Looking Through A Glass Darkly

I am worried about what is happening to my country and so, after a long break, I decided to bring out my rarely used crystal ball to see what the future might hold. Now was that a mistake! Talk about scary things. Perhaps I am over-reacting but my dusty crystal ball is showing me a dangerous future and it is not your grandchildren’s future but what might happen in just the next month and year. So what near future am I seeing in my crystal ball?

First I am seeing Republican politicians speaking to nearly deserted arenas this summer. Why? Where are all the people? I asked my crystal ball to show me what happened more recently so that I might understand this future. It takes me to the Easter break, when the Tea Party Express makes its third trip around the country. Although defeated over the health care bill, tea party goers were invigorated and perhaps because they were defeated, conservatives were more determined than ever to replace the members of the House and vote in more conservative politicians. Yes they were angry but they wanted to channel that anger into positive energy going forward. But then my crystal ball returns me to the empty arenas of this summer and that is when I realized that the rooms were empty due to the fact that there were no Tea Party participants to cheer on the conservative candidates. So I looked deeper into the ball and shuddered at what I saw.

It started after the health care bill was passed when a few liberal politicians claimed that they were called names. No one questioned their claims, although there was no proof, not a single unfocused footage in spite of the camera men and regular folks filming the event. Then more and more politicians complained and yes there was now proof as they played voice messages from angry people, some who crossed the line of acceptable behavior. And once one angry person denigrated the President then it was obvious to the liberals that these conservatives were all racists and bigots. (Republicans had equally violent and upsetting calls but the government’s opinion was that they pretty much asked for it due to how they voted.)

Starting with a few name calls it snowballed into all liberal politicians saying they were afraid of the violent, racist conservatives. Obviously these name callers had to be a part of the Tea Party since the Tea Party participants admitted to being angry. Not only were they angry but everyone knew that the Tea Party was started by Republican law makers or maybe it was by big bad businesses or the evil banks or even the KKK. Regardless, there was just no way that normal people would band together in defiance against liberals, since liberals were trying to help the people. OK so maybe the Democrats were not trying to help those people, you know, people who were tax payers or wealthy or even middle class suburbanites. But those people should understand that they are getting more than their fair share and should want to be helping everyone else. Those people have never protested in the past, they always just worked a bit harder and had a bit less but now they must be insane if they actually are rebelling against the government.

My crystal ball even showed me a headline from today when the Tea Party released a statement saying that they were a peaceful group who denounces all forms of violence including racial attacks. But will that help? Probably not, because the media won't bother to cover it and the few that do, well liberals who hear it will just think the statement is untrue and that these conservatives are all liars anyway. And unfortunately, my crystal ball shows me that there will be one person at a Tea Party rally this spring who does yell out a racial slur at a politician which will support the liberals’ views that the entire Tea Party, and by default all conservatives, are racist.

It won’t take long for leading Democrats to jump from denouncing the Tea Party as being racist to stating that it encourages hate crimes and that their participants are the real terrorists in this country! From there, Obama will enact the Homeland Security Act and label the Tea Party and its participants as being threats to our national safety and therefore must be disbanded. Hence the empty rooms when Republican candidates give speeches this summer; as the conservatives are afraid to come out in public for fear that they could be arrested for terrorist activities if they simply cheer on a conservative candidate or disagree with a liberal politician.

It is strange, isn’t it how liberals were furious at George Bush and all the Homeland Security laws that he enacted which limited our rights for the sake of protecting us against terrorists. And yet Obama has not done one thing to liberalize those laws. Perhaps he wants them in place. Perhaps liberals don’t mind limiting freedom of speech, freedom to gather, freedom to worship and all our other freedoms – if it is withdrawn from the right kind of people, those people. And the media continues to see only one side of it. If conservatives were branded terrorists and treated as such, would the media say anything? Or would they remain quiet since it would be happening to those kinds of people and not to the good kind; the liberals, the poor, or even illegal immigrants. If violence occurs to Republican or conservatives, well, they deserve it for not thinking correctly. But if violence occurs to Democrats or liberals, well then those people must be the real terrorists and stopped at all costs. And it will cost us everything…

By now you must be thinking my crystal ball is cracked to prophesize such things. This is America. It could never ever happen here, right? Admittedly, I was going a bit far but trying to make a point of what could happen. Then, in the last paragraph I was going to write something about real terrorism and Al Queda but I wasn’t sure how to spell it. In fact I still am not sure of the spelling because when I got online to The Drudge Report, to my horror, at the top was a link to the following headline VIDEO: Clyburn says Republicans 'aiding and abetting terrorism' against Dems.... Perhaps my silly crystal ball isn’t that silly after all.

The Day After

I am watching President Obama sign the new health care bill into law. How do I feel about this? It scares me. Taxpayers will have more taxes and lesser health care in order that unemployed or poor people can have health insurance, many of them for free. I worry what this will do to small businesses. I hear that businesses that do offer health care have determined that it would be cheaper to pay the penalty and not help out their employees. And I really am concerned about the added power they want to give to the IRS. The IRS is already out of control at times and now the government want to expand that department? And no way will it help the deficit, of course it will make it worse!

Obama is now talking, people are applauding and standing for an ovation. But why? Because they forced members of their own party into voting the party line? They had to bribe, strong arm, and as they admitted, do whatever it takes to get their own Democrat Congressmen and women to vote “Yes”. It just shows how flawed this bill is, if even with all the maneuvering by Obama, Pelosi, Rahm et al, there were still some Democrats who stood by their values and voted “no”. Good for them.

So now what? There is talk now about Republicans being “ugly losers”. I can understand why, people are very upset with what just happened. They can’t understand how a President with a 41% favorably rating, a Speaker of the House with an 11% favorable rating and a Senate Majority Leader with only a 9% favorable rating could come together and decide how to spend our money. I would say it is simply unimaginable except for the fact that it happened.

Yet I don’t think we should be ugly losers. Instead we should fight harder, fight smarter on the next bills, primarily immigration, and cap and trade initiatives. We must stop both of them. We must go across the country explaining why these are bad for the U.S., for us. No name calling or any other tactic along those lines which would only make us look bad and give sympathy to them. We need to publicly be nice and polite but behind the walls we need to fight as hard as Pelosi did and stop being so nice and polite. The country simply can’t afford another loss, another step towards redistribution of the wealth.

I bet that Obama will next try to bring in all the illegal immigrants. He has to. He needs those new citizens as potential new voters. Democrat voters, of course, who would then be bused to the voting polls in November 2012 to make sure that Obama is re-elected, even though the tax paying population is turning against him. (Obama has already shown he could care less about his party and Democrat politicians up for re-election this year. If he cared about them he wouldn’t have forced them to vote Yes on the health care bill knowing full well that their people hate the bill and will vote them out in November.) Anyway, we must stop any new bill to ease illegal immigration. If we couldn’t afford all those poor illegal immigrants before, just imagine the cost since they would all get on the federal insurance plans! We need to close the gates now because if I were a Mexican I would get my ass in this country ASAP in the hopes of some mass legalization thus allowing me to use the United States wonderful health care system, for free, of course.

Tea parties are great but we need more than that. We need stronger voices. We need Nancy Reagan. We need both Bushes and their spouses. We need Sarah Palin to do more than comment on Fox News. I just heard that McCain, who has always had a more liberal view of immigration and was hoping to put together a joint bill, has just said that there will be no more bipartisan efforts. What little goodwill there was has totally evaporated in light of the shenanigans by the Democrat party to ensure their recent victory. And then we need young voices.

Over the past week there have been a few younger Congressmen who have slowly risen to, perhaps not the top, but they have risen above the crowds. Other than Scott Brown I can’t tell you their names. But they know who they are and they need to start making the rounds on Sunday mornings and standing up for our causes. Speaking of which, most people are at church Sunday mornings but if you think of it tape Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. He is hosting the first one-on-one of the Republican candidate’s for Florida’s open Senate seat between Florida Governor Crist and Marco Rubio. At the start of the Republican primary Crist was a shoe in. Now? Rubio, a second generation Cuban, very conservative, young tea party goer now has a solid majority of 56% vs. Crist’s 34%. That is what we need to do.

I heard some democrat say that people will forget about this by November. Perhaps. But that might be why the symbol for Republicans is an elephant. We don’t forget. And we won’t let anyone else forget. As for the health care bill, we will do anything and everything we can do to delay, if not stop, it. A recent poll showed that 49% wanted their states to sue the government; primarily challenging that the health care bill is unconstitutional. Make sure yours is one of those states and that yours is one of the voices protesting, challenging and making sure people know the truth. This is my voice - where is yours?

A Show of Raw Power

People I talk to are truly scared that the passage of this bill would change America, many of them fearing it is an irrevocable giant step towards socialism. However, if the news that the Democrats have the votes for the health care bill upsets you, here are some things to think about.

For the past six months, ever since summer really, it feels as if the whole country has been paralyzed because of the health care bill. Republicans should actually be grateful. All this attention and effort on just one bill has meant that nothing else is getting done in Congress.

If Obama wins on Sunday and the health care bill is passed, it won’t mean that everything will go his way from then on; far from it. I keep thinking of the phrase “political capital”. Obviously with all the arm twisting and bribing, Obama and Pelosi will have used up all of their political capital. If a Congressman ends up voting for this bill I wonder how receptive they will be to future liberal causes, and threats.

For example, there is my own first term Congresswoman, a Democrat who voted No on the first health care bill. If I am being bombarded by telephone ads from both left and right to call her I can only imagine what her life is like right now. Well, no actually I can’t imagine what it would be like to be browbeaten not only by my Speaker, dozens of Democrat leaders but also confronted by my President in his Oval Office, and all of them threatening to annihilate me in November if I don’t support my party.

Then there is the “pep rally” planned this afternoon for all Democrat Representatives plus Obama, now that he has cancelled his trips. Some analysts are comparing what is happening to the Stockholm syndrome which is when hostages begin to sympathize with their captors. I think it is more along the lines of mass hysteria. Remember the pictures of the crowds cheering Hitler over and over again?

I really can’t see my Congresswoman continuing to stand up to so much raw power. And that is what it is. Absolute raw ugly power against, in many cases, first term idealistic Congressmen and women. But once Obama and Pelosi have used this tactic they will have nothing left in their bag of tricks for the rest of the year, which is why I doubt that any other very liberal bill gets passed this year.

We all know that Obama came into office promising a laundry list of far left changes. He has now spent his first year on just one issue – health care. Once that is passed he will try to quickly move on to other issues, immigration is already next on his list, but I believe that he will find each vote to be a painful reminder of the damage he and Pelosi have done in order to pass the health care bill.

First, the passage of the health bill will result in dozens of law suits questioning the legality of forcing people to get insurance. Already over half the states are planning to fight this bill. There is also the “fixes” which Democrat Senators promised the House will be added but they might find it difficult to pass when faced with Republican opposition. The bill already isn’t supposed to force health care on us until 2014 and between now and then Congress will be swamped with law suits and delaying tactics making it difficult to implement this bill or to move on to any other bill.

I also think that what is happening is similar to any action movie. The good guys always take a real beating and then at the end they pull themselves together and finally succeed in defeating the bad guys. I have a feeling that as in any action flick, if the health care bill is passed then the people, the soccer Moms and racecar Dads, the elderly widows and the young family man, the single women and the mother of four, Republicans, Independents and Tea Party people of any and every color, age and creed will pull together in a tidal wave of anger, frustration and purpose to block anything else proposed by Obama and to win this November. And like any good movie, in the end the good guys will win.

A Lack of Leadership

If we were in England, Obama, who just a year ago was riding high, would be facing a vote of no confidence right about now. Instead, we have the Health Care bill which has morphed into more than simply an up and down vote on this issue. It has become a test of Obama’s leadership skills and his ability to get something, anything, done in his friendly Democratically controlled Congress. The only problem, however, is that in order to prove he is a leader and can get something done, he must ask his party to vote on a bill that is unpopular with a public who no longer even want it. (The most recent Rasmussen poll shows that 53% are opposed to the bill and 57% believe it will be harmful to our economy.)

The question that Democrat Reps are facing is this - do they fall on their sword by voting on this issue as a show of their support of their party and their President but knowing that a "Yes" vote will alienate their district resulting in their being voted out of their office in the fall? I truly feel sorry for the first term Congressmen and women who know full well that they will not be re-elected if they vote for the bill. And yet imagine the pressure they must be under to do just that! Congressman Massa may be a nutcase but I’m sure there is an element of truth to his statement about pressure to vote Yes from Rahm, Obama’s hitman. Add to that the calls from Nancy Pelosi and even from the president, and life is very uncomfortable for the Democrats who plan to vote against the health care bill.

You read that Obama’s leadership is at stake because of this bill yet I feel that he showed his complete lack of leadership skills by letting himself get into this position in the first place. If he had actually turned to the economy and creating jobs, as he promised in his State of the Union, he not only might have helped the country but his approval rating might be on the upturn for once. Instead he has completely squandered the country’s goodwill towards him.

The numbers clearly tell the story of Obama’s downfall:

The President’s approval ratings have been in freefall. The Rasmussen poll shows a swing of 23 percentage points from a positive 16 difference between Strongly Approve vs. Strongly Disapprove to a negative 6 percentage points. As bad as this is, the negatives for Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid are even worse! Sixty-four percent view Pelosi unfavorably while 56% dislike Reid. A recent remark by Pelosi is so outrageous that it is almost impossible to believe she said it. But she actually did say this: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Wow. No wonder people are in such contempt of Congress.

So what is going to happen? If they had the votes, Pelosi would have called for a vote on Monday. But they are still a handful short of even a simple majority to pass the health care bill. To add further pressure, Obama just postponed leaving for his big trip by a few days. One assumes he will use this time to call the recalcitrant Congressmen and women into his office to apply the greatest pressure of all – Presidential appeal and probably bribery. I truly hope that these Representatives, including my own, Suzanne Kosmos (d), can continue to stand by their first vote of no but I can understand how difficult it must be when faced by an irate President in the Oval Office. Yet in the long run I don’t think it will matter.

If the President and Pelosi are successful in passing this bill there will be a major upheaval as irate blue dog Democrats, Independents and Conservatives vote in Republican candidates en masse this fall. The primary campaigning point will have been to overturn the health care bill and once in office I am sure that they will find some way to do this. Or there is still a chance that the Democrats will not obtain the votes needed to pass the bill. Either way, within a year the Obama, Reid, Pelosi health care bill will not exist. Hopefully the next President, be he (or she) Democrat or Republican, will have finally learned that in order to succeed, a health care bill must be a joint venture with input from both sides and not a complete overhaul of our system by one side only.

As for Obama, if he is unable to pass bills when both the House and the Senate is controlled by Democrats then the rest of his term will be abysmal if the Republicans win big this fall. His legacy will revolve around how he squandered the nation's goodwill, wasted time during an economic crisis on a health care bill the public didn't want and showed that his retractors were right - Obama knows how to campaign and run for an office but once there he has no idea how to lead.

The Americans

Tonight a friend of mine echoed a thought that I have had... why are we pouring millions and millions into Haiti and now offering to help Chile when our own country is hurting so much? Can we continue to afford to be this generous when we are broke? Shoot, instead of sending all that money to help others, we simply could have used it to pay for health care for everyone here!

I recently read that China is maneuvering to surpass the US as the biggest country in the world and I say go for it. You take care of all these countries in need and let us simply take care of ourselves because sure as hell no one else will help us.

And then I recalled a letter from the 70's written by a Canadian which is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. If you are old enough to remember this letter which was also recorded, the sentiments are worth reminding ourselves. If you are too young for when it was first published, please take a moment to read it and afterwards you'll stand a little taller, a little bit prouder to be an American.

~~~

Gordon Sinclair's editorial broadcast from Toronto as printed in the Congressional Record in June, 1973:

This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.

Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.

The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States Dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar, or the Douglas 10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American planes?

Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - - not once, but several times - and safely home again.

You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the American who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.

I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those.

Tiger Declawed?

The lead story on the news last night was about the sex life of a golfer. How ridiculous is that? There is so much going on in the world, and the country is bleeding from numerous wounds yet the main stream media kicks off the nightly news with Tiger Woods’ apology for screwing around. What does that say about “serious” journalism? Could you see David Brinkley doing a story about Arnold Palmer’s sex life? I don’t think so...

Actually I have always felt that Tiger was treated unfairly throughout the whole ordeal. Yes he was wrong for cheating on his wife but I felt that the public and media over reacted. It is not like this is the first time that an athlete fooled around. In fact for most athletes having an active sex life is almost a requirement. Think over the years of how many famous basketball, baseball, football and hockey players were known for their randy sex life. Could you imagine anyone telling Joe Namath or Wilt Chamberlain that they need help for their sex addiction? Hell no. Or better yet, what about Mick Jagger or any other rock star who is surrounded by groupies the minute they get off of the stage? It is ludicrous to even image their being labeled as sex addicts and in need of therapy! Instead the men admire them and the women want to be one of their partners.

The same day that Tiger issued his apology there was an article about the sex lives of the Olympic athletes. For the past few Olympics one of the freebies found in the Olympic village for the athletes are free condoms. In 2000 Sydney supplied the village with 70,000 condoms and still had to bring in 20,000 more after they ran out! I love the story about Beijing which not only stocked up on 100,000 condoms for the athletes but the condoms also had the Olympic motto of faster, higher stronger! This year Vancouver is also providing 100,000 condoms for its athletes but sans the motto. As the article by Today show journalist Mike Celizic, from which I found all of this information, further details, those 100,000 condoms works out to be 14 condoms for each of the athletes, coaches, trainers and others housed in the Olympic Village. I bet no one would even think of demanding apologies or requiring sex therapy for these athletes!

Yet I can understand the fascination in Tiger’s Jeckle and Hyde behavior. Unlike others, I never saw him as a family man. Instead, I always thought of Tiger as being aloof, arrogant even, as if his enormous talent put him on a different level than everyone else. And when I watched him play golf and see him hit these spectacular shots, he almost seems inhuman. Then there was this new personal side of a passionate man having adulterous sex and even semi relationships with more than a dozen beautiful women. Wow. It almost sounds like every man’s fantasy – to be a champion athlete and to then have your pick of beautiful women almost, as their reward for a great round of golf. What man wouldn’t want to trade places with Tiger for a day, the old Tiger, that is.

Cheating on his wife was wrong, but only to his wife, it really wasn’t anyone else’s business and I don’t think he deserved this punishment. Some of the people who heard his apology said it was insincere and “too little, too late”. While others said he appeared broken and not the same man he was a year ago. I tend to agree with journalist Carlos Monarrez who said “It was hard to imagine this guy ever pumped a fist, stared down a putt or uttered a curse word in frustration. Those are the images of Woods that have defined him and endeared him to fans. Now, who knows?”

All athletes, be it golfers or Olympic champions need certain qualities of arrogance, defiance, competitiveness that makes him work and struggle to be the best. He has to have this mindset that believes that he is a champion. Call it the Alpha male syndrom or wanting to dominate and lead the pack. And throughout history the reward for these Alpha males who have beaten their foes, be it on a battlefield or a golf course or a ski jump, has always been a beautiful woman. Just as the women are having their own, although less visible, contest for the right to be with a winner.

So I wonder, what will this “therapy” and his sincere (or not), self belittling apology do to Tiger the golfer? Will this declaw him? Will he lose some of his competence? Will he begin to doubt and question himself? And in the long run who has won from this spectacle? Not his sponsors. Definitely not the PGA. Not even his wife. I wonder if she will even like the new Tiger 2.0 version? For if she does take him back, she married an Alpha male champion, not the new hesitant, demeaning, albeit supposedly faithful husband.

Of course there is always the possibility that he really isn’t changing all that much. I am almost waiting for an outburst, the kind he is known for on the golf course. The equivilant of throwing his golf club while cursing a blue streak. Something other than that boring and weak apology. I would have loved it if he had simply told the media and others to go to hell; that he is the greatest golfer ever. That is all that matters and that his personal life is just that, personal. He did try to tell everyone to leave his family alone but he sounded wimpy. He needs to get angry. To pump his fist in the air while psyching himself up to tell them all to go to hell. That would sound truer than his self deprecating apology. Nonetheless, regardless of the outcome, it still doesn’t belong among the top stories of the day.

Charles Krauthammer wrote another terrific article that everyone should read. In it he discusses how Obama and other liberals refuse to believe what the Scott Brown election tells us - that the people don't want the Democrat's health care bill or just about any of their proposed legislation. The people do want change, just not the Obama type of change. And yet in the State of the Union address Obama vows that he will get his health care bill regardless of the fact that the majority don't want it. I love how Krauthammer explains why Obama and the liberals are acting this way:

This being a democracy, don't the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don't they understand Massachusetts?Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.

Don't you just love that? The sad part is that he is probably correct in his conclusion of how liberals think. And the rest of Krauthammer's article is just as perceptive and fascinating. So, I recommend that you take a few moments to read his whole article The Great Peasant Revolt of 2010 in the Washington Post at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403623.html?sub=AR

Enjoy!

Bio Brief - Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was recently in the news for his snide attack on Palin by writing notes on his hand. I have never liked the man and this little episode didn’t help. Maybe it is his smirks or his attempts at sarcasm or perhaps just his general demeanor. Whatever it was I can’t help getting the feeling that this was the kid in high school who was given constant wedgies, and now in a position of power, he is getting back at the popular kids. I could be way off base, but who knows? Who is Robert Gibbs? What is his background and how did he end up as President Obama’s Press Secretary? So it is time again for one of my Bio Briefs.

Robert Gibbs was born in 1971 in Auburn Alabama, and as Wikipedia goes on to report, both of his parents worked in the Auburn University’s library system. Most bios on Gibbs state that rather than hire a babysitter; his mother would take him with her to League of Women Voters meetings and that his family discussed politics and these meetings during dinner. Librarian parents and League of Women Voters meetings? Oh yeah, I bet I was right about his getting those wedgies in middle school. Maybe, as Wikipedia surmised, this helped hone Gibbs’ interest in politics but I doubt if it helped his reputation in school. Playing the saxophone and being on the debate team probably didn’t help his popularity either. On the other hand he was also the goal keeper on his school’s soccer team, although this was a solo position, apart from the rest of the team.

This was all the information about his earlier life that I could find. The 5 or 6 bios I read provided only these few facts, I still don’t even know if he is on only child or if he has siblings! In fact one bio mentioned four famous people who graduated in his high school class, making it seem as if Gibbs was famous or at least more interesting because of his association with these famous people rather than because of himself. And they might be right.

According to Wikipedia, from 1990-1992 Robert Gibbs continued as a goal keeper but now at North Carolina State University where he graduated cum laude with a degree in political science. That’s it. That one line contains the entire upper educational history for this man. No mention of any other honors, awards, clubs, anything other than that he was on the soccer team for two years. I can’t even find any mention of the year in which he graduated!

Moving on to his early career, while in school, in 1991 Gibbs interned for Alabama Congressman Glenn Browder, eventually becoming his executive assistant in Washington DC. In 1996 Gibbs moved back to Alabama to work on Browders Senatorial campaign, which was unsuccessful. In 1997, 1998 and 1999 Gibbs worked on a different campaign during each of these three years. Then during the 2000 elections, Gibbs worked on Senator Debbie Stabenow’s senate run. According to WhoRunsGov. Com, Stabinow’s unexpected win brought Gibbs to the attention of Jim Jordan, the then executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), Gibbs was then hired to help with the 2002 elections.

In 2003 Jordan was now working on the Kerry campaign and hired Gibbs to be Kerry’s press secretary. But in November 2003 Gibbs quit in protest after Kerry fired Gibb’s mentor Jim Jordon. Yet Gibbs continued to support Kerry’s run for the presidency. In fact, when Gibbs became the spokesman for a liberal advocacy group they launched a vindictive ad using pictures of Osama Bin Laden to attack Howard Dean’s foreign policy experience. This started Gibbs’ reputation as a man who would do whatever it takes to elect his man and maintain his employer’s reputation. Kerry eventually apologized to both Jordan and Gibbs but instead of returning to work for him, Gibbs joined the Obama team.

Robert Gibbs joined team Obama in mid April 2004 and eventually became Obama’s Senate Communications Director. Obama then choose Gibbs as his Senior Strategist for Communications and Message during Obama’s successful run for the 2008 presidency. In 2009 Robert Gibbs then became President Obama’s Press Secretary. As for his personal life, he is married to Mary, a VA attorney and they have one son.

That’s it. Very basic data that wouldn’t be fit even for a resume. Most of his bios don’t even tell you if he worked on winning or losing campaigns from 1997 to 2000! And about the only personal traits we can discern from this bio is that he seems to be a loner, not one who joins groups as he rarely joined any groups or clubs nor do we read of any religious affiliation. Yet he is extremely loyal to whomever he works for, almost to a fault, as he has a reputation of doing whatever it takes to help his man. So in spite of his soft southern accent Gibbs has been called ruthless, aggressive, pugnacious, manipulative and bad cop to Obama’s good cop.

There was one other factor which most bio’s mentioned – Gibbs’ relationship with Obama. Apparently the two men are very close friends. According to the NY Times, Gibbs is more than just a Press Secretary; he is also involved in strategy, politics and messages. I’ve read that he is called “Barack Whisperer” due to his closeness to the President and I’ve also read that he is called “The Enforcer” because of his rapid fire response to any derogatory remarks from the opposition. In addition to the counter attack strategy he has also been credited with the low number of leaks due to his tough management style.

So who is the man? Although his is the face we see each day we truly don’t know much about the man. What is he whispering to our president? What are his beliefs? What makes him tick? Maybe not knowing is what makes him the perfect Press Secretary. He is a blank page on which Obama writes his story and gives his messages.


PS – While proofing my material I discovered that Gibbs does have a brother based on a sentence discussing his mother in whorunsgov.com – “…she brought her two sons with her..” That is the only clue that there is a sibling although he might even be deceased by now. Who knows?

What's the Truth now, Al Gore?

As Washington DC is facing over 40 inches of snow in what will be its snowiest winter in recorded history, it seems like a good time to revisit global warming. The Drudge Report recently had a link to an article whose title caught my eye. This OpEd was written by columnist Margaret Wente of Canada’s The Globe and Mail which I have quoted or paraphrased extensively in the following. (The Bush quote and sarcasm, however, are all mine.) Oh yes, the name of the article? The Great Global Warming Collapse.

We all know about Climategate, the revelation about the emails on destroying, ignoring or manipulating data in order to support the global warming cause. Then there was the verdict that the tropical rain forests would be wiped out due to global warming. It turns out that the source of that claim, according to the Sunday Times of London, was an article by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a left wing environmental activist group. This wasn’t the first or last time that global warming claims are based on data from activists with little to no scientific proof.

In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the primary advocate and source on climate change, cautioned that the Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035. A spokesperson for the WWF warned of dire results if a deal isn’t struck in Copenhagen to save the Himalayan glaciers. It turns out, however, that the glacier report, along with many other global climate “studies”, was completely fraudulent. Yet again, UN IPCC based their findings not on any impartial scientific analysis but on articles written by World Wildlife Fund activists. No, really? What a surprise….

The head of the IPCC learned of this shortly before the Copenhagen summit but ignored it. There might be a reason why Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC head, dismissed any reports contradicting these claims. You see, he is also part of the Energy and Resource Unit division in New Delhi, which just happens to be the division that received millions in grants based on the premise of those melting glaciers in the Himalayan’s. Cosy arrangement, yes?

Eventually Pachauri retracted the claim regarding the Himalayan glacial meltdown, but he indicated that the error was an anomaly. He defended the IPCC saying that the attacks are political. But, as Wente wrote, the tide is definitely turning against Pachauri and global warming itself. Even Britain’s Greenpeace has called for Pachauri’s resignation and India is establishing its own group as they “cannot rely” on the IPCC. Ouch.

As the whole global warming foundation begins to crumble I can’t help but remember Al Gore’s famous statement: “The scientists are virtually screaming from the rooftops now. The debate is over! There's no longer any debate in the scientific community about this. But the political systems around the world have held this at arm's length because it's an inconvenient truth, because they don't want to accept that it's a moral imperative.”

Yet no one remembers this quote by then candidate Bush during a 2000 Presidential debate against Gore where Bush said: “Some of the scientists, I believe, haven’t they been changing their opinion a little bit on global warming? There’s a lot of differing opinions and before we react I think it’s best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking place.”

Although Bush defeated Gore in the election, Gore continued to win the debate on global warming. True to his word, over the past decade Gore and his global warming activists continued to silence any scientific debate which countered their stance on climate change. And anyone who questioned his views was labelled an obstructionist, a bad scientist and worse – a conservative right wing nut and some lost their grants and even their jobs by speaking against man made global warmth.

Now, however, in the face of all the damaging news that is beginning to surface, many climate scientists sense a sinking ship and are bailing out according to Wente. Some scientists and environmentalists are starting to admit that the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change. One such scientist, Andrew Weaver, goes so far as to actually say that the climate body has crossed into the line of advocacy. No, really?

Wente concludes by saying that none of this is to say that global warming isn't real. But the strategy pursued by activists and the scientists desperate to prove global warming has turned out to be fatally flawed. By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they've discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. The first casualty was Copenhagen where amidst the growing scandals it was apparent even before the first meeting that Copenhagen was never going to produce any agreements. It was a dead end and yet another wasted trip by Obama.

“The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,” wrote Walter Russell Mead, a Kissinger senior fellow on the Council of Foreign Affairs and professor at Yale. “It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics.” Or as Mr. Mead succinctly puts it in his blog on The American Interest: “Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead.” Yes!

(And I can't help but add that it may have taken ten years, but once again Bush has been proven right. Although this is probably too inconvenient of a truth for Al Gore to ever admit.)

Hasn't Got A Prayer

How hypocritical of the President to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast after not only shunning the National Day of Prayer last May but also never once stepping inside a church since his election! I still might have given him the benefit of the doubt if he had spoken a short prayer, as past Presidents have done. But no, this is President Obama, who with teleprompter in place gives, not a prayer, but a lecture.

I thought it telling that he began his lecture by stating that all Americans “of all faiths and no faith… share a recognition, one as old as time, that a willingness to believe, an openness to grace, a commitment to prayer can bring sustenance to our lives." Excuse me? How could someone of no faith have a commitment to prayer? And why are they even being mentioned at this National Prayer Breakfast? Let the unfaithful have their own day of unprayers, oh wait, they do, it’s called Earth Day.

After this past year in office, no one should be surprised that President Obama took a bi-partisan prayer meeting and used it as a platform to give yet another diatribe. During his speech, Obama seemed to be scolding his listeners as he once again came across as the superior, condescending professor who is frustrated that his “students” continue to dare to disagree with him. It was telling that the President and his group in DC concluded a few weeks ago that the problem with the health care bill wasn’t the bill itself but rather that they didn’t communicate the benefits of it to the public in spite of all the press conferences, townhall meetings and speeches on health care. Running underneath these conclusions is the darker belief that the American people are just too stupid to understand the bill or to appreciate why it is good for them. This would explain why Speaker of the House Pelosi arrogantly stated that she will do whatever is necessary to pass the health care bill because she knows what is best for us.

During his National Prayer Breakfast lecture Obama continuously scolded the listeners and asked for “a return to civility”. This reminded me of Rodney King’s plea of “can we all get along” but in Obama’s case it really means that the bad conservatives need to get along with the wonderful democrats who are doing God’s work, such as the health care plan. And it was hard to miss Obama’s meaning when he “urged leaders to be empowered by faith, to step outside their comfort zone to bridge divisions and unite around their common goals.” What common goal? Or perhaps I should ask whose common goals? He further talks about the “erosion of civility” which “poisons the well of public opinion” and “makes politics an all or nothing sport” and that our crisis, such as health care become “contests for power”. Duh. Politics is a contest for power and the only time someone complains about it is when they find themselves on the losing end!

Barack Obama also took a slight detour in his lecture and provided some interesting insight into the man we call our President. During his civility lesson 101 he stated ".. surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith or for that matter my citizenship.” Oh my. The birthers are a small fringe group and yet liberals seem to love to talk about them; although not sure if mentioning them during a lecture on civility and on everybody getting along is really appropriate. As for questioning Obama’s faith, well, of course we will, in fact he has made it easy for us. As I stated earlier, he skipped the National Day of Prayer last year and has yet to attend church since his Sundays with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. So President Obama has given us cause to question his faith. Granted, I might be accused of being a similar hypocrite as I am a Christian who also hasn’t set foot in a church in years. Then again, I am not the President of the USA, who appears to turn his “faith” on and off as the situation requires.

Within all this talk of civility was another plea – to not question his motives. “Challenging each other’s ideas can renew our democracy but when we challenge each other’s motives it becomes harder to see what we hold in common.” Does he truly not get it? Americans thrive on challenging not just ideas and policies but the motives behind them. There has never been anything wrong in asking a politician “why is he doing something”. You can’t truly understand a person unless you understand his or her motive.

I wonder, though, if having his motives questioned has been a new and uncomfortable position for the president. He is no longer surrounded by people of similar motives nor is he the darling of the media any more. People actually are daring to question him. How uncivil! Instead of blindly agreeing, they are questioning his motives, his faith, and wondering if his goals are our goals.

Obama's decline in public opinion is due to the public beginning to realize that Obama’s actions are not matching up to his words. And you don’t resolve this by talking even more. Obama may give a great speech but we’ve stopped listening to what he says and are watching what he does instead. So yes we are starting to question him, no matter how uncivil it might seem.