for local communities and certainly not for the struggling U.S. economy.” After the fact, the SIG’s report came to that exact conclusion.

And subsequent to the forced culling of dealerships which took place last year, both GM and Chrysler discovered they needed more retail outlets and have reinstated hundreds of them.

Here’s what we do know about this foolish exercise:

After GM and Chrysler announced last year that they were going to go bankrupt, the U.S. government stepped in to bail out the two Detroit automakers -- at a cost of $80 billion to taxpayers. As part of the plan, the car companies were told to streamline their production plants and distribution outlets, and close more than 2,000 dealerships between them.

Barofsky’s report states simply that “Treasury's response set up a "false dilemma" by suggesting it was a choice between letting the companies fail and closing the dealerships.”  Forgive me for being blunt, but that fact was so obvious at the time that even the guy in the mailroom knew it. The cost to the Autos of maintaining independent dealerships was chump change in the grand scheme of the Autos’ financial woes. And closing marketing facilities for the product you’re trying to sell – especially when the corporate cost of maintaining dealerships was nominal – makes no sense either.

The official response to the SIG’s report came from Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Financial Security, Herbert Allison:  “ …had the administration not stepped in, many more auto dealer workers could be unemployed today. How? Can anyone tell me?  How do these idiots get away with making such asinine comments?

There is a story here, even if it’s not a story of dark Union conspiracy or management malfeasance. Of course no one in the MSM will have any interest in investigating and reporting it. Especially if the truth is just as simple and sublimely naive as the excuse offered up by the current Car Czar, who told Barofsky that the Auto Team  “could have left any one component (of the restructuring plan) alone,” but that doing so would have been inconsistent with the president's mandate for 'shared sacrifice.'

Tell me you are effing kidding me? They destroyed over two thousand decades-old family businesses, and tens of  thousands of people’s livelihoods because the President told them to spread the pain around evenly!?!

I would prefer to believe that there was some vast, diabolical conspiracy to provide someone with gobs of ill-gotten dollars. That would at least make sense and someone could be held accountable.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, offered this comment: 

"This sobering report should serve as a wake-up call as to the implications of politically orchestrated bailouts and how putting decisions about private enterprise in the hands of political appointees and bureaucrats can lead to costly and unintended consequences,"

And remember, unless Obamacare is dismantled by the next Congress, these same morons are going to be designing your healthcare.

Obamacare triage

Why Blogging Matters

Paul Miller’s piece at American Thinker is a little shot in the arm for all of us hapless bloggers floating – untethered - out in the ether-net. Miller takes issue with Tom Friedman, who took to the airwaves (that would be the MSM airways) last Sunday to criticize the New Media as an  "open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information,"  going on,

"He continued to mock new media, suggesting that the American public is incapable of deciphering between facts, fiction and opinion,"

That, I assume, is because we are all stupid.  Which of course is where the mainstream media comes in.  Better that trained professionals  - our betters – tell us what to think about and how to think about it. New Media types are dangerous pajama-wearing morons that will mislead the weaker thinkers down the wrong path.

Miller demonstrates the advantage of having citizen journalists filling the role that MSM is unwilling to take.

(New Media’s) importance was revealed, just this past weekend, before which, very few Americans recognized the name Van Jones. The White House environmental adviser was one of thirty-two "Czars" appointed by the president who is accountable only to the president, immune to government oversight and senate confirmation.  The major networks and newspapers including Mr. Friedman's employer, the New York Times, failed to acknowledge his existence until after new media watchdog's revealed information that the mainstream press failed to uncover.

Van Jones would have been a nameless, faceless, dangerous man  in the Obama administration but for the blogosphere. Why? Because no one in the mainstream was the least bit interested or concerned about a self-avowed communist who made numerous racially incendiary remarks, had no qualms about calling the entire Republican party an “explicative deleted”, signed – under no duress – the “Truther” document claiming Bush and other government officials were behind the 9/11 attacks, and is a supporter of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

That such a man be appointed to a powerful job as an environmental czar,  answering to no one but the President is not only shocking, it’s close to malfeasance.  Such a man could not possibly have the best interests of this republic at heart, as he has clearly indicated he doesn’t believe in several of the republic’s underlying principals.

So, question to Mr. Friedman: what makes your open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information better than ours?

Technorati Tags: van Jones,environmental czar,Tom Friedman,Mainstream Media

AGW Religion Has Been Recalled Due To Multiple Manufactured Defects

Ah, this Hitler thing never gets old, does it? Enjoy. Pass it along. The world needs it.

From Neptunus Lex via American Digest

Other related news items from the weekend:

Doug Ross details why the jig is up on anthropogenic global warming:

The scientist at the heart of the Climategate scandal -- the Climate Research Unit's Dr. Phil Jones -- has admitted what any sensible person had figured out long ago. The United Nation's global warming initiative is a complete and utter fraud.

American Thinker article by Marc Sheppard in which Phil Jones fesses up: 20th century warming very likely not unprecedented. Apparently the science isn’t in yet.

And a veritable Climategate stream from Instapundit:

Climategate: Phil Jones Finally Proves Al Gore Right — The Debate Is Over.

Climategate: Phil Jones Still Has More Reflecting To Do.

Climategate: So Jones Lost the Data? It Was Worthless, Anyway

• Ann Althouse on skepticism:
• “It’s the nonskeptics who look bad. It’s not science to be a true believer who wants to ignore new evidence. It’s not science to support a man who has the job of being a scientist but doesn’t adhere to the methods of science.”
• And a Victory Lap, well earned by the much mocked Lord Monckton

But none of this is likely to persuade a True Believer, as they are members of a cult which provides them with a psychic rationale for their existence. No amount of information will dissuade them. No mere scientific truth will upend their Truth delivered by the great and holy guru of Global Warming, Academy Award winning director of cinema and Nobel Laureate:

Hi. My name is Al, and I’m a carbon fraud

I’m just saying, Sheryl - you are now free to use as much 2-ply toilet tissue as you’d like. I thought that would make her happy, but apparently it just made her mad.

Sheryl Crow screaming at crowd to “Please! Save the earth!”

Ambient Psycho-Pathologies Go Viral

As you can see above, our motto at Dewey From Detroit is “Come for the Politics, stay for the Pathologies.” It used to be that the pathologies were as much fun, if not more so, than the politics. But lately we’ve found ourselves being a little uneasy about that phrase, for no specific reason.

As fate would have it, everyone’s favorite recovering liberal, Robin from Berkeley, explains the probable cause of our distress, in her latest American Thinker post. The politics of Obama have caused the normal ambient psycho-pathologies to go viral. Since Robin is a therapist by trade, she describes the resulting situation in terms of an abusive relationship: we’re all suffering from post-traumatic-stress syndrome, minus the post.

It really takes all of the fun out of it.

We have people at the highest echelons of our government who may be rotting this nation. They espouse twisted notions of humanity, like de-evolution and forced sterilization. They eat, drink, and sleep revenge.

They are throwing much of this country, at least those of us who are paying attention, into a psychiatric emergency -- into trauma.

They dominate. They control. They terrorize.

They are abusers.

I can hear the fun being sucked down the drain. Robin continues…

But the best and the brightest of abusers never get their hands dirty.

Their work is done through a look, a blank stare, a grin, a devilish laugh. They can incite trouble without lifting a finger.

So if you feel uncomfortable, and tense, and scared, this is why. This is what abusers do.

I thought therapists were supposed to make you feel better.

The daily force feeding of leftist ideology designed to control every aspect of our lives. The health care rationing that threatens our families. The strangling of business through Big Brother intrusions.

I’m getting a double migraine.

Of course Robin’s right. Many have a sense, if not an outright taste, of fear on their palate. The violation of this country’s first principals, the danger to our way of life, the tyranny that may be bequeathed to future generations - all unimaginable just a few short years ago – are now a lurking possibility.

Robin presents her 5- F (didn’t that use to be a deferment? No? Oh yeah, 4-F.) options for dealing with trauma/abuse: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn and Faith; the last of which she describes:

There's a final "F," the most formidable one, the one taking root and flourishing all across the country: it's faith. Faith in a Higher Power or ourselves or the American system or its people

All well and good. But we upon whom the responsibility falls to reverse the pernicious creep of socialism, marxism and statism already have faith in something more powerful than the government, or we wouldn’t be opposed to Obama’s tyrannical regime in the first place.

There is only one cure for the self-inflicted trauma of this run-away government: fight it with our votes. I get the sense from Robin’s piece that she believes that we of sound mind and spirit will rise up and prevail over the dark side. But I don’t get a sense that she knows how we will do it, and she didn’t give us a scrip to deal with our malaise.

I’m not a therapist, so I can’t write a scrip. But here’s a script: it contains no antibiotics or anti-depressants. The only way to fight this disease is at the polls, or, as the Democrats would say “get the vote out.” It’s the oldest play in the political book, and still the most effective: we work to garner support for the people who reflect our beliefs and values; and we work to defeat those who don’t. We need to fight to defeat every Congressional Representative and every Senator that is currently enabling and facilitating the demise of our liberty by voting for legislation that tightens the noose of tyranny.

The 2010 mid-term election is the launching point. If your Senator is good, work to get him re-elected. If he’s not, work even harder to throw him out. Ditto with your Representatives.

People, we live – at least for now – in a representative democracy. Obama is having trouble getting his radical agenda rammed through even with a super-majority in the Senate and and overwhelming majority in the House. It’s our job to make it impossible. By working to crush those majorities we will render Obama a toothless lame duck.

In our lovely garden state of Michigan, we’ll be working to re-elect our Representative, Thaddeus McCotter – even though he does appear with Greg Gutfelt on Red Eye regularly, and plays in a garage band. Also in Michigan, and deserving of our efforts is Mike Rogers who represents an area including the state capital of Lansing. Unfortunately neither of our extreme loser Senators, Stabenow and Levin, are up for election in this cycle. We’ll get them in 2012 & 2016.

And certainly if you live in Connecticut you can work to throw the liar and thief Chris Dodd overboard. Or in Pennsylvania: it’s time to broom the newly minted Democrat Arlen Spector back into the dust bin of history. And what would I give to be a resident of Nevada! To work for the demise of Harry Reid, undoubtedly the only person in that state who made money in the real estate market in the past year. And last but not least: you lucky dogs in Illinois. You need to stay up late working against anyone the RambObama team picks to run for the Blago-Burris seat. In any other state, that would be a no-brainer, but in the land of Lincoln it’s going to require Herculean effort.

So OK team, suit up! Let’s get out there and win one for the Gipper!There. I’m feeling much better now. Thanks Robin.

Technorati Tags: Robin of Berkeley,midterm elections 2010,liberty and tyranny,thaddeus McCotter,Mike Rogers,Greg Gutfeld

Postmodernism: A Unified Theory of All the Trouble in the World

Article Originally Posted at American Thinker, May 2, 2010

 

Like the "fatal error" message that pops up unexpectedly on a computer, the phrase itself is menacing: "post-normal science." I ran across the phrase as I was reading Climate Change and the Death of Science. The author's explanation did nothing to allay my anxiety.

Once there was modern science, which was hard work; now we have postmodern science, where the quest for real, absolute truth is outdated, and "science" is a wax nose that can be twisted in any direction to underpin the latest lying narrative in the pursuit of power. Except they didn't call it ‘postmodern' science because then we might smell a rat. They called it PNS (post-normal science) and hoped we wouldn't notice.

This death sentence for science left me with the same enervating feeling I get at the precise moment I realize my hard drive is crashing. How could science, too, fall into the grasp of postmodernism's insanity? The author continues:

What has become of science? We thought that science was about the pursuit of truth. Then we became perplexed at how quickly scientists have prostituted themselves in the service of political agendas ... scientists refusing to share their data, fiddling their results, and resorting to ad hominem attacks on those who have exposed their work to be fraudulent.

Science has succumbed to the same virus that beset literature, art, economics, and the rest of the social sciences: postmodernism. Postmodernism is a progressive virus that negates reason, objectivity, and truth -- replacing them with relativism, subjectivism, and pragmatism. Having colonized every other branch of academics decades ago, postmodernism has now come for science.

There is no universally agreed-upon definition of "postmodernism." Like the philosophy itself, it means whatever the person who espouses the position wants it to mean. Three general tenets are acknowledged: Objective truth is unknowable, objectivity is fallacy, and modernity is a failure. By the last they mean that the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the Industrial Age are all malevolent failures of reason and objectivity, as they failed to solve the world's existing problems and created new ones. Stephen Hicks, Ph.D. explains in his book Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault:

Postmodernism rejects the Enlightenment project in the most fundamental way possible... [it] rejects the reason and the individualism ... And so it ends up attacking all of the consequences of the Enlightenment philosophy, from capitalism and liberal forms of government to science and technology.

Postmodernism developed into a political philosophy with Marxist/socialist roots. Its general tenets reflect a deep-seated disdain for the philosophical roots of Western thought, specifically repudiating individualism, an inherently American trait, as well as Western characteristics of objectivity, truth, reason, and logic -- all concepts fundamental to scientific method.

That's where post-normal science (PNS) comes in. According to the "inventors" of PNS, Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, it is supposedly a scientific method of inquiry appropriate for cases where "facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent." What they describe however is more accurately recognized as politics than science, which is precisely the point: In postmodernism, everything is politics. And the aberration from "normal" science to post-normal science is designed for the purpose of manipulating and controlling high-stakes political artifice like "man-made global warming." This is not about determining "truth," which the advocates of post-normal science don't believe in -- it is about the power and control of politics.

Ravetz, again, quoted in Climate Change and the Death of Science:

This is a drastic cultural change for science, which many scientists will find difficult to accept. But there is no turning back; we can understand post-normal science as the extension of democracy appropriate to the conditions of our age.

For us, quality is a replacement for truth in our methodology. We argue that this is quite enough for doing science, and that truth is a category with symbolic importance, which itself is historically and culturally conditioned. [Emphasis added.]

Really? Science as the extension of democracy? "Quality" as a replacement for "truth"? How exactly does that work? Which czar defines quality? Who determines what "truths" are replaced -- East Anglia University's miscreant peer-reviewers? Absent standards and objective truth, there is no science. There is simply narrative, which is better-suited to propaganda than truth. Is it any wonder that we bitter clingers who still cleave to objective truth feel like we've fallen down Alice's rabbit hole?

Where did this insane movement come from, and how has it managed to captivate the world? Postmodernism's historical roots are in nineteenth-century existentialism, skepticism, and Marxism. Postmodernism evolved into an anti-rational movement based largely on the sophistry of "modernism's failure" -- specifically, objectivity's failure to eradicate war, poverty, and famine. Postmodernism emerged in its current political form around the middle of the twentieth century, when it was embraced by the new left. By the 1950s it was obvious that Marxist-socialism -- declared by the new left to be vastly superior to capitalism -- was both morally and economically bankrupt. The economic collapse and subsequent starvation of millions in the USSR, along with other atrocities committed by the regime, created severe ideological dissonance amongst Marxist cheerleaders. Intellectual leftists from both sides of the Atlantic needed to distance themselves from such public failings.

They found their new home in postmodernism. As only intellectual elitists can do, instead of abandoning their failed beliefs, they abandoned the principles that proved their belief system wrong.

In this instance, they ignored the fact that Marx's economic philosophy was based on rational objectivity. Ironically, postmodernism's rejection of reason, logic, and objectivity provided that rationalization. Accepting the premise that facts and falsehoods are culturally or socially constructed allowed them to sidestep the issue. As Hicks noted, "Postmodernism gives you, in effect, a get-out-of-jail-free card against any rational attack on your system." 

The amalgamation of the "old" postmodernist left, whose anti-modernist philosophy was based on sophistry, with the "new" socialist left, whose political philosophy was based on delusion, created a new political vanguard with a shared animosity for capitalism. Since both camps were heavily populated with elite intelligentsia, they were well-positioned to pursue their objectives through the education system. Subjectivity, relativity, and pragmatism became keystones of a new "education philosophy." As its belief system did not make any strenuous intellectual or moral demands, it readily attracted acolytes from a generation looking for neither.

Postmodernism's education cartel has dictated the terms and conditions of education for decades. They own the education departments in major universities, where the curriculum is likely to include the twelve-volume set Teaching for Social Justice edited by William Ayers. The portal between education departments and your child's classroom provides a conduit for an endless stream of postmodernism's collectivist garbage. Think not? How else to explain the likes of textbooks like Rethinking Math: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers? We should not be surprised that science has capitulated, too.

Running under cover of academic freedom and educational "philosophy," postmodernists have managed to do what other strains of totalitarianism only dreamed of: insinuate their beliefs into every aspect and level of education.

Not since the Middle Ages has the West needed to regain the sure footing of classical values so badly. The path we're on is headed in the opposite direction.

Holiday High-lynx

Miscellany from around the Web for an idle holiday weekend:

If you read nothing else today, read Wise Guys: The End of Free Market Capitalism  from American Thinker.

Councils of "wise men" will now rule America. This is an open assault on the Constitution and the freedom of the American people, and it must be stopped.

Politico Ben Smith on Clinton’s the Rich should pay more taxes:

"Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what — they're growing like crazy," Clinton said. "And the rich are getting richer, but they're pulling people out of poverty."

What are they smoking in the White House now? Do you think it a coincidence that Soros is heavily invested in Petro Brazil? I’m just asking. And by the way, no – the little people are not being lifted out of poverty. That’s just the way it’s written in the socialist prayer book. But what-the-heck, bring on the class warfare. We don’t have enough problems around here.

Doug Ross on the implausible plausible deniability of the Sestak bribery claim.

Atlas Shrugs reports on the White House Press Pool report from the Prez’s  Memorial Day BBQ: at Louis Farrakhan’s house. Keep in mind, this is via Jackie Calmes, a NYT reporter. As it turned out, Farrakhan’s house was across the street from the Obama’s soiree, but his house was heavily patrolled by thugs known as Fruit of Islam. I’m not making this up. Why on earth did the Secret Service not push these thugs entirely out of the way of Obama’s entourage? Oh, that’s right: because they’re moose-lums. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

Ted Nugent (proud Michiganian currently ranching in Texas) remembers our fallen heroes, and reminds us why we must never forget to honor them.

Strange Democratic bedfellows at BP make that jackboot that we’re keeping on BP’s neck look more like a ballet slipper, if you catch my drift.

Blog Prof on our Michigan Governor’s Progressive PAC promoting Van Johnson, commie-Truther-green-czar-wannabe. No wonder Michigan’s economy rests comfortably at the bottom of the heap.

And don’t miss this read about our most thin skinned president – evah!  Find out how a complete narcissist views the world. Hint: it’s all about him. There’s a real news flash.

 In Obama's eyes, he is always the aggrieved, always the violated, always the victim of some injustice. He is America's virtuous and valorous hero, a man of unusually pure motives and uncommon wisdom, under assault by the forces of darkness.

Did I mention he was delusional too?

There’s so much more good reading out there, including Peggy Noonan’s latest bleat, but that one deserves it’s own post.

Have a nice holiday weekend. We can resume our efforts to retake the country next week.

“Act Like a Lady, and I’ll Treat You Like a Lady”

Three years ago, Ms.NBC fired Don Imus for making racially insensitive remarks. Remarks that he acknowledged were stupid and to apologized for, ad nauseam. Yet for years the same network has reveled in the misogynist and misanthropic vitriol spewed by their go-to guy, Keith Olberman. Finally, with Olberman’s ratings in the subterranean sewer along with the rest of the network, Stuart Schwartz at American Thinker speculates that the fat lady is finally singing over at Ms.NBC. (H/T Larwyn’s Links)

Amazing, isn’t it, that the air waves are 100% intolerant of any remark that smacks of racism, but is perfectly OK, for years, with  a man who is a demonstrably and sociopathic hater of women and men? But on the uber-liberal network, that serves as fair and balanced: they hate everyone who doesn’t worship their messiah and savior.

And since we’re speaking of Imus, – now simulcasting his radio show on Fox Business Network -  as I was fast forwarding through yesterday’s show I happened on a comment by Jeff Greenfield that I had to replay –twice- to make sure I had heard it correctly.

He and Imus were discussing Obama’s SOTU smack down of the Supreme Court Justices’ recent decision  on  campaign funding. Here’s my (verified) transcription of Greenfield’s comment:

“I do not think these justices that (sic) have lifetime tenure can basically tell the Congress of the United States – not basically, they have told the Congress of the United States - ‘You know this law you all passed? It’s unconstitutional, deal with it.’.”

Boy, do I feel stupid. On two fronts. First, I thought that was precisely what the Supreme Court existed for. And secondly, I remember a time, years ago, when I actually thought Jeff Greenfield was half way intelligent.

Watch the whole clip if you’d like.

“Up Against the Wall, Mother Jones, Inc.” The OWS Crowd Gets Tough.

 H/T Doug Ross

I must tell you that for the first time in my life I actually fear for the country’s ability to maintain social order.

When you have a ruling party stoking the fires of class warfare, it’s probably time to order Glen Beck’s emergency food kit.

We have a pack of economic imbeciles,  orchestrated by community organizers and union-mob bosses, who have gone on holiday to set up camp and get in people’s faces in order to rage against unfairness and corporations. I would be dumbfounded if you could find more than 1 in 1000 of the merry pranksters who could correctly explain how a corporation actually makes money. Or coherently explain what they are trying to achieve by Occupying Wall Street. I will disregard the fantasy Christmas Winter Holiday wish list published on their website. It was so moronically ignorant of even the most rudimentary economic concepts and common sense that even some of the squatters felt compelled to disavow it.

And yet, unlike the Tea Party’s “angry mob” this one seems to pass muster with the administration. The President commends them, his press secretary says it’s just like the Tea Party, only democratic, Pelosi defends them and Biden agrees. Meanwhile commie Van Jones is actively fomenting a revolution. I’m sure he wishes that Obama hadn’t dragged his feet on getting that civilian police force in place that’s going to be “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as the military.”

It doesn’t seem like such an innocuous way to create or save civil service jobs now, does it?

What the HELL is going on around here?

Allow me to explain. They are the Wons they’ve been waiting for. This is what they came to do. Really. Like paranoia, just because Glen Beck is crazy doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

If you still don’t believe that the Marxist/socialists have had their eyes on America as their prize for a long, long time, you’ve either not been paying attention or you’re one of the progressive sheeple “occupying” Wall Street who thinks you just dreamed up the socialist nirvana of America without borders and corporations all on your own. Or, worse yet, you are one of the titans of Wall Street who donated a gazillion dollars to “Organizing for Obama” to elect this posse of Stalinist morons.

As we’ve discussed ad nauseum, socialist doctrine has been insidiously co-opted and incorporated into the curriculum of the public schools  for the past 50 years. And once you’ve indoctrinated the next generation, you own their minds, you own their politics – you own them. Tyranny has showed up in cultures throughout history through many different vehicles. But 20th century tyranny has always been preceded and accompanied by propaganda and agitprop, most notably in the schools. Because, as I just mentioned, once you own their minds, you own their generation.

Back in the early 90’s I had a colleague who I considered a bit reactionary, and altogether too extreme for polite society, because he and his wife had decided to homeschool their children.  In retrospect, they appear to have had the wisdom of Solomon and the foresight of a Steve Jobs.

Of course, it’s not as if the Marxist/socialists tried very hard to hide their agenda. They told anyone listening exactly what they intended to do. They told us exactly how they intended to do it. We were just all too busy, and, let’s face it, no one really thought  that America would ever give itself over to communism. We’re independent. And free. And we practically invented modern democracy and free market capitalism, right?

It seems that while we were busily complacent, others were busily… busy. Very busy indeed.

And if I still don’t have your attention, it’s time to revisit the Cloward-Piven Strategy for America. The strategy was originally unearthed by David Horowitz in Discover the Networks:

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

The strategy was further explored by James Simpson in a series of articles in American Thinker. In this one he cites the original source article:

In their Nation article, Cloward and Piven were specific about the kind of "crisis" they were trying to create:

By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.

It gives a rather more sinister twist to the term “community organizer” does it not?

The Coward and Piven strategy was made famous by Glenn Beck – you know: that whacky guy with the whacky agenda? Cassandra’s come in every guise. So let’s not focus on the messenger while the other side, with their nihilistic agenda, continues to Grind America Down.

Do you like my new corporate logo?

For the record: Mother Jones Inc. is a 501(c)(3) “not for profit” corporation: that doesn’t mean they don’t make a lot of money, it just means they don’t have to pay any taxes on it.  So you could say that they’re not paying their fair share – not helping to spread the wealth around. They get a pass though, because they’re sort of an “educational”  public service. See how that works?

Linked By:  Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, Thanks!

Bow-rac Obama: Keeping It Real

Question: Why would a powerful, narcissistic head-of-state bow to foreign royalty?

Answer: For the same reason liberals bow to the proprietors of certain ethnic restaurants; because they feel superior to them. And that makes them feel a little bit guilty.

And so now we have the Great Far Eastern Apology Tour. This time it’s more nuanced. The apologies are a bit more oblique. Such as this.

Obama is now the only sitting President who has failed to unabashedly defend the United States dropping  the A-bomb on Japan to end the war.  Obama couldn’t bring himself to do that. The video must really be watched to see how pathetically he handled a question that somebody in the State Department surely must have prepared him to answer. Bottom line: he couldn’t/didn’t answer the perennial question of whether we should have dropped the bomb. I am uncomfortable having someone serving as my president who can’t/won’t respond to that question.

 

H/T Powerline

If, when you’re done watching, you are confused by the President’s position, perhaps this previous post will help explain:  BHO’s thoughts on nuclear disarmament while still in college. Interesting, if for no other reason than it refers to the only documented example of Obama’s thinking from all of his brilliant collegiate years. (Apparently some prof found a copy of this old Sundial article in his files, or we wouldn’t have seen it either.) It may also explain why there are no other papers, articles or dissertations by the gifted one in circulation.

That brings us to the bow. To the emperor of Japan.

Heads of state DO NOT bow to royalty according to Thomas Lifson at American Thinker (his article has links to several photos demonstrating this fact). But even given that, Obama still got the bow wrong: there is no touching in bowing.

Who does this guy take protocol lessons from anyway? His Sushi chef? It seems odd, given that State has an entire department dedicated to nothing but protocol, that Obama would not have been adequately briefed on appropriate behavior, especially after the flap over the “non-bow” to the Saudi king.

So let’s say ignorance of proper protocol probably is not the issue. There is something about the narcissistic personality that doesn’t think that rules – any rules – apply to them. Rules are for the others, the lessers, the little people. Narcissists charmingly do as they please.

They present the Queen of England with a tacky gift that’s also indicative of their totally self-absorbed nature, they refer to Great Britain in formal remarks as “England” (The Scots wish it were), they bow to the Saudi King and the Japanese Emperor and they scoff at the critics. They are simply being their charming, self-effacing selves. Keeping it real.

You know what I need a little less of in our President? Phony self-effacement.

It simply makes him look like a horses behind.

H/T on protocol : Touched With Fire

Technorati Tags: obama bows,protocol,narcissist