The Obama Disillusionment

Note:  You might want to start at the Barack Obama Index Page, especially if you arrived here by using a search engine.

President Obama has never managed a business in his life.  Not even so much as a hot dog stand.  He has never competently managed anything.  Before becoming a Chicago politician, he worked as a "community organizer" (big deal!) making perhaps $12,000 a year.

President Obama isn't quite what anyone had expected.  After only a few weeks in office, even some of his strongest supporters began to see (at last!) that he couldn't deliver on any of his grandiose promises.  The people who voted for "hope" and "change" are getting very little of either.

On this page:

Obama and his team are incompetent

Obama's reverse-Midas touch

On other nearby pages:

Barack Obama's greatly overrated intellect

Obama is helpless without a teleprompter.

Disillusionment sets in:  the wheels are already coming off.

    Association with Obama is now a political liability.

    Sparse crowds at Obama appearances.

Obama is a "community organizer."  Big deal!

This is "hope"?

This is "change"?

Obama's lack of qualifications and experience.

Bad ideas, bad decisions and poor judgment.



Obama and his team are incompetent

Editor's note:
 I tried to warn everyone before the 2008 election that Barack Obama had little or no executive experience — certainly no experience running a business, no military service, no foreign-policy experience, and less than one full term in the U.S. Senate.  Not only that, any other person with such a long history of Communist contacts could never get a top secret security clearance.  "Community Organizer?"  Big Deal!

The Essential Barack Obama.  [Scroll down]  Barack Obama floated in on a wave and found himself as President of the United States.  However, there are now no other currents to float upon, there are no other waves to ride.  There are no longer massive adoring crowds to deceive.  There are no more titles to capture.  For the first time in Barack Obama's life he is accountable, and upon his shoulders rest the lives and fortunes of millions in the United States and the world.  He has repeatedly shown that he cannot deal with, and will never be able to shoulder responsibility, as he is at his core self-absorbed, dishonest, and without coherence in his personal beliefs and convictions, thus putting the United States into long-term economic and international peril.

Obama: Pawn or Mastermind?  The fact is that Barack Hussein Obama II was an Illinois state senator of little notice or importance who managed to win election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, where he remained undistinguished.  Obama has benefited from staged rhetorical skills dependent on the availability of a teleprompter and the perception that he embodied the culmination of left-wing values in an electable package.  As his presidency has progressed, his lack of experience and basic knowledge of the political process have been on full display for all to see. ... Obama was shrewd enough to capitalize on a confluence of events to get elected president, but he is unable to admit that he doesn't know what to do now that he has the job.

Time For A Change?  Obama's Mistakes Say So.  [Scroll down slowly]  The Obama staff waited three hours to even tell him about the Christmas terrorist incident.  As one pundit pointed out, the staff woke him up immediately to tell him he won the Nobel Prize for Peace.  But a terror threat to the homeland was apparently much less important and urgent than that.

The Smallest President.  Would someone remind us again why the nation elected this man to be president?  A man with no resume, a man with no experience in running anything other than a political campaign, a man who is ignorant of history, economics, and technology?  A man who is shallow and lazy?  A man who shares neither character nor temperament with the American people in this vast republic?  How did this happen?

The President Who Won't Grow Up.  [Scroll down slowly]  Barack Obama doesn't respect the presidency because he didn't earn it.  He had a wafer-thin résumé, no paper trail, and a suspect autobiography.  It took massive lifting from the media, Hollywood, and his PR team to put him over the top.  He is like the college student whose mom is writing his papers.  He doesn't value the education he's receiving because he isn't earning it, and he certainly isn't paying for it.  He also doesn't respect the professors who are letting him get away with it.

Barack Obama and the arrogance of arrogance:  [Scroll down]  Obama, meanwhile, seems too arrogant to recognize the blowback his arrogant, and indeed hostile, approach to our traditional allies is bound to produce.  This is not surprising.  Obama's policies towards our traditional allies are the product of attitude, not of calculation.  He may well be temperamentally unable to calculate their costs.

Blame Obama.  Why Not?  For the longest time, whenever a disaster such as Katrina or this oil spill hit, people have expected the government to step up and move heaven and earth to help. ... The assumption beneath this expectation is that government, if it really wants to, can do just about anything.  One can understand why elected officials would want people to buy into the myth of government's Valhalla-like omnipotence, but why, against so much evidence, would the public believe it?  With the events of 9/11 and then with Hurricane Katrina, we had two case studies of public bureaucracies grown so large and labyrinthine that at crunch time they failed.

Oil Spill Proves It's Obama Who Is All Hat and No Cattle.  The Obama administration was slow to react to the Gulf oil spill.  And while there's been lots of talk, we're awfully lacking in real action.

More about the oil spill in the Gulf.

Just a matter of time before attackers get lucky in America.  The Times Square car bomb plot, and with it the arrest of Faisal Shahzad, is merely the latest case involving a US resident of foreign origin who has allegedly attempted to mount a terrorist attack inside America.  In each case, the suspects have been thwarted by their own amateurism.

Obama's good luck terrorism strategy.  Responding to Republican charges that Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad's plot failed only because of luck, Rep. Ike Skelton, Missouri Democrat, said, "What's wrong with being lucky?"  Nothing at all — until the luck runs out.

Don't Mention the War.  [Scroll down]  It is as if the president wanted to say the attack "has been thwarted" but then realized he could not.  The attack failed because Shahzad did not do a better job of constructing his makeshift bomb.  No government agency can take credit for that.  Still, the Obama administration celebrated the "Times Square incident," as it is delicately called on the White House's website.  It is, the administration believes, a counterterrorism success.

Luck Is Not A Strategy.  There's no better way to summarize president Obama's approach to fighting the war against jihad than this:  For the next three years, we're betting our safety on the proposition that Islamic thugs and terrorists will prove to be more incompetent than the Obama administration.  In the aftermath of the Times Square bombing attempt, is there another way to consider it?

Racial profiling:  It's only cool if it DOESN'T save lives.  Everyone knows that Islamic extremists have targeted the United States as well as other Western countries, yet the current administration and its allies have decided not to refer to Islamic terrorism because it might hurt someone's feelings.  Thus, when the recent New York City car-bomb incident occurred, everyone from Mayor Bloomberg to Attorney General Eric Holder was holding out hope for the possibility that the culprit might have been white, middle-aged and angry about taxes — in other words, a stereotypical tea-party protester.

Why wasn't Faisal on the terror watch list?  Yesterday the FBI announced that the Times Square Bomber was placed on the No Fly list — after he parked his smoking car bomb in Times Square and was already on the run.  Think about it:  That little fact captures the entire Keystone Kops insanity of this administration.  Faisal wasn't put on the No Fly list when he trained in Pakistan to bomb you and me. ... And he wasn't even picked up by our vaunted intelligence apparatus when he applied to become a US citizen last year.  How many other new citizen-terrorists do we have in this country?  We don't know, because our defenses are staffed by idiots.

More about the Times Square Idiot Bomber.

The humbling of Obama? &c.  Did you hear what President Obama said the other day about the Middle East?  In an interview with his fan Joe Klein, he said, "I'll be honest with you.  This is just really hard."  Oh?  That's a stunning observation, Sherlock. ... Maybe the Bushes — all of them — weren't such flakes and boobs and knaves after all.

The president's reality problem:  "This is just really hard," he explained.  "This is as intractable a problem as you get."  As an observation, this is as banal as it gets. ... This speaks either to an astonishing historical ignorance (did he not know?) or a stupendous self-regard (did he not care because he thought he was so special?), or both.

Lawfare, Voluntary Surrender, and Right-wing "Extremists".  [Scroll down slowly]  Barack Obama, who passed his bar in 1991, "voluntarily surrendered" his license in 2008, for unknown reasons.  Why did Obama surrender his license?  Citizen WELLs reports that it may have been because of charges that Obama lied on his bar application.

Obama's War of Words.  "Nobody remembers "Tear Down this Wall" because I did an OK job of stringing the words together," says my speechwriter friend, Peter Robinson.  "We remember the speech because Reagan meant it, because it expressed the principles that he acted on, and because history proved him right."

Obama's Lack of Business Sense:  Asked how how and why small business loans would help small business, President Obama replied:  "If [small businesses] can get the bank loans to boost their payroll... they will do so."  He further claimed that in his "travels" he has spoken with small business owners nationwide, and they see optimism and new customers. ... [O]ur President advocates taking loans for the purpose of boosting payroll — in the middle of an economic draught.  It just makes no sense.

Obama Doesn't "Get" the Military He Commands.  Life is full of mysteries, but chief among them in this Marine wife's mind at the moment is, "Just how stupid does this White House think we are?"  If the events of the past few months have shown us anything, it's that Barack Obama has little enthusiasm for — or interest in — one of the most important duties of an American President:  his role as Commander in Chief of the nation's armed forces.

Massive TSA Security Breach As Agency Gives Away Its Secrets.  In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inadvertently posted online its airport screening procedures manual, including some of the most closely guarded secrets regarding special rules for diplomats and CIA and law enforcement officers.

Greenspan:  Census will save Obamonomics.  Alan Greenspan told NBC:  "It [unemployment] is going to be lower.  You see, we are going to get a special bonus, one that no one expects is the fact that the Bureau of Census announced that it is going to employ 792,000 by April.  That is a big, it is not a huge number but it will take several tens of a percent off unemployment rate."  That's it?  That's the big plan?  If so, we could have moved the Census up a year and saved $787 billion.  They do not know what they are doing.

Obama secrecy:  So much for the hope of greater government transparency.  You can't have a closed-door meeting about the need for fewer closed-door meetings and expect anyone to take you seriously.  That's like writing a memo to order fewer memos.  Such folly is business as usual in the Obama White House.

The Obama Energy Fiasco.  Whatever happened to President Obama's urgent campaign appeal to "free America from dependency on foreign oil"?  In eleven short months, the Obama administration has made more mistakes on energy policy than did Jimmy Carter in his entire term, and that's saying something.

That unpopular bank bailout?  Geithner wants to extend it.  A day ahead of testimony in which he's sure to be grilled about the controversial taxpayer-funded bank bailout program, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced Wednesday [12/9/2009] that he wants to extend it into late 2010.

Why Fight With The Press?  The problem begins with the fact that, at bottom line, Mr. Obama was and is an empty suit.  He is able to play the con man, but he is incapable of governing, and has essentially zero leadership ability.  His campaign on how he was going to benefit everyone and make government transparent was for all practical purposes a fraud.  His sole agenda was to turn the government over to the radicals in Congress and his equally radical assistants to run in an essentially authoritarian fashion.

Our clueless C in C.  Twelve soldiers were murdered in cold blood at Fort Hood.  Thirty others were wounded.  Our Commander in Chief calls a press conference and begins it with a long thanks to the Interior Department and Indians who just concluded a conference and then gives a good natured "shout out" to an attendee, all with a studied nonchalance, before he even mentions the outrage on our military base. ... Study it and pass it on because the media is already cutting the tape to make the man look presidential instead of clueless and immature.

Obama's Frightening Insensitivity Following Shooting.  The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.  But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks.

Obama's delayed empathy.  In times of national tragedy, Americans expect their president to capture the mood and moment with the right blend of emotion, empathy, and urgency.  It's a delicate act of timing and tone.  And President Obama, despite his eloquence and dignity, has yet to master it, as illustrated by his awkward response to the deadly shootings at the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas.

Obama Gives Shout Out to 'Congressional Medal of Honor Winner' Who Isn't.  Obama, often described as "cerebral" by the mainstream media, should know the difference between the Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom, especially since he personally awarded the latter to Crow.  Don't expect his blunder to receive wide coverage.

KSM collects his first virgin.  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed collected the first of his 72 virgins:  Barack Obama. ... President Obama's decision to try KSM as if he were a purse-snatcher bares once and for all shows how shallow our president is.  He is ignorant of history and of legal precedent.

Former CBO Chief Calls Obama Administration Fiscal Policies 'Laughable'.  A former Republican congressional budget chief called the Obama administration's claims to fiscal responsibility "hypocritical" and "laughable," noting in particular the mounting unemployment numbers (9.8 percent nationwide) despite the $787-billion stimulus plan enacted in February that he said was poorly designed.

Theory and Practice.  In theory we should all get along.  In practice we don't.  In theory winter should start on December 21st.  In practice it doesn't. ... Why are we talking like this?  Because we have a president who is so short on practice and so long on theory that he seems to be entertaining theories that can only be classified as world class in their stupidity.

Welcome to the P.T. Barnum Administration.  President Barack Obama is a master at pulling the wool over our eyes — a real professional huckster.  He ran as an anti-war candidate and still pushes two wars.  But he won't commit to either prosecuting the wars or withdrawing.  It's like having the circus high wire act perform without a net.  Sure it might work, but one mistake gets somebody killed.

Is Obama a fool?  Yes, if one gives him the benefit of the doubt.  If Obama believes that the thuggish, autocratic, expansionist Russian regime is more sinned against than sinning in relation to the U.S., then he is anti-American.  If he doesn't believe this but elects to act as if it were the case, then he is a fool.

The UN loves Barack Obama because he is weak.  Barack Obama's Gallup approval rating of 52 percent may well be lower at this stage of his presidency than any US leader in recent times with the exception of Bill Clinton.  But he is still worshipped with messiah-like adoration at the United Nations, and is considerably more popular with many of the 192 members of the UN than he is with the American people.

The Not Ready for Prime Time President.  Obama, while possessing many of the campaigning gifts of these presidents, has shown no ability to govern at all.  This is a very dangerous situation for our nation.  Our leader is a man whose ignorance, in many areas of history and policy, is simply appalling.  He is rather like the "President in the Plastic Bubble."  Obama's entire life has been insulated from any sense of reality of the nation he governs. ... President Obama seemingly has no clue about what he is doing, and, increasingly, it shows.

A Rookie President.  Barack Obama is a rookie in a sense that few other presidents in American history have ever been.  It is not just that he has never been president before.  He has never had any position in any kind of organization where he was personally responsible for the outcome.

5 Reasons Obama's Election Is Bad For Race Relations:  [#5]  Obama is no Jackie Robinson:  Because he's the first black President, Barack Obama's presidency is particularly meaningful to black Americans just as Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier meant a lot for the same reasons.  However, there is a huge difference between the two men:  Jackie Robinson was genuinely talented.  He ended up being Major League baseball's first Rookie of the Year.  On the other hand, Obama is a bumbling, corrupt, megalomaniacal train wreck who has been a disaster at home and a weakling abroad.

Another Team Obama failure.  Not only do the practical aspects of Team Obama's economic policies bother us, what really bothers us even more is the lack of confidence we have that Team Obama knows what it is doing.  Think about it.  What has he done that has worked?  We can't think of a single instance of real success.

Sorry, America, I'm the bearer of bad news.  [Scroll down]  I'd never expected the Obama project to go pear-shaped quite so soon.  Sure, it was nothing I hadn't predicted in the book:  the cronyism, the corruption, the naivety, the incompetence, the wasting of taxpayers' money on pet, left-liberal causes.  Even so, by the time I left Washington DC, I was feeling almost sorry for the guy.

Ten Ways Obama Can Get a Grip:  The president had a rough week.  He was beset by tax-cheating appointees, hobbled by an incompetent press secretary, frustrated by a messy legislative fight over his stimulus plan, and suddenly deprived of the aura of infallibility which gave him a larger-than-life political presence.  So how does he get his mojo back?

All the President's Tax Cheats.  You never get a second chance to make a first post-inaugural impression.  Less than three weeks into his first 100 days, Barack Obama has left an indelible mark on his nascent presidency:  the mark of incompetence and hubris.  Despite the administration's much-touted wealth of bright minds and high bars, the transition has been a complete disaster.

Who is Pulling Geithner's Strings?  Appearing behind a podium that proclaimed, "Financial Stability and Recovery," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday [2/10/2009] carefully read from a teleprompter and provided what his flack said was a "comprehensive" plan.  It was not comprehensive in any way.  It seemed so amateurish and shallow that the market dropped and commentators and senators were almost incredulous at the lack of detail.

Is the Administration Winging It?  Inexplicably, the president, in a prime-time press conference, raised expectations for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's bank rescue plan, which turned out the next day to be no plan at all.  The markets craved details; they got none.  When markets cratered, spokesmen didn't acknowledge the administration's poor planning, but blamed the markets. ... Team Obama has been living off its campaign reputation for planning and execution.  That reputation is now frayed, and all the bumbling and unforced errors will have an impact.

Snake Oil Diplomacy:  Already the European press is picking up on the fact that the liberal Obama Administration style is to pay lip service to every issue under consideration and emphasize a willingness to discuss each and every element.  This is what Washington now considers good foreign policy.  The operational theme is to flood the diplomatic process with talk and pass that off as foreign political accomplishment.  It isn't! ... If George W. Bush came to be considered a "cowboy," Barack H. Obama is in danger of being viewed as a "snake oil salesman."

The Obama Cabinet is a CEO black hole.  There is virtually no one on Obama's team with outsized achievements or a high-profile reputation earned in the world of business.  There are no former CEOs in the Obama Cabinet.  And among the people who make up his daily inner circle, there is only a dollop or two of top-level private sector experience.

Obama's Supine Diplomacy:  The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, predicted in October that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama."  Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban missile crisis.  Instead, Obama's challenges have come in smaller bites.  Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.  Preliminary X-rays are not very encouraging.

Our Keystone Cops Foreign Policy.  It appears that Barack Obama's foreign policy team is going to make us pine for the days of the Bush Administration's competency by comparison very soon.  I'm not sure what exactly this story illustrates except there doesn't seem to be anyone home at the White House yet.  You may recall the hubbub over Senator Kerry being handed a letter that was from Hamas which he promptly turned over to the American consulate at his next stop which happened to be Jerusalem.  Well now Kerry swears he didn't know it was from Hamas (who did he think it was from, Santa Claus?) ...

Not One of Us.  Governor Palin's "inexperience" is a talking point that might have some plausibility if it were not for the fact that Barack Obama has far less experience in actually making policies than Sarah Palin has.  Joe Biden has had decades of experience in being both consistently wrong and consistently a source of asinine statements.

Beyond Our Wildest Expectations.  In one short month, President Obama has exceeded even the wildest expectations of many of his critics. ... But did Obama really win a mandate to borrow and spend taxpayer money like never before, rescue bad banks and then bailout financially-inept or even fraudulent homeowners?

Biden Asks for Web Site's 'Number'.  Vice President Joe Biden, tasked with overseeing the $787 billion stimulus package, has been having a little trouble with his "numbers." ... "You know, I'm embarrassed.  Do you know the Web site number?" he asked an aide standing out of view.  "I should have it in front of me and I don't.  I'm actually embarrassed."  Biden, who seemed to indicate that he thought the Internet worked like a giant telephone, sounded an unusually Luddite note inside an administration often heralded for its mastery of the Web.

The Editor says...
 Obviouly the press would have had a field day with a comment like that, if it had come from Dan Quayle.

A Month of B.O.  The Great Leader spent more than a third of his first month (11 days) on the road in an attempt to gin up support for his wobbly opening gambits.  Obama emoted by radio address, press conference, town-hall meeting and even a bizarre interview with Al-Arabiya in an attempt to show what he believes is leadership right out of the gate.  Unfortunately, all his locutions just sound like more campaign rhetoric.  What else can Obama do?  Try to remember that when the only tool you have is a hammer, all of your problems begin to look like nails.  What evidence do we have of BHO possessing any other skills relating to his new job?

The Emperor has no clues.  This is getting worse by the day.  First off.  Obama doesn't understand how the market works.  It's a vote of confidence each and every day how things are going to be in the future.  Not how things were yesterday.  Or, even today.  During the campaign, Barak Obama famously displayed his dismaying ignorance of economics and the availability and utilization of capital when he was surprised to learn, during an ABC interview, that lower capital gains rates result in high federal revenues.

Obama's 'fixes' worsen problems.  The Obama administration is threatening "regulatory arm twisting" to lower interest rates.  That is not the way to encourage more loans.  Sure, the government can help those who currently need help by getting someone else to pay for it, but what about the future?  What about the higher interest rates that new borrowers will face because lenders realize that they face greater risks in making loans?

Incompetence, malevolence, or both?  I was having lunch yesterday with a prominent critic of the Spender in Chief, and he raised a possibility that many of us have entertained over the past several weeks:  that Obama is simply out of his depth:  that he hasn't a clue about what makes the economy tick and his talk about the "profit-to-earnings ratio" was not a slip of the tongue but a worrisome confirmation of the suspicion that he is an empty suit floundering around in the dark.

Alice in the White House.  Two of President Barack Obama's latest tax hikes so quickly fail the laugh test as to make one wonder if Alice in Wonderland has taken up residence in the White House as an economic advisor.  The first would limit tax deductions for upper-income earners for their donations to charities.  The second would limit their deductions for mortgage-interest payments.  Such thinking is the opposite of what is needed with today's economy.

He's Just Not that into Governing.  Well, it's becoming obvious [Obama]'s not really much of a manager, decider, legislation-craftsman, or supervisor.  His vetting process is in shambles and key Treasury slots are still vacant.  His Treasury Secretary is a classic under-performer and Obama encourages that tendency by talking about everything other than our immediate recovery needs.  He lets Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do the legislating — and they've come up with an embarrassing stimulus and an omnibus spending-bill even Democrats aren't swallowing.

Is Obama lazy?  All we're getting is whispers from the press, of course, A raised eyebrow here, a sad shake of the head there.  But the picture that is emerging of Barack Obama, the executive, is not very flattering if you look between the lines.

Maybe we should schedule some nap time for our president.  [Scroll down]  The reason for all this is the explosion in the British press over the shabby treatment given Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his visit last week.  No joint presser, no state dinner, no mark of any kind that would have separated Brown's visit from that of the president of a much lesser country that didn't enjoy a century long "special relationship" with the United States.  Coupled with the comically insulting gift of 25 movie cd's (like giving your wife a vacuum cleaner for your anniversary), and you have all the evidence you need to state that Obama doesn't know what he's doing.  Not surprisingly, the American press has been mum about this epic fail.

What's Behind Barack's Brit Snit:  President Obama's first hosting of a foreign leader, the UK's Gordon Brown, was a diplomatic disaster.  Obama failed to hold a joint Rose Garden press conference, the usual protocol when a US president and a British prime minister first meet — a lapse widely noted in Britain and in the diplomatic community.

America Apologizes to Britain for Obama.  Barack Obama is a radical Leftist, a thinly viewed Marxist.  While Hitler was conquering Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, and France, the radical Left was organizing strikes in American munitions factories.  It was trying to drive ROTC off college campuses.  It was forming front groups to stand for "peace" (which meant not helping Britain resist Nazi Germany.)  When the British nation was facing, alone, the full wrath of Nazi violence and terror, the radical Left in America was urging America to not help Britain.  Except for the will of Churchill and the courage and sacrifice of the British people, murderous racism on a mind numbing scale might have spread across the globe.  As an American, I apologize to the British people for the arrogance, ignorance, and indifference of our national leader.

Obama is overwhelmed.  It's at moments like this I'm reminded of this assessment of Obama, back in 2007:  "I think he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is.  The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."  That assessment came from ... Vice President Joe Biden.

Ready for that "Smart Diplomacy".  One of the promises Candidate Obama made was to replace the Bush administration's foreign policy with a smarter one — one more respectful of our traditional allies with an emphasis on "smart power."  So, how's that working out?  Well, so far we've been rolled by the Russians while alienating Eastern Europe and Great Britain.

How Do You Say 'Hillary's Gaffe' in Russian?  Did you know that if you translate "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" into Russian, it becomes "the vodka is agreeable but the meat has gone bad"?  Literal translations can be tricky that way.  It seems that no translators were harmed in the manufacturing of Hillary Clinton's "reset" button, which she presented to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday [3/6/2009].  "We worked hard to get the right Russian word," Clinton addressed Lavrov in a deliberately slow voice, as if talking to a special-needs child.  "Do you think we got it?"

The 10 Biggest Amateur Mistakes By the Obama Administration So Far.  [#9]  In a juvenile stunt, reminiscent of something a third grader might come up with, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov a button that was supposed to say "reset."  However, incredibly, the word on the button translated to "overcharge," not "reset."  Apparently, despite the enormous deficit the government is going to run up this year, Team Obama forgot to budget enough money to hire someone who speaks Russian for the State Department.  If only America could just press a button and reset the entire Obama presidency so far and start over.

Voters' Obama Folly Coming Home to Roost.  With an economy in shambles, slinking toward all-out depression a little further each day, the President doesn't know the difference between a popularity-based political tracking poll and the confidence meter of the stock market, which represents the actual savings and pension funds of millions and millions of ordinary Americans.  Heck, the golden boy of campaign one-liners doesn't even know that P/E ratio stands for price/earnings, not profit/earnings.  If only he had once had a paper route instead of all those pick-up games with the hoops.

Obama's fear-mongering:  Imagine a child falls down a well.  Now imagine I offer to lend the parents my ladder to save her, but only if they promise to paint my house.  Would you applaud me for not letting a crisis go to waste?  Or would you think I'm a jerk?  I ask because I'm trying to come to terms with Rule No. 1 of the Obama administration.  "Rule 1:  Never allow a crisis to go to waste," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times right after the election.

The O is for Overrated.  In his campaign for the Presidency, candidate Barack Obama and his minions relied on several key messages ... Experience, and in particular executive experience, was not much discussed, since Obama had less of both than any candidate for President in history. ... We have now seen the President and his team in action, and the lack of executive experience seems to be a real drawback.

Does Obama Know What He Is Doing?  Conservatives are so aghast at the huge spending going on in Washington and the $1.75 trillion deficit (13 percent of our gross domestic product) it is causing them to overlook an even more basic question about the president:  Is he competent?  Does he know what he is doing?  To be specific:  Does he know how to do anything other than spend money?

Obama opens new era of recklessness.  The miraculous marketing machine that carried a junior senator into the White House is now at work trying to convince Americans that writing fat checks from an empty Treasury represents a giant step toward fiscal responsibility.

Obama's failure to lead:  President Obama was called upon to lead and has utterly failed, and in less than two months.  From the stimulus package that won't stimulate even Chris Matthews' leg, to the continuing series of ethically questionable political appointments, through an outrageous Congressional spending binge that included unfettered earmarks, he has passed on all the easy leadership opportunities.  What will he do on the tougher issues?

More than a bad day:  Worries grow that Barack Obama & Co. have a competence problem.  Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, "Do you think they know what they're doing?"  The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter.  As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts.

Electing a Child to be President.  [Obama] had, on taking office, already written two autobiographical memoirs, but people are slowly becoming aware of the fact that there is virtually no paper trail by which to measure him.  His birth certificate and legal standing to be President are in dispute.  Records from his college days are hidden from view.  His record as a one-term Illinois legislator is replete with "present" votes that revealed little about his political positions.  He did not even wait to complete a full term as a U.S. Senator before almost immediately beginning to run for the highest office in the land.  In terms of political leadership, he is a child among grownups and a petulant one at that.

Obama must show competence to move agenda.  Obama's approach to his presidential agenda had been to define the nature of the economic crisis, sharpen public concerns about the crisis, propose a solution and then prepare to take credit for eventual success.  But concerns about competence may prevent him from implementing his solution, and all that defining and sharpening could make even basic governance difficult.

Obama Continues To Set Records For Incompetence.  There are growing indications that the Obama administration is melting down, unraveling and falling apart. ... Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but the early days of the Obama administration will be remembered for his picking NCAA basketball tournament winners, appearing on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and making fun of special needs children — while the American economy is burning.

Squaring Off With Obama:  It's not just the big things the man does, things such as the kazillion dollar bail-outs, the trichinosis infested budget and the threat of the Fairness Doctrine being enacted, that make my blood run cold.  It's not even the allegedly eloquent orator requiring a TelePrompter in order to say, "Hello."  What I'm referring to is the Commander in Chief earmarking $900 million for Hamas and, worse yet, make veterans financially responsible for their own service-related medical treatments.  (That comes under the heading of adding insult to injury.)  And let us not forget Obama's sending the bust of Winston Churchill back to the English embassy...

Mis-micromanagement.  It is never a good day when the White House announces that the president "still" has confidence in ... fill in the blank.  In this case, it's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, only two months into the administration.  But that gnawing feeling in the pit of the stomach is not just about Geithner.  It's primarily about our new president and his meager management skills.

Obama's inexperience shows.  Inappropriate laughter is not the only mistake the president made during the "60 Minutes" interview.  He also hyperbolized, yet again, about the recession.  He said he believes the United States could undergo a further implosion of the financial system if Citigroup or AIG have more problems, which in turn could launch, "an even more destructive recession and potentially depression."  Such talk from the leader of the free world is immature if not downright inexcusable.  Hasn't he learned by now that his words have more impact since he took over the White House?

O's Foreign Failures:  America's enemies smell blood and it's type "O."  All new administrations stumble a bit as they seek their footing.  But President Obama's foreign-policy botches have set new records for instant incompetence.

The Dems' AIG Bonus Scam.  [Scroll down]  It's a farce — a sham.  What's going on here is that the news media finally got around to mentioning that this $165 million for bonuses is part of the more than $170 billion of taxpayer money that Congress and President Obama insisted must be awarded in haste to the failed insurance giant American International Group, Inc (AIG).  The public, understandably, is really angry.  So the Democrats are terrified that the public might actually start figuring out what an incredibly incompetent job President Obama and the Congressional Democrats are doing.

Once Again, Tim Geithner Gets It Exactly Wrong.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 6 percent on Monday after the announcement of Treasury secretary Tim Geithner's latest bank relief plan. ... Indeed, stocks rallied for weeks in 1971 after President Nixon announced the dollar's de-link from gold, combined with price controls, but eventually markets caught up to the major economic negatives that would result from Nixon's flawed attempts to revitalize the U.S. economy.  It seems the same applies here.

The Subprime Presidency.  This week's G-20 summit may be one of America's most embarrassing moments since President Barack Obama gave 25 DVDs and a bag of Jiffy Pop to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.  Granted, that was only a few weeks ago, but when Obama presented the department store gift set as a symbol of our national friendship, Americans cringed.  At the time, we believed it to be thoughtless.  Now we realize it was all we could afford.  That point is not lost on other world leaders.

Barry and the Pirates.  It is the stuff of movies, a high seas drama, where for the first time in 200 years, pirates attack an American vessel, the Maersk Alabama.  In the best traditions of America's merchant seamen, its brave crew fights back and regains control of the ship. ... It is a moment for leadership and resolve, where America asserts her might and dignity, where she takes the lead against lawless marauders, and our President stands up full of pride and righteous anger and says.... Well, what he said was, exactly, nothing.

Welcome to Utopia.  Genocidal despots, such as those ruling in Pyongyang and Tehran, never have cowered in fear of a nonbinding U.N. Security Council resolution, because they know that the U.N. has raised irrelevance to a new level.  They do, however, pay attention to reality — such as what we're buying to defend ourselves.  Unfortunately, less than 24 hours after Mr. Obama mentioned the North Korean "provocation" and Iran's "dangerous pursuit of nuclear weapons," his defense budget revealed how seriously he takes those and other threats.  The O-Team intends to reduce our ability to project power overseas and to protect the American people from nuclear attack.

Innocents abroad.  Hillary Clinton has apparently spent the last week in a state of deep concern.  She was "deeply concerned" about North Korea's missile launch, in defiance of all agreements the psycho-dictatorship had made.  She expressed "deep concern" about maritime conditions off Somalia, after the first American-flagged ship in about 200 years was boarded by pirates. ... Those who have noticed that the U.S. hold on superpower status is loosening before our eyes should know that Clinton feels our pain.

The Obama Doctrine:  Europe 1, America 0.  U.S. President Barack Obama's debut in European summitry has been good for Europe but bad for America.  While a highly deferential Obama gave in to all of the negotiating demands established by the Europeans, the Europeans in turn exploited Obama's naïvité and refused to concede to any of his.

Bow-ow-ow:  Obama's painful missteps.  Obama's staffing problems are blatant — from that bleating boy of a treasury secretary to what appears to be a total vacuum where a chief of protocol should be.  There has been one needless gaffe after another — from the president's tacky appearance on a late-night comedy show to the kitsch gifts given to the British prime minister, followed by the sweater-clad first lady's over-familiarity with the queen and culminating in the jaw-dropping spectacle of a president of the United States bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia.  Why was protest about the latter indignity confined to conservatives?  The silence of the major media was a disgrace.

Obama's Non-Stop Naivete:  President Obama added a line at the last minute that wasn't in the prepared text of his nuclear-disarmament speech in Prague:  "I'm not naive."  He needed the disclaimer because, nearly simultaneous with his speech embracing the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons, Kim Jong Il launched a three-stage rocket over Japan.  Coincidence?

O's Amateur Hour:  Obama means well.  Just as Jimmy Carter, his policy godfather, meant well.  But the road to embassy takeovers and strategic humiliation is paved with good intentions -- coupled with distressing naivete.  On every stage, Obama draped Lady Liberty in sackcloth and ashes, drawing plentiful applause but no serious economic or security cooperation in return.  Then, in Turkey, he surrendered our national pride, undercut our interests and interfered in matters that aren't his business.

President Pantywaist — new surrender monkey on the block.  President Barack Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.  You name it, he blew it.

DHS, 'Rightwing Extremism' and Information Warfare.  The Homeland Security Assessment targeting mainstream conservatism was amateurish, poorly written and its logic absurdly shallow.  It's a shot across the bow in the unfolding information warfare. ... If this DHS Assessment is an example of the kind of analysis our decision makers receive from our intelligence agencies, we are in far worse straits than I had imagined.

Who gets credit for the rescue of Captain Phillips?  President Barack Obama (D), as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, is taking credit for the successful rescue of ship captain Richard Phillips, basking in the glow of an absolutely outstanding performance and raw courage of the ship's captain Richard Phillips, the ship's crew and the U.S. Navy under his skilled direction.  However military correspondent Jeff Emanuel at Pajama Media claims the reality is quite different; the inexperienced Obama and his equally inexperienced staff and advisers, committed to a peaceful resolution, needlessly dragged out an incident that, thanks to Phillips' bravery, could have been successfully resolved in a few hours with minimal loss of life.

Maybe 'brilliant' isn't exactly the right word for Obama.  [Scroll down]  Not 100 days into the Obama presidency and we literally can't go one day without someone on network or cable television telling us of the "brilliance" of our new president.  Leaving the media bias aside, what makes a president "brilliant?"  Does bowing before the Saudi king make one brilliant?  Does praising Turkey's AKP party and pushing — against the strong opposition of Europe — for the admission of Turkey into the EU make one brilliant?  Does proposing a $3.6 trillion budget that will create a deficit this year of $1.8 trillion make one brilliant?

World 3, Obama 0.  President Obama's two overseas trips — Europe and Latin America — make him appear more like a diplomatic tourist than the leader of the free world.  He met heads of state, made speeches, attended summits, conducted town hall meetings, but accomplished nothing that furthers U.S. interests abroad.

The insults were only for America.  The president's critics ought to lighten up.  We should give him credit for not knowing any better.  (He was "finished" and "polished" at Harvard, after all.)  Barack Obama is an accident of history, a street hustler from the South Side of Chicago with the gift of gab who landed on the world stage like a whale beached at the whim of a storm, the wrong man at the right time.

Napolitano makes Bush administration look well informed.  Ms. Napolitano's brief interview with the CBC this week was confirmation we're dealing with an irrational senior U.S. official who can't differentiate between a secure border linking the world's largest trading partners and one that's a giant sucking sound for jobs going south and what's been described as an "invasion" of desperate Mexicans illegally sneaking north.

Ideology versus Competence:  Janet Napolitano.  [Scroll down]  You see, Janet is an ideologue.  She is the kind of person who will pursue ideological goals without regard for truth, a person who can be expected to reinvent reality to fit the ideological vision of the administration, which she does with abandon.  She is the perfect Obama Administration appointee.

Of Course Obama Voters Are Not In Denial.  Every federal attempt to manage energy markets has proved a bust — and driven up costs.  As far as education goes, Obama has deployed as education secretary, sort of a national schools superintendent, a former superintendent of Chicago's public schools that are so bad Obama would not put his own children in them — just as he doesn't enroll them in Washington's public schools now.

The border for dummies.  Can someone please tell us how U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano got her job?  She appears to be about as knowledgeable about border issues as a late-night radio call-in yahoo.

Obama's old/new socialism.  Those sympathetic to the charismatic Barack Obama ... often suggest that we have to "give him a chance" before judging his policies.  Although one may acknowledge the mountain of toxic woe he has inherited, this seems similar to suggesting that a five-year-old boy who thinks he can fly should be "given a chance" to climb up on the roof.  After all, it is not as if the President is suggesting policies that have never been tried before, or that do not have consequences as predictable as the law of gravity.

Second World War history is not Barack Obama's strong suit.  [Scroll down]  Last May ... Mr Obama said that his uncle "was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz".  Republicans pointed out that it was the Soviets who liberated Auschwitz.  "Unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there's no way Obama's statement can be true," a Republican spokesman said.  The Democratic candidate issued a correction, but critical historians have found earlier examples of Mr Obama's elastic approach to the facts.

Obama's Competence Gap.  Guantanamo is the most vivid example.  As a candidate, Obama pushed the notion that George W. Bush was a constitutional Neanderthal and destroyer of American values.  Now he's discovered that it is really hard to figure out what to do with these really bad people.  And he's even discovered the virtue of the Bush-created military tribunals.  Republicans have kept up the drumbeat, forcing Democrats to include limits on funding and demands to "show them the plans" before funding a Guantanamo shut-down.  And it may be that there is no plan, no viable one to allow Guantanamo to be closed.

Obama's Cabinet served in legal wars, not real wars.  Members of President Obama's Cabinet are three times more likely to have attended law school than boot camp.  How things have changed since 2004, when Democrats were outraged that, in time of war, the GOP White House could be run by men with no combat experience.

Obama:  'We're out of money'.  I wish he would have realized that about $11 trillion ago.  In a Memorial Day weekend interview with C-SPAN's Steve Scully, the President of the United States told the people of America that their government was flat broke. ... This is a man who hasn't a clue.  Yes, we are in a recession and a financial crisis.  So your scare tactics that ratcheted up fear in order to get your stim bill, omnibus spending, and FY 2009 budget passed — a total of more than $5 trillion with interest added — are backfiring and you think you can work your way out of it by spending a trillion more on a health insurance boondoggle?

Obama Emulating Jimmy Carter in Portraying U.S. As Soft, Analyst Says.  President Obama is on track to accomplish in his first year of office what President Carter took three years to achieve — portray the United States as a "confused and soft power," an Asian security expert charged after North Korea reported a nuclear weapons test Monday [5/25/2009].

The Indispensable Geithner.  The Treasury Secretary aimed to cure the ills of the financial system by extracting toxic assets from bank balance sheets, replenishing the banks' capital resources, and bolstering the housing market to prevent further foreclosures so normal lending could resume.  Let us take a look at what he has "accomplished" thus far.

Burke and Obama.  When [Edmund] Burke wrote of his apprehension about "new power in new persons," I could not help think of the new powers that have been created by which a new President of the United States — a man with zero experience in business — can fire the head of General Motors and tell banks how to run their businesses.  Not only is Barack Obama new to the presidency, he is new to running any organization.  One of Burke's fears was that "we may place our confidence in the virtue of those who have never been tried."

The Unpersuasive Orator.  Obama is effective at marketing himself.  His 64 percent job approval (Gallup poll) is a reflection of this.  But in building public support for his policies, Obama has been largely unsuccessful.  You'd never guess this from the laudatory press coverage of Obama. ... Obama's reputation as a convincing speaker is overrated.  He may sound like an effective salesman, but the only product Americans are buying is Obama himself.

Testing O's Limits (He Has None).  Obama's so far out of his depth that the only role-model he can turn to for Afghanistan is LBJ.  Don't have a clue what to do?  Send more troops.  In Vietnam, we at least had secure supply lines and sensible rules of engagement.  But, then, why feel sorry for our soldiers?  Obama's supporters know that those in uniform are all expendable losers.  Since the change in administrations, we haven't heard many chants of "Support our troops, bring them home!"  The hypocrisy's inexhaustible.

The Blind Spot on Iran.  It's nice to see that the scales have fallen from the Obama administration's eyes when it comes to North Korea. ... [But] What makes the administration think Iran is any more open to giving up its nuclear weapons program than North Korea is?

The Iranian election: Barack Obama's cowardly silence.  The Obama administration's response to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fraudulent election victory is cowardly, lily-livered and wrong.  As blood flows on the streets of Tehran, the United States government remains as silent as a Trappist Monk.  It is highly embarrassing when even the German government is showing more backbone than the White House.

Running the country with T-ball economics.  I get to feeling the people in Washington want to treat all of us as if we were playing T-ball.  Everyone is the same and only the powers that be know the real score.  Since everyone gets to run around the bases even if they struck out, all should be well.  But then, life isn't T-ball.  Life has winners and losers.

The little president who wasn't there.  Barack Obama loves to preen and parade his "higher" morality.  But when it comes to Iranians struggling against ugly tyranny or the people of North Korean just trying to fill their bellies with food, our little president just isn't there.  Nowhere to be found. ... Would Obama have gone to jail and risked Bull Connor's dogs and axe handles to assert basic human rghts in the segregated South in the 1950s?  Or would he be nowhere to be found?

Reality Bites — Doesn't It, Mr. President?  Obama is welcomed to the real world where eloquence and ice cream do nothing to counter a deep recession and thuggish dictators.

Obama's Cloudy Crystal Ball:  If his economic team was 2.5 million jobs off — and counting — in projecting unemployment just a few months into the future, how on earth can we trust their claims about all the money preventive care, information technology, and other such measures will save us on health care 10 or 20 years from now?

Biden:  We 'Misread the Economy'.  Big admission from Vice President Joe Biden today.  "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," Biden told me during our exclusive "This Week" interview in Iraq.  Biden acknowledged administration officials were too optimistic earlier this year when they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent as part of their effort to sell the stimulus package.

White House spells Obama's name wrong.  In a release touting an agreement between Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev over how to craft a follow-up to the START arms reduction treaty, the White House claimed the document had been signed by one "Barak Obama."

The High School Valedictorian Presidency.  Listening to President Obama speak Tuesday [7/7/2009] at the New Economic School in Moscow, it became completely clear that his intellect is greatly overrated.  As Obama proudly proclaimed his commitment to shared international progress and explained his support for ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, it was painfully clear how foolish it is to believe he can be trusted to do the right thing on the international stage.  Most Russians already knew that.

Barack Obama is dumb.  Admittedly, George Bush was not the most eloquent President we've ever had, but of course, neither is Barack Obama once he gets off his teleprompter. ... Was it George Bush who claimed that there were more than 57 states?  Did Bush say he saw our "fallen heroes" in the audience during a speech?  Was it George Bush who made a racist comment about "typical white people?"  Did W. spend 20 years without complaint at a church where the pastor spouted off ignorant, anti-Semitic ideas and conspiracy theories?  Was George Bush so much of an airhead that he actually ended up "thanking himself in a speech" because that's what his teleprompter said to do?

Is Obamacare dead in the water?  Even the president has acknowledged that his deadline of getting it done before the August recess may be impossible.  I might add that there is precious little from the White House except speechmaking.  This president doesn't know how to govern.  He has handed responsibility for getting this bill passed to Pelosi and Reid while he stands on the sidelines kibbitzing.  Bottom line:  No one is in charge.

Obama Is Delaying the Economic Recovery.  When President Obama was hawking his stimulus package costing the American people close to $1 trillion with interest, he told us that it would prevent the unemployment rate from rising above 8%.  If we didn't pass it, he said, unemployment would go to 9%. ... Obviously, President Obama and his economic gurus didn't know what they were talking about.  Not only is unemployment today at 9.5%, but even the Obama Administration is now saying it will go over 10%.  President Obama is now changing his story, saying the stimulus was never supposed to work this fast, and it is really a two-year program.

Know-Nothing-in-Chief.  Is President Obama an economic illiterate?  Harsh as that sounds, there's growing evidence he understands little about economics and even less about economic growth or job creation. ... The president talks as if free market solutions are nonexistent, and in his mind they may be.  Three weeks after taking office, he said only government "has the resources to jolt our economy back into life."  He hasn't retreated, in words or policies, from that view.

Just how smart is Obama?  Comparing books attributed to Obama with known undisputed samples of his writings, [Jack] Cashill has shown that, in fact, Obama is a crappy writer, who, despite a Harvard-educated father, a mother with a PhD, attendance at the best private prep school in Hawaii and degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, never mastered such elemental matters of grammar as the necessary agreement of verbs and nouns in a sentence. ... But the "literary genius" foundational myth is not the only one in need of serious examination.  The very notion that he merited admission let alone degrees from these rigorous and competitive institutions is called into question every time Obama makes an extemporaneous remark.  He knows little or nothing about history, economics, law, geography and the grammar rules of his native tongue.

Barack Obama faces revolt over health care overhaul.  On the eve of Mr Obama's 200th day as president, his ratings slumped to 50 per cent, while a series of public meetings called by Democrats to promote the reforms have degenerated into mob scenes ... With progress of a health bill — which the White House had hoped for in July — stalled on Capitol Hill and rising concern over Mr Obama's handling of the economy, his national approval rating fell by seven per cent from last month.  The new low is a far cry from the stratospheric ratings of his heady first days in office.

Disaster in the Making?  Like so many before him who have ruined countries around the world, Obama has a greatly inflated idea of his own capabilities and the prospects of what can be accomplished by rhetoric or even by political power.  Often this has been accompanied by an ignorance of history, including the history of how many people before him have tried similar things with disastrous results.

Obama Failed to Master Alinsky's Rule #12.  Obama himself, Organizer in Chief, had no plan.  He proposed no plan to Congress.  He has let committee after committee of witless tax-and-spend, haggard old liberals write the convoluted mess they're calling healthcare reform, and has virtually done nothing for own his part but bash the insurance companies, the doctors and even the patients, who ask for individual control over their own life-and-death choices.  This, dear readers, is the fundamental difference between an empty-suited celebrity and a nuts-and-bolts executive:  flim-flam artistry vs. substance and real results.

Obama's White House is Falling Down.  While his officials carry out their dirty economic deeds, Obama responds to any and every crisis as if it were a Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland musical, with a cry of, "Let's put on a show."  Thus far Obama has put on "shows" across America, Europe and the Middle East.  And what the adoring media coverage neglects to cover, is that Obama's shows have solved absolutely nothing.  They have served only as high profile entertainment.

White House in disarray over public option.  So is it [the "public option"] still in or not?  Not even the White House knows at this point.  This was made evident by the Obama administration walking to the edge of eliminating the public option and then scurrying back.  This kind of thing, by all rights, should have spurred a host of stories and opinion pieces on the total, laughable incompetence of the president and his people.

Panetta Revealed.  [Scroll down]  It should also go without saying that [Leon] Panetta's lack of experience in the intelligence sector was deeply worrisome.  The sad irony is that the Obama administration needs strong intelligence agencies.  Obama has cut defense spending and generally seems wary of the armed services.  This leaves a wide gap, so to speak, for heavy reliance on wide-reaching, covert intelligence agencies.  Obama's ill-chosen reliance on Leon Panetta speaks volumes about the slipshod way in which vital national-security issues are handled in this administration.

Questions of competence begin to dog Obama.  Two decisions on health care have rattled Democrats.  First, the president chose to not sell his own plan but instead tried to get Congress to rush something through before lawmakers — and the public — fully understood what was in the bill.  Second, the administration attempted an ungainly flip-flop on the issue of government-run insurance. ... Democrats can't be blamed for wondering if these guys know what they're doing.

No, Mr. Conyers, we expect you to read the bills.  If it weren't for the Great Health Care Debate of 2009, would we all know what a sorry excuse for a congressman Rep. John Conyers of Michigan really is? ... The man's been in Congress more than 40 years and, apparently, doesn't bother to read bills.  Well, at least not the long ones.  And he revealed this:  He not only doesn't bother to read the long bills, but he would also need lawyers to interpret them once he did read them.  How does a man with a mind like this get elected to the House of Representatives, and get elected repeatedly?

The Alinskyite's Big, Fat Governance Failure.  What happens when a president ... has never actually run anything successfully, not even his own paper route or a PTA meeting or a small town's city council?  What happens when power-grab tactics, taught by a rabble-rousing revolutionary, suddenly catapult a charismatic demagogue into the highest power-perch in the world?  Well, then, Barack Obama's big, fat governance failure happens.

Obama's Doomed Utopia.  Barack Obama was a great, if empty, orator when running for office.  He projected an elusive utopian vision of hope and change that won over the hearts of those who postponed thinking about how the brutal fact of scarce resources can stymie even his grandiose plans for social reform.  Unfortunately, his campaign skills have not easily transferred to the humdrum business of governance.

Obama's Well Organized Community Is Falling Apart.  Obama has foolishly allowed himself to be pushed into a no-win position, in his unlikely quest to "make history" by becoming the first "black" mystery messiah allowed to sit at the big desk with his finger on the red button.  In short, he's in way over his head, just as many worried would be the case with a freshman politician complete with blank résumé.

Hello ObamaCare, Goodbye Grandma.  Oh, look!  See Ezekiel.  See Ezekiel Emanuel.  Zeke is in charge of health care policy for the Obama administration. ... See Zeke think.  Zeke has not run a hospital.  He has not run an insurance company.  He has not run a medical practice.  He has not worked in the pharmaceutical industry.  Zeke has spent more than twenty years in education and government... thinking.

Health care debate confirms this is not the Barack Obama we elected.  Where is the sunny-side-up young man who promised to inspire and unite an unhappy nation?  Gone into the partisan sinkhole of Washington, that's where.  Like some novice swimmer too confident of his own ability, Obama is suddenly finding himself in water over his head.

Obama's Karmic Freight Train.  American citizens were asked during the 2008 presidential campaign to trust a candidate who refused to release his academic records, college transcripts, and a detailed original birth record. ... My guess is that Barack Obama's college transcripts show a "D-" in Economics and a "Withdrawal" in Western Civilization.

Insulter-In-Chief.  By now [President Obama has] insulted just about everything and everyone.

Morale at CIA Plummets as Panetta Makes a Bad Situation Worse.  The inexperienced CIA director is indeed the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time.

Obama's Carousel of Incompetence.  According to sources with whom I confer, the Obama White House is the most tightly controlled White House in years, with the president, [Rahm] Emanuel and David Axelrod micromanaging practically everything.  They constitute what is called "the Politburo," and the news story waiting to be written is that their control is as stultifying as was Jimmy Carter's control of his White House.  Stupendous failure is in the cards.

Obama the Weak.  There are three President Obamas.  There's the Obama who defers, the one who dithers, and the one who's out of touch.  The Obama presidencies have one thing in common.  They're all weak.

Van Jones and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.  It was always striking that Obama, who had written two autobiographies at such an early age, had paid no real attention in either book to his only real executive experience before seeking the Presidency.  The media went along.

What Van Jones Tells Us About President Obama.  We were told during the 2008 campaign that President Obama was the most technologically able candidate in our history.  The Obama campaign ran commercials targeting John McCain's ignorance of the Internet.  Obama was so connected that he wanted to keep using his BlackBerry from the Oval Office.  And yet he couldn't get a single member of his administration to do a simple Google search on Van Jones.  Every tidbit of information on Van Jones was publicly available.

Obama vs. The People.  In his increasingly pathetic attempts to try and blame Bush for his own deficit spending, Obama showed that he did not know how to function without someone like Bush up top to blame the whole thing on.  But now Obama is Bush, stuck with the big chair that he doesn't actually know how to use, and clueless about what it takes to pass legislation, because between photo op appearances and running for office, he had never really passed any.  The State Senate assigned him credit for other people's legislation.  In the United States Senate, he ran for higher office after only 100 days in the chamber.  Like a precocious third grader who suddenly finds himself in college, Obama had no idea how to work with congress to get legislation passed.

Inexperience and Obama's latest Foibles:  The inexperience of Obama and his advisors becomes more evident day after day as they blunder their way through both domestic and foreign policy.  While most youngsters are taught from an early age that their actions have consequences, the world is watching these neophytes learn on the job — and the grown-ups are taking advantage of the children running the show here in America.

Democrats Jumping the Race-Card Shark.  Welcome to the post-racial presidency of Barack Obama, in which it has suddenly become a racial issue when American citizens dare to criticize the president.  Now, this is so silly, so asinine that it boggles the mind of any rational person. ... How easy did these people think it was going to be when they decided to elect a man whose resume fits nicely on a postage stamp to the highest office in the land?  Racism?  No.  Incompetence with a capital "I."  Yes, we can object.

President Barack Obama is beginning to look out of his depth.  Regimes in Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran simply pocket his concessions and carry on as before.  The picture emerging from the White House is a disturbing one, of timidity, clumsiness and short-term calculation.  Some say he is the weakest president since Jimmy Carter.

Barack Obama, College Administrator.  Obama went to Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard without much of a break, taught at the University of Chicago, and then surrounded himself with academics, first in his stint at community organizing and then when he went into politics.  It shows.

Worst foreign policy ever.  Tomorrow [9/24/2009], President Obama will chair a special nuclear-disarmament meeting by the United Nations Security Council.  The White House bills this as a historic first, but it is typical of Mr. Obama's emphasis on style over substance.  He will appear before the body with the weakest foreign-policy record of any new U.S. president in recent memory.  An around-the-world tour of international hot spots shows that for all the president's lofty rhetoric, he can point to precious few accomplishments.

Obama's plan?  What plan?  Throughout last year's presidential campaign, Barack Obama lambasted the Bush administration for fighting "the wrong war" in Iraq and ignoring the right one in Afghanistan.  Iraq was a "war of choice," Obama claimed, while Afghanistan was a "war of necessity."  Repeatedly, he claimed that, if elected president, he'd unveil a new "stronger, smarter and comprehensive strategy."

Who is doing the governing?  In effect, the president is back to his old Illinois State Senate habit of voting "present" when it comes to issue after issue.  He has dithered on Afghanistan and avoided a hard decision.  On health care, he has outsourced political leadership to Senate and House pols.  There is still no written health care plan from the White House.  Sometimes it looks like nobody is in charge. ... Obama seems to spend most of his time giving speeches for the purpose of making people want to like him.

At the president's pleasure.  A teacher was told by a 15-year-old high school sophomore that he was having homosexual sex with an "older man."  At the very least, statutory rape occurred.  Fox News reported that the teacher violated a state law requiring that he report the abuse.  That former teacher, Kevin Jennings, is President Obama's "safe school czar."

Bidding for the Olympics, Chicago-style.  Social Security is about to run out of money to cover the monthly checks that millions of senior and disabled Americans depend on to make ends meet.  Unemployment is nearing 10 percent nationwide and has reached its highest mark since World War II among younger Americans, 52 percent.  As many as 80,000 people in California's Central Valley are out of work in part because of federal environmental policies that make fish more important than people.  These are only a few of the most important crises facing the nation today.  And where is our president?  He is in Copenhagen, Denmark, to deliver a sales pitch for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics.

Unmasking Obama.  It is now abundantly clear that the image of Barack Obama sold to the American electorate was tightly edited, air-brushed, and exaggerated.  He has worn a series of masks — eloquent orator, brilliant scholar, centrist, and literary sensation.  All of these masks are coming off as he copes with a job for which image will not suffice.

An Olympics We Can Believe In.  Obama, during the campaign, called a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable."  The President now demands that Iran come clean, or else.  Or else ... what?  Face "stiff sanctions."  Never mind that our country's sanctions against Iran have been in place for 30 years.  Ratcheting them up to include, say, energy embargoes requires the approval of U.N. Security Council members China and Russia.  Who do you think assists Iran in the construction of its nuclear program?  China and Russia.

Obama, the Olympics and other international games.  It's ever more widely and correctly perceived that President Barack Obama has bitten off more than he can chew. ... The Obama administration's failure to get serious about a world that is getting increasingly serious all around us is not just irresponsible.  It is a frightening indication that Obama is overwhelmed.

Why Obama's Boyish Utopia Endangers Us:  President Barack Obama is still just a lost boy at his age, and he searches for a world he wished existed.  His insistence upon living in his world, though attractive to the uneducated, neglected, and naive, is dangerously heaping hot coals of consequence on the heads of those who know better.

No Master Plan at All.  Could it be that there is less to Obama and his team of geniuses than we were led to believe? ... Could it be that Obama is not, in fact, a sophisticated analyst and astute policy wonk but merely has led a charmed political life, benefiting from a series of inept opponents (think Alan Keyes, the snarling infighters in Hillaryland, and the McCain gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight), a sycophantic media, and an electorate willing to give him every benefit of the doubt?

The Obamas Violated First Three Rules of Selling.  Of course Barack and Michelle Obama failed in Copenhagen.  Their strategy could not possibly succeed.  In their academic arrogance, they thought they could sell a product they clearly do not believe in (the United States) and moreover, they could do so by stressing the benefits to the seller (Chicago) and not the buyer (the IOC).  And to top it off, they committed the faux pas of talking too much about the sales force (themselves) and not about the product or the buyer.

First Brat:  It's All About Him.  I cannot work up any sympathy for Obama and cannot even take any pleasure in being found right in my judgment of him as I wrote my impressions during the campaign and the first six months of his term.  I said he was a moron and I am sticking with it.  Even the public picked up on it as it became evident he couldn't go to the bathroom without a set of TelePrompters and instructions.

President Obama plays the fool on world stage.  President Obama has been stumbling all over the world stage this past week.  The spectacle has been aggravating and painful.  The former world's biggest celebrity is proving himself to be the world's biggest joke to our allies and enemies alike.  Sadly, the joke is on us, the nation that elected him despite plenty of alarm signals.

Paper Bag 1, Obama 0.  Can Barack Obama argue his way out of a paper bag?  That's the question eminences of his party will be mulling after his defeat Friday [10/2/2009] at the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen.  Obama put his worldwide popularity and the full weight of the office of the presidency of the United States behind Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics.  He surprised the world by losing on the first round of balloting.

President is AWOL as our commander.  If you still doubt President Obama is trying to do too many things and is giving short shrift to the most important ones, consider this pathetic scene at the Copenhagen airport.  It was Friday [10/2/2009], and the president went to Denmark to make his pitch for the Chicago Olympics.

Did We Elect a Beta Male As President?  While we've all been seeking a political rationale for the president's actions, his behavior goes beyond the political to something deeper and more personal:  like all beta males, Barack Obama simply does not have the temperament to confront tyrannical alpha males around the globe. ... To cooperate with our allies would require Obama to display alpha male behaviors, including demonstrating courage, something he's simply not capable of doing.

Obama dithers and dithers.  Barack Obama, like the "progressives" he represents, is proud of a mind so open that his brains are forever at risk of falling out.  He first said the war in Afghanistan was a war the West could not afford to lose.  But that was way back when, and he changed his mind.  Then he changed it again, and now nobody, maybe not even the president himself, knows what he thinks.

Compare and Contrast.  Obama's permanent publicity blitz has rendered his pronouncements banal and is helping to create an impression that he is all talk, no results.  Who can recall with any precision what the president says from one day to the next?  Why bother trying when another speech is moments away?

Exit Strategy from the Great Recession.  In the 1930s, Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt had no exit strategy from the Great Depression, so he blamed it on his Republican predecessor.  Roosevelt's policies prolonged the depression until, finally, the start of World War II in Europe caused the increased exports and business investment that pulled us out.  It is becoming increasingly clear that President Obama doesn't have an exit strategy either.

PC Prize for PC Prez.  Last week Saturday Night Life [sic] finally found the courage to laugh at the obvious fact that Obama has achieved nothing.  He was elected with that understanding.  Every liberal pundit knew it.  Every American who bothered to search the web could find out the extent of Obama's inexperience, his huge Leftist blind spots, and his general incompetence.  Obama was elected because he is the earthly incarnation of PC, and that's why the Nobel Committee did what it did.

Mission Abandoned.  We can almost hear Gen. McChrystal quoting the words of U.S. Grant:  "In war, anything is better than indecision.  We must decide.  If I am wrong, we shall soon find it out and can do the other thing.  But not to decide... may ruin everything."

A president of leisure.  Obama has already played golf as many times in nine months as Bush did in almost three years, but golf isn't his only game of choice.  Various media sources have recently covered the president's basketball games at the White House.  We already knew that Obama was a sports fan, but the Baller-in-Chief seems to be more concerned with victory on the greens and hardwood than on the battlefield.

Obama's "Compromise Solution".  The McChrystal review was done by August 1st.  It is now the end of October.  According to today's Washington Post ("Obama seeking options on forces; President looks to send fewer additional troops"), we'll get a decision by the end of November.  That's four months.  And it's evident that the review at this point is being driven entirely by White House political concerns.  148 American soldiers have died while the president holds seminars.

Are They Stupid or Evil or Both?  [Scroll down]  What other stupid things has [Obama] done since assuming office in January?  Where does one start?  He bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia when no President, nor the U.S. flag, is ever permitted to bow or dip to any other head of state.  He doubled the national debt.  He announced the termination of the space defense system the day after the North Korea launched an ICBM.  He told the Mexicans that the violence in their nation was our fault.  He has begun to nationalize the nation's auto industry and healthcare system.  He has demonized insurance companies, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the coal and oil industries on whom we depend for electricity and for transportation.  It's a very long list.

Whiner in chief.  President Obama is degrading the Oval Office.  In recent months, his administration has engaged in puerile, partisan attacks on his predecessor, former President George W. Bush.  Nearly every problem in America — the economy, health care, financial regulatory reform, Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo — is being blamed on Mr. Bush.

Obama can't be community organizer for the world.  A lot of observers are having trouble figuring out the philosophical underpinnings of Barack Obama's foreign policy.  How does the president see America's place in the world?  How will he use American power?  How much does he care about such things?  There are no good answers at the moment, but there is a new theory going around:  Obama approaches foreign affairs as he would neighborhood issues.

Did Obama Just Convict the Suspected Fort Hood Shooter?  President Obama began his weekly Internet and radio address on Saturday [11/7/2009] with these words:  "This past Thursday, on a clear Texas afternoon, an Army psychiatrist walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, and began shooting his fellow soldiers."  Did the president, speaking directly about the man suspected in the killings, prejudice any jury that might be called to hear the case?

Memo to ABC:  There's a Reason He's Not Called Smith.  Equally predictable is our President -- who is also not named Smith by the way.  Barack Hussein Obama was giving "shout-outs" to folks at a speech related to native Americans at the Department of the Interior shortly after the news of the Fort Hood tragedy broke. ... This was a President who had time to delay, cancel or at least, reprogram a very non-crucial photo op in light of the news.  The only thing missing was Jeremiah Wright hootin and hollerin about "America's chickens" and high fiving and so on.  I mean, God bleep America, we deserved it, didn't we?  At the very least, Obama's reaction can charitably be characterized as cold.

Why Obama is Blind to Terror... & Freedom.  In the hours following the shooting at Ft. Hood, President Obama demonstrated resolute apathy to the greatest issue of our time.  His callous and apathetic beliefs caused some rather unbecoming behavior for a United States President. ... The President spent several minutes at the beginning of his time giving introductory remarks.  He gave "shout-outs" to his "homies" in the crowd.  He also apparently attributed a Congressional Medal of Honor to someone in the room.  The only problem being that the man in question had not in fact ever received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Fort Hood Could Be Obama's Katrina.  As Hurricane Katrina zeroed in on New Orleans in 2005, government at all levels was lethargic, seemed unprepared, and to some, even uncaring.  In the wake of last week's massacre at Fort Hood, we are learning that the United States Army knew quite a bit about Major Nadal Malik Hasan — but did not act on the information.  Fort Hood could become Barack Obama's Katrina.

Obama Stumbles Again.  Barack Obama:  you can dress him up, but you can't take him out.  Every time he goes abroad, he embarrasses himself and sells out his country. ... If Barack Obama can't stick up for the country he represents when he goes overseas, he should stay home.

Why Isn't He Better at Being President?  Jennifer [Rubin] asks a good question that is more and more on the minds of citizens and the punditocracy alike.  Obama is so smart and so eloquent, and yet he has not, at least yet, succeeded as president domestically or in foreign affairs.  One answer, perhaps, is that being a successful president requires skills and attributes that Obama simply does not possess.

Who's handling protocol for the White House?  Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had frontpager, "Obama's China Summit Ends On Awkward Diplomatic Note."  Accompanying the story was a photo of the President touring the Fobidden City with a few dozen Chinese diplomats and politicians.  All of the Chinese leaders in the photo are wearing dark suits and ties — the President is wearing an open collared shirt and a leather jacket.

Why Is No One Laughing?  What would the mainstream media's response be if former governor Sarah Palin described China's economic growth to an audience of students in Shanghai as "an accomplishment unparalleled in human history"?  That is what the most inexperienced president in modern American history said in Shanghai this week.  I wonder if any of the assembled journalists choked.  President Barack Obama makes such unhinged pronouncements with the kind of frequency that if he were anyone else he would be set down by the media as a boobie.

President Superbower — "Speak Loudly, Carry a Small Twig".  My radio pal Hugh Hewitt said to me on the air the other day that Barack Obama "doesn't know how to be president".  It was a low but effective crack and I didn't pay it much heed.  But, after musing on it over the last week or so, it seems to me frighteningly literally true.

Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience Required.  A friend sends along the following chart from a J.P. Morgan research report.  It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy.

Obama:  King of All Statists.  Almost 40% of William Howard Taft's cabinet officials were from the private sector.  Ike had nearly 60% of his appointees sporting private sector experience.  Reagan had about 55% and George W. Bush about 53%.  Even FDR and Truman saw half their cabinet officials coming to government with private sector experience.  And Obama?  Less than 10%.

The Five Obama Fails.  The Obama administration burst onto the presidency with a historic wealth of good will, hope, and change.  It is now marked by one failure after another.  Unfortunately, these failures are not without costs.  The burden is borne by consumers, taxpayers, and generations yet to come.

Five More Amateur Mistakes By the Obama Administration.  Since he has been elected, Barack Obama has been like a four year old wearing water wings and desperately trying to reach the edge of the pool.  In other words, he has been completely out of his depth.  Who could have known that giving soaring speeches about "hope" and "change" while voting "present" on the tough issues wouldn't be enough preparation for the most important job on Planet Earth -- oh wait, millions of Americans knew that and pointed it out at every opportunity.

The Unmasking of Barack Obama.  The overseas reviews for President Obama's foreign policy are starting to pour in -- and they're not favorable. ... On almost every front, progress is nonexistent.  In many instances, things are getting worse rather than better.  The enormous goodwill that Obama's election was met with hasn't been leveraged into anything useful and tangible.

Looks like a cover-up to me.
 White House Blocks Testimony on Party Crashers.  The White House on Wednesday [12/2/2009] invoked the separation of powers to keep Desiree Rogers, President Obama's social secretary, from testifying on Capitol Hill about how a couple of aspiring reality television show celebrities crashed a state dinner for the prime minister of India last week.

Gatecrashgate.  Sidney Blumenthal, the Clinton Administration's famed servitor, saw it all coming.  He predicted the Obama Administration's Carousel of Incompetence, as I like to call it.

O aide's crasher 'confession'.  President Obama's social secretary quipped that she regularly let event crashers into White House gatherings — months before two reality-TV wannabes waltzed into last week's state dinner.  Desiree Rogers claimed in an interview with the trade magazine BizBash at the Creative Coalition's annual meeting in June that she had added extra tables and benches at every event to accommodate uninvited guests.

Obama social secretary let 1st priority slip.  The heat's on Desiree Rogers.  Now, a lot of people in Chicago are wondering will they or won't they fire the nation's celebrity party planner.  For those who don't know, Rogers has been under intense scrutiny since a Washington couple crashed the president's first state dinner.

White House Aide Once Quipped About Enabling Party Crashers.  Desiree Rogers is under scrutiny for her office's role in the infamous security breakdown at the state dinner.  A woman with a reputation as a consummate perfectionist is being criticized for dropping the ball — and, by some, for putting her own aggrandizement over her job.

Government Giveth and Taketh Away.  [President Barack Obama] now is promising to "spend our way out of this recession." ... It is estimated that the president's eruption of generosity will cost an additional $170 billion, perhaps more.  He has made this promise despite the fact that fear is spreading throughout the country that our government deficits are unsustainable.  The so-called Independents have forsaken him owing to their fear that he is bankrupting the country.

Can the Obama Administration Afford Any More Missteps?  As problems continue to mount and the president's approval ratings continue to sink — the latest Rasmussen poll has Obama's approval rating down to 44 percent, a new low — there are a lot of different, and damaging, story lines developing around the Obama administration.  You can add a lack of basic competence to the list.

High season for fraud and farce.  President Obama finally makes it back to familiar and frozen Copenhagen, scene of his earlier success in winning the Olympics for Chicago, trying to figure out a way to make zero plus zero amount to something big. His prospects are not good.

Obama does it again.  President Obama reportedly was reluctant to attend the final day of the UN's Copenhagen climate-change summit unless it was front-end wired to be a major political success.  But he went anyway, was twice humiliated in public by the Chinese premier and then finally settled for what the White House hailed as a "meaningful agreement."  Really?

Obama the party crasher.  Barack Obama is not used to being the guy not invited to a party.  At the Copenhagen global warming conference, however, he found that not everyone wanted to hang with him.  Our president can't take a hint.

Homeland chief an airhead.  An al Qaeda bomber stashing explosives in his underwear cakewalked onto a US-bound airliner after averting scans on two continents — but the federal Homeland Security chief incredibly claimed yesterday [12/27/2009] that "everything happened that should have."

The System Worked, Except That Part When It Failed.  The system is supposed to work, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, something like this:  a man recently reported to U.S. authorities by his own father, who was on a terror watch list, who pays three grand in cash for a ticket to Detroit (enough to buy a city block in the Motor City), and who was denied a student visa to the United Kingdom, attempts to explode a bomb on a packed plane and is tackled by a Dutch filmmaker.

Yes, Janet, There Is A 'War On Terror'.  Al-Qaida's botched Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253 raises a series of concerns about U.S. vulnerability.  Chief among them:  a Homeland Security chief in denial that we are at war.  The nearly 300 trans-Atlantic passengers targeted for death by alleged would-be suicide bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab were saved not by any policy of the Homeland Security Department, but by the good luck of a detonator malfunctioning.

The System?  It's You!  Janet Napolitano's appearance on CNN this morning [12/27/2009], in which she tried to put a happy face on the fact that a known terrorist sympathizer got onto a flight bound for America and nearly brought it down, has been widely and justly derided.

Official bungling led to plane attack.  [Scroll down]  First, President Obama should demand the resignation of Secretary Janet Napolitano and fire her if she refuses to resign.  It is clear from her comment that "the system worked" that Napolitano lacks the first clue about what is required to ensure safe commercial airline travel in an era defined by the war on terrorism.  The system failed because an individual with known terrorist links successfully smuggled explosives on board a loaded commercial jet bound for the U.S.

The System Needs Fixing.  Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano's initial assessment of the Christmas Day airliner attack — that "the system worked" — doesn't quite match the absurdity of "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."  But only because she quickly took it back.

Absurd flight from reality.  [Scroll down]  In the aftermath yesterday, Big Sis — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano — informs us that the system worked.  It worked?  If by working, Napolitano means she has extended the government's policy of porous borders to the skies, she is certainly correct.

A Day Off.  One of my rules for writing is to present criticism in such a way that it avoids becoming the kind of outright rants that separate thoughtful columnists from angry bloggers.  [However...] Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is as dumb as a dipstick.  The airline security system "worked," one day later it "failed" and the first comment was "taken out of context?"

President Obama's initial reaction to recent terrorist act lacked urgency, decisive leadership.  The attempt to blow Northwest Flight 253 out of the air was planned as an attack on the United States and very nearly succeeded in accomplishing that horrific goal.  The moment demanded inspiring, decisive presidential leadership.  America waited four days for a glimmer.

The Bizarro President.  Obama often looks presidential and even speaks the language, but his actions haven't been of an individual you'd want leading your country.  He has outsourced his decision and policy making duties to his trusted advisors and the legislative branch and he's been a complete failure in the process.

Why is Obama still in Hawaii?  President Obama wants us all to know he's taking seriously the attempted terrorist attack of Christmas Day and that his administration is doing all it can to ensure our safety.  But his words would be a lot more convincing if not delivered during time snatched between rounds of golf, swimming and sunbathing.

Napolitano Builds Up Undie Bomber:  Terrorists Went To 'Great Lengths'.  Like a football coach trying to explain away the trouncing his team just took by building up the opponent, Janet Napolitano is seeking to diminish the Obama administration's NWA 253 failure by exaggerating the cunning of the Christmas Day plot.  The hapless Homeland Security head has a 679-word piece in today's USA Today basically promising to do better.

When Obama Apologists Attack.  What's made matters even worse for Obama are the remarks of his bungling DHS secretary.  Some Obama apologists have claimed that Napolitano's "the system worked" remark has been taken out of context.  She was only talking about the system working after the attack occurred, you see.  Well, it turns out that the system didn't work after the attack occurred, according to the Allied Pilots Association.

Napolitano Must Go — Now.  The DHS secretary, appointed as a political favor, is endangering lives with her after-the-fact policing approach.

Handling problems the Obama way.  There is a sense of déjà vu in the Obama administration's response to the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day.  A by-now familiar pattern has been established for dealing with unexpected problems.  First, White House aides downplay the notion that something may have gone wrong on their part.

Not So Isolated, And More Than Extremist.  "Isolated extremist" was the label President Barack Obama initially slapped on the Nigerian Muslim who flew into Detroit on Christmas Day, burning himself in a botched attempt to take down the plane with explosives sewn into his underwear.  If anyone seems isolated here, it is the U.S. president himself.  For three days after the terrorist attack, Obama carried on with his Hawaii holiday, "monitoring" the situation while leaving his staff to deal with the public.

Transportation Security Administration on trial.  The editorial pages of practically every major newspaper in the country have warned that the Transportation Security Administration is failing.  Left, right, center, it doesn't matter.  The incompetence is obvious to anyone who looks.  Just last week this page dubbed TSA the "Terrorism Service Administration" for broadcasting detailed security information that could be used to slip through our defenses.

Hillary Clinton has gone AWOL on the Iranian front.  One would have thought that with a potential revolution on the streets of Tehran, and with scenes of horrific and savage brutality against protesters by the Iranian regime, that Washington's official voice on international affairs might at least have expressed an opinion.

Where Oh Where Is Hillary?  Nile Gardiner at the Daily Telegraph writes:  "The White House should send a search party to track down Hillary Clinton.  America's foreign policy chief has been missing from the world stage for several days, and has become as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel at the height of the French Revolution."  Come to think of it, we haven't seen or heard from her since the Flight 253 bombing attack.

Systemic Failure.  A couple of weeks ago on Oprah Winfrey's "White House Christmas Special," our first postmodern president, Barack Obama, gave himself a "good, solid B-plus" for his performance over the past 11 months. ... Right now, however, he is under fire for his inert response to that Nigerian terrorist's attempt to blow up nearly 300 passengers on a commercial jet as it landed in Detroit.  He issued his arctic response after a round of golf and en route to his next presidential event, a tennis game.

Barack Obama and the Exhausted Presidency.  [Scroll down]  He has never really been tested — until now.  And, of course, now he finds himself in over his head.  Obama's difficulties are of his own making, and they arise from his failure thus far to recognize what it means to be President of the United States.  American presidents put aside personal pique and pay close attention to protocol.  They do not bow to queens, kings, and emperors; they do not warmly embrace dictators and thugs; and they do not direct gratuitous insults at America's allies.

Democrats Join Calls for Napolitano to Step Down Following Failed Attack.  Some Democrats have joined in calling for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to step down following the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight a week ago.

Clueless.  It's the word that best describes the Obama administration's first year in office.  They've proven themselves clueless about creating jobs; clueless about handling growing nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea; and now, most devastatingly, clueless about protecting Americans from terrorist attacks on our own soil.  And with nearly one year under the belts, they can't keep blaming the Bush administration for everything that goes awry.  It is hard to imagine a more incompetent handling of the thwarted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. jetliner.

DeMint:  TSA nominee isn't qualified, shouldn't be confirmed.  Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who has been the target of much Democratic criticism for his efforts to slow down Senate confirmation of Erroll Southers, the Obama White House's nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration, now says Southers should not be confirmed.  DeMint has been critical of Southers for refusing to answer questions about whether Southers would work toward unionizing the TSA.

Obama's latest homeland security fiasco.  For a while, it seemed the nomination and confirmation of Erroll Southers to head the Transportation Security Administration would be a routine affair. ... Wrong.  As the new year begins, the Southers nomination has become the latest Obama confirmation mess, raising questions not only about the nominee but the White House's selection process.

Boo hoo.
 CBS Frets Obama Must Work.  The failures that allowed the unsuccessful Christmas Day terrorist attack have marred President Barack Obama's relaxation schedule in Hawaii, CBS's Jeff Glor and Chip Reid regretted Thursday night as Reid fretted Obama had "hoped to spend this vacation recharging his batteries, but now he appears to be spending most of it working"...

Failure to Lead.  Take President Obama's poor timing in response to a failed terrorist attack on a U.S. jetliner, add the politicization of that event by his surrogates and a ridiculous message by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and what do you get?  A complete failure when it comes to a commander-in-chief's most important job:  Protecting Americans from harm.

Brennan:  System worked 'every other day' in '09.  White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan is maintaining the system to protect the U.S. against attack worked successfully this year apart from the Christmas Day bombing attempt — a claim that seems to downplay the notion that deadly attacks at Fort Hood in Texas and a military recruiting center in Arkansas represented a failure of intelligence gathering.

The dove that dare not speak its name.  In the middle of the interview [Chris] Wallace asked [John] Brennan why the administration was treating Nigerian terrorist bomber Umar Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant rather than an enemy combatant.  Wallace referred to the fact that Abdulmuttalab had reportedly been cooperating with authorities until he obtained a lawyer.  Brennan declined to challenge the premise of the question, but he talked a bit around the question.

B. Hussein Obama Grade for First Year in Office:  F minus; Abject Failure.  The number and description of his broken promises are so voluminous as to be physically impossible to totally repeat in a column of this size, so I will try to cover some of the principal promises that have not been kept. ... Of all the major bills so far during the course of this legislative year does anyone recall when the public got FIVE days to examine a bill before a vote took place?  This was a promise Obama made that needed cooperation from the Congress but has never been achieved.

Merge the 'Terror' Lists to Prevent the Next Attack.  It would be satisfying — and manifestly just — for President Obama to fire Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.  She abjures the "politics of fear," and prefers the term "man-caused disasters" to the word "terrorism."  And it was her risible reaction to the failed Christmas Day attack ("the system worked") that redundantly proved her unfit for her job.  And it would be satisfying — and equally justified — for Obama to remove Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair from his bureaucratic aerie.

O's aide terror-fying.  First it was delusion.  Now it is denial.  Let's just hope the Obama administration works through this vexing 12-step program they're in before al Qaeda decides to launch another attack.  Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano assured us that the "system worked" when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab nearly blew up an American jetliner on Christmas Day with a bomb smuggled in his loin.  And just when you thought "Big Sis" had easily retired the award for Biggest Turkey in the Global War on Terror, up steps John Brennan.

Are you scared yet?  Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan's appearance on Fox News Sunday yesterday — as well as the other Sunday talk shows — to discuss the handling of would-be Northwest Airlines terrorist Abdulmutallab may have been intended to reassure the country, but had the opposite effect.  He demonstrated an unwillingness to answer important questions, instead evading and ignoring them in favor of memorized talking points.

The Perils of Executive Inexperience.  For months we saw a new dog-and-pony show every week, each on a different topic.  Obama's spinners incessantly told us the problem wasn't that he was trying to do too many things at once.  But now it seems that it was and that his key advisers don't understand the administration's top priority.

Did Obama Politicize the Terror Database?  In his usual heroic fashion, Obama tossed that hot Christmas Bomber potato to Janet Napolitano, and when she dropped the potato, it got cannoned over to the CIA with a quick fake to Dick Cheney, who didn't even bother to answer.  Obama kept his head buried deep in the sand at Oahu for almost four days while all this was going on.

The War on Christmas.  We suppose Napolitano is a glass-is-half-full kind of gal.  And it's true that, apart from allowing a known extremist to board a plane while carrying a bomb, the system worked.

Chickens Come Home, Roost.  The Obama administration has gone out of its way to poison relationships with traditional allies with Great Britain, and it seems that the favor is now being returned, as the Prime Minister's office has disclosed publicly that British intelligence, MI5, warned the US about Umar Abdulmutallab.

War on Terror?  What War?  President Barack Obama is obviously a man who won't permit any facts to penetrate his airtight ideological force field, from deficit spending to health care to global warming to his non-prosecution of the war on terror — I mean "overseas contingency operations."

Embarrassed Obama Finally Admits Detroit Terrorist was Not Isolated.  It took him more than a week after the terror-attempt incident, but Barack Obama has finally admitted what conservatives and intellectually honest Americans have already known or at least suspected since Christmas Day, when Abdulmutallab tried unsuccessfully to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane.  Namely, that al-Qaida indeed had its Islamofascist fingerprints all over the attempted attack and that there is an al-Qaida link to said failed terror attempt.  I guess it's better late than never for someone as slow on the uptake as Obama.

Intel chief must go.  It is reported in today's Daily News that the chief of the National Counterterrorism Center was skiing on Christmas and stayed on the slopes for several days after the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253.  It must soon be reported, certainly by tomorrow's editions, that President Obama has given Michael Leiter all the free time he likes to schuss and slalom the slopes to his heart's delight.

Amateur hour is over.  Enough is enough.  There was a time when the amateur hour that has characterized the behavior of the staff in the Obama White Hour over the past year could be chalked up to innocent inexperience.  Now that behavior is nothing short of dangerous and President Barack Obama is being ill served by those by those closest around him.

Obama Misses the Big Picture.  John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, tells National Review Online that President Obama's remarks on recent American intelligence and security failures this afternoon "miss the big picture" and "ignore the problems we face in dealing with al-Qaeda."  "I didn't hear any hint of the president planning to deal with al-Qaeda's growing capabilities," says Bolton.

There's no penalty for sleeping on the job.  Smooth talk is easy for Mr. Obama, and he often confuses words with deeds.  He's taking responsibility for what happened aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on final approach over Detroit, but it's not clear what that means.  He's not likely to fire himself (perhaps to spare us Joe Biden).  So nobody pays a price for some serious sleeping on the job.

Terror in the Skies Requires Real Action on the Ground.  Shortly after the incident on Northwest Flight 253, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano first insisted that "the system worked" regarding the Christmas Day attempt.  This particularly blatant act of defensive self-protection was such an obvious falsehood that Counterterrorism Czar John Brennan has had to go from news show to news show offering a retraction.

The president wakes up.  The Obama administration's bad spin and sleepiness — as represented by Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano and President Obama respectively in the first days after Christmas — is over.  But results may be another story.

Who Commands Obama?  Lots of people today have little or no confidence in the leadership abilities of Barack Obama.  Everyone has been asking, who's running the show?  while Obama is out running around the country, still in campaign mode and making speeches.  Who is giving orders to Obama while he is out playing front man?

Shake-up needed at Homeland Security.  Janet Napolitano has to go.  President Barack Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security, who had no experience for the job when she was appointed by the president last year, is in way over her head as director of the vast agency that controls everything from natural-disaster response, counterterrorism, immigration and customs to the U.S. Coast Guard and the Secret Service.

Failing to Connect the Plots.  President Obama meekly conceded to the fact that "our government failed to connect the dots in a way that would have prevented a known terrorist from boarding a plan for America."  Ya think?  Isn't this the same squadron of government officials whom a zealous President Obama wants to place in charge of connecting America's respiratory tubing?

Obama and Reality:  Shortly after a somewhat disjointed, impromptu spiel ... the president was all too eager to resume his snorkeling sessions — evidently the next vacation activity scheduled after the few rounds of golf that preceded the rather inopportune press conference.  He was on vacation, after all.  The president made an even less valiant effort to veil his appalling indifference on the heels of a tragedy [in Fort Hood, Texas.]

America's mainstream media will be Obama's downfall.  Right after the [Christmas Day attempted] bombing, the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, stated on a national news programme that in the case of the Detroit bomber, "the system worked". ... If this had been the Bush administration, this idiotic attempt to spin the facts would have — rightly — been castigated by the papers and television shows for weeks.  If this had been on Bush's watch, the media attacks would have been relentless.

Too bad to be true?  [Dennis] Blair's testimony seemed too bad to be true, and that turned out to be the case.  But not because the HIG did, in fact, interrogate Abdulmutallab; rather, because the HIG does not actually exist as an operational entity.  Blair made this clear in what must rank as the among the most embarrassing "clarificatons" of congressional testimony ever.

How hope, change turned into bum year for President Obama.  Hey, Mr. President — the first thing you have to do is figure out where somebody hid all your ties.  That Ahmadinejad look didn't go over big here in Boston a week ago, and it certainly didn't cut it in Elyria, Ohio, on what you must have figured was "casual Friday."  You wanted to be The Man?  Well, The Man wears a tie, OK.

Incompetent Obama teeters on the edge.  The president has three principal problems.  He is well to the left of the public and of what he promised the voters in 2008 ... He is increasingly perceived as having credibility problems and of being cold, cocksure, narcissistic and intoxicated by what he modestly called 'the gift' of his own articulation.  And as president, he has been quite, and quite surprisingly, incompetent.

Health Care Reform Vaporizes Obama Presidency.  Some Americans feared from the beginning that Obama was an empty suit.  But the majority were willing to take a chance on charisma, myth, and sizzle.  Now the line between public celebrity and public nuisance appears to have been crossed.  Arrogance is never an asset, but it is especially unbecoming when it is not accompanied by competence.

From Disgusting to Odd.  A question about Barack Obama is starting to take shape in the American mind:  where does this stop?  The "this" is the collective hodgepodge of delinquent policy, administrative incompetence, a bottomless capacity for self-delusion, hubris, and the vetoing of American opinion.

Obama says he 'would rather be really good one-term president'.  President Barack Obama said that he "would rather be a really good one-term president" than have two mediocre terms.

Obama, the god that failed.  President Obama said Monday [1/25/2010] that he would "rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president."  He will be lucky if he's not an abject failure.  There's usually a reason for a presidency lasting a single term, as Mr. Obama's slow-motion train wreck is demonstrating.

Why Is Obama Acting So Weird?  [Scroll down]  Maybe he'd just rather hang it up in three years.  In a bizarre interview, that's what it sounded like:  "President Barack Obama said that he 'would rather be a really good one-term president' than have two mediocre terms."  Well, the danger here is his being a really bad one-term president.  But after only a year in office, it is, to put it mildly, an odd comment.

The Editor says...
 Obama is evidently living in a world of delusion.  It apparently hasn't occurred to him that no president serves two terms if the first term is mediocre.  He seems to believe that if he serves only one term, it must be because he was such a great president.  Clearly, he does not recognize his own incompetence.

The Fed's Anti-Inflation Exit Strategy Will Fail.  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has explained his exit strategy to prevent future inflation.  The Fed recently began to pay interest to banks on the reserves they hold in their vaults.  Using this new tool, it claims the ability to get banks to keep the money instead of lending it out, thus containing the money supply and inflation.  I don't believe this will work, and no one else should.

Barack Obama finds out who really holds power.  The great mistake that Mr Obama is now believed to have made in his first year of office was to have ignored the concerns of the American middle-income population.  This misjudgment has counted against him in a quite spectacular way, because no mature political leader of any party should have made it.

The Constitution, Nazis, and the Corpse Man:  In his State of the Union address, Obama stated that "We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution:  the notion that we are all created equal..."  Darn near made me want to stand up and salute, (something our POTUS could use some lessons in, by the way).  There's a problem here, however.  It turns out that "the notion that we are all created equal" is not "enshrined in our Constitution" — it's from the Declaration of Independence.

The Editor says...
 The writer goes on to remind us that Mr. Obama is a Harvard-trained Constitutional lawyer.  You would think that he must have rehearsed this speech numerous times before delivering it, and yet he never caught this error.

Barack Obama and Corpse Man:  Like Sacha Pavlata on a high wire, Obama, master of "ostentatiously exotic" Pock-i-stahn pronunciation, peppered multiple mispronunciations of "corpsmen" with Creole words like "Etazini."  President Obama was so busy showboating French based Haitian Creole he called Navy Corpsman Brossard, both Christian and Christopher in the same sentence.

But He Was the Harvard Law Review Editor!  [Scroll down]  His floundering is not surprising, considering that Obama never ran a state, a city, or a business, and during his brief time in the U.S. Senate, he was never front-and-center in any significant legislative undertaking.  Yes, he's touted as an author, and he won the presidency (beating two flawed candidates who ran awful campaigns).  But it turns out that all this was insufficient preparation to be chief executive and commander in chief.

Obama needs a staff shakeup.  The need is becoming more obvious by the day:  He must overhaul his own team, replacing the admittedly brilliant advisers who helped elect him with others more capable of helping him govern.  Getting elected and getting things done for the people are two different jobs.

I Was a Teenage President.  Fraternity Boy General Eric Holder insists, with teen-worthy logic, that trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in U.S. federal court will demonstrate to the world how wonderfully the impartial American justice system works — this after Holder himself arguably contaminated the pool of potential jurors by declaring that after the trial, the "suspect" would be executed.  This claim — that KSM is virtually guaranteed to be convicted in an American court of law, and even if he isn't we'll detain him indefinitely anyway — was repeated by the Teenager-in-Chief himself and his Smokesperson, Robert Gates.

You Have to Perform.  After the election you have to govern.  That is an opportunity for some and the undoing of others. ... All that anticipation and so little ability.  So much hype was followed by virtually no interest in doing the job to which he was elected.

Obama's Dreadful Sudan Policy:  During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama was baffled by Rick Warren's question about when, in the candidate's view, a baby gets human rights.  Obama's stammering response ended with his instantly-famous line that the question was "above my pay grade."  Obama seems to have embraced a similar approach to human rights abroad.

How Does One Spell Government Bankruptcy?  O-B-A-M-A.  If any chief executive officer in the United States of America presented his board with a budget that was one-third unfunded, he would be fired and tossed out of the boardroom immediately.  President Obama recently revealed a $3.8 trillion budget for FY2011 that has a $1.3 trillion deficit.  This budget short fall represents $4,000 for every man, woman and child in America.  It is equivalent to a business CEO presenting his board of directors with a financial plan to have a 34 percent loss.

President Incompetent.  Whether or not you support President Obama's policies, one thing is becoming increasingly obvious:  he simply lacks competence.  The best indicator of this is his in effectiveness in accomplishing any of his own objectives.  His first year in office resembles a quarterback who never completes a pass.  His list of failures is all too familiar-health care reform, closing Guantanamo, cap-and-trade, and so on.  He has failed to accomplish any of his self-identified top priorities.  Other than getting himself elected, he appears to have a very limited range of abilities.

Obama's Clown:  This administration is as inept as you would expect an administration to be when presided over by the most inexperienced and most far-left president in modern American history.  Mr. Obama is out of his depth.  Moreover, he and his aides are oblivious to political realities.

Cargo Cult President:  If not already painfully obvious to anyone paying attention, all the Obama administration can do is campaign.  That makes total sense, since Obama had never held an executive or even managerial position in his entire life prior to being sworn into office.  But he had tons of experience campaigning and giving speeches.  In short, that's how he thinks the world works:  give a speech and publish a public relations brochure on your web site, and the world responds.

Obama, Fire Your Staff!  Like too many unsuccessful presidents, he has surrounded himself in the Oval Office with a select coterie of campaign loyalists from Chicago politics and his former Senate office.  As Politico editor John Harris reported Jan. 22, this inner circle consists of "romantics" who are enveloped by pettiness, grandiosity, and hero worship left over from the 2008 primaries and general election.

Obama Is Doing His Best Jimmy Carter:  Are Dems Worried Yet?  The Obama White House — having been battered for months by falling poll numbers, rising public opposition to its signature domestic initiative, massive defections by Independent voters, and election defeats in New Jersey, Virginia, and (especially) Massachusetts — is beginning to fray.  The smooth-running Obama team we witnessed during the 2008 election is stumbling around in the dark, making mistakes in judgment that are compounding the problems.

He's No FDR.  There's a reason you probably don't know who Henry Rainey and Joe Robinson were.  They were rubber stamps, Rainey as House speaker, Robinson as Senate majority leader.  But in Obama's Washington, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid are powerhouses.  The job of actually writing bills — the economic stimulus, health care, cap and trade, the omnibus appropriation — was turned over to them and their colleagues.  To put it more bluntly, Obama has abdicated where FDR ruled like a king (at least in his first year in the White House).

Funeral Dirge for the Main Stream Media?  The reality of incompetency displayed by our current president can no longer be glazed over by the fairy tale press.  The heartbeats of American news pump loud and clear in places the MSM cannot influence.  Just look at the number of Americans who have stopped relying on NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN for their information.

Obama's Dereliction of Duty.  [Scroll down]  While Obama continues to fiddle his atonal health care tune, the flames of war and recession and fiscal collapse rage all around him.  Does he care?  Does he even understand the precipice upon which we stand?

The Miss America President.  While Congress creates rules to shove this unpopular bill through, and pundits predict that the democrat party will be left in tatters as a result, the president wings off to high schools and factories to pose on TV with adoring crowds telling anyone who will listen that he truly knows what is best for us.  Like Miss America, President Obama wears his crown well.  And like Miss America the culimination of his presidency may have taken place in November 2008.  The rest is just marketing.

The Democrats Must Be Stopped.  I don't think Barack Obama will get a second term, but at the pace the Democrats are going, four years may do more damage than our country can recover from.  Incompetence, for better or worse, is not a ground for impeachment.  So it is urgently necessary that the Democrats lose control over the House, and if at all possible the Senate, in November.

The Administration's Manufactured, Trumped Up Fight With Israel.  For those who say Obama has achieved nothing, I think the appropriate response is that he's destroyed the political career of Hillary Clinton, succeeded in driving more Jews from his party to which they'd so long been loyal and managed to offend all our allies.  You think that's easy?  It takes a special kind of stupid.

Why isn't this man happy?  A Washington Post article entitled, Obama's happiness deficit suggested Barack Obama, "doesn't seem all that happy being president."  Maybe before applying for a job he was unqualified for, Obama should have visited a career counselor to discuss options more fitting the skill set of a community organizer. ... Illegitimately assuming a duty you're ill equipped to handle always results in less than thrilling results.

Thank You, Bret.  I pray that President Barack Obama's interview with Fox News' Bret Baier is replayed repeatedly on Fox News Channel and circulated widely on the Internet for all to see.  The more who watch it the more people will realize just how drastically the unscripted Obama varies from his projected image as God's gift to bipartisanship, compromise, congeniality and democracy.

President Ahab and Moby ObamaCare.  ObamaCare has crossed the line separating political initiatives from obsessions.  President Obama has snubbed Indonesia again, at a cost yet to be determined.  The President is damaging our relationship with Indonesia thanks to his obsession with ObamaCare.

Slapping Friends:  What is it like to be a foreign ally of Barack Obama's America?  If you're a Brit, your head is spinning. ... Obama visits China and soon Indonesia, skipping India, our natural and rising ally in the region — common language, common heritage, common democracy, common jihadist enemy.

U.S. allies find Obama a frosty friend.  Hillary Clinton, America's secretary of state, was in Canada the other day.  She criticized Ottawa for not inviting Aboriginal groups to a meeting on the Arctic, and for not including the facilitation of abortion in the Canadian government's "maternal health" initiative to developing countries.  These might seem curious priorities for the global superpower at a time of war...

Hillary:  Bull In China Shop Diplomat.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is often described as sidelined from the big jobs in foreign policy, given her political rivalry with the president.  But to look at the areas where she is active shows a lot of messes.

Hillary Invades Canada!  Canadians hosted hundreds of American air passengers whose planes were grounded on 9/11.  They opened their hearts and their homes to us.  During the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-81, fearless Canadian diplomats in Tehran helped smuggle out of that maddened country endangered Americans.  None of that seemed to matter this week.  Not content with putting an end to America's historic "special relationship" with Britain, nor with bullying the U.S.' only reliable ally in the Mideast, Israel, the Obama administration has launched an attack on our Northern neighbor, Canada.  Their unguided missile landed squarely on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.  It was Hillary.

Obama gives rambling, incoherrent 17 minute response to concern about being 'overtaxed'.  We constantly hear about the President's supposedly cool demeanor and unflappability, regardless of evidence to the contrary.  Keep that in mind as you read this Washington Post account.

Ruled by Children.  It is hard to shake the notion that Americans have voted a lot of children to serve in Congress and the greatest child of all, Barack Obama, to be our president.  Who else but children would continue to enact new programs that "entitle" Americans to receive all manner of services for which there is no money?

Obama's Global Failure.  Our allies hate him. Our enemies are laughing at him. Nearly two years after Obama's World Tour in which he did his best to convince voters that he understood global challenges with a high profile tour of a lot of foreign countries (a approach that if it worked should convincingly make every internationally famous rock star a foreign policy expert), his biggest global accomplishment is still his ability to travel around the world to high profile destinations on the taxpayer's shrinking dime.  His attempts at diplomacy consisted of delivering vicious slaps across the faces of longtime allies, from England to Israel, and pathetic love notes to tyrants in Iran, Russia and Venezuela, who responded by openly mocking him.

Barack Obama's Cowardly Foreign Policy.  Liberal critics derided President Bush for engaging in cowboy diplomacy, or "going alone."  Those same critics neglect to notice that Obama is employing a more dubious strategy than Bush.  Obama has pursued a confused and aimless foreign policy based on the idea that he can personally sway foreign heads of state with his charisma.  Unfortunately for our nation his "follow me because I'm charismatic" policy has proven to be devastatingly ineffective.

Obama's Greatest Deficit Is Wisdom.  It is often said, by both supporters and detractors, that President Barack Obama is intelligent, smart, well-educated, and even cerebral.  However, President Obama is never described as wise.  Wisdom is a special quality reserved for a few rare individuals.  And wisdom is the most important characteristic which distinguishes ordinary leaders from extraordinary leaders.

President Hamlet's Energy Policy.  Obama is proving to be as indecisive on energy policy as he is on so many other things.  He is a leader as indecisive as Hamlet.

Holder balks at blaming 'radical Islam' for terror attempts.  Despite crediting the Pakistani Taliban with fostering the recent failed car bombing in Times Square, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was reluctant Thursday [5/13/2010] to say radical Islam was part of the cause of that and other recent attacks.

Obama Buyer's Remorse.  [Scroll down slowly]  Recall that Obama's demonstration of intellectual talent beyond a knack for self-expression never occurred.  Skill at legislative logrolling, drafting well-crafted legal briefs, years of adeptly administrating an organization and similar traditional politically relevant skills were similarly never in evidence.  His legislative record was virtually non-existent; at most he was an above average skilled Chicago political operative in a world of hundreds with similar talents.  That Obama advanced the prestige academic ladder — Columbia then Harvard Law — without a public paper trail, moreover, only suggests help from affirmative action and sympathetic professors determined to help him to succeed.

Eric Holder accidentally tells the truth.  As the old saying goes, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" — unless you are the chief law enforcement official of the United States of America.

Holder's 'Haven't Read It' Arizona Immigration Law Admission Gets Little Coverage.  It will surprise almost no one who visits this site that Holder's admitted ignorance about a routinely misrepresented law — misrepresentations that have led to calls for boycotts of Arizona, a PC-obsessed cancellation of a girls high school basketball team's hoop dreams, and hysterical hyperventilation at Holder's Justice Department as well as by the President of the United States himself — has received very little establishment media attention.

Napolitano Admits She Hasn't Read Arizona Immigration Law in 'Detail'.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano admitted Monday [5/17/2010] that she has not read the controversial Arizona immigration law even though she's gone on television to criticize it, and continued to assert that it was "bad law enforcement law."

The Absence of Competence.  Is it too much to expect the Attorney General of the United States, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the President to have actually read the law that the State of Arizona passed regarding illegal aliens?

Obama Hypocrisy on Small Businesses and Jobs.  Obama has no experience with wealth creation.  Instead, his forte is wealth redistribution.  Compounding his inexperience, Obama unwisely surrounded himself with a Cabinet and staffers that have little, or no, experience in job creation, with only the vaguest understanding of how entrepreneurs and small businesses create jobs.

Talked Into A Trap.  President Obama's "direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions" has, not surprisingly, led us down a blind alley.  Now China and Russia are about to mug us with Turkey's phony uranium deal.

Eric Holder Can't Read?  Liberal reporters always think that the liberal politicians they're covering are the smartest people in the room.  In fact, when they're opposing something, they're so smart that they don't have to read the policy they're discussing.  They have a clairvoyant sense of how wrong it is.

Financial Follies.  As chaos spreads around the world and the U.S. deficit deepens, the White House seems confused and Congress can't even pass a budget.  Have we ever lived through a time of greater incompetence?

The Intelligence Community Had 14 Chances to Connect the Dots.  It is the official position of the National Counterterrorism Center that "no entity within the IC has sole responsibility nor bears the entire burden of either connecting the dots or accountability for failing to do so." ... In fact, it is precisely the mission of the NCTC to connect dots.

Susan Rice:  Another Obama Failure.  America's Ambassador to the United Nations has been a failure.  Perhaps Susan Rice should spend less time career-climbing in DC, angling to replace Hillary Clinton (she has been "wildly inattentive" according to the non-partisan The Hill magazine) and more time doing her job.  Rice (and the US) was AWOL when it came to the vote to allow Libya onto the UN Human Rights Council; was AWOL in a Sec Council Resolution that condemned Israel (the first time such as Security Council resolution was not vetoed by America).

How Bad Is Obama's Foreign Policy?  Let Us Count the Ways.  The country is slowly awakening to the reality that it has another "Jimmah" to contend with in the White House, a man whose palpable weakness and inexperience is encouraging America's worst enemies to think they can take advantage.

Rudderless.  Faced by the linked yet separate crises in the Middle East and in Northeast Asia the Obama administration is acting like it was shot through the central nervous system, acting in uncoordinated jerks.  The alliances with Korea and Japan and the special relationships with Israel and Britain lie almost forgotten like neglected toys on the floor of a spoiled child distracted by his latest bauble.

Obama's Dithering Dilemma:  Gulf or Golf?  Notwithstanding the pressing issues of the day, Obama continues to make time for the mundane and the meaningless. ... The burning question:  Which has greater priority in the life of President Barack Obama:  The Gulf oil crisis or a round of Golf?

Barack Obama in Crisis: Zzzz.  President Bush's harshest critics often described his look during moments of crisis as "deer in the headlights."  After two years of Hope and Change, America has grown accustomed to President Obama's crisis face:  eyes glazed over.

Obama's listless federal government.  When a national calamity strikes like the Deepwater oil disaster, it's natural to look to the commander in chief for answers.  But President Obama has felt the heat even more than past Presidents because, to his core, he's pushed the idea of government as the go-to for help.  Now, the gaping hole in the Gulf of Mexico has revealed that government doesn't know best.  In fact, it doesn't even know at all.  And because of that fact, the vaunted federal government has been missing in action.

A Bad Case of the Bitters.  With oil from the still-gushing, five-week-old Deepwater Horizon leak lapping unimpeded into the marshes of Louisiana, on Tuesday [5/25/2010] the President of the United States jetted past the oily Gulf to a San Francisco fund-raiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer, held, incredibly, at the home of the 350th richest person in America — Gordon Getty, inheritor of the Getty Oil fortune.

He Was Supposed to Be Competent.  I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill.  This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office.  And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts.

Obama's oily Katrina.  Back in 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama critiqued the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.  "There is not a sense of urgency out of this White House and this administration," he declared, two years after the disaster struck.  Now, more than a month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank, with a massive oil spill making landfall on the Gulf coast, Louisiana's Gov. Bobby Jindal is the one calling for "more urgency."  The only rush in Washington is over where to shift the blame.

Did someone mention the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?

Obama Revises History.  President Obama gave his first press conference in a long time today [5/27/2010], and the questions were almost all about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  Obama's answers were disingenuous in several ways.  First, he couldn't resist the temptation to blame the Bush administration for the spill.  Is this getting a little old, or what?

When Professor Obama Meets Dirty Reality.  This is what happens when an academic finds himself in the position of actually having to get something done.  Nothing written on a blackboard or recited from a textbook or lectured from a podium will plug the leak miles deep off of Louisiana.  Nothing in Barack Obama's background full of lectures and text books makes him fit for any job where getting things done is important.

'Owning' the oil spill, White House tries to run away.  I think we can take this information as proof positive that the administration is scared witless about the BP oil spill and its potential to destroy Barack Obama.  They are panicking and seeking desperately to get out from under any blame associated with this environmental catastrophe.

The (Not So) Great Pretender.  [Scroll down]  Unless reading a teleprompter can be considered work, it's obvious that anything that can be considered an achievement of this presidency is due to Pelosi and Reid, with honorable mention in the arm-twisting category to Rahm Emmanuel.  And in the rare instance where a goal of the president does not involve Congress (think the Chicago Olympics), Obama's "read a speech" approach to hard work is shown to be an utter failure.

Team Obama's 'Real Time' Bureaucracy.  Contrary to [Carol] Browner's insistence, the government players involved in the Gulf oil crisis have no track record of making real-time decisions, have been thoroughly taken to task for not being on the case since day one, and have been mired in mind-numbing bureaucracy.  This is because the White House and its West Wing are packed to the rafters with lawyers, politicians, and academics.  These are the type of people associated with paper-shuffling, assembling blue-ribbon committees, holding hearings, and filing lawsuits — not getting things done in "real time."

Obama's Leadership by Litigation:  [Scroll down]  Leadership by litigation is reference to [Obama's] penchant to litigate, not solve problems — to attenuate them, not end them.  Consider that Obama, the attorney, is facing a growing number of crises:  (1) a failing economy, (2) a growing number of terrorist attacks, and (3) the gulf oil crisis.  Each of those crises is getting worse, not better, and it is Obama's lack of leadership skills that are to blame.

Obama doesn't have a clue.  Conservatives are so enraged at Obama's socialism and radicalism that they are increasingly surprised to learn that he is incompetent as well.  The sight of his blithering and blustering while the most massive oil spill in history moves closer to America's beaches not only reminds one of Bush's terrible performance during Katrina, but calls to mind Jimmy Carter's incompetence in the face of the hostage crisis.  America is watching the president alternate between wringing his hands in helplessness and pointing his finger in blame when he should be solving the most pressing environmental problem America has faced in the past 50 years.

Disgracing America.  President Barack Obama, who got his start in politics in the living room of domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and spent his first year in office apologizing for American history, has now decisively tipped U.S. foreign policy toward America's enemies.  Events of the past week have left no doubt.  There is a pattern.  President "Let No Crisis Be Wasted" Obama twists events to justify his radical agenda.  A financial crisis becomes the excuse for a massive health care entitlement.  An oil spill is exploited to push an unpopular energy tax.  And a jihadist publicity stunt — the Gaza flotilla — becomes the occasion to throw Israel to the wolves.

Obama Fails the Test of Office.  It has been six weeks since the Deepwater Horizon blowout.  And what has the Obama administration accomplished in a time period fourteen times longer than that granted to Bush [after Hurricane Katrina struck]?  Well, we've seen Obama frowning.  Obama sticking his fingers into the sand.  Obama saying he's frustrated.  Obama telling us a heartwarming story about his daughter. ... That's it.  That's the sum total of accomplishment by Barack Obama, his administration, his party, and his bureaucracy, in facing his first major domestic crisis.

Slick talk aside, O's just not up to the job.  It's excuse time in the fudge factory.  President Obama is getting lots of cover and advice from his left-leaning media friends. ... Beyond the irony of journalists urging more spin from a politician, the really remarkable fact is that none dare consider the possibility that Obama is simply not up to the job.  It is a scary thought, but evidence of consistent failure is overwhelming.

The Thrill is Gone.  The news conference [May 27] was Mr. Obama's first in 310 days.  His performance makes it likely it'll be at least that long before he holds another.  The low point came when Mr. Obama professed not to know whether Elizabeth Birnbaum, the woman he appointed to head the Minerals Management Service, resigned or was fired.  No one expects the president to don scuba tanks and plug the hole himself.  But he at least ought to know what's going on with his own people.

Joe Biden update:  Off to Africa now for some reason.  Because of the ongoing crisis of the gulf oil spill, the stubborn reluctance of the private sector to create many new jobs after 15 months of billion-dollar stimulus spendings and the emotional and political volatility surrounding the Arizona illegal immigrant law, Vice President Joe Biden has been dispatched to Africa for a while.

Barack Obama:  Let Them Eat Tar Balls.  Your bureaucrats have been saying "No we can't" to request after request for assistance along the Gulf Coast, but for you it has been "Yes we can" as you spend taxpayer dollars on entertainment at a greater rate than any U.S. president.  Your parties have averaged one every three days and your vacations seem endless as you've satisfied the vow of your former social secretary to bring "the same kind of [party] environment" you had in Chicago to the White House.

Spill reveals Obama's lack of executive experience.  In mid-February 2008, fresh from winning a bunch of Super Tuesday primaries, Barack Obama granted an interview to "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Croft.  "When you sit down and you look at [your] resume," Croft said to Obama, "there's no executive experience, and in fact, correct if I'm wrong, the only thing that you've actually run was the Harvard Law Review."  "Well, I've run my Senate office, and I've run this campaign," Obama said.

A Shrink Asks:  What's Wrong with Obama?  Obama's odd mannerisms intrigue a psychotherapist like me.  He also presents a serious diagnostic challenge. ... He doesn't fit easily into any diagnostic category.  Many people attribute Obama's oddness to his narcissism.  True, Obama has a gargantuan ego, and he is notoriously thin-skinned.  Yet a personality disorder like narcissism does not explain Obama's strangeness:  his giggling while being asked about the economy; his continuing a shout-out rather than announcing the Ft. Hood shootings; or his vacations, golfing, partying and fundraising during the calamitous oil spill.

The Man Who Would Be King.  Over the heads of some of the sycophants in the mainstream media there appears to be the proverbial light bulb turning on.  After sixteen months of the Obama presidency, questions are being asked about not only his competency, but what motivates this putative savior.  The current President of the United States, acting in a way that would make Nero proud, continues to fiddle while not only the United States burns, but the rest of the world begins to spin out of control.

Rumors of a Coup.  [Scroll down]  A word on the matter of competence:  Obama is slowly being stripped of any reputation for ability he may have accrued during his political career.  The Deepwater Horizon blowout, the Korea crisis, Iran, Sestak...Commandant Zero is being revealed as the most inept president on record.  This is in no way hyperbole; it is a sober evaluation of the record as it exists.  Fillmore, Buchanan, and even Carter are simply not in the running here.  As a schlemiel, Obama stands in a class by himself, a man who not only can't solve problems, but can't recognize them when they appear.

Obama falls headfirst into the hypocrisy trap.  Obama says he's sick and tired of the Washington blame game, but still can't resist doling out piles of blame himself.  His compulsive, reflexive finger-pointing at Republicans, George W. Bush and vague villains on the right is not only unbecoming, it also reinforces the gathering public verdict that Obama is a weakling.  Victims do not make good leaders.

The secret ingredient in the Obama formula for success.  Not to put too fine a point on it, Obama is lazy.  He loves the perquisites of high office.  He just doesn't have much time for the demands.  Incompetence.  Arrogance.  Left-wingery.  Laziness.  The final oddity is the way Obama combines laziness and ambition.  For he is certainly ambitious.  His efforts to "fundamentally transform the United States of America" are prosecuted by following what Governor Mitch Daniels described as a policy of "shock-and-awe" statism.

This job, too, is beneath Obama.  So a man swept into office on an unprecedented tide of delirious fawning is now watching his presidency sink in an unstoppable gush.  That's almost too apt.  Unfortunately, in the real world, a disastrous president has consequences.

Obama and the Trouble With Voting 'Present'.  Barack Obama may now be president, but at times he appears to be merely present.  That has been the case with his response to the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

Problem-Solvers and Butt-Kickers.  [Scroll down]  We know that [Obama] attended Harvard Law School, became President of the Harvard Law Review, and later taught a dozen years at University of Chicago Law School.  Atypically, Mr. Obama attained and transitioned through those law school positions despite a record profoundly barren of legal publishing.  For almost anyone else in America to be regarded as a serious candidate for a law school professorship, it is a sine qua&Nbsp;non that one must have published significant original legal research in respected law journals — or otherwise have served a distinguished legal or legislative career.  Mr. Obama somehow eluded that prerequisite.

I Know Who's to Blame.  After just a year and a half, it is virtually impossible by any measure to see the regime of Barack Obama as anything other than a failure.  Elected on lofty rhetoric espousing the nebulous agenda of change, hope, prosperity and unity, his first, only, and hopefully truncated term in office has turned into a cold, clammy, national nightmare.

A Beginner Behind the Wheel.  After the Tuesday Oval Office address to the nation, I was grumbling about the speech when my son asked me what was making me so angry.  Desperate to find an analogy to convey my meaning in understandable terms, I brought it down to his teenage level.

A Mom Asks:  Should We Care What's Wrong with Obama?  We did not go out and recruit Barack Obama to be our president.  We did not find him by searching the country over for the most qualified man for this job.  No, it was Barack Obama, owing to a character flaw the size of California — a blaring lack of humility — who put up his own name in contention for the presidency, when he had never held an executive position (not even a paper route, for crying out loud!) of any kind whatsoever, in the public or private sector.
[Emphasis in original.]

MoDo Bashes 'Thin-Skinned' Obama.  [Scroll down]  Where [Maureen Dowd] goes wrong is in assuming that Obama could have answered those questions had he chosen to.  It's far more likely, though — as recent events have shown — that the President simply has no idea what he's doing, and never has had.  At the behest of the press, the country elected a man with no resume to speak of, no record of accomplishment and no indication that he was terribly capable at anything, including basketball.

The unbearable lightness of Zero.  To show he "cares" about the oil blowout in the Gulf, Obama flies Air Force One to Louisiana to get photographed eating seafood on the beach.  PR done, back to golf.

World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur.  [Scroll down]  The reviews of Obama's performance have been disappointing.  He has seemed uncomfortable in the role of leading other nations, and often seems to suggest there is nothing special about America's role in the world.  The global community was puzzled over the pictures of Obama bowing to some of the world's leaders and surprised by his gratuitous criticisms of and apologies for America's foreign policy under the previous administration of George W. Bush.

Obama now owns oil spill.  If only candidate Barack Obama had been truly scrutinized and thoroughly vetted to lead the nation and be commander in chief, perhaps we could have been spared this sad, scary failed test of a president.  An unusually gifted speaker when addressing his utopian dreams for the nation, when faced with addressing the reality of the job of president of the United States, the former community organizer falls frighteningly short of being even merely adequate in his current employment.

Mr. President, You're Stuck on Stupid.  [Scroll down]  The big problem for the president is that the Gulf oil spill is his fourth major presidential mistake.  The first big mistake was the $787-billion stimulus package.  The second was the appeasement of thug dictators, Islamist and leftist.  The third mistake was ObamaCare.  The fourth is the Gulf.  (The bailouts of the auto industry I count as merely a crime, an assault and battery on the principle of private property and senior creditors, the very foundation of our freedom and prosperity.)  The horrifying thing is that we Americans can't afford all these mistakes.  We can't afford a president stuck on stupid.

Bachmann:  Obama Oil Spill Response 'Dereliction of Leadership'.  Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann isn't exactly known for her reticence on the news of the day.  And when it comes to the White House's handling of the BP oil spill disaster, Bachmann had some harsh words for President Barack Obama. ... The Minnesota Republican said the hapless reaction to the oil spill event and the administration's mishandling of the Nashville flood in April that went largely ignored by the President and the media raised questions about the administration's leadership.

Is President Obama the Worst President in History?  There are only two other true contenders for the title of "worst president in U.S. history":  Jimmy Carter and James Buchanan.  Warren G. Harding's tenure was corrupt but not disastrous, and Andrew Johnson's presidency failed because of his Southern roots and wrongful adherence to extreme states rights concepts in the aftermath of the Civil War, not because his administration effectuated any grave damage to the nation.  Only Buchanan matches the record of incompetence, failure and wrongheadedness pursued by Obama.

Are Americans tiring of a legislator as president?  American voters have taken many zigs and zags over the years when choosing their country's chief executive.  But one of the amazing consistencies is:  They prefer chief executives in the executive office.  Five of the last six presidents have been executives — four governors and one sitting vice president.  The only exception is the current incumbent, Barack Obama, who as his bipartisan critics tried to point out in 2007-08, had never even run a candy store, let alone a country.

What Obama Needs Is a Change of Job Description.  I think the country is being pretty unfair to President Obama.  He just seems so befuddled and confused by everything lately, and everyone keeps yelling and being angry at him, which only makes it worse.  This whole oil spill mess just sort of highlights the fact that Obama has no idea what a president is supposed to do.  He's been constantly vowing to take swift action but doesn't seem to have a clue what that action should be.

Barack Obama's Square Box.  When John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crashed into Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in July 1999 some observers said he had gotten himself into a "square box," meaning that he had run into the limits of his experience and his imagination.  Barack Obama is in a square box, and observers are now beginning to talk about his inevitable crash.

A Surreal Presidency.  What many have failed to recognize until recently is that Obama is no wonder-worker, no farsighted statesman, no honest broker, no competent chief executive, no bipartisan healer — and in point of fact, he is simply not presidential material at all.  Obama has absolutely no idea of how to go about running a country.  But it would be a mistake to assume that he is nothing more than an untalented bungler, for he is blessed with thespian aptitudes that none of his predecessors could have mustered.  Obama is a man with a résumé so thin it would look sideways head-on, but he is unexcelled as a performer.

A Dog in the Manger Presidency.  [Scroll down]  Obama transparently fails as a leader in several remarkable ways.  First, he lacks leadership ability by any traditional criteria.  Second, the leadership that he has imparted has roundly failed by objective consensus.  Third, he attacks the genuine acts of leadership by others as if they were a krypton stake ready to be plunged into his abdomen.  Obama has the crafty and evasive character of a natural-born fraud.  The fake is always the enemy of the real, and will battle to destroy the actual — regardless of the costs to others.

White House defends Obama's fun time during crisis.  A White House spokesman says the whole country benefits when President Barack Obama takes time to go golfing and "clear his mind."

The Golfer in Chief.  [Scroll down]  Marathon golf sessions often with high-roller partners are only one aspect of Mr. Obama's growing image problem.  While America suffers, Mr. Obama is hosting gala events at the White House, hanging out with rock stars, making pro-forma photo ops and then returning to Washington to "clear his mind."  We're surprised to hear that his mind is cluttered with anything, but he does have a busy travel schedule.  Last week, for example, Mr. Obama spent between $500,000 and $1 million of taxpayer money to fly to Ohio to deliver a 10-minute speech touting his purported achievements.

Obama hits links for 52nd golf day.  President Obama hit the golf course Saturday [10/9/2010] for what, by CBS News' Mark Knoller's calculation, was his 52nd such outing since taking office.  According to the White House pool report, Obama went golfing Saturday with his usual partners:  trip director Marvin Nicholson, press aide Ben Finkenbinder and the Department of Energy's David Katz.

Obama Has Shot 41 Rounds of Golf as President.  President Barack Obama has played a remarkable 41 rounds of golf since becoming president, easily outpacing his predecessor and possibly damaging his ability to portray himself in 2012 as a populist advocate of average folks.

President Obama Golfs 52 Times While U.S. Suffers.  President Obama has played 52 rounds of golf in less than two years in office.  The U.S. unemployment, down economy and two wars have not tampered his leisure time.  In comparison, President Bush played a total of 24 rounds of golf in eight years.

The Nine Snootiest Practices of Barack Obama.  President Obama puts in 18 holes nearly every weekend.  Once over a recent two or three day spread he got in 36.  I don't know about you, but if I was spending so much time on the fairways my wife would have my clubs on ebay before you could say "tee time."  Of course, the White House doesn't really like to emphasize Obama's love of the links.  And that's simply because golf is for the rich people, and Obama is for the poor people.

Obama Continues Fight to End American Prosperity — while he golfs and vacations.  When something consummately horrific happens to the United States of America, its people or a US ally, Obama celebrates by going golfing. ... When an unprecedented number of tornadoes hit six US States and killed at least 45 people, Obama went golfing.  When his misadventure (aka "war" without any Congressional approvals) against Libya was in full swing, Obama went golfing.  While the Japanese people were dying from a massive earthquake, tsunami and radiation Obama went on vacation to Brazil with his family and hangers-on.  Michele Obama took her daughters to Spain for another lavish trip and the Obama's trip to India (although the Obama regime still refuses to disclose the actual figures) is said to have topped the scales at $200 million/day.

Obama Can't Outsource His Incompetence.  Following the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Congress enacted the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.  The OPA amended the Clean Water Act (CWA) §311, including changes to spill response authorities.  The language is clear and unambiguous:  the President is mandated to take action to clean up the spill and mitigate or prevent damage to the environment.

Much more discussion of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

What the Gulf Oil Leak Tells Us.  The sad fact is that this event has shown that Barack Obama could not lead his way out of a wet paper bag, and is totally lost in dealing with the unexpected.  His focus on politics and process gets in the way of actual results, and it could not be more apparent that he has absolutely no concern for the people of the Gulf Coast.  If he were truly concerned he would focus on cleaning up the mess instead on his political reputation.  But he is not smart enough to do what is necessary to obtain real results, even in the reputation department.  Before this is over he may go down in history as not only the worst person to sit in the Oval Office but the stupidest as well.

The bogey man.  [Scroll down]  In an effort to defend his boss, a White House spokesman argued that Obama's recent golf outing "probably does us all good as American citizens" because it gives him an opportunity to "clear his mind."  How, in the middle of a national disaster, is this President — or any President — not working a good thing?  If my apartment were on fire and I took time out to get a pedicure, it would seem absurd.  Why would the President believe the visual of a triple bogey while the Gulf of Mexico is being destroyed is any better?

Our Lazy President.  I'm starting to get the feeling that President Obama is no workaholic.  His much trumpeted "War on Petroleum" speech in the Oval Office last week fell flat to most listeners, regardless of political affiliation, because our "genius", Harvard educated President made it clear to the entire world that he knew less about the Gulf spill than the average 10th grader.  What has this man been doing with his time for the past two months?

Obama:  The Boy Who Would Be a Man.  Barack Obama is, in the words of Rush Limbaugh, a "man-child."  He is a boy who would be a man, a weakling who wants to look strong, and an inexperienced politician who wants so much to be a venerated leader.  To the chagrin of our nation, he is also our President:  a fact that sane people, including many who inexplicably voted for Obama, are starting to regret more and more as time goes by.

Malaise II.  [Scroll down]  Obama's problem is his background.  He has never run anything except a campaign; never operated a company, never been a CEO.  He cannot lead because he is not a leader.  He's an academic seminar facilitator.  Notice his frequent references to "...experts in academia..." and his energy secretary Steven Chu who "...won a Nobel prize."  Obama is a collegiate propeller-head most comfortable in a room full of other propeller-heads.  Solving problems is not their goal; talking about solving problems is.  The meeting becomes the solution, an end in itself.

The decreasing relevancy of Obama's presidency.  [Obama] had campaigned on the closure of Guantanamo Bay for months before taking office, and his first act as president was to sign an executive order promising to close it by the end of 2009.  The lefties were delirious with joy.  By gum, this president was going to get rid of the ultimate symbol of the hated policies of the Nazi trio of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld!  At the signing, Obama turned to then White House Counsel Greg Craig, and asked something to the effect of "...exactly how is this going to work, Greg?"  Caught off guard by the question, Craig shuffled his feet uncomfortably and mumbled something unintelligible.  He didn't know, either.  They are six months late and they still don't know.

President Clarabelle.  [Scroll down]  The world has become a much more dangerous place as a result of President Obama and his idiotic foreign and economic policies.  Threats from abroad and the economic crisis are not going away. ... Combine these real dangers with what appears to be a delusional personality and an Administration devoid of grownups and the situation becomes highly volatile.  Self-proclaimed and self-imagined Saviors do not take kindly to being laughed at and ridiculed.  It is only a matter of time until much of the country recognizes what much of the world already has — we are being led by an incompetent.  The laughter and disgust will continue to build.

The Dumbest President... EVER!  How dumb?  How-many-Obamas-does-it-take-to-screw-in-a-light-bulb dumb.  And in the answer lies the answer, the key to his pole position in the race to last:  It takes 242.  One to hold the light bulb, four to turn the ladder, eighteen to assess conformity to OSHA workplace requirements, four to assess the environmental impact of the burnt-out bulb disposal, twelve to participate in a task force to evaluate green energy solutions for a replacement bulb, eight to script his actions, four to script instructions and work the teleprompter, 23 to work with the justice department to sue the light bulb manufacturer...you get the picture.  And, à la Buchanan, Obama never does get that light bulb changed.

Opportunity Obama-style.  It's no secret Obama can always squeeze in time for a few rounds of golf.  In addition, the put-your-feet-up President is also an aficionado of extended weekends relaxing and availing himself of what he perceives as frequent well-deserved breaks.  Yet, the President whose administration has chosen to sue the state of Arizona has set nary a wingtip on the border of the Grand Canyon State to assess the illegal immigration dilemma.

Obama's Media Stall Out.  Rarely has hope changed almost overnight to despair or resignation.  For Obama is his own worst enemy.  He multiplies mistake upon mistake for the simple reason that he just can't help himself.  He is plainly unqualified for office, has a "Chicago way" shrewdness and ruthlessness about him but is neither very intelligent nor particularly knowledgeable, is prone to an unsavory and conspicuous degree of self-adulation, leans toward feckless and inappropriate remarks and is given to expressing a certain petulance when he is crossed.  Additionally, he has surrounded himself with a team of manifest incompetents who couldn't change a tire if their lives depended on it ...

We Only Expected Competence.  Americans, liberal and conservative, expected a president who could tell an interviewer what was actually in the biggest piece of legislation we've seen since FDR; one who would consider our employment crisis his first priority, not a nuisance standing in the way of a predetermined agenda; a leader who was unequivocal about military decisions, be they to escalate or drawdown; a statesman who didn't immediately alienate our allies.

Does Barack Obama Have a Learning Disability?  [Scroll down]  BHO claims to have been a professor of constitutional law. ... He was not really a law professor.  He was a "senior lecturer," though the University of Chicago, where BHO served as a senior lecturer, claims that he was "regarded as" a professor.  How one is regarded does not always determine what one is.

Geithner:  Irresponsible spending has fixed the economy.  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is right to say that the country is living beyond its means, but it's a curious statement coming from an official in an administration that has done nothing to curb profligate spending.

Obama hits golf course on heat wave weekend.  President Obama hit the golf course Sunday [7/25/2010] as the Washington region experienced a humid heat wave that pushed the heat index into the triple digits.  Obama left the White House shortly after noon for the links at Andrew Air Force Base.

The Anti-Drilling Commission.  The commission appointed by President Obama to investigate the Gulf oil spill (the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling) does not include a single member with specialized knowledge of petroleum engineering.  This is akin to performing a heart transplant with a surgical team that has never set foot in an operating room.  Of the seven members appointed to the commission, not one is a petroleum engineer, and all have long-standing ties to the environmental movement.

Five Wonderfully Imbecilic Liberals.  [#5]  Robert Gibbs, press secretary to President Obama:  If Gibbs is an actor he's really over-the-top, because it's just not possible for a man to be so bad at something he's being paid to be good at:  communicating.  Gibbs stumbles through each press briefing he gives, often times uttering "uhhhh" more times than you thought imaginable.  He openly misleads reporters with half-truths, he is condescending towards the American people with his ironic lectures, and manages to bore just about anyone willing to listen.

The Propaganda Of Incompetents.  As the "recovery summer" turns into a nightmare, one thing has become painfully clear:  This is the most economically incompetent administration since the Great Depression.  Two years into the Obama era, when the U.S. should be enjoying a booming recovery from the 2007-08 meltdown, with millions of new jobs and higher incomes for all, all we see is economic wreckage from the unbelievably foolish policies pursued by the White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress.

The Cabinet From Another World.  A week ago, as the secretary of labor greeted grim job data by hailing the economy's "turnaround," the Dow fell 100 points in seconds — a vivid sign America is wising up to this administration's incompetence.

Our incompetent president.  It is becoming apparent for all to see that a man who made his name as a community organizer does not have the skills to be president of these United States.  Maybe he could develop the requisite skills as a governor.  Possibly he could develop such skills were he to sit in the Senate for a couple of terms.  Yet there are delicate sensitivities, the ability to listen, to stick by your guns, occasionally to remain reticent.  These are the fundamentals of a leader, and President Obama has demonstrated that he lacks all of them, most notably reticence.  I think it is clear even to official Washington that Mr. Obama is the worst president of modern times.

No, Obama is scary competent.  When it comes to expanding and perpetuating the power of his administration and its ideological allies and transforming the country for their benefit, Mr. Obama is anything but incompetent.  His administration has pursued a razzle-dazzle offense so swift and relentless that the president and his regime have only begun to digest the spoils of their victories.

Michelle's Flawed Crusade.  The recently passed child school nutrition legislation is exemplary of the administration's deficiency in basic knowledge and its willingness to elevate politics and ideology over all scientific fact, despite assurances to the contrary.  Its approach to this matter, where there is but a single issue in play, strongly suggests a profound inability to comprehend more complex concepts, perhaps explaining much of what has transpired during its tenure.

Obama Continues Pushing Absurd College Agenda.  Just like the notion that federal deficit spending will revive the economy, the idea that getting more young Americans through college will make the country more competitive and prosperous is utterly mistaken.  Of course, Obama will never abandon it.

Does Barack Obama want to be re-elected in 2012?  Almost everything Obama does these days suggests that he doesn't care much about being re-elected.  Strange as it might seem, perhaps he wants to be a one-term president.

Obama's Four Disasters:  Recovery summer, opposition to Arizona's immigration law, negative campaigning, and intervention in the Ground Zero mosque dispute — call them Obama's Four Disasters.  As policy, they're questionable.  As political exercises, they're losers.  As clues about Obama, they're evidence he's lost his political knack.  What was Obama thinking?

A President Who Wants to Be Anywhere but Here.  Obama seems to have been restless all his life.  During the 2008 campaign he tried to turn that restlessness into a political asset.  His supporters argued that his travels gave him insight into other people and how to get us all working together even as the media avoided the negative side of such restlessness — that Obama had seldom stayed at one place or position long enough to show any accomplishments.  His undergraduate degree was earned at two institutions, and transcripts have never been provided for either.  His political résumé is that of any office but the one he is in; he has started a run for higher office within two years of winning election to every political office he has held.

Violating His Oath of Office?  [Scroll down]  When the Iranian people rose up in protest against the stealing of a sham election by the country's fascist dictatorship, President Obama sagaciously withheld even rhetorical support, to curry favor with the ruling Islamic theocracy in the vain hope of a nuclear deal.  As the mullahs' Brown Shirt henchmen began murdering protesters in the streets, President Obama stood idly by, offering nothing of significance in their support.  Even Jimmy Carter supported human rights.  That is why President Obama's foreign policies are the worst, most unprincipled, most un-American in our nation's history.

He Really Doesn't Want to Be Commander In Chief.  It is not that we didn't know this before, but reading the New York Times — surely designed to be as favorable toward Obama as the reporter could possibly manage — one is left slack-jawed.  Obama doesn't like being commander in chief, isn't good at it, and has relied on one tutor, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who is leaving next year.  The report should be read in full.

The Party of Know-Nothings.  The youthful dreamers guiding the Obama administration have almost no private-sector experience.  Like Obama himself, the Cabinet and host of czars who direct policy have spent their lives in politics or academia, be it as Democratic political consultants, professors, nonprofit directors, or community organizers.  Lack of real-world experience may actually be the primary criterion for employment in the Obama White House.  Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, for example, has no work experience outside government.

Obama's shipwreck.  This White House is rudderlessly lost at sea and inadequate to the challenges it faces.

Obama Misunderstands the Role of the Presidency.  Instead of positioning himself as the leader of the free world or as a post-partisan healer, Obama regularly inserts himself as a combative participant in Washington's permanent campaign.  Whether inexperience or poor strategic judgment, it's certainly not the governing style he promised.

The Bankruptcy of Barack.  The Obama Administration hopelessly blurred the lines between Reality television and politics, giving us a self-indulgent child in the Oval Office, who is always eager to pose for photos and be fawned upon, but does not understand that he has responsibilities, rather than unchecked powers. ... And after over a year and a half in office, Obama has learned no wisdom and gained no perspective.  He is still the same arrogant, touchy and insecure celebrity that he was in 2008.  He has not become ennobled, but embittered.  His controlling tendencies have grown out of control.  His irritation and paranoia bubble to the surface under strain.  Where he promised transparency, he has instead delivered layer upon layer of barriers and secrets, laws that cannot be read, hearings that cannot be attended, and press conferences that never seem to happen.

Fake but accurate:
 Rug burn:  Obama's misattributed Oval Office Martin Luther King quote.  Now horizontally adorning the Oval Office, Obama's new rug lists several of his favorite quotes from American historical figures.  A particular Teddy Roosevelt quote caught my eye as a bit collectivist, but the other quotes, including one from the late Martin Luther King Jr., were no cause for alarm.  Why am I speaking of this today?  Because there's a crease in the Oval Office rug story:  the Martin Luther King quote — "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" — is not a quote from Martin Luther King.

Smartest President in History Botches Oval Office Rug Quote.  Woven into the new presidential seal rug adorning the Oval Office is a misattributed quotation, offering us a perfect metaphor for the Obama presidency.

Obama Flunks the Leadership Test.  [Scroll down]  What here emerges, and what is truly troubling, is an overall picture of not simply a lack of leadership qualities, but an individual who is in every way the antithesis of a principled and effective leader — an un-leader.  This, as even a blind man can see, is having monumentally negative effects in our economy, national security, and liberty.  We can ill afford to allow this un-leader to go unchecked for much longer.

Canine Persecution Complex.  The President complained recently that Republicans talk about him as if he were a dog.  This may be his strangest comment to date, and that is saying a lot:  there is steep competition for Obama-Bizarro moments.  After all, the President giggled while answering questions on 60 Minutes about the plummeting economy.  And when discussing the monstrous murder of Daniel Pearl by Jihadists, Obama suggested that it might be, "...one of those moments that captured the world's imagination, because it reminded us how valuable a free press is."

'Like a Dog':  The Origins of Barack Obama's Petulance.  [Scroll down]  Obama's petulance, I think, more likely derives from a certain surprise — leading to anger — that originates from novel and sudden demands for accountability.  Quite simply, no one has dared question Obama before — much less press him for deeds to match his mellifluous words.  Did he really think he could talk his way through four years of the American presidency?  Apparently, he did, and apparently he was almost right — given that rhetoric and sophistry earned him the presidency in the first place.

Obama is losing U.S. troops' hearts and minds.  President Obama's arbitrary July 2011 deadline for U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan to start drawing down weakens our allies' resolve and strengthens our enemies'.  But the president is also sending the wrong message to his own troops, and losing our hearts and minds.  It seems that many inside the Beltway lack exposure to members of the military, and do not even understand the basic concept that troops consider themselves warriors in a war.  The Obama administration will not even call it a war on terrorism — preferring the term "Overseas Contingency Operation."  Obama says he does not want to use the word "victory," a word that has motivated soldiers for millennia.

Obama, the Academic Zombie.  Obama is the child of two Ph.D.'s, and other than having been a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, he has no appreciable practical work experience.  Given his upbringing's remote fatherly attention and his rejection of his mother's native culture, it may be safe to say that Obama is more truly a progeny of academia than he is of either of his natural parents.

Holder smacked down over voting.  The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has lurched from multiple controversies into an outright embarrassment.  In an order issued Sept. 16, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates of the District of Columbia gave Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s team the legal equivalent of a 2-by-4 across the head.  The department's handling of a voting rights case from Shelby County, Ala., has been so slipshod as to invite questions of its legal competence across the board.

The Biggest Target is Liberalism.  The 2010 election is not simply a campaign against Obama.  It needs to be a campaign against liberalism as a whole.  Obama remains the major target, and he deserves the honor.  No president in my lifetime has been as incompetent, as obtuse, or as polarizing.  There's a particular type of incompetence that involves applying serious energy and diligence to doing the wrong thing.  Obama is the master of this style of governance.

Our Boy-President.  In 2008, Americans elected a boy-president.  In short order, he becomes Jimmy Carter on Socialist steroids.  He apologizes to the world in a submissive fashion and caves in to Muslim extremism.  He also is hell-bent on bankrupting the government in order to finance a permanent power-grab.  Worst of all, he is insistent on building a nation of government addicts in the form of welfare, unions, and heavy-handed market Socialism.

White House Amateur Hour Again.  Another diplomatic blunder from the dilettante crew Barack Obama brought into the White House.  The geniuses there demonstrated their amateur standing and general sloppiness by displaying the flag of a close ally upside down, as the leader of the country sat at the President's elbow in a public meeting.

US:  Inverted Philippine flag was 'honest mistake'.  The U.S. government said Sunday it made an "honest mistake" when it displayed an inverted Philippine flag — which wrongfully signified that the Southeast Asian nation was in a state of war — in a meeting hosted by President Barack Obama.

Geithner Cornered On Tax Hypocrisy.  Either Tim Geithner has elephant-sized chutzpah or he's completely clueless. ... Geithner himself doesn't have the moral authority to push tax hikes on anyone.  He's a tax cheat.  Recall that before his confirmation hearings to head the Treasury Department, Geithner paid $42,702 in back taxes and interest for the years 2001 through 2004.  He blamed this "error" on TurboTax.

Where Do You Really Think America is Headed?  An old college friend asked me recently where I really think America is headed.  I basically said that our nation is an out-of-control train running top speed with an incompetent and suicidal engineer at the throttle.  To change metaphors, our country is a packed jumbo jet with an unlicensed pilot at the controls.

Shultz to Obama:  'You're out of your mind'.  Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz blasted President Obama Monday night [10/4/2010] for his scheduled July 2011 date to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Obama: Our First Post-Racial Failure.  [Scroll down]  The consensus is growing that the greatest failure of the modern presidency is ... a self-absorbed, mean-spirited black guy who embraces dictators and tyrants, can't manage his way out of a paper bag, and blames everything from earthquakes in Pakistan to bed bugs at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Israel.

J'Accuse:  Halperin lays out the critical case against Obama.  President Obama has lost Time Magazine. ... [Mark] Halperin refers to Jobs Fairs across the country as "the breadlines for the Obama years."  And after criticizing the GOP for not offering alternatives, Halperin skewers Obama for wasting time trying to demonize the opposition.  I may be wrong but this might be the first time that outright charges of incompetence by Obama have figured so prominently in an article in the old media.

'Change' not to believe in.  [Scroll down]  In short, nearly halfway through his term, Obama still doesn't get it.  He's clueless about his massive failures, which means, if he's given the chance, we can expect more of them.

Obama: Wrong, Not Evil — That's Why He's So Dangerous.  [Scroll down]  Obama doesn't act alone.  Every Democratic senator voted for the "stimulus" and for ObamaCare.  Obama's leftism is mainstream to his party.  If Obama is evil, what does this make those who support his agenda?  It's more than enough to say that Obama is an inexperienced, naive, wrongheaded ideologue who, even now, doesn't recognize the harm he is doing to the country.

Smart power:  Have they heard of a spellchecker at the White House website?  The fact that whitehouse.gov repeatedly posts messages peppered with misspellings is a good reason the administration should employ fewer Czars and hire a persnickety English major, proofreader and copy editor.  The misspelled White House webpage represents a president who leads a party that habitually mocks the brainpower of everyone from Dan Quayle to G.W. Bush to Democrat-deemed-dim-bulb Sarah Palin.  Yet, errors are continually made on a website associated with a president renowned for exceeding intellectual acumen and unparalleled oratory precision.

A Staggeringly Empty Suit.  The way Obama stormed onto the political scene, excited crowds, caused women to faint, and annihilated the Clinton machine led to the perception that he is a peerless campaigner, but I reject it. ... Even if he were willing to moderate his positions, he doesn't have the competence, the leadership or the executive experience to dig himself out of the hole he's thrown himself into.

Obama's Ignorance of World Affairs on Full Display in India.  When George W. Bush was sworn into office, he was mocked by his political enemies as a parochial idiot who had no understanding of world affairs.  That proved untrue.  By contrast Barack Obama was touted as a multicultural "citizen of the world" whose childhood residence in Indonesia, adult trips to Pakistan and Kenya, and Harvard degree were supposed proof of his sophistication. ... Now, in his quasi-imperial trip to India, Obama has made ridiculous P.C.-inspired statements that managed to offend both India and Pakistan and reveal an astounding ignorance of South Asian politics and history.

Obama Nominee Has No U.N. or Diplomatic Experience.  Twenty-two months into his administration and almost a year since a previous effort failed, President Obama has nominated an envoy to the United Nations with a mandate focusing on reform.  The delay in putting in place a U.S. permanent representative for U.N. management and reform has drawn fire over the past year.  Critics said the delay suggested the administration does not prioritize reform of the organization that gets more than one-fifth of its operating budget from the U.S.

Respectable Conservatives Still Don't Get Obama.  [Scroll down]  That gets us back to Obama's vanity.  If he were as competent as he appeared to be — president of Harvard Law Review, brilliant memoirist, dazzling speechwriter — his vanity might be understandable, but he has never been what he appears to be. ... He has always known that he is not as competent as he has appeared — as a writer, as a thinker, as a student, as a senator.  His "luck" derived from the fact that he grew up almost exactly as privileged white people do but in the body of a black man.

Obama and Holder and Their Massive Failure to Think.  [Scroll down]  Obama & Company have been called the Keystone Cops too many times to count.  But they are far, far worse than mere incompetents.  They are blowhards who believe in their own mental and moral superiority to the point where they put all Americans at gratuitous risk.  In the very first month of his presidency, Barack Obama announced the closing of Gitmo within one year.  That one was a wash before the words ever cleared his teleprompter-enabled mouth.  Immediately after this thoughtless announcement, Obama moved to shut down the military tribunals set to take place at Gitmo.  Despite the huge sums of taxpayer money spent on the Gitmo enterprise, Obama was ready to throw all that away on another of his liberal dream schemes.

Forcing Holder out.  The calls have begun for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s resignation.  Potential Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty both took that position last weekend in response to last week's embarrassing result in the trial of Guantanamo terrorist detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailiani.

Justice Department road trip.  The Justice Department's Voting Section chief, Chris Herren, sent an e-mail on Wednesday [12/1/2010] encouraging 97 of his employees (including secretaries) to use paid work time to attend oral arguments in a case unrelated to most of their individual responsibilities.  This reflects what little regard Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s team has for American taxpayers and individual voters.  The substance of the department's case is an affront on several levels.

Dems Should Seek Eric Holder's Resignation.  President Obama's supporters should hope Attorney General Eric Holder resigns.  His embarrassing tenure has given Republicans a potent symbol of leftist extremism combined with comic incompetence.  This nasty blend is symbolic of the entire administration, as shattered expectations of moderation and competence played a significant role in the midterm tsunami.

Unemployment Up, Obama Flees the Country.  Just as we find ourselves a mere whisper away from double digit unemployment, our inept Commander in Chief runs off to Afghanistan where he will lecture General Petraeus on how to run a war without winning.

Dereliction of Duty: Obama and the WikiLeaks Train Wreck.  As with other threats and crises during his presidency, Mr. Obama and his team have dithered rather than act decisively, and again demonstrated they have little idea of how to the defend America. ... It is worth stepping back through the sequence of events in this case to see just how inattentive President Obama and his team have been as this slow-moving train-wreck has impacted our national security and compromised U.S. information sources and partners around the globe.

Help Me Bubba-Wan, You're My Only Hope.  Did Barack Obama just cede the presidency to Bill Clinton? ... Here's what I saw.  I saw a current president who has never looked less interested in doing his job.  I also saw a former president who never lost interest in doing that job.  Obama's demeanor and body language suggested that he'd rather be anywhere but where he was, and then he followed through and actually bolted for the door.

Should We Gloat Over Obama's Childish Behavior?  It's easy enough for conservatives, libertarians, et al, to gloat about Barack Obama's recent petulant, child-like performances — at first unable to be even slightly gracious in compromise with Republicans on the tax bill and then, only a few days later, fleeing in panic when Clinton acted the real president, fielding questions with a relaxed authority so surpassing Obama's it was almost comical.

... and, in effect, Obama never came back!
 The Never-Ending Christmas Party.  You can tell the Left is getting nervous about this milk-carton president, because they don't compare him to Mr. Spock any more. ... We got a taste of the real Barack Obama at the end of last year, when he handed a high-pressure press conference off to an astonished Bill Clinton, and raced off to attend a Christmas party.  Everything he has done since then is consistent with the appalling lack of leadership he demonstrated in that moment.  Obama never came back from his Christmas party.

The Incredible Shrinking President.  From the beginning of the week to the end, the president made crystal-clear to anyone who paid attention that he was over his head in this position and that he was startlingly disengaged in all but the most trivial of ceremonial matters.

The Audacity Of Economic Ignorance.  Why do we seem so helpless in solving our current mess?  A big reason is the shocking lack of basic economic literacy among many of our political leaders.

Watch your religious language, Mr. President.  Sometimes it seems like President Obama just can't catch a break, from the long-faltering economy to the Gulf oil well explosion.  But some problems are just of his own making.  Nowhere is this more clear than in his clumsy use of religious language.  The president cannot stop stumbling over the religious maxims that have defined us as a nation.

The Editor says...
 That's because Obama is a Christian in name only, a claim for which there is abundant proof here.  On matters of theology and American religious history, he is so chronically ignorant (or badly misinformed) that he thought TUCC was a church!

Can You Dig It?  One of my favorite bits of practical advice is "when you find yourself in a deep hole, stop digging."  The hole that Barack Obama finds himself in, while largely due to his policy positions, is also a function of his seeming out of his league, a man-child who was elected to an office he was unprepared to hold, perhaps the only candidate for president who made Sarah Palin look like an experienced and worldly statesman in comparison. ... Early in his term, he seemed aloof, as if he felt above the governing process.  Now we know it's because he's incompetent, if not an outright hindrance, in that process.

The Clapper Flap.  James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, was taping an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer when she asked him about the high-profile arrest of a dozen men in Britain, one of the largest counter-terrorism busts in that country's history.  It became uncomfortably obvious that Clapper didn't know anything about the story.  He had to ask White House adviser John Brennan, one of his fellow guests on the program, to explain it to him.

Janet Napolitano, performance artist.  There can be no other explanation for the ever-expanding list of outrageous statements of our Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet "The system worked" Napolitano.  She is some sort of postmodern performance artist, bent on illuminating the foibles of bureaucratic sclerosis, using irony so hip that nobody has yet recognized it is all a gag. ... How else to explain her most recent incredible statements defending Director of National Intelligence Clapper, the man who is supposed to coordinate all the multiple intelligence agencies, to make sure that nothing falls between the cracks...

Excuses, excuses...
 Napolitano Defends Clapper's Obliviousness to Britain Terror Arrests.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says people should "be fair" to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper after he revealed in an interview last week that he was unaware of a string of terror arrests that happened in Britain hours prior.

The 20 Most Annoying Liberals of 2010.  [#1]  Barack Obama:  Never has such arrogance been combined with such utter incompetence and weakness in the White House.  The result?  We have the single worst President in American history and his first term's not even over yet.

Obama Is America's First Post-Responsibility President.  America didn't elect a president; we chose a rapper-in-chief.  Obama gets all the fun of truly livin' large:  transforming the White House into a party palace straight out of "MTV Cribs" and zooming around on Air Force One like a hotshot celebrity on his private jet.  All he has to do is smile at his screaming groupies, recite some catchy twaddle, and jet off to his latest vacation, serene with the knowledge that whatever misery and carnage may unfold below, his hands are clean.

Cruising for Trouble.  In the media frenzy surrounding Tucson, a potentially infinitely more significant event has been almost ignored.  Obama has set the seal on his anti-British caste of mind by declaring that France is America's "greatest ally," and that "We don't have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people."  The first time I read this, I had trouble believing he was capable of such stupidity.

Excuses, Excuses.  On January 25, the president delivered his State of the Union address.  Speaking with vigor and aplomb, the president demonstrated once again that he can look serious, act like a president, and read the words that have been written for him.  But so far, he has not demonstrated his ability to be a president, create jobs, or do anything else.

The juvenile president.  Obama said he wanted to "fundamentally transform America".  That is exciting-for him.  The one bit of praise Obama had for Ronald Reagan regarded the transformational policies Reagan was able to put in place.  He is excited by adoring crowds (see any number of events, from the Denver stadium, to Europe).  He is excited playing basketball games with superstars.  He is excited giving sports commentary on national TV.  He is excited by cool-looking boondoggles like the wasteful green energy projects he touts, or high speed rail, electric cars, solar projects, and windmills.  He is like a young boy with shiny new toys he wants to show off.  Why do taxpayers have to fund his need for excitement?  He is like a kid with a credit card who gets thrilled with the mere spending of money-especially other people's money.

Grading Barack Obama.  [Scroll down]  The early George Bush — I think he got a little bit better through his term — and Obama have a lot in common.  Bush wanted a pint-sized stimulus program that failed and Obama wanted a giant-sized stimulus program that failed.  Neither of them is a strong believer in laissez-faire principles.  The difference between them, which is why Obama is the more dangerous man ultimately, is he has very little by way of a skill set to understand the complex problems he wants to address, but he has this unbounded confidence in himself.

The "We do big things" braggadocio of Barry Soetoro.  [Scroll down]  The truth is that Obama was not there when any of those big things were being accomplished.  In point of fact, when America was accomplishing big things that the rest of the world could share in, Obama was out on the streets fighting against them as a strident and overpaid community organizer.  Even as a state senator, a job that only coincidence made his, he missed voting on big issues declaring himself "present" a total of 129 times.  And as a U.S. senator, he missed a whopping 24 percent of the votes while running for president.  The biggest thing Obama is attempting on America is its unsolicited fundamental transformation.

The Truth About 'Investments' Hurts.  "Think and grow rich" might work for an individual envisioning business success, but it is delusional as national economic policy.  We can't wish or will the country to prosperity, or recover from a recession caused by too much debt by incurring more debt.  "Together We Thrive" was not only inappropriate as a theme for a memorial to the victims of the Tucson shooter, it is the economic policy of a collective society, not of a free one.

As Egypt Burns, Obama Parties.  As Egypt continues to burn... Islamic radicals escaped from prison, the Muslim Brotherhood joined Elbaradei on the street, and socialists continued to mobilze protests in Cairo... Barack Obama watched basketball and partied on Saturday [1/29/2011].
[Ellipses in original.]

Egypt in flames; Obama takes it easy.  President Obama is the type of leader who doesn't let anything get in the way of a well-deserved day off.  Let's face it; Barack is first and foremost a government employee.  The President's breaks are on schedule, work hours tightly defined, vacations well spaced, and if it's the weekend, listen closely as you may hear the titular leader of the free world whispering:  "TGIF."

Obama caught flat-footed on Egyptian uprising.  Events occurring in Egypt appear to baffle U.S. politicians and policymakers including the current administration of President Barack Obama.  Obama's so-called national security team — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta, etc. — appear to have been caught flat-footed as a result of the apparent inadequate gathering and analysis of actionable intelligence regarding Egypt.

And That's Why You Don't Elect Novices or Idiots.  As another Middle East nation — Egypt — hurls into political chaos, the crack foreign policy team of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton are about to show the world once more just how out of their depth they are.  This isn't the first time.  Early in Obama's presidency, when Iranians rioted against the phony re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs who rule their nation with an Islamist boot on the throat of the people, America's dynamic trio was at a loss as to what to do or say.

Eyes on the Prize: Suez Canal.  I'm not an Egypt watcher, but it appears the Muslim Brotherhood is continuing plans to isolate the Arabian Peninsula. ... The MB's real objective, in my opinion, is closing the Suez Canal.  This, with Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, will effectively put our economy in bottom of the tank thanks to Obama's prior spending sprees.

Obama: Egypt's Hostage.  By failing to back Mubarak, Obama is committing the same sin that Dwight Eisenhower did in Cuba and Jimmy Carter did in Iran.  He needs to understand that the radical Islamists mean us ill and that any effort to appease them is bound to fail.  If Egypt falls, Obama will have permanently damaged America's vital interests.

Homeland Security and the Obama Administration.  When it comes to homeland security, President Obama's first year in office was a nightmare.

It's 3:00 AM: Do you know where your president is?  The mixed messages coming out of the White House on Mubarak and the crisis in Egypt is obviously not helping matters, and is making the US seem incredibly weak and indecisive.  It doesn't help when you have a bunch of blabber-mouths at the State Department who think they run foreign policy and believe they have all the answers.  But the real divide is among those advisors closest to the president.

DNI Clapper retreats from 'secular' claim on Muslim Brotherhood.  Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is backing away from comments he made Thursday [2/10/2011] calling Egypt's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement "largely secular."

Clanging Clapper caper.  When President Obama named retired Air Force Lt. General James R. Clapper to replace Dennis Blair as the Director of National Intelligence, I had never heard of him. ... Yesterday [2/10/2011] Clapper told a House Intelligence Committee hearing that the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood — which seeks to render Egypt an Islamic state ruled by sharia law — is "a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam."

Ideologically-driven strategic ineptitude.  [Scroll down]  The Obama administration's ideologically-driven strategic ineptitude is evident everywhere.  From its slavish devotion to appeasing Iran, its single-minded insistence on withdrawing from Iraq, its announced commitment to withdrawing from Afghanistan; to its tolerance of Hugo Chavez, and its infantile reset button diplomacy towards Russia, the Obama administration's foreign policy is on a collision course with reality.  But nowhere is its premeditated incompetence more evident than in its obsession with the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.

There's Willful Blindness, and Then There's Willful Stupidity.  James Clapper, the head of intelligence for the United States of America, has explained to Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood is "largely secular."  It further has "eschewed violence," decries al-Qaeda as a "perversion of Islam," and really just wants "social ends" and "a betterment of the political order in Egypt."  I kid you not.  This is the Muslim Brotherhood whose motto brays that the Koran is its law and jihad is its way.

Mr. Dithers.  It was the picture of man who could not choose between chocolate or vanilla and was simply waiting for the soda jerk to make the decision for him.  On the one hand Obama wanted stability, yet on the other hand he wanted change.  On the one hand he designated Suleiman to deliver the change, but on the other hand Suleiman was not going to give the president what he wanted.

Reelection Slogan for Obama & Co:  We Bring Down Governments?  The Obama regime is now the unsurpassed and most bizarre combination of outward stupidity and hidden (by the media and others) pure evil intent ever to rule over the citizens of the United States of America.  Starting with the stupidity factor — perhaps just to throw us off — Obama's Director of National Intelligence (Intelligence?  Really?) James Clapper has again placed his foot in it and this time, it was both feet.

Intelligence breakdown.  No matter how things shake out in Egypt, one thing has become depressingly clear:  Something is very wrong with the American intelligence services.  First it was CIA Director Leon Panetta ... Then it was Panetta's nominal boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, telling Congress that the violent pro-jihad Muslim Brotherhood is "largely secular" and has "eschewed violence."

Alfred E President.  Barack Obama resembles, more and more, the hapless, clueless, sappily cheerful mascot of MAD Magazine, Alfred E. Newman.  Given the intellectual vacuity of his life so far, attending schools and working in "jobs" that did not require a single original thought, or even exercise in critical thinking, it is increasingly hard to determine whether our illustrious leader actually grasps the profound seriousness of civilized life today.

Obama Retreats, Ahmadinejad Advances.  Every time Obama retreats, Ahmadinejad advances, step by step, like a chess master playing against a panicked rookie.  You can see checkmate coming way ahead of time.  The United States still has overwhelming military and political power, but under Obama we have retreated from the Gulf, leaving the Saudis in a panic, ready to import nukes from Pakistan; we have retreated from our promise to defend Europe against Iranian and Russian missiles, and now we have allowed the biggest Arab power, Egypt, to be overthrown by what looks to be another Islamist radical fanatic, who will place Egypt on a war footing with Israel and the West.

Obama takes a stand on Libya.  Obama has finally taken a stand on the ongoing carnage in Libya.  After nine days of silence, he has finally, and forcefully, condemned the "outrageous" crackdown by Libyan security forces on protesters.  He also said that a unified international response was forming.  Whew.  Translation:  America will stand firmly behind the United Nations.

An Administration Adrift.  As the [Libyan] crackdown began, and then escalated, it was early afternoon on February 16, halfway around the world in the State Department briefing room, when the Obama administration faced questions about how it regarded Muammar Qaddafi.  "Is Qaddafi a dictator?"  State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley, at the podium for his daily briefing, smiled at the question and turned his head to call on another reporter.  "Are you stumped?"  "I'm not stumped," Crowley responded tartly.  "So what's your answer to the question?  Is he a dictator?"  Crowley smirked.  "I don't think he came to office through a democratic process."

Getting Down While the World Burns.  The President has done nothing about the crisis in Libya except give a press conference in which he called the situation "unacceptable," then proceeded to accept it. ... Not a word has been uttered from the White House to condemn the fugitive Democrats who acted to shut down democracy in Wisconsin and Indiana.  Widespread violence and hatred from union foot soldiers has gone unremarked.  The pirates of Somalia sail through the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden with confidence after slaughtering four innocent Americans. ... His hapless Secretary of Homeland Security gapes in wonder as Americans are murdered on the southern border, while a young Saudi national is caught on the verge of deploying weapons of mass destruction.  The nation teeters on the edge of ruin, and the President responds by submitting an absurd dead-on-arrival budget that increases federal spending.  Where is President Obama during all this?  He's enjoying the sounds of Motown at a star-studded White House event.

Has Anyone Told Ambassador Rice There's a Crisis In Libya?  When President Obama made Susan Rice his ambassador to the United Nations, in 2009, he thought the job was so vital that he gave her cabinet rank.  Now, here we are, with the Arab world in tumult, two dictators gone in the past two months, and the UN aflutter over scenes of Libyans dying this past week by the hundreds, or thousands, in outright rebellion against a raving Moammar Gaddafi — who has been vowing to "fight to the last drop of blood." ... Where's Susan Rice, the cabinet rank ambassador of the free world's superpower?

Barack Carter-Obama Is Back.  When even CNN implicitly recognizes that Barack Obama probably is, and certainly is seen in the Arab world as, every bit as spineless as the worst American president in recent generations (until the current one), Barack Obama and Democrats who hope to get elected or re-elected in 2012 had better hope that foreign policy magically drops off the table as an issue before the elections.  The way things are going in North Africa and the Middle East, the Obama-Carter comparisons are likely to haunt our current president through the election and will increase the chances that Barack Obama's first term is also his last — much to the chagrin of dictators around the world.

Fear and loathing of the fruitcake.  [Scroll down]  When the president got around to talking for the first time about the [Libyan] "situation" he boasted that his "national-security team" had been working around the clock, in more meetings, and had produced "a full range of options" requiring still more meetings.  His message was something a high-school junior might have prepared for a citizenship essay.

President Obama's Yawning Heights.  Socialism politicizes everything — literature, medicine, science, law, education, culture, religion, sports, all of life.  And that ultimately makes socialism a crushing bore.  President Obama is finding that tens of millions of Americans have tuned him out as he summons us to the heights.  His audience for the State of the Union Address is down 18% this year over his first year.  Part of this is his speechwriter, a 29-year old who seems never to have had any contact with literature, American history, poetry, or the Bible.  The speeches he crafts for this president are textbook examples of ennui. ... Hand our leader a foreign crisis — like Libya.  What does the president have to say about that?  "This violence is unacceptable."  We don't need a $400,000-a-year Commander-in-Chief and his $172,000-a-year speechwriter to tell us that.

Obama Bringing Mop To A Gunfight?  A superpower must weigh the many evils in the world and target the biggest threats — not wait impotently for crises, then reach for the mop.

America Adrift.  When one examines the multiple crises occurring throughout the world, from the brutal excesses of a Qaddafi regime to the subversion of the democratic process in Wisconsin, along with the budget battle in Washington, D.C., a constant emerges:  America is a rudderless ship whose "captain" has abandoned all pretense of genuine leadership.  Barack Obama, the man who voted "present" over one hundred times as a state Senator in Illinois, the man elected in a frenzy of "hope and change," is seemingly overwhelmed by the responsibilities of his job.

The Airhead At EPA.  The head of the Environmental Protection Agency's office of air and radiation admits she doesn't know how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere.  How can someone so ignorant have such an important job?

Obama's Gadhafi waffle.  Libya is engaged in a civil war.  New protests have broken out in Oman, Bahrain and Yemen.  The uprising in Tunisia, the pioneer state of the so-called "Arab Spring," is entering a second phase.  As usual, the amateurish Obama administration has no idea what to do about any of this.

Mexican Shuffle.  Like a guilt-ridden divorced dad, President Obama met with Mexico's President Calderon Thursday — and quickly caved in to all he asked.  That's a jackpot for Mexico.

Obama Never Fails to Disconnect.  In the 2008 presidential primaries, Hillary Clinton pointed to Obama's inexperience by asking who was better equipped to handle the "3 in the morning" phone call Presidents get.  Today it is increasingly and depressingly clear that Obama is inept and fumbling no matter what time of day the call comes.  From gas prices, unemployment, and federal spending to Gitmo, the BP oil spill, and Gaddafi — every challenge yet has caught Obama by surprise and resulted in embarrassing gaffes, late reactions, contradictory statements, phony photo ops, and phony-baloney plans that inevitably require later revision.

Obama talks about school bullies while the world burns.  Bloody fighting has engulfed Libya.  Gasoline is nearing $4 a gallon.  Deadlocked budget negotiations threaten to shut down the federal government.  So what is President Obama doing?  Tomorrow he'll focus on school bullies.

Inside the Obama Administration:  Barack Obama's executive ineptitude is on display at the highesty level of government.  While he has been repeatedly meeting with union leaders over the last two years and playing golf, he has not been so attentive to his cabinet members, and all is not peaceful. ... According to an article in New York magazine by veteran journalist John Heilemann, Obama has not yet conferred with some six Cabinet members since becoming President.  He certainly has been busy appointing czars and czarinas, however, and advisers such as Elizabeth Warren who is the de facto head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Let's Make Obama King.  Last night Col. Ralph Peters was on Bill O'Reilly's show, talking about Libya. ... "Obama loves the idea of being President," Peters said, "but he can't make a decision."  I think there is a lot of truth to that, even in domestic policy, where Obama has passively deferred to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi on all legislative matters.

Obama in a rush for higher gas prices?  At Friday's news conference, President Obama tried to connect with the common man coping with rising gasoline prices.  Instead, the president left little doubt that he is clueless about cars.  "You may want to buy a fuel-efficient car," quoth Obama, "but you may not be able to afford it.  And so you're stuck with the old clunker that's getting 8 or 10 miles a gallon."  Eight to 10 mpg?  Which clunker would that be?  I wondered. ... You have to go back to the Carter administration years or earlier to find Obama's idea of a gas-guzzling family car — and even that vehicle would have been a van, light truck/SUV or luxury model.  And yet he is behind the wheel of Washington's energy policy.

Costly Indecisiveness on Libya.  In a remarkably ridiculous statement for a man who has done nothing except charter a boat in response to the crumbling revolution in Libya, President Obama yesterday [3/16/2011] said that his administration was "slowly tightening the noose" on dictator Moammar Gaddafi.  There has been no noose, loose or tight, placed on Gaddafi by the U.S. or anybody else.

Embarrassed To Be American.  Last weekend, as tens of thousands of Japanese were fighting for their lives after an 8.9 earthquake devastated their nation, our President, after giving a generic "We're with you" statement, remained noticeably absent.  Not really absent — Obama could be found on the golf course Saturday afternoon [3/12/2011].  As a Japanese nuclear reactor melted down and threatened a catastrophe of biblical proportions, Obama was otherwise engaged Saturday night, having a rollicking good time at Washington D.C.'s annual Gridiron Dinner.  Joking with journalists.

Barack Obama: A Management Appraisal.  In classic management theory, Barack Obama would have to be described as an abdicative manager.  The abdicative manager evidences a tendency to flee from responsibility and is frequently encountered in situations where he or she never wanted the job in the first place (for instance, a son or daughter who inherits a company or the individual who discovers that they are incapable of adequate performance).  Abdication can be exhibited in a variety of ways, ranging from physically removing oneself through travel (the confusion of movement with action), to obsessing about personal interests or a limited range of controllable subjects.  Obama's frequent vacations and absences, especially in times of crisis, coupled with his unwillingness to personally invest himself in key initiatives, are demonstrative of this style.

The Whiniest President Ever.  President Obama gives off a sense of world-weariness and exhaustion with America's leadership — and has earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a result.  He reflects the deep vein of declinism running through the country's elite, the same class of people who pronounced the presidency uninhabitable just as Ronald Reagan arrived to prove them wrong.  Today, as in the late 1970s, the job isn't too big, nor is the country too powerful:  The man is too small.

Obama's Presidency Hangs by a Thread.  Japan may be on the verge of an unprecedented catastrophe.  Saudi Arabia is all but colonizing Bahrain.  Qaddafi is close to retaking Libya, with bloodbath to follow.  And, as Jim Geraghty notes, the president of the United States is going on ESPN to talk about the NCAA and delivering speeches today on his rather dull plan to replace No Child Left Behind with No Teenager Left Behind, or something like that.

The Never-Ending Christmas Party.  As I write this, there are reports of a new magnitude 6.2 earthquake off the northeast cost of Japan.  The Fukushima reactor complex appears to be heading for a meltdown.  Thousands in Japan are dead. ... The price of oil is rocketing up as the Middle East burns. ... And where is the President during all this?  As Jim Geraghty of National Review explains, he's going to make his college basketball picks today.  Then he'll tape some interviews about fixing the "No Child Left Behind" program.  His previous public appearances were concerned with the towering menace of bullying in schools, and lecturing us on the wonders of public employee unions.  And, of course, he can be found on the golf course, enjoying lavish parties with big celebrities at the White House, and raising money for his re-election campaign.

President Hamlet.  President Obama has spent most of his life either in, or teaching, school — or making laws that he was not responsible for enforcing.  His hope-and-change speeches were as moving in spirit as they were lacking in details.  But now Obama is chief executive, and learning, as did Prince Hamlet, that thinking out every possible side of a question can mean never acting on any of them — a sort of Shakespearean "prison" where "there is nothing either good or bad."  Worrying about pleasing everyone ensures pleasing no one.  Once again such "conscience does make cowards of us all."  Hamlets, past and present, are as admirable in theory as they are fickle — and often dangerous — in fact.

About that trip to Brazil: Why now?  Foreign travel has been seen as a political liability for Obama; and with this trip, the pattern is likely to continue.  The worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl is unfolding in Japan, the United States and its allies are crafting urgent plans for a Libya no-fly zone operation that could mean air raids on Tripoli within days, and at home, Republicans and Democrats are in a standoff over a budget for the federal government, which administration officials say is being hobbled by a series of stopgap funding measures.

Obama golfs and picks NCAA favorites while the Middle East melts down.  How do we even begin to describe the leadership style and behavior of President Obama? ... Obama is dangerous, ineffective, cowardly, and most UN American.  The nation must rise up and vote him out in 2012.

Just Warm Enough for Golf, Obama Back on the Course.  President Obama just could not wait for spring weather to arrive.  For the second week in a row, the most powerful man in the world stepped away from the White House to hit the golf course. ... These are never quick "work on your swing" trips; usually the president plays 18 holes, as he did last week.

We're All Golf Widows Now.  [Barack Obama] wasn't likely to have played golf during the formative years he spent in Indonesia, or with his grandfather, and his radical friends, when Obama was returned to the States.  In fact, Obama doesn't mention playing golf, ever, in either of his two biographical memoirs.  Golf isn't the end-all in character-building opportunities, of course.  Obama may have found those lessons in another sport or hobby.  Either way, he's certainly making up for lost time on the links.  In the 784 days he has occupied the office of the President, Obama has played 61 rounds of golf.  A staggering number for nearly anyone, considering that averages to a round of golf approximately every 13 days.

White House: Yes 'It Was Appropriate' For Obama To Fill Out NCAA Bracket.  In response to increasing criticism that President Obama should not have spent time appearing on ESPN to make his NCAA college basketball predictions, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney disputed that it was a distraction.  Carney said, "yes I do think it was appropriate." ... Although more of a concern than the ten minutes spent being interviewed by ESPN might be the fact that during the interview, Obama reveals his intense interest in college basketball and a detailed knowledge of the teams and even their players that rivals the insight of the ESPN analyst who interviewed him.  Some might begin to wonder when was the last time the President came across this passionate about a political issue?

All talk and no action.
 Barack Obama is in no hurry to see Gaddafi go.  Would President Obama prefer a Gaddafi victory?  If that sounds implausible, then just look at the record.  On March 3, Obama announced that Gaddafi "must go".  Two weeks have passed since then — and more than a month since the uprising began on February 15.  In the interim, the tide of war has turned in Gaddafi's favour.  Yet Obama [as of this writing, had] done nothing to make his own words reality.

Will Libya be Obama's Bay of Pigs?  Often compared to President Kennedy, President Obama may well find that Libya has become his Bay of Pigs.  Barely remembered now, the Bay of Pigs fiasco occurred early in the Kennedy administration.  It was the first mistake in a string of foreign policy miscues reversed only when the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world to the edge of nuclear war. ... Fifty years later, an eerily similar scenario is unfolding in Libya.

The Incredible Shirking Presidency.  President Obama has apparently decided to borrow some political plays from Bill Clinton, who after his party's defeat in the 1994 mid-term elections began running ads attacking Republican plans to reform Medicare.  At the same time, Mr. Clinton focused on a series of granular policy initiatives — promoting school uniforms was one memorable example — that were politically safe and popular with independent voters.  Mr. Obama appears to be following the same strategy...

Obama's Tactless Diversions.  One thing's for sure, when an opportunity to celebrate arises, America's biggest partiers never hesitate to promptly board Air Force One.  An irradiated Japan melts and Libyan freedom fighters die while in Cidade Maravilhosa, the "Marvelous City" of Rio de Janiero, President Obama will ponder no-fly zones.  After sharing NCAA picks on ESPN, "global citizen" Barack Obama is taking the teleprompter to Latin America.

Barack Obama's paralysed presidency.  While Barack Obama has dithered, and his Secretary of State has worshipped at the altar of the United Nations, one of the most brutal tyrants on the face of the earth is getting away with murder, with a death toll that could reach as high as 15,000.  It is a sad day when the foreign policy of the United States, the world's greatest power, is subordinated to the whims of the UN, for decades a playground for dictators and unabashed anti-Americanism.

Obama is too busy with his March Madness bracket to take a stand on Libya.  While President Obama has been busy focused on filling out his March Madness college basketball brackets on television here at home, there is a global version of March madness sweeping the Middle East, most seriously in Libya, whose violent uprising affects not only our own interests — namely, oil — but the security of our allies in that region.

John Bolton:  Barack Obama 'still not qualified' to be president.  President Barack Obama is unqualified, disinterested and not ready to lead on foreign policy, John Bolton said Friday night [3/18/2011].  Making no mention of his own flirtations with a 2012 presidential bid, the former ambassador to the United Nations told California Republicans that it could take hours to outline all the challenges the Obama administration faces.

The president parties while the world burns.
 Obama couldn't care less.  If the world is in crisis, you wouldn't know it by watching President Obama's spring break.  Between golf, basketball and the president's upcoming trip to Rio de Janeiro, the White House is projecting a disinterested aura of business as usual. ... He laughed it up at the Gridiron Club dinner, took a stand against schoolyard bullying and spoke on the radio about Women's History Month.  Over the weekend, he played his 61st round of golf as president and finalized his March Madness bracket picks, predictably avoiding controversy by choosing the four top seeds for the Final Four.  On Monday [3/14/2011], he attended a gathering of potential big-money donors at the St. Regis hotel that Democratic Party officials insisted was not a fundraiser.

Obama, The Accidental President.  Obama discusses basketball with authority, which means that he must be spending a lot of time watching the games and listening to sports commentators.  Exactly what he was elected for, wasn't he?  While Rome burned, Nero fiddled.  While the world burns, Obama ponders the outcome of a college basketball tournament. ... The famous Occam's razor principle states that the simplest explanation is the most plausible one.  Applying it to dispel the fog of propaganda, it becomes glaringly obvious that Obama is an accidental president, a lazy and indecisive incompetent devoid of any ability or desire to perform the job to which he was elected by a gullible majority, who loves the perks but hates the duties of his office; who loves to play but hates to work.

The Fukushima 50 and the White House Cipher:  [Scroll down]  In another time, people would already be chiseling the name of such an inept leader off all official tablets to hide from history his having reached such an exalted place.  As it is, perhaps we will have to settle for the unmaking of all the acts and legislation undertaken in his name.  Already in Asbury Park, N. J., one of the first schools named for him has been shut down.  It was an elementary school where the community spent $36,000 per pupil only to get low test scores in return.  Somehow it seems fitting.

Our Libyan March Madness.  The president seems more knowledgeable about the tournament chances of two dozen college basketball teams than he does about the Libyan labyrinth.

On-the-job training for Obama.  "Never attribute to conspiracy," a wise man once said, "what can be explained by incompetence."  Maybe we should cut Barack Obama a little slack. ... Watching a folk dance in Brazil was certainly less stressful than spending time in the War Room, taking only bad news.

The Obama Administration's Ineptness.  On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — when asked about why we're involving ourselves in Libya but not Syria — said this about Bashar Assad:  "Many of the Members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer."  For understandable reasons — more about that in a moment — those comments didn't fly very well.  So it was time for a retake.  Yesterday [3/29/2011], when asked about her statement at a press conference, Secretary Clinton said, "Well, first, Jay [Solomon], as you rightly pointed out, I referenced opinions of others.  That was not speaking either for myself or for the administration."  As walk backs go, this one was unusually clumsy and obviously untrue.  Mrs. Clinton could simply have said her previous comments were wrong and she was revising them.  Instead we get a response that no one believes.

Will Ignorance Lead to a Second Obama Term?  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.

Obama and Libya: The professor's war.  President Obama is proud of how he put together the Libyan operation.  A model of international cooperation.  All the necessary paperwork.  Arab League backing.  A Security Council resolution.  (Everything but a resolution from the Congress of the United States, a minor inconvenience for a citizen of the world.)  It's war as designed by an Ivy League professor.

Is President Obama the weakest Commander-in-Chief in US history?  A new Reuters/Ipsos poll released today [3/25/2011] reveals a striking lack of public confidence in President Obama's ability as Commander-in-Chief, with just 17 percent of Americans describing his leadership as "strong and decisive", compared to 36 percent who believe it is "indecisive and dithering".

The Speech Obama Hasn't Given:  I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest.  He referred to his aims in parts of speeches and appearances when he was in South America, but now he's home.  More is needed, more is warranted, and more is deserved.  He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support.

Mayan ruins.  Somebody in the White House had the presence of mind to tell the president that perhaps taking the kids to visit the Mayan ruins wouldn't be the best thing to do when he has just ordered our Air Force to start bombing Libya.  The truly fascinating question is, What took him so long to make that decision?

Anybody but Jamie Gorelick for FBI director.  [Scroll down]  Finally, and most seriously, there is the matter of "Gorelick's Wall" and 9/11.  Gorelick was a member of the 9/11 Commission and became a focus of critical attention during its hearings when it became known that during her DOJ tenure she imposed a policy of radical separation between the FBI and the nation's intelligence agencies in terrorism investigations.  According to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, "Gorelick's Wall" was a key reason why "we did not know an attack was coming." ... After such a checkered career, we find it incredible that Gorelick would be on anybody's list for appointment to any federal position, much less to head the FBI.

Obama's Libya: Completing His Remaking of America.  Obama will remain as clueless, impervious and intransigent about the ineffectiveness of his foreign policy as he is to the proven failures of his domestic ones, and he'll learn no lesson from any of this.  In his eyes, he is remaking America for the better — and that's the only way he's capable of seeing it.

These Days, It Isn't Just Americans Suffering from Obama's Failure.  President Obama projects timidity and indecision at home and abroad:  he's afraid of the optics of America dropping bombs on another Islamic country; he waited too long to get on TV to explain his actions to the American people.  And it seems all of this foreign policy work is a distraction from his desire to remake America. ... What this president has done to us here at home is bad enough, but Obama's lack of leadership on the world stage could spell international chaos.

Shinola
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?


This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2013 by Andrew K. Dart

Mr. Magoo Goes to Washington.  [Scroll down]  Obama actually believes he is doing a good job.  That thought struck me like a thunderclap.  It seems improbable, I know.  And I don't discount for a second the thuggishness and habit of calculation ingrained by his Chicago background and cronies.  But watching Obama perform these last weeks, I suspect that there is something more than political calculation behind his brittle contempt for his GOP opponents, his Marie-Antoinette disdain for ordinary Americans, his tone-deaf self-absorption and sense of entitlement.  What is it?  The delusion of competence.  Listen to those off-the-cuff remarks, ... to some of his high-rolling donors:  Obama actually seems to believe that his disastrous policies have made things better.

Obama, a nobody from nowhere.  It must be hard being Barry Soetoro Obama.  Take him away from his fawning, long-past-their-due date czars; eliminate all his props and he's just wannabe royalty who'd rather be shooting hoops or golfing.  Surrounded by overbearing women, including Valerie Jarrett and his own wife, without them pointing him in the right (read left) direction, he's as useless as a kite without string.

The President's Maturity Problem.  After less than two months in office, President Obama made a decision that many at the time saw as un-presidential.  In the midst of what even he was calling the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression, Obama became the first sitting U.S. President to go on a late night comedy show. ... Just a little over two years later, it has become clear that whatever you think of his policies, the current occupant of the White House harbors an irrepressible juvenility that undermines the dignity of the office he holds. ... Far from being a post-partisan healer, President Obama has proven himself to be petty, juvenile, and someone totally lacking the temperament and class we should expect from an Oval Office executive.

Why Obama is so far behind the times.  Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post and others have noted that President Obama seems a few beats behind things; unable to anticipate things as they develop, and awkward when forced to catch up.  When he responds, his answers seem lacking.  Good politicians are in tune with their times, great ones foresee them, but Obama seems out of step with his times, and behind them.

Obama's Apologists.  Barack Obama's leadership poll numbers have been plummeting. ... Why would Americans consider him a leader?  He outsourced ObamaCare to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  The locus of foreign policy has been moved from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay.  He and his team were unable to produce a budget in 2010 -- when he had a majority in Congress.  He ignored budget and deficit issues for much of his Presidency and was so late to the game Paul Ryan and the GOP seized the issue and turned it to its own advantage.  The stimulus bill, climate change legislation, and sundry other matters were delegated to Democrats in Congress.

Jurassic President.  I've read discussions about President Obama for the last two years — is he a villain or a fool?  Both or neither?  The answers vary and make for heated debate, but sooner or later we have to admit neither covers all facts.  For instance, neither villain nor fool covers his odd, time-displaced "Sputnik" moments:  his obsession with unionized labor, or his fascination with trains, or his commitment to the SALT treaty, or his view of Cleveland as a cutting edge technological center, or his odd certainty that cars getting eight miles per gallon throng our highways.

Obama is the first Affirmative Action President.
 The Chord Donald Trump Strikes.  Sentient observers have known since Election Day 2008 that Barack Obama is the pinnacle affirmative-action statement. ... He was allowed by an ideologically-driven, white-guilt-motivated media to hop, skip, and jump his way to the pinnacle of world power without ever producing one single shred of verifiable evidence that he could do anything whatsoever but run his ... mouth — even that, constantly enabled by a teleprompter.  And Republicans winked and nodded and permitted the whole Orwellian spectacle due to their fear of being forever outcast as racists.
[Edited to conform to website standards of decency.]

Top 10 Barack Obama Blunders.  Even beyond his disastrous policies, President Obama is turning out to be a terrible politician.  The great orator and master campaigner of 2008 is stumbling through his presidency, piling up gaffes and making odd political moves.

Obama's on-the-job foreign policy training.  It's not uncommon for college students to have wildly oscillating views on issues as the months go by.  It's more consequential for a president to do so.

Obama Blinks.  [Obama] would never have gone anywhere significant in politics if it were not for the fact that the press made him their darling.  He is a light weight, who isn't anywhere as intelligent as his promoters like us to believe.  His supposed thoughtfulness is actually a sign of confusion and indecisiveness.  The idea recently promoted that he is too intelligent to govern is rank folly.  It is an attempt to excuse his incompetence.  After all, no one but a fool thinks that you can borrow your way to prosperity.

Obama's illegal alien nation.  President Obama is in El Paso Tuesday [5/10/2011] to give a speech on what he calls "the broken immigration system."  He'd know because he's the one helping break it.

Are We at War or Spectators at a Sporting Event?  Wars must be fought to win.  Winning means using every resource we have, capitalizing on every advantage we have, and conceding absolutely nothing to the enemy.  The lesson of the events of the last week is that our current head coach is so far consumed in his self glorification that he cannot lead.  He and his entire staff must be replaced with those who know how to win by focusing all their resources on the battle while claiming no glory for themselves.

Great Job on Bin Laden, Mr. President. Now, About Gas Prices...  It was like the Keystone Cops.  In their haste to score political points, the support staff around the president rolled out "facts" of the bin Laden raid to the eager public.  And within hours, that same staff would walk back, downplay, or full-on contradict previous statements.  There was a firefight, then there was just one gun.  He was given a chance to surrender, then he wasn't.  The wife was used as a human shield, then it was an unnamed woman, then she wasn't killed but only shot in the leg — oh, and she was indeed bin Laden's wife.

Obama seeking legitimacy from the British Queen?  For the rest of the world, yesterday came and went as May 24, 2011, not 2008 as President Barack Obama printed in the Westminster Abbey guest book alongside his signature.  Today, England's proverbial stiff upper lip is being put to the test as Obama still licks royal boots in London.

President Obama Has No Idea What Year It Is.  This is how President Obama signed the guestbook at Westminster Abbey earlier today [5/24/2011], where he got a tour from the Very Reverend Dr. John Hall and laid a wreath on the Grave of the Unknown Warrior.
    It is a great privilege to commemorate our common heritage, and common sacrifice.
    Barack Obama
    24 May 2008
It was really nice until he got the date wrong by three years.

British Newspaper Blasted Bush's Etiquette Flub, but Glosses Over Obama's.  Imagine the newspaper headlines if President George W. Bush had written the wrong date in the Westminster Abbey guest book; or if he had continued toasting the Queen of England after the British national anthem started playing.  Obama did both of those things on Tuesday, and while media outlets reported the incidents, there was no suggestion that he is a blundering fool.

President Obama's top ten insults against Britain — 2011 edition.  The US president will no doubt be careful not to offend his hosts when he travels to London, and he will receive a warm welcome from the Queen and the Prime Minister, as any American president would.  But the prospect of an embarrassing diplomatic gaffe or insensitive remark cannot be ruled out from a world leader whose administration has all too often specialised in them.

Obama the Weak.  Bibi Netanyahu can't run for president of the United States.  But he showed those who are running how to get the better of Mr. Obama:  Talk straight.  Talk substance.  Go directly at him.  While Congress was applauding Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Obama was showing us what leadership isn't.

Napolitano: No "Logic" In Profiling Muslim Men Under The Age Of 35.  "You're not using good logic there.  You've got to use actual intelligence that you received.  And, so, you might — all you've given me is a kind of status.  You have not given me a technique for tactic or behavior.  Something that would suggest somebody is not Muslim, but Islamic, that has actually moved into the category of violent extremists," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at a forum on U.S. security and preventing terrorist attacks.

Joe Biden update.  Everyone remembers how Biden was put in charge of ensuring that the $787-billion stimulus spending thing worked out well, which it didn't.  He was assigned to do about 100 fundraisers last year to ensure that the Democratic Party kept its majority control of the House of Representatives, which it didn't.  He was assigned as White House point man on those crucial budget spending extension talks this winter.  But he had to visit Finland, Russia and Moldova first.  And Republicans won that legislative struggle too.

Barack Obama's Fatal Conceit.  Obama's fundamental problem — his fatal conceit, if you will — is that he thinks we need him and his jobs counsel to figure out what the jobs of the future are going to be.  We no more need this today than it was necessary for past leaders to identify the jobs of today.  This is a task for the private sector, and one which only its vast network of dispersed information and decentralized decision-making is capable of determining.

Follower in Chief.  We've had strong presidents and weak presidents, skillful presidents and incompetent presidents, mediocre presidents and just plain poor presidents.  Barack Obama stands alone as the first president who simply declines to lead.  On almost every major issue since he took office in January 2009, Obama has dumped responsibility on someone else, merely paid lip service, or let the issue quietly fade away.

The Audacity of Hype.  How could President Obama have sat in the U.S. Senate for four years and not know that there are no shovel-ready projects?  Every senator who wants to build a post office in, say, Dixon, Illinois, knows you must wait years before putting the first spade to the dirt.  Franklin's cousin Theodore "made the dirt fly in Panama," true, but neither the U.S. nor Panama had to do environmental impact studies a hundred years ago.  Barack Obama should have known that what he was really selling was snake oil.  And his opponents should have been bolder in stopping his raid on the Treasury.

An Aristocracy of Incompetence.  [Scroll down]  Unsurprisingly, the Obama Administration sets the pace with its recent suggestion that although the executive branch briefed Congress about Operation Fast and Furious' lethal gun-running, the Attorney General remained unaware.  Such an explanation can satisfy if and only if incompetence is deemed acceptable.

A Clueless, Callous Commander-in-Chief.  Obama's bumbling, bungled delivery at Fort Drum yesterday represents far more than mere confusion; it clearly demonstrates a lack of care, an inattention to detail in matters very important to his audience, an insensitivity to the families of dead warriors, a dismissive disrespect of SSGT Giunta, and a casual slap in the face to the entire United States military.

Obama mixes up Medal of Honor winners.  The Medal of Honor is the highest United States award for valour.  It's the equivalent of the Victoria Cross.  In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, just eight have been awarded.  Three of them have been awarded by Obama.  The names of recipients are seared on the hearts of many, many Americans.  To mix up SSG Giunta and SFC Monti was just awful and it suggests a relaxed attitude towards American heroes that has been evident on previous occasions.

President Quixote's Legacy: Confused, Ill-Educated and Not Too Bright.  In short, it is difficult to ascertain what, if anything, has improved [since Obama has been President] other than the demise of Osama bin Laden.  Two hypotheses are often cited to explain why things have gotten so much worse:
  1.  Obama is incompetent.
  2.  Obama knows what he is doing and is deliberately destroying the country.
These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive.  Evidence is consistent with either or a combination of both.  The remainder of this article deals only with the first.

Neither the Will nor Ideas.  It is clear that President Obama has neither the will nor the ideas to lead in this debate or lead this country.

Obama's Final Solution.  [Scroll down]  Obama is fundamentally a very simple, extreme ideologue.  He has only one answer.  Everything Obama does comes straight from the most stilted and destructive clichés of the left.  The man has never had an original idea in his life, and wouldn't recognize one if it were served up on a plate with arugula.  He is intellectually locked in concrete.

The Community Organizer Who Would be King.  Obama entered office on a groundswell of a disconcerting mania, a mania in which voters imagined on this blank slate of a candidate all sorts of truly fantastic abilities and policies, none of which were warranted in his paltry, truly shabby history.  The man with no available school records, for example, was painted as a genius and his brief time as a University of Chicago adjunct (basically teaching assistant) puffed up to a professorship in constitutional law.  The guy who cannot speak a logical, coherent, grammatical sentence on his own was pawned off as a literary genius to unsuspecting, foolish voters.  It was inevitable that the reality of his time in office could never match the dream.  It was unfortunately equally inevitable that he would prove inadequate to the difficult job of the presidency.

Our Dangerous Commander-in-Chief.  Barack Obama is too smart to know how little he knows.  His insecurity around all those seasoned Generals and his arrogance mean he will continue to ignore the advice of people with an eternity of more experience than he has on any given issue.  With military lives on the line around the globe, the stakes are too high to have this man in Command.

Obama The Luddite.  Before citing the many ways Washington's policies impede job creation, let's first consider Obama's pet theory, which is centuries old and as fallacious as ever.  Believe it or not, he blames high joblessness on automation, technology and efficiency.

The Un-American American President.  Something is wrong with Barack Obama.  We all know it.  We all see it.  When he speaks about America, Americans cringe.  There is a strangeness to his manner, an unease when he talks about America.  He appears awkward and uncomfortable.  His speech seems performed and practiced yet, oddly halting.  It's reminiscent of American POW's in Vietnam or Iraq reading a forced confession.  His eyes, expressions, and vocal tone are disconnected from his words.  The words themselves often sound American, but the delivery is clinical and detached.  His attempts at patriotic sentiment ring hollow and phony.

Government of Sociopaths.  What does a country run by sociopaths look like?  It looks a lot like our own actually.  Lots of short term fixes.  Lots of 'keep this thing running' pragmatism.  Short attention spans.  No sense of responsibility.  And no thought for the future.  This is the problem with filling a cabinet full of bright people who don't understand responsibility or long term thinking.

Barack Obama: The affirmative action president.  [Scroll down]  He was given a chance to lead.  Yet then upon taking office, something happened that is an insult to everybody who believes in affirmative action but also values merit.  The standards were lowered for Barack Obama with regards to actual on the job performance.  His defenders began by making excuses for him and never stopped.  The worse things got during his tenure, the more he was propped up.  He was either too big to fail, or worse "too black to fail."  Any criticism of him was seen as racist.  This defies logic since he was voted in to begin with.  Those who expected results out of him should have noticed how substanceless he was on the campaign trail.  His idea for budget cutting was "getting rid of programs that don't work."  He offered nonsensical platitudes such as "tomorrow will be different from today."

Pat Caddell On Obama: "Does This Guy Have Any Idea What He Is Doing?".  After watching Obama's press conference this morning, Democrat pollster Pat Caddell said it is time to confront the elephant in the room:  That is, the question as to whether Obama actually has any idea what he's doing.  He must be talking about the elephant in the MSNBC green room, or something, because I think everyone else has been openly wondering about that for some time now — and we have serious doubts.

The Chosen One.  [Scroll down]  The lack of first-hand material for a proper intellectual portrait of Barack Obama forces any who approach the subject to note, first, what information we do not have:  not even a senior thesis (or any other paper) from his college days, nor even a single signed article in the law review which he formally edited.  He simply never produced stuff that qualified for that academic level.  All we have is a signed screed in the Columbia student paper Sundial imputing America's refusal to embrace nuclear disarmament to structural social flaws, and a six-page fragment in the Harvard Law Review attributed to him by researchers but unsigned and unacknowledged by him, which asserts an absolute right to abortion.  Neither bespeaks a serious mind.  We have no academic records.  His "autobiographies" are of uncertain parentage.

This is not leadership.  As the United States continues to drift, many Americans still seem perplexed that after two-and-a-half years, Barack Obama is a walking contradiction.  He cannot seem to lead; he can only follow and dictate.  He has no policies, only vague concepts and Marxist ideology.  He starts wars and calls them something else.  He simultaneously makes Congress responsible and yet irrelevant.  He refuses to be held accountable for anything.

Obama's Towering Inferno.  Imagine you're in a burning office building.  Obama's plan for getting out alive:  "Okay, you guys break up into different groups and come up with a series of proposals about how we get out of the building.  I will then negotiate with each of you separately and then together, and then separately.  Then I'll get on Skype and tell the world what I think of your respective plans and criticize you for their lack of seriousness. ..."

Russia Is Not Our Friend.  U.S. intelligence has apparently concluded that Moscow was behind last September's bombing of the U.S. Embassy in the nation of Georgia.  But the Obama administration still thinks Russia is our friend.

Obama's Failed Presidency.  There comes a time and a point in history which indelibly define a President.  Oftentimes the event may not be of major import in the greater scheme of things but the management of it is of such prominence that the success or failure in the handling of the issue is permanently attached to the individual.  Such a moment has happened to Barack Obama.  His incompetence, inability to lead, prevarications, petulance and immaturity in the debt ceiling crisis have indelibly created an image of abject failure in the minds of a critical mass of people in the United States and around the globe.

The Danger of a Weak American President.  As president, he is commander-in-chief of the American military, America's head of state and the Leader of the Free World.  The world, however, now sees that America's president is weak.

Last responder: Obama in crisis.  On Monday [8/8/2011], President Obama likened the economy to an earthquake.  That would make him a first-responder, which is a frightening prospect.  If this really were an earthquake and he were an ambulance driver, we'd all die waiting for rescue while he sat parked in the hospital driveway trying to figure out how to turn on the flashing lights.

Calling an Audible.  If President Obama were calling signals for the Washington Redskins, he would have been relieved a long time ago.  His economic blueprint of spending large amounts of federal tax dollars in order to stimulate consumer spending and create government-suggested jobs has obviously not worked and has run up a huge debt in the process.

Why Obama Is Really Turning Gray.  Michelle Obama declares that her husband's graying hair proves he deserves another term as president. ... As any Republican will testify, Ronald Reagan's hair never turned gray, even in his 90s.  Maybe Reagan didn't have the stress of knowing — as Obama must realize by now — that he is an incompetent who is always making wrong policy decisions.  It must be stressful finding out that everything you staunchly believe is flat wrong.

Failing Up: How the Obama administration rewarded a failed banker.  Roberto Herencia was appointed by President Obama to sit on the board of directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) back in November 2010. ... In May 2009, Herencia was named president and CEO of Midwest Banc Holdings, Inc.  According to reports, Herencia was brought in to "save" the company.  But, in just a year, Herencia managed to put the bank in an even bigger hole, and in May 2010, the community bank was among the first to receive federal bailout funds.

We should all use food stamps.  That would solve everything!
 Obama Agriculture Secretary: Food Stamps Create Jobs.  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack repeated the White House claim that food stamps and other forms of government welfare are stimulus programs in disguise, stating that when government gives out money, it is creating jobs.

Obama Ag Secretary Vilsack: Food Stamps Are A Stimulus.  Obama's Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack:  "Well, obviously, it's putting people to work. ... I should point out, when you talk about the SNAP program or the foot stamp program, you have to recognize that it's also an economic stimulus.  Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity.  If people are able to buy a little more in the grocery store, someone has to stock it, package it, shelve it, process it, ship it.  All of those are jobs.  It's the most direct stimulus you can get in the economy during these tough times."

Obama:  The Affirmative Action President.  In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character.  Those people — conservatives included — ought now to be deeply embarrassed.  The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of clichés, and that's when he has his teleprompter in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all.  Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth — it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years.

Obama's incoherent economic agenda.  With the economy in the dumps and his own approval rating sinking, Obama is panicking and becoming increasingly incoherent in his prescriptions for economic recovery.  We are in a crisis.  But the president is going on vacation.  We need a pro-jobs agenda fast.  But he's waiting until September to make a speech.  We need to curtail the debt, but he's coming back with another stimulus plan.

Answering Jonathan Alter.  Like other bad presidents before him, President Obama has not only ignored a looming crisis facing the nation, but rather, has contributed to the massive national debt.  President Obama has increased the debt faster than any other president in history, while he and his followers gladly try to make political hay from offered solutions instead actually solving of the problem.

Obama's kind of economist.  It's hard to find an economist who questions the relationship between the minimum wage and employment, specifically, that a higher minimum wage reduces employment opportunities for young, low-skilled and inexperienced workers.  After all, this is Economics 101.  The impact of price changes and volumes of economic studies over nearly seven decades affirm this negative relationship.  President Obama, however, has found just such an economist, and has chosen him to head up the Council of Economic Advisers.

More about the minimum wage.

The experiment has failed.  The great black hope and changer has turned out to be nothing more than an empty suit who looks good on camera and can rile the masses when the need calls for it.  Colossal spending and handouts, that on the surface appear to be predicated on stimulating the economy, turn out to be nothing more than literal bribes to a voter base hell bent on advancing their cause, [without regard to] the consequences to the nation.  Obama and the minions of ideologically motivated ivy leaguers are without question a colossal failure by all measurements.

Beware: Obama's executive fiat.  On Friday, it was announced zero net jobs were created nationwide in the whole month of August.  Labor Secretary Hilda Solis stammered, "I do believe that we're going in the right direction, but we need cooperation and it begins with members of the House and the Senate agreeing to do something now."  Going in the right direction?  It's a perfect admission of the cluelessness of this White House that the head of the Labor Department thinks zero new jobs and a permanent unemployment rate above 9 percent mean the country is headed the right way.

Zero Jobs 101 — the Psychology of Alienating Employers.  It was just announced that last month's unemployment is still above 9% — despite the nearly five trillion dollars in Keynesian pump-priming, the near zero interest rates, the expanded unemployment and food stamp support, and the government takeovers and subsidies of businesses.  There is a scary sort of deer-in-the-headlights look about Obama and Biden that is quite disturbing, as if they are thinking, "This was not supposed to happened [sic] to us."

Contract Dispute Grounds Firefighting Planes.  Nearly half of the federal government's firefighting air tankers are siting idle at a California airport, grounded by the Obama administration in a contract dispute just weeks before wildfires swept through Texas killing a mother and her child, and destroying 100,000 acres.

The tragedy of Obama.  Once again, the president seeks a "stimulus" for the economy in the form of nearly a half trillion dollars in government spending and tax cuts.  We've been through this before.  It didn't work in 2009 and 2010, and it won't work now.

Seriously, Attack Watch?  In 2008, it was called Fight the Smears.  The interface was friendly and hope-colored.  This time, it's dark and angry and Web 1.0.  It looks like the guy who designs 9/11 conspiracy Web sites finally got his big break.

Obama's hokey AttackWatch comes under attack.  President Obama's campaign team has trotted out AttackWatch.com, a spooky new Web site that asks followers to report "lies" being told about the president. ... The rollout brought much derision, with The Washington Post calling the site a full-fledged "laughingstock" within hours of its launch.

You Snooze, You Lose.  The Heritage Foundation reports this extremely funny story about the president's job bill.  ["]President Obama repeatedly asked members of Congress to pass the American Jobs Act last week.  But when no Democrat filed Obama's bill after he presented it to Congress, a conservative congressman swiped the name for his own legislation.["]

AttackWatch Twits.  You know a presidential campaign is going south when its detractors have more fun with its website than do its fans.  That's the case with AttackWatch.com, the Obama site that's making him a parody.

Obama's Misadventures in Miscommunication.  As a communications professional, my assessment of the Obama Administration's communications strategy is that it may be the most inept performance I have ever seen of any political regime. ... The embarrassments keep piling on.  The "If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill" quote?  Again, what is the subtext?  I can't do this all by myself.  I am incapable of leading.  You need to help me.

A disaster called Obama.  Barack Obama is solidifying his status as the worst president in American history.  The leader who promised us a bright future of peace and fraternity is leading the American empire — and the rest of the world with it — into a dark abyss.  Ever since he settled into the Oval Office, Obama has been hopping from one disaster to the next, making every possible mistake, boosting enemies and disregarding allies while ruining everything he touches in the process.

The media's love affair with a disastrous president.  The press gave the great American republic an untried, unknown and, it is becoming more and more frighteningly clear, incompetent figure as President.  Under Obama, America's foreign policies are a mixture of confusion and costly impotence.  It is increasingly bypassed or derided; the great approach to the Muslim world, symbolized by the Cairo speech, is in tatters.  Its debt and deficits are a weight on the entire global economy.  And the office of presidency is less and less a symbol of strength.

A Labor Chief As Clueless As The President.  It appears that Labor Secretary [Hilda] Solis had no interest in looking at how a state with 8% of the nation's population had created nearly half of the nation's new jobs over the past 10 years.

Obama's Big Green Boondoggles.  With the scandalous bankruptcy of Solyndra (a shady California solar power company that received $535 million in stimulus funds and is now under investigation by the FBI) hanging overhead, President Obama wisely whitewashed any mention of "green jobs" out of his latest address to Congress.  But buried in the details of his latest government jobs bill released this week ... are yet more big green boondoggles that will reward cronies, waste taxpayer dollars and make no dent in the jobless rate.

Fast and Furious? More Like 'Dumb and Dumberer'.  The idea that we would conduct a "reverse-sting" operation and intentionally allow weapons to fall into the hands of criminals and drug cartels is mind numbing.  The one and only, guaranteed-to-happen outcome — that these weapons actually would be used to commit crimes — to kill people — had to have been known in advance.  That fact alone is a crime.

Did someone mention the Fast and Furious scandal?

Incompetence: Obama Even Loses the Name of His Jobs Bill.  Either Obama was never serious about this so-called jobs bill in the first place and never intended to submit it, or he is one of the most inept politicians in presidential history.

Groucho Marx Saves America.  A hilarious barrage of catcalls and insults has greeted Obama's latest debacle, a Soviet-style website called Attack Watch.  With its terrifying design of red and black cellblocks, and scary photos of Obama's critics looking like Mafia hoodlums, Attack Watch openly solicits Americans to turn in their friends and neighbors for thoughtcrimes against the president. ... Within nanoseconds of Attack Watch's debut, a parody video by Ezra Dulis and Misfit Politics had blasted through the web.  Then came the howls of Hurricane Twitter, a Category 5 of one-liners, as Americans competed to turn themselves in and report anti-Obama crimes.

Stearns: 'Someone should be fired' over Solyndra bankruptcy.  Republicans made it clear Wednesday that they intend to continue shining a spotlight on the bankruptcy of a solar company that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration.  Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, even said he wants to see an administration official fired over the incident.

Did someone mention the Solyndra scandal?

Beating the Racism Card.  Obama is finished.  It's not so much the past six weeks, rough as they were, as his own actions and responses that have finished him.  His showdown with Congress over the debt limit, which he then ran away from. ... The lousy job numbers, which anybody but Obama and his kept economists could have predicted.  His insistence on his precious vacation at a time when the country was deeply shaken over economic matters. ... The uproar over his jobs speech, an attempt to embarrass the GOP which merely added to his reputation for incompetence.  The speech itself.  These were not the actions of a leader, a statesman, or even an adult.  They will be neither forgiven nor forgotten.

Obama digs up dead tax hikes.  Once again, Barack Obama proposes to raise job-killing taxes on a weakening economy, one that has all but stopped growing under his 1930s-style policies.  In a confused presidency whose policies have zigged and zagged more times than the stock market, Mr. Obama can't seem to decide what his policy should be, changing its direction and its prescriptions from one year to the next or, more aptly, from one political strategy to another as his job-approval polls have continued to plunge.

Obama team's twitter trap.  The purportedly internet-savvy Obama team has fallen into a Twitter trap, and it can't get out.  The AttackWatch.com snitch website, already the butt of jokes, is the subject of endless mockery on Twitter, thanks to the site's creation of a so-called hashtag on Twitter (#attackwatch), enabling anyone interested in following the subject to receive tweets which carry the hashtag.  Best of all, the hashtag cannot be revoked, or controlled by Team Barry.  It is out there, and they can do nothing about it.

Update:
 Is @AttackWatch all watched up?  The Twitter feed has been silent now for nearly three weeks, and the website hasn't been updated for the same amount of time.

Obama wave Barack's Presidential Protocol Bloopers.  [Scroll down]  Not only did the President break with protocol, but as the other 29 leaders in the photo all stood with their hands at their sides or clasped in front of them, Obama looked like he was doing a dry run of the oath of office he thinks he'll be taking when he's sworn in as President of the Planet.  The completely self-absorbed Barack waved to his fans, and in so doing completely blocked the face of Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, the president of Mongolia, from the picture.

A Frivolously Destructive Presidency.  Obama's presidency lurches from fad to fad — from gays in the military to "green jobs" to the "Buffett rule."  Hyped as a profound presidency, it has turned out to be an embarrassingly frivolous one.  Sober historians of the future, not cowed by political correctness, will no doubt look back and say that Obama fiddled while America burned, indulging his sophomoric socialism, environmentalism, and social engineering at a time of terrorism and economic crisis.

Fox News Poll: Majority Says as a CEO, Obama Would Have Been Fired.  If Barack Obama were president of a major U.S. company, he'd be fired by now.  That's what American voters think — by a 52-38 percent margin.  Fifty-six percent of independents think a corporation's board of directors would have already handed Obama his pink slip.  Nearly a quarter of Democrats also believe Obama would be out (23 percent).

A Quick Question.  Even if he wins a second term in the White House, [Obama will] be only 55 years old when he leaves office.  Will he found and run a health-insurance company?  How about a 'green' energy firm?  Or will he, perhaps, found and run a firm specializing in offering middle- and low-income Americans better and more fully disclosed access to consumer credit?  Will he create a successful automobile firm?  I'll bet (seriously) a good deal of money that he'll do none of these things.  He'll not even try.  And for good reason: ... He knows no more about the economic matters upon which he pronounces than does a soap-opera actor portraying a physician know about cardiology or obstetrics.

Energy Department Official in Charge of Solyndra Loan Program to Step Down.  The director of the controversial loan program that cleared the way for a $535 million taxpayer guarantee to bankrupt solar firm Solyndra is stepping down, the Energy Department confirmed Thursday.  Jonathan Silver, head of the Loan Programs Office, plans to join the organization Third Way as a "distinguished visiting fellow."  The career change comes in the middle of heavy scrutiny from Congress over the department's handling of the Solyndra agreement.

The Editor says...
 One minor scapegoat is not enough.  Somebody higher up needs to step down, too.

The Obama Problem.  Obama was all hype and no substance.  That realization has dawned on voters, resulting in horrendous polling.  Richard Nixon was never liked, but he was at least thought competent.  Obama was liked but never competent.  Now Obama is living proof of the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt.  He is neither liked nor competent.  Even the hapless Jimmy Carter did not attain that status.

One Obamacare Disaster Averted, Lots More To Go.  Just about every conservative critic of Obamacare pointed to the irrational design of the CLASS Act before the legislation's enactment.  In fact, the administration's own CMS actuary said it would never work.  He was ignored by his employers not because they disagreed with him, but because they needed to pretend their legislation would reduce the deficit. ... Of course, administration officials can't acknowledge that they always knew the program's finances could never work, so rather than admit to cynicism they are pleading incompetence.  And who knows, maybe they really are that incompetent.

Birth Certificate Makes Slim Pickings for Obama Presidential Library.  The most memorable and historic quote from John F. Kennedy is, "Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country."  Barack Obama doesn't own a quote.  He simply does not own one.  There are two legs under the stool of President Obama's domestic and foreign policies:  blame George W. Bush for all the ills of the Universe, and spend an unfathomable amount of money.

Obama's Unbroken String of Failures.  The final thing to say about the CLASS Act collapse is that it is the latest monument to the remarkable ineptitude of the Obama administration.  We have seen examples of its incompetence time and time again, including (a) the administration's promise unemployment would not rise above 8 percent if the stimulus package was passed; (b) the president's admission that "shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected"; (c) Vice President Biden's claim that we would see 500,000 new jobs created during last year's "recovery summer"; (d) insisting that the bankrupt company Solyndra was a model for the Obama "green jobs" agenda; (e) the lethal missteps surrounding Operation Fast and Furious; (f) the president's commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year after taking office; (g) the ...

The Worst President Since Before the Civil War.  Three years ago, the people of the United States elected someone who has turned out to be the worst president since the pre-Civil War era.  Barack Obama, whether in economic matters, domestic affairs or international relations, has been an abject failure and has severely jeopardized the future of the American people.

Where in the world is Obama?  Throughout his term, President Obama has avoided leading on the issue of fiscal responsibility.  He walked away from his own commission, the one led by former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, when he found its report filled with inconvenient choices.  Now in a week when leadership is needed to push this critical committee to do something big and bring the nation's fiscal house back into order, the president once again disappears.

No Gold Medals for Obama.  President Obama does not seem to have a credible plan, and even if he did, he seems incapable of working patiently toward a goal.  Half the time, it seems, the President is on the golf course, shooting hoops with his buddies on the White House court, or vacationing on Martha's Vineyard with billionaires.  When he is not horsing around, Obama is out campaigning.  That doesn't leave much time for shepherding the country through one of the worst economic periods in history.  Even when he is not golfing or making speeches, the president does not seem to be making much of an effort.

Tina Brown: Obama Doesn't Know How To Do His Job.  Obama cheerleaders are finally realizing that they elected the most under-accomplished man to ever hold the office. A former community organizer with no school transcripts, a man who abandoned his senate seat and constituents barely halfway through his term so he could run for the presidency, a man with absolutely zero executive or private sector experience.

O does not like the job.  The job has two things he does not like:  responsibility and decision-making.  He's never held a position of responsibility or decision-making.  Community organizers are rabble-rousers who have no staff and no responsibility.  They just go out and make noise.  In the legislature he voted Present.  He is intellectually lazy.

New docs show Fast and Furious was going to be used to justify gun control measures.  Fast and Furious appears to be a bottomless pit of breathtaking stupidity and inexplicable incompetence.  To use a program that the ATF knew was killing people to gain crass political advantage in a debate over gun control is just mind boggling — until you remember who is running the country.

Did someone mention the Fast and Furious scandal again?

Time's up for Obama.  President Obama is horrible at governing.  He's not bad, though, at moving goalposts.  The stimulus was supposed to "save or create" a bazillion jobs.  When the jobs on the "create" side of the ledger were smaller than predicted, the administration did away with the term and started using jobs "funded."  That, of course, includes numerous pre-existing jobs (including part-time ones) at every company or government entity that received stimulus money.  In the debt ceiling debate this past summer, the White House initially agreed to a target of $800 billion in new revenue.  When House Republicans put out a plan to reach that figure, the White House raised the bar to $1.2 trillion.  Now the President who gave himself one term to fix the economy is asking for another four years to complete the job.

Welcome to Texas!  Campaigning in Kansas today, President Obama momentarily forgot which of the 57 states he was in.  But that was just a slip of the tongue.  The really dumb thing he said is that the internet is causing unemployment. ... This is one more reminder — as if we needed it — that President Obama has no understanding of the economy.

Obama's Not Changing His Spots.  Here is a man who was swept into the presidency with the thinnest résumé of any in the nation's history — one who many believe is in reality a "front" for shadowy special interests like George Soros and who knows whom else, public service labor unions, and crony capitalist backers (think, for instance, Jeff Immelt of General Electric).  When "The One" mesmerized voters with oratory and slogans, he hadn't much of a record on which to be judged — and much of that was murky and hidden from public view. ... But now there is a record — and it's a very bad one.  From the January in which Obama took office until right now, his has been a totally failed presidency.

Obama's Chance at a Two-Term Presidency.  I believe that Obama is an incompetent, overly self-confident, narcissistic, hardcore leftist ideologue who is dragging America toward a cliff similar to the one off which most of the countries of Western Europe are plunging.  I hope, but am not confident, that most of America recognizes this.

Man publishes book of 200 blank pages: 'Everything Obama Knows About The Economy'.  It didn't take very long for Jimmy Moncrief to put together his new 200-page book, "Everything Obama Knows About The Economy."  Every page of the book is blank.

Order now!

Obama's Top Boners of 2011.  Calculate the man-hours that went into presenting to Congress a budget that didn't muster even one vote in the Senate.  If that didn't cry out that Obama is a one-term president, certainly the rest of the year's events did.  The question that I have for the political geniuses at the White House is:  "After getting elected primarily on the strength of the financial crisis, how could you be so ignorant of fiscal issues?"

Obama's Poverty Politics.  Barack Obama's manifold failures over the last three years have left him in a political tough spot as we enter 2012.  He will have a challenging time running on a record that has resulted in massive unemployment, stagnant income growth, a record number of people on food stamps, and a gargantuan level of debt that Americans will be paying off for decades after Obama has retired to the golf courses of Hawaii.

Obama's Record Has A Deep Scratch In It.  Supposedly a forward looking progressive, Obama proved to be America's first backward looking regressive.  His first act was to increase federal borrowing, the national debt and the deficit by nearly a trillion dollars to finance a supposed "stimulus" package, based on the discredited Keynesian theory left for dead 30 years ago holding that increased government spending, deficits and debt are what promote economic growth and recovery.  That theory arose in the 1930s as the answer to the Great Depression, which, of course, never worked.

Brazil Stiffs Obama on Oil Deal, Exposing President's Incompetence.  Obama's policy in regard to oil and gas has been a study in incompetence driven by an ideological mania against hydrocarbon fuel in favor of more politically correct forms of energy production.  This has not only led to what amounts to a campaign against oil and gas production in the U.S., but embarrassing scandals such as Solyndra, brought on by unwise federal loan guarantees to dubious green energy companies.  This is occurring at a time when Iran is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz through which much of the world's oil passes from Persian Gulf fields.

The truly dismal state of the union.  There is one person — one American among the 300 million of us — who is not to blame for the state of the union.  Everyone else, each of you, in some small or large way, bears some share of the blame, but not this guy.  Not one little bit.

Project Obama: A Puppetmaster or a Puppet?  [Scroll down]  His limp-wristed demeanor, more typical of a world-weary courtier than a king, bespeaks indolence rather than energy.  What we know about his schedule is certainly no evidence of a workaholic.  Endless hours spent on the links, a net of three months over the last three years, so that his caddy has far more face time with the president than any member of his cabinet.  Frequent, prolonged vacations in posh spots.  Regular, come-hell-or-high-water parties at the White House, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous.  Sybaritic habits and expensive tastes in food (Wagyu beef, which sells for upwards of $150 per pound, is said to be a particular favorite) matching his spouse's exorbitant taste in clothes.

Obama, Democrats Own Syria Failure.  The fact that the United States has been forced to close its embassy in Syria today — for safety reasons, not in protest, let it be noted — is the most tangible proof yet of the failure of Barack Obama's foreign policy.

Religion burns Obama again.  It's a problem that previously has popped up in controversies over Israel, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and even Obama's 2008 comments about people holding on to "guns and religion."  "It almost appears that every time he tries to steer clear of [the intersection of politics and religion], he steps right into it," said Susan MacManus, a professor of political science at the University of South Florida.  "He's trying not to call attention to it and then he finds himself in the middle of it."

Obama: 8.9% unemployment for you.  In a post triumphantly titled:  "How Obama's Budget Throws A Big Punch At The GOP," Brien Beutler of the liberal Talking Points Memo site let the cat out of the bag:  President Obama is thinking that after $5 trillion in overspending, the best he can do is knock the unemployment down to 8.9% for the year 2012.  That cannot help his re-election efforts.

How Obama Makes Decisions.  [Scroll down]  This refusal to do the homework necessary to make good decisions is worrisome on several levels.  It led to not only legislation being outsourced to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but also to foreign policy decisions that seem to come from either the Arab League or the United Nations, or from some sudden inspiration of his disconnect from reality.

Gasoline Prices and Dollar Prices.  Surging gasoline prices are back in the news, and President Obama shows his concern for Americans by doing what he does best.  He gave a speech.  Happy now?

Another Obama fundraiser turns out to be a bad ambassador.  Candidate Barack Obama promised to end the time-honored American practice of appointing ambassadors who have no experience in foreign policy, but President Obama has completely ignored that promise, appointing fundraisers to dozens of ambassadorships all over the world.  Today, the State Department revealed that another fundraiser turned ambassador ran her embassy into the ground ... only to return to fundraising and leave the State Department to pick up the pieces.

Here Comes Obama's 3 AM Phone Call.  On or about April 1 of 2012, that 3 AM phone call will reach the White House.  We know what it will be — which is itself a sign of stunning incompetence in this White House.  None of this information should ever be public.  Ever.  But this administration has chosen its Secretary of Defense to publicly leak the most closely guarded secret of Israel's back-against-the-wall defense against Iranian nuclear weapons.  Such public leaks amount to near treason in time of war.  Imagine if someone leaked General Eisenhower's plans for the D-Day invasion in June of 1944.

Ten Indications That Obama Is Scared.  [#8]  Obama's foreign policy strategy is in shambles.  Generally when a president has such a weak domestic agenda, he may be able to recover based on decent foreign policy.  This is not the case with Obama.  Obama's foreign policy has made America weak and the laughingstock of the world.  It was said when Obama was elected that the world would love us, which has proven simply not the case.  Obama has revealed himself to be much worse than Bush in foreign policy, and he has created havoc all over North Africa and the Middle East.

President Blameless.  This must be the most blame-deflecting White House in our nation's history. ... As late as last July, the White House sought to prove that Dallas resident George W. Bush was still responsible for all the nation's budget troubles.  Atlantic magazine blogger Megan McArdle deliciously characterized this lame attempt at evading responsibility as "The duck starts here."

Obama's failed energy policies.  No one's talking about it yet, but Obama also appears to be fulfilling his campaign promise to drive up home power bills by aggressively regulating America's industries that produce electricity.  It will be difficult for Obama to escape his positions, which are heavily rooted in ideology.  In today's speech in New Hampshire, he made clear that he knows he has a problem and he doesn't know what to do.

Barack Obama is a henpecked ninny.
 Obama: The "One Thing" That Michelle Allows Me To Do Is Watch ESPN.  In an interview with ESPN's Bill Simmons, President Obama talks about how he is able to sneak in watching sports during the day.  "Well, first of all, I don't watch network news or cable news.  So in the morning, when I'm working out with Michelle, it's on SportsCenter.  This is the one thing that she allows me," Obama told Simmons.  Obama says he is also able to "sneak in" a game while he is reading his briefings.

Obama lauds White House 'powerhouse': Wife Michelle.  "My job is very simple," President Obama said in welcoming his guests.  "It is to introduce the powerhouse of the White House — the one truly in charge, as Malia, Sasha and Bo all know — the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama.

Obama on marriage: 'Do whatever she tells you'.  The president stopped at the Kozy Corners diner in Oak Harbor, Ohio, on Thursday [7/5/2012] for what political campaigns dub an "OTR" — an "off the record" event that isn't on the formal schedule — and doled out a bit of marriage advice.  "Just do whatever she tells you to," Obama told a man sitting with his wife at a table during a brief chat about what makes a good marriage.  The president's words were collected by The New York Times reporter Mark Landler, the print "pool reporter."

Book bombshell: Obama canceled Bin Laden 'kill' raid three times at Jarrett's urging.  At the urging of Valerie Jarrett, President Barack Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden on three separate occasions before finally approving the May 2, 2011 Navy SEAL mission, according to an explosive new book scheduled for release August 21.  The Daily Caller has seen a portion of the chapter in which the stunning revelation appears.

'Gutsiest call ever' was postponed three times.  It turns out that "one of the... gutsiest calls of any President in recent memory" — the decision to eliminate Osama Bin Laden — was postponed three times at the urging of... Valerie Jarrett?

See also  Barack Obama: The "Whipped" Factor.

Michelle's orders: No fried Twinkies.  [T]his week in Iowa, when he goes to the state fair, the president told attendees at a campaign rally in Council Bluffs that the first lady has given him strict instructions.  "Michelle has told me that I cannot have a fried Twinkie," he said.

Obama's Strange Dependence on Valerie Jarrett.  President Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden three times before saying yes, because he got cold feet about the possible political harm to himself if the mission failed.  Instead of listening to advisors from the U.S. military, Defense, or even State, Obama was acting on the advice of White House politico and close friend Valerie Jarrett.

Without Michelle, Obama gorges like Clinton.  He hasn't made an appearance at McDonald's yet, but President Obama is doing his best Bill Clinton impression on the campaign trail — at least when it comes to gorging on every plate of chops and Solo Cups of beer put in front of him.  Campaigning without his wife through Iowa this week, Obama diverted his bus several times to restaurants, diners and snack stores in an uncharacteristic manner for the calorie-conscious president whose diet back home is governed by his low-fat demanding wife and organic focused personal chef Sam Kass.

Driving Ms. Jarrett.  A bombshell front-page story in Sunday's New York Times investigates Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama and chair of the "White House council on women and girls," according to her official biography.  Among the revelations included in the Times exposé:  Jarrett is protected by a full-time Secret Service detail. [...] The article describes Jarrett, heir to a Chicago real-estate fortune and a longtime fixer for former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley as well as for President Obama, as "the other power in the West Wing."  For example, when billionaire investor and Obama supporter Warren Buffett visited the White House for lunch last July, "the table was set for three":  Buffett, the president of the United States, and Valerie Jarrett.

The Audacity of Cronyism.  [Valerie] Jarrett gets a security detail from the US Secret Service (USSS).  That means 24/7 protection, at a cost of millions of dollars a year.  Of course, it also means an air of importance for Jarrett — her own taxpayer-funded entourage.  The idea that someone such as Jarrett — who officially plays no role in national security or counter-terrorism — would receive USSS protection would be laughable if it weren't, in fact, real.  It's like a tale out of the Versailles Court of the Sun King — the sort of anecdote that provokes the peasants, eventually, to revolution.

Obama versus the Democrats.  Obama wanted to play president, not be president.  And the real Barack Obama is anything but a confident, competent winner.  Some of those who did not support Obama tried to sound the warning bell about Obama's severe lack of... well, everything necessary for a president to succeed.  Obama lacked experience, and he continues to lack character, integrity, and a love of the America that has taken over 200 years to build.

Are you smarter than a Joe Biden?  The Obama administration is nothing if not full of itself.  Never before have we seen such bragging from people who never accomplished a thing in their lives.

The World According to Obama.  Alas, Barack Obama is living in an ivory tower in which he has absolutely no conception of what is taking place in so many parts of the world.  And that is not surprising based on the way he has governed over the past three years.  He has proven ignorant of history and world affairs, disinterested in what the majority of Americans want for the future of the country, and focused on himself and his own worldviews.  He is obsessed with diplomacy, the U.N., and leading from behind — all of which have proven useless in dealing with the world's tyrannies and vitriolic regimes.

Justices may not stop at dashing Obamacare.  Justice Anthony Kennedy ripped through the argument that because Congress has the constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, it has the power to regulate anything.  Solicitor General Donald Verrilli was overmatched and ill-prepared, displaying once again why socialism fails:  It leads to the appointment of unemployable nephews and political hangers on to positions for which they are ill-suited.

Who Is Barack Obama?  One thing is certain:  Barack Obama has little in common with any president our country has ever had.  Hopefully, this Obama hiccup in history will be of short duration, nothing more than "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing."

An Open Letter to President Barack H. Obama, Constitutional Scholar.  The Justices of the United States Supreme Court are unelected, Mr. President, to insulate and protect them from the influence and derision of lawmakers and chief executives like you.

What Happened to Black Pride?  If Obama were a basketball player, he would be the equivalent of the guy who couldn't inbound the ball or constantly double-dribbles.  He's the guy to whom you just quit passing the ball; because when he gets the ball, he always shoots and always misses.

Go ahead, Dems, make Mitt's day.  Barack Obama is unable to point to one achievement as president other than the Navy SEALs killing Osama bin Laden on his watch.  And so Barack Obama is going to attack the person of Mitt Romney, early and often.  Americans hate character assassination.  The nasty, smarmy, snarky side of Barack Obama will doom him to the biggest humiliation in American politics since Herbert Hoover.

Obama's Running Out of Ways To Surrender.  The deadly and coordinated attack by Taliban forces on Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, is but the latest in a string of deadly assaults on U.S. forces, Afghan soldiers, and above all civilians.  President Barack Obama's clear intention to withdraw before the fall (for domestic political, not military or diplomatic reasons) plus his cringe-worthy eagerness to negotiate has led to an acceleration of enemy attacks, not the hoped-for respite.

Obama: excuses rather than responsibility for his failed policies.  This is one more example of Obama saying one thing while doing another or trying to have things both ways.  He says he is "not gonna make excuses," but continues to do so.  As Salena Zito put it in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Obama has blamed the stagnant economy on ATMs, ditches, slurpees, corporate-jet owners, the TEA Party, Republicans, Japan's earthquake, the Arab spring, the Arab summer, George Bush, and Wall Street.

Betraying Every Ally.  Obama's obnoxious behavior is all the more senseless because while there isn't very much that the United States needs from Argentina, it needs to maintain a good level of cooperation with the UK. [...] This has become an unfortunate pattern by an administration that makes so many bad decisions that it is often hard to tell whether it is being willfully destructive or mindlessly clueless.

White House Stunned By Argentine Oil Expropriation.  After a weekend of cavorting in Colombia, the White House was caught flat-footed by Argentina's takeover of a big oil company whose loss will hike gas prices, harm Spain and slam U.S. investors.

This Week's Exploding Cigar: Obama, the Dog Eater.  [Scroll down]  Ridicule and exposure are significant political tools, tools which the right better learn to use.  Obamacare, the economy and Obama's poor handling of it, and the increasing, unavoidable evidence that he is over his head in managing the executive branch are the big issues, but a great many voters are not as interested in such things.  They are low information voters who vote on an emotional basis and that cannot be ignored.

This election is about eating dogs.  Obama is rapidly looking less and less like a President and more and more like an inept pol who's also something of a doofus.

Obama's disastrous war.  President Obama has lost Afghanistan.  The war is turning into a catastrophic defeat — one that will be worse than Vietnam.  It is time to bring the troops home, and end this national nightmare.

Hillary Clinton Playing Russian Roulette with the Russians.  [Scroll down]  It would be hard to imagine more errors in a single answer.  Russia's change of leadership?  What change?  Putin has been in charge since New Year's Eve 2000.  That has never been in doubt.  The Obama administration made much — too much — of its closeness to Medvedev, even giving the appearance of disrespect to Putin in the process.  That's like cozying up to the monkey in the hopes of showing up the organ grinder.

Obama's Dismal Job Performance.  Hanlon's Razor states that one should "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."  It's a fitting adage for Barack Obama.  It's easy enough to demonstrate Obama's incompetence as president.  You would think he would get something right for America every once in a while, if only accidentally.  Yet that seems to not be the case.

President Mañana.  Forty months into his White House residency, Obama still speaks in the future tense.  This makes his future as precarious as any other American's.  If the president could boast about his past, he would feel confident in his future.  As it stands, he is a man long on vision and short on accomplishment.

A Ruse by Any Other Name — Obama, the Falklanda and Project 21.  President Obama has a notoriously anti-British streak.  One of his first acts as President was ridding the White House of a bust of Winston Churchill, and he seemingly took great pains to insult the British Queen by giving her American DVD's of his own speeches, recordings that would not even play on British equipment, and his wife hugging Her Majesty (the Queen, not Michelle) in a gross violation of protocol.

Obama has Held More Campaign Events than the Previous Five Presidents.  Barack Obama's extreme campaigning smacks of desperation.  Weak in the polls, presiding over a dismal economic performance, detached from the everyday concerns of Americans and largely uninterested in the details of the job he holds, the president lives up to the slogan Mitt Romney has pinned to him:  Obama isn't working.  His policies aren't working and he literally isn't doing his job because he's too busy on the campaign trail.

Appointees show what Obama is.  It is obvious from his appointees that the president is an ideologue masquerading as a middle-of-the-road politician.  By his actions it is clear who he really is: a leftist community organizer who somehow became president.

Obama's Disastrous Political Overreach:  This cannot be what the Obama campaign predicted; and the fact that they would take their most notable achievement and employ it in a way that would be potentially counterproductive is a sign that the mindset of all the president's men is so aggressive, so hyper-partisan, so mean-spirited and so desperate that they are acting in ways that are amateurish and self-defeating.  It might also be a sign that Obama has so few genuine accomplishment to his name that when he actually is able to identify one, he mishandles it.  They don't have enough practice to know what to do with a real achievement.

Obama Has Already Lost.  Whether the standard to measure Barack Obama is legislative, fiscal, foreign policy, managerial or personal, Obama ranks among the lowest of the low in presidential ability.

Sebelius' Constitution.  An account of the hearing was issued by the Catholic News Agency.  It's almost painful to read.  The secretary admits she was unaware of legal precedents confirming religious freedom, even as she sought a "balance" between believers' rights and the contraception mandate.  "I'm not a lawyer, and I don't pretend to understand the nuances of the constitutional balancing tests," Mrs. Sebelius told Mr. Gowdy.  She also admits she is unaware of Supreme Court cases stretching back decades in which, as the Catholic News Agency put it, "religious believers' rights against government intrusion were upheld by the court."

Obama's bipolar approach to terrorism:  While some terrorists are pampered, others are blown up.

Bin Laden May Ironically Be Obama's Albatross.  The president seems to think bragging about killing Osama bin Laden will help get him re-elected.  But the question is increasingly becoming why the president hesitated on such a no-brainer decision.

The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House.  Edward Klein's new book on Barack Obama, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, is a withering portrayal of a radical adrift, in over his head, drowning in his own incompetency — while being weighed down by a small circle of "advisers" who are compounding the problem of the Amateur in the White House. [...] He had few if any accomplishments or professional standing in any of his previous positions.  Even when he served as a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, he avoided any encounters with other faculty who enjoyed discussing the law.  His reluctance to engage them is revealing in and of itself, suggesting he had a reason for his lack of confidence.

Senior Homeland Security staffers have no law enforcement experience.  President Barack Obama's Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, has presided over the hiring of at least four senior staffers and advisers who have no law enforcement experience but align politically with the president.

Jindal On Obama's Experience: He 'Never Ran a Lemonade Stand'.  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized President Obama's experience before he became president in an interview Tuesday [5/15/2012], and defended Mitt Romney, who has recently come under attack by Obama's campaign for his record at Bain Capital.  "President Obama hasn't run anything before he was elected President of the United States.  Never ran a state, never ran a business, never ran a lemonade stand.  This job's too important for on the job training," Jindal said during an interview on FOX News' "America's Newsroom" Tuesday [5/15/2012].

Weapons of Mass Distraction: Barack Obama Has No Clothes.  [Scroll down]  When a president has no discernable governing leadership skills, and nothing to which he can point as an example of the positive things he has done for his nation's economy, he must spend all his time campaigning and fundraising.  He needs lots of cash with which smear his opponents, and boatloads of it are now sailing into Port Obama from wealthy leftwing Hollywood loons and other radical advocates of homosexual marriage.

Obama's Grade: D Plus.  One arrives at such a low mark only after a thorough — and scientific — examination of the president's record of broken promises and unfulfilled expectations.

Barack Obama's 15 Minutes of Fame.  The key is the word "celebrity."  Thanks to Barack Obama, the U.S. presidency now has less and less to do with competence and leadership and more and more to do with that elusive word whose definition changes with each degrading instance of its redefinition downward in the media.  We have a cool president who hobnobs with the ladies of The View and slow jams the news with comedian Jimmy Fallon.  The key to these appearances?  The people hosting them have risen to stardom despite having done nothing of substance in their lives.

Ready, Fire, Aim.  We are rapidly approaching the moment at which Washington reevaluates the Obama campaign's reputation for competence and expertise.  Every week, one or several of Obama's surrogates trip over their own words; every day, Jim Messina and David Plouffe and David Axelrod must scratch their heads in wonder at the mess they are creating.  One gaffe is an isolated event.  Two is an embarrassment.  But three or more form a pattern, one that is damaging not only Obama's precarious chances for reelection but also the fortunes of the Democratic Party.

Forget Bain — Obama's public-equity record is the real scandal.  Despite a growing backlash from his fellow Democrats, President Obama has doubled down on his attacks on Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital.  But the strategy could backfire in ways Obama did not anticipate.  After all, if Romney's record in private equity is fair game, then so is Obama's record in public equity — and that record is not pretty.

America Gets a Wake-Up Call.  Reading the unemployment numbers for May (can you imagine what the real ones would be?), your lefty-liberal friends should be ashamed of themselves — at least those that aren't committed, Cloward-Piven style, to the fall of the U.S. [...] I don't need to see Obama's hidden college grades.  I know he's a failure.  I don't need to read The Amateur.  I know he's an amateur.

Obama's Sons: They Are Real for Him.  [Scroll down]  He is the world spirit and the end of history.  When Hegel said it, people thought, and still think, he was a madman.  But Hegel, at least, was a great intellect. [...] Barack Obama, on the other hand, is an intellectual, moral, and historical lightweight, a manufactured man of significant accomplishments on paper which somehow don't match up with anything one can point to in reality.

President Obama Causes Outrage with Reference to 'Polish Death Camp'.  Poles and Polish-Americans expressed outrage today [5/29/2012] at President Obama's reference earlier to "a Polish death camp" — as opposed to a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland.  "The White House will apologize for this outrageous error," Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted.  Sikorski said that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk "will make a statement in the morning.  It's a pity that this important ceremony was upstaged by ignorance and incompetence."

Obama's Achilles heel.  As a professional politician and former community organizer, Mr. Obama has little firsthand knowledge of how the marketplace actually works — and it shows.  The president's attempt to stimulate the economy with taxpayer dollars was never going to create jobs.  He has increased regulation and taxes on businesses, resulting in a slowed economy and an official unemployment rate stuck over 8 percent, which doesn't count those who have given up looking.

Please Excuse My President.  Barack Obama entered the presidency with his sights and standards very high, and many liberals believed he could be the transformative figure they had been awaiting for generations.  But by now it is clear that, by any reasonable measure (including those set out by Obama himself at the beginning of his term), his presidency has been a failure.

Obama Is Simply Overmatched by Events.  The trajectory of events is down, not up.  The economy is slowing down.  Consumer confidence is dropping.  Virtually every economic indicator is getting worse, not better.  This would be very troubling news for any incumbent president -- but for one who has virtually no achievements he can point to with pride, it is triply damaging.

This Ain't No Polish Joke.  You cannot use the phrase "Polish death camp" without offending tens of millions of Poles.  There were no Polish death camps.  The Poles were the ones, by and large, in the Nazi and Soviet death camps.  And yet, that's exactly what the author of "smart diplomacy" said last night [5/29/2012], at a ceremony that was supposed to honor WWII Polish underground leader Jan Karski.

Let's not get fooled again as a nation.  In five short months it will be Election Day, when Americans can return to the polls to fix the mistake that put Barack Obama in the White House.  Those on the far left think he's a mistake because he has failed to deliver on their version of "hope and change."  Thank goodness for that failure.  Those on the right think he's a mistake because he has proven to be incompetent throughout a stumbling presidency.

I Am Barack Obama's Worst Nightmare.  The MSM and Kool-Aid addicted left-wing pundits have praised Obama for his leadership.  I haven't seen any evidence of leadership.  I have seen coercion.  I have seen bribery.  I have seen "bait-and-switch" policy pronouncements.  But I have not seen leadership. [...] Saying "I won" is not leadership.  Bribing Senators to vote for your health care plan is not leadership.  Speaking over 50 times to the nation about your healthcare plan and still not achieving the support of a majority of its citizens certainly does not indicate leadership.

Party Loyalty and the Future of America.  Does loyalty to a political party trump the well-being of a nation?  That question now confronts many Democratic Party activists, financial contributors, and elected politicians, particularly because Barack Obama has no loyalty to the party he leads.  In 2008, the Party went on a blind date with someone they did not know and made no effort to investigate. [...] Once in office, the real Barack Obama surfaced.  The blind date has turned out to be a disaster for the Party and the country.

Jindal: Obama administration at 'the nexus of liberalism and incompetence'.  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, frequently mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate, said the Obama administration is at "the nexus of liberalism and incompetence" while speaking at the Chicago meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday [6/8/2012].  "The Obama admin is at the nexus of liberalism and incompetence and together that's a deadly combination," Jindal said.  "[Obama] ran a clever campaign in 2008 ... but the reality is he has governed as the most liberal president since Jimmy Carter."

Senator: 'I Have Not Been Impressed with [Holder's] Intelligence'.  Texas senator John Cornyn called into question the intelligence of Attorney General Eric Holder earlier today in a radio interview.  "Do you think Holder is smart?," radio host Laura Ingraham asked Cornyn.  "I have not been impressed with his intelligence," Cornyn responded.

Punch Drunk in the Oval Office.  From premature military withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan to selling out U.S. missile defense to the Russians and mouthing mechanical blandishments to U.S. allies like the Danes, President Obama is squandering a great foreign policy legacy.

The S.S. Obama is Leaking.  The holes in the Obama Administration continue to show the greatest inherent problem to the President's re-election:  These people are incompetent.  At almost every level, in almost every issue the Obama Administration is barely keeping afloat.

Obama Entering a World All His Own.  No president in human history has quite equaled Obama when it comes to blaming others for his problems.  And during the 2008 campaign, everything wrong with America could be laid squarely at the feet of President Bush.  But now Obama, having presided over what at this stage must qualify as among the most inept presidencies in American history, is complaining because he's being held accountable.

Obama's Lauded Appointees Have Failed to Measure Up.  Like almost everything written and said about President Obama and his new administration as they stood poised to take office in 2009, the intellectual, governmental and political skills of his Cabinet and executive team were overinflated and fawned over by a news media caught in the national swoon.  "The team he has announced so far is more impressive than any other in recent memory," wrote New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Liberal and Incompetent. [Scroll down]  America simply cannot afford another four years of on-the-job training.  There may have been times in our country's history where having an untested leader in the White House would have been fine, but this is certainly not one of those times.  Yes, President Obama needs to go because his liberal policies are wrong and bad for America.  But it's worse than that; it's basic incompetence.  He is also the most incompetent president since Jimmy Carter.

Five Reasons Why Romney is the Favorite.  [#3] Intellectual exhaustion:  The Obama campaign is out of ideas.  On the economy, Obama has used virtually everything in his progressive toolkit.  Nothing has worked.  And so the president, unable to defend his record in the first term, is left with no compelling vision to offer in a second term.  Witness his speech in Ohio yesterday.  It was billed as a "major" address on the economy.  But it was widely panned even on the left for being empty and uninteresting.  The president himself cannot articulate why his agenda in a second term would be more effective than what he's done in his first term.  He's running on empty.

Obama is bowing out.  President Obama did it again.  Despite being head of state of the most powerful nation on the planet, he bent over to give a bow to the leader of a lesser country.  Mr. Obama's latest show of fealty was to Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the G20 Leaders Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, on Monday [6/18/2012].  His repeated bowing to foreign politicians is conduct unbecoming a president of the United States.

Undercover Community Organizer.  [Scroll down]  If our undercover community organizer were president for only a day or two we wouldn't be in the debacle we currently find ourselves in.  But after more than three years of Obama's "leadership," we're left with six trillion in new debt, a failed so-called stimulus, real unemployment in the double-digits, food stamp usage at an all-time high, the failed creation of "preferred" green energy jobs that filled the pockets only of Obama's crony donors, and a health care law that will only accelerate our road to bankruptcy if not overturned.  This level of incompetence would never be tolerated by the American people if the mainstream media were doing its job and truly informing the public.

Obama's Claim of Executive Privilege: It's Frivolous.  Holder's letter is a remarkable document.  Viewed from a strictly technical standpoint, it is a terrible piece of legal work.  Its arguments are weak at best; in some cases, they are so frivolous as to invite the imposition of sanctions if they were asserted in court.

Obama raises legal eyebrows with executive privilege claim.  President Obama could be on shaky legal ground with his assertion of executive privilege in a congressional investigation that has been going on for a year, according to scholars who study the limits of presidential power.  Louis Fisher, a former specialist on the separation of powers at the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, said he found the administration's arguments "extremely unpersuasive."

Obama Forgets Anniversary.  Thursday [6/21/2012] marked the 224th anniversary of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution with no word out of the White House.  The White House website did not mention the anniversary in its blog or any other portion of its website.

Is This Republic Worth Saving?  You see him — whether you want to or not — just about every single day on television, on the internet, standing at the teleprompter, jiving on late-night comedy hours, delivering his lines in the Rose Garden, yucking it up with brainless movie stars, leaking national security secrets, pontificating on his final-4 basketball picks, spinning tall tales about his "roots" narrative, throwing coming-out parties, juking onstage with Paul McCartney, playing golf, golf, golf, and more golf.  You've seen him at the Vineyard.  You've seen him in the surf in Hawaii.  You've seen him in flip-flops, sipping Slurpees, playing ping-pong on the Continent.  You've seen him bowing to dictators and chatting it up with banana-republic warlords. [...] This is an adolescent block party, not a presidency.

7 Reasons Obama's Amnesty For Under 30 Illegals Is Terrible Policy.  [#6] This will encourage illegal immigration:  If you can pass for 30 years old or younger and you've ever considered coming to America illegally, now is the time.  All you have to do is get here, get some phony documentation, and chances are you'll get to stay in the country indefinitely with a work permit.  There are undoubtedly tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of illegals on the way here to take advantage of Obama's stupidity.

Does Obama Know Who Brian Terry Is?  Well, this is what happens your son doesn't look like President Obama.  Now imagine the fury that would have followed if one of George W. Bush's press secretaries couldn't remember the name of a soldier who had died in Iraq.  Then again it is probably just as well that it was Carney who said "the family that you referred to".  If it was President Obama, he'd have probably called Terry a "corpseman".  Come to think of it, does President Obama even know who Brian Terry is?  Or for that matter Jaime Zapata?

The Worst Story Ever Told.  Mr. Obama's story is a series of beginnings and middles, with no satisfying resolutions.  There is no denouement — just endless chaos.  Loose ends aren't tied up because nothing ever is seen through to its successful conclusion.

President Barack Obama must do more than manage America's decline .  The odd decision to give Mr Obama the Nobel Peace Prize at the start rather than the finish of his presidency turns out to make a sort of sense:  he achieved much more by winning the election than by anything that he has done.

The Contents of Obama's Character.  [Scroll down]  [Scroll down]  Obama has no clue of what's been tried and found wanting.  He surrounds himself with ideologues and tunes out anyone who's ever made an honest dime in the real world.  Thus every single idea the "progressive" president puts forward is a regressive throwback to notions that have been failing miserably for more than seventy years.  The stuff he believes is just plain dopey.  He thinks technology is the cause of unemployment.  He does not understand that only private jobs create the wealth that makes public jobs possible.  He thinks that wind and solar energy should be subsidized and fossil fuel production suppressed.  He insists on bringing the European social model to the U.S. even as the model implodes in front of our eyes.

Dems' Motto: Never Let a Wildfire Go to Waste.  After an embarrassing Beltway press briefing that revealed a spectacularly out-of-touch White House, the administration finally decided to divert the campaigner in chief from his nationwide fundraising frenzy for a quick look-see at our devastated city on Friday [6/29/2012].  It's leadership-from-behind you can count on.

DC Area Out of Power, Obama on Vacation.  Damage that has been described as "worse than some hurricanes" has not moved Obama to interrupt his air-conditioned holiday.  This dereliction of duty is not happening in distant New Orleans, but right in the heart of the nation's media and political center.  Yet the mainstream media has not bothered to comment on Obama's absence.

Biden's Jurassic Ideas About How Jobs Are Created.  On a day when unemployment topped 8% for the 41st month in a row, it's worth noting Vice President Joe Biden told Ohioans Tuesday that "so-called job creators" don't build the economy.  It explains a lot.

Mitt Romney's Time to Choose.  Barack Obama is an unmitigated failure whose dedication to leftist ideology has potentially doomed the United States and its citizens to second-class status.  The month of June 2012 was among the worst ever experienced by any president and his administration, as the events of that period dramatically exposed Obama's radical mindset, dishonesty, and megalomania.  Further, it is now unambiguously certain that the economy will continue to deteriorate, and joblessness will accelerate and become more entrenched. [...] Barack Obama, devoid of any character and integrity, can thus easily obfuscate and lie about his record as well as demagogue his opponent in an attempt to fool as many people as possible.  He has no leadership skills and does not inspire confidence in the vast majority of the people, as a recent poll indicates that just 20% of the populace are satisfied with the direction of the country.

Obama's Big, Bad Story Isn't Right.  We're paying White House staffers $38 million yearly, according to Politico, plus looking at roughly $750 million to a billion dollars in campaign spending to support this president -- and the best excuse he can come up with for his failed presidency is that he's not a good story-teller?  This is a man who largely won the presidency on nothing other than a fantastic and unbelievable story he sold to America via willing accomplices in the press.

As Hope Shrieks Away.  All you have to do is subtract the Obama expectations from the Obama result.  What you are left with is a remainder that confirms that this isn't a presidency, but rather a magic act.

The Obama Way: Selling Failure as Success.  Barak [sic] Obama, in 2008, won the presidency on the platform that (among other things) he understood the country's economic problems and, more importantly, knew how to solve them.  Three-plus years later, the administration is now telling us that "The economy turns out to have been far worse ... than we knew at the time," "we are moving in the right direction," and that he now "needs more time to fix the economy."  "The economy turns out to have been far worse ... than we knew at the time" simply tells us that Mr. Obama never understood the problems to begin with.

Obama wedding registry fund-raising strategy not a hit with brides.  President Obama's bizarre marriage-theme fund-raising scheme — where he asks couples to request campaign donations from their guests in lieu of wedding gifts — has been a total flop.

How the Democratic Media Spin the News.  This morning I participated in a media phone call organized by the Romney campaign.  It was led by John Sununu and focused on President Obama's astonishing claim that "If you got a business — you didn't build that.  Somebody else made that happen."  Sununu was joined by four small business owners.  Sununu was nuclear.  He said that Obama's comments show three related things:  1) The President doesn't understand how America and business work.  No wonder his administration has failed to create jobs.  2) Obama's crony capitalism:  he thinks the way to create jobs is for the government to pick winners and losers, and slide money to Obama's bundlers and allies.  3) Obama's attitude toward small business also reflects where he comes from, the "murky political world" of Chicago where politicians and felons are interchangeable.

President Obama — Public Employee #1.  President Obama gave a speech last weekend that was so utterly out of touch with American values, so clueless as to how things work in this country, that I have to add a few footnotes to his performance.

Obama Spends More Time Golfing Than In Economic Meetings.  In July 2010 President Barack Obama promised suffering Americans:  "I will not rest until everyone American who is able, and ready and willing to work can find a job.  And a job that pays a decent wage and has decent benefits to support a family."  It was just words.  In fact, despite serving as president during the "Greatest Recession since the Great Depression" Barack Obama has spent more time on the golf course than in economic meetings.
[Emphasis in original.]

Obama Throws Himself and Liz Warren Under the Bus.  The Obama campaign has gone to DEFCON 1 over the national reaction to the president's "You didn't build that!" speech in Roanoke.  Last week the campaign trotted out a video ad that deceptively edited Obama's own speech to attempt to refute an effective Romney ad.  Today, in a visual cue that its previous attempt failed, the campaign has rolled out a second ad that features the president himself reading to the camera.  He had time to sit for this shoot, but not to meet with his jobs council.

Paper: Is Obama the Worst Ever?  The San Diego Union-Tribune, the 3rd-largest paper in California, offers a scathing, point-by-point indictment of President Obama's presidency — focusing particularly on Obamacare — and asks whether we've ever had a worse president.

Interior Department opening up more federal land... for solar panels.  Forget about the leasing for oil, gas, and mineral drilling that would allow the energy market to produce the jobs and economic growth it is absolutely chomping at the bit to create — let's prioritize our administrative resources and land use for an industry that has demonstrated itself barely capable of competing on the global market despite heavy assistance from taxpayers.  Yeah, that's a great plan.

WH's Carney Refuses To Name The Capital Of Israel.  White House press secretary Jay Carney is asked by a reporter what is the capital of Israel.  Reporter:  What city does this Administration consider to be the capital of Israel?  Jerusalem or Tel Aviv?  Jay Carney, White House press secretary:  Um...  I haven't had that question in a while.  Our position has not changed.  Can we, uh...  Reporter:  What is the capital [of Israel]?  Jay Carney:  You know our position.  Reporter:  I don't.

Carney Unable to Identify Capital of Israel.  In today's [7/26/2012] press briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney was unable to identify the capital of Israel.  Carney would not say whether President Obama believe it's Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.  For nearly a minute, in response to repeated questioning, Carney only says that "our position hasn't changed" and that he hasn't gotten that question in a while.

More Evidence Obama Literally Not Doing the Job of President.  Every President prior to Barack Obama understood that the job entailed things like holding press conferences, meeting with members of Congress to compromise on budget issues, and learning the latest news about economic and international developments from the nation's best experts.  These things matter, because the President of the United States must be intellectually prepared to make important decisions about the future of our country.  But President Obama has focused on the celebrity aspects of his job and neglected doing much of anything that involved actual work.

Obama Policies Hurt Less-Skilled Workers Most.  On the campaign trail, President Obama blasted Mitt Romney's proposal to cut taxes for all Americans — the rich included — as "trickle-down, tax-cut fairy dust," reviving the Democrats' old complaint that lower taxes and smaller government help the rich, not the poor.  Obama's naked politicking isn't surprising, but the fairy-dust jab raises an important issue the president might like to avoid — how Americans on the lower rungs of the economic ladder have fared on his watch.

Obama 'Intellectually Exhausted, Out of Ideas, and Out of Energy'.  Mitt Romney finally caught up with the rest of us via a fiery speech in Ohio on Tuesday [8/14/2012] where he proclaimed three simple truths that frame Barack Obama:  "Intellectually exhausted, out of ideas, and out of energy."  Those lines are still too charitable; Obama has been intellectually barren from the beginning.  Yet it is irrefutable — to steal an apt word from Paul Ryan describing Obama's raiding Medicare to finance ObamaCare — that Obama's idea inventory consists of the expired date-stamped perishables of the collectivist state — tax, confiscate, redistribute, and impoverish.

President Obama's Smashing Success Story: Greatly Increasing The Power Of Government.  The traditional measure of the success of an Administration's economic program has been real economic growth, employment growth, the unemployment rate and the like.  Based on these criteria, the Obama Administration's economic program has been a dismal failure.

Obama's mediocre outing before the press corps.  In an effort to soothe the increasingly peeved White House press corps, the president appeared in the White House Briefing Room today [8/20/2012] to take a few questions.  It was a remarkably ineffective performance, which the White House must hope that few people watched.  Among other untruths, the president insisted, "Nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon."  Well, other than deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter.

Obama 'cancelled missions to kill bin Laden three times after getting cold feet.  Barack Obama cancelled three operations to kill Osama bin Laden before finally going ahead with the mission at the insistence of Hillary Clinton, according to a new book.  The explosive allegation is contained in an expose by journalist Rich Miniter, who argues that the White House's carefully-crafted narrative of Obama as a decisive leader who dispatched the al-Qaeda leader despite the doubts of advisers is a myth.

Managing the Non-Recovery.  Where are the jobs?  That's the first question we should be asking in what's now become the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression — or, more precisely, the longest non-recovery since the 1930s.  "More than 23 million Americans are either unemployed, underemployed, or have given up looking for work," reported the Bureau of Labor Statistics in July, the federal government's principal fact-finding agency regarding unemployment, economics and statistics.  Here's the second question:  Why hasn't President Obama met with his Jobs Council for seven months?

Obama's looking for the moron vote.  At the American Spectator, we reported years ago that this team was in reality the greenest pack of greenhorns ever assembled to take over a White House.  For more than three years, the mainstream media have covered for the Obama galoots.  It is a perfect example of the Taranto Principle, by which the mainstream media's biased reporting only encourages liberal excess.  Well, now Mr. Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett and the rest of Mr. Obama's minor figures who aspired to be major players are at each other's throats.

Obama Haunts Fright Night at the Movies.  Three movies, three views of Obama.  All frightening.  All justly so. [...] All three pound home the message that Barack Obama never should have gotten anywhere near the Oval Office.

The Left's Lamest Defense of Obama Yet.  Liberals now say the president can't be blamed for the lousy recovery because he couldn't get his agenda enacted even when Democrats held a supermajority in Congress.  And we should be confident in his leadership?

Race, the Race, and Racism.  When asked on the campaign trail what qualified him to be president, Obama himself pointed to two things:  his experience as a community organizer and the fact that he was running a winning campaign.  In other words, he should be president because he's smart enough to win the presidency.  Good old-fashioned circular logic.  One ebullient Democratic spokesman told the press soon after the election that his party had indeed chosen the right candidate (Obama instead of Clinton) because "race trumps sex."

GOP Governors Tell Obama How To Run A Lemonade Stand.  A parade of successful GOP chief executives showed how both federalism and capitalism can lead us out of the economic wilderness and that the only climate we should be saving is the business one.  On a convention opening night with the theme "We Built It," one Republican governor after another reminded voters how it can and has been done in their states.  They also stressed that conditions could be even better if they could work with a president who knew from personal experience how to create jobs rather than one who, as New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte observed, "has never even run a lemonade stand."

Why the World Hates Obama.  It's a good thing that Obama isn't running on his foreign policy record, because it's every bit as bad as his economic record.  The Obama 2012 website only lists National Security as an issue.  That is already a backhanded admission that the only thing he can run on is Bin Laden.

Obama's True Agenda For the Middle East Revealed.  Diplomacy will do the trick, we were told at first.  When we caught on to the futility of that approach, it was "sanctions" that were heralded as the way to go; and when the initial sanctions failed utterly to stop the mullahs, we and the Israelis were told that even stricter ones would be applied and finally do the job.  They have failed as well, but not to worry; maybe Iran is only pursuing peaceful uses of nuclear energy after all; and, well, the US will run a bunch of naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, and that'll scare those loonies into behaving.

Obama's Democrats Telegraph Obama's Campaign.  The convention has been on the fiasco trail from opening night when the introductory video proclaimed that "the government is the only thing we all belong to," but which topped that with the floor fiasco Wednesday which saw the majority of DNC delegates lustily booing God and Israel as a puzzled Convention chair Antonio Villaraigosa entered convention lore by using Chicago Rules to declare the platform amended when it obviously hadn't been amended.  The Democrats couldn't muster a majority to endorse God and Jerusalem much less two-thirds.  Those delegates are the folks running the agencies and staffing Team Obama at the polls.  The cost of their collective incompetence is all around us in the smoking ruins of the Obama years.

Losing It in Charlotte.  Lee Atwater couldn't have written a better script for the Democratic National Convention that just ended in Charlotte.  The Charlotte fiasco was a less violent version of the fiasco in Chicago in 1968, except the lunacy was now inside the venue, not outside. [...] The young radicals of 1968 have become the old radicals who now control the Democrat Party.  They put on a convention this week characterized by incompetence, radicalism, and race.

Why is Obama skipping more than half of his daily intelligence meetings?  President Obama is touting his foreign policy experience on the campaign trail, but startling new statistics suggest that national security has not necessarily been the personal priority the president makes it out to be.  It turns out that more than half the time, the commander in chief does not attend his daily intelligence meeting.

Al-Qaeda Catches Obama White House Flat-Footed During Egypt, Libya Attacks.  Islamic mobs that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Egypt and the U.S. consulate in Libya on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, murdering the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, said they were doing so because they were enraged by an obscure, Internet movie that mocked Muhammed.  But a closer examination of the evidence indicates al-Qaeda orchestrated these attacks, and the movie was just a bogus excuse used to trigger the widespread violence.

Obama's weakness coming home to roost.  Killing diplomats is one of the most provocative acts of war, and this is the first time in decades that an American ambassador has been killed.  What emboldened our enemies enough to commit this evil act?  When a lawless mob of Islamist extremists used reports about a film that is insulting to Islam as an excuse to overrun the American Embassy in Cairo, our government issued a statement condemning ... the film.  While the protesters were sitting brazenly on the Embassy walls, openly mocking Obama (chanting, "Take a picture, Obama; we are all Osama"), did the American government condemn the lack of host government protection or the violation of our sovereign territory?  No — they apologized that the film "hurt the religious feelings of Muslims."

Storming Embassies, Killing Ambassadors,and "Smart" Diplomacy.  Egypt is currently a beneficiary of more than $1 billion in annual American aid, and its new Muslim Brotherhood-led government is negotiating to have much of its sizable U.S. debt forgiven.  Libya, remember, was the recipient of the Obama administration's "lead from behind" intervention that led to the removal of Moammar Qaddafi — and apparently gave the present demonstrators the freedom to kill Americans.  This is all called "smart" diplomacy.

'Is This an Act of War?' Obama Turns His Back on Question about Libyan Attack.  President Barack Obama took no questions at the White House Rose Garden press conference on the attacks in Libya, turning his back and walking away as a reporter asked, "Is this an act of war?"

The Editor says...
 Obama is obviously afraid to answer any difficult question without a Teleprompter to show him the correct answer.

Obama, the great self-salesman.  Obama tells his story through his personal medium really well:  writing best-selling biographies before he was 40, making himself a senator on the strength of these stories, and then president on the strength of a speech.  The upside of this is that he portrays himself beautifully.  The downside is that this seems to be all he can do.

The Editor says...
 Even this is an over-estimation of Barack Obama, since he apparently didn't write his autobiographies.

Russian ships displayed at DNC tribute to vets.  On the last night of the Democratic National Convention, a retired Navy four-star took the stage to pay tribute to veterans.  Behind him, on a giant screen, the image of four hulking warships reinforced his patriotic message.  But there was a big mistake in the stirring backdrop:  those are Russian warships.

Another Screw-Up At the Democratic Convention!.  Fortunately for the unfortunate staffer, nobody but sailors would know the difference.  But it's still funny.

DNC apologizes for using image of Russian warships at convention.  The organizers of the Democratic National Convention apologized on Wednesday [9/12/2012] for accidentally using an image of Soviet-era Russian warships in its backdrop during a tribute to veterans at last week's convention in Charlotte, N.C.  The ships were shown on a screen behind 50 veterans assembled onstage Sept. 6 during a presentation by retired Adm. John Nathman.

Not only that...
 Fighter jets in Democratic convention's military montage were Turkish, not American.  The Democratic National Committee has already apologized for using a photo of four Soviet-era Russian warships in a giant stage backdrop intended to illustrate the party's support for military personnel and veterans.  That huge image, visible in the Time Warner Cable Arena during speeches by Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and retired Admiral John B. Nathman, also depicted a synchronized formation of jet aircraft that convention-goers assumed were American fighter planes.  But the F-5 fighter planes in the photo are part of the air force of Turkey, a nation whose government is now jailing journalists and establishing Islam as a state religion.

1.5 Billion Bin Ladens.  To suggest, as the White House keeps saying, that rioting in more than twenty-five mostly Muslim nations is the result of some amateur film that no one has seen reveals an administration that thinks Americans are stupid and unaware that President Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East is responsible for the crisis that has killed our ambassador to Libya and others.  A compliant mainstream news media continues to report this fiction.

Affirmative Action reaches the Presidential Level.  [Scroll down]  Because Obama didn't have the skills or experience needed to perform presidential duties, the establishment, especially the media, had to pretend that he did.  The media's glowing reports on Mr. Obama's performance are eerily similar to those specious employee evaluations my colleagues and I were compelled to prepare.  Long ago, America's workforce experienced the downside of affirmative action policies and turned against them.  Likewise, today's skewed reporting by media, always favorable to Mr. Obama, has lost credence with the general public.

President Obama's Greatest Foreign Policy Failure: Killing bin Laden.  There are three things wrong with the bin Laden raid that suggest Obama is unsuitable as a wartime president:  the planning, the execution and most importantly, the aftermath.  Let's examine those in reverse.

Consequences of Obama weakness.  The murder of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Libya on Wednesday is the direct consequence of President Obama's weakness as a leader. [...] These are not isolated incidents but the predictable result of four years of Mr. Obama meekly trying to "lead from behind."

Libya claims U.S. was warned three days in advance of consulate attacks.  A Libyan security officer has claimed that he warned American diplomats about the possibility of violent unrest three days before the attack on the U.S. consulate which left the ambassador dead along with three others.  The country's president also says that the deadly raid in Benghazi was 'pre-planned' by Al Qaeda and other 'foreigners'.  However, the U.S. has hit back at that suggestion, with a top diplomat insisting the attack was 'a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response' to violence elsewhere.

Speak softly and carry a big 9-iron.  Officials in the Obama administration were warned of a possible or imminent attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, given specific warning 48 hours in advance of the planned attacks on the anniversary of 9/11, according to the UK Independent newspaper, and were warned on Sept. 4 of possible attacks on U.S. interests in the region, according to the Jerusalem Post.  We now know that while President Obama was campaigning in Norfolk, Va., on Sept. 4, and was mugging for the cameras [...]

Obama's Foreign Policy Is A National Disaster.  President Barack Obama was elected largely on the assumption that he could — and would — make the world "like" us again.  The disturbing and disgraceful events that we are witnessing in the Middle East over the last few days have revealed just what an unmitigated disaster this President's foreign policy has been.  Obama began his tenure in office by traveling around Europe apologizing for America's supposed international arrogance, which earned him only contempt, not goodwill.  He went on to begin alienating our longstanding, closest allies.

Dithering Obama too dangerous for U.S..  This past week's deadly violence in the Mideast and North Africa rolled a storm cloud over President Obama's sunny landscape of Arab Spring.  It rained blood on the seeds of weakness that Obama had planted with his "lead from behind" foreign policy of feel-good apologies, bows, empty words, mixed messages and appeasement.

2008: Military Leaders Warned Sen. Obama 'Doesn't Understand Threat of Radical Islam'.  In February 2008, military leaders reacted to Senator Obama's presidential campaign, warning that he did not understand the threat of radical Islam or the larger picture of national security. [...] With smoke rising around US embassies throughout the Middle East, the warnings of these military minds ring prophetic.

Obama's Skipped Intel Meetings Under Scrutiny.  A simple three-page report by the Government Accountability Institute tallying up the number of days President Barack Obama has attended his Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) on intelligence has ignited a firestorm of controversy that places the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three members of his staff in a new and critical light.  The report found that of the first 1,225 days of his time in office, Mr. Obama has attended less than half (43.8 percent) of his daily intelligence briefings.

The Media and Obama are Taking Us Down the Rabbit Hole.  To re-elect Barack Obama, the media has a long list of what they expect us to believe. [...] The media expect us to believe that Barack Obama is a foreign policy expert, and Mitt Romney knows nothing about foreign policy.  How's the Middle East looking?  The media expect us to believe the Arab Spring was a good thing and the Muslim Brotherhood are our friends.  The media expect us to believe Obama cares about national security, even though he golfs more often than he goes to intel briefings.

Sununu: Obama "Most Arrogant, Self-Centered And Incompetent" President In My Life.  Speaking to Talk Radio Host Paul Westcott, [John Sununu] slammed the President for "skipping 60% of his security breifings", called him "the most arrogant, self centered and incompetent President of his lifetime" and praised Mitt Romney for condemning the US embassy's statement apologizing to muslims.

Obama's Intelligence Failure.  Obama is famous — or notorious — for his high opinion of his own capabilities. [...] So, as Mark Theissen points out, it's probably not a surprise that he also doesn't figure he needs intelligence briefings, preferring instead to read the Presidential Daily Brief.

Obama's Daily Intelligence Brief... Who Cares?  [T]he news that President Obama has been absent from so many of his daily intelligence briefings is a stunner.  There's simply no good excuse for it.  It comes on the heels of reports from Bob Woodward that Obama doesn't regularly attend "security briefings."  According to a study by the Government Accountability Institute, based on the publicly available White House calendar, Obama failed to attend a single Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) in the week leading up to 9/11 and the chaos that erupted in the Arab world.  The mere fact that we were approaching 9/11 was itself a crucial reason for attending not one but all of the briefings.  Obama attended none.

FLOTUS: Obesity 'Absolutely' Greatest Threat To National Security.  [Video clip.]

Libya And Egypt: Obama's Jimmy Carter Moment.  As our Mideast policy once again crashes and burns, the president promises a tough response at a Las Vegas fundraiser and the press coordinates attacks on the candidate who says our emperor has no clothes.

Huma Abedin, Elitism and Those Missed Obama Intel Briefings.  "The President is among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet."  So says White House spokesman Tommy Vietor when it was revealed President Obama has been skipping his daily intelligence briefing.

Barack Obama is somebody's puppet.
 Obama Is a Spokesmodel for Tyranny.  Forget calling Obama "incompetent."  This tiresome meme presupposes that Obama wants to do what's right for America but doesn't know how.  Does anyone honestly believe that anymore?  Yes, he's incompetent, in that he's a fairly unimpressive bloke with no skills, imagination, or ability to learn, who couldn't run a third-rate laundromat.  But so what?  His sponsors didn't install him for his competence.  They installed him so that he could strut on the runways of the world, showing off his fashionable skin color and perfectly creased pants, while babbling whatever useful venom they put on his teleprompter.

Obama's Mask Slips.  Obama is merely the pretty face for the über-left monster.  Let's face it:  Obama is merely a figurehead.  A happy face for the anti-American, anti-individual, anti-capitalist revolution.  He's a movie star, nothing more.  He's an impressive façade with nothing behind it, like a Hollywood set.  But the American people should be concerned about his puppet masters:  Reverend Wright, George Soros, Bill Ayers, and a cabal of Islamic supremacist Muslim Brotherhood operatives.  That's who's running the country.

The sun never sets on Obama's failures.  Our adversaries are stronger.  America and her allies are weaker.  And yet, after spending practically a decade blaming every last thing, including the bad weather, on President Bush, the media seem determinedly uninterested in ascribing even the slightest amount of responsibility to President Obama.

Lie Like Your Presidency Depends On It.  The attacks on U.S. diplomatic posts not only exposed our disturbingly weak foreign policy.  They also revealed how effortlessly the Obama administration lies.

When President Obama 'Pretends to Go to Work'...  Which is more disturbing?  1) That Obama "pretends he's going to work" on Saturdays and watches "Homeland"?  2) That Obama finds Manchurian Candidate-style POWs-turned-terrorists to be plausible?

Allen West: Rice Is "Asinine, Naive, Inept, Incompetent And Borderline Ignorant".  Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) on FOX News' Justice with Judge Jeanine Sunday night [9/16/2012]:  ["]Well, it's very simple.  When I listened to the UN ambassador Susan Rice today several words came to mind:  asinine, naive, inept, incompetent and borderline ignorant.  Because when you understand that the Egyptian government, their intelligence services, put out a letter talking about the potential threat of an attack, uprisings, about a week before this.  It was even printed in the Jerusalem Post on 9/11.["]

The Obama Schedule.  According to the Government Accountability Institute, Obama has spent more time golfing than in economic meetings of any kind and Obama has skipped more than half of his intelligence briefings.

The real reason Obama snubbed Netanyahu.  One of the most enduring myths about Barack Obama is that he's been a better foreign policy president than a domestic one.  Given his feeble record at home, that isn't saying much.  And now, after the wholesale collapse of his "soft diplomacy" throughout the Muslim world, that myth has finally been shattered.  Indeed, when it comes to foreign policy, it's amateur hour in the White House.

Question: Are We That Stupid?  [I]n spite of the fact that this administration failed miserably in not securing our embassies and State personnel on 9/11 before Ambassador Stevens and others were brutally assassinated, poll numbers show Obama leading Romney in swing states.  The media and his sycophants are still covering for this foreign policy disaster.  When it was pointed out that Obama hadn't bothered to attend intelligence briefings, National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor told Marc Thiessen of the Washington Post that Obama didn't need to because he was "among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet."  Oh really?

Name a single thing that has improved under his rule.
 Obama's Dangerous and Disastrous Presidency.  The parade of abuses, incompetencies, extravagances, and illegalities goes on and on.  The record of improvements in any sector of American life is... well, nil.  Nothing is better, not a single thing, at home or abroad.  And Obama has offered no recognizable plans, no new proposals, no substance at all, for making things better in a second term.  This presidency is a disaster.

Devastating CBS News Benghazi Report Slams Obama Administration.  Let's count the revelations embedded within this minute-and-a-half long clip:  (1) "The FBI still hasn't made it to the crime scene in Benghazi."  More on this later, but the fact that the administration is treating our sacked consulate as a "crime" scene is telling.  This was a terrorist attack.  An act of war.  We've dispatched criminal investigators to look into it, but they still haven't even made it to ground zero yet?  Nine days after the fact?  Why?

An Ego's Descending Spiral.  If you aren't an instrument pilot, don't fly into bad conditions.  If you see you are flying into bad conditions, turn around.  If you are flying and can't see the horizon, then don't trust your feelings.  The instruments will tell you what's happening if you let them.  Modern aircraft have an instrument called the "artificial horizon," but every airplane has a "turn and bank indicator."  Look at those — and believe them, not what you feel.  When it comes down to it, the root cause of these accidents is lack of humility.  You must be humble enough to admit when something is beyond your skills.

Sununu: 'Lazy and Detached' Obama Set Stage for Ambassador's Murder.  Romney campaign surrogate and former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R) blasted President Obama as too "lazy and detached" to sit through presidential briefings, and charged that Ambassador Chris Stevens paid the ultimate price for that laziness.  "Look, one of the key responsibilities of a president is to keep up with the intelligence data that's coming in and what's going on around the world.  This president has skipped about 60 percent of his personal contact Presidential Daily briefings, the PDB.  That document that he skims on his iPad is a summary," Sununu said last night [9/27/2012] on Fox.

Obama's Intelligence Negligence.  President Barack Obama didn't attend a single daily intelligence briefing in the week leading up to the anniversary of 9/11.  In fact, he has attended a minority of daily briefings (44%) since becoming president, and a little better than a third over the last year.  While skipping intelligence briefings, the president has enthusiastically campaigned and met with TV personalities.  Obama has done so in this dangerous post-9/11 world, and as one who in his re-election speech at the Democratic convention flagrantly mocked his opponent's foreign-policy credentials.

White House Hack Attack.  Hackers linked to China's government broke into one of the U.S. government's most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident.  One official said the cyber breach was one of Beijing's most brazen cyber attacks against the United States and highlights a failure of the Obama administration to press China on its persistent cyber attacks.

Barack Obama and the Mandate Of Heaven.  Barack Obama has already had the great misfortune (though he probably didn't think so at the time) of being proclaimed a superhuman entity, one with powers and abilities beyond those of mortal humans.  Those powers have been seen to fail, and they are now failing on the most primal level.  Everything he touches, whether in North Africa or Charlotte, collapses.

To believe Obama is to forget the last four years.  Imagine you hire a company to fix your roof.  They proceed to do shoddy work, miss every promised deadline and go wildly over budget.  Would you then hire them to add a new room to your house?  No, of course not.  But that is exactly what President Obama is asking the American people to do in his latest television ad.

When You Don't Want to Know About the Real World, Your Spooks Won't Tell You.  [I]f you're a spook, and it becomes obvious that your biggest client does not want to hear about terror, you stop working very hard on it.  And even when you get some important information, you don't send it to your prime clients, because you know they will yell at you and certainly not do anything about it.  So when the White House acts as if the president really couldn't have been expected to understand the details of the assault on the U.S. consulate in Libya, which occurred in tandem with other riots and demonstrations against American facilities all over the region, because the Office of the Director of National Intelligence screwed up the analysis, it's a deception.  Because the director of that office, the hapless General James Clapper, has by now learned that the president and his people don't want to hear the word "terror," and don't want to see any intelligence that suggests a terrorist war against the United States.

The Emperor Has No Clothes, And Yet He Still Dresses Funny.  For the first time in his career, America saw Obama as he is:  Banal, overrated, unprepared, impressively unknowledgeable — wrapped in a veneer of celebrity sophistication.  Obama's performance laid bare to average Americans the bias, corruption and fraudulence of the mainstream media.

How Does a President Quit?  Seventy million people witnessed the first debate.  It was an old-fashioned beat-down — one man figuratively administering a thrashing to the other.  Obama was shown to be under-sized, under-equipped, and under-trained.  Had it been a boxing match, it would have been stopped inside three rounds.

Enough with Affirmative Action Presidents.  I'm not opposed to a black man being elected president, but I am opposed to electing a president simply because he's a black man.  We've had enough of affirmative action hires for the highest office in the land.  It's time to elect a real president.  If we do, there is a chance that we might actually solve some of the problems that we face as a nation, but time is running out.  We don't have four more years to waste on a man who has already proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that he is totally out of his league.

The liberal media loved Obama to death.  Obama had seen that his friends would protect him, and so he believed he could mail it in Wednesday [10/3/2012], but this was the venue that could not be spun.  No filter.  No edits.  No choosing what to put in or leave out.  No shaping of the story.  Just the story itself, rolled out in real time, sans narration, before 70 million American voters, undoing six years of hype and hysterics.  It revealed one small, not all that keen academic, having been inflated by the narrators beyond all recognition, dissolving before everyone's eyes.

The Obamage Is Done.  Apart from campaigning, Obama hasn't really ever done anything.  Yet, his delusion of victory should surprise no one, since he also believes he is a great president doing a sensational job.  The problem with delusion is that even though its fallacious nature is obvious to the rational, it is invisible to the truly deluded.

Obama Is Right.  Hillary has now accepted full responsibility for the Libyan debacle, but which is a more damning reality:  Obama is incompetent, or he's woefully uninformed?  It seems like a wash to me.  On the anniversary of 9/11, our ambassador, lured to Benghazi for assassination, went missing while the consulate was under attack... and Barack went to bed.  The next morning, with our ambassador dead, Barack flew to Vegas — that's not even leading from behind.  Who would have ever thought that "leading from behind" would be setting the bar too high?

Obama Gets Military Tech All Wrong in Debate.  President Barack Obama ended up revealing an astonishing level of ignorance about the state of military technology during the presidential debate in Boca Raton, FL Monday night [10/22/2012].  The U.S. Commander-in-Chief misspoke about bayonets.  He misspoke about horses.  He misspoke about the size of the U.S. Navy.  He misspoke about the makeup of the Navy.  And the whole time, he thought he was teaching his opponent Mitt Romney a lesson.

Former Biden Aide: Obama 'Financially Illiterate'.  Jeff Connaughton, the author of "The Payoff," a book that came out in September which indicts Democrats for being controlled by the big banks, tells anecdotes about Biden that reveal Biden to be less of a good guy than he portrays himself, and calls both Biden and Obama "financially illiterate."

Obama's Little Plan.  There isn't a single true economic-growth incentive in this scant plan.  There's no serious spending, deficit, and debt reduction, and no attempt to solve the Social Security and health-entitlement problems, which are moving us toward bankruptcy.  Nothing.

Obama Flubs: U.S. Has More Bayonets Today Than in 1916.  President Obama erroneously asserted during Monday night's debate that the U.S. military has fewer bayonets than it did in 1916.  In fact, the armed forces likely possess more than three times as many of the weapons as they did before the U.S. entry into World War I.  The error is significant because Obama sought during the debate to portray himself as having an edge on Gov. Mitt Romney because of his experience leading the military, referring to himself three times as "commander in chief."

Obama's dangerous emasculating of our military.  For veterans and those interested in the security of America, the question is:  Would I want this man with me in combat?  Could he be trusted to lead a military squad let alone be commander in chief?  Can you picture Obama in a duck blind — or even holding a gun?  Has he ever held a gun?

A Vote For Obama-Biden Is A Vote For National Collapse.  [Scroll down]  Back in Benghazi, the president who looks so cool in a bomber jacket declined to answer his beleaguered diplomats' calls for help — even though he had aircraft and special forces in the region.  Too bad.  He's all jacket and no bombers.

NV newspaper: Obama a "narcissistic amateur," "embarrassment," "incompetent".  And those are the kinder thoughts that the editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal had for Barack Obama in their lead editorial yesterday.  Those conclusions refer to Obama's overall performance on the economy and foreign policy.  When they get down to specifics on Benghazi, the anger pulses through every sentence.

Las Vegas Review-Journal lets Obama have it.  This is the most incendiary indictment of a politcian I've ever read in the mainstream media.

Obama's Loss: Inevitable for Years.  Everything Obama and his cohorts in the media, academia, union halls, Congress, and the crony capitalist world believe in is fraudulent.  There was never going to be any economic recovery on their watch because they haven't the foggiest how an economy works.  There was never going to be any newfound love of America overseas because they have no clue what it is about America that has made us the shining city on a hill in the first place.  There was never going to be any job-creation because no one in Obama's bubble has ever created one.  There was never going to be any racial reconciliation because Obama was a post-racial fabrication of perverted white guilt and black rage.  There was never going to be a pristine future powered by windmills and solar panels because neither the business nor the scientific model for such technologies shows any possibility of success.  There was no way Obama would do a good job, because he's never had a real job.

Obama's 4 Years Of Deficient Leadership: 47 Mistakes.  Obama is unique among presidents in large part because he fails to even recognize his deficiencies and mistakes — or when he does, he learns the wrong lessons and doubles down on his policies.  Whether it's food stamp rolls that have swollen to 47 million, or the decline in household income that has left millions more with a lower standard of living, or the diminution of esteem for America around the world, Obama's time in office has been subpar.

Who Is Barack Hussein Obama? And What Is He Really Up To?  How could Americans have voted for someone with no practical qualifications or experience for the job?  After four years of trying to deal with the mysterious stranger in the White House, Americans are wondering why they voted for Obama.  Voter remorse has never been higher, and more than half of our electorate continues to be troubled by serious questions that refuse to go away. [...] Why do Obama's words seldom match his actions?  Why do we find, time after time, that Obama has lied to us, and that the American people face catastrophic long-term consequences as a result?

A post-election warning to liberals and conservatives alike.  To those liberals suffering in New York and New Jersey who voted for President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg, enjoy the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort.  We get the government we deserve and what we have now are angry citizens whose cries for help are not being returned, regardless of what a pre-election President promised.

Democrats Better Start Soul Searching.  It is in the nature of personality cults to fail at most things beyond generating and disseminating propaganda.  This inability is the result of two things.  First, the personality's popularity is not results-driven.  Since adoration hasn't been earned by achievement but by the advent of charisma, why kill yourself trying to get results.  Second, few people are willing to candidly critique the personality at the center of the cult, so there is little chance of course correction.  None of this bodes well for Barack Obama.

Obama: The Affirmative Action President.  [How] did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job? [...] In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job.

Yes, Obama is still an amateur president.  Obama has a political sense, but he lacks an executive sense.  He is a happy warrior on the campaign trail, doing and saying whatever it takes to get elected, including lying shamelessly about his opponent.  But when he leaves the hustings for the Oval Office, he becomes a different person, one who derives no joy from the cut and thrust of day-to-day politics and is inept in the arts of management and governance.

Off the Cliff.  Obama, as far as I can tell, has never once in his life taken responsibility for a problem, let alone solved one.  So he doesn't care about our impending financial collapse, except insofar as he can demagogue it for political advantage.

Obama's Asia trip: No bows this time, but he did grab an awkward kiss.  For someone alleged to have grown up in Asia, Barack Obama is repeatedly clueless about customs there.  It's one thing if you're a tourist.  But as the president of the United States?

Obama proposes tax credits for businesses who hire workers they don't need.  Typical Obama, and indicative of a guy with zero experience in the real world who has no idea how or why businesses expand payroll.

Susan Rice Is Unqualified To Be Secretary Of State.  "Her meeting with GOP senators begs the question that if all she can do is read talking points handed to her by the White House then perhaps she should be the next White House press secretary."

Campaigning is the only thing Obama knows how to do.
 Obama's Perpetual Campaign.  Campaigning is comfortable territory for politicians and it is an especially cozy place for President Obama to occupy — he is an extraordinary campaigner and has spent the majority of his political career on the trail seeking one or the other public office.  But is this an effective tool for governing?  One need only look at Obama's accomplishments in his first term to determine that it is not.

Obama to America: Here's a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares.  Obama does not believe and does not say that hiking taxes on the rich will fix anything.  Other Democrats claim that raising taxes back to the Clinton-era rates will help, but Obama himself is campaigning to keep the Bush-era tax cuts in place.  Obama has no experience solving any problem of any scale, ever.  He was a shakedown artist who decided that politics would allow him to perpetrate his shakedowns on a grander scale (and he was right!).

Anna Wintour is a ludicrous pick for US Ambassador to London.  Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, is reportedly in the running to become the next US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, to succeed the outgoing Louis Susman.  According to Bloomberg, Wintour was among "Obama's biggest bundlers of donations in the campaign", raising over $500,000 to re-elect the president.  As Bloomberg notes, the Obama administration (like many previous US administrations) has a penchant for rewarding top donors with plum diplomatic posts.

Obama's Ruinous Course.  The main reason there isn't, and may never be, a solution on the fiscal cliff is that Barack Obama doesn't know how to do a political compromise.  Where in his career did Barack Obama ever learn the art of the political deal?  Nowhere. [...] What deal of Clintonesque majesty has Barack Obama ever pulled off?

The US president looks arrogant as well as clueless.  Barack Obama's extraordinarily arrogant and clueless direct intervention in the internal affairs of Great Britain echoes the remarks of his Ambassador to London, Louis Susman, who told a private meeting of British MPs back in January 2011 that "the UK needs to remain in the EU," and "all key issues must run through Europe."

Benghazi Report Disqualifies Hillary For White House.  A less-than-adequate independent review cites "grossly" inadequate leadership, "systemic failures" and "management deficiencies" that mean our secretary of state isn't ready for that 3 a.m. call either.

Obama's Middle East Mess.  He has seriously damaged U.S. credibility and influence.

King Obama the Irrelevant.  It is almost impossible to imagine Obama doing anything else except making speeches.  The iconic image of the White House Situation Room during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound says it all:  the President is in the corner, not at the head of the table.  It was not a gesture of humility, but rather the preferred posture of a man who relies on those to whom he delegates responsibility, and cannot succeed at anything except getting elected.

'He made a promise to help us and he broke it'.  Obama visited the destroyed marina Ms [Donna] Vanzant owns in Brigantine, New Jersey on October 31 and promised her 'immediate' aid.  Soon after, Ms Vanzant wrote him an email.  'Many days later, I got a response back,' she told the Philadelphia Magazine.  'It was disturbing.  'It had nothing to do with what I was asking him.  It was a form letter.  It thanked me for supporting the troops. [...]'

Is President Obama lazy?  Times are serious, and Obama may not be.  The question of whether Obama is lazy evokes everything from discomfort to rage.  Yet asking and answering questions provokes "national conversations" that President Obama cherishes. [...] Barry Sotero was ordinary.  In college, he represented nothing unique.  He was typical, mainstream and generic.  His hobbies included alcohol, drugs, surfing, and "chilling."  He was a "stoner" and a "slacker."

As he was saying...  "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.  It is a sign that the U.S. government cannot pay its own bills.[" ...] What an incriminating and indicting statement uttered by the president, who has rung up more debt than the first 43 put together.  By his own words he is a colossal failure as a leader as he continues to have trillion-dollar deficits with no sign of addressing the issue in a realistic way.

Despair Inside the Beltway.  [Obama] is a master politician of the Chicago school and yet a disaster as a manager and practical leader.  His political skills helped him get selected as the editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.  Yet he proved a failure as the leader of that publication.  There is no evidence that he authored one written comment or publication during his entire tenure.  His political skills also led to his election in 1996 to the Illinois State Senate where his work there was without any sign of major distinction.  Often, he voted "present" rather than show the guts to fight for significant new laws.

Ivory-tower Obama can't abide views he doesn't share.  Obama supporters like to portray Republican attempts to negotiate as hostage-taking or extortion.  But those are violent crimes.  Negotiations — discussions attempting to reach agreement among those who differ — are peaceful acts.  What we do know, from Bob Woodward's "The Price of Politics," is that Obama is not very good at negotiating.  He apparently can't stomach listening to views he does not share.  Perhaps that is to be expected of one who has chosen all his adult life to live in university communities and who made his way upward in the one-party politics of Chicago.

This material came from akdart.com - Copyright 2013
Obama's Greatest Legacy Might Be Destroying the Media.  On Thursday [1/17/2013], while looking wistfully back at Obama's first four years, NBC News accidentally did some actual reporting. [...] But there it finally was:  The Truth — and from NBC News, no less.  Poverty's up (from 43.6 million to 46.2 million), middle class incomes are down ($50k compared to $52k), the deficit's exploded (from $10 trillion to $16 trillion), food stamp recipients have skyrocketed (33.5 million to 46.6 million), unemployment hasn't budged, and the same number of people are without health insurance today as there were in 2009.

Obama's Perfect Second Inauguration.  The real oath of office was administered yesterday, as per the Constitution of course, so the polite term for today's TV event is "ceremonial," a pleasant euphemism for "let's pretend."  Today's fake taking of the oath of office by President Obama is the perfect metaphor for the Potemkin nature of his political movement.  His impressive resume in 2008 was comprised of positions in which nobody could remember any particular work or accomplishments of anything useful.

Mount Rushmore on hold.  General Motors is (barely) alive but not getting better.  Osama bin Laden is dead, but al Qaeda isn't.  His triumphs thus far don't seem that triumphant.

Obama Doctrine Leading America Toward Another 9/11.  According to national security expert Dr. James Carafano, the terrorist attack in Algeria shows that America is on the path to another 9/11, thanks to the Obama Administration's foreign and military policy.  Carafano is Vice President of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.  He told me, "The warning lights are blinking red," even while President Barack Obama pretends that things are under control.

Hagel's Disastrous Hearing Ought to Make 'No' Vote a No-Brainer.  Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has vindicated his critics thus far today in his confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Service Committee for the post of Secretary of Defense.  He has stumbled in attempting to explain his positions on Iran, nuclear disarmament, Israel, the Iraq "surge," and the "Jewish lobby."  He has failed to explain contradictions between his voting record and his past statements on the one hand, and the positions he professes today on the other.

Barack Obama: The Affirmative Action President.  Upon taking office, something happened that is an insult to everybody who believes in affirmative action but also values merit.  The standards were lowered for Obama regarding actual job performance.  It's impossible to deny that his defenders make excuses for him.  The worse things get, the more he is propped up.  He is too liberal to fail and, for those people who focus on race, too black to fail.  Thus criticism of Obama is de facto racism, regardless of any objective merits to the criticsm.

The Real Barack Obama.  The country may be catching on:  Barack Obama is our first knee-jerk liberal president.  And now that he will never face the voters again, he doesn't mind showing it.

Obama punted to Panetta for U.S. response to Benghazi attack.  Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on Thursday [2/7/2013] revealed he personally broke the news to President Obama that the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, was under attack last year — but he and the president didn't speak the rest of the night as the assault on the compound unfolded.

Big Job: Wrong Man.  [Chuck Hagel] did so badly in the confirmation hearings that, as Stephen Hayes writes, "any senator who takes the advise-and-consent role seriously had to have real concerns about [Hagel's] basic competence."  Still, presidents are entitled to appoint the people they want, you think, even when they are, manifestly, not the best possible choice or even up to the job.

Benghazi Bungle: Obama's Pass-the-Buck Presidency.  From Hillary Clinton's artful dodging to Leon Panetta's clueless hindsight, the Obama administration's bungling on Benghazi proves they can't keep us safe.

The Democratic Disgrace.  Every job has a minimum requirement.  The absolute very least that anyone can do without being considered a complete and utter failure.  The minimum requirement for a Commander-in-Chief is to stick around when an American diplomatic mission is under fire.  Obama flunked even this minimal requirement by going to sleep and then flying off for a fundraiser in Vegas.

Obama's Economic Growth Record Is The Worst In 60 Years.  President Obama's defense of his economic stewardship has effectively amounted to this:  At least we no longer have the Bush-era economy.  With an entire 4-year term in the books, it's now possible to confirm, and to lament, the essential truth of those words.  Prior to Obama, the second term of President Bush featured the weakest gains in the gross domestic product in some time, with average annual real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth of just 1.9%.  That's according to figures from the federal government's own Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

Obama's Nominees Exhibit Extremism And Incompetence.  Imagine a defense secretary decimating the Pentagon, a CIA chief favoring killing U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and a treasury secretary ignorant of where his own money resides?  Say hi to President Obama's new team.

President Obama has set in motion forces that he can't handle.  Barack Obama is a terrible president.  That's obvious to everyone who isn't chronically ignorant or incurably liberal.  By "liberal" I don't mean the classic definition of the word which has to do with being open-minded and objective.  I mean the modern version of liberal:  self-centered, emotional, illogical, and void of reason.  Unfortunately, in 2012 ignoramuses and liberals represented the majority of those who voted.

Forrest Gump at Treasury.  Senate Democrats are in a hurry to confirm Jack Lew as Secretary of the Treasury before anyone notices his biography.  Otherwise, liberal lawmakers might be embarrassed voting for a man who represents everything they've been campaigning against.  Investor in Cayman Islands tax haven?  Check.  Recipient of a bonus and corporate jet rides underwritten by taxpayers at a bailed-out bank?  Check.  Executive at a university that accepted student-loan "kickbacks" for steering kids toward a favored bank?  Check.  Excessive compensation with minimal disclosure?  Check.

Caligula's Horse.  Chuck Hagel easily proved himself unfit to be secretary of defense during his nomination hearing.  Not only was he ignorant of fundamental aspects of the job, but his positions on some of the critical defense issues of the day are preposterous if not dangerous.  No one disputes that his performance at the hearing was the worst and most embarrassing of any nominee for any prominent position in memory.  Yet by all reports he will be our next secretary of defense.  Why?

The Tyrant in Your Television.  When conservatives point to the obvious contradiction between Barack Obama's words and actions on spending, taxes, healthcare, the free market, Benghazi, and almost everything else, they merely reveal their naïvité.  Obama, like [Bill] Clinton, is not a president, or even a human, in the old sense of those terms.  He is a TV-president and a TV-human; his words need not match any reality beyond the media apparatus in which he "exists."  He is to be judged according to whether his TV-presidency is interesting and entertaining.  When the greater public gets bored of the show, they will switch channels and watch a different show.

You Can't Community-Organize Your Way Out of a Sequester.  How did Obama try to pass his stimulus?  Campaign-style events.  How did Obama try to pass Obamacare?  Campaign-style events.  How is Obama pushing for amnesty legislation?  Campaign-style events.  How is Obama pushing for gun control?  Campaign-style events.  Fiscal cliff?  Campaign-style events.  This is all separate from his actual presidential campaign.  But mind you, his campaign-style rallies didn't move the poll numbers on Obamacare, and Democrats to this day never use the word "stimulus" when discussing new spending.

Low Information Voters? How about a Low Information President?  [Obama] declares that he has cut over a trillion dollars, somewhere.  He has been told this and it seems he believes it.  He will not engage a critic and nor defend his positions in detail.  He can not apparently even engage a questioning reporter nor engage his congressional opposition.  In my opinion, he couldn't last 5 minutes in a fact-driven analysis of that which he promotes.  The President doesn't meet with the political opposition to initiate compromise because he simply couldn't keep up his end of the argument.

The Obamaian Universe.  The sense is growing around Washington, and this increasingly includes Democrats, of living in an alternative universe.  Barack Obama gives his State of the Union speech, the sequester looms, and the president flies around the country giving speeches.  He's had virtually no contact on the sequester with the legislative branch.  Now he's going to meet with them after the sequester happens.

The 3 Stooges are running the country.  Obama is currently in his fifth year of campaigning and speechmaking, which is considerably easier than being president.  All it takes is a good writer, a teleprompter, a few lies and the ability to cry "wolf" every month or so.  The sequester was Obama's idea.  Some would have us believe it is not important whose plan it was, but that is simply untrue.  Sequester was supposed to be an opportunity for the president to play Chicken Little as he so often does by announcing that the sky is falling when it isn't.

What Secretary of State Kerry Doesn't Know About Democracy or Islam... Would Fill a Book.  In contrast to a proper approach, Kerry makes the American system sound like letting the deranged walk the streets as homeless people, babbling incoherently but doing little harm.  Sure, let them cling to their guns and religion while we smart people make all the decisions.  He's merely turning around a traditional left-wing critique of democracy that comes from Herbert Marcuse or Noam Chomsky, of "repressive tolerance."  And that seems to be what Kerry and Obama really believe.

The Mutt and Jeff of the Obama administration.  Is the United States about to become a laughing-stock to the rest of the world?  It seems to have accrued a Defence Secretary who is the toast of Iran, and a Secretary of State who is a blithering idiot.  It was hard to imagine that the new guy at State, John Kerry, could make himself look even more stupid than he has done by his science-denying belief that the planet is about to fry through man-made climate change.  Well, he has indeed now exceeded such expectations.

President Obama's actions show he isn't serious about governing.  After four years in office, is Obama completely unaware that the presidency involves responsibilities and hard choices?

A President Who Wants Power but No Responsibility.  [Rush] Limbaugh has hypothesized that many Americans, perhaps the "low-information voters," are not connecting Obama's policies to what is actually happening in the country, because the president never actually governs.  Obama's is a non-governing presidency, one that is built on an eternal campaign, a never-ending community organization effort. [...] The reality is that we have a president who wants power but no responsibility.  The reality is that we have a president, an eternal "campaigner," who hasn't a clue about governing.

Personal Income Drop Is Bottom-Up Economics Failure.  The economy racked up another dubious achievement in January, when personal income suffered the biggest drop in 20 years and disposable income suffered its biggest decline in more than 50.  Is this what "bottom-up" prosperity looks like?

Robin From the Hood.  Obama's skill set is that of the community organizer.  Confronted with the issues facing the nation, from whatever realm, from economic to educational and even military (the military needs more gays and women), Obama will always construe those problems as at root social justice problems.

Obama is AWOL on the Budget, Again.  Civil War officers used to say that you can't lead from the rear.  Thousands of them gave their lives, leading their men the only way they knew how.  No one asks Barack Obama to give up more than an occasional game of golf, but he still can't bring himself to lead.  In one of his administration's many low moments, a White House aide explained Obama's style as "leading from behind," as though he were proud of it.

The Chicago Roots of President Obama's Leadership Style.  President Obama did not become president with the intention of ruling as an autocrat.  It is more accurate to say that autocracy is the only style of political leadership he knows.

Respect the office, not necessarily the man.  Barack Hussein Obama does not deserve the respect due the office of the President.  He is an empty suit man who can't speak without a tele-prompter.  His Presidency is marked by constant drama, distortions, and exaggerations, which is just now waking up the mainstream media and the low information voters.  He has embarked on his promised transformation from capitalism to socialism on the path to communism, just as he was taught by his leftist mentors.  He has made the economy worse; people's jobs and wealth have been destroyed; and our nation's global reputation has been destroyed.

Obama Submits NCAA Bracket, but Not Federal Budget.  As he left for the Middle East, President Barack Obama completed his 2013 NCAA tournament brackets for both men's and women's basketball.  He has not, however, submitted a budget to Congress, and will do so only on April 8, two months after the deadline and on the day of the NCAA men's basketball championship itself.

Barack Obama's Excellent Israeli Adventure.  In Israel, the trouble started when someone filled the engine of the president's $1.5-million armored limo with gasoline instead of diesel fuel.  Then the vehicle biblically dubbed "The Beast" had to be towed like a busted parade float through the streets of Tel Aviv on a flatbed truck.  It's unlikely that Obama recognized the parallel, but filling up a diesel-powered car with gasoline is a perfect analogy for what he has done to America.

Reagan SDI Anniversary Exposes Obama's Weaknesses.  [W]ith the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, no president has ever misjudged the effects of his naive foreign policy more disastrously than Obama.  In his first year as president, Obama went to Cairo University and told Muslim Brotherhood members and others of the "new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world" he sought.  He apologized for the U.S. "role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government" in 1953 — an act that saved Iranians from Soviet domination.

The culture war is all Obama has left.  The U.S. economy is still suffering through the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression.  Unemployment is stubbornly high, especially for Americans age 25 to 54, who make up the core of the nation's workforce.  And the American public does not approve of Obama's bumbling and ineffectual attempts to handle the economy.

Obama Leads From Behind On The Budget.  By law, the president is obligated to produce a budget plan on the first Monday of February, establishing his priorities for federal spending and taxes for the next year and the decade ahead.  It's the first step that gets this all-important annual process under way, one that's more critical than ever as the U.S. careens toward a massive debt crisis.  But Obama apparently can't be bothered with this mundane responsibility.  He's now 50 days late with this budget, and is giving no indication of when, or even if, he'll bother to offer one up.

The Lost Era of Economic Growth.  President Obama highlighted the need for strong economic growth in his State of the Union address in February, citing it 11 times.  He mentioned it 5 times in a speech in Illinois in mid-March. [...] Obama hasn't a clue about actually generating economic growth — his policies thwart it — but he's awfully good at messaging.

Obama is a joke, and the joke isn't funny.  Barack Obama allowed four Americans to be murdered in Benghazi, Libya.  His administration is still covering up the truth.  Seven Benghazi survivors are being kept from the public, while an innocent film-maker sits in jail.  Obama is his administration; their mistakes are his.  Nobody has been held accountable.  While Ambassador Stevens and a pair of Navy SEALs were being murdered by Islamists, Obama was going to bed early and partying in Las Vegas the next day.  Barack Obama allowed an American border guard to be murdered due to a "Fast and Furious" gunrunning operation that was created and botched by his administration. His Attorney General Eric Holder was asked who authorized the operation and still refuses to answer the question.

Obama to announce $100 million for brain research.  President Barack Obama on Tuesday [4/2/2013] unveiled a $100 million initiative to unlock the "enormous mystery" of the human brain in hopes of boosting the understanding and treatment of brain disorders.

The Editor says...
 Scientists are already studying the human brain, and have been for at least a century.  Basic scientific research is not the proper role of government.  Spending $100 million on such a thing, at a time when the national debt is already increasing rapidly, is irresponsible.  President Obama is spending money on problems nobody has asked him to address, simply because spending other people's money is the only thing he knows how to do.

Oh-oh! The dreaded i-word starts attaching itself to Obama.  Joe Klein, the celebrated author "Anonymous," who wrote the best selling, truth-telling book Primary Colors about the 1992 primary campaign that brought us President Bill Clinton, has made it ok for liberals to apply the word "incompetence" to the Obama administration.  This represents something of a breakthrough.  Until now, it has been taboo to suggest that the first black president could be anything other than fully qualified and capable of his job.  Obama has met his image Waterloo with Obamacare.

The Tailor Who Sewed the Obama Empty Suit Has Sewn Others.  Barack Hussein Obama is an empty suit, but he grew up idolizing the other empty suits which the left has placed in the White House.  In fairness, the RINO presidents from Nixon and Ford to Bush and Bush have been little better than empty suits.  Why, in 2004, after he had been out of office for 15 years and out of public sight almost as long, did millions of Americans wait long hours for a last chance to pass by the body of Ronald Reagan for a few brief moments?  Because these Americans knew what the media flacks who fawn over Obama today do not know:  empty suits cannot lead.

Congressman: 'Five Jihadists Have Reached Their Targets in the United States Under Barack Obama'.  Congressman Tom Cotton took to the House floor "to express grave doubts about the Obama Administration's counterterrorism policies and programs".  [Video clip]

The Price of Obama's Islamophilia.  It is almost as if the Obama administration considers security vigilance itself a species of Islamophobia.  The casual security on the anniversary of 9/11 at the Benghazi consulate — when others had shut their consulates down — seems to fit with that mindset.  An administration that prides itself on better relations with Muslims tends to hesitate before taking any action that would imply the opposite.  ACLU-style Muslim groups have exploited the Obama administration's Islamophilia to the hilt, demanding and frequently getting changes to security programs out of sensitivity to Islam.  According to the mom of the Boston bombers, her oldest son even tried to convert visiting FBI officials to his jihadist Islam, which completes the picture of politically correct haplessness under Obama.

Recurring tragedy from a broken immigration system.  After Sept. 11, there was comprehensive reform of our intelligence-gathering system, but our current system still did not adequately detect these latest extremists.  We know they immigrated to the United States as children, but their background, combined with suspicious activities, did catch the attention of a foreign government two years ago.  According to media reports, the FBI had interviewed the deceased Boston attack suspect at the request of that foreign government.  As far as we know, there was no follow-up to the interview.

This is why Obama won't intervene in Syria.  Obviously, western governments are not announcing this turn of events because it represents the most spectacular policy failure since the Iranian revolution.

Misplaced Priorities.  President Barack Obama has spent more time on vacations and golf outings during his presidency than he has spent in meetings on the economy, according to a report released Sunday [4/28/2013].  The Government Accountability Institute (GAI) combed official records to produce a report on how the president has allocated his time.  It found Obama has spent only six hours in meetings on the economy so far this year.

Barack Obama doesn't look like a serious, well-informed president.  In 2013, President Obama has spent 6 total hours in economic meetings of any kind [...] Throughout his time in office, President Obama has played 115 total rounds of golf and spent 86 days on vacation, for an estimated combined total of 976 hours.

Obama on Obamacare: This is as Good as it Gets.  President Obama had some gnarly news for the Democratic campaign committees:  This is as good as it gets for his signature health law.  In a press conference on the 100th day of his second term, Obama found himself on the defensive and short on answers.  Syria genocide?  We're looking into it.  Benhgazi whistleblowers?  Never heard of them.  Intelligence gaps on the Boston Marathon bombing?  "This is hard stuff."

30 Reasons To Dislike Barack Obama.  [#15]  He's the single least competent man ever to sit in the White House; yet he's arrogant to the point of narcissism.  He's like a third string high school basketball player who thinks he should be playing in the NBA all-star game.

Obama, Syria, and the Errors of an Amateur.  Barack Obama is once again learning the hard way that governing is harder than campaigning.  And America is once again learning that Mr. Obama is much better at campaigning than he is at governing.  The most recent example is Syria.

Tsarnaev Was Too Dangerous For Mecca, But Not Boston.  Tamerlan Tsarnaev was apparently too dangerous to be allowed to go to Mecca, but not Boston.  Saudi Arabia unofficially says that if Janet Napolitano read her mail, the Boston bombing might have been prevented.

Out of His Hands.  Obama's call for an increase in the minimum wage is going nowhere.  Nor is his call for further measures to reduce carbon emissions.  Education, energy, and transportation initiatives have faded away.  The president was forced to explain at this week's press conference that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act is not, despite what members of his own party are saying, a "train wreck."  His approval rating is below 50 percent.  Six Democratic senators are retiring (so far).

Tell me if you've heard this one before: Obama to focus on jobs.  Obama's like the kid who constantly breaks windows playing ball too close to the house, does a crummy job mowing the grass, won't clean his room, whines about wanting cookies before dinner, and then demands a raise in his allowance every few months.  Heck, the USA Today writer can't even find it in himself to write a full size article, just a few paragraphs, having seen this again and again [...]

How Did America Become A Paper Tiger?  One of our ambassadors and three others State employees are brutally murdered and the White House stonewalls all inquiries and calls reasonable questions about the incident political posturing by Republicans.  We suffer a devastating homeland attack in Boston, the first since 9/11/2001 and later learn how preventable it was if we had a Homeland Security Agency and an FBI that actually did their jobs.  How did this great nation get to such a level of governmental incompetence and spinelessness?

The Texas Economic Lesson Obama Refuses To Learn.  President Obama went to Texas on Thursday [5/9/2013] to kick off a nationwide tour pushing his economic policies, apparently unaware that Texas has thrived the past four years by doing pretty much the opposite of what Obama has prescribed.

As Obama Dithers In The Mideast, His Choices For Action Have Dwindled.  You know you're in trouble when you can't even get your walk-back story straight.  Stung by the worldwide derision that met President Obama's fudging and fumbling of his chemical-weapons red line in Syria, the White House leaked to The New York Times that Obama's initial statement had been unprepared, unscripted and therefore unserious.  The next day Jay Carney said precisely the opposite:  "Red line" was intended and deliberate.  Which is it?

Does Obama Need [a] Staff Shakeup to Manage Scandals?  President Obama and his insular team are violating almost every principle of crisis management.  Shoot straight.  Ditch the spin.  Don't feed the fire.  Restore trust.  While the West Wing is run by smart and dedicated public servants, their crisis communications instincts are horrible.  They dissemble.  They make things worse.  They undermine the administration's credibility.

Is Anyone Home in the White House?  One striking feature of the multiple scandals in which the Obama administration is now enmeshed is how little responsibility President Obama takes for any of them.  None, actually.  Not only that, he professes to be entirely in the dark, to know only what he reads in the newspapers, and to have no control over his own cabinet officers and their departments.

The Editor says...
 There are only two possible explanations:  Either Mr. Obama is incompetent, or he is a liar.  Or both.

Eric Holder's abdication.  As the nation's top law enforcement official, Eric Holder is privy to all kinds of sensitive information.  But he seems to be proud of how little he knows.

The Obama media blackout.  The latest invocations of the Incompetence Defense from President Obama, Eric Holder, and now the departing Acting IRS Commissioner (hilariously described by the Associated Press as "ousted," even though he's leaving exactly when he was originally scheduled to depart, in June) hold that all of these super-genius leaders found out about various outrages by watching the news, along with the rest of us.  They have no idea what their subordinates do every day, until it blows up into a huge scandal on the evening news, and that's why they should be left in charge of everything.

The Worst President Ever.  The very first example of the changes that would mark his administration was the announcement of Obama's "czars", a shadowy group of advisors whose power to set and influence government policy without any congressional oversight appears to have transcended that of his cabinet members, many of whom would contribute to lengthening the recession he "inherited" as the result of the 2008 financial crisis while increasing the national debt and deficit to heights never before seen in the history of the nation.

Obama's Defenders: He's Not Corrupt, Just Dishonest and Incompetent.  As Pete [Wehner] noted this morning, Obama's former chief strategist David Axelrod defended his former boss by saying that the government has become so vast and unwieldy that Obama couldn't possibly know what his own government was doing or why it was doing it. [...] And Jeffrey Rosen utilizes this explanation for the Obama administration's seizure of the Associated Press phone records.  Obama isn't Nixon, Rosen argues, nor George W. Bush.  According to Rosen he's more like the maniacally antidemocratic Woodrow Wilson (again, this is a defense of Obama).

Accepting Responsibility Would Blow Obama's Circuits.  Cleaning up Washington's various corruptions and insular, out-of-touch ways would make a powerful platform if he was preparing to run for president one day.  The problem for Obama is that he is president and has been for four years and four months.  In our modern-day system of government, he is first among equals when it comes to having responsibility for "Washington's priorities."  And he certainly has responsibility for an agency which is part of the executive branch, which he after all oversees.

The 7 Worst Presidents Of The Last Hundred Years.  Guess who's number one.



Obama's reverse-Midas touch

Not only has Mr. Obama never run a business, he doesn't even recognize an unprofitable business when he sees one.  Several companies featured in Obama photo opportunities have gone out of business shortly thereafter.  It's the Obama kiss of death.

Ray's Hell Burger shutters locations after Obama's Kiss of Death.  Ray's Hell-Burger is closing its doors in Washington DC.  The burger joint rose to prominence after Obama visited the business twice.  Now they're closed.

Ohio Restaurant Closes One Week After Obama Mentions it in Speech.  An Ohio restaurant mentioned last week by President Barack Obama as an indirect beneficiary of the government's Chrysler bailout will go out of business Sunday after a more than 70-year history.

The Obama Effect: Businesses visited by obama feel the "reverse midas" touch.  Now, we all have heard about the Gore Effect.  The Goreacle, flitting around the world, hawking his GW snake oil, bringing cold, snow, blizzards with him.  In obama's case, businesses he visited to either tout his plans for his Failed Stimulus, or his "green" energy ideas, or any other business he used to tout one of his truly bad ideas have been shuttered, closed down, cut jobs, etc.

The Editor says...
 Other examples include Cardinal Fastener and Caterpillar.

Popular D.C. Burger Joint Forced to Shut Down.  One of the D.C. area's iconic burger joints is no more.  Ray's Hell-Burger, where the likes of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and the Russian president have gone for a juicy burger, has been shut down after failing to pay its rent.

Another Business Visited by Obama Closes.  In August, Obama visited Star Brewery in Dubuque. And now a local publication reports that the business is closing its doors.

'This is big government': 500 furloughed at GE plant subsidized and lionized by White House.  In 2010, Appliance Park won a $2.5 [sic] stimulus grant.  In 2011, a Commerce Department official toured Appliance Park touting Obama's push to increase U.S. manufacturing.  Then in 2012, GE CEO and Obama Jobs Czar Jeff Immelt announced he was moving fridge-making jobs from Mexico to Appliance Park. [...] Today [2/19/2013], GE announced it was furloughing 500 refrigerator-manufacturing jobs at Appliance Park.

'He made a promise to help us and he broke it'.  Obama visited the destroyed marina Ms [Donna] Vanzant owns in Brigantine, New Jersey on October 31 and promised her 'immediate' aid.  Soon after, Ms Vanzant wrote him an email.  'Many days later, I got a response back,' she told the Philadelphia Magazine.  'It was disturbing.  'It had nothing to do with what I was asking him.  It was a form letter.  It thanked me for supporting the troops. [...]'

Restaurant Dined at By Obama Closed Due to Health Concerns.  A restaurant where President Obama took winners of his 2012 campaign's "Dinner with Barack" contest was forced to close this week because it was cited for failing to comply with Washington, D.C.'s health and sanitation regulations.


Disillusionment sets in
The wheels are already coming off.

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Updated May 21, 2013.

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