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"He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing." --Benjamin Franklin

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

The Obama stimulus effect

"The Obama administration was out in full force defending the stimulus this weekend. The mantra is that the economy is getting better but Americans need to be patient to see progress. The problem is that, so far, there hasn't been any economic progress. White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee promised on 'Fox News Sunday': 'It's going to take more than a few months to turn it around.' That contradicts White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers' promise in January that the economy would start improving 'within weeks' so long as the president's $787 billion stimulus was passed. The stimulus actually has dampened economic projections. In January, before the stimulus was passed, 53 business economists and forecasters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal expected gross domestic product (GDP) for the third quarter (July through September) to rise by 1.2 percent at an annual rate. Predictions became gloomier after the stimulus passed in [February]. In May, these experts forecast only a 0.6 growth rate for the third quarter. White House adviser David Axelrod told CBS' 'Face the Nation': 'The president was very clear when he enacted the stimulus ... unemployment was going to go up and go up for some time.' We only find administration officials back then warning about unemployment rates if the stimulus didn't pass. The stimulus did pass, and unemployment rose to 9.4 percent in May. ... Mr. Goolsbee said that 'Obama is cutting the deficit more than $2 trillion over the 10 years compared with what he was inheriting.' This claim conflicts with the Congressional Budget Office, which forecasts that the Obama administration will create a $9.3 trillion budget deficit over the next 10 years. The Obama administration is trying to rewrite history even as it is being made. The stimulus appears only to have delayed the recovery that economists were expecting before it was passed." --The Washington Times

THE DEMO-GOGUES

Hold on to your wallets: "We've done more than ever, faster than ever, more responsibly than ever, to get the gears of the economy moving again. ... We're in a position to really accelerate." --Barack Obama

Don't question The One: "Now, I know that there's some who, despite all evidence to the contrary, still don't believe in the necessity and promise of this recovery act. And I would suggest to them that they talk to the companies who, because of this plan, scrapped the idea of laying off employees and, in fact, decided to hire employees. Tell that to the Americans who received that unexpected call saying, 'Come back to work.'" --Barack Obama **Tell that to the nearly two million Americans who have lost jobs since the stimulus.

Blame Bush: "The reckless fiscal policies of the past have left us in a very deep hole. Digging our way out will take time and patience and tough choices." --Barack Obama, who is simply quadrupling the reckless fiscal policies of the past

Clear as mud: "Let me be very clear: A lower job-rate loss [sic] is not our goal. 'Less bad' is not how we're going to measure success. ... To sum it up: Encouraging signs, but a long, long way to go." --Joe "Tell it like it is" Biden

Funny joke: "We have a joke around the White House: We're just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working. And nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East." --Barack Obama **"Apologies if that caused you to spew coffee on your keyboard." --James Taranto

Non Compos Mentis: "America identifies with the underdog, and you've been an underdog many times in your life, but always the top dog."--Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Judge Sonia Sotomayor

Just keep digging: "I looked around our world and I thought, you know, we are in just so many deep holes that everybody had better grab a shovel and start digging out."--Hillary Clinton explaining why she took the job as secretary of state

UPRIGHT

"'Saved or created' has become the signature phrase for Barack Obama as he describes what his stimulus is doing for American jobs. ... Of course, the inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction. Never mind that no one -- not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- actually measures 'jobs saved.' As the New York Times delicately reports, Mr. Obama's jobs claims are 'based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs.' Nice work if you can get away with it. And get away with it he has." --columnist William McGurn

"The idea that fewer people are losing jobs than might otherwise have because of the stimulus is, well, silly -- and in no way based in any kind of rational or serious analysis of the labor market or any other economic discipline I ever studied." --Institute for Liberty senior fellow Peter Roff

"[President] Obama's rhetoric brims with inconsistencies. In the campaign, he claimed he would de-emphasize partisanship -- and also enact a highly partisan agenda; both couldn't be true. He got a pass. Now, he claims he will control health-care spending even though he proposes more government spending. He promotes 'fiscal responsibility' when projections show huge and continuous budget deficits. Journalists seem to take his pronouncements at face value even when many are two-faced." --columnist Robert Samuelson

"Washington's 'rescue' of GM began because GM is 'too big to fail,' and bankruptcy is (well, was) 'unthinkable.' Big? GM's market capitalization, $375.8 million on Wednesday, is about the size of California Pizza Kitchen's ($340 million) -- is it too big to fail? -- and one-eleventh that of Harley-Davidson ($4.3 billion). Fail? If GM has not already failed, New Coke was a success." --columnist George Will

"At a stroke, the administration has endorsed 'the Muslim world's' view of those non-Muslims who happen to find themselves within what it regards as lands belonging to Islam: the Jewish and Christian communities are free to stand still or shrink, but not to grow. Would Obama be comfortable mandating 'no natural growth' to Israel's million-and-a-half Muslims? No. But the administration has embraced 'the Muslim world's' commitment to one-way multiculturalism, whereby Islam expands in the West but Christianity and Judaism shrivel remorselessly in the Middle East." --columnist Mark Steyn

"Mr. Obama's revelation of his 'inner Muslim' in Cairo reveals much about who he is. He is our first president without an instinctive appreciation of the culture, history, tradition, common law and literature whence America sprang. The genetic imprint writ large in his 43 predecessors is missing from the Obama DNA. ... The great Cairo grovel accomplished nothing beyond the humiliation of the president and the embarrassment of his constituents, few of whom share his need to put America on its knees before its enemies. No president before him has ever shamed us so. We must never forget it." --columnist Wesley Pruden

INSIGHT

"Eloquence may exist without a proportionate degree of wisdom." --Irish statesman and author Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

"The right of resisting oppression is a natural right." --President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)

"If ever there was a time to save, it's now. When a dog gets a bone he don't go out and make the first payment on a bigger bone. He buries the one he's got." --American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

DEZINFORMATSIA

The magic 8-ball says: "I would not be surprised if the official end of the U.S. recession ends up being, in retrospect, dated sometime this summer. Things seem to be getting worse more slowly. There's some reason to think that we're stabilizing. ...[Even with a recovery], almost surely unemployment will keep rising for a long time and there's a lot of reason to think that the world economy is going to stay depressed for an extended period." --New York Times columnist and former Enron advisor Paul Krugman

Stereotypes: "Students at [Cairo] university hosting Obama will listen closely. Yet, they're given hope, just by the fact that a brown-skinned president named Barack Hussein Obama exists." --ABC's Chris Cuomo

From the sycophants: "What I liked about the president's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility... The question now is whether the president we elected and spoke for us so grandly [Thursday] can carry out the great vision he gave us and to the world." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews

There are stupid questions: "What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald and what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians?" --NBC's Tom Brokaw to Obama

Define "many": "Many in this region felt the President didn't go far enough in condemning Israeli violence against Palestinians." --CBS's Lara Logan "Many in this region" is a euphemism for the CBS newsroom.

Only Obama can: "A trip laden with symbolism and elegant words, asking the world to look beyond old hatreds and wounds. In doing so, he hopes to create a world where there never has to be another D-Day." --CBS's Chip Reid

That was then: "Well, our job is to bash the president, that's what we do." --Newsweek editor Evan Thomas in February 2007

This is now: "We're understanding what Obama is. He is the great teacher. He is this guy that stands above everybody." -- Evan Thomas ++ "I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above -- above the world, he's sort of God." --Evan Thomas

Newspulper Headlines:

Breaking News From 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008...: "Democratic Candidates Adopt Anti-Bush Strategy" --USA Today

We Blame George W. Bush: "Russian Military Historian Blames Poland for WWII" --Associated Press

We Blame These Despicable Republican Attacks That Always Seem to Come From Those Who Never Can Be Found to Serve in War, but Love to Attack Those Who Did: "Kerry Blames $820K IRS Tax Lien on Clerical Error" --OnWallStreet.com

We're From the Government, and We're Here to Help: "IRS to Help Taxpayers During Downturn" --Congress Daily

Earth's Bloodiest Bookstore: "Amazon Clashes Claim 30 Lives" --Financial Times

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: "Media Skeptical of Obama Stimulus Claims" --U.S. News & World Report Web site

News You Can Use: "Minnesota Zoo Wants You to Sort Out Poop" --Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Bottom Stories of the Day: "Michelle Obama Visits Eiffel Tower With Sasha and Malia, Wears Stylish Scarf" --Huffington Post

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)

VILLAGE IDIOTS

Gaffes a lot: "And so, next to Obama Beach, we join President Obama in paying particular tribute to the spectacular bravery of American soldiers." --British PM Gordon Brown with a supposed slip of the tongue on Omaha Beach for the 65th anniversary of D-Day

The BIG Lie: "But then came the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, and it became clear that the new Western model was an illusion that benefited chiefly the very rich. Statistics show that the poor and the middle class saw little or no benefit from the economic growth of the past decades. ... The model that emerged during the final decades of the 20th century has turned out to be unsustainable." --former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev **"Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the collapse of his country like Barack Obama is presiding over the collapse of his. And so a man who knows how to collapse his own economy is now advising us on how to collapse ours." --radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh

Blame Reagan: "I grew up in Los Angeles inner city -- you never saw drugs or drive-byes or homeless people or anything like that [until] all the social programs that were cut as a result of Reagan coming into office and greed just became a hobby.... Like that, to me, made greedy white men feel good about being greedy white men. He was the kind of the Moses of leading them to feeling good about being greedy white men. So to me he wasn't a great man." --actor and comedian D.L. Hughley on Ronald Reagan and the new statue unveiled in the Capitol rotunda last week

Barnyard analysis: "What a torture it must be for such pretty people to have to see such ugly things. That's what happens when you view the world and apparently hear the world through s**t-colored glasses." --Comedy Central's Jon Stewart on viewers of Fox News

Biting the hand that feeds: "I'd barter with him [if a wannabe world destroyer threatened], and say instead of the entire planet, can you just take out all of the white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super Bible-beating people in Middle America?" --actress Megan Fox

SHORT CUTS

"Democrats brazenly take policy positions -- think government services and even amnesty for illegal immigrants -- not because they are the right thing to do, but because they are time-tested demographic bribes. Forget cigarettes and beer, Democrats would distribute needles, methadone, medical marijuana and biscotti in voter goodie bags if they could get away with it." --columnist Andrew Breitbart

"The global political class has always suffered from an excess of immaturity, but every generation or so, political immaturity explodes like a star in its death throes and vaporizes everything in its vicinity." --Cato Institute senior fellow Richard W. Rahn

"Washington mandates that Detroit build cars for which there is much less demand than Washington demands that there be." --columnist George Will

"On the eve of the GM bankruptcy filing an enterprising reporter called around to some big New York ad agencies and asked, 'If you were pitching the GM account, what would be your suggested slogan?' My favorite was: 'You own the company. Why not drive the car?'" --political analyst Rich Galen

"President Obama left his family in Paris Sunday and returned to Washington. He said he wanted to put his personal touch on the health care legislation. That means getting every person to merge with Fiat, run on batteries, and bleed cash." --humorist Argus Hamilton

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot's editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)