Time for Thorns

Victor Davis Hanson thinks the  media won’t go full bore  on Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion because it might bring up questions about Obama’s largely unknown past.   I disagree.  Big media is perfectly capable of banging on about how many wives Romney’s great-grandfather had,  while continuing to ignore how many women Obama’s father was married to simultaneously.   Liberals and progressives will see no contradiction in this.  Most others will.

After all,  few in the press have complained that His Oneness  hasn’t held a news conference  in quite a while,  and as Peter Kirsanow explains,  the  media will not  report anything to the detriment of their far-left hero.

The Washington Post’s has at least one columnist no longer in love with His Oneness,  and Mr. Kessler was unimpressed by   the accuracy of Obama’s self-glorifying  speech this week  channeling Teddy Roosevelt in Osawatomie,  Kansas.

Victor Davis Hanson  thinks even less  of the speech,  which set up nicely for Peter Kirsanow’s questions for the President.   Johnathan Tobin  doesn’t think Obama  can play Teddy.   Ramesh Ponnuru has an interesting,   slightly different take on it.   David Harsanyi   points out  what an anti-capitalist His Oneness is.

MSNBC sticks to its  unflagging support  of His Oneness by reporting no jobs BUT also that there’s no recession.   Dan Keating says the White House assurance that we aren’t headed back into recession may be right since we  never really  left it.   Victor Davis Hanson quickly  lists the  policies which have failed,  then explains why.

And just when you thought Obama might shut up for a while after his boffo, blockbuster,  so important as to demand the venue of a joint session of Congress speech on the economy,  comes the depressing news that  more speeches   and proposals on the subject  are planned.  Leaks of such an extended roll out tell me that His Oneness has no workable plan except to claim that he does and the mean old Republicans won’t let him blow another $3 trillion to get re-elected.

Eric Allie has fashioned  a new logo  for team Obama.

Victor Davis Hanson has put together a slightly tongue-in-cheek primer on the  political realities of the day viewed through a White House lens.

Victor Davis Hanson has  a warning of things to come in Libya.   Mario Loyola says His Oneness is unintentionally  creating the most favorable conditions for the worst-case scenario.   I don’t think Mark Steyn  disagrees.

I think Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has had all he can take of the Obama Administration,  based primarily on the few moments of testimony I heard him give.  Jennifer Rubin  agrees with me,  sort of.   Ross Douthat  has more.

The historian Bernard Lewis thinks all may  not be lost in the Middle East.   Fred Barnes has a delicious   new moniker for His Oneness.   Nile Gardiner doesn’t find  Obama capable of negotiating much of anything.

Obama will give another lesson in teleprompter reading tonight,  supposedly on the subject our adventure into Libya.   Politico says  everyone will be listening,  from Congress to the man in the street.   I think Jed Babbin,  who was a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under Bush 41,  has it just about right.

There is no coherent explanation to be made,  and His Oneness can not afford to tell us the truth,  which is that,  as his his custom,  he is trying to position himself to claim credit for success,  while avoiding blame for failure.   Do watch — I suspect you’re about to find out just how stupid your President really believes you are.

UPDATE:  If Obama is going to “update” us,  shouldn’t he have already spoken to us?  Start with praising the troops,  followed by a bald-faced lie — the Left hates the military and has been trying to destroy it for years,  hence the push for gays in the military and women in combat.   Here’s  the text as prepared for delivery.   Daniel Foster   thinks we finally have the Obama Doctrine,  but I disagree  —  Obama’s statements suffer an extremely short  shelf life,  and are plump with  circular logic.

Obama  hit back at those who accused him of dithering,   but mostly it was a campaign speech loaded with self-praise.  An alert National Review Online reader caught His Oneness all but copying another Bush speech.   Jim Antle has a  neat summation.

The problem for His Oneness is that based on the place he marked,  we should intervene everywhere,  but we are to ignore that he failed to offer a single word of encouragement to Iranian protesters.  And how,  pray tell me,  are we to remove Gaddafi by non-military means when they have failed in the past?   He repeated that the tyrant has lost his legitimacy — the dictator never had any legitimacy,  and why was His Oneness afraid to call him a terrorist?

Stanley Kurtz has a  good breakdown,  and Alvin Felzenberg hammers Obama for setting  bad precedents.   Dana Perino wasn’t satisfied either.   And nobody thought His Oneness would mention that  the State Department helped Gaddafi’s son visit the USA just before the uprising.

This was a man  reading his teleprompter with no fire whatsoever,  like a professor instructing dull students.    How good do you feel when classicist Victor Davis Hanson finds the  speech murky at best?   My title was proven absolutely correct.

What’s the  difference between “war”  and  “kinetic military action”?

The Obama White House.    This ranks right up there with man-caused disasters,  don’t you think?   Victor Davis Hanson sensibly asks what’s next?

Meanwhile,  His Oneness  apparently didn’t let his staff know when he was returning from his Rio trip and couldn’t get into his house on the first try.

Anonymous, self-described, long-time foreign-service officer DiploMad  returns to blogging to look at Libya.   You will find more common sense commentary on foreign affairs in the first paragraph here than you will in dozens of other columns combined.    h/t Jim Geraghty

Michael Potemra has an  interesting post referencing a Daily Kos piece about what Iran may be learning from  Hillary’s war.   Mark Steyn digs further to the logic that if you’re a bad guy,  you need a nuke program.

Jamie Fly asks what is  the goal of His Oneness in Libya.   Andy McCarthy  points out that calling the non-governmental fighters in Libya “rebels” doesn’t change the fact that they refer to themselves as  being on jihad,  and that doesn’t fit well with the translation of the term as peaceful self-improvement.   I’m all for doing away with Qaddafi,  but I’d much prefer to let   SAS smash squads do their job effectively and get it over with instead of letting the Whiner-in-Chief blather on about  NOT getting Qaddafi.

Mark Krikorian  agrees that what His Oneness sees as manly action is seen by the rest of the world as a talker hiding behind the skirts of women.   Victor Davis Hanson  helpfully brings up how Obama’s lack of any perceptible Middle East policy will produce new flocks of Jimmy Carter’s chickens coming home to roost in the future.  Add do read John Derbyshire’s piece,  if for nothing besides the translation of the 63rd stanza of the Tao Teh Ching.

And  this transcript  from Sen. Obama on Presidents and undeclared wars is just  too good not to add.

I would say that Victor Davis Hanson has forgotten more about classical history than most of us ever knew,  but he hasn’t forgotten any.   The Obama Administration  shows no signs of remembering any.

Nikolai Grozni  remembers other revolutions.   You expect lapdogs of His Oneness,  like Thomas Friedman,   to give Obama glory for his moves on Egypt,  even if “unintended”,  but would you expect to see   “Egypt’s Revolution,  Bush’s Victory?”  anywhere in the Gray  Lady’s pages?   This  is one  reason you do.   Newsweek was far less complimentary.

The Washington Post wrings its hands over how Mubarak’s departure  may imperil U.S.-Egyptian counter-terrorism work,  and sniffles about the  C.I.A.  and its difficulties in the Middle East.

James Lewis  is sour on the uprising in Egypt.    On the bright side,  the Egyptian military has  dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution,  thereby meeting two key demands of protesters.  It has also said it  will uphold the peace accord with Israel.

I would be nervous were I an  Iranian mullah.

And Mark Steyn  is right.

Perhaps.  Read John Guardiano’s  post and follow the links.   I don’t always agree with Reuel Marc Gerecht,  but one can never accuse him of not studying the Middle East and thinking very seriously about it.

I particularly appreciate Gerecht’s view that every Arab state is an unrelentingly immature society.  I have long regarded Islam as a religion which deliberately infantilizes  its adherents.

Nina Shea has a  timely post about the Muslim Brotherhood,  and  there’s a  good article in the Jerusalem Post.   Would you be surprised to learn George Soros  is involved?

Victor Davis Hanson has  a compilation of the Obama Administration’s  “flexible”  positions on Egypt.   I’m afraid Andy McCarthy’s view on  what’s coming is most likely.