Here's a beautiful blitzkrieg from Der Spiegel on Obama's West Point bellyflop. I heard about 10 minutes of the speech, and this Kraut, Steingart, nails it up by it's lederhosen. The piece is short, so read the whole thing. I'm not going to excerpt any of it because I'm lazy and kind of drunk, too. But the ending is sweet: "The American president doesn't need any opponents at the moment. He's already got himself." Maybe Obama should look in der mirror.
This NYT piece pulls no punches. My fave excerpts follow.
One of the downsides of having a president who is also Celebrity in Chief is that it creates the impression that the leader of the free world is part of a milieu that is more TMZ than C-SPAN. In an effort to remain connected to the social media world that was so much a part of his electoral victory, the Obama administration may be guilty of a very contemporary common offense: Oversharing.
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The president can’t be blamed for a few knuckleheads trying to game their way into his presence, but his shared love of the camera leaves him vulnerable to suggestions that he is too busy appearing as the president and not busy enough being one. And we all know that television shows — reality or otherwise — can jump the shark.
Compare that to Mr. Obama’s outing to Five Guys, where he is filmed taking burger orders from staff members — “You want fries?” — and then sets off with Mr. Williams in the limo, sitting with jacket off and feet up on the seats.
I like that the current president gets out of the bubble, that he enjoys a burger, and is willing to walk back into the White House with a greasy go-bag for the staff. I’m not sure being able to watch it all unfold is good for his presidency.
“When he ran, the Obamas were pitched as kind of a reality show to the public. We’d hear about his dinners with Michelle and we felt like we knew them,” said Michael Hirschorn, a former executive at VH1 who now runs Ish Entertainment, which produces reality programming. “But now that he is in office, there is a danger of the mystique going away. The problem with social media and constant video is that it flows like water and reduces everything to the same level. Not much of it is special, and it all becomes content, even if it’s the president.”
Mrs. Kennedy may have been impossibly glamorous and done her share of image management, but she had a chaste relationship with the camera and the public.
“I want to live my life, not record it,” she said.
This is the best one yet! More action! More silliness! More pratfalls!
From John Templeton's wikipedia page:
Templeton became a billionaire by pioneering the use of globally diversified mutual funds. His Templeton Growth, Ltd. (investment fund), established in 1954, was among the first who invested in Japan in the middle of the 1960s.[8] He is noted for buying 100 shares of each company for less than $1 ($15 in current dollar terms) a share in 1939 and making many times the money back in a 4 year period. In 2006 he was listed in a 7-way tie for 129th place on the Sunday Times Rich List. He rejected technical analysis for stock trading, preferring instead to use fundamental analysis. Money magazine in 1999 called him "arguably the greatest global stock picker of the century”. He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1968, thus avoiding U.S. income taxes. He had dual naturalized Bahamian and British citizenship and lived in the Bahamas.
Templeton attributed much of his success to his ability to maintain an elevated mood, avoid anxiety and stay disciplined.
Uninterested in consumerism, he drove his own car[.]
As a member of the Presbyterian Church, Templeton was dedicated to his faith. However, Templeton remained open to the benefits and values of other faiths. Commenting on his commitment to what he called spiritual progress, “But why shouldn't I try to learn more? Why shouldn't I go to Hindu services? Why shouldn't I go to Muslim services? If you are not egotistical, you will welcome the opportunity to learn more." Similarly, one of the major goals of the Templeton Foundation is to proliferate the monetary support of spiritual discoveries. The Templeton Foundation encourages research into "big questions" by awarding philanthropic aide to institutions and people who pursue the answers to such questions through "explorations into the laws of nature and the universe, to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity."
The octogenarian Templeton has always been a devout Christian. (His own faith marries the strict Presbyterianism of his childhood with a sunny Norman Vincent Peale-y optimism.) But his genius as a philanthropist is secular: He brings capitalist hucksterism to religious charity. Templeton has transformed philanthropy into marketing, his own name into a brand. His earliest venture set the tone. In 1972, he inaugurated the annual Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion to remedy the Nobel Foundation's omission of religion. His brilliant stroke was to brag that his prize would be worth more than the Nobel, thus ensuring lavish press coverage. The first award went to Mother Teresa (six years before her Nobel Peace Prize. He has raised the prize's profile by awarding it to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Billy Graham, and Watergate-burglar-turned-minister Charles Colson. (The Templeton Prize helped its founder win a knighthood in 1987. In the '60s, Templeton had moved to the Bahamas--a tax haven--abandoned his U.S. citizenship, and become a British subject.)
H/T to Susan B in a combox for linking to this incredibly insightful and brutally honest article by a former liberal. Excerpt from the setup material:
One clue: the miscreants who were brutalizing me didn't exactly look Reagan-esque. In middle and high schools, they were minority kids enraged about forced busing. On the streets of New York City and Berkeley, they were derelicts and hoodlums.
Another red flag: while liberal men did indeed hold up those picket signs, they didn't do anything else to protect me. In fact, their social programs enabled bad behavior and bred chaos in urban America. And when I was accosted by thugs, those leftist men were missing in action.
What else should have tipped me off? Perhaps the fact that so many men in ultra-left Berkeley are sleazebags. Rarely a week goes by that I don't hear stories from my young female clients about middle-aged men preying on them. With the rationale of moral relativism, these creeps feel they can do anything they please.
My other epiphanies: those ponytailed guys were marching for abortion rights not because they cherished women's reproductive freedom, but to keep women available for free and easy sex.
Then along came Sarah, and the attacks became particularly heinous. And I realized something even more chilling about the Left. Leftists not only sacrifice and disrespect women, but it's far worse: many are perpetuators.
The Left's behavior towards Palin is not politics as usual. By their laser-focus on her body and her sexuality, leftists are defiling her.
They are wilding her. And they do this with the full knowledge and complicity of the White House.
The Left has declared war on Palin because she threatens their existence. Liberals need women dependent and scared so that women, like blacks, will vote Democrat.
A strong, self-sufficient woman, Palin eschews liberal protection. Drop her off in the Alaskan bush and she'll survive just fine, thank you very much. Palin doesn't need or want anything from liberals -- not hate crimes legislation that coddles her, and not abortion, which she abhors.
It's great getting email updates from the Catholic League to keep abreast of the banality of mainstream media anti-Catholicism which ofttimes resembles a self-parody. Just received this bit of sarcasm from Bill Donohue under the title "THE VIEW PANELISTS SPARKLE".
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on what happened on the ABC-TV show, “The View,” today:
The panelists discussed the controversy between Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Bishop Thomas Tobin on the propriety of an abortion-rights Catholic politician receiving Holy Communion. Why anyone would go on television and discuss something she knows absolutely nothing about is a mystery, but I’ll tell you this much—it makes for a great laugh.
So here’s the transcript. Which one of them was the most brilliant is debatable, but what’s for certain is that all the gals really sparkled.
Whoopi Goldberg: Now, Congressman Patrick Kennedy said he was asked by a Rhode Island bishop to stop receiving communion because of his stance on abortion. The Church has been sparring with lawmakers about restrictions in the health care bill. But, is this the right tactic to do? To say that you cannot come and take communion? When on one hand…
Joy Behar: You know, Teddy, his father, Teddy Kennedy was pro-choice. And Teddy Kennedy was divorced. And they all, the bishops and whatever all went to his funeral. He was not denied communion. So this all seems political to me. I don’t get it exactly.
Sherri Shepherd: He was asked not to take communion in 2007. So why is he bringing it up now?
Joy Behar: Why is he bringing it up now? Because he’s running for office.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck: Somebody brought it up again. This is my home state. I’ve done breast cancer walks with Patrick Kennedy before. And you know, I’m not, uh, the Catholic Church in terms of communion, I remember one of my friends who got divorced, they asked her not to go up and take communion. And for me, communion is the opportunity for someone to take part in and enjoy the sacrament as well, so I never, even from a young age, I never appreciated it when someone was not allowed to go up and receive communion with the rest of the church.
Joy Behar: You’re supposed to be without sin.
Sherri Shepherd: But who is without sin?
Joy Behar: What you’re supposed to do as a Catholic, you go to confession. You get the absolution and then you can receive communion. That’s the way it works. But it doesn’t always work that way. I mean, they don’t allow divorce. Yet, if you’re married 25 years and have 5 kids and you have a lot of money, you can get an annulment. So, I mean, there is a lot of hypocrisy in every religion.
Whoopi Goldberg: I thought in the Catholic Church, that in the Bible, at least as I remember it and I could be fuzzy on this, but I thought that God pretty much says to you, you don’t have to talk to anybody but me. You don’t have to talk to anybody but me. And I’m the one. I’m the one you go to. You don’t need a liaison. Now, great, if you happen to go into the Church, but basically your relationship with God is personal and, and, very clear. So I don’t think anybody is supposed to tell you what you can’t participate in. I don’t remember that as being part of the deal.
Barbara Walters: It’s interesting that he’s bringing it up.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck: Political season.
Barbara Walters: Yeah, and it is certainly for Catholic’s…
Whoopi Goldberg: Do you know why he brought it up?
Barbara Walters: Well, I don’t know why he brought it up.
Whoopi Goldberg: Because they recently clashed over the Church statement that they won’t back the health care overall without tighter restrictions on abortion. That’s why it coming up now.
Barbara Walters: So there is a political overtone to it.
Reports that U.S. soldiers damaged Iraqi antiquities turn out to have been media hype. "Media hype" is nice-speak for lies. Excerpt:
In recently reviewing the Unesco report, which came out after his book, Chaplain Marrero said to me that the cracks in the ancient bas-reliefs were already there when the U.S. came in. He doesn't believe that the helicopter base could have caused any damage because it was "up to two football fields away." The choppers rose vertically upon lift-off and the ancient remains are located in an excavation considerably below ground level.
The accusations about cracks in the paving stones caused by allied tanks rumbling over the Royal Way don't make sense, he says, because it was already encircled by iron railings with no access to vehicles. A narrow pedestrian path outside the railings barely allowed enough room for light Humvees to drive around to keep the area secure.
Finally, he notes that the Unesco report's details of defensive trenches dug by subsequent occupation forces, such as the Polish troops and defense contractors, occurred in areas beyond what was always considered the site proper, even in Saddam's time. It was in those areas, he says, that sandbags were filled with local earth and the ground leveled.
