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« on: June 27, 2011, 02:04:08 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Brief 6-27-2011
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Foundation
"Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason." --Benjamin Franklin
Political Futures
"Which past leader does Barack Obama most closely resemble? His admirers, not all of them liberals, used to compare him to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Well, Obama announced his candidacy in Lincoln's hometown two days before Abe's birthday, and he did expand the size and scope of government. But no one seriously compares him with Lincoln or FDR anymore. Conservative critics have taken to comparing him, as you might imagine, to Jimmy Carter. ... But there is another comparison I think more appropriate for a president who, according to one of his foreign-policy staffers, prefers to 'lead from behind.' The man I have in mind is Chauncey Gardiner, the character played by Peter Sellers in the 1979 movie 'Being There.' As you may remember, Gardiner is a clueless gardener who is mistaken for a Washington eminence and becomes a presidential adviser. Asked if you can stimulate growth through temporary incentives, Gardiner says, 'As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well in the garden.' 'First comes the spring and summer,' he explains, 'but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.' The president is awed as Gardiner sums up, 'There will be growth in the spring.' Kind of reminds you of Barack Obama's approach to the federal budget, doesn't it? In preparing his February budget, Obama totally ignored the recommendations of his own fiscal commission headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Others noticed: The Senate rejected the initial budget by a vote of 97-0. Then, speaking in April at George Washington University, Obama said he was presenting a new budget with $4 trillion in long-term spending cuts. But there were no specifics. Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf was asked last week if the CBO had prepared estimates of this budget. 'We don't estimate speeches,' Elmendorf, a Democrat, explained. 'We need much more specificity than was provided in that speech for us to do our analysis.' Evidently 'first we have the spring and summer' was not enough." --political analyst Michael Barone1
Government
"[American seniors] want their Social Security and their Medicare to stay the way they are -- and their anger is directed against those who want to change the financial arrangements that pay for these benefits. Their anger should be directed instead against those politicians who were irresponsible enough to set up these costly programs without putting aside enough money to pay for the promises that were made -- promises that now cannot be kept, regardless of which political party controls the government. ... Many retired people remember the money that was taken out of their paychecks for years and feel that they are now entitled to receive Social Security benefits as a right. But the way Social Security was set up was so financially shaky that anyone who set up a similar retirement scheme in the private sector could be sent to federal prison for fraud. ... Despite irresponsible political ads showing an old lady in a wheel chair being dumped over a cliff, the people who are really in danger of being dumped over a cliff are the younger generation, who are paying into Social Security but are unlikely to get back anything like what they are paying in. ... What needs to be done is to allow younger workers a choice of staying out of a system that is simply running out of money." --economist Thomas Sowell2
Reader Comments
"I have just made an online donation to your Independence Day campaign4. The work that you all have done and continue to do is absolutely essential to the edification of the American public at large concerning the Liberty and Freedom we Americans enjoy. That the power of the pen is mightier than the sword is as true today as it was in the days when swords were valuable (and sometimes the only) weapons used in battles and writing was accomplished with quill pens. The battle for preserving and protecting our essential and revered qualities of faith, family and freedom is not only aided but greatly enhanced by the work you accomplish each and every day. I receive pleas for assistance from many conservative organizations in this nation but am able to support only a very few. The Patriot Post has been and will remain at the top of my own personal list. The message is quite simple: WE SHALL NOT FAIL in preserving our founding principles. Because of the work you do that job is made much easier." --James
"I agree with you 99.9% of the time. but in regard to Opting out of Afghanistan6, this time we disagree. The suggestion that we should remain in Afghanistan makes no sense. Too much treasure and too many lives lost. Bring the troops home. We are tired of paying for it and tired of the losses. There is no benefit to staying there and we will end up just like the Russians ... defeated. I say if we leave five years from now all our gains will be lost then too! Gates and the Generals are in the war business! They remind me of management of a company that is going in the wrong direction, but don't listen to the frontline employees who are trying to tell them." --Colorado
Alexander's Reply: Note that I wrote, "The question we should ask is what action in Afghanistan is in the best long-term interest of our national security? Our objective was to contain the nuclear threat posed by asymmetric elements in the region. Is our nation-building strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan the right strategy, and if so, how much and for how long? Or, will targeted hunt and kill operations by SpecOps suffice to meet our national security objectives in the region? The answer to this question should be determined by sound analysis of the risks to our national security and the resources we have to mitigate those risks. Obama is answering this question by analyzing popular polls." In regard to BHO's plan to retreat, we will stand on the side of the strategic and tactical wisdom of all those in leadership positions, from Army and Marine commanders on the ground, to General Petraeus. And to suggest that these commanders are not able to see any other options because "they are in the war business," is absurd. If you knew any one of them, you would know there first interest is the safety of their people.
"Alexander's analysis of our national security interests and operations in Afghanistan was outstanding, but a minor correction. OBL was not killed by US. Special Forces but by Navy Seals, part of the US Special Operations Command, USSOCOM at McDill, FB, Tampa Florida." --ABN< SF< SPECOPS
Alexander's Reply: My bad ... meant SpecOps not SF.
"Whether the war is necessary or not is irrelevant at this point. The problem is that we have a Washington regime in power that is utterly incompetent to prosecute this or any other war. We have a military under the command of Demsheviks. The three pillars of Demshevik fascism are corruption, incompetence, and tyranny. Management of the military is currently dominated by pillar number two." --California |
