Bearing All For Obama

It’s been one of those months.

Departing President Of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – unlike Supreme Leader for life Ali Khamenei, the presidency of Iran is term-limited –has paid the United Nations, Babel on the Hudson, his final visit.

His unvarying spiel was the same. Oil rich Iran is engaged in the peaceful production of nuclear facilities. No, Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Israel is a fake state that historically has no roots in the Middle East. Iran will obliterate the fake state if Israel should be presumptuous enough to attack Iran facilities that are producing nuclear weapons to obliterate Israel-- on and on.

Iran has a military presence in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. It has both in the past and present destabilized Iraq when the United States was in the process of bringing the fruits of liberty to Iraq following the untimely demise of Saddam Hussein. The U.S. military, under the leadership of President George Bush, term-limited Mr. Hussein. The cause of death listed on the coroner’s report for Osama bin Ladin – along with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the architect of the destruction of the Twin Towers buildings in New York – was “death by Seals.”

For some reason, the patient people of New York City, attacked with an assist from mad Sheikh bin Ladin, since deceased, have not marched en mass on the United Nations the way earlier Frenchmen, invigorated by liberté, égalité, fraternité, marched on the Bastille.

Perhaps their tolerance of the rumbustious Mr. Ahmadinejad can be put down to good manners. Bill Buckley use to say that the trouble with bad manners, like those so often exhibited in militant theocracies, is that they sometimes lead to murder, as was the case when TERRORISTS sacked the American embassy in Libya and murdered American Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The TERRIORIST attack, first thought by the Obama administration to have been occasioned by a film that dishonored the Prophet Mohammed, apparently was planned by combustible TERRORISTS to celebrate the successful TERRORIST attack on the twin Towers in New York.

After much fidgeting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was persuaded to admit that U.S. Ambassador Stevens was not assassinated by an unruly crown protesting a film denigrating the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. The consulate in Libya – recognized by most civilized nations under international law, as U.S. territory – was destroyed by TERRORISTS to coincide with September 11, the date of the destruction of New York’s twin towers.

It is to be supposed that President Barack Obama did not recognize the obvious connection because there was no calendar handy at the White House for the past week, in the course of which Mr. Obama persisted in calling the offensive film the flashpoint for the TERRORIST assault. After eight days of massaging the message, the White House finally fessed up and acknowledged the murder of Mr. Stevens was a TERRORIST act, information it was in possession of two days after the attack. Because the property was not immediately secured, the FBI, even today, has not had access to the site.

It may seem to the reader of these lines that the author has needlessly emphasized the word “TERRORIST” throughout. But there is a purpose to this method: Those who read these words aloud will soon get used to the “T”word. In time, it will become as familiar to them as other unmentionables, and with repetition, they will lose their logophobia and begin to call things by their right names.

On the Hollywood front, the singer, stripper Madonna has come out strongly in favor of Mr. Obama, according to the The Hill, a respected Washington publication read by most politicians on the Hill:

 

“Madonna offered a profanity-laced endorsement of President Obama at her concert Monday night, which involved the singer stripping down to her underwear to reveal the president's name written on her body.

“’You all better vote for f---ing Obama okay, she told the crowd at Washington's Verizon center.

“Later in the show, Madonna took off her shirt and pulled down her pants to show she had ‘OBAMA’ written in all capital letters across her lower back.

“’When Obama is in the White House for a second term I'll take it all off,’ she said to cheers and whistles from the audience.

Apparently this is not an idle threat. 
Madonna – no relation to THE Madonna – has been bearing parts of herself all over the world during her present tour. It’s still a matter of conjecture whether Ms. Madonna’s threat will intimidate people into voting for Mr. Obama. No polls have yet been taken.

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Lieberman’s Leave-Taking

Like U.S. Senator Chris Dodd before him, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman soon will be leaving the congress with 23 years of service under his belt. Following his leave-taking, Mr. Dodd fell on a plush Hollywood featherbed. Lieberman’s future is a question mark. His bitterest critics – they are legion – suppose he will worm his way into a lobbyist position in Washington because, as Willy Sutton said when asked why he robbed banks, that’s where the money is. Like Senator Dick Blumenthal, who stepped into Mr. Dodd’s congressional shoes, Mr. Lieberman is Jewish, and when his most hot-headed critics wish to strike a death blow, they revert to stereotypical insults: Jews are motivated by money alone; Lieberman’s principal loyalty lies with beleaguered Israel rather than the United States, that sort of thing. Apart from racism, the two oldest and most perduring prejudices in the United States are anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, both of which still have lots of wind in their sails.

When Mr. Lieberman appeared recently before the MiddlesexCounty Chamber of Commerce in Cromwell, “goodbye” was in his voice. No one, perhaps not even Mr. Lieberman himself, has been keeping count over the years of his public appearances. Like his critics within the progressive wing of his former Democratic Party, they are legion, though likely falling short of those of Mr. Blumenthal, about whom it has been said there is no more dangerous spot in the state than that between Mr. Blumenthal and a television camera. Mr. Blumenthal attended the Cromwell event as a sort of legacy pallbearer: Mr. Lieberman’s legacy in Connecticut politics and his own, Mr. Blumenthal said, had been intertwined.

Weicker Faces the State

Like most professional politicians, former U.S. Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker tends to filibuster journalist’s questions. And, solipsistic by nature, Weicker has a way of relating all questions to his own personal experience.

Dennis House of WFSB’s Face the State opened his interview with Mr. Weicker -- "the only man alive to serve as both governor and senator of our great state” – by asking what he thought of the U. S. Senate race so far.

Mr. Weicker had recently endorsed Democrat U.S. Representative Chris Murphy over Republican challenger Linda McMahon. Mr. Weicker and Mrs. McMahon have a shared past together. Mr. Weicker served on the board of WWE, pulling in, according to one press report $150,000 per year for his no doubt invaluable services. Mr. Weicker was forced off the board, after which his change in salary led to a corresponding change of heart. In his introduction, Mr. House referred to Mrs. McMahon correctly as Mr. Weicker’s “former colleague.”

No Good Deed

New England CableNews (NECN) reported that “A man U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal helped to free from Florida's death row more than 25 years ago has been charged in a different case with killing his wife in North Carolina.”

While working at a private law practice in 1986, current U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, for more than 20 years Connecticut’s Attorney General, agreed to represent Joseph Green Brown, convicted falsely on rape and murder charges.

Who’s Minding the Store?

State auditors recently concluded an audit of the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS). Their findings, both depressing and alarming, suggest no adults have been directing the agency. The audit covered only the fiscal years 2009 and 2010.

Among the findings were these:

Weicker the Anti-Republican

Hell hath no fury, to vary a well-worn phrase, like a Weicker scorned.

Vile and ingrate! too late thou shalt repent
The base Injustice thou hast done my Love:
Yes, thou shalt know, spite of thy past Distress,
And all those Ills which thou so long hast mourn'd;
Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.

William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697

Once again – a bad habit in former Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker’s case – Mr. Weicker has brought his hobnail boot down upon yet another Republican and former friend, according to a piece in CageSideSeats (CSS) , “Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. sticks the boots to former friend Linda McMahon.”

The Lawlor-Malloy Early Release Program and the Public Good

It has been well established ever since Governor Dannel Malloy had been hoisted into the governor’s office by a slim vote margin that Mr. Malloy rarely has met a political opportunity he has not eagerly taken advantage of.

If former Governor Jodi Rell was modest in this regard, Mr. Malloy is in comparison shameless. In the last few weeks alone, Mr. Malloy has appeared as a speaker at the Democratic National Convention where he gleefully skewered Republicans; he joined a picket line to express his solidarity with union strikers; he traveled to China, where forced abortions are routine, to curry favor with Chinese leaders, presumably with a view of increasing China’s market share in Connecticut. The long list unreels in tandem with Mr. Malloy’s crowded calendar. Mr. Malloy’s grasp extends much further than those of his Connecticut critics, none of whom make regular appearances on National TV shows such as "Morning Joe.”

Abortion Extremists

Andrew Roraback is a “fiscal conservative,” which is to say he is not a “social conservative,” which is to say he is pro-abortion but not sufficiently enthusiastic concerning abortion to merit the approval of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, a pro-abortion group that will admit no exceptions to abortion on demand.

The very term “social conservative” is highly misleading. There are no congressional bills or judicial decisions that have no social ramifications. Everything politicians say and do and think is said and done and thought with a view towards enforcing or changing the society affected by human action. Even budgets – the last real budget was passed by the U.S. Congress in1997 before Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008 -- profoundly affect the social sphere. The science of economics, dismal though it may be, is a science of human action.

McMahon, Republican!!!

Polls showing that Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate Linda McMahon had overcome a vote advantage once held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy have the left among Connecticut commentators – pretty much all commentators in the state – in a furious snit, best typified by a flare sent airborne by Colin McEnroe, the host of The Colin McEnroe Show on Connecticut Public Radio (WNPR). In addition to hosting his own program at WNPR, Mr. McEnroe is a Hartford Courant columnist:

“When all else fails, hit her with the dirtiest smear: Constantly mention that she's a Republican. She could tip the Senate into Republican control. Republican means you don't get the Medicare you've been paying for all these years. It means pre-existing conditions are back on the list of Gigantic Worries, and your 24-year-old can be kicked off your policy. It means your taxes go up and LeBron James' don't (sic). I am fond of many Republicans, but I wouldn't want to run as one in Connecticut in 2012. So: She's a Republican. (This is something she keeps on the down-low.) Republican! Republican!”

Questions Remain Unanswered by Murphy

In a recent Hartford Courant story concerning Representative Chris Murphy’s mortgage issue, Courant columnist Jon Lender writes there are details of the loan still shrouded in mystery.

Mr. Murphy, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat soon to be relinquished by Joe Lieberman, has claimed he missed “several” payments on his mortgage. The lapses of memory did not prevent him from receiving favorable credit from a Webster Bank, although Mr. Murphy, a lawyer, had been sued for non-payment of his mortgage.

One of the more important detail yet unknown is how many payments Mr. Murphy missed. The term “several” is non-specific.

“Among the details still unknown,” Mr. Lender writes, “publicly are: the number of monthly payments Murphy missed leading to the 2007 foreclosure action; how much money he was in arrears by; and whether he was keeping up with payments on a concurrent Webster Bank second mortgage.”

The rate given Mr. Murphy was high for someone who had missed “several” mortgage payments, and the favorable rate given to Mr. Murphy required “a top credit score, and total loans and credit lines that did not exceed 80 percent of the value of the house…

“But whatever marks were on Murphy's credit from the missed payments and lawsuits, a Webster official said that at the time of the loan, the bank's underwriting policy when considering joint applications from married couples was to consider the credit score for the more-creditworthy spouse.

“Without being more specific, Robert Guenther, Webster's senior vice president for public affairs, said Cathy Murphy had good credit —and a higher credit score than her husband.”

Mr. Murphy’s campaign appears to be unwilling to furnish the missing details. Even so, he received from the Courant’s editorial department a review at least as favorable as that of the bank in question.

Does Obama’s Past Matter?

President Barack Obama’s past has come up several times in the national debate. Is this a legitimate issue?

The disreputable pasts of other presidents have been noticed in other campaigns. President Bill Clinton, some people recall, had a “bimbo”problem. President John Kennedy had serious health problems, and he also wandered from his marriage vows. President Nixon may not have been a crook, but his politics was not always straight and narrow.

Mr. Obama’s past has been examined since he has been in office. It turns out the book that introduced him to the American public,“Dreams of My Father,” was not, as many people supposed at the time it was issued, a strictly factual production. There are huge chunks of Mr. Obama’s past that are only fleetingly touched upon in his supposed autobiography. Many of the incidents in the book, it appears on close examination, are fictional; some of the characters in the book are “composites.”

Clinton, The Corpse at the Convention

Former President Bill Clinton’s hour upon the stage at the Democratic National Convention – actually, it was 48 minutes – was mostly a 5,896 word defense of Obamacare. Following his speech, the fact-check vultures at the Washington Post dampened some of his fanciful political rhetoric.

Mr. Clinton is sometimes lovingly remembered by both moderate Democrats and Republicans as a president who was willing to reach across party lines to slay ungovernable deficits. During his first term, Mr. Clinton cut spending and raised taxes on upper income taxpayers. Because the economy of his day had been revved up by traditional methods employed by his predecessors – tax reductions and moderate regulatory reform – Mr. Clinton was able to use additional revenues pouring into the treasury to offset an alarming deficit. The budgets offered by Mr. Clinton and affirmed by the U.S. Congress were in balance – indeed, they contained surpluses -- unlike the current the non-budget offered by President Barack Obama. The last time Congress passed a budget, weighing in at $3.53 trillion, was in 2009. Although Democrats commanded the White House and both houses of Congress following the elevation to the presidency of Mr. Obama, no budget was passed.

The Murphy Pass and the Zen Gap

One could only imagine what might have happened at the Hartford Courant’s editorial board offices if one of their investigative journalists had discovered that former Governor John Rowland, now a radio talk show host, had failed to pay his mortgage “several times,” having been sued by a bank anxious to recover mortgage payments from a dead-beat politician.

Brains would have exploded.

DNC Messaging

It’s a little bit like watching a fly fallen into mug of beer wildly flapping its wings. Once the rhetorical mood hits Governor Dannel Malloy, he DOES go on.

One has only to compare the talking points in the 20 minute speech given by Mr. Malloy with those given by 1^st District U.S. Representative John Larson to understand that the script from which both borrowed was co-produced at Central Casting.

In his pre-speech remarks, Mr. Malloy vowed that he would not spend his time during his strut on the national stage talking about himself,unlike his Republican Party nemesis, Governor Chris Christie of New York. Reporters and commentators who have covered the much traveled, fleet-footed Mr. Malloy since he was first sworn in as governor well understand how the presence of a camera awakens the showman in him. Unlike preceding Republican Governor Jodi Rell, Mr. Malloy does not shrink from partisan displays, and be bathes in media adulation more often than other Connecticut politicians.

This dramatic announcement from Mr. Malloy – it’s not about me; really, it’s never about me – was somewhat subverted when 1^stDistrict U.S. Representative John Larson stepped to the podium and delivered a 20 minute stem-winder that was 1) about himself and 2) overburdened with pretty much the same central casting talking points employed by Mr. Malloy.

Malloy on the GOP plan for entitlements:“Malloy said the GOP plan would slash education and entitlement programs ‘so Romney can give a tax cut of $265,000 to your average millionaire, and continue billions of dollars in subsidies for big oil.’

Larson on the same: “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have a different vision. Look at the details. The biggest problem with the Romney-Ryan plan for Medicare is obvious: They take away the Medicare, they end the guarantee, hand out vouchers, limit benefits, and force seniors to pay the difference of up to $6,400 dollars out of their own pockets.”

Same church, same pew, same rollicking partisan sermon; nothing unusual here, considering the setting. The progressive lions on the convention floor wanted red meat, and the two Connecticut Democrats gave it to them. Political conventions are part pulpit show, part circus sideshow. Everyone is expected to bow to the pieties and cheer wildly when the bearded lady is brought on stage.

Asked whether the country was better off than it had been before Mr. Obama took office, Mr. Malloy cried out exuberantly “Hell, yeah!”

A few short weeks before the DNC convened, Newsweek – hardly a conservative organ of opinion – printed a devastating cover story written by Niall Ferguson, “Obama’s Gotta Go,” that chilled the bones of Obamabot economist Paul Krugman:
 

“Certainly, the stock market is well up (by 74 percent) relative to the close on Inauguration Day 2009. But the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak. Meanwhile, since 2008, a staggering 3.6 million Americans have been added to Social Security’s disability insurance program. This is one of many ways unemployment is being concealed.

“In his fiscal year 2010 budget—the first [Mr. Obama] presented—the president envisaged growth of 3.2 percent in 2010, 4.0 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012. The actual numbers were 2.4 percent in 2010 and 1.8 percent in 2011; few forecasters now expect it to be much above 2.3 percent this year.”

“Unemployment was supposed to be 6 percent by now. It has averaged 8.2 percent this year so far. Meanwhile real median annual household income has dropped more than 5 percent since June 2009. Nearly 110 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011, mostly Medicaid or food stamps.”

In America today, Mr. Ferguson pointed out, only half of the population is “invested” in its government:

“Nearly half the population is not represented on a taxable return -- almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a household where at least one member receives some type of government benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation -- half of us paying the taxes, the other half receiving the benefits.”

Debt burden figures, Mr. Ferguson maintained, are grossly underappreciated. He then hauled from the closet the “most recent estimate for the difference between the net present value of federal government liabilities and the net present value of future federal revenues—what economist Larry Kotlikoff calls the true “fiscal gap” -- is $222 trillion.”

The $222 trillion gap between expected future revenues and liabilities is a measure in dollars of the difference between the past and future prosperity of the country. “Not only did the initial fiscal stimulus fade after the sugar rush of 2009,” Mr. Ferguson writes, “but the president has done absolutely nothing to close the long-term gap between spending and revenue.” And while Mr. Ferguson, once an advisor to presidential candidate John McCain certainly is no fan of Mr. Obama, neither is the non-partisan data brought forward in the Newsweek cover story, which apparently has not been read by the ebullient Mr. Malloy or Mr. Larson.

Civil Rights and the Historical Revisionism of the DNC

Henry Mencken, every good journalist’s journalist, was a prolific writer. Asked if he ever got tired cranking out newspaper stories and commentary, he said -- never. During his whole journalistic output, Mr. Mencken said, he felt like a little boy with two stomachs in a candy store. Many of his writings were devoted to Republican and Democratic nominating conventions, which he hugely enjoyed as a buffoonish spectacle.

Of Mencken and conventions, Murray Rothbard wrote:

The Malloyalist Propaganda Machine

After it had been pointed out that his drawings were hypercritical and highly unflattering representations of his subjects, a famous caricaturist responded,“What’s the point of having absolute power, if you are not prepared to abuse it?”

Roy Occhiogrosso, Governor Dannel Malloy’s Senior Advisor and a fierce Malloyalist, should have internalized the quote so that he would be able to flourish it when asked by reporters why the governor thought it necessary to recruit dozens of state officials as propaganda agents.