President Obama’s recent address to the nation about the Gulf oil spill has been widely criticized by pundits whom normally flack for him.

The Daily Beast’s Tina Brown said it best:

Obama ’s speech was a strong energy bill pitch, necessary and resounding—a good use of the Rahm Emanuel theory that you should never let a crisis go to waste.

But he didn’t do what was needed: convey the sense that the CEO is back from offsite and now deeply, viscerally engaged in the messy process of management. The speech showcased what he has always shown us he is good at—articulating the overarching goal, and ramping up the rhetoric to meet it. But he cited too many names that have already lost our vote. Salazar, you’re doing a helluva job! Obama’s supposedly stellar Secretary of the Interior strikes the rest of us as doing a good impersonation of being all hat and no cattle—the guy who called himself the “sheriff” but put few of the miscreants at MMS under arrest. And Energy Secretary Steven Chu, leading what Obama called “a team of nation’s best scientists and engineers” in combating the spill, even as he ups the estimate of how much is gushing out from the ocean floor: the fishermen of the Gulf probably have views of where he can put his Nobel.

Brown understood the problem on focus: We needed to know about what we were doing about today’s problem and not his legislative agenda. She also pointed what one of Obama’s core problems are and will continue to be:

His reinforcement of a six-month moratorium on deep-sea drilling for safety checks reprised my conviction, that Obama, for all his brilliance, has no real, felt understanding of management structures or of business. Surely it was weirdly trusting of him, when he knew the MMS was corrupt, to start the offshore drilling initiative without those safety guarantees already empirically nailed down. And surely his crack team of sheriffs and admirals and Nobel laureates could now pull some all-nighters and retool the safety measures in a matter of weeks, not months. Senator Mary Landrieu came on Larry King afterwards to point out in her creamy decorous way that the Louisiana oil industry would essentially be dead and buried if it waited that long. But back in the Oval Office, Obama’s conceptual gaze had been turned only on the big picture, the overarching mission, which is the place where he shines.

An academic and intellectual he may be, but a leader he is not. The former is good at expressing themselves, the later in accomplishing goals. Presidents need both and those who don’t need to recognize that he needs help in the area.

The Obama inner circle is filled with hacks and believers. No naysayers among the bunch. Thus the message remains similar in voice, content and focus. His speech writer, Jon Favreau, just turned 29 and has done nothing but work in campaigns during his relatively short professional life. The stump speeches he wrote during the campaign were masterful, but it’s no longer the campaign. And he’ not responsible for content and focus. He just does voice.

There’s been no real demonstrable change in the Obama voice. The extremely talented Favreau’s not been given any new material to work with . He’s Jay Leno’s writer with no current events to use for bits.

That’s ultimately Obama’s fault and his failure to make adjustments serve to justify his detractors. He’ inexperienced. He’s a narcissist. He’s ideologically unyielding. He has no management skills. All those were on display Tuesday night.

We needed the President to do better. Even some of his staunchest defenders know it as well.

Posted under BLACK TIDE, OBAMA WATCH, POLITICS

From Betsy’s Page, come two important links regarding our own media’s indefensible silence on honor killings in the western world. Honor killings are part of Islam’s sharia law.

First from Phyllis Chesler:

What is going on here? It seems to me that if something happens, ostensibly for the first time, a newspaper would want to cover it as a “first.” That did not happen. Alright—but if the “first” such event is only the “first” among other subsequent, similar events, both here and in Europe, and the phenomenon seems to be escalating over time, a responsible newspaper should want to cover it as an important problem. That, too, did not happen.

Right now, there is “breaking news” about three honor killing cases in Canada which is, after all, our next door neighbor, and far closer than Hawaii and Alaska, which are American states. So far, all is quiet on Canada’s southern border.

And Mark Steyn:

The media’s attitude to “honor killings” is not only shameful and dishonors the dead; it’s also part of the reason why America’s newspapers are sliding off the cliff: Their silence on this issue is merely an especially ugly manifestation of how their news instincts have been castrated by political correctness

Barbarism by them. Cowardice by us.

Not Pamela Geller though. In Geller’s Atlas Shrugs, Geller has been unrelenting in here efforts to educate the west on Islam’s twisted tradition. Geller has a montage on her site of many young female victims who have brutally been murdered by members of their own family.

While getting little national media attention, prosecutions do occur. But what about the future?

Two members of the Supreme Court in Anthony Kennedy and Sonya Sotomayor favor utilizing foreign law in cases. President Obama’s nominee, Elena Kagen feels the same way.

Perhaps the left’s desire to see the Constitution as “a living, breathing document” justifies it’s legal scholar’s willingness to apply foreign law or as Kagen says ‘legal cultures” in it’s rulings. While no reasonable person can see any of these three in any way favoring sharia, the mechanism for doing so cannot exist.

Posted under CULTURE, OBAMA WATCH, POLITICS

The data does not indicate which districts. The GOP needs to gain 40 seats to win back the House.

The GOP hasn’t yet played the Pelosi card. They will. Candidates in Florida #2 are starting to run against each other now. After the August primary, that will change and the candidate will benefit from an anti-Pelosi message that’s generated nationally.

“A vote for Allen Boyd/Al Lawson is a vote for Nancy Pelosi.”

The question is how.

Bill McCollum is using alot of 527s to attack Rick Scott. It’s a signal that 527s will be active on the part of Republican candidates this fall. I doubt they will have to do much locally to directly suppress either Boyd or Lawson as national advertisements against Pelosi will do the trick. But they might target Independent Paul McKain whose popularity the GOP sees as a threat to winning the seat.

Posted under FLORIDA #2, POLITICS

It’s clear that Florida’s GOP leaders in the legislature don’t read Diane Ravitch.
If they did, they would never make any attempt to advance such misguided legislative inovations as SB6. Nor would they ever continue with double-downs on standardized testing. They’d have second thoughts about merit pay, too, as such plans are proven to demonstrate no student gains Maybe they’d realize that data that indicates gains are fraudulant and easily attributed to changes in scoring methodology.

Operative phrases involving “accountability” offer little more than mantras and sound bites for politicians:

The evidence continues to accumulate that our “accountability” policies are a great fraud and hoax, but our elected officials and policymakers remain completely oblivious to the harm caused by the policies they mandate.

Over the past several years, efforts to “hold teachers accountable” and “hold schools accountable” have produced perverse consequences. Instead of better education, we are getting cheating scandals, teaching to bad tests, a narrowed curriculum, lowered standards, and gaming of the system. Even if it produces higher test scores (of dubious validity), high-stakes accountability does not produce better education.

In her essay Ravitch dispatches the myth that merit pay can be tied to testing:

Do any Republicans ever ask whether or not their party’s leadership might be advancing something so utterly wrong?

Sadly not nearly enough do in Florida.

Posted under EDUCATION, POLITICS

Oh, my.

That’s so beyond acceptable that Etheridge should resign or quickly announce he’s not running for office.

But does it illustrate a clear difference between Democrats and Republicans?

Steve Southerland has reported on his Facebook page that a young man has been at his appearances and recording everything he says. An extremely affable guy, I can’t envision Southerland responding similarly to Etheridge.

So why did he? While I’m no fan of ambush journalism, a seasoned pol like Etheridge should know how to handle it. He could have said no comment and kept walking. The kids wouldn’t have had anything worth putting on You Tube.

I suppose it’s just further evidence of the Democrat Party panic mode. No wonder Allen Boyd doesn’t go out it public.

Posted under FLORIDA #2, POLITICS

Huh?

From The Hill via Hot Air comes an astonishing interview with singer Sophie B. Hawkins. A one time supporter of Hillary Clinton, Hawkins, isn’t drinking the Obama kool-aid:

“I think the writing was on the wall,” Hawkins said. “I honestly couldn’t believe so many people were into him.”

Hawkins may represent that nature of a true centrist voter that’s horribly disillusioned by Obama’ message and the direction he’s taking the country. Here’s more:

She describes herself as a centrist who’s identified with the Democratic and Green parties, but said even though she’s never been Republican she wouldn’t cross that vote off the list if the right leader came along.

“Obama may be brilliant, but he’s not a leader,” Hawkins said.

Hawkin’s anecdoctal comment about a California Tea Party rally that’s attended by Democrats indicates two things:

First, it’s good news for GOP candidates in state wide races. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, both extremely accomplished in the private sector offer voters like Hawkins something they’ve been looking for. In Hawkins words, she’ looking for leaders who will “take us in a direction that’s truly American.” I doubt that Jerry Brown’s Nazi taunt and big government record appeals to California voters like Hawkins. Can one even go a step further and say that centrist voters like Hawkins can vote for Sarah Palin?

My second point is more far reaching. When considering the state-wide victories earlier this year in Massachusettes, New Jersey and Virginia by Republican candidates, it may be instructive to to reasess just how pervassive progressive liberalism in the nation really is.

Current Democrat talking points involve advancing the nation’s identity as center-left. In an interview with Florida senatorial candidate Marco Rubio, Chris Wallace attempted to segue a question with the notion that we are a center-left nation , yet Rubio wouldn’t let him. He insisted that the nation was center-right. Wallace didn’t question the assertion.

Obama and the current congressinal leadership doesn’t even get to center-left and voters noticed in three states earlier this year. If Democrat voters are attending Tea party rallies in California, it’s an indication that potential exists for some real “wow” moments on election night in November.

Posted under POLITICS

Pretty good idea on a web site started by House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. The home page has shown $6.9 billion in cuts already.

My own long time favorites are the National Endowment for the Arts and …brace yourself…the US Department of Education.

Leave the first to a tax deduction for philanthropy. Middle class taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidizing this project.

Education has become more absorbed by politics since the Department was established by the Carter administration. See the recent folly of Federal Race to the Top funds for further evidence. Much justification for SB6 came from the lust for these funds.

Posted under POLITICS

Last week’s walkout by 200 hispanic students from a California high school was justified beacuse five student’s wearing American flags on Cinco de Mayo weren’t punished enough. Just a few days before a silmilar student protest was organized in Denver in response to Arizona’s SB 1070. In an immediate response to the Arizona bill, a protest was quickly organized in Pheonix.

Is there a pattern or link between the three and other similar protests?

Yes, and it comes via a link between three organizations with active internet outreach. The organizations are CODEPINK, Change.org and Dreamactivist. Evidence for the relationship comes in one position statement published by an activist aviliated with all three, a poster identified only as prerna made its way to Alternet. Pernar or more definitively Pernar Lal is the online name for a female activist and describes herself as follows:

My name is Prerna Lal, which translates as Inspiration Red. I am an online organizer by day, an aspiring attorney by night, and a future tenure-track professor.

I currently freelance for the Immigrant Rights and Race in America blog at Change.org, and serve as an Online Organizer for CODEPINK: Women for Peace.

Pernar lal’s Facebook page says more of the same:

As Co-Founder of DreamActivist, Prerna built a vibrant activist immigrant youth community online that has mobilized thousands into action. She is also an Immigrant Rights and Race blogger at Change.org, and serves as an Online Organizer for CODEPINK.

America knows CODEPINK, but perhaps not this online organizer. Prernar Lal pens CODEPINK’s blog, Pinktank. A recent post there is titled “Lieberman Introduces the Brown Citizen Terror Act”. However, it may be Pernar Lal’s activities is her establishment of Dream Activists which may be the most troublesome.

By it’s own description, DreamActivists is an “undocumented students activists and resource center.” The web site supports the passage of the Dream Act, legislation that provides a path to citizenship of “undocumented students, ” and also has a scroll that lists scholarships for these undocumented students. Many of these is advertised as not requiring a social security number. The Dream Act Portal claims to be the largest group of undocumented youth

Pernar Lal writes also at Change.org on “immigration rights” issues and topics. Here’s more of her work:

Yesterday, we marched. Then, we voted. Now, we will take on civil disobedience. Tomorrow, we shall overcome.

The mood and message separated these protests from the staged and scripted one held in Washington D.C. on March 21. Grassroots advocates were angry about broken promises, calling out the Obama Administration with “Obama, where is the reform?” placards. Earlier in the week, President Obama had admitted that Congress did not have the appetite for change. But the people that showed up on May 1 were certainly hungry enough to take on civil disobedience for much-needed change.

Issues of immigration are being debated among reasonable people, yet the expansion into wide spread civil disobedience by illegal immigrants is an issue of national security. Their presence of the potential for anarchy is justified by elements of the established American left in groups like Code Pink. High school kids can’t be walking out of school, but in the minds of these people it’s justified. The association now is clear between both the American hard left and illegals “agitating” within our borders.

Posted under POLITICS

Jim Clyburn (D-SC) has a safe seat. His gerrymandered South Carolina district is shapped like a coffee table. When I lived in Columbia, SC during the 90′s however, I had the impression that Clyburn was a public servant of integrity and measure. His record of effective constituent service in his district was exemplary. Race never seemed to be part of Clyburn’s relationship with voters. Sadly he’s begun to wear it on his sleeve.

Yesterday’s interview with the Washington Post was just another example of Clyburn’s lurch to the worst of partisan rhetoric,

WASHINGTON POST: How worried are you about the violent elements of the tea party-ization of the country. Are you worried about the president’s security? Are you worried about your own security as a black leader?

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Not one bit. . . . People are going to look back on this health care and they’re going to wonder: “Why did people resist this so?” And I think that people will look back on the presidency of Barack Obama and they’re going to say, “I wonder why so many people had so many anxious moments when they elected the first African American president.” ‘Cause a lot of this has got to do with that.

This is called “playing the race card.”

President Obama never would have won the election in the first place had it not been for the support of white voters. This fact alone lessens the long held mantra of America being a racist country. Yet Democrats cannot seem to give it up so easily. When things are not going their way, the race card seems to find it’s way into the discussion.

Why though?

Is it that people like Clyburn really feel this way when there is evidence to the contrary?

Or does Clyburn wield such innuendo as a hammer to keep opponents at bay with shame?

There are no other alternatives to explain Clyburn’s angle of debate. Neither reason is a good for the peiple of his district or for the nation as a whole. Especially coming from a man of Clyburn’s stature. It’s destructive to stir the fires of racism where none exist.

Posted under POLITICS

I find myself slowly becoming a shameless cheerleader for Paula Dockery’s campaign for Govenor.

From Dockery’s Facebook page in response to criticism that she’s not a conservative beacuse she voted against SB6:

While some components were worthwhile, SB6 set the stage for future tax increases and relied on $900 million in federal (borrowed) stimulus funds — which hardly meets my definition of conservatism!
Plus, this bill was rammed through in a my-way-or-the-highway fashion, with no opportunity for amendments.
Plus, this bill violated the principle of … See Morelocal control. Instead, it would have Tallahassee bureaucrats telling local school boards what to do, when local government is better positioned to address local challenges.
Plus, I belive in personal responsibility, and this bill failed to recognize the role students and parents play in education.
Look, bad teachers should be booted, no question. And our best teachers should be paid the most. But to best improve public education, we must engage teachers and parents in the challenge — not simply tell them what they’re doing wrong.
Leadership is about getting the best out of people in pursuit of a clear, definable goal. And while the race for governor is about the issues, it’s also about who is best able to lead people to achieve great things. When it comes to marshalling warring factions to create positive outcomes, I’ll put my record of leadership up against anyone’s

Dockery is one of the only polticians – of any party – that has said that parents and students share responsibilty in education. To point that out is indeed leading. And yes, persobal responsibility is a conservative principle.

Posted under POLITICS