The View vs. The Boy Scouts

Once again the President forgot that he was the President of the United States of America. He managed to totally strip the dignity of the office by spending an hour on The View. Remember when the country once thought it outrageous when MTV asked President Clinton if he wore briefs or shorts? Today, however, I have heard hardly a whimper over Joy Behar asking a sitting President his opinion of Snooky, some girl from the Jersey Shore tacky reality show. And this is the man who is the leader of the greatest country on the earth.

Obama’s supposed strategy behind being on The View was to try to regain his popularity with woman, especially independent females. I just heard that the typical viewer of The View is a 59 year old female. Makes sense since younger women are at work, not watching day time TV. The other unstated goal of doing this show, this week, was to stop all the news coverage from AZ over illegal immigrants.

Whatever the goal, I think doing this show was a major mistake. It’s not that he got bad press, per se, but rather he could have garnered better press with a larger audience by doing something else. In order to be on this talk show he passed up the chance to speak in person at the Boy Scout Jamboree celebrating their 100th birthday. You can’t get any more Norman Rockwell than a photo op of the President with a group of Boy Scouts. Sure, Boy Scouts don’t vote, but their parents do. And instead of targeting only women, as he did with his appearance on The View, spending time with Boy Scouts would have helped shore up his image with a larger group of women and men.

Based on his past choices, I can only conclude that this was too middle class for Barack. Boy Scouts probably have the same place in his mind as the gun toting, bible loving, beer guzzling middle class he discussed so derisively during the campaign. Boy Scouts aren’t PC while The View is. In fact, he has made poor decisions like this starting within hours of being sworn in. Obama is the first President in 50 years to not attend the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball, snubbing dozens of Medal of Honor vets. He did, however, find time to go to 10 other balls, many of them filled with Hollywood and music celebrities rather than just our own war heroes.. But Boy Scouts and vets, don’t feel too alone; google Obama and “snub” and you get over 4.6 million hits!

Now every President gets more requests then they can handle but for this President there is an unsettling trend in what he does vs. what he snubs. Boy Scouts should feel honored to share a long list of people and nations snubbed by President Obama including Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu, the entire country of Spain, former Prime Minister of England Gordon Brown, French Prime Minister Sarkozy, all US veterans by skipping a traditional laying of the wreath at Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day and D-Day rememberances, a lunch with the King of Norway along with other standard events normally attended by Nobel Prize winners, Indonesia, NASA, wounded vets by skipping a visit to an overseas hospital in favor of a trip to the gym, all DC churches as he has yet to find one to attend regularly, even the prestigious Grid Iron annual dinner claiming he was “too busy”. Yet this President found the time to go on an hour long daytime talk show and answer Joy Behar’s question about Lindsay Lohan prison sentence. Yeh, seriously, she asked him about that.

Anyway, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that Obama does not share the same American experiences that most of us live. You may have disagreed with Clinton's politics but he understood middle America, hell, he was middle Southern America. Reagan and Bush2 also knew what was important not just in DC or New York or Chicago but out in the boonies. But Obama simply doesn’t understand the importance of our long-standing allies, or the reverence for churches and synagogues, soldiers and veterans, NASA and even the Boy Scouts. He did not grow up among these old fashioned symbols and values of the America of our parents and grandparents.

Is this a black/white thing? I don’t think so as there are a lot of African American soldiers and Boy Scouts and church attendees. No, instead I think it is an elitist attitude combined with the types of community he served as a community advisor, not to mention spending his formative years in Jakarta. But go out into the sticks, the suburbs, the farms and the small business and you will still find the America honored by Norman Rockwell. Or go to a Tea Party and you will meet Americans who still believe in truth, justice and the American way of life. An America that still respects the police, honors their parents, prays in their churches and synagogues, salutes the flag, tries to live within their means, educates their children to believe in these things just as their parents taught them and, even in this bad economy, hope that their children might have a better life.

And the scary truth is that Obama doesn’t get this. He doesn’t seem to understand these values and their importance to our lives. So when he came charging in with his speeches of hope and change we didn’t understand that it wasn’t the hope and change that many people had anticipated. It couldn’t have been, for he was starting from a different set of values, a different way of looking at America than most of us. But now we know better. While we are stuck with him for two more years we should at least make sure we have a new Congress, one that will block his more progressive changes and try to maintain the America we love.

Meanwhile Boy Scouts, don’t feel too badly for getting only a short taped speech from Obama instead of a visit for your big event. Instead you should be proud to be included with the great men and women, many true heroes, who have been snubbed by President Barack. And as a former 7-year Girl Scout, I want to wish a very Happy Birthday to all Boy Scouts - may you have another 100 years teaching honesty, character, pride, self sufficiency and all the other wonderful things you teach to the young men of tomorrow.

Short Retort - Obama Can't Drive in Fl

It just occurred to me that our President would not be able to obtain a drivers license in Florida. No, this isn't the start to some joke. It's true. Starting this year, in order to provide some legitimacy to a drivers license when used as an ID, the state of Florida, is requiring all drivers to provide the following: a copy of your birth certificate, your SS card, two Residential proofs of ID (such as bills sent to your address in your name) and your marriage licenses or any other forms if you changed your name. It is causing all kinds of problems as people show up without any of this info and after standing in lines at the DMV are only to be told that they can't get their license renewed without this information.

I just googled about this to double check something and just as I thought, this isn't only a Fl law- this is a new Federal Law. Obama won't be able to get a new drivers license in his home state of Hawaii or anywhere he moves to in 2012. Now I have never been a "birther", although I admit to sometimes wondering why he doesn't just produce a birth certificate and shut up the fringe right. But as far as I know he has yet to produce his birth certificate, correct? That being the case then he might have a problem should he ever want to get a new drivers license. Good thing he is the President and leader of our country and doesn't have to be bothered with the laws that his countrymen must obey. He's got the Secret Service to drive him around for the rest of his life and it is doubtful if he will ever step onto a commercial airplane where your drivers license is needed as proof of ID. For if Obama was a regular guy like the rest of us, he might find himself in big trouble without that birth certificate.

Deny, Deny, Deny

I once read that lawyers are trained to tell people who are in trouble to always “Deny, deny, deny.” It seems as if our president has mastered this lesson when he was studying to become a lawyer at Harvard Law school.

Take the NASA incident. First NASA administrator Bolden states that Obama wanted him to reach out to the Muslim community. After getting some negative feedback, the White House issued a statement defending this initiative. More negative feedback occurred. Then on Monday, Press Secretary Gibbs says that the White House denies that Obama ever gave that directive, adding that NASA administrator Bolden misspoke. Nice. Of course what Bolden said is true! Having NASA reach out to Muslim’s is so bizarre that it would never occur to Bolden to make up this story. Nor would this man lie about what President Obama, his boss, said to him. Besides, why would Bolden even be on the Arab network Al Jazeera last month if it weren’t to discuss the Muslim outreach program?

But this isn’t the first time Obama has denied and lied. Remember when he said he barely knew the disgraced Illinois governor until picture after picture was produced showing the two of them together? Or how about his State of the Union pledge that jobs will be his #1 focus only to immediately ignore jobs in favor of passing a health care plan? To help recall other lies I googled ”Obama Lies” and was amused to find 13.4 million hits including an Obamalies.net website dedicated to this topic!

In Obama’s defense, he is not the only politician to live by the “Deny deny deny” philosophy. Remember when Bill Clinton first denied that he had sex with that woman? Or how about his earlier denial of “not inhaling”. John Edwards tried to deny his affair and “love” child. Perhaps the most serious and reprehensible denial was President Nixon’s infamous “I am not a crook” statement. And it's not just politicians who deny wrongdoing. There are many a story about corporations (most recently Toyota for example), celebrities (Mel Gibson?) and other famous men/women we once admired (hello OJ) who have lied and denied they did anything wrong.

I think people lean towards denial the minute they can talk. Find a child standing next to a glass that he had clearly just broken and ask what happened and the child would invariably reply “I don’t know”. When asked point blank if they had broken the glass many children would make a lawyer delighted with their repeated denial of breaking the glass. Children must be taught to tell the truth even if they are told otherwise when they are older.

But wouldn't you think by now that politicians would realize that denying never works and in fact makes life more difficult for them? Besides, Americans have a soft spot for the man or woman who stands up and says “Yes I did that”. Just as you would quickly forgive the child who confessed that they broke the glass, you would forgive the politician who seemed genuinly sorry for his/her actions. But by lying, it only serves to keep a story alive as the press continue to dig for more evidence to prove that the politician was lying. The biggest lesson learned in the Watergate scandal was that it wasn't the wiretapping but the ensuing cover-up that brought down President Nixon.

In this case, instead of lying and denying the NASA story, Press Secretary Gibbs should have said yes, Obama had told NASA administrator Bolden to build better relationships with Muslims and then explained why he wanted Bolden to do this. Perhaps after knowing the reasoning behind this order people might have been more understanding. Or here's a novel thought, to admit that since the public is upset they are rescinding that order altogether. But no, being a typical lawyer, Obama ended up lying and denying the entire story!

The public has reached the tipping point with Obama. This is just one more lie on top of dozens of earlier lies. Combined, the President's lies are a large factor behind Obama’s increasing disapproval rate. Time and time again, Obama has denied and lied to us. In addition to hurting public opinion of him, Obama’s most recent lies and denials send a chilling signal to anyone who works for him. Obama basically left Bolden hanging in the wind when the White House cut all support and then turned around and accused Bolden of lying. Who would want to work for someone who would do that to an employee!

Did you watch Obama's state of the union earlier this year when Congressman Joe Wilson shouted out "You lie"? Wilson apologized for interrupting the president, which was wrong, but I can now understand his frustration. Too bad that being publicly branded a liar hasn't phased Obama in the least. In fact last month Senator Or from Arizona met privately with Obama to discuss immigration. Afterwards the Senator told a group that "The president said the problem is if we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform." The President denied ever saying this. At the time, you wondered who was telling the truth. After Obama’s recent statement denying his instructions to NASA administrator Bolden, you no longer wonder who the liar was.

Dismantling of NASA

In a recent interview with Al Jazeera, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that Obama instructed him to help Muslims “feel good about their historic contribution to science”. Excuse me? This is so over the top as to be made up. Right? Nope. Here is the exact quote.:

“When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering,"
You can’t help but wonder if, with these three charges to this NASA administrator, Obama is not just crippling the US space program but trying to extinguish our leadership role and the advances we have made. Well, actually, that is exactly what Obama is doing. For in response to former NASA administrator Griffin’s statement that these objectives were "deeply flawed", the White House issued this statement “The space race began as a global competition, but today, it is a global collaboration.”

Wow. The leader of this country is actually telling us to step aside. Our President truly believes that the US should not strive to be first but should instead work jointly with other countries and helping Muslim countries specifically. Right there is Obama’s motive for what he is doing to not just NASA but to our entire country. Are you scared yet? You should be.

Obama’s second objective, to expand our international relationships, goes to the heart of his plan to globalize the space program. What really scares me, though, is that if in expanding relationships, Obama wants us to share our secrets about the space program. NASA has given us so many advances in science, medicine, physics and engineering plus many many military advances. Obama can't be wanting us sharing these secrets with other countries, can he?

Then there is Obama’s third initiative – to make Muslim’s feel good about their role in science. Instead of helping, don't you think it comes across as extremely arrogant and condescending? And isn’t it interesting that he states it as dominantly Muslim countries and not Arab countries? Why the continous bowing down to this group? Can you imagine the outcry if Obama had said to reach out to dominantly Christian countries? The media would have been all over him and yet, why isn’t the media attacking the President for his prejudicial treatment of Muslim countries?

Why doesn’t Obama realize that many of these Muslim countries are our enemies? Don’t you get it Mr. President? They hate us and want to annihilate first Israel and then the US. For example, do we need to make Iranians feel good or under the umbrella of globalization provide them the means to fly a rocket with a nuclear tip to the US? And I bet that Iran wants nothing to do with globalizing space or globalizing anything for that matter in their race to be first. Yet in Obama's overall goal of globalization for America, he wants to use our space program as a means to reach out to them and to make Muslims feel good. Sorry, Mr. President. I could give a flying f$%! if Muslims feel good about their historic role in science.

Finally, the space program is not and never should be a global project. President Kennedy understood that. JFK’s moon speech eloquently rebuttals Obama’s goal of globalization in space. Here is an excerpt from his 1962 speech which rings as true today as it did 48 years ago.

“The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and
it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be
the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode
the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern
invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not
intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space.
We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of
freedom and peace.

We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.”

In less than two years, Obama will have destroyed President Kennedy’s hopes and dreams of America’s space leadership and abandoned all that has been achieved in the past 50+ years by the great men and women who worked for and even died for NASA.

Profiling – Part 2 - Why We Must Profile

A policeman can be arrested if he uses profiling to capture an illegal immigrant but the lawyer suing the cop can try to get a conviction by legally using jury profiling! How insane is that? Try googling jury profiling and you’ll get over 2.5 million hits including pages of expert jury profilers for hire and multitudes of papers and studies on the validity of juror profiling.

It seems to me that there is no longer too much dissension about the effectiveness of profiling. It works. Oh it’s not 100% perfect or even 80% perfect at times and there are a few instances where it doesn’t work at all. But in many situations, what profiling can do is give somebody an edge, an intelligent guess as to how a group of people would act based upon specific parameters. In the courtroom, if behavioral studies have shown that a specific subset of people will regard your client favorably then you would want to stack the jury pool with those kinds of people. Manipulating the jury box may seem unfair but the other side is doing the same thing so it works out pretty much evenly in the end. Or at least you can only hope so if you want to continue to believe in our jury process.

In police work, however, what they are typically doing is not profiling. It is factual conclusions. People are crossing the Mexican border illegally. 99.9% of these illegal immigrants are Mexicans. Therefore questioning people of apparent Mexican heritage is not profiling. It is following the facts. Now is every person with Mexican features who reside just across the border an illegal immigrant? No. On the other hand, is ever illegal immigrant residing in America just across the border from Mexico a Mexican? Ah, yeah, pretty much so.

So please, can anyone explain to me why this is prejudicial or profiling or racist? Race just happens to be the means of identifying someone from Mexico. This is rational thinking. Just as everybody would agree that it appears to be irrational when the elderly woman in a wheelchair is frisked at the airport in case she is carrying a bomb. Rationally we should be spending our limited time and funds on frisking people coming from or going to specific Middle Eastern countries or with one way tickets or no luggage.

Is it profiling if we concentrate efforts on frisking Middle Eastern men? Again, thinking rationally, the answer is no. Are all Middle Eastern men terrorists? No. Were all of the terrorists who tried to hurt America from the Middle East? Just about all of them lately. Another common denominator, perhaps even more defining than race, is religion, since all of them were Muslims. But let’s face it, unless you are looking for someone of the Amish faith or a Hassidic Jew it is very difficult to tell someone’s religion by their appearance.

This whole mess stems from Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Everyone knows that racial discrimination is wrong. You can't refuse service, for example, to someone because of their race. But, just for fun, I looked up the definition of discriminate which was to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit. Huh. Maybe I have the wrong definition, for to me, the key is that last part about actual merit. Seems to me there is ample merit to show that the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants from Mexico found in Arizona are Mexicans.

Then again, the lawyers poised to bring about lawsuits once the Arizona law goes into effect later this month aren’t talking about discrimination lawsuits. No, everyone is talking about racial profiling, instead. Now I think I am beginning to understand.

It can’t be discrimination if there is a factual reason behind it. Most illegal immigrants in Arizona are Mexicans therefore there is factual basis to asking people of Mexican race for identification. Since discrimination isn’t necessarily applicable, they plan to denounce it as racial profiling instead. For in profiling you assume a certain behavior or trait based on someone’s race or sex or some other characteristic found common within that group. So we’ve already established that the main common trait of Mexican illegal immigrants is that 99.9% are of Mexican race. But racially profiling is illegal. Again, I looked up the federal law.

It is telling to read the introduction to the federal law prohibiting racial profiling: Racial profiling at its core concerns the invidious use of race or ethnicity as a criterion in conducting stops, searches and other law enforcement investigative procedures. It is premised on the erroneous assumption that any particular individual of one race or ethnicity is more likely to engage in misconduct than any particular individual of another race or ethnicity.

Racial profiling in law enforcement is not merely wrong, but also ineffective. Race-based assumptions in law enforcement perpetuate negative racial stereotypes that are harmful to our rich and diverse democracy, and materially impair our efforts to maintain a fair and just society.

Here’s a novel idea – change the law. How can we maintain that fair and just society when burdened with the costs of the illegal immigrants? Where is the justice to those who waited in line to be admitted legally to our country? As for those negative stereotypes, sorry, but what is harmful to our society are Middle Eastern men who want nothing less than the annihilation of the United States. Someday those “stereotypes” just might save lives.