The most sacred “hat” that the President of the United States wears is that of the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces.  It was the primary role that Pres. George Washington played, according to him, and it defines what makes an American President a force to be reckoned with in the eyes of the rest of the world.  It used to be that we, as the American people, would not allow partisan politics to mingle with our relationships with other countries, though that may be a naive view. My how things have changed, or devolved rather, even from the times of President Clinton, who allowed many closely held state secrets to fall into the hands of the Peoples Liberation Army of China.

Most well-read people are aware of the CIA spy drone that fell into the hands of Iran.  Iran has stated many times that our closest ally (until the advent of this presidency) would be destroyed by them as soon as they are capable of doing it.  Well President Obama’s decision concerning this spy drone helped our most powerful enemy in the Middle East move several steps closer to their goal.  From Fox News:

The U.S. initially contemplated several plans to recover or destroy the drone that ended up in Iran late last week, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News.  The U.S. did not go through with the plans, apparently because of the risk involved.

I don’t know what it would take to get President Obama to protect our country, but he certainly doesn’t know how or when to move to protect our most precious secrets and technology.  It is quite likely that a delegation of Chinese and Russians are now on their way to Iran to study the drone that should have been blown up or recaptured prior to the announcement that we suffered such a loss.  It’s shameful that our military advantage is seemingly unimportant to Democrat administrations.  What’s worse is that the One World press won’t make clear how we were harmed as a nation and a free society by the bumbling of the man who is currently Commander-in-Chief.

I’m not exactly sure whether Gov. Walker has an endgame in mind, other than the balancing of the budget for his state.  Wisconsin is not in any worse shape than many of our other states.  In NY, CA, and MA the picture is much gloomier, and not likely to improve for many years to come.  Even so, it’s morally right for the states to reduce their expenditures in the face of reduced tax revenues.  Acting responsibly is the job at every level of government, because the money doesn’t belong to the government, but to the people from whom it was forcibly taken.

In the face of Mitch Daniels’ move to cozy up to his state’s unions and Democrats, I have a suggestion for Mr. Walker: take the problem on piecemeal.  Make Wisconsin a right to work state.  Change the contract with all of the state employees so that performance becomes the basis for reward and retention.  End the policy of tenure.  Force every union to comply with the findings in Communications Workers v. Beck.  Outlaw the transfer of money raised in other states to political organizations within Wisconsin.  Wait one year.  Then enjoy the fruits of your labor.  A completely eviscerated state Democrat party, because they’ll have no money and very little in the way of private sector support.

There’s little reason to believe that accomplishing this in every Republican controlled state wouldn’t have the effect of irreparably harming Democrat organizations on the national level.  The opportunity costs alone to fight such an effort state by state would help to cripple the ability of the Democrats to work nationally to destroy this country.  Saddling our children and grandchildren and their children and grandchildren with a debt load that can’t be sustained is exactly that, destroying the country.  This, I believe is the goal of the current occupant of the White House and must be fought in a smart, state by state effort.  We also must win.

In an amazing act of hubris Conyers, who was elected to Congress when BHO was 3 has demanded that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demote the Director of USAID.  His offense, failing to bring black Americans with him to a meeting about Haiti.  The Congressman clearly can’t figure out that the such a meeting would require that it’s attendees have a level of expertise that is not directly tied to a person’s ethnic background.  Is it at all possible that USAID hasn’t gotten the memo that each section with the agency must have members of every ethnic background to satisfy the race-baiting lunatics that run Congress?

As reported by FoxNews:

In the letter, Conyers says that he was “alarmed and chagrined” to learn that Shah did not bring any African American staff to a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus on Wednesday to discuss Haiti.

First elected in 1964, Conyers is the most-senior African American in Congress and the second-most senior House member.

“This is so serious an error in judgment that it warrants his immediate demotion to a subordinate position at AID,” Conyers wrote, noting that there was “under-representation of minorities in key positions at the State Department.”

One has to wonder what the people of Detroit are thinking when they elect people who say and think stupid things like this.  But given their propensity for electing thugs, perverts, and generally irresponsible people who expand the roles of government workers during a massive recession, it’s no real wonder.

Watching the favorable/unfavorable polling numbers on this WH has been quite the pastime for me.  I, and I think a lot of political junkies, frequently visit realclearpolitics.com.  Normally such a visit takes about a minute or so.  I usually chuckle at the CBS, CNN, or NYT polling results.  I almost never really try to analyze their numbers because what’s the point, they never do any analysis, so why should I.  Obviously, sampling bias is a watchword for them.  A normal trip to this site is a but brief layover before I go to Rasmussen’s site.  Any polling data that rasmussen.com reports out has been combed through thoroughly and I’m fairly certain analyzed for outliers and anomalous data.  All that said, let’s take a look at today’s RCP polling aggregates.

Today the RCP averages use: Gallup, Rasmussen, USA Today/Gallup, Fox News, CBS “News,” Democracy Corps, and CNN/Opinion Research.  Of these none are current,  Gallup’s last rolling polling data is from 11/28, and all of the rest are seven or more days old.  Interestingly, the best results for the leader of the free world, coming from CBS, Democrazy Corps, and CNN/Opinion Research, are close to two weeks out of date.  The problem for RCP is in throwing out the three best polls, some odious numbers result.  The new results would certainly get headlines and RCP, apparently, doesn’t want to be driving the news cycle in quite that direction.

If one were to factor out the three oldest polls, as mentioned above, the averages change substantially.  The approval numbers fall to 49.0%, the disapproval results drop to 46.3%, yielding a spread of +2.7%, a precipitous drop to be sure.

I’m not arguing with the notion that the dropping the oldest three polls is a fair reading of the correct average, though I’m personally given to that interpretation.  I do believe that all of the polling data should be deleted, no averages be reported, and an explanatory note as to why this was done should be published.  The alternative is to be far more honest about the numbers.  I could even be convinced that it would be fair to use only the Gallup numbers, despite Gallup’s use of all adults vs. Rasmussen’s use of likely voters.  Whatever the real numbers are, they are not the ones you see posted at RealClearPolitics.

Today it’s being reported. That a NYT reporter was doing propaganda work for the Taliban when they decided to kidnap him and his translator. Apparently, the Associated (with Terrorists) Press received and respected a request, by the NY Times, to keep the kidnapping quiet.

Contrast that with the report about the request by the US military and the family of a mortally wounded US Marine to withold publishing pictures of his impending death. The A(w/Terrorists)P decided that the pictures were important and newsworthy.

I linked the Politico as it has proven itself not to be any fan of the Global War on Terror conflagration with our Islamic friends that we haven’t met.

The A(w/T)P’s excuse for publishing has a ring of truthiness to it, but really they just want the US out of A-stan and they are willing to help do the heavy lifting to make it happen. I hope that we (yes, I’m sorry but I mean The One) holds the line and ignores George Will. I hope George sticks to baseball in the future and that the One listens to advice from people like Michael Ledeen.

I guess I’m all about Hope and Change.

BIG TIME!

With all due deference to the hard-working, patriot Scottish-Americans out there.

I would have come at this whole presidency thing from a completely different angle.  So, for a moment, close your eyes and imagine a short, bald, Jewish guy transmogrifying into a tall, skinny black guy.  When you open your eyes, I be the President.

My first four years would go something like this: appoint well-known moderates to positions of power in the administration, but have the people that I eventually intend to run the bureaucracies as the deputies of every cabinet-level department.  I would have left all of the Democrat governors in their respective offices and only recruited from the Republican side of the isle for figurehead positions (e.g., Ray LaHood, or Judd Gregg).  Co-opting my enemies would be my number two agenda item.  Putting Hillary in as Secretary of State was effing brilliant and not letting her get her own cronies appointed into her staff was genius.  There are others, of course, and putting members of the Blue Dogs into my cabinet would have been a very high priority.

I would never have even attempted HellthScare in my first four years.  My goal would be to fiddle around the edges of things I want.  Like, change regulations that allow coal companies to mine their product.  Nuclear power would be a thing of the past in the US, because you have to have a place to store the waste and Yucca would never happen with my friend Harry Reid as the Senate Majority Leader.  The insurance industry would be reregulated, not to death, but enough that the next step, upon reelection would have put them out of business.  Cap and trade would be a policy put into place over time, not by legislation, but by executive order.  I would never want to do anything that would get the American people upset with the Democrat-controlled Congress.  In fact, the last thing I want is to exacerbate the relationship between Congress and the American people.

My goal is to squeeze Republicans down to 25-30 seats in the Senate and 150 in the House.  As the leader of the free world, I’m going to do everything in my power to help countries that agree with me politically, like Venezuela and Cuba.  Thawing relations with these countries and restricting imports from countries that I don’t like.  I would never overtly make things more difficult for Israel, but reducing or stopping the intel and military cooperation agreements would come first.

When the American people have recognized the benevolent way that I’ve tried to run the country, inclusive and caring, and seen the Right Wingers for the hate-filled people that they are, and the people have responded by handing me the largest electoral landslide since Reagan, with Legislative coattails unprecedented in the modern political era, then I’d begin.

I would only appoint solidly left-wing people to the federal bench.  In fact, I would leave vacancies open from the first four years so that I can fill them with members of my political party who clearly have my politics (e.g., Barbara Lee and Bernie Sanders).  This goes for the Supreme Court as well.  There are plenty of people out there like Harry Blackmun, because frankly Sotomayor isn’t to left enough.  Maya Angelou is just about right for a SCOTUS pick.  Health Care, done, because the legislation was written in 2011 waiting for my reelection.  Unions would clearly no long have to worry about Card Check, because with the new majorities, it’s done.  Cap &  Trade, done.  Maybe even Constitutional Amendments like banning personal firearms.  Allowing restrictions on free speech in cases of hate speech is a possible Amendment.  An Education Amendment, a Healthcare Amendment, and certainly the Equal Rights Amendment.

Wake up people!  None of this happened.  Dear Leader couldn’t play it cool and George Soros wouldn’t have wanted it that way.  There nothing like a little coercion to make a person feel powerful.  Now, the One is behind the 8 ball and has to bloviate his way out.  Congress is feeling the heat from the friction with Astroturf.  He can screw with the Federal Judiciary all he wants for the next 1.5 years, then it’s over.

We were saved from the fate of eight years of PBO by hubris and arrogance.  These two traits more than any others made the meltdown in Washington possible.  And they saved us from a fate we will never know, but can only imagine.  Thank you G-d.