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Barack Cheney? George W. Obama??

Delaware Libertarian godfather Steve Newton has been quite instructive in his writing about the anti-change reality of the Obama administration in areas like foreign policy, state secrecy, torture, transparency, lobbyists and other assorted outrages worthy of contempt, cut from the same cloth as George W. Bush's presidency.

Ripped from today's editorial headlines :


"So Obama hasn't strayed far from Karl Rove's playbook for routing the opposition. But surely, you say, he's planning nothing as divisive or as risky as the Iraq war? Well, that's where the health-care plan comes in: a $634 billion (to begin) "historic commitment," as Obama calls it, that (like the removal of Saddam Hussein) has lurked in the background of the national agenda for years.

Just as Bush promoted tax cuts as a remedy for surplus and then later as essential in a time of deficits, so Obama has come up with strained arguments as to why health-care reform, which he supported before the economic collapse, turns out to be essential to recovery. Yet as he convened his "health care summit" at the White House on Thursday, the stock market was hitting another 12-year-low; General Motors was again teetering on the brink of insolvency and the country was still waiting to hear the details of the Treasury's proposal to bail out banks. George W. Bush might well be asking: Is the president taking his eye off the ball?"


"Then again, we are relearning that the "Imperial Presidency" is only imperial when the President is a Republican. Democrats who spent years denouncing George Bush for "spying on Americans" and "illegal wiretaps" are now conspicuously silent. Yet these same liberals are going ballistic about the Bush-era legal memos released this week. Cognitive dissonance is the polite explanation, and we wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Holder released them precisely to distract liberal attention from the Al-Haramain case."

Of course those in the "Obama at all costs!" ranks are far more interested in talking about talk radio hosts and other assorted useful distractions.

There is always the New York Times and equally-useful tools like Bob Herbert (paging Eugene Robinson....your clone is speaking) to lead the messiah cheerleading section with nonsense such as :

Miracles Take Time

[Pardon me while I L.O.F.L.]

Herbert starts off :
"The renegade clowns who ruined this economy, the Republican right in alliance with big business and some feckless Democrats, have no basis for waging war against efforts to get us out of their mess."
(Sheesh, Bob, your talking points are soooo January.)

Then there's this little gem I have to thrown in for sh**s and giggles :


(Probably between the oinking as the pigs start overcrowding the pork barrel).

Clearly audacity can beat quite a short path to near-blinding hypocrisy.

Audacity aside, the sheer duplicity of Obama is definitely beginning to sink in across the political spectrum.

Comments

Anonymous said…
A bit of history for you, Tyler, in case you forgot:

House of Representatives: Controlled by repubs for 12 of last 14 years
Senate: Controlled by repubs for 6 of last 8 years
Presidency: Controlled by repubs for 8 of last 8 years

Obama has been President for 6 weeks. Can I spell that out for you?

S-i-x w-e-e-k-s

I understand that you're disappointed that President Obama hasn't been able to clean up the mess caused by 14 years of your party in power in just 6 weeks. You must have a pretty simplistic view of government to think that it would even be possible.

But then again, you probably think if McCain and Palin were in office as you had hoped, it would ALL be better now, right? Or are you pining for Bush and Cheney now?

Since you voted for her as Vice President, are you going to work for Palin for President in 2012? Or is it back to Ron Paul?

anonone
Tyler Nixon said…
Amazing how much he has screwed up so fast in this failed Obama economy of ours, no?

We need to rig a mute button on you. Your talking points are just so very tired, especially after the last 8 years.
Anonymous said…
Maybe MY reading comprehension is failing me, but I believe the point of Tyler's post was not to criticize Obama's results in his first SIX WEEKS but rather Obama's TACTICS in his first SIX WEEKS.
Anonymous said…
Right, Tyler - All the failing banks made all of their bad loans and credit default swaps in the last six weeks. Same with all the bad mortgage loans. And of course. the SEC let all these frauds like Madoff and Stanford occur in the last six weeks. And the economy, GDP, employment and the stock market were all growing like gangbusters until January 20th. Not to mention the budget surplus and world peace that both ended on January 20th.

Is that your world view, Tyler?

I really did expect more intellectual honesty from you after Bush/Cheney, but I guess that was my mistake.

You gonna work for Palin in 2012?

anonone
Tyler Nixon said…
The point of this post is that there is no difference between Bush-Cheney and Obama on what I believe to be critical, litmus issues. Sorry, that's just the way it is. You can talk Rush and Sean and W and Palin til your little face goes purple and it won't change an iota about this fact.

I vehemently opposed the policies and people in the Bush administration, long before many of your Democrat friends finally felt politically-safe to do so.

"You gonna work for Palin in 2012?

Get real. You ask me if I am going to support Ron Paul? Then Sarah Palin?

Are you daft?

Really, stop being so consciously dense. If you can't see the difference between those two you really are mentally-disturbed.

We all know your version of history. You cling to it like a safety blanket.

Palin lost. Bush is gone.

G.E.T. O.V.E.R. I.T.
Anonymous said…
Tyler wrote:

The point of this post is that there is no difference between Bush-Cheney and Obama on what I believe to be critical, litmus issues.

That inanity and partisan blindness of that statement speaks for itself.

anonone
Anonymous said…
One of the most gut wrenching accounts of Republican opportunism took place at the outbreak of WWII.. The Republican were against going to war with Japan and Germany..

They berated their candidate Wendell Wilkie to attack Roosevelt on the war. Recognizing that political discourse attacking the war effort could not do the country any honor, though it might win him more votes, Wendell refused to attack the war. Instead he sided with Roosevelt.

One can frame the attacks on Obama in similar light.. He is brand new, with a new staff, and is faced with a WWII size problem.

As you well know the Allies lost the war, before they won it. Today I think that we have a better shot against our crises than our parent's generation did against fighting two enemies on two opposite sides of the globe...

They won, and I think we can too.

Criticism is valid... We all need to know whether we are embarking on the right or wrong way. But then someone has to decide. And based on the will of the American people, we head off in that direction. Perhaps instead of wicked admonishments.. heartfelt prayers may be more in tune to what we are about to face....

There will be parts that do not work in any bill. But speed in aiming and firing at a sudden incoming target, can sometimes outweigh the ponderous response that philosophical questioning can stymie and delay.... until it is too late...

I have taken the tack that "it is what it is" and assume that it will be implemented. Our focus should be on how it can be used to each persons' advantage.
Brian Miller said…
there is no difference between Bush-Cheney and Obama on what I believe to be critical, litmus issues

Your critics on this point are the screaming partisan idiots, Tyler.

We're still in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We're still bailing out Citi, B of A and AIG with unlimited funds.

We're still running huge deficits.

We're still engaging in brinksmanship with Iran and North Korea.

We're still enforcing and upholding violations of basic Constitutional rights in the name of "fighting terrorism."

We're still upholding and passing new anti-gay laws.

We're still passing big-pork earmarks.

Where's the "change?"

Reality: it doesn't exist, and the Obama Faithful are sputtering with platitudes to avoid confronting that truth, just like their religious conservative rivals when confronted with evidence of evolution and science.

All the same, only the names have changed.
Brian Miller said…
Recognizing that political discourse attacking the war effort could not do the country any honor, though it might win him more votes, Wendell refused to attack the war. Instead he sided with Roosevelt.

One can frame the attacks on Obama in similar light.. He is brand new, with a new staff, and is faced with a WWII size problem.


Translation: If you criticize Obama's enthusiastic embrace and extension of Bush policies, you're like a Nazi sympathizer.

God, you've got to love Democrats' embrace of Godwin's Law.
Hube said…
Brian beat me to it in his 1:10!

Precisely, Bri. :-)

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